SEVEN
Dylan let out a long breath and looked out the window of the kitchen. Rain hard started to pitter-patter against the shingled roof, giving it a sort of cotton sound, not the sharp ping he was used to on metal roofs back at the estate with the others of his kind. Through the dimness, he could make out the small palisade of sharpened poles that lined the acreage. It was a crude makeshift, but he hoped it would give them somewhat of an advantage, should push come to shove. Behind him, Chris was wincing, his good arm slung over Sarah’s shoulders as she helped him across the room to the couch. More of Chris’ famous herbal tea was steaming on the wood stove, and it filled the small room with a root-like aroma that was half-chlorophyll and half-spice.
“Give me some of that,” Chris huffed, pointing toward the stove. Even at this distance, Dylan could feel the heat coming off of him, and he curled his lips in worry. The fever was still present, working its way out of his system, seemingly like molasses. I hope there’s no stray bullet fragments left in there, Dylan thought, glancing at the bandages.
“How’s the radio?” Sarah asked anxiously.
“Still bothersome… you can imagine with this storm, it won’t do any better,” Chris grumbled, and leaned his head against the back of the cushions. “How’s your defenses, Dylan? I heard you all day hammering and sharpening stakes. I’d be out there with you, bud… if I could only…”
“Shush,” Dylan said, “you did more than enough.” He wound his way around the couch and sat down on one of the big sofa chairs that angled in towards the couch and fireplace and sighed. The strain of his efforts was plain to see.
Sarah handed Chris his tea and came and sat down, cross-legged, in front of Dylan’s legs, much to his surprise. She had that distant look again, a wandering sort of gaze that was only partially here. He desperately wished he could go with her, to wherever it was her thoughts took her in these late hours, when the sun had perished and the bear in her had started its slow waking from hibernation.
He reached down and stroked the top of her head, and averted his eyes from a piercing glance that shot at him from Chris across the room. The older man grinned to himself and buried his face in the tea, wincing at the heat as steam rolled up his broad cheeks.
“You two are adorable,” he finally breathed under his breath, making both Dylan and Sarah turned at him with accusing eyes. As if he’d uttered something so obvious that it became distorted by stating it so blatantly, and both of them blushed.
Sarah regained her composure first and buried her head harder against his knees. “You’re drunk on pain, old bear,” she sniffed at him. “Shouldn’t we be planning something else? I mean, a contingency plan, a plan B… in case they do come back?”
A look passed between Chris and Dylan, which said in just one look: there is nothing more we can do but wait and hope. And hope was useless, in the face of rifles. They had no weapons on the island, save for their own wits.
“We’ll be okay,” Dylan said again, but it had become a rote sentence, something he said only to convince himself of it anymore. “It’s the trails that have me concerned. They’re everywhere, but anyone with half a brain of wilderness in them would quickly recognize that they all sort of spiral inward.”
“Like the roads to Rome,” Chris added with a flair of erudition.
“To the cabin,” Sarah nodded, finishing the thought. “Crap.”
Dylan reached down with both hands and began to rub her shoulders, and she let out a little sigh and leaned against him dramatically, her eyes closed. All three seemed to share in a single unalterable truth: there was nothing they could do but wait. Chris offered to take first watch and ushered Dylan and Sarah to bed, and was prudent enough not to say anything when they both went into Sarah’s room. He achingly reached across the couch toward the unreliable satellite radio.
His quiet habitual swearing was eaten up by the impact of rain, even as it sped up and became a kind of damp sledge, pressing on the cabin and all inside.
***
Sometime, in the middle of the night, Sarah was awoken by a crack. In her dreams, she was a bear and had found a fresh kill. The crack echoed the piercing shock of bone, shattering under her jaws, followed by the sweet gasp of marrow that leaked onto her tongue. Then another crack, this time she sat up straight in the dark. Sweat stained her back, leeching through the thin tank-top. Her breasts heaved against the tight fabric and she felt like tearing at it, as if it might urge the air into her lungs faster. Already, her skin was drying in the open air, and beside her Dylan was still asleep, although his brows were knitted as if he too were suffering some nightmare.
She looked around, letting her eyes adjust to the dark until she could make out the shapes of the door and her backpack by the wall. Outside, the rain was a full on torrent. After so many days of sunshine, it was both terrifying and exhilarating, a reminder of how fickle nature was, and how unrelenting it could be once it had made up its mind about something.
I was just dreaming, she panted. The sound had been so explosive though, even if she had imagined it. Her heart was still thrumming. When she lay back down, Dylan sleepily splayed his hand across her breastbone. She could feel her own pulse like a hummingbird under her skin; a tremolo of blood. She turned her head and peeled back the sheets, which were damp with her sweat, revealing the long dark lengths of her legs. She propped her hands under her head, flexing her bodice so that her hips lined up with the bed frame. A gust of wind wafted over the low band of her thong, causing goose-pimples to raise up on her buttocks.
Dylan was stomach down, both arms raised so that the muscles in his shoulders stood out like firm ridges, buckled sinew that bespoke of his physical labor of the last six months. She felt another pang of desire slide up the inside of her thighs. She had neglected human contact for so long, spurning it as something unessential. Worse than that, something that would make her weak, dependent. Even with the peril of poachers, even when Chris had been toeing Death’s door, the fear of needing another person was even more insatiable.
“What am I to you?” she asked again, as if trying to urge an answer from his dreams.
I know what you are to me, she thought, biting her lip again and reaching out to trace the outline of his jaw with one finger. He murmured something, and the tightness in his brow lightened, as if she’d dispelled whatever had been ailing him. Love. It was such a strange word, so short, succinct. How could anyone possibly hope to contain its meaning in something so truncated?
It didn’t matter, all that mattered—
CRACK. This time, she sat straight up again and her arm was already shaking Dylan awake, who squirmed beside her. That was not her imagination and neither was it lightning because it was still dark outside, pitched into a gravity of blackness.
“What’s going on?” Dylan murmured.
Sarah was already up, pulling on her old jeans with the holes in the knees. “Something’s wrong!” she gasped back. “That was too close. And there’s no lightning. That’s not thunder!”
Something that loud could only be one thing.
Sarah threw open the door of the bedroom and rushed into the living room and kitchen, nearly stubbing her toe on the couch and swore under her breath. The lights were dead in the lamps, long sputtered out, and the door outside was slightly ajar. Already a small puddle had clotted on the floor from the rain trying to invade, and Sarah felt the bottom of her stomach cave in as she reached out to grip the sink for support. Dylan was fast behind her and it took him a moment to reconcile what had happened.
“Chris,” he murmured.
Sarah pushed past him and reached over the couch. Not only was Chris gone, but the satellite radio had disappeared as well. That didn’t make sense. “He was supposed to wake us… for our watch,” she said breathlessly, and turned to see Dylan at the door, staring into the night.
“Something happened,” he said. “C’mon.”
“That sound…” she whispered. He looked at her but neither of them wanted to say it aloud. It was obvious – the sound had been gunfire. Somewhere, somehow, the poachers had landed.
In less than a minute, Sarah and Dylan had both donned their raincoats and ventured into the clearing. It came down in a smothering torrent, inconsistent, almost as if the sky itself was breathing the rain down on them. Dylan went first, holding his hood down as he tried to peer through the tumult, while Sarah hunched in his wake, using the wind break to scan the forest to the left and right of them. In moments, their pants were soaked through and cold rain was already leaking through their boots as mud clung to their ankles. She shivered, feeling fear like a cold compress, seething through her limbs.
Be strong, she hissed, slapping her legs and trying to find the muscles in them.
Up ahead, Dylan led them over the creek, and at least here under the trees, the rain wasn’t quite as bad, although it was still coming down in droves. “Where did the sound come from?” he whispered over her shoulder.
She could barely hear him. “I don’t know… from inside, it was like it was coming from everywhere. If I had to guess though… north… toward the summit.”
Without a word, he lowered his head and chose one of the major paths. There was no hesitation. She was amazed at how well he seemed to know where they were. True, she had run almost all of the paths in her short time since coming but in the dark and the storm it was impossible for her to get her bearings. She merely bent her head and followed behind him, trusting his sense of direction implicitly.
Another shot. CRACK. This time, neither of them jumped because they’d been waiting for it, anything, a sound that would lead them like a landmark. Sarah had been right; it was bearing north toward the summit. The two of them started to run. She reached out and grasped Dylan’s hand. His hands closed around hers, chilled by the rain. Her breath felt like a gear that kept missing its catch and she felt frustrated that her body should give up on her.
“There!” Dylan shouted.
Up ahead, through the forest, they saw someone running, clothed in camo gear. It looked as if he was trying to follow the paths, but he kept swerving off into the bush and then had to take a step back and regain his composure. In front of her, she heard Dylan make a growling sound and rush forward. For a moment, she was afraid that he might shift in front of her eyes but somehow he kept his rage in place. Instinctively, she squeezed his hand tighter so that he couldn’t take off without her but gasped as she was pulled along, and felt a muscle in her shoulder twinge.
“Wait, Dylan… something’s wrong!” she shouted at him.
The looming firs around steeped everything in darkness, like a wooden cathedral rising above them. Dylan didn’t hear her, or else he was too lost in his own bear to comprehend her warning. His hand slipped free of hers and she saw the back of his raincoat plummet down the trail toward the other shape, who had slipped onto his face in the mud up ahead. Only one of them, something red flickered in her consciousness, a red flag.
“Dylan, wait, why is he running aw—“
Something heavy collapsed on her and she felt a wave of nausea, even though she could still feel her feet moving under her. In front of her, through a blurry mixture of pain, cold water draped over her eyes she could see Dylan turn with fear in his eyes. She had the mind to splay her hands in front of her as she collapsed through the air. An eternity of time seemed to pass as she waited for the ground to buck up and meet her but nothing came, only a heavy dull pressure on her head, which was exacerbated by the rain.
It was a trap, was the last thing that went through her head, followed by the drum of rain that snaked its way into her bones, chilling her like a wraith.
*
“Hey, wake up,” she heard. “Sarah! Sarah… goddamit, please wake up…”
Her eyes took another long time to adjust to the dim light. It wasn’t night any longer but it was still hours from being morning. The sun was still a rumor, something neither of them could believe in just yet. She rolled her head on her neck, and it felt like it was barely pinned there. She let out a groan.
“What happened? My head…”
“I was foolish,” she heard Dylan’s voice growl behind her. “I didn’t even see or smell the other one. They must have been waiting for us… the first one was only trying to lure us into a position so the other could…” Dylan’s voice tapered off. She had never heard him so angry before, he could barely cough out the syllables his jaw was so tight with rage.
She looked down and realized they were both tied to a tree, a straight cedar that spired into the dark sky. The ropes wrapped across her chest, under her breasts and over her waist. There was another rope tying her ankles and she felt the sharp ragged edge of it cutting into her circulation. There was still rain, but it was more like after-rain, droplets collecting on the boughs and leaves above and plummeting onto the canopy. The forest was filled with the chorus.
As she tried to turn her neck, something sharp jabbed at her Adam’s apple and she let out a little gasp of pain. Something was attached to her neck, and her eyes had a hard time focusing on it. It looked like a collar, except it was made of tightly corded bows tied together with some sort of high tensile fishing line. But facing inward, there were several sharp stakes, each of them whittled down to fine points like fangs, and all of them arching perilously toward the vulnerable areas of her neck.
So that’s why Dylan hadn’t changed into a bear. It would be a simple matter to break these cords, but with the improvised collar… she winced, imagining the spikes driving into the thick neck of her other form. But that wasn’t so terrifying as the next thought that came to her – someone knows who we are, otherwise how would they have thought to construct these infernal collars?
“Dylan,” she said, “where are they?”
“Can’t… can’t tell,” he said, and she tried to turn her neck to glimpse at him, even though one of the spikes pushed against her jugular. He was tied to the same tree, and had a similar collar on, and the dressing on his bullet wound had come off, revealing the ugly pink puckered stitch job she had done on his brow. “You… you’ve got a sharper nose…”
She inhaled deeply but all she could detect were the aromas of the forest. “There’s nothing. It’s like they’ve disappeared again. How is that possible? I’ve never…”
“They’re poachers,” he grumbled, “and good ones.”
“These collars, Dylan… they were designed for us,” she shook her head, trying to clarify, “for shifters. They know… they know what we are.”
“I know,” he said, “and right now we’re tied up like bait.”
She didn’t catch his meaning at first. The bump on her head still ached, even though she couldn’t reach it with her fingers. Of course, these poachers were up against a formidable enemy they had never hunted before; a cross between the two greatest predators on the planet, man and bear. Even with guns, they were being cautious. We’re bait, she mouthed the words to herself. Which meant they were still hunting. “Chris is still out there,” she hissed. “Somehow he managed to elude them.”
“Yea, I’m hoping,” he said, “but that’s not exactly good news. Even though it’s Chris, in his condition, he can’t run forever. And if he finds us like this, he’s bound to go on a rampage like before. He won’t think…”
She could detect the worry in Dylan’s voice, and didn’t even hear the bristling of twigs to her right. At the sight of the poacher, she went rigid but somehow didn’t cry out, even though he was ugly as any man she had ever seen. His face was cut with deep folds, and his eyes were beady, black and nested in more wrinkles, and a stubby amount of hair jutted from his jowls.
“Dylan,” she breathed the word. He turned, and she felt the ropes that held both of them shift as he fought against them, straining so hard that the cord ate into the flesh of his wrists. She smelled the faint iron tang of blood.
“Go on a rampage, you say, huh?” Arthur rubbed his chin. “Well, at least this time we’ll be ready for the bastard. I have to say, I was very surprised to find the old legends were true.”
“Go to hell,” Dylan coughed.
“You first, and I’ll join you,” Arthur grimaced, crossing to where Dylan was held like a snarling dog. “Are you all bears? I know you are. And I suppose your other friend but what about the woman?”
“You stay away from her,” Dylan growled.
Arthur seemed amused by the antics and approached Sarah, who simply stared back at him impassively. She wasn’t even afraid of him, not in the way Dylan was. She felt a great pity for him, the sort you might have for an animal that’s dying slowly and deserves a killing blow. Give me that opportunity, I think I could do it, she realized, surprised at her own conviction now that she was face-to-face with the man that had tried to kill both Chris and Dylan.
He pulled a knife from its plastic sheath in his belt and she felt air exhale sharply from her nose. Gently, he traced the rim of her neck with the flat side, and then drew it downward, over her breastbone and the top of her tank-top. His eyes were full of a lustful hunger as he moved the blade down, stretching the tank-top so that her breasts promised to pop out. He licked his lips and she felt sweat forming on her brow.
“Please stop,” she whispered.
He gave her a look and moved closer, so that she could smell the rankness of his breath, which was like bad coffee. He moved the blade lower, across her stomach, which caused her to tremble, and then against the zipper of her jeans. Now she was afraid, she tried to will herself to stop shaking, should his blade slip. He pressed it harder against the zipper, and she felt it threaten the most vulnerable part of her.
“Please…”
“Leave her alone, you bastard!” Dylan shouted, twisting against his confinement.
Arthur let out an irritable sigh and withdrew his blade and marched back to Dylan. His blue eyes were diamonds cut with a primeval rancor that shook his shoulder blades. It didn’t seem to assuage Arthur in the least as he pulled back and punched his prey across the face with the butt of the knife. Dylan grunted and his head spun on his shoulders.
“Kindly stop talking so much, eh?”
“Fuck… you,” Dylan murmured. Blood was dripping down his chin, and his mouth was like a livid pool of curses. “When… Chris gets here… he’s gonna take your head off… and leave it for the flies.”
“Poetic,” Arthur said with a degree of disdain. “I suppose we’ll see. I just wanted to look at both of you… I feel like a hunter owes that to their quarry.”
“You’re not a hunter,” Sarah was quick to point out, and wondered suddenly where the courage had come from to speak out against him. She winced and swallowed, but kept her gaze leveled on him as he returned his attention to her. “You’re… nothing.”
Something ignited behind his eyes but it petered out almost instantly. He merely nodded his head and licked his lips again. “We’ll see,” he said. “After this is finished, maybe we’ll have more time to discuss it, just you and I.”
Sarah spat on the ground in front of him, even as he reached out to try and touch her cheek. She snapped her jaws at him, wishing desperately that she wasn’t collared. One chance, and I’ll end you, you bastard. Behind her, Dylan had sagged on the ropes, and was still coughing and spitting blood over the front of his raincoat.
In a moment, Arthur was gone and they were alone again. She tried to breathe normally again. “What… what do you think the chances are Chris will come?”
“He’s already on his way,” he said distastefully, and quiet enough that Arthur wouldn’t hear him if he was still lurking around. “There was only one of them… that bastard’s friend is probably acting like a lure again, leading Chris here.”
They were quiet then, both of them testing the air, trying to detect the smallest hint of sound that would give Chris away. An hour passed, then another, and the sun was beginning to creep through the sheltered canopy, warming their damp shoulders and hair. Both of them had unanimously decided on their own that if they saw Chris, they would shout at him to leave, they would try to raise the alarm, regardless of what sort of consequences it would evoke. This is what it feels like to protect something you love, she realized, with an alarming alacrity. Maybe that bump on the head had finally shoved some sense into her. She wriggled against the ropes again but it was useless.
But Chris was safe. Chris had the satellite phone. And it was up to both of them, her and Dylan, to protect him, the same way he had protected them. To Sarah, that time seemed so long ago now, like another lifetime. She tried to get another look at Dylan, wishing there was something she could do to save him, as well. A grim thought entered her head.
Even though the collars prevented them from surviving a transformation, it could still technically be possible to change if she did it quickly enough. She felt a hollow in her stomach, pondering her own death. I can change faster than Dylan, she realized, even if it kills me, it would be enough to break these ropes and free him. It would give him a chance.
“Dylan, I… you…. You never told me,” she said, smiling in spite of herself. Her voice was a quiver, like grass slighting in the wind, rubbing against itself in one direction as though it always meant to sharpen itself. “Can you… can you tell me now?”
He turned his head, cursing the collar. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb, you know what I’m talking about. I asked you… and you said you’d think about it… now…” she wrinkled her lips, “I don’t know how much time we have. Don’t deny it, just… tell me. Please…”
He was quiet for a moment and she heard the scuff of his collar as he tried to turn his head to look at her again. “I’ve thought about it since you asked. I wish there was a better way to understand it… maybe, maybe I just overthink things,” he said, stalling. “What are you to me? I don’t know if I have a word for it… if only because, up until you came into my life, I’d never known it was possible.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand…”
“Maybe it won’t suffice,” he let out a weak laugh, “but I’ll say it anyway. For what it’s worth… I love you. God, I love you Sarah… maybe that’s crazy to say out loud. Maybe… maybe it’s not enough. I’ve known you less than a month. But that’s all I can say… I love you.”
Another silence stretched between them, pending, interspersed only by the occasional slap of water that was quickly perishing on the feathered tree boughs above them. A milky light shafted down through the canopy, and Sarah trembled in her bonds and closed her eyes. In the darkness of her mind, she tried to focus on the bear, channeling the energy and focus. If she were to shift now, it would have to be quick, not the gradual sloughing off of the human part of her, as was her habit. Instantaneous.
“That’s…” she felt tears sliding off her eyes, blinding her, “…I’m sorry.”
That caught his attention. “Sorry… for what? Sarah… why are you crying?”
“I love you, too,” she whispered, and took in a sharp intake of air.
If Dylan had predicted or seen through what Sarah was planning, she would never know, but she heard him cry out her name and struggle against the ropes again. The muscles in his arms aching against them. “Sarah! Stop!”