12
Not even giving me a moment to respond, Reed began sprinting down the hallway. I just continued standing in my bedroom doorway, stock-still except for sudden full-body trembling making me move almost imperceptibly. Beyond being stunned by what was happening, I felt almost literally frozen with fear. Fear and something else. Anticipation, maybe. Anticipation mixed with something like horror.
Everything I was now feeling was a direct result of realizing that everyone in Somerset might be slaughtered, including Reed. And I knew I couldn’t let that happen.
I’d been a fool to ever think that there was even a chance that I could just sit back and not fight. I knew now that the idea was ridiculous. Ridiculous when the lives of many innocent people were at stake, and when I had a skill that could possibly save people, including the father of my baby. Sure, I knew that Reed could more than handle his own in a shifter fight, but this didn’t make me feel any better about his chances of decidedly coming out on top in his weakened state.
I only remained frozen for a few seconds, with my body perfectly still but my mind racing. Then, with some unseen force seeming to be willing my body to move, and move fast, I began flying down the hallway, chasing Reed.
“Reed, stop! Please just wait!”
In the span of just a few seconds, just the short amount of time I’d remained standing in the doorway, he’d made it down the long hallway, then down a shorter hallway that led to the stairs. I caught him on the landing, where he’d seemed to have momentarily paused, hearing my shouts.
“Please, hold up a second, Reed. Please just wait.”
He'd turned to me with a scowl, and now he scowled even harder as I took a second to gulp a deep lungful of air before speaking.
“Look. I know the Bloodborn are coming, and there's no time to waste, but I just want you to hear me out before you go. I-”
“Samantha, I need to go join my men now. At the rate they’re going, Gerard and his men will be approaching village limits within ten minutes or so, if not sooner, and I-”
“I know. I completely understand. You need to get out there with your men. But just listen to me. Please. Ten seconds. All I want to say is that I want you to promise me that you’ll give us a chance after all this. I just want you to promise that, because I know that you’re going to survive… and when you do, I want there to be hope for us.”
Reed snorted, glowering. “I’m already in a weakened state. Do you want me to become further weakened by falling in love with you? I’m not going to lie; I could do it very easily. In fact, I think something changed in my heart the night that we slept together, and I didn’t like it. Since then, I’ve had dreams about dying in battle, with you always in the background. Do you want this to become reality? I, for one, don’t. I don’t want to die like Sean. When are you going to understand this?”
I grabbed his free hand, the one not on the bannister, and clutched it in both of my own. “I’m begging you, Reed. Please don't go out there with the mindset that what happened to Sean could happen to you. Just promise me that you'll fight like you believe that won’t be your fate, because I know it won’t be. We have to believe in that. Promise me that you will.”
Reed all but wrenched his hand free from both of mine. “Well, I’m not just going to lay down and die. I can promise you that much. I’m going to fight. And if Gerard and his men end up killing us all, I'm going to make sure it comes at a price to them.”
Knowing this was as close to a promise as I was going to get, and also knowing time was very much of the essence and precious seconds were ticking by, I nodded. “All right. That’s good enough for me. Just fight hard, Reed, like I know you will, and just know that I feel like we’re going to see each other again.”
I really did feel it, and in some deep, profound sort of way, like when I’d felt “the quake.” I wasn’t certain, couldn't be, obviously, but I felt it in my gut.
To my surprise, after I’d said what I had, Reed’s stony expression suddenly morphed into one of anguish, and he grabbed my hand, cringing, as if what I’d said about seeing each other again had physically hurt him in some way. Gently, he then lifted my hand and kissed it, letting his warm, firm lips linger on my skin for a very long moment, an exceptionally long moment, actually, considering the circumstances and the haste he needed to make. Wanting to stay in that moment forever, with the feel of his mouth on my skin, I cringed myself when he let my hand go and spoke in a low voice thick with emotion.
“What you said… I want you to know that I want that, Samantha. I want that more than anything... for us to see each other again, and for us to maybe at least try to explore something other than a ‘business relationship’. I can’t make any promises, but… I do want that, in my heart.”
With his pale blue eyes full of pain, he looked into my own eyes for a second before grabbing my hand again and giving it another kiss, although this one was much quicker. “I really have to go now.” He dropped my hand for the second time with his expression becoming stony and stern once again. “The alarm siren will soon sound to warn everyone in town of the danger. And as long as this siren is still pealing, I want you to remain in the house, all windows and doors locked. Do you understand me? In fact, I want you down in the basement, where there’s a panic room of sorts with a steel door. Marie knows where it is. I think she’s in the kitchen now, and she’ll take you down there when the alarm sounds.”
I nodded. “All right.” Just a split second later, I had a sudden thought and shook my head. “Wait, no. No, not all right. I’m not going down to the basement. In fact, I’m not even going to stay in the house. I’m going to help fight the Bloodborn. I have a huge leather bag, and as soon as I stuff it full of knives-”
“Oh, for God’s sake. They’re bears, Samantha. Extremely powerful shifters. I’m sure you could do some damage to them, but at the same time, any one of them could rip you limb from limb as easily as-”
“I won’t let them, though. I’ll just be faster than them. If one tried to charge me, he’ll have a knife in his eye before he even knows what hit him.”
“You make it sound like it’d be the easiest thing in the world.”
“No, I’m not. I’m not saying it’d be easy at all; I’m just saying I can do it. As long as there’s even a chance that I can help-”
“No. Dammit, Samantha. No. Do you understand me? You’re staying right here in this goddamned house.”
He’d practically growled the words at me, but I didn’t care. I growled a few back.
“I’m not staying in the house. You don’t own me, so-”
“Look. My men and I may be weakened, but we intend to fight our hardest; we’re on our own turf and we’ll surely get things under control. We don’t need your help.”
“Well, from what you were saying a few minutes ago, it sounds like you do.”
“Well-”
“And if you think that you and your men will so quickly have things in hand, then what’s the harm of me going outside to help? You’ll have all the Bloodborn cornered anyway, right? So, what’s the harm?”
“The harm is that you could be killed, not to mention that our baby could be hurt or killed, too. Have you forgotten about that?”
“No, I haven’t, but pregnant or not, I’m not going to sit idly by while innocent people in this town are hurt, which could even already be happening as we speak.”
“Then promise to stay in the house and let me go help them right now!”
Immeasurably frustrated, I began trying to push Reed across the landing to the stairs. “Then, go already! Go and help everyone!”
Despite trying with all my might, both hands on his chest, I hadn’t even been able to push him an inch. His heavy black boots remained firmly planted on the shiny pine-planked floor, as if the only thing pushing him was a light breeze or a feather.
With his strong jaw clenched, he took my wrists to get my hands off him. “Now, you listen to me. You are not leaving this damned-”
His words had been cut off by the sound of a siren pealing in the distance. We could clearly hear it, even with only a couple of windows in the house open. At the same time, Reed’s phone began going off, the sound barely audible above the siren.
He swore under his breath, glancing over his shoulder toward town, then turned his gaze back to me, eyes glinting as if they held some sort of fire. “You stay in this house, Samantha. Do you understand me? I’m warning you. You had better stay in here, and not step a single toe outside, so help me God.”
I didn't say anything, and after a long moment, this seemed to satisfy him.
“And you make damned sure to lock the door behind me when I leave.”
Again, I didn't say anything, just kind of snorted a little. But again, this seemed to satisfy Reed. After giving me one final hasty kiss, this one on my lips, he was gone, tearing down the hallway, out the front door, and down the driveway, shifting into bear form, massive and black, as he ran. Hoping and praying that we really would see each other again, I watched him for just a few seconds in the bright sunlight before shutting the front door and bolting all the locks. I didn’t want a Bloodborn bear to be able to get in the house before I was armed with a full bag of knives and ready to fight.
*
I was going to try to hurt as many Bloodborn as I could, and I was going to try to defend everyone in town as best as I could, even people I didn’t know or have any connection whatsoever with. After all, I had no idea where I was going to live in the future, but I was beginning to see Somerset as my baby’s home, and all the people in it as his or her neighbors.
This wasn’t, however, the only reason I was going to fight. I wanted to prove to Reed that being “distracted” with strong feelings didn’t necessarily make someone a bad fighter, and it didn’t have to lead to them being killed. I also wanted to prove to Reed that I truly cared about him, even so much that I was willing to put my own life on the line just to help defend his.
I was scared of Gerard Blackthorn and all his Bloodborn bears, of course. In all honesty, I was terrified. I figured any sane, rational person would be. However, despite this, my muscles were still moving. I wasn’t freezing up like I’d briefly done in my bedroom doorway. My legs were feeling rubbery, to be sure, but they were carrying me across the pine-planked foyer just fine as I began sprinting toward the kitchen to grab my big leather bag, which I normally kept my laptop and a bunch of other stuff in.
No matter what happened when I left the house, I wasn’t going to let myself freeze up. I was absolutely determined not to. I felt like as long as I kept moving, as long as I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, I’d be fine. However, soon I came to a dead, screeching halt at the entrance to the kitchen, hearing my name.
Dressed in her usual housecleaning uniform of baggy knit pants and well-worn t-shirt, Marie stood looking at me from across the spacious room, eyes wide, appearing to have come from the direction of the staircase, indicating that we’d maybe somehow just missed each other. “We’ve got to go down to the basement now, Samantha. We’ve got to hurry!”
My knee-jerk reaction to her was to resist, the same way I’d done with Reed, but I immediately thought better of this and said I’d be right down.
“You go first. I’m just going to grab a few things we might need.”
Nodding, Marie all but flew out of the kitchen and began heading to the basement stairs in the hallway.
Cringing inwardly, I realized that Marie trusted me, and that I was about to break that trust. It’s for the greater good, I told myself, truly believing it. I knew that if I’d told Marie the truth, it would have just led to a long argument, like with Reed, and the last thing I currently needed was to waste any more time. If I were being foolish and stupid about what I was doing, like I was sure Reed would think, I at least wanted to be efficient at it.
Foolish and stupid or not, I was still determined to go through with my plan, and I knew there wasn’t a second to waste. With my heart hammering in my ears, I grabbed my leather “laptop and junk” bag, emptied it, and then took off across the kitchen to a little alcove that contained a china hutch with a drawer filled with knives of all kinds. Hands shaking, I yanked open the drawer and began stuffing my big bag with knives, heart pounding loudly enough for me to hear it above the sound of the siren still blaring outside. To my extreme irritation, I’d just discovered a second drawer of knives and had loaded the contents in my bag when I realized I needed to use the bathroom badly, to the point that my bladder felt ready to explode.
“Oh, God dammit.”
After a fast trip to one of the ground-floor bathrooms, I pulled my long hair up into a ponytail using an elastic I’d had on my wrist, jammed some tennis shoes on my feet, and then hoisted the strap of my now-heavy bag up on my shoulder before racing across the house to the kitchen, where I pulled one additional knife, which was a butcher knife, from a wooden block. Then, after jamming it in my bag, I was off and running again, heading to the foyer and the front door.
It was there that I really became scared, and the enormity of what I was about to do kind of hit me. Picturing the Bloodborn bears ripping me to shreds, I let my feet slow, then stop completely. I recalled how terrifying one of the Bloodborn had looked when I’d encountered him in the woods my first day in Somerset, and I remembered how it had felt to think that I was taking my last breaths. I never wanted to feel that way again; I never wanted to even look at a Bloodborn bear again to be completely honest.
I had to, though, and I knew it. Seemingly of its own accord, one of my feet had turned a degree or two, in the direction of the shorter hallway beyond the kitchen. At the end of this shorter hallway was an alcove with an entrance door to the basement. The basement, where there was a nice, safe panic room with a steel door, as Reed had said. I’d be completely safe there, at least for a while. However, gritting my teeth, I forced my foot to turn from that direction. Then, I forced my hand to unlock the door and open it. Then, I forced my feet to move me across the threshold.
If it hadn't been for the siren still wailing from somewhere in town, and a sense of hysteria rising in my chest, it actually would have been a beautiful morning. The sun’s first rays were painting the sky in shades of fiery orange and fuchsia pink, the bright green new leaves of the many trees in the yard were gently fluttering in a breeze, and the siren was just far enough away that I could hear a little birdsong coming from dense shrubbery bordering the wraparound porch.
Not wanting to allow myself to change my mind or have some sort of an anxiety-induced freak-out that would send me running back inside the house, I slammed the door behind me, pulled my keys from my pocket, and quickly locked the deadbolt before tossing the keys into the dense shrubbery. Now there was no turning back. Not unless I wanted to crawl under the thorny shrubbery on my hands and knees to find my keys, which, to be honest, I kind of did. I wanted to snatch them up and run back inside and down to the basement, with Marie, but I refused to let myself give in to the impulse. I just had to continue to make my feet move, hoping that I could be as strong against the Bloodborn as I thought, and hoping that if that wasn’t the case, I’d be able to protect myself and do some damage with my weapons.
Holding the strap of my leather bag tightly, I began striding down the long driveway that led from the house to the short paved lane that connected with the main road through town. My plan was to stick close to the tall trees once I reached the lane, maybe even walking behind them, thoroughly covered by their thick trunks and shorter trees nearby. Then, once I reached the town part of the village, I’d weave my way through the many little shops and businesses, walking more or less behind them if I could, until I found a suitable ambush spot, probably an alley. I’d then lie in wait until I saw a Bloodborn bear to attack. In the meantime, during my walk down the long driveway, I'd be keeping an eye on the tall hill to the west of the deep valley, to see what was going on, because plenty already was.
Hundreds and hundreds of inky black shapes, just tiny dots to me as far away as I was, were charging up the steep hill, beginning to group together to form one large onyx-colored dot. From this large dot, surely made up of Reed and his bears, I could hear a low rumble that sounded something like thunder, even above the still-wailing siren. I could almost feel it, too, in the form of a faint vibration that passed beneath my feet. Reed and his men were roaring, charging up the hill full-steam, ready to meet an enemy I couldn’t even see yet.
Briefly, I wondered if my help in town would even be needed. As fierce and powerful as Reed and his several hundred shifters sounded and looked, despite their weakened state, I wondered if they'd take out Gerard and all his shadow bears almost immediately, preventing any of them from even getting near the heart of town.
I knew better, though, or at least I was pretty sure I did. I knew Reed and his men were too weakened for the outcome of the attack to be as simple as a one-minute fight. Besides, I’d heard enough about Gerard to know that he was sneaky and wily and out for all the land in Somerset, and blood. He wouldn't stop until Somerset was under his command, or he was dead, of that I was certain. This also made me certain that he’d probably told his men to try to circumvent Reed in order to somehow separate him from his men and cause havoc, which then made me certain that there would be something I could do to try to help, and do it in a way that I might be able to have the element of surprise. I knew I wouldn’t have that if I tried to join Reed and his men charging up the hill. I knew that would just lead to me probably being protected by a ring of bears, or dragged back to the house.
As confident as I was feeling, I wasn’t blind to the fact that if I got into serious trouble during the fight and needed to be rescued, that rescue might take Reed or some of his men away from the larger battle, where they were needed to help others. I also wasn't blind to the fact that if I got into serious trouble and needed to be rescued, that rescue might not even be possible anyway. Reed and his men might be busy, or they might not be able to hear me shout. And in fact, now that I was thinking about it, and now that I’d seen where the fight would likely be taking place, I was almost positive they wouldn’t be able to hear me shout. The hill was simply too far away. I wouldn’t be able to reach Reed by cell phone, either, because even though I had mine in my pocket, he, of course, didn't have his on him while in bear form. He wouldn’t have it back until he shifted back into human form, with his clothes and phone shifting with him.
However, the thing was that with my plan to do an ambush, and an ambush of a lone, straggling Bloodborn bear, I didn’t plan on getting into serious trouble in the first place. I didn’t plan on needing rescue from anyone. And if I did, I knew that would just be tough for me. I obviously didn’t want to die, and was just as terrified of that prospect as when I’d encountered the lone Bloodborn bear in the woods, but nothing was going to stop me from trying to help and proving to Reed that I truly cared. For the previous couple of weeks, ever since I’d found out that I was pregnant, it really had almost felt like an inevitability that I had to at least try. I could never live with myself knowing that I’d simply let the father of my child slip right through my fingers.
When I was about halfway down the long driveway, I saw something like a dark shadow crest the top of the tall hill to the west, then start descending to meet Reed and his men, who were still charging up the hill. I didn’t need binoculars to see what exactly this dark shadow was made up of. I knew it was surely Gerard and his men, grouped tightly together, appearing as a dark storm cloud from a great distance. This dark storm cloud very quickly began picking up speed, closing the distance between Reed and his shifters, and I started to say a silent, urgent prayer for their safety.
I didn’t finish my desperate prayer, though. Because just then, the sound of someone shouting my name at the top of their lungs jolted my focus away from the hill and toward the house.
With her well-rounded figure appearing deceptively small a hundred-some feet away, Marie stood on the wraparound porch at the front of the house, hands cupped around her mouth.“Samantha! What are you doing? Please come back!”
Stifling a groan, I swore under my breath, unable to help but feel like I’d just been caught sneaking out of the house by my mom. However, like the single time when this had actually happened during my teenage years, I wasn’t able to muster much anger. This was because I’d known that my mom had just been worried for my safety, and I knew the same was true about Marie at present. But still, unlike I’d done at seventeen, I had no intention of quickly heading back to the house this time.
Taking a few steps back up the driveway, I set my big heavy leather bag down and then took a cue from Marie by cupping my hands around my mouth. “Please don’t worry about me! I’m fine, and I know what I'm doing! Just head back inside and get down to the basement!”
“What?”
Again, I swore under my breath, fighting a quickly rising tide of extreme irritation. “Just get back inside, Marie! Head down to the basement! I have a plan to help in the fight, and I know what I’m doing!”
“What? Say that again! I’m sorry, but I can't quite hear you!”
Though she’d never specifically said anything about it, I’d noticed that Marie could be slightly hard of hearing sometimes. Unfortunately, this seemed to be one of those times, because I could hear her just fine, even above the rising and falling wail of the siren, despite the fact that, at times, I wondered if numerous rock concerts during college hadn't left me with slight hearing loss.
Or, I reasoned, Marie might simply be trying to get me back up to the house by making me walk closer to her in order to make myself heard. But if that was the case, I had no intention of falling for it.
Feet rooted firmly in place, I cupped my hands to my mouth and just yelled even harder this time. “Please listen! Everything is completely under control! I have a plan, and I’m going through with it! Please just get down to the basement!”
“Just come on and get inside with me, Samantha! We need to get down to the basement right now!”
“No!”
“Just get in here!”
“I said no, Marie! I will not!”
“Yes! Yes, you will! Come up here right now!”
“No!”
Now I was really beginning to feel like I was having a teenage fight with my mom. Maybe even a toddler tantrum.
Seemingly exasperated, Marie had dropped her hands from her mouth, but she now picked them back up and shouted at the top of her lungs again. “Would you just get your tail up here right now? I can't even hear you!”
I took a slow, deep breath and let it out equally as slowly, fighting a toddler-style meltdown, or at least a good stomp of my foot.
“Samantha, please! The house will be the Bloodborn bears’ first target if they’re able to get past Chief Wallace and his men! So, just get up here! Right this second!”
I took another deep, slow breath, filling my lungs deeply for the loudest, most forceful shouting I’d probably ever done in my life. “No! I am not coming back up to the house, Marie! I am not! You get your own self down to the basement! This second! And I apologize for shouting, and I apologize for sounding so harsh, but I need to do this! I have to try to help in the battle in whatever way I can! So, I'm leaving right now! Goodbye and go back inside!”
I knelt and grabbed my bag full of knives, intending to whip around and continue down the driveway without another glance at Marie, but as I rose, I couldn’t help but see her out of the corner of my eye. With her longish gray bob swinging, she was making her way down the golden oak porch steps. Frowning, she appeared to be muttering to herself, seemingly just as irritated and exasperated at me as I was at her.
Now I couldn't even make an attempt at stifling a groan; I just outright groaned, not that Marie could probably even hear me. I certainly didn't want her following me into danger, but I wasn’t about to head back to the house with her, either. I didn't even intend to get close enough to where she could possibly drag me in. Even though she was around sixty, being that she was a larger woman than I was, I knew she could probably do it.
“Marie, go back! Please just do it! Just go back to the house!”
Now storming down the driveway toward me at a rapid clip, it didn't look at all like she was going to.
“Oh, Marie…god dammit all.”
Exasperated beyond my limit, I hadn’t even bothered shouting that time. It was obvious further shouting was completely pointless. I’d more like sighed or whimpered my words, feeling miles beyond frustrated. Marie seemed to be done shouting, too, and besides, we were now almost within plain loud talking distance. Still striding toward me with her face fixed in a motherly sort of scowl, as if ready to scold me good, she was probably only twenty or twenty-five feet away from me now. In fact, she might have even been a little closer than that when I saw an onyx black form creep out from behind a large evergreen not ten feet to her left.