Blood Ties: The First

Kendra watched with shock and horror. She couldn’t believe what was happening. The guy she thought had been flirting with her for the last two weeks just presented all her ideas in her company’s morning meeting like they were his own. She wanted to stop him. She wanted to scream and yell at him, but the words wouldn’t come out. They stuck in her throat, forming a lump. In the end, all she could do was sit there and watch. She tried to keep her face impassive and emotionless, but she felt her eyes tearing up anyway.

“E-excuse me,” she said, rising from her seat.

Her voice was small and sounded like she was on the verge of crying. As she got up, her eyes just happened to meet Tyler’s (which was the asshole's name). There was an undeniable spark of enjoyment in him at what he did to her. It was like he was proud of himself.

She almost broke down and cried right there, but she managed to walk out of the room a second before the tears flowed freely.

She ran through the luxurious offices where she worked. Her dried out, boring, and stupid hair was flying out behind her. Her big, clumsy feet slapped at the hardwood floors. It felt like her body was mocking her with its ugly little imperfections.

All her life she’d been the awkward, goofy girl that was shy and reserved. She was always afraid to let anyone know how she really felt. People like Tyler, the pretty, beautiful people of the world, felt like it was their duty to use and abuse her.

She absolutely hated it.

She still remembered how it felt when Tyler came into her office, flirting with her. She hadn’t known then that the only thing he was looking for was her ideas. Their firm had a new client, and he wanted to impress them. Instead of doing any real work, he came to her and got her to drop her guard. Then he stole everything she came up with.

And she let him do it.

She hated herself for being such an idiot. How could she possibly think a guy like Tyler would be interested in her? The idea itself was ludicrous. It was flat out idiotic!

She felt the tears rushing down her cheeks even faster now.

She could feel all the eyes on her as her co-workers watched her run away. She felt like a complete fool, and she felt like everyone at her work thought the same thing.

So she left. It wasn't the smartest thing to do, or the most professional, but that didn’t matter. She just couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t take Tyler. She couldn’t take her own failures. She couldn't take watching the people around her make jokes and then point and laugh at her. It was too much.

Eventually, she made it out of the building. She stood on the sidewalk, still crying, and tried to hail a cab. Several went past without stopping until one of them finally pulled up to the curb. She got in and gave the driver her address. Then the cab moved into traffic. Sometime later, it pulled up to her apartment building.

She paid her fare, got out, and ran into her building without looking back. She pounded a finger into the elevator button and backed up a step, waiting. She rubbed the tears out of her eyes and then wrapped her arms around her stomach. Her mind was an emotional whirlpool, and it made her feel sick. At the heart of it all was a nearly blinding frustration.

Frustration at the world, but mostly she frustration with herself.

The elevator doors opened, and she numbly walked inside. When it got to her floor, she got out and ran to her apartment. She fumbled with the key for a minute before managing to get it unlocked and opened.

After she was inside, she immediately walled herself in her bedroom and away from the shitty outside world.

Some part of her felt like she was being childish, that she should’ve stuck up for herself and called Tyler out for what he did. That part was weak though. That part never won. The childish part of herself always won. That was the part that seemed to make her cry at a moment’s notice. It was the part that made her run instead of standing up for herself and taking what was hers. It was the part that made her hide inside her bedroom for hours at a time.

An hour, maybe two, went past. Then someone knocked on her door. It interrupted her miserable self-loathing. She jumped, startled by the loud and unwelcome sound.

“Go away!” she yelled.

“Kendra!” a voice called back.

That was Jenna, her roommate and best friend. Jenna was also a model. A freaking model! She was the last person Kendra wanted to see or talk to right now. Jenna had men literally throwing themselves at her, while she only had men trying to scheme their way into her defenses long enough to steal everything from her.

She threw a pillow at the door halfheartedly. The soft thump it made was not nearly as satisfying as she wanted.

“You can’t keep hiding in your room whenever something goes wrong. Come out. We’ll talk about it,” Jenna went on.

But Kendra didn’t want to talk, at least not with Jenna. Ms. Perfection didn’t know what it felt like. Ms. Gets-Everything-Handed-To-Her-On-A-Silver-Platter wouldn’t know the first thing about what she went through every day. Kendra didn’t want to hear her friend’s false sympathy or her pretend understanding.

Jenna wouldn’t quit though. She kept at it, and the more she talked, the angrier Kendra got. It finally got so bad she decided she couldn’t be there anymore. She needed to leave. If she had to hear one more of Jenna’s “It’s not as bad as you think” speeches, she thought she might put her fist through a wall. She needed a place to think. She needed out. And she knew where to go.

She suddenly got up and went to her bathroom, running a brush through her tangled hair as quickly as she could. Then she opened the door. Jenna was on the other side. The sight of her made Kendra want to cry all over again. Her model roommate was a perfect 10 in every sense of the description. Killer, athletic body with long blonde hair. She had dazzling blue eyes that were bright with intelligence and compassion. Her face was flawless and smooth, despite the fact that there was a slight frown to her lips.

Kendra slid past Jenna without a word and headed for the front door. She ignored all of Jenna's questions as she opened it—and also ignored the concern laced in her friend’s voice. She stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her, cutting off whatever else Jenna had to say.

She got back in the elevator and rode it down. When she stepped into the lobby, she kept her eyes glued to the granite-tiled floor. She headed straight for the doors, ignoring the people bustling about around her, and walked outside. The sky was a dusky, evening blue. Traces of pink and purple were just starting to stain the horizon.

She hailed another cab, told the driver where to go, and then waited in silence. Ten minutes later, it parked on the street in front of a simple storefront. The sign above it read Bendis Tattoos. She didn’t know what the name Bendis referred to, but she thought it was a pretty-sounding nonetheless.

She paid her fare, went inside, and was immediately hit with the familiar aroma of incense mixed with Glade's Hawaiian Aloha plug-in air freshener. The main part of the shop was just one big room, with walls painted a dark crimson red. The floor was covered with chestnut-colored hardwood that was polished to a high shine. Covering the walls was every manner of tattoo imaginable. They were artfully arranged in simple black picture frames.

She found the shop shortly after she graduated from high school. Or, more accurately, Bendis found her. She got an email one day saying they saw her art at a showing her school put on every year and they wanted her to do some work for them. She loved to draw, so she figured why not, and the extra money for college didn't hurt either. She hadn’t known what to expect going there the first time, but soon after meeting the owner, all her worries dissipated. Over the years, she still sent in some of her tattoo concepts to the shop, and looking around the place, she could spot several of them hanging on the walls. She even saw her favorite out of all the pieces she'd ever done. That one was an interlocking design of tribal butterflies meant to go around the neck like a necklace.

She heard footsteps.

“Hey, kiddo,” a deep-throated voice hailed. There was a faint British lilt to it that she always found comforting.

She looked up and saw the owner of the shop, Merle Bane, walking out of one of the rooms in the back. He was drying his hands off on a pristine white towel. He had a wide smile on his broad face that lit up his grey eyes.

That was the real reason she liked coming to Bendis. Not because of the money she’d been able to make, but because she always felt loved there. It was strange, she knew that, but she couldn’t help how she felt. Merle treated her better than anyone else had in her entire life.

“Hey,” she responded. Despite how good it felt being back, she couldn’t keep some of the sadness out of her voice. Merle picked up on it immediately.

“Something wrong?” he asked, concerned. She liked hearing the real, genuine worry in his voice. She didn’t have a lot of people that really cared about her. Reflecting on it, Jenna was probably the only other one. But she felt she connected better with Merle at times. He seemed to understand her and what she went through better than Jenna.

“Bad day at work,” she explained, sitting down on a black leather sofa. She exhaled loudly and leaned her head into her hands. She cried softly as she remembered the look in Tyler’s eyes.

Merle sat down next to her, his broad hand rubbing her back with affection and care.

“What happened?” he asked.

She hesitated for a second, as if ashamed to continue. Her head was still in her hands, but she managed to pick it up weakly and look Merle in the eyes. Hers were red and puffy.

“Some asshole stole all my ideas for a new client. Every last one of them. And I just sat there like an idiot and let him do it.”

Merle was silent for a long time as he took that in.

“Ah…is that it, then?” he finally said.

She was expecting something more sage-like, full of the wisdom of the ages and all that stuff. She wasn’t expecting a simple 'Ah…is that it, then?' She looked at him, confused.

He stared back at her and shrugged.

“What?”

“That’s all you got?” she asked, disbelievingly. She stopped crying as she looked at him.

“That’s it,” he replied.

“Not even a 'keep your chin up'?”

“Look,” he replied, seriously. “I’ve told you already. You won’t get respect from others unless you stand up to them and force them to look at you differently. Until you do that, I’m afraid you’re gonna be stuck in those situations over and over again, unable to do anything. People only walk all over you because you let them. Like the bloody git that stole your ideas.”

“I wish I could do that. I really do. But instead, I freeze. Like I did today,” she replied. She looked out the window.

It was dark now. Bright lights from dozens of lampposts outside bathed the street. Trash and debris fluttered down the sidewalks and streets, carried along by errant gusts of wind. She tracked each of them, finding it soothing to lose herself in such a boring task. It was easier than facing her failures.

She stayed that way for a long time, just thinking. Merle didn’t say a word. He left her to her thoughts, to come to terms with what happened her own way.

Kendra replayed what Merle said in her mind like a broken record. His words tumbled through it like cascading boulders.

Force them to look at you differently.

But how? she asked herself.

The answer finally came to her, and she whirled around with a sharp, slightly eerie look in her eyes. A look that said, plain as day, she had an idea she thought was brilliant.

“You’re right. I need them all to look at me differently,” she said suddenly, a bright, eager smile on her face. “I need a change, a very drastic, completely un-Kendra type of change that nobody would ever expect out of me.”

“I’m afraid to ask, but what kind of change would that be?”

She knew the answer to that question. She looked at the framed picture of her tribal necklace.

“I want a tattoo,” she said, standing up. Her voice was confident. She walked to her tattoo, her absolute favorite. It was fitting that it would be the one she chose for herself.

“A tattoo?” Merle asked. He was still on the sofa, his head turned so that he could see her. Kendra wasn’t paying attention to him. She missed the drawn, pensive look on his face. He looked like he was weighing something heavily in his mind.

“What’s the matter? You don’t think I should get one?”

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t answer her.

“Merle?”

He came back to himself, focusing his attention back on Kendra.

“Sorry,” he told her with a small smile. “Just hate to see you like this.”

“Then give me the tattoo.”

He hesitated again, but she frowned at him.

“Please,” she begged, drawing out the word and giving him a puppy-dog look on top of it.

Merle thought about it some more and then finally made up his mind. He didn’t feel good about it. In fact, he felt terrified of it. This was not something he ever intended to happen, but he couldn’t ignore certain truths anymore. He had to do what he could to protect her. Eventually, he thought, the pros would outweigh the cons.

“Okay.” He got up. “Which one?”

She pointed to the necklace of butterflies.

“I always liked that one the best,” he said as he joined her in front of the tattoo. “It’s a beautiful, intricate piece. It suited you the moment I saw it, so I never put that tattoo on anyone else, even though a lot of people wanted it.”

“Really?” she asked, smiling for the first time since she got there.

“Yes. Now, come on. Let’s go.” He led her down a hallway to the last door on the right.

He opened it and they went inside. The room looked more like a dentist’s office than anything else. Plain white cabinets were affixed to the wall on their left as they walked in with a plain counter underneath them. Merle's tattoo gun and supplies sat on a metal tray next to a long chair covered in white leather.

It was very intimidating, that chair. And a little creepy.

He led her to it and she sat down, not really feeling nervous at all. There was a heady excitement racing through her mind, and she actually found herself reveling in it. She hadn’t felt like that since she was a kid after finding new and adventurous things to do for fun. That feeling of excitement quickly turned to a fluttering nervousness in her stomach as she watched Merle get his equipment ready.

Suddenly, things got super real.

This is insane! Her mind screamed at her. You can’t do this.

She ignored that voice though and fought her nervousness down. She had to do this.

Had to.

Her entire life she’d been paying attention to that voice way too much. That was the same voice that told her to just sit there and take Tyler’s crap. It was the one that told her to let people walk all over her.

She was done listening to that voice.

“I’ll be back in a minute. There‘s a special kind of ink I‘d like to use,” Merle said as he walked out of the room.

She nodded, and when he left, she focused on her drawing. The nervousness slowly started seeping out of her while the excitement rushed back in to fill its place. She couldn’t wait for it to be done. She could already see everyone’s reaction in her mind. She saw their gasps, their shock, and their awe.

It was going to be great. For once, she wasn’t going to feel like a complete loser.

A small, vindictive smile spread across her lips, and she was still wearing it when Merle came back in. He noticed it, and a look of unease flitted across his eyes, like he was torn about something. It slowly faded and resolve took its place. Kendra thought it was a weird look for him to have, but her growing excitement over getting a tattoo quickly washed that away.

He smiled reassuringly at her and then went about preparing the ink, showing her the stuff before he affixed the little bottle to the gun. It was black, but when he held it up to the harsh fluorescents in the little room, it took on a slightly reddish tone. He put it down for a moment and traced the drawing onto her neck. Then he started up the gun and went to work.

She was fine at first. The tattoo gun hurt, but it wasn’t so bad that she couldn’t take it. Then something weird happened. The tattoo started to burn, like it was acid eating away at her skin. Her head began spinning uncomfortably. She felt like all the energy in her body was slowly being leached away from her. It wasn’t long before her vision started to go a little hazy. The colors in the room started draining away, only to be replaced by a world of monochromatic amber hues. She shook her head. She could blearily make out Merle taking a step back, arms lifted.

Then her whole world went black.

 

| | | | |

 

Merle watched Kendra lose consciousness with feelings of sadness mixed with regret. He eyed her tattoo. He hadn’t lied to her about that. It really was a beautiful piece and well suited to her. He’d known it since the day she’d brought it to him. He sighed. The work wasn’t finished yet. He needed to get it done. As he worked on it, images of his own long ago youth flashed in his mind but he shook them off. That particular distraction was disquieting. Some of his childhood hadn’t been pleasant, and he knew for a fact that things weren’t going to get any easier for Kendra. He didn’t like that. He wanted to protect her from all the things that could hurt her, but the truth was, he couldn’t. He was old, and getting older by the minute it seemed. Pretty soon, he would be gone and she would be left in the open to fend for herself.

This is a mistake, he told himself. She’ll be pissed off when she finds out what you did to her.

I didn’t have a choice, he replied to himself. I had to take the opportunity. If not now, when I can do something to give her a fighting chance, then when?

When you tell her the truth, his mind shot back.

The inner dialogue stopped with that. He sighed heavily and finished the last bits of the tattoo. There was a nauseating feeling in the pit of his stomach. No matter how he tried to rationalize it, he couldn’t make himself believe that he’d done the right thing. When he was completely finished, he dropped the tattoo gun on the tray and just stared at the limp, unconscious woman.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “But I had to. It’s for your own good. Maybe someday, you’ll see that.”

He left her slumped in his chair, her head held limply to one side.

 

| | | | |

 

Kendra woke up feeling like she got herself good and hammered and now she was paying for it. Her head ached nauseatingly. She could feel the blood at her temples pulsing, and it gave her a sickly feeling that spread through her whole body. Her mouth was dry and felt like it had been stuffed with about a thousand cotton balls. She wiped at it absently, noticing how weak she felt as she tried to raise her arm. Her head felt like a heavy ball attached to her neck. She tried to move it but was too weak.

She had no idea what happened. She tried to remember the details and couldn’t. Her memory stopped abruptly, shortly after the tattoo got started.

The tattoo! she thought, her mind racing frantically.

She raised a hand up to her neck, feeling around the tender area. Her fingers brushed against what felt like medical tape and gauze bandages. It hurt, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it would be.

She looked around the little room but didn’t find any mirrors. She tried to get up, but the blood rushing into her already fuzzy head put her down again in about a second.

“Merle!” she tried to yell. The only thing that came out was a croaky-sounding whisper. She coughed harshly for a bit and then managed to get herself under control.

The door opened suddenly.

Merle came in, his gray eyes careworn. There were lines and wrinkles on his face that she didn’t remember being there when she’d first come in. He gave her a small smile, touched with sadness. She looked at him, perplexed.

Her stomach fluttered with fear.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. “Did something go wrong with my tattoo?”

“No, no,” he responded quickly. “Nothing’s wrong. It came out just fine. It looks great on you if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Then don’t come in here looking like your dog just got run over. You freaked me out,” she admonished.

He wasn’t exactly sure how to react to her. He tried to force a smile, but it felt awkward.

“Sorry.” He patted her hand instead. There was so much he wanted to tell her. So many things that he needed to tell her, but his throat seemed to constrict on him every time he was close to actually spilling the truth. He smiled at her instead, his grin forced and awkward.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

She was an astute girl. That much was certain. She picked up on things a lot faster than most people.

“You look really…I don’t know…sad.”

“It’s…uh…nothing,” he stammered. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

“All right. I guess,” she answered, unconvinced.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her. “Didn’t expect you to pass out on me.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure what happened. I don’t remember.”

“Well, how about you go on home now. Get some rest. I’m positive you’ll feel better by the morning.”

She nodded. Her neck, at least, felt stronger. She could move her head more now.

“How much do I owe for the tattoo?” She wasn’t worried about it being expensive. A graphic designer at one of the city’s most prestigious firms paid well.

“This one’s on the house,” he said, smiling his familiar broad (and slightly goofy-looking) grin.

“Really? Are you sure?’”

“I wouldn’t take your money even if you asked me to. Let’s call it a present.”

“Thank you,” she responded with deep gratitude.

She eased her way out of the chair. Merle helped her. When she finally stood up, she gave him a big hug.

“Now,” Merle started, “go on home. Get some sleep. Leave the bandage on for at least two hours and then wash it gently with anti-bacterial soap. Give it some time to heal and you’ll be right as rain.”

She nodded, smiling back at him as she got out of the chair. She wobbled a bit, but Merle was there to steady her. Her head still felt a little fuzzy.

She glanced at a mirror on the wall in front of her and saw the thin bandages covering her new tattoo. Merle secured them to her skin with medical tape. Despite it being covered, it throbbed and pulsed with a life of its own.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Merle asked her.

She could hear the unmistakable concern in his voice, which was accentuated by the sudden thickening of his accent. That only happened when he was stressed or worried about something. She reflected on how good that felt. How good it felt to know that someone was actually concerned about her. There weren’t many people in her life that cared. Her parents were non-entities, or at least they might as well have been. She didn’t know her father and her mother had gone insane. She was currently locked away in New Haven Asylum and had been there since Kendra was a little girl.

Thinking about her mother was enough to bring back that horrifying, terrible event that changed her life forever.

Water was enveloping her entire head. It rushed down her nose and throat. She choked on it and cried. Or she tried to at least. Strong, merciless hands were holding her down. They were forcing her down! She couldn’t get back up. She couldn’t fight her way out.

She could feel the water in her lungs. She could feel it working to snuff out her life.

She was only five.

The person above her, trying her best to kill her, was her own mother.

Kendra gasped suddenly as the shock of the memory jolted her like electricity. A tear rolled down her cheek. She never knew why her mom tried to kill her. After that day, she fell into a semi-catatonic state. She wouldn’t talk to anyone, especially her own daughter.

Needless to say, Merle had been more of a parent to her than any of her biological ones. And she cherished that connection.

He looked at her now, his concern deepening.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she responded with a small, reassuring smile. “Just a bad memory, that’s all. I’m all right now. By the way, I think I can walk on my own now.”

He let go of her, as per instruction, and watched her carefully, ready to jump in should she teeter one way or the other. She didn’t. She got steadier the longer she was up, and stronger. Her balance returned and the dizziness and nausea finally left her. They walked out of the room and into the main part of the shop. She went and retrieved her purse. It rattled with various keys, change, and bits of makeup. She turned and looked at Merle.

“Thanks. It’s nice to know I have you to come to.”

He smiled back at her and walked up to give her a hug. His massive arms enfolded her and nearly crushed her ribs. She didn’t mind though. It was actually sort of comforting.

“I already called a cab for you,” Merle told her. “It should be here in a few minutes. Do you want to wait in here for it?”

Kendra thought for a moment.

“No. I think I’ll wait outside. The fresh air might do me some good. Go ahead and lock up. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he responded. “Take care of yourself.”

“I will,” she said.

He retreated down the hall to the stairs that led to the apartment above the shop.

“And get some sleep!” he yelled out.

“Will do,” she returned, smiling.

She saw him disappear up the stairs and heard loud stomps and creaking footsteps above her shortly after. She smiled to herself and absently fingered the bandages around her neck.

She walked out of the tattoo parlor and waited on the street in front. It was empty. Ordinarily, that would’ve been peculiar, but she’d grown accustomed to the fact that nobody seemed to be out after dark in that neighborhood. Merle explained once that people were too scared of getting robbed or something.

She took a deep breath. The air was cold in her nose and smelled like winter. There wasn’t any snow on the ground yet, but she could smell winter on the air none-the-less. It smelled good to her. It smelled…clean, almost. She couldn’t quite describe it.

She let her thoughts wander some more when a different smell filtered through her nose. There was the smell of winter still, but something different was lurking beneath that smell. Something that smelled vaguely like…cologne? It was a woodsy kind of scent. Not only that but it smelled familiar too. She tried to remember where she smelled it before but couldn’t. What she was sure of, however, was that it was definitely manufactured. The more she breathed in, the more she was able to actually separate and catalog the different chemicals that were mixed into the cologne. It was amazing. It was like her nose was as sharp as a bloodhound's.

Have I always smelled things this good?

Her nostrils flared even wider.

There's no way. This is new. This is new and very, very weird.

She breathed deeply again.

So many different smells!

Suddenly, she realized her enhanced sense of smell wasn’t the only thing that was different about her.

Her other senses were sharper too. The darkness didn’t seem so dark anymore. She could hear damn near everything, even a fly buzzing fifty feet away. She could feel the slightest tremble in the earth from people and cars that were nowhere near her or the shop.

Underneath all that, however, she caught the soft thumping of a beating heart. It was faint but the sound was unmistakable.

Her body suddenly tensed and instincts she never knew she had jumped in, taking control. Her eyes swiveled to the spot where the thumping heart was coming from and she dropped into a low crouch, poised like an animal ready to pounce. Then she narrowed her eyes and watched the darkness of an alley that was between two buildings. It was pitch black there, but for some reason, she could still vaguely see things. Vaguely, she could just make out shapes and objects.

She concentrated even harder.

There!

She saw somebody moving. Somebody was in there and they were watching her.

Without thinking, she ran full out toward the alley. A part of her mind screamed at her to stop. That she was crazy to go after someone hiding in near-total darkness.

What the hell is going on? that part of her also screamed. Something’s wrong.

Have fun and hunt down your stalker, another part of her brain told her.

She followed the second voice’s advice. She didn’t want to let the rational part of her brain take over because all she cared about was how great she felt. How absolutely awesome she felt. Every part of her seemed energized and tingled with life. She loved the way the wind flowed through her hair as she ran. She loved the way her body moved as she hunted the figure hiding in the shadows. She loved everything. Asking why it was all happening was a buzz-killing question and so she stopped thinking about it. She stopped asking herself why and just reveled in that hunt, in the chase, in the pure joy of running someone down.

She got to the alley. There was a lingering scent of cologne still hanging in the air. She sniffed more deeply, and this time she smelled an underlying ozone-like smell. It reminded her of the way the air smelled after a thunderstorm. The man that had been there, however, was gone. She sniffed again, but the trail ran dead. It was like he just vanished into thin air.

She looked around, confused. After a couple of minutes spent trying to locate the person spying on her, and failing, she returned to the street. The cab was idling in front of Merle’s shop. She hurried over and got in. Ten minutes later she was at her apartment building. She gave the cabbie a big tip, feeling weirdly generous, and got out.

“Evening, Ms. Henner,” the doorman said as she walked up. He was an older, good-natured man with refined manners.

“Hi,” she replied with a bright smile as she walked past him and into her building.

She rode the elevator up to her floor and then walked down the hall to her apartment. There was a tiny knot of dread in the pit of her stomach. She hoped Jenna was asleep or not there.

“Where have you been?” she heard her ask as soon as she opened the door.

“I’m fine. No need to worry,” she replied.

“You know, I was like ten seconds away from calling the cops,” Jenna scolded. She was on the couch, the TV dark and silent. There was relief plainly visible in her eyes. “You scared me to death.”

“Like I said. I’m fine. I’m going to bed. We’ll talk about it in the morning, okay?”

Jenna looked about to protest, but Kendra didn’t give her a chance. She went straight to her bedroom and shut the door behind her. At that point, she didn’t really care whether Jenna was angry with her or not.

She sat down on her bed, but her body was starting to feel strangely hyper. Her flesh was still singing with all her pent-up energy. She felt like running from one side of the country to the other like Forrest Gump. She felt like she could take on the Hulk and win. She felt like she could jump to the moon if she wanted.

She sat on her bed, thinking to herself. Her foot tapped lightly on her floor but she did it over and over again at about a hundred miles per hour. The noise of it calmed her a little bit. It gave her something to focus on.

What’s happening to me? She asked herself, wondering whether to be scared or pleased. On the one hand, it was a bit scary. All of these changes were happening to her. She was smelling better, hearing better, and seeing better. She was way faster than ever before, even back in high school when she’d been more active. She was so hyper she couldn’t sit still. She had to tap her foot incessantly on her floor. She got up and paced the room, going back and forth, back and forth.

It has to be the excitement of getting the tattoo. That must be it. It’s just got me wound up. I’m anxious to see everyone’s reactions tomorrow, that’s all. It’s making me crazy.

That seemed to work for her. The annoying (and persistently rational) part of her brain accepted it with almost no fight at all. It was, after all, the only thing that made sense.

Didn’t it?

Yes.

You sure?

Yes. Yes, all right? It’s the only thing that makes sense, so you just have to believe it.

But something isn’t right.

It doesn’t matter, just accept it!

Fine, I will.

Good. Now go to sleep.

“Sleep. Guess that’s better than nothing.” She nodded to herself and got up. She grabbed her pajamas out of one of her drawers. Then she looked at the clock next to her bed and realized it had been about two hours and fifteen minutes since she’d left Merle’s shop. She couldn’t believe she’d been sitting in her room that long, but the clock didn’t lie.

She went into her bathroom and set her pajamas on the toilet seat. Next, she went over to the mirror and started peeling off the bandages covering the tattoo. She ran the water, got some soap, and rubbed it as gently as she could to clean off all the blood and gunk. It stung and the thing was still throbbing oddly. When she was sure it was as clean as it was going to get, she grabbed a towel and patted it dry.

It hurt and she winced slightly even though she was barely touching her skin. When she was finished, she stripped out of her clothes and put on her pajamas.

“What the…?” she asked herself. Her top didn’t feel right anymore. It was tighter across her chest. She looked down. “Uh…” She looked in the mirror. Her same, dull reflection stared back at her. “I’m going crazy. No. No, I’m not. I’m not insane. Just go to bed. Get some sleep.”

She shook her head back and forth, hoping to clear it of the crazy. A nervous fear caused her stomach to lurch. Her mind flashed back to the only other experience with crazy she had; when her mother had tried to drown her.

She slid into bed, her fear still bubbling underneath the surface.

“I’m not crazy,” she mumbled to herself just before sleep hit her like a runaway train.

 

| | | | |

 

She smelled coffee. It hung in the air like a cloud. More accurately, she smelled a Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha espresso from Starbucks. It was her favorite. Her mouth watered. She took in a deep breath. She smelled food, too. Asiago bagels, she realized. Jenna had gone all out. She hurriedly got out of bed, the smells wonderfully alluring. She wandered into the kitchen feeling like one of those old Bugs Bunny cartoons where the character drifts on a heavenly cloud tendril that beckons them on with a tempting, ethereal finger.

Jenna was waiting for her, but her reaction wasn’t what Kendra expected. Her mouth was open in complete shock. She was staring hard at Kendra, disbelief etched on her face.

Kendra was getting really uncomfortable. Jenna looking at her like that was making her self-conscious. She felt her face get warm as her embarrassment levels rose.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she said, but Jenna wouldn’t.

“What happened to you?” Jenna asked, her eyes wide and round.

“What?” Kendra asked. Then she remembered the tattoo and blushed. “Oh. That. I got a tattoo last night.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Then Jenna shook her head as if her brain finally processed the words Kendra just said. “Tattoo? You got a tattoo?”

“Yep. I went to Bendis last night to talk to Merle. Then I decided I needed a change, so I got a tattoo. What were you talking about?”

“Okay. Then I was talking about the rest. What happened to you?”

“What do you mean the rest?”

“I mean the way you look, Kendra,” she answered, exasperated. She talked to her friend like she was a child that couldn’t understand a simple concept. “You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed what?” Kendra was getting irritated.

Jenna ignored her. She walked out of the kitchen and into her bedroom. Kendra took the time to guzzle about half her coffee and eat almost her entire bagel. She was just putting her cup back down when Jenna returned, carrying a small hand mirror. She calmly walked up and put it in front of Kendra’s face.

Kendra stared at her own reflection, bewildered. The person staring back only vaguely resembled her. The hair was probably the first thing she noticed. Her hair was usually dried out, almost straw-like. Now it was lustrous and shiny and silky to the touch. She ran her fingers through it to confirm it and found they glided through with effortless ease. Her face was different too. It had been marred by bits of acne and old acne scars. Now it was…smooth. It was sexy. Flawless. The chubbiness to her cheeks had disappeared too, and her high cheekbones were accentuated beautifully. She flashed her teeth and found them to be a bright, unmarred white.

What happened to me?

She looked away from the mirror and glanced at her body.

My dumpy, blah body, she thought.

She sucked in a breath.

What the hell? She asked herself.

It wasn’t dumpy anymore. Instead it was toned. It was slim. It had shape and beauty. Her ass was bigger, but firm, and her boobs had gained at least one, maybe two, sizes.

“What the hell?” Kendra asked in a whisper, this time out loud.

“Yeah, I know,” Jenna responded. “What did you do? I could’ve sworn you had work done, except for the fact that when you went to bed last night, you didn‘t look like that. This? I don’t know what this is. Did you sell your soul or something?’

Kendra didn’t answer her. Her attention suddenly drifted away from their conversation. She diverted her focused on something she was hearing. It was a slight, repeated thumping in the hall outside their apartment.

Footsteps, she realized.

She sniffed at the air. The faint aroma of cheap cologne came back to her. Her face twisted in minor disgust.

“Marco’s on his way,” Kendra said, ignoring their previous conversation altogether.

“What are you talking about? You can’t possibly know that,” Jenna scoffed.

Loud knocking followed right on the heels of her last word. Jenna jumped, almost knocking her coffee down in the process. The cup teetered on the edge of dumping its contents all over their immaculate counter. Kendra dashed forward, as quickly as a rabbit making a run from its cage. She steadied the cup before it could fall all the way. Jenna was stunned. She looked at Kendra, then at the door and back at her roommate again.

“What’s going on?’

Kendra held a finger up to her lips, telling Jenna to be quiet.

“Hello!” Marco yelled from the other side of their door. The H sound wasn’t pronounced due to the thick Italian accent to his rough voice.

Jenna was about to answer it but Kendra beat her to it. Marco was Jenna’s ex and a real asshole. He’d cheated on her at least a dozen times, was always making rude comments to her, and had even physically threatened her. On top of that, he was a male model, so despite her hatred of him and what he did to her, they had, on occasion, been forced to work together. Added on top of all of that drama was the fact that he lived in their building too. He was constantly trying to get back together with Jenna, despite her dismissals and rejections. He was a persistent annoyance but one that she never did anything about.

Kendra never understood why Jenna refused to do anything about the pig.

“Hello?” Marco called again.

Kendra threw the door open.

Marco stood there with a box of exotic chocolates in one hand and a large bouquet of flowers in the other. He was dressed in an expensive grey shirt, black pants and (of course) Italian leather shoes. The top three buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing a little of his hairless, tanned chest. The expensive clothes were a weird contradiction to the cheap, disgusting cologne he habitually wore.

No doubt about it though, he was definitely a great looking guy. He had black hair that was styled professionally, dark eyes, and skin tanned a deep bronze. His squared-off jaw was emphasized with a slender beard that melded perfectly with an equally thin goatee. He was well-built, with a good-looking, muscular frame.

His face, however, was marred by a look of stunned wonder as he took in the new and improved Kendra.

 “She doesn’t want the stupid chocolates or the flowers, so beat it,” Kendra told him, her voice strong and confident. She felt a powerful surge of pride at that. Before, she wouldn’t have said two words to the guy. Now she was commanding him to beat it.

It felt great!

He didn’t respond. He just stood there with a bewildered, uncomprehending look on his face. She wanted to laugh, it was so absurd. The man was almost never speechless. A professional, well-known male model was struck dumb by her! Her! It was funny.

“Kendra? That is you, no?” he asked. The shock wore off and was replaced by a slimy look to his eyes, like a starving man in front of a giant feast. She almost felt it when his eyes slithered over her body.

“Maybe I could come in, no?” He leaned toward her. The smell of his horrible cologne smacked her in the face and she fought the urge to gag.

“Why the hell should I?” she asked him, her nose wrinkling from his stench.

“You don’t have to play games with me,” he whispered to her. His dark eyes flashed with a slight spark of anger. He started trying to push his way past, but she didn’t budge. “I know you want me. Everyone does. It's ok. There's no shame. And since I am a man that can fully appreciate your…changes, maybe I can convince Jenna to let you join us in the bedroom, no?”

Then he laughed at her. It was a barking kind of sound full of scorn and cruelty. He stopped abruptly, a dangerous glint to his eyes, and then tried to push past her again.

Kendra’s arm flashed in a blur. She got ahold of Marco’s wrist and held him there.

“Una brutta!” he yelled in fury.

He whirled on her, getting ready to physically assault her, but she wasn’t the same person she was yesterday. She felt it deep inside her now. There was a primal energy welling up from her soul that made her stronger, faster and a lot more fearless. She smirked as she stopped Marco in his tracks.

“Kendra! What are you doing?” Jenna yelled, coming to see what the commotion was about. She ran up to the pair of them, trying to pry them apart.

“Get back!” Kendra snarled, her eyes locked on Marco’s. “Now!”

Jenna stepped back hesitatingly.

“He’ll hurt you, Kendra,” Jenna told her.

Kendra was holding her own, though, despite the fact that Marco was clearly bigger than her.

“Si,” Marco snarled, leaning his face in closer to hers. “Listen to her. It would be so easy to break you in half.”

Now it was Kendra's turn to laugh. It was a hard, unpleasant-sounding thing that unnerved Marco instantly. He swallowed hard, a little knot of fear and hesitation forming a lump in his throat. She was so damn strong. This wasn’t going at all like he’d planned. She’d always been a quiet girl. What was happening here?

Kendra could smell the fear on him now.

It was so powerful that it even overrode the smell of his cheap cologne. That primal energy inside her swirled and reacted to that smell, flowing up in a flood of pure power. Marco, the closest to her, was the only one that saw her eyes and teeth. He had a great view in fact. He was watching them both when her eyes flashed a bright, terrifying amber. Then he watched as her front teeth elongated into sinister-looking fangs. A second later, he heard a bestial growl flow up her throat.

The next thing he knew, he was flying through the air. The speed of it sank into the pit of his stomach, causing him to close his eyes tightly against the gut-wrenching feeling. He smashed into the wall outside, feeling most of it crumple as his weight hit it. His head whipped back into it next with way too much speed. There was a bright, intense pain and then blackness. He slumped forward, his chin resting on his chest.

“Vaffanculo!” Kendra spat at the slumped form in front of her. Then she whirled away from him and slammed the door behind her.

Jenna was waiting inside, her face slack and unbelieving.

“How did you…” She stopped talking and resorted to glancing swiftly at the door to where Kendra left Marco.

Kendra shrugged.

“Um…would you believe me if I told you I didn’t know what’s happening to me?” she asked.

“Maybe,” Jenna relented. After a pause, she glanced at Kendra inquisitively. “Vaffanculo?”

Kendra laughed.

“I heard you say that to him once or twice. I don’t know what it means, but it sounded appropriate at the time.”

Jenna took that in and then burst out laughing.

“It means…fuck…you. Or…or…fuck…off in Italian,” she managed to say between fits of laughter.

Then they were both laughing. They did so for a long time, unable to stop. Then Kendra started getting worried about Marco. She didn’t hear him get up. She checked the peephole occasionally to see if he was still out there. She saw him three times out of four, still unconscious. After the third time, she thought she might have to call an ambulance. She waited a little bit longer and then checked a fourth time, but that time he was gone. The only thing left was a Marco-sized hole in the wall. She felt a bit of relief. Despite how much she hated the narcissistic bastard, she hadn’t been aiming to kill him.

She turned away from the door and found Jenna watching her with open curiosity. The laughter they had shared seeped out of the room and the seriousness of what transpired reasserted itself.

“I think Marco will make it,” Kendra said, shrugging and walking back into the kitchen to finish her coffee.

“Come on, Kendra,” Jenna said, her voice serious. “What happened to you?”

“I don’t know. I have no clue what’s going on,” she responded, her voice desperate and afraid. Her senses being elevated to near animalistic proportions was disquieting enough, but the display of raw power and strength, although it had felt great at the time, scared her.

“You threw Marco like five or six feet through the air. That’s not normal.”

“Please, can we just drop it? Maybe put it down to adrenaline or something,” Kendra pleaded. She looked at Jenna over the brim of her cup and saw that she wouldn’t.

“I think maybe you should see a doctor or some-”

The phone ringing abruptly cut her off.

Kendra pounced on it, taking the welcomed opportunity to distract her roommate from the conversation they were having. She didn’t care if it turned out to be a telemarketer. She’d stay on the phone until midnight if that’s what it took for Jenna to back down.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Kendra?” Merle’s familiar voice was on the other end, but he sounded like he was worried about something.

“Merle? What’s the matter?” She was concerned. She thought maybe someone had tried to rob him or something. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. Everything here anyway. But I need to talk to you and not over the phone. It’s important. Can you meet me at the Burger King down the street from my shop?”

“Uh…sure. I guess. When?”

“Now.”

Kendra glanced at a clock, hesitating. 8:12 AM. She had to be at work at nine, and she still needed to get ready.

“I can‘t right now. I have to go to work. How about later on, like six-thirty?”

Merle considered that for a moment and then said, “I have something really important to tell you. Can you go into work later?”

Kendra could hear the urgency to his voice. Something must be really wrong. For a minute she was tempted to tell him she’d be there. Reality intruded first. If she didn’t go into work, then her boss would probably fire her. Especially after her rather emotional display yesterday. She didn’t want to risk it. She couldn’t afford to lose her job. She wasn’t confident of finding another one that paid as well.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t. There’s a good chance I’d get fired,” she responded.

Merle didn’t say anything for a long time, making Kendra feel on edge.

What’s wrong with him? She wished she could see him. She wanted to know why he was acting so bizarre.

“I understand. I guess I’ll see you at six-thirty then. Don’t be late.” He hung up, leaving the conversation at a weird point. She shrugged, confused, and then replaced the phone back into its cradle.

“You’re going to work?” Jenna asked, one eyebrow raised in slight disbelief. She was sure Kendra shouldn’t be around people. She obviously wasn’t at her emotional best, judging by how quickly she lost it with Marco. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea right now.”

“They’ll fire me if I don’t,” Kendra responded.

“Don’t worry about that, I’ll just call my dad and tell him what’s going on. He won’t fire you,” Jenna explained, but Kendra didn’t want that.

Jenna Bishop was Elijah Bishop’s sole child. Elijah Bishop also happened to be her boss. He started the company, Bishop Media Solutions, when he was in his twenties. Since then, it blossomed into one of the most desirable graphic design/marketing firms in the city. Jenna pulled some strings to get Kendra hired there as soon as her Bachelor’s degree was finished. Elijah, however, let her know early on that Jenna wouldn’t protect her if she didn’t pull her weight. After yesterday’s emotional outburst and then leaving during the workday, she wasn’t very confident in her friend’s ability to save her ass.

“Sorry, Jen, but I can‘t risk that. If I blow off work, he’ll filet me. You know that,” Kendra told her.

Jenna hesitated and then reluctantly agreed. She knew her father, and she knew he would be furious with Kendra for skipping out on work.

“I feel fine. So don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Jenna said, heavily.

With that, Kendra walked into her bedroom and started trying on clothes. Jenna followed after her. Five minutes later, about a dozen different articles of clothing lay discarded across her bed and floor.

“Nothing fits me anymore. What am I supposed to wear?” Kendra asked, frustrated. Jenna sighed, feeling sorry for her. She left the room and came back a minute later with a form-fitting white blouse and a pair of black slacks. She tossed them at Kendra.

“Try these on. You look like you’re about my size now. I think they’ll fit,” she told her.

“Thanks,” Kendra said, putting on the clothes. They did fit. In fact, they fit perfectly and flattered her new figure enticingly. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jenna responded. She gave an approving nod at her. “You look good in them. Almost enough to make even me jealous.” She frowned, looking at Kendra with dread and concern in her eyes. “I just wish I knew what happened to you.”

“You and me both,” Kendra responded halfheartedly. The truth, however, was that the why didn’t really concern her anymore. All she cared about were the results. She was hot! Not just pretty or cute, but hot! Not only that, but she felt confident in a way she never had before. It was a good feeling and one she wanted to last forever. “Well, I gotta go. I’ll see you later and I promise we’ll try to figure this out.”

“All right,” Jenna returned. “Just…don’t get into trouble.” She looked, rather pointedly, at the door to their apartment and what they both knew was just outside it.

“Right,” Kendra replied, sheepishly. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“We’ll talk more then.”

Jenna left her friend's room and Kendra finished getting ready. She ran into her bathroom and hurriedly applied some make-up. Then she arranged her shirt so that it would show off just the tiniest bit of her tattoo. People would still know it was there, which was what she wanted, but at the same time it wasn’t super noticeable. She smiled at her image and then left her bedroom. She grabbed her purse off a barstool and left.

She tried to ignore the hole in the wall but saw part of it in the corner of her eye anyway. It was upsetting to see the results of her violent attack so she pushed the entire altercation out of her mind. She headed to the elevator, still remembering the awesome power she’d felt right before she’d thrown Marco. She was surprised to realize that she wanted to lose herself to that power, to those urges, and that scared her.

The elevator dinged, snapping her out of her dark thoughts. She shook her head. She had to be careful. If she let herself be swept up by whatever energy, or power, she had trapped inside her, she thought it might end up controlling her completely. She stepped into the elevator and rode it down to the lobby and then walked outside.

“Ms. Henner?” the doorman greeted/asked. It wasn’t the same one as last night. This one was younger, handsomer.

He had very strong, Hispanic features and a charming smile.

“Hello, Felix,” she said, smiling.

He smiled back.

“You look…rather pretty today,” he complimented, tipping his hat.

“Thank you,” she replied, turning her head away from him to hide her sudden smile. She missed the frown that appeared on his face and the slight look of fear to his eyes. “Well, I gotta get to work. I’ll see you later.”

“Goodbye, Ms. Henner,” he told her.

She was starting to walk away when she caught a vague, forgotten scent in her nose. She turned around to look at Felix, trying to remember where she’d smelled his scent before.

“Are you okay, Ms. Henner?”

She fought to remember the forgotten details buried in her brain but couldn’t. After fighting with it for several seconds, she decided to let it go. It would come back to her at some point. In all likelihood, he just wore the same cologne as one of her co-workers or something.

“Uh…no. Nothing wrong. Have a good day, Felix.”

She told the driver where to go and waited in anxious anticipation.

This should be interesting, she thought to herself as she pictured everyone’s reaction at work. She couldn’t help it when another smile stretched her lips.

 

| | | | |

 

She strode through the doors of Bishop Media Solutions with strong confidence and a slight smirk. She could tell people were watching her with avid fascination. They all had inquisitive looks on their faces that she noticed out of the corner of her eyes. She didn’t meet anyone’s gaze though. She just kept walking. Actually, it was more like strutting. She felt her hips swaying sensually, almost as if they were doing it on their own. She loved the feel of her new and improved body. She felt like it fit her. Like it suited her. She had been trapped in that joke of a shell for too long and now that she knew what it was like to be free she didn’t ever want to go back.

She got to the door of her office and opened it. She could feel eyes on her back, but it didn’t make her uncomfortable. Not like it used to. Truthfully, she enjoyed this new kind of attention.

Things are definitely going to be different from now on.

She walked inside. Her office was little but functional. There was a nice wooden desk situated in front of a good-sized window. She had a little bookcase with several graphic design books on it and an iMac on her desk, its wireless keyboard and mouse situated very neatly in front. To the left was her phone and in the middle of her desk was a clutter of papers, thumbnails, and stray pens and pencils. The mess looked odd in her neat freak little world.

She started cleaning some of it up.

She was about halfway done when she was interrupted.

The door to her office opened. She glanced up and found Tyler staring back at her. A rage so powerful it nearly caused her to lunge at him exploded inside her. It made her want to eat up the distance between them so she could grab him by his throat and watch his cocky eyes flash in sudden, hot fear.

“Whoa!” he exclaimed, taking in her new look. His eyes crawled over her and rested on her breasts longer than was necessary. He reminded her so much of Marco that she almost thought they could be the same person, just in different bodies. “I have got to say, love the new look.”

He eyed her again, a slow smile creeping onto his face. She could see wheels turning in his head. She smiled as she watched him and suddenly knew how she was going to get back at him. She could almost read Easy Mark on his forehead, lit up like a neon sign in Vegas.

He wanted to try that same old trick again? Okay. I can play along, she thought to herself.

“Love it a lot,” he said again, his voice more of a whisper.

He walked a little more into her office and closed the door behind him. She let him come closer.

“You really like it, huh?” she asked, forcing her voice into the mousy version it had been before she changed.

“Definitely.” He strode forward and sat down on the edge of her desk. “It beats the hell out of old Kendra any day.”

He leaned forward and she could smell his breath. It smelled like old coffee, toothpaste, and cigarettes.

“Can I help you with anything?” she asked, forcing her voice to sound even more subdued. It was a voice that practically screamed, 'Take advantage of me!'

“Actually, I just came in here to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“You know,” he said as he leaned in closer to her, his nose almost grazing the soft skin of her earlobe. “For helping me with my presentation yesterday.”

He was trying to get to her before she ratted him out to the boss. He was trying to make her think he was interested in her so that he could keep her under his control. Although she knew he was more into the flirtation this time around.

If this were a cartoon, his eyes would either be popping out of his head or smoking, she said to herself.

The thought gave her a mental image of Tyler with his eyeballs hanging out of his skull and sending thick columns of smoke into the ceiling. She suppressed a sudden urge to laugh out loud. Instead, she kept her face timid and her voice subdued.

Just like he was used to.

Wait for the right moment, her mind whispered to her.

“You’re welcome,” she said back, turning her face to his. Their lips were so close they almost touched. “But there’s something I want to tell you, Tyler.”

He watched her with those confident, cocky eyes. A small half-smile pulled up one corner of his mouth.

“What’s that, sweetheart?”

She smiled back for a minute more. It was a shy, timid thing at first. Then it turned into something else. Something almost sinister. Tyler saw it and quickly became less confident.

Kendra abruptly moved. She was so fast she was barely more than a blur. Tyler, abruptly thrown off-kilter by her sudden disappearance, almost crashed into her chair. Then she was behind him. He didn't really register what was going on. Not until it was too late.

Kendra dug her right hand through his hair and gripped hard. She slammed his head forward, into her desk, and she heard him yelp in sudden pain. She lifted his head back up. His nose was twisted slightly to one side and bleeding.

“Argh…what are you doing you psychotic bitch!?” he screamed. It was high-pitched and made him sound like a girl. “What are you-”

“You ever steal my ideas again,” she started, cutting him off. Her voice was iron hard and extremely scary. He flinched at the sound of it. “I’ll slice into your favorite body part so bad you’ll never get it up again. You understand me?”

He didn’t answer her quickly enough so she slammed his head into her desk again. His nose looked crooked and was, more than likely, broken. He yelped like a girl again. The cocky, self-assured asshole just got broken by a woman he walked all over yesterday and she loved it.

“Y-yeah. I mean n-no problem. I-it won’t h-happen again. I won’t steal y-your ideas a-anymore. Or a-anyone else’s. O-okay?” he asked, hoping it was good enough for her and she wouldn’t smash his face into her desk again.

“One more thing,” she whispered. “You came onto me and got forceful. I just defended myself.”

“W-what?” he asked, confused.

She slammed his head again.

“O-okay!” he yelled, crying now. “I c-came o-onto you. I got a l-little too gr-grabby. I’m s-sorry!”

She let him go, a howl of laughter whirling inside her head as she watched Tyler sob and bleed on himself.

Revenge really is sweet, she thought to herself. She walked back to her desk and sat down.

Tyler glanced at her for a second, his face full of shock, pain, humiliation, and a number of other emotions. She waved a hand at him, dismissing him from her office. He jetted out the door, holding a white handkerchief up to his broken, bloody nose. She heard a commotion outside but she ignored it.

Let them think whatever they want to, it doesn’t matter to me. Not anymore, she told herself. She’d gotten what she wanted. She brought Tyler down to where he belonged and enjoyed every last second of it. She smiled to herself, pleased, and then focused on her work.

She was just starting on some research for a new project when her phone rang.

“Hello,” she said into it, biting back a surge of impatience at being interrupted.

“Mr. Bishop needs to see you in his office. Now,” Natalie Paxton said. She was a really cold, emotionless sort of person, and Kendra always felt uncomfortable around her.

The minute Natalie said Mr. Bishop wanted to see her, a surge of icy fear swept through her stomach.

“I’ll be there in a moment,” she responded, hanging up the phone. She could already see where this meeting was headed. She might as well box up her stuff right now.

She took a deep breath.

She let it fill her, focusing on it.

Soon, she’d calmed her nervous stomach down enough to where she thought she’d be okay. She stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of her shirt. Then she walked out of her office and over to Elijah’s. It was down a long hallway that opened up into a small room with a solid wooden door. Framed artwork hung on the walls, most of it of medieval-looking subject material. An elegant, dark-wooden desk was situated to the left, and a petite girl with dark skin and hair was behind it, her hands flying across her keyboard. There were a couple of chairs against a wall next to her, and Kendra took a seat in one, waiting to be called in.

The phone on Natalie’s desk rang and she picked it up and listened to the person on the other end for a minute.

“Okay. I’ll send her in,” she responded. She looked at Kendra, her eyes flat and kind of hostile for no apparent reason “Mr. Bishop will see you now.”

Kendra got up and walked to the door. Then she remembered her tattoo and hastily buttoned her shirt up, trying to block it from view. She didn’t mind showing it off to the other co-workers in the building, but she had no intention of flaunting it in front of her boss. She had no desire for him to see her as anything but professional. When she was done with the last button, she opened the door and walked inside.

Elijah’s office looked like the private study in somebody’s house. The carpet was a dark, hunter green and the walls were covered in bookshelves. Most of the books looked really old. Their leather bindings were cracked and darkened with age.

Kendra calmly (for the most part) walked over to Elijah's desk, which looked about a hundred years old, and stood in between two elegant chairs with thickly padded seats. Elijah didn't acknowledge her. Instead, he was going through his mail using an ornate letter opener made of gold and silver. He simply opened up his mail, scanned what was inside for a moment or two, and then moved on to the next.

She became very uncomfortable just standing there, so she decided to focus on two tapestries hanging on the wall behind him. One of them was of a knight bearing a red cross on his chest and shield, and the other was a forest scene with two knight-like figures in the bottom left corner.

He sure does love the medieval period, Kendra thought to herself.

Elijah's continued silence was making her more and more nervous. She took a couple of calming breaths, catching the scents of the room in the process. It smelled like musty old books, leather polish, different liquors, and old cigar smoke. She even caught the scent Elijah’s old fashioned cologne, the kind of smell she probably would’ve smelled on her own father if she’d known him. Or maybe her grandfather…if she remembered him.

Her grandfather was the one that saved her from her mother. He caught her in the act of drowning his only grandchild and stopped her. He was also the one that took her in after her mom was hauled off to New Haven Asylum, but he died not long after. She tried to picture his face and couldn’t. Time had worn away his image like wind and storms erode cliffs.

She didn’t even have a picture of him.

She pushed the thoughts of her past out of her mind. Right then, she needed to be focused and alert. She had to be on top of her game if she wanted to keep her job.

“Sit down, Kendra,” Elijah finally said.

His voice was commanding but at the same time, gentle. She found no comfort in that, however. Elijah was a man that knew how to conceal what he was really feeling more ably than anyone she knew.

He gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“Thank you.” She took a seat and faced him. Elijah was a bear of a man. He was broad but carried himself and his brawniness well. It was impressive for someone his age. In addition to his massive build, he also had silver hair which was neatly trimmed and cut, giving him a distinguished look. His clear, blue eyes locked onto her own and held her there.

“I understand there was some kind of misunderstanding yesterday between yourself and Tyler Dawson.” He leaned back and folded his arms across his broad chest, watching her. It stretched the fabric of his expensive beige suit.

“Yes, sir. There was a misunderstanding but we were able to work things out on our own,” she replied.

“Right. I heard about your resolution. Something to do with breaking his nose?” he asked, the barest hint of a smile on his face.

“Yes, well, he thought he could take certain…liberties with me. I protested,” she explained, her confidence gaining with every minute.

“I assume that has to do with the way you’ve recently…,” he paused, eyeing her calmly to emphasize his point, “changed?”

“I guess. He believed he could take advantage of me like he has in the past. I politely told him he was mistaken. He didn’t like that, so I had to defend myself,” she continued. She could tell Elijah didn’t believe her. Not at all, but she was equally sure that Tyler wouldn’t go around admitting freely what really happened or why.

“These are serious accusations, Kendra. If there is any truth to them then I’ll have to fire Tyler. I won’t have that kind of behavior in my firm,” he said. He looked at her seriously for a moment.

“Well, it was mostly harmless, and like I said, we worked it out for ourselves. If it’s any consolation, I don’t believe Tyler will be a problem for me anymore,” she told him.

She was starting to get a guilty twinge at where this conversation was headed. She did get her revenge on Tyler, but she didn’t want him to lose his job over it. She hated him, but she wasn’t completely heartless.

“I won’t sue anyone for sexual harassment, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m more worried about you,” Elijah replied. “If there is any truth to what you say, then I want him out of here.” His eyes turned hard. “You’re like a second daughter to me, Kendra, and I protect my family ruthlessly.”

“There’s no need for that. Honest. Everything’s resolved,” she replied.

“If that’s what you want. But if you have any more problems with Tyler, I want to know about them before things escalate again. Understood?”

“I understand,” she answered him. “Is that all?”

He nodded. “For now.”

She got up and left. Outside the office, Natalie was still sitting there with her hands flying over her keyboard. When Kendra gave her a slight nod, her eyes narrowed and she frowned harshly. For whatever reason, Natalie seemed to hate her, but she could care less. She didn’t really know her and had never liked her that much anyway.

She made her way back to her office and shut the door behind her. She put the whole Tyler business out of her mind and got back to work.

The rest of the workday was uneventful.

 

| | | | |

 

Kendra found Merle in a booth near the back of a Burger King just outside the city. He looked up as she came in and smiled. She smiled back, gestured for him to come over, and walked up to the counter. He got up and strolled over, standing behind her in line.

It was 6:30 on the dot.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, cheerful enough. The smile didn’t reach his eyes though, a fact that Kendra noticed all too well. She could see his uncertainty, his fear, and his nervousness. It was completely out of character for him. He was usually confident in whatever he did and she couldn’t remember a time when he showed fear of any kind.

“What’s going on, Merle?”

“Not yet. Let’s get some food first. You’re probably hungry,” he responded and he was right. Her stomach felt hollow and empty.

So they waited in line, neither one really talking at all except for idle little pleasantries. How was your day? Mine? Good. Good. That was about the extent of it.

They came up to the front counter a couple minutes later and ordered. When they both had their food and drinks, they went back to the booth and sat down. Merle looked increasingly nervous.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to guess?” she asked, trying to smile reassuringly at him. She wanted to ease some of that fear in him, but no matter what she tried, she couldn’t get him to relax. “Is this serious then?”

He didn’t respond right away, but after a couple of seconds, he slowly nodded.

“About as serious as it can get, I’m afraid.” He took a bite out of his whopper. “This isn’t gonna be easy for either one of us, but there are things you need to know. To understand.”

“What things?” Kendra asked, scarfing down her food.

“For starters, I knew your…,” he began, but his voice trailed off. He looked at her and she could see a war going on behind his eyes. Whatever it was, he was fighting himself over it. Finally, he managed to blurt it all out. “I…uh…knew your mother,” he finished.

“You knew her?” she asked, confused. “How did you know her?”

“We were…,” he started, but again his voice trailed off. There was a moment where she saw his eyes go distant, as if remembering things that happened a long time ago. “We were in love.”

“Okay. Wait. Is that why you contacted me back in high school? It had nothing to do with my art, just my mother?” There was a little heat to her words as she said them. The pride she’d felt at having her artwork recognized by Merle was something she still carried with her. She was angry thinking that the only reason he might’ve had any interest in her work was because he’d been in love with her psychotic, crazy mother at one point in time.

“Yes and no. I made sure to look in on you ever since you were born. Watched over you, I guess. But I never lied to you about your art. You were always very talented and I thought that it might be a good way to connect with you.”

Kendra stopped eating, even though she was hungry.

She thought about what he’d said and decided he was probably telling her the truth. There was no way he would put crappy art up in his shop. He wouldn’t get any business.

“Alright, I believe you. I just don’t understand. You’re acting like I’m gonna be angry at you because you were in love with my mother once. I’m not angry about that. I was angry that you might’ve only liked my art because of her, that’s it.”

“I’m not finished yet,” Merle said, his voice somewhat quiet. “I don’t really know how to tell you this…” He stopped, unable to go on. Kendra grasped one of his huge hands.

“What is it?”

“I thought this would go a lot easier. Well, I thought this part of the conversation would.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you happen to know anything about your father?” he asked, the topic throwing Kendra off. What did her father have to do with this? Unless…

“Are you trying to say that you’re…” Now she was the one that lost her voice. She took a second to collect herself, to try and slow her suddenly pounding heart. Then she tried again. “That you’re…my father?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t really have to. It was right there in his eyes, clear as day. He looked away from her, but not before she saw his shame and guilt. She ripped her hands away from his, true anger filling her.

“You? You’re my father? And…and you never told me? Never came to get me out of that hellhole orphanage they stuck me in after my grandpa died? How could you do that to me?”

“Kendra, it’s not that simple. There are things you don’t understand,” he tried to tell her, but she was angry. So, so angry. It was the angriest she'd ever been. Even angrier than what Tyler had done to her.

All this time and he never told her.

“I don’t care how you explain this to yourself, Dad!” she snarled, putting a nasty sarcastic emphasis on the last word.

She looked him in the eyes, utterly disgusted. All she saw looking back was a man that abandoned her.

“I grew up with nobody giving a rat’s ass about me. I was alone. My own mother tried to kill me. Do you have any idea what that feels like? Do you have any idea the kind of issues that leaves a kid with? And now, here you are, my father, showing up like none of that ever happened. You’re a bastard, Merle. A real bastard.”

She got up to leave, so angry she couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. A rough hand grabbed her wrist, the fingers like steel bands.

“Please, Kendra. I know you hate me right now, but you have to stay. You have to hear the rest of what I need to tell you.” There was a desperate quality to his voice that caused her to hesitate but she remembered what it was like to live in that orphanage, crammed into a small building with twenty-three other kids. She remembered the abuse from the director and from the other kids. She remembered the crushing loneliness and the sense that she was worthless and unwanted.

All of that slammed into her mind and she ripped her arm out of his grasp.

“I don’t need to do anything. And I sure as hell don’t need to stay here and listen to you.” She started walking away again, but paused. She turned back to look at him. He looked like a devastated, worn-out old man. “Don’t try to contact me. Don’t try to visit me. You and I are done. Do you understand?”

He didn’t say anything to her. Instead, his eyes suddenly narrowed and his nostrils went wide. He sniffed at the air, the motion freaking her out because of her own display of weird behavior throughout the day.

“What are you doing?”

Again, he ignored her. His head whipped around all over the place, searching. On impulse, she sniffed too. The aromas of food cooking, various other scents of the people around her, and some cleaning chemicals came to her. Underneath all that, however, was a different smell entirely. This one was completely out of place with the urban environment around her. Vaguely, she could smell the rich, musty scent of some kind of animal. She didn’t know what could give off a smell that potent, but she thought it might be something big. Merle’s head turned to her, his eyes suddenly wide with panic.

“Run!” he yelled.

Before she could follow his instruction, the window next to their booth suddenly exploded in a cloud of flying glass.

She threw herself to the side, ducking under a table for shelter. She looked to where Merle was and found a huge, mutated wolf of some kind on top of him. The thing was the size of a polar bear and just as powerful looking. Its long front legs ended in huge paws with wicked-looking claws. Its limbs were wildly disproportionate to what a real wolf’s were. Mounds of muscle rippled along their lengths and across its somewhat lumpy body. Its head was enormous and had an elongated muzzle showing tons of protruding, sharp teeth, meant to rip and tear into a person’s body. Its pelt was covered in coarse, shaggy fur the color of dried wheat and looked about as brittle. There was also a strange patch of fur across its back that was just a little bit darker than the rest. She thought there might’ve been a pattern to it, but she didn’t stop to get an in-depth look.

Its amber-colored eyes were focused solely on Merle, who was pinned to the floor. She could see the creature’s claws were buried about an inch into Merle’s chest.

Everyone in the restaurant yelled and cried out in terror the minute they found themselves face to face with a real live monster. She felt that same terror. A corner of her brain was screaming in panic but she didn’t leave. Everyone else in the restaurant, every last one of them, ran out. Most of them didn’t even bother with purses or whatever else they’d brought in with them.

Soon Merle, the freakish wolf, and Kendra were the only ones left.

“What the hell is that!?” she screamed. “What is it!?”

Merle turned his head to the side so he could look at her. His grey eyes were filled with pain.

“Go!” he shouted.

“What about you?” she screamed back, but he was already shaking his head.

“Just go! Now!”

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t stand by and watch him die, despite the anger and betrayal she still felt. He was her father, but more than that, he was still her friend. He was still the same man she’d turned to for advice and comfort over the years.

She got out from under the table and stood up.

 “Hey, Freaky-Monster-Wolf-Thing!” she shouted.

The giant wolf swung its gigantic head over to look at her, and she could swear it started grinning. It slowly took its claws out of Merle and started padding its way toward her. It took its time too, like it enjoyed the fear it was provoking in her.

Kendra backed up, trying to keep some distance between her and it. Her heart was beating a million miles an hour, and blood was rushing through her head like a tsunami wave. She kept her focus though. She never let her eyes wander away from the monster in front of her.

Then, without any warning, it lunged. Its claws flashed out, looking horrifyingly sharp.

She dove out of the way, her reflexes kicking in with mind-blowing speed. She heard the scrabbling of claws on the restaurant’s tiled floor and then it was coming for her again. She barely got an arm away from its snapping jaws. They closed on nothing but air and crashed together in an explosion of sound. She got her footing back and then cocked her arm back. Then she straight up punched it. It was a clumsy attack, but she did manage to bash the thing on its nose. It howled in pain and jumped away from her. It paused a moment and then readied itself for another powerful lunge.

It jumped at her and….

A different wolf, this one just as monstrous in proportion as the other but with iron grey fur, hit it mid-air. She couldn’t see much of the other wolf. Most of it was that iron-grey color, but twin bands of darker fur encircled both forelimbs. They crashed together and rolled across the floor, shattering several different booths, tables, and chairs. They fought with savage brutality, each one trying to get a grip on the other’s throat. It was horrible but at the same time fascinating. She almost felt hypnotized by the fight.

She forced herself to snap out of it, however, and looked at where Merle had fallen.

He was gone.

She searched the restaurant for him but got distracted by a yelping, whining sound. She whirled to the pair of wolves and found that the tan one had latched its jaws onto the grey wolf’s flanks. Blood dribbled from its mouth disgustingly. Then it released its hold for a second before attacking again, blindingly swift. Its fangs sunk into the grey wolf’s throat.

“No!” Kendra shouted, her heart breaking for the grey wolf.

Blood spurted in a misty cloud and it didn’t take Kendra long to realize that the tan wolf had bitten clean through a major artery.

The grey wolf was dying.

Kendra didn’t think. She just reacted. She ran full speed at the two animals and threw herself on top of the tan wolf. She grabbed its jaws with both hands and wrenched as hard as she could. The thing was strong. Way stronger than it had a right to be, but it couldn’t fight against her for long. In a moment, she was prying the thing loose from the other wolf. She saw that one crumple to the ground with too much blood pooling underneath it. She was sure it wasn’t going to make it, but she couldn’t do anything to help yet.

She was still holding onto the tan wolf when it suddenly bucked with terrible strength and threw her into a wall. She collided into it with a loud crash, the impact knocking the wind out of her. She rose to her feet, her knees wobbly, and focused on the animal.

It came at her, its huge claws slashing. She jumped out of the way, but wasn’t able to get completely free. She felt hot, searing pain in her thigh. She yelled out against it and then tumbled across the floor. The pain was too much for her leg to take, and it buckled under her weight. She crawled to a table, trying to use it as leverage to pull herself up.

She was breathing hard.

Her body hung half-limp from the table where she was hanging on, her nails practically digging into the wood. She didn’t know where the rabid wolf was.

She was exhausted. And she hurt. Her head hung down, and the muscles in her neck felt completely useless. She couldn’t think.

Then she felt the whooshing of the wolf’s rank breath against her neck. She turned to look. Its muzzle was practically nose to nose with her. She felt like she should be afraid, like she should scream, but she didn’t. Mostly, she felt enraged. Angry beyond anything she’d ever felt before.

The pain in her leg started itching furiously and she scratched at it. Then the itch subsided, and when it did, she felt...whole again. The pain was just gone. When she looked down at where the wound should’ve been all she found was a torn gash in her jeans with her blood soaked into the material and that was all. Her flesh didn’t have a mark on it.

She stared at it, mystified.

The wolf suddenly snapped its huge fangs at her, intent on tearing her face off, but she rolled to the side and then jumped up. She was incredibly fast and was back on top of it before it knew what was going on. She put her hands on the upper and lower portions of its jaws again. Then she pulled as hard as she could, the wolf struggling against her. She could feel it trembling with the effort to hold her off, but it just didn’t have the strength to stop her this time.

It howled and shuddered with pain, but she didn’t let go. She gave one final, momentous effort and then pulled its jaws completely apart. There was a very satisfying snapping sound, and then the thing just fell to the floor, a pool of scarlet spreading from its bleeding head. She heaved herself off it, breathing hard with the exertion. The muscles in her arms were tired and limp, and her rapidly beating heart felt like it was about to explode. She sat down with a thump.

Her little break didn’t last long though. There was a series of odd noises, like gurgling only with a lot of popping sounds mixed in. Her head snapped back to the tan wolf and found it slowly getting up. Its lower jaw hung loosely, swaying a bit. There was an even louder pop and then the jaw settled back into its former place. She backed up, the fear dumping adrenaline through her already exhausted body again.

“What the hell?” she asked herself.

The wolf focused on her, its pink tongue rolling out of its mouth. Then it rushed her.

She closed her eyes, waiting to feel the flash of pain as the wolf's fangs pierced the tender skin of her neck. She waited to feel her life flooding out of her.

The attack never came.

She tentatively opened her eyes to see what the hold-up was. She found a tall stranger, his hair as black as night, in front of her. His back was to her, so she couldn’t see his face, but she could see the muscles of his arms as he struggled to hold the tan wolf back. The soles of his sneakers skidded across the floor, leaving black rubber smudges on the tile. He grunted with effort and then, unbelievably, he picked the wolf up off the ground, hoisting it over his head like he was a bodybuilder power-lifting. He whirled once and then threw it through a window. She heard the glass tinkling as it hit the ground, a yelp of pain, and then nothing. She didn’t move. She was waiting for the monster wolf to come back.

After a few minutes of agonizing uncertainty and fear, she realized it wasn’t going to. Whoever the guy was, he apparently chased the wolf away.

She stared up at him as he turned around to look at her and she stopped thinking for a second. He was hot. His face looked like it came straight out of some teenaged girl’s fantasy. He had bright green eyes to complement the dark hair and a slight, reassuring smile on his face.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, his voice rich and tainted by an almost imperceptible accent.

He held out a hand to her, and she cautiously took it. He had a firm grip and he helped her up with ease. When she got to her feet, she stumbled slightly, still a bit weak from the fight. He held onto her and then helped her over to a chair that managed to survive the destruction. He sat her down in it.

“Guess that would be a no, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” she responded, brushing strands of her hair out of her face. She looked up at him, staring right into those dazzling green eyes. “Uh…thank you. Thank you for saving me from that thing.”

“My pleasure,” he responded.

She smiled, thinking that the pleasure was definitely hers. She looked around at the ruined Burger King. Then she remembered the other wolf. The grey one.

“Oh…oh no.” She ran over to where it had fallen.

Her movements were still a bit jerky from the exhaustion. She found it lying on its side, its breathing shallow and growing shallower. She knelt down beside it, rubbing her hand against its shaggy fur. She turned to look at her mystery savior.

“Is there anything you can do to save it? It tried to help me.”

He knelt down next to her, both of them trying to stay clear of the blood congealing around them. He examined the puncture wounds in the flank and neck, moving fur aside to get a better look. The punctures around the flank had slowed to a dribble, but the ones around the neck were still bleeding pretty badly.

“The ones here,” he pointed to the wolf’s flank, “are healing, but not these,” he told her as he examined the grisly tears to the wolf’s neck again, his brow furrowed in concentration. “I don’t think they will. He’s too old.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, confused and scared.

She was watching the stranger intently, looking for anything. Any sign of hope. She didn’t notice when the grey wolf started shrinking. Then its fur started falling off in droves. When she finally realized what was going on, she scrambled away in a rapid backward crab-walk.

She watched in complete horror as the wolf changed into Merle.

Into her father.

Kendra got over her initial shock. It was hard, though. She wasn’t sure what was going on or if she wanted any part of it, but she didn’t really have a choice. It was Merle and he was dying. She scrabbled to him, tears swimming in her eyes. He wasn’t dead yet, although he looked close. He looked so close, and that only made her cry harder.

There was still some time. Maybe he could still be saved.

She went over to her purse and yanked her cell phone out of it. In her haste, her purse tumbled to the ground, but she left it there.

She ran back to Merle and fell to her knees next to him, trying as hard as she could to work her damn phone. She could barely manage it through her tears and hysteria. Finally, she got it unlocked and dialed 911. Before the first ring even went through, the phone was snatched from her hand. She flew to her feet, her tears momentarily forgotten. The only thing she knew in that moment was anger.

“Give that back,” she said, her voice a low, growling whisper.

She felt herself get caught up in a swirl of that same primal energy she’d felt before. It was something massive and powerful. It felt like getting a double shot of pure adrenaline.

Her eyes flashed with amber light. Her teeth lengthened into fangs. The nails on both hands extended until they were deadly claws. She crouched down and glared at the stranger that saved her life just a few minutes before.

The man eyed her for a second and then ran at her. He ducked under one of her swiping hands and then abruptly speared her. Kendra felt the power in his body as it slammed into her and lifted her off her feet. Then he crushed her onto the floor, pinning her there. She fought like a woman possessed, her own strength formidable but not enough to free herself.

“We don’t have time for this!” he yelled. He was angry too, but there was something else buried in his eyes as well. He was afraid. “I need you to listen!”

“Get…off!!” she screamed back. Her voice was deeper, more animalistic.

He slapped her then. The shock of it was enough to silence her. The primal surge of energy receded, dimmed, and then winked out. She blinked her eyes once….twice. Then she looked up at the stranger.

“Wh-what just happened?” she asked in a croaking whisper. Her throat felt like it was on fire.

“Not here. I’ll explain everything to you, but not here,” he said, his eyes pleading with her. “First, there’s something you need to do.”

He got off her and helped her to her feet. She heard Merle’s shallow breathing, and the flood of concern she had for him overrode her anger. She suddenly felt ashamed for her outburst.

“He needs a hospital,” she stated. She was at Merle’s side again, gripping his hand in her own. “He’s dying.”

“Yes,” the stranger told her, his voice grave and sympathetic. “And you need to be the one to finish him.”

She blinked at him in confusion, wondering if she really heard what she just heard.

“What?” she finally asked, shocked and a little outraged.

“You need to finish it. You need to be the one to do it.”

He wasn’t being mean or angry about it. He actually seemed saddened by what he was asking her to do. He knew how insane it sounded and how cruel.

“I can’t explain things right now, but I know this is what Merle wants. This is what he had planned for you.”

“I can’t kill him.”

“K-Kendra…p-please,” Merle croaked. His voice sounded so strange. It was weak and more of a whisper than anything else. It was at complete odds with the normal, confident one he usually had.

She turned to Merle, crying helplessly now. His grey eyes were open and staring at her with compassion and love. A blossom of fear rose up in her heart. He didn’t look good. She checked his neck. There was a blood-soaked piece of shirt there now. The stranger must’ve applied it when she went over to get her cell phone. She glanced at him, and sure enough, a piece had been ripped off the bottom of his shirt.

The hand she was gripping suddenly tightened. Merle’s eyes widened slightly and then closed. His breathing seemed almost non-existent.

“You have to…have to…,” he stopped, took a hitching breath, and started again, “do what Conor says. K-kill me…be-before it’s too late.”

“What the hell is wrong with you two? Stop it!” she shouted as she cried.

Her tears were hot as they streamed down her cheeks. Her mind was a cluttered mess of anger, fear, and confusion. She didn’t know what to do or think. Her hands trembled now at the mere thought of killing Merle, of killing her own father (even though she just found out who he really was only a few minutes ago). It sounded like something right out of a Greek tragedy.

What the hell is going on!? her mind screamed at her. The thought was so loud, so overpowering, she flinched from it. This is a dream…this is a dream…. WAKE UP!

But it was no dream.

She looked at the stranger and vigorously shook her head no. His hand, however, was outstretched with a small pointed object resting on his open palm. It was a pocket knife roughly four inches long. Not much in a real fight, but enough to do the job they both wanted her to do.

“Now,” Conor told her. There was a strained look on his face and his eyes darted nervously from side to side.

Distantly, she heard the sound of sirens.

“I’m terribly s-sorry,” she heard Merle say. She turned back to him. “I didn’t…want this for you. But you n-need to…do what he says.”

Conor placed the knife in her free hand.

“I can’t,” she cried. “I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” he told her, smiling at her warmly. “I love you. Al-always have.”

He grabbed her hand with the knife in it and positioned it over his heart. Hers were trembling viciously and it was hard to keep them steady. She looked at him pleadingly, begging him not to make her do this.

But he just closed his eyes and gave her a tiny nod.

“Hurry!” Conor said behind her. The sirens were closer now.

Wondering if she’d lost her mind like her mother, Kendra sobbed loudly as she plunged the knife into Merle’s chest. It grated against bone for a second and then slipped through. He let out several gurgling, choked gasps that seemed to last for an eternity before he finally went still. She waited for a few seconds, fully sobbing now. Her tears mixed with the blood pooling around the knife wound in Merle's chest.

The wound I made! The wound that killed him! How could I do that? she asked herself.

She finally took out the knife. She did it as gently as she could, but when she saw Merle's blood all over it, her hand went nerveless and it dropped on the floor. It clattered with a sound that seemed too loud in the oppressing silence that followed. She stumbled away from him after that, her mind numb with shock. She could feel the blood (Merle's blood) on her hands.

Kendra freaked out.

She got up and grabbed a napkin dispenser, ripping out paper napkins in frantic jerks. She tried to get the blood off. She had to get the blood off, but the napkins only smeared it around and made it worse.

She looked around with wild eyes, holding out her sticky, bloodied hands like they’d been struck with leprosy.

All the while, the sirens were getting closer.

 

| | | | |

 

Conor heard them too and his urgency was palpable. He rushed over to Kendra and placed his big hands on her shoulders, turning her around so she faced him.

“We have to go,” he said.

 His voice was as calm as he could make it, but she wasn’t cooperating. She was focused on her hands, on the blood. There was so much of it.

Conor went over to Merle’s body and, as gently as he could, lifted him onto his shoulders. Then he grabbed the bloodied knife in his other hand and stood back up. Next, he went back to Kendra, grabbed her forearm, and hauled her out of the restaurant.

Outside, parked diagonally across two parking spots, was his dirt flecked Jeep Wrangler. Conor put Kendra in the passenger seat and placed Merle in the back, covering him with a canvas tarp. He ran to the driver’s seat, got in, and drove away.

About five minutes later, the police, ambulance, and even animal control crews finally arrived.

 

| | | | |

 

Merrick watched them leave, his anger roiling inside him like a living thing. He hadn’t finished the job. He could feel it, or rather the lack of it. The surge of power he’d expected never came, along with the mark.

That fucking half-breed!

He felt that snake of anger inside him surge violently forward. He wanted to run. He wanted to hunt. He wanted to rip Conor’s throat out, but instead, he controlled himself. The authorities were at the restaurant now, and his window of opportunity to attack was gone. There was no more time left. The only thing he could count as a success was the death of the old man. The fact that he didn’t kill him was a setback, but at least he was dead.

His new target should be a considerably easier mark.

He calmly walked toward the restaurant and set out on his new course of action. Emergency crews were all over the fast food place. There were four cops and a pair of animal control officers there now. Merrick didn’t let that bother him though.

He walked calmly into the trashed Burger King and hunted around. All he needed was something with the girl’s scent on it. It took him several hurried minutes of searching, but he finally found an object he could use. The girl’s purse. He picked it up with care and left.

All four cops and both animal control officers were dead, their throats slashed.

Merrick walked eastward for about a mile or two before he got to an area that afforded him some measure of privacy. He let out three sharp, short whistles, then zipped up his designer leather jacket and waited. In his left hand, he still clutched the purse.

He smelled the creature before he actually saw her. It was a heady, intoxicating scent that snared him and threatened to make him lose control. He looked to the right and saw her slinking out of the shadows, her soft, blondish fur practically shining from an overhead light attached to a building.

The wolf was beautiful and enormous. She dwarfed everything near her except for the buildings beside them. He breathed in her scent again, more deeply this time, letting himself get lost in it. He pictured himself shifting and running with her, gorging themselves on whatever they happened to hunt down. The thrill of that thought sent electricity shooting down his limbs, but he forced himself to control the urge, to beat it down.

There’ll be plenty of time for that later, he reasoned with himself.

He watched the she-wolf glide effortlessly over to him, shifting back into her human form along the way. She was as beautiful in that form as her wolf form. She had long, blonde hair that fell to the small of her back and swayed from side to side as she walked up to him. Her pale, naked flesh was smooth and beautiful. Over her left breast was a tribal tattoo of swirling, vicious-looking spikes that reached up to graze her shoulder.

When she was inches away from him, his control slipped. He ran his hand through her hair and gripped the back of her neck, pulling her to him with vicious speed. Then he kissed her. A soft moan escaped her as she returned it with equal passion.

His control reasserted itself, and he broke away from her, breathing hard.

“I have a job for you,” he told her, letting his hand rub along her hip.

“Do you want me to kill?” she asked, her voice thick with eagerness.

As an answer, he gave her the purse he was holding.

“Track the scent back to where she lives,” he instructed. “Find out everything you can about her.”

She nodded slightly, taking the purse and bringing it up to her nose. She breathed deeply and then slung it over one shoulder. She walked off, but some of the eagerness had disappeared from her eyes. Disappointment replaced it.

“And love?” he called to her. “If there’s anyone there, kill them.”

Sparks of insane hunger and eagerness leaped back into her eyes and she smiled at him. Then she shifted back into a wolf and disappeared into a thick swatch of shadows, the purse now hanging from her massive jaws.

When she was gone, Merrick made his way back to his Porsche and drove off, racing down the streets at ridiculous speeds.

He had his agenda to attend to, after all.

 

| | | | |

 

The she-wolf ran through the city, trusting herself to the instincts and skills of her wolf form. She’d rummaged through the woman’s purse first but hadn’t been able to find anything with her address on it. The only thing she did see was an old college ID. The name on it read Kendra Henner.

It took almost an hour to track the scent in the chaos of the city around her. It took her about half an hour to sift through all the different smells, but she finally found the one she was looking for. Then she backtracked it. It was hard work at times, but she kept following it with mindless determination and eventually came to a rather upscale apartment building in the downtown area. She watched it from a dark alley for several moments before shifting into her human form again (which was still completely naked).

Several shops lined the street across from the apartment building. She went around to the back of a small boutique and found a simple steel door. She grabbed the handle and snapped it off, flinging the piece of metal behind her. She stepped back as the door swung open.

The first thing she heard was an alarm blaring inside. The noise was piercing and it irritated her. She slammed a fist into its console as she slipped into the darkened store. She smiled with satisfaction when she heard the box hiss and pop.

She didn’t take long. She quickly found some clothes and a pair of black stiletto heels, put them on, and then walked back into the alley. She crossed the street and headed over to the apartment building, sniffing the air as she went. She felt a surge of excitement as she followed the trail up to its doors.

“Can I help you?” a doorman asked her as she walked up.

She looked at him, her eyes instantly turning sultry. Her body language adopted an air of intense seduction.

The doorman's somewhat wary stance relaxed a bit.

“I found this purse at a pub this evening and thought I’d return it to its owner. I’m sure she’d like to have it back,” she explained, letting her lilting accent thicken. She took the purse off her shoulder and presented it to the doorman. He was about to take it, but she jerked it away from him before he could touch it.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know you. How am I supposed to trust you?” she asked him.

“M’am, I’ll have to take it here,” he said, but she was already shaking her head no.

“I’d like to bring it to her myself, please.” She laid a hand on his shoulder, caressing it gently. “I’d feel guilty if I gave it over to you and then you stole everything inside the moment I left.”

“I can assure you…,” he started to say.

“Please. You can escort me if you’d like.” She smiled at him. “It won’t take long.”

She could see the indecision in him as he warred with what he knew he should do and with doing whatever the stunning, beautiful woman in front of him asked of him.

In the end, she won. Like usual.

“Alright. Who does the purse belong to?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

He waited patiently as she rummaged through it and brought out the ID she’d found earlier. She handed it to him and she saw his eyebrows furrow together.

“That’s Kendra’s purse?” he asked.

That stoked her interest. He knew the bitch. Thoughts of making him scream in pain instantly filled her mind, pleasing her so much that she had to suppress a smile.

“Okay. I’ll take you up to her apartment. Her roommate should be there. You can give it to her,” the doorman said.

They went inside the building and she took in the opulent splendor. The lobby was a grand, well-appointed affair with expensive couches, tables, art, and live plants. Hanging from the ceiling was a one-of-a-kind, crystal chandelier and the floor was done in sparkled granite.

The doorman headed to the elevators, so she followed after him. He pressed the button and stepped back. She waited behind him, listening to the pounding jugular vein in the side of his throat. Her stomach roiled slightly, and her mouth salivated as she imagined sinking her teeth into his flesh.

There was a ding, and the elevator on their left side opened. They stepped inside, and she took a spot in the back right corner. The doorman stood slightly ahead of her.

She could feel her body singing with exhilaration, her mind racing away from her with thoughts of blood and death. She could feel the wolf inside her struggling to fight free, but she suppressed it.

For now, she thought.

She noticed the doorman watching her and smiled sweetly at him. A moment later, the elevator doors opened again.

She followed the doorman down the hall, trailing slightly behind him until they got to the apartment. She glanced curiously at a hole in the drywall across from it. The doorman followed her gaze to it and she heard him let out a bitter sigh.

“Hold on for just a second,” he told her.

He walked a couple of feet down the hall. When he deemed himself far enough away from her range of hearing, he pulled out a slim black cell phone from his pocket. He quickly dialed a number and held it up to his ear.

He wasn’t anywhere close to being out of her range of hearing, however. She’d always enjoyed eavesdropping, so she listened in.

“Dammit, Earl,” the doorman half-whispered, “you were supposed to fix this hole on the tenth-floor hours ago. If you don’t get it patched up tonight, I’m gonna have to fire you.”

“Hold yer damn horses. I’ll be up there in about an hour,” Earl responded.

She could hear enough of him to know that the guy was drunk off his ass and that he had no intention of patching up the hole at all.

The doorman let out a frustrated grunt and hung up. Then he walked back over to where she was patiently waiting.

“Sorry about that,” he said, his expression one of embarrassment. “Just had some business I needed to take care of first.”

“Don’t worry,” she assured him.

He smiled awkwardly at her and then knocked on the apartment door. A moment later, it opened to reveal a stunning woman with bright blue eyes, sleep-tousled hair, and rumpled pj's. She blinked drowsily at them.

“Felix?” she asked.

“This woman wanted to return Kendra’s purse to you personally,” he explained.

The sleepy-eyed woman at the door turned her focus on the strange woman.

The she-wolf smiled with her human form. A second after her smile dropped off her face, she let out a deep-throated growl and let her wolf form explode out of her.

Then she charged forward.

 

| | | | |

 

Conor and Kendra had been driving for about twenty-five minutes enveloped in an uncomfortable silence. She was still in shock, her mind refusing to process the insanity of everything that just happened. She stared out the window blankly most of the time, but every now and then, her eyes would drift to the back, to the canvas tarp that Merle’s body (your father’s body! her mind yelled) was wrapped in. Then she would start to cry again. Too much had happened, and she didn‘t know if she could ever bring herself back to who she‘d been. Conor didn‘t talk either, but his face held a look of quiet rage.

She felt swallowed by the riot of emotions still flooding through her. She tried to control them, to sweep them out of her mind like so much garbage, but they were persistent. She found her eyes traveling back to the tarp again and again. She already missed him. She missed the comfort of his presence. She missed his laugh and his personality.

She tore her eyes away from the back of the Jeep, wiping a hand across them. Then she turned to Conor.

“What happened back there? What were those…those…things?” she asked, finally breaking the silence. She felt tired and worn out.

“You’ve had enough shock for one day I think,” he responded.

She felt a surge of anger hit her. Her eyes narrowed and Conor saw them flash with cold, amber fire at him.

“Don’t do that,” she told him. “I’m not a child. Tell me what the hell is going on. I need to know I’m not crazy. You need to explain.”

He glanced at her and saw that her anger was gone, replaced with desperate need. He broke down.

“You’re not crazy,” he said. “It was real.”

“So Merle really changed into that…wolf?” she asked, hesitatingly. In her mind, she saw a brief flash of the massive grey beast. She had to suppress a shudder. “How did he do it?”

“Because he was a werewolf,” Conor replied. There was no joking around to his voice. She could tell that he was being completely serious.

Kendra opened her mouth to speak, couldn’t find the words, and then shut it again. Her mind whirled with that one simple fact. Werewolf. Fear bubbled in her like an icy wave as she really thought about what that meant. Things clicked into place. Her enhanced senses, speed, strength, and reflexes. The changes to her physical appearance. Her nearly animalistic behavior.

“Since he was a werewolf, that makes me a…a…werewolf too?” she asked, her voice stuttering and dying out. All the old horror movies flashed across her mind. She saw herself in them, a mindless predator that killed anything in its path. “I don’t want to be that!” Her voice was shrill, nearly a scream. “I don’t want to be a killer.”

“We’re not killers,” Conor snarled. His voice was full of fury and rage. His eyes were glowing a strange amber color and he was growling. “We’re not mindless beasts either.”

She shrunk away from him, pressing herself up as close to her door as she could get. When he saw her, cowering as far away from him as she could get, a look of embarrassment crossed his features and his eyes first dimmed and then returned to their usual brown color. He looked at her with genuine concern.

“I’m sorry,” he told her and she relaxed a bit. “That’s a touchy subject with a lot of us.”

She decided then that the awkward silence wasn’t so bad and retreated into it. She wrapped herself in that silence like it was an impenetrable shield. It seemed like a much better idea than listening to a madman’s explanations. Werewolves? Yeah, right. There was no such thing as werewolves. They were Hollywood movie monsters, nothing more.

Except Merle did change. And then there was the other one. He had to have been a werewolf too.

Stop it! she yelled at herself.

But she couldn’t stop. She wanted to. She just couldn’t. Tendrils of dread flew around her stomach the more she realized the truth of what Conor told her. It got so bad that she had to force herself to take several deep, calming breaths to avert a full-blown panic attack.

Sometime later, Conor came to a hidden drive and turned onto it. A minute or two after that, he stopped in front of a stout gate of wrought iron anchored to two ten-foot-high brick walls. Conor got out of the car and headed up to the gate. She could see him talking into a monitor embedded into the brick wall. He gestured at the gate one last time and then ran back to the Jeep. As soon as he was back behind the wheel, the big gates opened up. He drove the car through and continued down a long road with stately trees lining either side. Each tree was lit up by its own little spotlight and the overall effect was actually quite breathtaking. Soon after the trees were behind them, Conor pulled into a circular drive with a beautiful fountain at its center.

Kendra stared ahead, a slight gasp coming out of her. Her fear was swallowed up by the massive, looming structure in front of her. It was a huge and sprawling mansion, a Châteauesque-style building with abundant towers, spires, and steeply pitched roofs.

She looked at it a second longer, her mouth agape in open amazement.

“Is this is your mansion?” she asked, turning to look at Conor.

“Not exactly,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

Kendra frowned slightly but didn’t bother arguing with him. She was exhausted, drained both physically and emotionally. It was hard enough to get out of the car, let alone fight with Conor. She followed him up the wide stairs to the mansion’s front doors. He opened them with no hesitation and disappeared inside. She followed after him, taking a minute to ask herself what she was getting into first.

It was dark inside, and she had to wait a second for her eyes to adjust. It didn’t take nearly as long as it should’ve. The darkness seemed to brighten steadily, the world coming into sharp, contrasting focus.

Something suddenly screamed a warning at her, and Kendra’s arm lashed out, grabbing hold of Conor’s shirt. She tugged him back so that he stood next to her.

He turned to look at her, confused.

“What are…,” he started to ask.

Kendra hissed at him to shut up. He growled and clenched his fist but complied. She sniffed, her nostrils wide. Scents poured into her, each one categorized and filed away in her mind. One scent, however, struck a note of terror inside her, and she realized it was what triggered her alarm. It was the powerful, musky odor of some kind of big animal.

Correction, animals!

| | | | |

 

“Jenna!” she heard Felix scream a warning, but it was way too late. The she-wolf was already through the door and bounding forward, teeth bared in a horrifying snarl. A huge growl burst from it, loud enough to hurt her ears. She stumbled back, clawing her way through her apartment’s front hallway as fast as she could, trying to put some distance between herself and the monster coming for her.

Dimly, she saw Felix in the background, coming through the door, a look of fear, mixed with grim determination on his face. She was extremely glad that he was there.

She looked back at the giant wolf coming down the hallway. It was padding slowly toward her now, playing with her. She thought she could even see a half-crazed smile on its canine mouth. A torrent of things sped through her mind, but it was all swallowed by a single thought.

Survive.

She was sliding past the bar attached to the kitchenette. She stopped there and waited for the monster, her heart beating a rapid rhythm in her chest.

Like war drums, she thought to herself.

She watched it carefully.

Just a few more seconds. She thought to herself, rather calmly.

The wolf hesitated slightly and cocked its head to one side, glancing at its prey with open curiosity. By all accounts, the human girl should be frightened to near immobility. But she wasn't. The she-wolf didn’t know how to handle prey that didn’t behave like it should. It seemed to shrug off its worries though and continued toward Jenna, gaining speed again.

“Come get me, bitch!” Jenna shouted with a voice full of strength and power. She slammed a fist down on the side panel beneath the bar’s counter, triggering a hidden release. It popped open to reveal a slew of weaponry. All of it was deadly, and all of it was made from pure silver. She grabbed the first thing within easy reach, a fully loaded crossbow. She had it out and aimed in the blink of an eye, but the wolf was faster. In the time it took her to grab the crossbow, the wolf had already lunged, its mouth gaping hugely. Jenna pulled the trigger, but she knew it was useless now. Even if she managed to kill the thing in mid-air, its momentum alone was going to carry it into her and crush her to the floor.

The thing howled with pain. Jenna heard a faint sizzling sound. A burnt-hair smell invaded her apartment.

She was right. The wolf was still coming at her, a bolt lodged in its right shoulder. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for the impact.

A sudden gust of wind ripped through her apartment from no apparent source. It smashed into the wolf with enough force to break bones and send it crashing through a wall. The noise was horrifyingly loud. There were a few more crashes and then things settled down. Jenna listened for the wolf, but there was only silence.

“Sorry,” Felix said as he stepped fully into the apartment.

Jenna looked up at him. He still had a hand thrust forward and beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead. Around his out-thrust hand was a mini-cyclone.

“I’m still new at this.” He smiled shyly at her.

“Well next time, let’s try to make it a little less close. The damn thing nearly ripped my head off,” Jenna responded teasingly, a small half-smile on her lips.

She winked at Felix, tossed the crossbow, and grabbed a pair of silver short swords from the open panel still sticking out from the bar. She whirled them both and then climbed through the hole the wolf made in the wall. A cloud of dust still clogged the air.

The hole led into the apartment’s roomy spare bedroom. She glanced around. Most of the furniture inside was shattered. The bed in there had been pulverized and looked like the most likely spot the enormous wolf had crash-landed. Both nightstands were totaled, and the dresser on the opposite wall was splintered, most of its drawers lying broken on the floor.

But there was no wolf.

Jenna instantly tensed up, scanning the room. Felix walked inside a second later and stood behind her.

“Where’s the werewolf?” he asked, his voice cracking with fear.

“I don’t know,” Jenna replied.

She held her swords lightly in both hands, blades parallel with her legs. She took a few steps forward, putting her directly in front of the closet. The minute she was, the door exploded outward, splinters of wood flying through the air.

Jenna jerked her face back, covering it with an arm.

The wolf crashed into her with all the force of a stampeding rhino and smashed her to the floor. She felt her right arm explode in pain, the bone giving out with an audible crack. The sword in that arm went flying out of her hand, but she managed to slash at the thing’s face with the other one before those huge jaws could snap shut on her throat. She heard the sizzling sound again, like meat frying on a hot skillet. The smell of burning fur once again invaded her nostrils. The wolf howled with pain and rage.

Jenna slashed at it again, but it nimbly dodged the attack. Its head flashed forward, and all she could see was its sharp teeth. She tried again to slice at it with the sword, but it was ready for that now. It swatted the blade away with one of its ridiculously huge paws, taking away her last remaining weapon and leaving her defenseless.

Jenna struggled to get away from it, but it had her legs pinned to the ground and she couldn’t really move. Her broken arm throbbed, and her good one wasn’t strong enough to help her get out of this mess.

“Felix!” she screamed. “A little help here!”

The wolf seemed to leer at her for a second, and then it went in for the kill. Jenna shut her eyes. She didn’t need to see what was about to happen. A couple seconds went by, and nothing did, so she tentatively opened them again. The wolf’s face was literally an inch away from hers. It was struggling madly to get at her, its jaws flashing and snapping on empty air. No matter what it did, though, it couldn’t get past… whatever it was that was keeping it away from her.

She glanced past the wolf and saw Felix standing there with his face set into a mask of concentration. He had one hand stretched toward them, fingers splayed but slightly crooked. In between the wolf and herself was a disk of condensed air about three feet in diameter. Every time the wolf came at her, it hit the disk and rebounded off like it was super-durable glass. Felix shouted loudly, his open hand suddenly clenching into a white-knuckled fist. The disk started to expand and warp. It lurched hesitatingly through the air to cover the wolf, molding and flowing over it like Saran wrap.

As the wolf realized what was going on, it went berserk. It shook its giant head, trying to throw off the super-condensed air Felix was continuing to wrap it in. It broke more stuff in its useless efforts.

Jenna backed away as soon as the thing had gotten off her legs and was now on the opposite side of the room. She had her arm cradled against her stomach, trying to ignore the burning pain pulsing from it. Her back was to the wall and her legs were lying in front of her.

She slowly managed to stand up but wobbled slightly as a bout of dizziness hit her. After it passed, she collected her swords. Her right arm hung uselessly, but her left was still whole and strong. She walked cautiously over to Felix, giving the struggling wolf a wide berth.

“How long can you keep that up?” she asked, almost conversationally. She sounded like she was chatting him up at the grocery store.

“I’m already starting to get weaker,” Felix gasped. She could see him breathing hard, and his left eye was starting to look a little bloodshot.

Damn, that thing is tough, she thought. She knew Felix was a beginner in the whole magic biz, but he was extremely strong for a newbie. If he was having that much trouble, then the bitch-wolf had a ton of strength herself.

Probably blood-crazed, she thought to herself. They're always stupid strong when they're blood-crazed.

She stalked toward the werewolf struggling against the binding Felix had it under. It was shifting now between the wolf and the woman she’d been at the start of this whole thing, only pale and naked. Her clothes were still at the front door in a careless, shredded heap.

“Hurry!” Felix shouted, his scream trailing into something that almost sounded like pain.

Jenna ran toward the wolf, but before she could reach it, Felix’s binding suddenly shattered apart.

Jenna dove forward, sensing that her opportunity was about to evaporate. She slashed a sword through the air in a long, silvery arc. The woman shifted again, but howled in pain as Jenna’s sword found its mark. The wolf whirled on her so fast she couldn’t do anything about it. It lashed out with a huge paw and knocked her through the air. She crashed into the wall with a horrifying thud. She didn’t get back up.

Felix faced the wolf now, gulping noticeably. He waved a trembling hand in the air, causing a shimmering half-dome of the same super-condensed air to form. The wolf growled in rage and then ran full out, but not at them. It reached a big window on the opposite side of the room and jumped at it. There was a loud crash and then it was gone.

Felix let out a harsh breath of relief and ran to Jenna, checking to see if she still had a pulse. She did. It was strong, so he knew she'd be okay. He got up and ran to the broken window next.

There was no sign of the werewolf.

His legs felt weak and rubbery, and he almost collapsed to the ground.

Jenna starting to coming around and was groaning weakly. She reached up a hand and rubbed the back of her neck.

“Did we get it?” she asked, smiling somewhat. Felix shook his head and helped her up.

She stumbled slightly.

“Whoa,” he said, holding her steady. “Easy. You took a major hit to that hard head of yours.”

“I’m fine.” And she was. She was getting steadier, so Felix let go of her.

“We got a problem, Jen.” He looked around the room pointedly. There didn’t seem to be anything left intact. Dust still hung in the air. Bits of jagged wood and warped metal littered the floor. Along with the giant hole, there was now a deep dent in the wall to the right of the closet with cracks radiating out from the middle.

“We’ll handle it,” she responded, easily enough.

“But if Kendra…,” he started to say, but Jenna cut him off.

“We’ll handle it,” she said again.

She walked into the kitchen, rather stiffly, Felix noted, and grabbed the phone. She laid it on the counter and punched in the numbers with her left hand. She put it up to her ear and waited. A couple of rings later, someone picked up. She explained what happened in quick, short sentences. When she told the whole story, she said what she needed and hung up.

An hour later, there was a knock on the door. Jenna went and opened it, stifling a yawn. The vacancy the adrenaline left behind made her feel worn out and tired.

“Wait,” Felix said, grabbing hold of her trailing arm. She glanced back at him with one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised, but he didn’t explain himself. She saw his dark brown eyes flash electric blue for a split second and then he released her.

“Okay. It’s them. I just wanted to be sure.”

“Good thinking,” she told him with a wink. He smiled with pleasure.

Jenna resumed her trek to the door and opened it. Her father stood in the hallway with John Price and Willie Stiles. John was a shorter guy but built with a lot of muscle. His bald head gleamed in the overhead lights from the ceiling. Willie was tall, dark-skinned, and built whipcord thin. He smiled at her, wide and inviting.

“Heard you had an uninvited stray,” he joked. “But don’t worry, we come with gifts.”

“Yeah?” she asked, joining in the joking. “What’d you bring the spoiled rich girl?’

“Little bit of this, little bit of that,” he responded. “You know how your daddy is.”

“Enough,” Elijah responded, his voice grim and rough.

She could see his anger but buried beneath it was a deep worry that really seemed to take its toll on him. He looked a bit older than he should have, maybe even a little less distinguished as well.

“Daddy,” she said, giving him a hug. He returned it with thoughtless strength, holding onto her a little too long, as if to reassure himself that she was still there. She winced as her broken arm flared up with pain.

“How bad did it hurt you?” Elijah asked, his voice thick with worry and concern. He pulled away from her and looked her up and down, trying to see if she was hurt worse than she’d said on the phone.

“I’m fine. It’s just a broken arm. I‘ll get it taken care of later,” she responded. “Right now, we need to hurry. I don’t know when Kendra will be back.”

“We’ll get it taken care of now,” Elijah said, sternly. He turned to the two men beside him and nodded to John. “John, if you would, please?”

John didn’t say a word. He just bent down and picked up a black valise that had been up against the wall. Then he shot Jenna an inquisitive look.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Is this really necessary?” She turned a pouty, spoiled look on her father, but he was immune. He stared back at her with an impatient look on his face.

“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes.

John guided her into the bathroom. She sat down on the toilet.

“I want it known that I’m doing this under protest.”

“Duly noted,” John said dryly as he concentrated on her arm.

He moved a little closer to her, grabbed it with gentle fingers, and probed it. Midway up her forearm, she let out a yelp of pain.

“Sorry,” he said offhandedly. He probed further and found the break. “Now this is the part that’s really going to hurt. Here take this.” He folded up a towel and handed it to her. “Bite down on it.”

Jenna put the towel in her mouth, and John set the break. She screamed harshly, biting down on the rough fabric as hard as she could. The pain was much more intense than she’d thought it'd be.

John yanked her arm again. An explosion of pain and sensation rippled up her entire body. She couldn’t take it anymore, so she blacked out.

About half an hour later, she groaned weakly as she opened her eyes. She felt her arm pulsing with steady pain. Felix was there, along with her father. They both stood over her with concerned looks on their faces. She was in her room now. On her bed. Her father sat down next to her and gave her a couple of pain pills and a cup of water. She popped the pills into her mouth and chomped on them, chasing the gritty, foul-tasting stuff down with the water.

“John said they’ll help,” Elijah told her, his voice soft. “He also said your arm is going to be in that cast for six weeks.”

She looked down and found it there, an ungainly heavy thing encasing her lower arm. And it was pink.

“I’m gonna kill him,” Jenna snarled. “He knows I hate pink.”

She propped herself up on her good arm and swung her legs off the bed. Both men tried to get her to lie down again, but she made them leave her alone. Felix didn’t last long under her stare. He folded within a second. Her father lasted longer, but he eventually backed down too.

“How long was I out?” she asked. She felt groggy and her legs were a little unstable.

“About half an hour,” Felix told her.

“You really should lie back down. Get some more rest,” Elijah said. He was worried that she was pushing herself too hard and that whoever attacked her would come back to finish the job. “We’ll finish up the rest of the work.”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” she said, trying to push past them, but they blocked her way. She looked to Felix for help, but he was stubbornly looking at everything else but her. He was scared of her father and didn’t like confronting him. She looked to Elijah instead. “Let me out. I can still help.”

“You’re not going anywhere but back in bed,” Elijah replied. He folded his arms across his broad chest and glared at her. It was a formidable, intimidating stare, and Jenna wavered beneath it like she always did. She learned early on in life that keeping on Elijah Bishop’s good side was generally the best course of action.

“Dad,” she pleaded, throwing a little pout into her voice.

Elijah’s eyes narrowed further and his bushy grey eyebrows furrowed together. Jenna kept at it for a good five minutes, trying to break down her father’s defenses, before she finally surrendered. She let out a frustrated sigh and climbed back into bed. Felix watched the encounter, feeling increasingly awkward, like he’d just walked in on Jenna naked.

“Get some rest,” Elijah repeated. “I’m going to post some men to stand watch in case the werewolf comes back.”

“That’s not…,” Jenna started but Elijah interrupted her.

“Get some rest and stop arguing with me. That thing nearly killed you.” He left without another word, shutting the door behind him with a note of finality.

She turned to Felix.

“Let’s go,” she told him. She grabbed her phone, then went to a safe in the back of her closet. Felix watched her pull out a pistol and put a clip in it loaded with silver bullets. He looked at her with a mixture of revulsion and fear.

“We can’t. Your dad said—”

“Forget about what he said. That thing had Kendra’s purse, Felix.”

“I know, but after everything you’ve seen her do, after all the changes, you don’t really believe she’s still human. Do you?”

“It doesn’t matter, and I won’t let it matter,” she responded as she remembered the events of that morning. Jenna’s heart had nearly broken when she’d seen the changes Kendra had gone through. There had been no question that they had gotten to her, but Jenna refused to believe her best friend would become a monster. She believed, with everything inside her, that she could still help her. “Whatever she is now, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s still Kendra. We have to find her.”

“What about the apartment? What if we find her and they’re still here?” Felix asked. He was trying to be the voice of reason in a situation where reason was being overruled.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, I want to find Kendra and make sure she’s all right,” Jenna said. “Can you do that for me or not?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I’ve never tried to track something that wasn’t human.”

Jenna thought about that for a moment.

“What if you had a link? Would that help?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Felix responded. “The magic might be able to use it if it’s a really recent link, or it might not work because she’s changed too much.”

“It’s worth a shot,” she replied, thinking. A second later, she looked up at Felix. “Go into her room, discreetly, and grab the small stuffed bear on her bed. It’s a worn-out, ratty thing that she’s had since she was little. It was a gift from her grandfather before he died. If that’s not enough of a link to her, changed or not, then nothing I have here will work.”

Felix grumbled, but did what she asked. He crept out of Jenna’s room, glancing furtively to make sure he wasn’t being watched, and quickly walked over to Kendra’s. Thankfully, the two were nearly side-by-side, and he was inside before anyone saw him.

He quietly shut the door behind him and glanced around. Darkness had settled outside and Kendra’s room was pitch black. He raised his hand and concentrated for a moment. A small ball of pure, blue energy hovered about an inch above his palm. It gave everything in the room a faint, blue-white tint.

“Where are you?” he murmured to himself.

He couldn’t find the damned stuffed bear.

Jenna said it was on the bed, right? he asked himself, trying to remember. He was pretty sure that’s what she’d said.

He went over to it and looked around, tossing aside shirts and pants in his efforts to find the bear.

He was growing increasingly nervous the longer he was in there. The footsteps from out in the living room sounded like they were right in front of the door.

There it is!

He saw it now, a teddy bear about as tall as a paperback novel that looked like it had seen better days. One of its button eyes had fallen off and been replaced by another one that was both larger and marbled brown and white instead of black. The stitching it had for a mouth was starting to unravel, and there was a split seam in the back with white, cottony fluff coming out of it.

Felix grabbed it and held it tightly in his hand. Then he moved away from the bed and back to the room’s door. He let his little ball of energy die out and opened the door a crack.

Willie was standing on the opposite side of the living room, helping to repair the giant hole in the wall. He could just make out Elijah and John in the room beyond as they walked past it, working to clean up all the damaged furniture.

Silently, Felix crept out of Kendra’s room and back into Jenna’s. Her eyes went to his the moment he shut the door behind him.

“Did you find it?” she asked, impatiently.

“Yeah,” he responded, holding up the stuffed animal so she could see it. “What if this doesn’t work?”

“We’ll worry about that later. First, you need to get us out of here.” She went up to him and grabbed his hand with her good one. She was wasting no time. “Let’s go.”

Felix wanted to argue more. He wanted her to rest, but he’d been working with her long enough to know that when Jenna Bishop set her mind to something, he could either go along with it or get flattened by her stubbornness.

“Your dad’s going to kill us,” Felix said, giving one more nervous glance at the door. He tried not to contemplate what Elijah would do to him for disobeying. He gave one final, pleading look to Jenna, but there was no way she was backing down.

He sighed miserably.

When Jenna was ready, he tightened his grip on her hand.

“Does it hurt?” he heard her ask, her voice uncharacteristically nervous.

“It’s uncomfortable, but you get used to it,” he answered.

Felix focused his mind, letting the magic take hold. When he was ready, he released it with a murmured, unrecognizable word, something archaic and old. There was an abrupt, wrenching cyclone of wind. Jenna felt her entire body narrow and compact on itself, like she was being sucked violently into a black hole. She screamed with no voice, her hand tightly wrapped around Felix’s. She wasn’t sure how long she could take the overwhelming sensations, when, all of a sudden, they were standing in the alley behind her apartment building.

“Okay,” Jenna said, breathless. “That was awesome!”

“Yeah. Magic. Really cool,” Felix replied, sarcastically. “Where to next?”

Jenna pulled out her phone and dialed Kendra’s number. Like she thought, it went straight to her voicemail. She put it back in her pocket.

“I didn’t think she would answer, but it was worth a shot. We go to plan B. I need you to use the bear and track her.”

“I’m not promising anything,” Felix told her.

Jenna nodded and gestured at him to hurry up.

Felix sighed again, feeling like he had no control over anything. It felt like his life had suddenly become a steep hill and he was riding a bike down it at speeds that made it impossible for him to control the ride.

He brought the bear up to his face and concentrated. Again, he felt his magic rise up. It started in his belly and radiated out from there until it was too intense to control. He focused on what he needed and then let the magic flow out of him and into the bear. It glowed bright blue and then started to pulse. Each pulse radiated out of it like a ripple in a pond. Felix could feel each one as they searched the city. He felt them as they passed through buildings, touching each human life. But none of them were Kendra. The pulses flickered and then died out as they reached the edge of their range. He opened his eyes and looked up at Jenna.

“Sorry, no good. She’s either not in the city, changed too much, or she’s—”

“Don’t say it,” Jenna nearly shouted. “She’s not dead.”

“That’s a possibility. Or, my magic just can’t track a werewolf,” Felix stated. Jenna narrowed her eyes at him. “What do we do now?”

She walked down the alley, her pink cast bright and gaudy. She looked back at him.

“We find her, Felix. And then we make the ones that took her pay.”

 

| | | | |

 

“Conor!” Kendra said, her voice a choked whisper. The werewolves, they were getting closer. She could feel them. She could hear and even smell them. Her heart hammered in her chest and her legs suddenly felt like rubber.

She slipped behind Conor, cowering there and visibly shaking. She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut as tight as she could.

“Kendra,” Conor said, shouting a bit to get through her wall of fear. “Kendra!”’

She wasn’t listening. The only thing she could focus on were the werewolves. There were eight of them. And now…now they were here. She could see them. Her breath caught in her throat, and no matter what she did, she couldn’t get it back. She struggled under the panic attack while Conor shook her and tried to calm her down. Her wide, staring eyes could only see the eight enormous wolves pawing their way toward the two of them.

“It’s okay! It‘s okay!” Conor was yelling at her hysterically now, trying to get through to her. “Breathe, Kendra! Just breathe!”

But she couldn’t. Her throat was locked tight and her lungs refused to work. She shook her head emphatically, her fingers scrabbling uselessly at her neck. Then her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she collapsed. The minute she blacked out, her body sucked in a large lungful of air reflexively.

Conor watched her breathe and let out a sigh of relief. He leaned down and picked her up. He held her in his arms, carrying her weight like she was nothing but a toy doll. He checked her again. She was still breathing, thankfully. She just passed out. Scowling ferociously at the wolves on his way past, he carried her up the stairs.

“Why did you all shift?” he growled.

The giant wolves only stared at him with their luminous, amber eyes.

Conor continued up the wide stairs. When he got to the top, he went down the right-hand hallway. He followed it to the end, where a set of double doors waited for him. He pushed them open and stepped inside. The room was dark, but it was hard to miss the huge four-poster bed to the left. He went to it and laid Kendra on it as gently as he could. Her face was relaxed now, almost peaceful.

A beautiful face, Conor thought to himself.

He reached out a hand and brushed a tendril of hair off her forehead. His fingertips slid over her smooth, soft skin. She groaned softly and twitched her head a bit. He stepped back and went to the other side of the room. There was a collection of plush furniture there, and after some debate, he chose the couch. He laid down on it lengthwise and watched Kendra’s sleeping form. He never took his eyes off her.

He stayed that way for a long time, just watching over her. She never stirred and looked eerily like a dead body occupying space on the bed. The notion was so strong that he got up several times to make sure she was still breathing. There was nothing physically wrong with her. He knew that. It was just the shock and trauma of the night’s events and everything she’d learned. He really would’ve preferred to do this Merle’s way. Start with a conversation to ease her into it and then explain everything else. But Merrick robbed them of that plan along with Merle’s life. If Merrick had been the one to kill him…

…he shuddered. That was a thought he couldn’t let himself entertain. He knew asking Kendra to finish off her own father was going to scar her for the rest of her life, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. The situation had gotten so far out of control and the solution, although morally wrong on so many levels, was the best they could’ve hoped for. Kendra probably wouldn’t understand, but given enough time, the pain would fade.

Hopefully, anyway, he thought, just before he dozed off.

It felt like a second, maybe two, that he’d been asleep. Then a scream cut through the foggy landscape of his dream like a knife. He jerked awake; his reflexes kicked up into overdrive. It didn’t take long for him to find the source of the scream. It was coming from the bed, from Kendra. He ran to her, jumping over furniture and tables without missing a beat. To an outsider, the performance would’ve been very riveting. Some of the things he leaped over he missed by bare inches.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, although judging by the way she was gripping her arm, and the snarl of pain on her face, he already knew.

“My hand…,” she struggled to say, her words coming out in a breathless gasp. “It hurts. It hurts. IT HURTS!”

Conor took her hand and struggled to pry the other one off. The fingers clasped onto the burning hand’s wrist were locked in a death hold. He finally managed to get it loose. He took her hand, still smeared with Merle’s blood, in his own. He sat down next to her, put his arm around her, and held her tight.

“It’s going to hurt, a lot.” He rocked her back and forth, trying to give her tired, pain-filled mind something else to focus on. “It’ll be over soon. I promise.”

“What’s happening to me?” she wailed. Big tears blossomed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. He watched them pool along her jaw and then fall onto her shirt.

Conor would’ve given anything in the world to take that pain from her. She’d already been through so much; she didn’t need this on top of everything else. But there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. The process had to finish. That was the only way to end the pain.

Conor looked at the dried blood on Kendra's hands. Tendrils of white smoke were drifting off them. Then the blood started to bead up, looking like droplets of water on a freshly waxed car. Kendra’s screams got louder, but Conor held onto her. He rocked her back and forth, back and forth. A steady, almost hypnotic cadence. Kendra tried to focus on that sensation. On the back and forth, but the pain in her hand was unbearable. The shards of her concentration first buckled and then fractured altogether. She wailed again as her burning hand got worse. She felt like she’d dipped it in lava and then after that, just for kicks, stuck it in a vat of boiling, hot grease.

“What’s happening to me?” she asked.

Her hand was curling itself into a harpy’s claw now. She was crying even harder. She didn’t understand what was going on. She didn’t understand the pain or the why, only that it hurt.

“Shh…shh,” Conor told her, ignoring her pleas. He wanted to tell her everything, but in her current state, it wouldn’t help. In fact, it might make things worse. “Just fight through it. Fight through the pain, Kendra.”

She tried. She bit down on it, even as it heightened to an appalling degree. Then, with horror-stricken eyes, she watched the blood run together, the individual beads forming into a cohesive unit.

“What…what?” she cried, her heart thudding and pounding.

Her hand burned and continued smoking. She watched as her father’s blood beaded up, swirled together, and then covered her hand like a glove. She yelled out her fear and pain to Conor and the empty room.

Other people started coming inside, hesitatingly at first, and then in numbers. They watched the proceedings. Some did so with wariness and fear, while others stared at her with something like hope, and still others with anger or revulsion. She tried to remember their faces, but they soon swam behind a cloudy haze. In the end, however, she and Conor were the only ones left.

“It’s almost over, Kendra,” he whispered to her, smoothing her hair and kissing her forehead gently. It was hot to the touch. It burned almost enough to hurt him. “Almost over.”

She watched the blood flow into the pores of her hand. That was the most volatile feeling of all, she reflected. It was invasive and vulgar. It was almost like a raping of sorts. She had no choice in the matter. Her will was not important. The blood seemed to have a mind of its own. It was directed by that will, and it wanted inside her.

All of the veins in her hand bulged and burned, turning bright red as the blood flowed into them. It crawled sluggishly once inside her, and she watched it with horrified fascination. She turned her hand around so she could see her open palm. The blood was coalescing there, gathering in the middle and forming a pattern of some sort.

“Almost done,” Conor whispered to her. His voice was far away.

“Make it STOP!” she yelled.

The pattern was something fuzzy at first. Her concentration wavered under the blanket of pain. She wanted to blackout, to escape, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t, and she thought she would go insane. If it didn’t stop soon, she knew she would. She imagined herself in New Haven Asylum, pushed right up beside her mother. The image tore another scream out of her, but this one was born out of fear rather than pain.

Finally, the pattern finished forming. When it did, the pain stopped immediately. All the burning snapped off like someone just flipped a switch. It was weird.

She sat up slowly.

“I feel…much better now,” she said, and she did.

With the pain completely gone, she felt energized and full of raw power. Her body practically sang with it. It didn’t fade or go away. It swam through every inch of her.

“What was that? And what is this?” she asked, showing Conor her palm.

She realized he was still holding onto her. She let herself be enfolded by his presence a little longer, finding that she actually enjoyed it, and then coughed slightly. The two of them broke apart with sheepish grins and muffled apologies. When the awkwardness faded, she looked at him.

“I apologize for your pain,” he told her. The gentleness in his voice was deep and sincere. “I didn’t want this for you. Neither did your father. You have to understand that.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, shaking her hand a bit. It didn’t hurt, but there was a persistent tingling sensation radiating out from the center of her palm. “You’re acting like it was your fault.”

He cast his eyes aside, not wanting to look at her, but she didn’t miss the blatant guilt on his face.

“Conor?”

He turned back, unshed tears in his eyes.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she asked, insistent. “What are you talking about?”

“This,” he said, almost shouting.

He grabbed her hand and showed her the palm. In the center were three rings of blood red, one inside the other. In the middle of this was a symbol that looked vaguely like a triskelion, a Celtic symbol she recognized from one of her past classes from college. It was a formation comprised of three spirals.

It meant…something. Something about the moon, she thought.

“What is it?” she asked, dread welling up inside her. Her body was still full of that weird, rushing energy. She could feel it changing her, rearranging things. She didn’t like it.

“It’s the mark of an alpha,” he answered, his voice grave. “Every pack has one. Merle was ours. He was the oldest, most powerful werewolf among us.”

“So, what does that mean for me? Am I next? Because I’m his daughter?” she asked.

She couldn’t hide the hysteria in her voice. She tried to calm herself down so she could think. She stared at the symbol now inked in her skin like an unwanted tattoo. Realization hit a moment later. Conor’s guilt and his rush to apologize like it was his fault suddenly made sense to her.

“It’s not, is it? It’s not because I’m his daughter. It’s because you made me kill him.”

Conor didn’t say anything, but that look of guilt and shame deepened on his face.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she cried. She pushed him away from her and got up. There was rage in her eyes. “I never wanted to be a freaking werewolf, and now you’ve made me the leader?”

“You had to be the one to kill him,” Conor said. He was trying to get her to calm down, but it wasn’t working. Her anger only got worse. “If the other wolf killed your father, he would’ve become the alpha. We couldn’t let that happen. It was wrong. I know that, but there was no other choice.”

“Then why didn’t you do it?” she yelled.

She stood with the bed between her and Conor, but that distance didn’t seem far enough. She wanted out. She wanted to run away from this place and its unwanted obligations. She wanted to run from Conor. From everything. She never would’ve thought she’d be praying to have the old, boring Kendra back, but that was what she wanted in that moment.

Anything but this, she thought miserably to herself.

She shuddered as she recalled how it felt to bury the knife in Merle’s body. She remembered the feeling of the knife hitting bone before sliding in deeper and piercing his heart.

“Why didn’t you kill him?” she asked again, her voice even louder this time. She wanted to throw something heavy at his head, but she didn’t have anything handy next to her.

Conor didn’t answer her question. Instead, he looked ashamed of something. She thought he was still feeling guilty about making her kill Merle, but the more she watched him, the more she thought that wasn’t right. It was something else. Something he wasn’t willing to tell her.

After a long silence, Kendra spoke up.

“I’m leaving. I don’t want to be the alpha. I don’t want to be a werewolf. I’m not anything to you or your pack. All I want is for you all to leave me alone.”

She stalked toward the door, never looking at Conor and the pain on his face. If she looked at him, she would hesitate. If she hesitated, her anger would start to dwindle…like a flame blown out by a gust of wind. And she wanted to be angry. She was entitled. After everything she’d been put through, after everything that was done to her, she deserved that much at least.

So, she kept walking, never thinking about the dangers she would face. Never thinking about the fact that someone had tried to kill her already. She was so angry she didn’t think about much of anything except leaving.

She wanted to escape the craziness her world had suddenly become. Again, she pictured herself in New Haven, rolled up next to her mother in a wheelchair, both of them staring at nothing.

“No,” she said harshly to herself. “That won’t happen.”

She was so entrenched in her own thoughts that the scream she heard felt like it was coming from her own head. It wasn’t until its piercing wail kept rising in pitch that she realized it was coming from outside of her. She snapped out of her dark thoughts and saw a figure racing toward her.

It was a woman. She was very beautiful even though her face was streaked with tears and mottled with bright red patches. There was an anguished quality to her cries, something that suggested a deep, agonizing loss. Kendra stopped in her tracks and waited for the woman to get to her.

She collapsed at Kendra’s feet.

“Help!” the woman gasped. She was in so much anguish. So much despair.

Kendra felt sorry for her. She bent down so they were both at eye level.

“What happened? What's going on?” she asked.

Despite everything she’d said to Conor about wanting nothing to do with the pack, the minute the woman ran up to her crying, something in Kendra connected with her. It was a bond she hadn’t felt before and something she didn’t think she could break.

It’s because I’m her alpha, she realized. The knowledge of that angered her even more, but for the moment being the alpha overrode all her other feelings. One of her pack was hurting and it was her job to help.

She heard Conor running down the hall. When he got to them, he crouched so he could join them on the floor. He grabbed the woman’s face, gingerly Kendra noted, and looked her in the eyes.

“Deirdre?” he asked her.

For a long time, the woman wouldn’t focus on him. She was lost in her own private hell. Kendra saw sadness and grief warring with outright terror and fear on the pretty woman’s reddened face.

“Deirdre!” Conor’s voice was firm now, insistent.

Her breath hitched in her throat. Her deep green eyes gazed up at Conor through a veil of fiery, red hair.

“It’s Patrick,” she cried out in keening, wailing tones.

“What about him, Deirdre?” Conor asked, concerned. “What’s happened?”

“He’s…he’s dead!” she shrieked.

As if to accompany her grief, a high-pitched, braying alarm suddenly went off with a riotous explosion of sound and blinking lights.