At first, I thought I was blind when I came to. I couldn't see anything. But then I noticed the light coming from far away—or rather from the other side of whatever they'd put over my head.
I was alive.
My first instinct was to move, to jump to my feet and run, but I resisted.
If they thought I was still out cold, maybe I could find a way to get out before they killed me. If that's what they planned to do. But if they did, why would they have taken me, instead of just finishing me off in the street?
Was I supposed to really think that there were worse things than death awaiting me now?
Calm down, I said to myself and closed my eyes again. Taking in a deep breath, I began to make out my surroundings.
First, the black bag that covered my entire head smelled nasty. Blood, dirt, French fries and sweat. I didn't even give myself the chance to think about throwing up but continued to search wider. The room they'd put me in was big, the ceiling high according to the way the air circulated. It was also mostly made of iron and steel. There were no windows, no smell from the outside slipping in unnoticed.
But most importantly, there were twelve people in there with me.
I could try to smell them all and pick them apart, but what good would that do? I'd rather just try to figure out a way to leave that place behind.
"She up?" one of them spoke. Whoever was close to him was scratching on a glass surface impatiently.
"Don't just stand around. Go check!" said another man, his voice much deeper than the first one.
I held my breath and waited while the werewolf made his way to me slowly. I was sitting on a concrete floor and my hands were tied behind me, but my legs were free. I didn't need my arms to run. As soon as he took off the black bag from my head, I could make a run for it, no matter that the pain in my left side said that I wouldn't make it far. I still had to try. Giving up was not an option.
But then the guy took the bag off my head.
And everything changed.
Glass shattered, the screeching sound echoing in the wide ceiling. I was right; the room was mostly made of concrete, iron and steel. It was wide and square, with two sets of stairs at the sides, one of them to my right leading to a dead end—a concrete wall. Ahead of me were metal tables, long and dirty, and around them were chairs of all kinds. Most of the people had been sitting there, and all turned to me.
The glass that had broken had slipped from the hands of one of the witches in the room.
It had slipped from the hands of my sister.
She was the only female in the room besides me. It was her in the flesh and blood, looking half of what she had the last time I saw her. Her cheeks were hollowed, her skin pale, her once rich blonde hair now matted and tied into a messy ponytail behind her head. She looked at me, her wide blue eyes unable to get enough of my face, and I did the same.
A thousand questions invaded my mind, and for a second, I forgot about where I was. What the hell was Izzy doing here? Why did she look at me like she'd just seen a ghost?
"There she is," one of the werewolves said, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from my sister. She was terrified. Even her chin was quivering.
Had she known?
She hadn't. She was frozen in shock, something she wouldn't have done had she known it was me under that black bag.
But what the hell was she doing with these people?
My father's words came back to me with a jolt. He'd heard rumors that Izzy was involved with some bad people.
Oh, no. Not these bad people!
"You sure it's her?" a werewolf asked.
"Yes, I'm sure! I already told you, she attacked me!"
My eyes moved to the man who'd spoken. I'd recognized his voice, and now I recognized his face, too. It was the guy from the night before, the one with the leather jacket. The one who'd survived.
"Saw it with my own eyes," he said, grinning, and he approached me, cautiously. "Stupid whore."
"Stop it, Kale," another werewolf said. "Don't be so fucking rude."
"See if you care when she almost tears your fucking leg off, Yumi!"
Kale shouted, suddenly terrified. My wolf had scared him, apparently.
Good.
But Yumi didn't seem to mind. He turned to me with a smile on his face —a genuine one. He was tall, not as big as his friends, but there was a look in his eyes of pure evil you couldn't miss. He folded his hands in front of him and took a step closer to me.
"Hello, Victoria. I'm very sorry to meet you under such circumstances, but you really left us no choice."
No choice? Was he fucking kidding me?
"Let me remind you that you came to my apartment uninvited. You left me no choice, asshole." No matter how he looked, or how many people he had behind him, I wasn't going to give any of them the pleasure of seeing me scared. "Anybody want to tell me what the hell I'm doing here?"
I looked at the others, and my eyes fell on my sister's face again. She'd composed herself, no longer as pale as before but just as worried. Her wide eyes were trying to reach out to me. She was begging me. Begging me to shut up.
About her? Did she really think that I'd tell these guys that she was my sister?
"Two things," Yumi said, raising two fingers in front of me.
"I'm not deaf," I spit, in case he'd missed it. Try as I might, I couldn't give my sister any signals. I couldn't tell her that I wasn't about to tell anyone anything and I couldn't ask for her help. She could get me out of here. She could get us both out of here, and then we could go home and see Mom.
But even I knew that things were far, far more complicated than that.
"First, you took something from us. Something that belongs to us," Yumi continued, as if I hadn't spoken at all.
My stomach fell. The steel plate that witch had given me. God, was I glad I had left it in the mailbox. I looked at Yumi. Was it worth it to try to lie to him and pretend I didn't know what he was talking about?
I didn't think so.
"I don't have it. I threw it away," I said, holding his eyes. He could try to intimidate me all he liked. I was still trying to process the fact that my sister was barely ten feet away from me, and I'd found her without having to even look. How deep into this was she? Did she even know who these people were? I doubted she did; otherwise she'd have gone far away from here by now.
"Okay, so tell us where," Yumi said, trying not to sound pissed off, though he was. I could smell it on his skin. "Tell us where you put it, and we'll go look for it. No hard feelings."
"I tucked it in your momma's bra."
As soon as the last word left my mouth, he slapped me. I didn't even see it coming. He was extremely fast—and extremely strong, too.
Blood came out of my mouth, and I spit it on the floor. Only then did I realize that the floor around me was drawn in chalk. And there were leaves around me. And some sticks. And three drops of already dried blood that I could see.
Oh, my God. It was a ritual drawing.
I was sitting right in the middle of a trap.
My wolf heard my thoughts. I felt her as if she was standing in all fours, trying to get a better look at the outside world through my eyes.
"Where did you put it, Victoria?" Yumi asked again.
I spit another mouthful of blood at his feet, but it didn't reach his shoes by an inch. Damn it.
"In the apartment where I found it," I said, not wanting to be slapped again. I was sitting in the middle of a ritual, and I didn't know what it would do to me yet. "I hid it in the second bedroom."
"Is that so?" Yumi said, clearly not believing me.
"I knew you'd come searching for it. I thought I'd have time to go look for it later," I sang the lie. It was easy now that I knew my chances of escaping were very close to zero.
And Izzy… She was just standing there by the chair where she'd been sitting, not moving a single muscle. She watched me, and I saw the battle raging inside her through her eyes. She was trying to decide. But what was there to decide? Why wasn't she attacking them already? She had a gun, didn't she?
All these men had their backs turned to her. They were all looking at me.
And she was a witch! She could spell them all, couldn't she?
I don't know why she didn't.
"If I find out you're lying, Victoria, things will not end well for you, I promise," Yumi said. Slowly, he squatted in front of me. "We're not exactly a patient bunch."
God, how I wanted to spit in his face. "We've got that in common," I said instead.
"Very well." He grinned and raised his hand with a curt wave. Two werewolves and a witch standing behind him immediately moved to the left, to the stairway with a door on top. So they were going to check right now. I had even less time than I thought.
"Now, for the second thing," said Yumi and stood up. He backed away, and his friend Kale, aka the first man my wolf had ever let escape, stepped forward.
"Shift, whore!" he spit.
Oh, shit.
"Are you kidding me?" I asked halfheartedly. There was no point in pretending now. He'd seen me. He'd seen my wolf. "You know what happened last time. You barely got away with your life," I reminded him. I hadn't actually seen my wolf attack him, but it was a pretty easy guess.
"Don't mind him, Victoria," Yumi said. "You shift, and we'll take care of the rest. I promise you, we are all safe." And he looked pointedly at the ritual drawing around me.
So that's what it was. A protective circle. It was going to make sure my wolf couldn't leave it without dying.
I looked at Izzy again. What was she waiting for? Three of them had already left to look for the steel plate. She'd only have to kill eight of them and get me out.
It was my turn to beg her, with my eyes, to take action. Don't just stand there, do something!
"It will all be over quicker if you just do what we say," said Yumi through gritted teeth.
"I can't do it," I said. "Trust me, that's a good thing—for you. If I shift, you're all dead."
But were they? The man who'd survived the night before was standing right there. Alive. Barely wounded. Was my wolf as strong as I thought she was, or had I just created that illusion for myself?
A growl in my mind, almost like a word spreading through my thoughts:
powerful. I probably imagined it.
Yumi laughed a bit; the sound reminded me of an ice shard. "Very well.
We've got ways to make you, but I sure wish we didn't have to." He pressed his lips together as if he wanted to fool me into thinking he was sorry. "Liam?"
One of the men stepped forward. A Blood witch. He was shorter than Yumi but wider, and his dark eyes looked almost like dark pits from hell.
"Hey, whatever you think you're doing, you need to stop. I'm not fucking around. If I shift, you die!" I shouted and tried to drag myself away, but then I hit something with my back.
There was nothing there. The wall was five feet away from me. No, I'd hit the ritual's magic. It wasn't going to let me out.
"Don't be so dramatic," Yumi said. "We're not going to hurt you, Victoria. On the contrary. Your animal is quite magnificent from what our friend has told us, and our master could make great use of it. I promise you, you will be cherished. Just calm down and let Liam take care of you."
The fear weighed me down. Even my wolf hid away. Was he teasing me? Was he just trying to scare me, was that it? His master wanted to use my wolf? For what, to kill people, like those animals had killed those witches?
And the worst part was, when I looked at my sister, she didn't look surprised. She wasn't shocked at Yumi's words, like me. She knew. She'd known all along what they were going to do to me, yet she stood there and did nothing.
Fuck, no. I couldn't allow this to happen. I'd die before I did.
But then, the witch Liam raised his hands and began to chant.
The words of the spell he whispered hurt my ears. "Stop it!" I shouted with all my strength, but he didn't. He closed his eyes and continued to fill this stupid ritual with magic, not minding my screams.
Soon, they stopped, too. My mouth clamped shut when the magic rose from the ground and wrapped around me. I tried to move away as if a spider was under my clothes, but other than untying the rope from around my wrists, I couldn't get away. I couldn't break through the ritual drawing.
"Stop it!" I shouted, again and again, and looked at Izzy, at Yumi, at whoever could make this end. Because my chest was being cut open, no matter that it didn't look like it from the outside. I was burning, my heart was being torn apart, and I could hardly breathe. My wolf howled inside my head, and I felt her pain, too. She was hurting the same way I was. Liam's chanting grew louder, stronger. Every word that left his lips physically attacked me. His magic slipped inside my pores and took control of me, and there's nothing I hate more than losing control. This time, even my wolf didn't know how to stop it.
She was being propelled forward, and she couldn't refuse. She had already begun to alter my body, my bones, my flesh, my muscles, my skin. I screamed at the top of my voice because shifting had never hurt quite like this before. It was more…violent. More primitive. Just when I thought I would lose consciousness, I opened my eyes and my screaming stopped.
Instead, I began to howl.
I had no idea what the hell was happening. My skin was covered in dark brown and red fur, similar to my hair. I could see it on my hands. My fingers were gone, and instead of them, I now had claws. Big, thick, yellow claws. And I was howling.
But wait… I wasn't howling. It was my wolf.
I was no longer Victoria Brigham. I was a wolf.
She'd taken over. So why was I still there? Why could I still see the room, with much more clarity than before, and smell even the blood running in everybody's veins?
What had they done to me?
I tried to scream, but no sound came out of the wolf's snout. Instead, she moved back just a little, and I realized she was on all fours. Her muscles locked tight, and she was focusing on Liam, the witch who'd done this to us. Her teeth were bared. I could feel them as if they were mine, and it blew my mind all over again. Is this what she felt when I was in control of my body? Like a tourist, like a guest, like the audience of a circus, able to do nothing but watch and be in awe.
But I was more scared than amazed. I was terrified.
"My God," Yumi said, slowly stepping in front of me. He looked down at me, but my head was higher than it had been when I'd been sitting on the ground.
No, wait. My wolf was higher than I had been. Just how big was she?
Her jaws unlocked, and she let out a low growl. I recognized it. It was her warning. She made this same sound in my head sometimes.
"Are you seeing this?" Yumi asked Liam the witch, who'd stopped chanting but was too shocked at the sight of my wolf to even lower his shaking hands. He didn't even dare blink.
"Master is going to be forever thankful, people. We've just earned ourselves a prime place in his heaven!" Yumi clapped his hands and smiled brightly, which did something to my wolf's guts. She wanted his head. She wanted to taste his blood, and there was no rational thought behind it.
The same second, she jumped forward but hit an invisible wall. The wall of the ritual. Falling on the ground, she jumped back up on all fours instantly, never looking away from Yumi. But I wanted to see Izzy. What was she doing? How could I tell her now to get the hell out of here?
"Okay, we're going to take her down once more, wait until she shifts back, and we can transport her. Is everything in position?" Yumi said, his smile dropping suddenly as my wolf turned to the others. As she turned to my sister.
But neither she nor his men could look away from me.
"Hey!" Yumi clapped his hands again, the sound so fucking irritating to my wolf, it drove her nuts. But now, she knew better than to try to attack.
Not yet. We'd have to wait until the ritual was…what? What happened to rituals? Did they ever run out of juice? Because time was what we didn't have. "Attention, please! We have to get going, people!"
And the people started to move, all at once. Even my sister.
Two werewolves drew out big guns made of plastic. That's what they'd used on me when they caught me in my neighborhood. Tranquilizers.
Small, nasty looking needles coming out of plastic barrels. My wolf didn't like them any more than I did.
Think, think, think, I thought to myself with no idea if she could hear me or not, but I could think all day long and it wouldn't make a difference.
There was no way I was getting out of this without breaking the ritual.
The werewolves raised their plastic guns at me. They took aim and put their fingers on the trigger.
My wolf howled, the sound making the ground shiver, or so it seemed to me.
And then… "I seriously hope I'm not late to the party, fellas. Traffic was terrible."
Everybody turned their heads to the left, to the stairway and the door that led to the wide room. Even my wolf curiously watched the man standing by the door, holding another like he was a baby.
I couldn't believe my own eyes. Or my wolf's. It was the vampire Red, and he had one of Yumi's werewolves unconscious—or dead—in his arm, his neck a torn, red mess.
Everything happened so suddenly. Nobody was interested in my wolf anymore. Everybody had turned their attention and guns to Red, and he didn't seem the least bit concerned about it.
Why would he when, as soon as the others began to shoot, he let go of the dead body in his arm and jumped over the railing? My wolf's eyesight was much better than mine. The image was crisp clear, as if watching a movie in 3D. Her nose, too, so I smelled the vampire even before I saw him. He moved so incredibly fast, and he was so unpredictable, it was impossible to keep track of him. He jumped at the first werewolf with his legs on his shoulders, and broke the guy's neck with a swift movement of his hands. By the time the others aimed their guns at him, Red jumped again, the werewolf under him falling to the floor. Red then moved to the fifth werewolf in the row, a man standing right in front of Izzy, and I almost peed myself. I couldn't let him hurt my sister.
But Red had a gun of his own. With it, he shot the werewolf in the top of his head, then jumped on the floor rolling. The rest moved quickly away from him, shooting without stop. A couple bullets had caught Red on the torso. I could see the holes and the blood on his shirt, but he didn't seem to mind. What he did next was go after Liam the witch.
My heart almost gave up on me. Another werewolf stepped in front of Liam, but Red grabbed his gun and pulled, then knocked his forehead to the werewolf's before taking his feet from under him. He fought like he'd done this a thousand times before, and maybe he had. He jumped at Liam with his mouth wide open, his teeth white and razor sharp. For some reason, the sight didn't scare me. It irritated my wolf, but it didn't scare me.
Red caught Liam in the throat, and then the witch fell down to his knees, and the rest continued to shoot at his back. I had no idea how many bullets were buried inside him, but the vampire still stood unaffected.
And then I smelled it. I smelled the magic disappearing from the air.
The ritual losing strength.
My wolf raised her head to the ceiling and howled, the sound beautiful to my ears.
The next second, she jumped forward, and nothing stopped her. No more magic or invisible walls. Liam was dead, and his spell had been broken. Now, my wolf was free.
I tried to get her to focus on Izzy, to get her out of there somehow, but instead, all she could search for was Yumi.
Yumi was scared—terrified as he ran to the stairs that would lead to the outside, together with Izzy and two others of his people. If it were up to me, I'd have let them all escape, but my wolf called the shots now.
She jumped in the air, right over Red's head as he watched her with his mouth open, still standing over Liam's body, and she landed just two feet away from the others.
They shot at me—even my sister, though her gun was turned to the side.
She was pretending to shoot at my wolf just for show. But it didn't matter.
My wolf didn't mind the bullets, either. She shot forward as I watched and slammed her head onto Yumi's stomach. She kept on going while Yumi hit her in the head with his fists as hard as he could. It hurt—he was stronger than he looked—but my wolf was determined.
Yumi hit the wall next to the stairway, and my wolf stepped back. The werewolf delivered another fist onto her nose, which pissed her off very much. With one swift movement, she jumped and closed her jaw on Yumi's shoulder. I heard it all the second her huge teeth closed together. Yumi screamed. She bit off a good chunk of flesh and bone.
And then she went for the face.
In less than a second, Yumi was nothing but dead werewolf meat on the floor.
My wolf turned around furiously, searching the room, but Izzy and the two other werewolves had already left. She sniffed the air hard, but it seemed they'd already left the building, wherever we were.
Her eyes zeroed in on Red. He was the only one in the room still standing. And she growled at him.
"Easy," Red said, slowly stepping away with his hands raised.
My wolf stepped closer to him.
Stop! I shouted. She couldn't hurt Red. He'd saved us. Yes, he was a vampire, but if it wasn't for him, we'd have been on the way to see Yumi's master—probably the Haworth guy—unconscious.
But did she care?
She did not. She continued to approach Red, growling, while he stepped back.
"Easy there, Victoria. We're cool. We're all cool," he said. Those words meant nothing to my wolf.
But they meant something to me.
Never before had I been allowed to witness everything that happened when my wolf took over my body. Never before had I wanted to. She'd buried my mind somewhere deep and nearly suffocated me every time. This time it was different, probably because the witch Liam had forced her out.
And if this was different, others things could have changed, too.
I closed my eyes and focused with all my strength. Maybe I couldn't control her, but I could connect with her. I could make my thoughts her own. I was there, too, damn it. She had to listen to me!
To my utmost surprise, she did. Or maybe she just figured she didn't want Red dead.
Either way, she stopped growling and walking toward him.
"Good girl," I said in my mind's voice. Maybe she heard me, maybe not, but she was at ease. She had even sat down. Her body was wounded by the bullets they'd shot, and those wounds were going to be transferred to me, but it didn't matter. We'd survived, both of us.
Now, it was time she gave way for me once more. I was going to make sure to leave this place as fast as possible. Now that I knew where Izzy had been, it was going to be easier to find her. And maybe—just maybe— working with Red wouldn't be such a bad idea. Maybe we could help each other, if we didn't rip each other apart first.
Maybe.