Kara and Coach Winston had been walking for almost an hour. The forest had seemingly swallowed them up and darkness and coldness surrounded them. Even the moonlight couldn’t break through, only a faint glimmer of its glow, hazy as if pushing through a fog could be seen, a vague and shallow illumination that looked pale and sickly. The night and their trek through the woods was ominous and foreboding. She had entered the forest hopeful but pessimism had crept in and the world felt out of place to her, imbalanced. Something bad was either happening or about to happen.

“How far in are we going to go?” Coach Winston questioned.

Kara ignored him and kept walking. She could still feel Merk. He was closer. But the feeling was overcast by something else. It didn’t feel the same. He didn’t feel the same. Something was happening. Kara picked up her pace. She had to get to him – Merk – fast. Now.

“Kara! Kara! Hold up – Hold up…” Winston called to her.

But Kara couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t. Merk was close and he was in danger. She didn’t know exactly how she knew, but she did. It didn’t surprise her though, not now, not after all that had been happening; her healing Ferdinando, her sensing Merk, feeling him. She didn’t quite understand it all fully, her powers, but it seemed as if she was still developing them or evolving or maybe the situation had caused dormant powers to emerge. She didn’t know. Only more questions, things that she definitely needed to know about herself, but knew the present moment wasn’t the time – she had to find Merk, make sure he was safe – then she could consider those matters better and figure out exactly what was going on with her.

“Kara! Please!” Coach Winston called to her again with pleading in his voice.

Kara stopped. She whipped around to face him, her frustration with him and his nagging obvious.

“What!?” she spat.

“How long are –”

“Until we find him! If you didn’t want to come, or – or if you had a time limit for this then you shouldn’t have come! I’m not leaving until I find Merk – he’s here, I know it. I can feel him…”

Silence. She realized what she had said. It sounded crazy. To him. She knew it would sound crazy to him. But not to her. Coach Winston looked at her in the way she expected, curiously, maybe even suspiciously. This was the thing with sympathizers, she thought. They never looked at you as if you were real but rather like you were a thing – no more than that – deities to possess. And that was how Coach Winston looked at her, how he looked at Ratty and the rest of the Fairweathers, how all the sympathizers looked at shifters. It made her angry for humans to be so fuckin’ weak. Kara turned from him and stomped off, not caring if he followed or not.

But he did follow. Of course he would, thought Kara. He was too nosy and too much of a sympathizer not to. But to hell with it. Kara’s chest was heavy, her nerves and anxiousness, were getting the better of her. She could still feel Merk and now there was an obvious pulling, literally it felt like something was tugging at her in a very specific direction and harder. And then it happened: she heard voices. Men’s’ voices. Deep. Abrasive. Angry. Ratty. Kara took off in a sprint. She heard Winston behind her trying to keep up as she leaped over fallen branches and stumps, rocks and other forestry. The voices were getting louder. Louder. Close. She slid to a stop…

Kara was standing on an embankment, overlooking a valley. But this valley was encased and surrounded by mountainous hills and thickets of brush and forest. There was a path that led to a clearing within the valley and it was there that she saw them all: Ratty and his brothers along with some of his cousins. They were standing over Merk in a threatening semicircle. Merk wasn’t moving. He must be hurt, thought Kara. And then she saw RJ, next to him. He looked less like himself. Probably from the shift and the fight that he and Merk must have been in.

“Shit,” Coach Winston said, coming up behind her.

Kara was about to say something to Winston when –

“I got her! Over here! Over here!”

Kara turned to him, shocked but not really. She just couldn’t believe that what she suspected was actually true. And before she could say anything or do anything, Coach Winston shoved her hard, sending her over the embankment.

 

 

 

***

 

There was nothing soft to dampen her fall. Kara hit the hilly ground in jagged spurts, bouncing hard off divots in the land and embedded rocks, dirt and mud and ground few up all around her as the force of the shove created a violent momentum that sent her tumbling down to the valley; Kara tried to protect herself as best she could, but cracks and snaps in her body echoed in the dark as she finally came to a stop at the bottom.

Fuck you.

That’s was her first thought. And she prayed that somehow, Winston could hear her thoughts.

“Kara?”

It was Merk’s voice. Hoarse and hollow. He was in pain and it was very bad – she knew it. Kara tried to lift her body but it was sore, aching.  The fall having been hard and painful, maybe bones had been broken. Again, she tried to lift herself up, this time using her left arm, but she couldn’t move it like she wanted to and when she put pressure on it, even the slightest, the pain was white hot and she had to bite her lip in order not to scream out in pain. Her shoulder was dislocated for sure. She swung her body around to the right shoulder to give herself a way to push herself up. As she did so, feet crowded around her, the Fairweather cousins loomed over her. Arms like tentacles reached down to grab her, pulling at her, lifting her up.

Fuck!

Her arm. Shoulder. The pain was almost unbearable. The men, Ratty’s cousins, brought her to her feet. Kara didn’t know if she could walk or not, her left leg hurt so badly, there was cuts and gashes. She planted her feet. Nothing was broken below her waist, just badly beaten up and bruised, bloody.

“Come on,” one of the cousins said, grabbing her and pulling her away from where she had landed after her tumble down the embankment, that bastard Winston shoving her over. She looked for him but he was nowhere to be found, the little bitch probably ran off – coward.

“Kara! No – No! Leave her out of this, Ratty! Leave her –”

Ratty layed into Merk hard, a strong right to the midsection, then another to his face that carried his jaw to the furthest side of his face. Merk tried to be strong but Kara saw it on his face: he was beaten, weak. Ratty would have his way with him now.

The cousins brought her over to them. Ratty and his two brothers were standing over Merk. RJ was on the ground next to him, he didn’t look well at all, he had a gash on his head, and horrible bruising, no doubt from his and Merk’s dealings. Still, he was close to Merk, like they had bonded; it was more familial than anything she had seen with Ratty and him. Ever.

“Figures,” Ratty sneered. “I told you I would deal with you later… I guess this is later for you, eh?”

“Fuck you, Ratty!” Kara spat.

One of the cousins shoved her hard in the back and she fell forward to the ground.

“Kara –!”

Merk’s cry for her was cut off by a foot thrust hard into his midsection. Merk immediately coughed up blood. It was painful to see. Kara lunged forward to do something – to protect him – but the cousins were back on her, grabbing her and pulling her back, away from Merk.

“No!” she screamed, fighting to get to Merk, she desperately wanted to get to him, to touch him, hold him.

Ratty eyed her. Furious. He looked like a rabid dog, his eyes dilated and his body convulsing as if he was ready to shift. In a violent lurch, Ratty reached down and grabbed Merk by the throat (the same way he had done to her, thought Kara), pulling him up from the ground and lifting him into the air. Merk’s body was limp and helpless compared to Ratty’s strength, the wolf nature obvious and coursing through him. Merk grappled with Ratty, swiping at his arms, hands, trying to get free, but Ratty was too strong and Merk was too weak at the moment. It was a horrifying scene – Merk dangling in midair in Ratty’s grip, him fighting to get free but unable to, his body bloody and mangled, his left leg almost severed having been torn into by teeth, gnawed and ripped.

“Merk…” was all Kara could get out.

“This ends today, Kara… You hear me? All these fuckin’ men that you try to replace me with…”

“Dad –” RJ started.

“Shut up, boy!” Ratty snapped.

“No, you don’t understand,” RJ continued. “Coach – Coach helped me… He – He saved me and everyone… What happened back there at school –”

Ratty tossed Merk’s body to the ground like it was nothing. Merk hit the ground hard, skidding to a stop near a tree.

“He’s the problem, son. Don’t you see that? He is the cause. He is the disease. He didn’t save you – he started all of this!” Ratty declared.

“Are you crazy!? You fuckin’ lunatic! You started this – you and your obsession with controlling everything! Your family. Your son. Me. This town. The problem is you, Ratty! You!”

And in a violent move, lightning quick, almost to the point of blurring, Ratty was on her, his hand around her neck again; she saw his hands – they were claws – and then with a brutal strike, he clawed down her face. Kara cried out in pain as she felt her skin rip on her face and the warmth of the newly drawn blood spread across her face. Ratty let her body crash to the ground and Merk’s bellows rung out against the night in response.

“Now let’s see who wants you, bitch. Scarred. Deformed,” Ratty said in a triumphant tone.

Everything went silent. Kara tried to reset herself, to get her bearings, gather herself and regain her wits. Everything was spinning out of control. His claws had missed her eyes somehow, miraculously. She was thankful for that. But she knew that she would never look the same again, she could feel the open wounds, how deep they were, white hot, a pain that seared. She turned to see Merk trying to crawl over to her. The realization suddenly hit her that after this everything was going to change.

Ratty had lost it, his mind, any part of him that once held him back, that still allowed for his humanity to factor. She peered up at Ratty through a bloody lens, her face was covered from the clawing. He was eyeing Merk as Merk tried to make his way over to her. His son, RJ was in the background watching it all – but Ratty didn’t care. His eyes were black, the white a jaundice yellow but glowing, his face was angular now more than before and his wolf features were transparent. His expression was murderous and she knew in that moment that Ratty was going to kill Merk and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop him.

   “Kara…” Merk crooned, his voice weak, flat.

Ratty walked over to him and methodically placed his foot on Merk’s leg. He pushed down hard, Kara could hear the bones break as he mashed down on Merk’s maimed leg. Merk wailed in pain.

“Dad, no!” RJ yelled.

But Ratty was too far gone. He bent down on one knee, his foot still on Merk’s leg. Merk had gone silent, the agony and torment putting him in shock. Ratty grabbed the barely attached leg, wrapping it up in a hold that gripped it hard. He teased pulling at it.

No, thought Kara. He wouldn’t.

Ratty gave her a look. Evil. Pure evil.

“Ratty… No… Please…” Kara begged, tears streaming down her face, her eyes bouncing from Ratty to Merk, back to Ratty and finally to Merk again. “Pleeeeeeease….”

Ratty pulled, wrenching the leg, his weight on his bended knee against Merk’s back. Ratty reared back and that large paw that had just clawed her was ready to come crashing down into Merk’s back; a blow like that would surely paralyze Merk. Ratty sneered and then let out a roar; the full force of his wolf nature and strength coming forward as his claw rammed into Merk’s back. The sound of Merk’s vertebrae breaking, snapping, shot clearly across the night. Merk’s cry was silent, his expression a broken watery face of tears, spit, and blood. Ratty got to his feet, innards, pieces of flesh and Merk’s splintered and fractured vertebrae in a trophy in his hands.

 

***

 

Kara couldn’t believe what had just happened. It replayed in her mind over and over again. How Ratty had literally smashed Merk’s spine. She would never forget that image for as long as she lived. It was beyond anything that she thought Ratty was capable of doing. It literally surprised her. How could she have cared for a man that was capable of doing anything like that? Also, she didn’t want to admit this to herself, but she had to: she wondered how much of who she was had affected Ratty.

Had being with her and then losing her driven him mad, made him insane. Had her being a succubus caused this? Him now being able to let her go to the point of him losing all rationality? She shuddered at the thought but it was possible. And she would have to live with that. The same way that she had to live with what had happened with Will and Greg. Lives altered, changed, destroyed, all because of her.

It had been a long night. But it seemed to just be getting started. They were all walking now, headed back to town. Then they were in the back of a van. Ratty’s two cronies were in the cabin. One driving and the other constantly looking in the back of the van at them. RJ was in his father’s truck with his uncles following most likely. She could see headlights following the van from the then slit windows to the back. Merk was lying unconscious at her feet. Seeing him this way, all broken and mangled, bloody, pained her.

They were on their way back into town. She knew what Ratty was going to do: he was going to take Merk to the school, to the football field, she had heard him say as much as they were loading them into the van. He wanted to make a spectacle of Merk, he wanted to castrate him in a way that permanently villainized Merk as well as lauded himself as some kind of savior and hunter that had tracked down and rooted out the cancerous new member of the town, ending what he believed was the problem. Delusion. But perception ruled reality.