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Pulling the door open slowly to avoid creaking, I slithered out the cracked opening and took off, getting as far from the house as possible before I even considered slowing down. The tears let loose then when I was free of prying eyes.
ChapterFour
The rest of the day had slipped from sun to moon in nearly the blink of an eye. The hours warped together. I couldn’t keep track of them. I was more than ready to climb into bed, put my head on my pillow, and close my eyes. But not the rest of the world wanted to allow me that. Because as soon as I closed my eyes, a hand was shaking me, a voice calling my name, sounding so desperate.
When I opened my eyes, I caught sight of man that was taller than my father, heaving for air with garbled sounds rough enough to make me think he would end up passing out. Beneath the beard that covered his face and the tangled mess of hair that stuck to it from the sweat dribbling down his face was beet red. Instinct pushed me forward, my fingers brushing over the countertop, ready to jump into action if needed.
He held up a finger, sputtering a cough, and pulled himself together just as my father departed his room to see the commotion. The man sputtered again, gathering himself, and shook his head to get the sweat off his face.
“My son,” he finally gasped and dug into his pocket, brandishing a few coins. “Please.”
No morning, but I moved forward and snatched up my bag anyway.
“I’ll come with you,” my father groused, following behind as the man led the way.
He turned slightly, holding the coins out for me. I pushed his hand away and encouraged him to keep going, to just show me what I had to deal with. I didn’t feel like talking, not this soon after waking up. I already guessed it would be a tough day, and I wasn’t about to make it worse for myself.
“Stan, what happened?” my father asked, connecting a name to the face.
“My son,” he grunted and fell silent as he led us forward.
I knew the name. He was a man my father had talked about many times and others highly recommended. He was the village’s butcher, the man who chopped the meat to serve. The hunters brought him the carcasses, and he did the magic. If it weren’t for him, I was sure many people wouldn’t even know how to skin anything, let alone cut it all up and ration the way he did.
I’d never actually met him personally. Dad always took care of going to get our meat himself. It was because of their friendship that we even got it at times, what with not always having the appropriate amount of money on hand.
“Here,” Stan breathed, pushing open the door to a slightly bigger cabin than ours.
Did that mean he had more rooms? I hadn’t heard of the guy having kids, though. Then again, I tried not to worry about the details of everybody around me. Poking my nose into other people’s business wasn’t my thing.
I stepped over the threshold of the home and was hit with the sultry smell of blood right away. That alone told me that whatever had happened wasn’t good. Stan moved to a door near the back of the cabin and popped it open, lingering for a moment before moving out of the way so I could get in. Glancing over my shoulder, my father nodded at me, and I stepped in to see what was happening.
The boy lay on his bed, a bloody, mangled mess. There was too much red for me to see exactly what had happened. My eyes scoured the room and stopped on a hatchet that stood against the wall, its sharp edge coated in red and dripping to show just how fresh it was. The sight itself sent a shiver down my spine. Not because of what I guessed happened but because I didn’t want to be in the line of fire if whoever had hurt the boy came back. I could handle the wounds, the blood. Maybe I could fight off an attack, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stand right in the way. I peeked over my shoulder again, eyeballing Stan, but his eyes were fixated on his son. His large, beefy hands trembled violently, his bottom lip quivering in the beard covering his face. I couldn’t tell if the curly hairs were patched wet from tears or sweat, but the way his eyes brimmed over with tears made me guess it was the former of the two.
“What happened?” my father asked, shouldering in beside Stan, nudging him slightly to the side.
“We – we went hunting, and it just – it went wrong,” his voice cracked, and his broad shoulders dipped. “It was an accident.”
I narrowed my eyes at him but didn’t say a thing as I turned back and moved to the side of the bed, looking down at him. I recognized him from school, two years beneath me. He wasn’t very good with spells, though now, knowing what his father did for a living, it was no surprise. His lips were slightly purple but parted open to let out ragged breaths of air, and his eyes bugged out, watching me with a plea in them. My eyes roamed over his body until I found his blood-coated wound across his stomach. The sleeve of his sweater was torn up. Following the bits of fabric hanging off, I came to look at the slashes up and down his arm. Confusion rolled through me, and I looked back at the hatchet dripping with blood again. The marks that thing would’ve left were not what I was looking at.
“It attacked us,” Stan explained, his voice quivering. “I’ve seen rabid wolves before, but – but that one – I’ve never seen one act like that.”
“It was probably a Lycan—”
“No,” Stan interrupted my father harshly. “It wasn’t. I know what a Lycan looks like. I have to, so I don’t accidentally kill one. Fines for doing that, you know? Prison time, I can’t afford that. This wasn’t a Lycan.”
“There are rabid werewolves,” I said softly and reached over, peeling the bits of fabric from the kid’s arm. “Lycan gone bad, from what I’ve been told. They usually aren’t close to villages, though. There’s plenty of wildlife for them to feed on. How far were you?”
When he didn’t answer, my head shot up, and I turned to look at him, narrowing my eyes. “How far were you?” I repeated more harshly this time. “I need to know so I know what I’m dealing with here.”
His eyes flashed to my father and back to me, beefy fingers fidgeting with the sleeve of his shirt that I now noticed was splashed with blood. “A two-day ride.”
I blanched and looked back at his son, dropping my bag on the floor When Lycan wanted to turn someone in, they did so without an issue. Bit into them, leaving behind the venom that would course through their veins. Within days, if their bodies allowed it, they would change. If they weren’t meant to change, the fever would take over and slowly kill them from the inside out. Wild Lycan, though? They were the bad ones, the rogue ones, as some called them. Their sense of morality was lost, and the desire to feed was a constant threat, and they could only ever change back into human form on the full moon if they were lucky. The ones who were too far gone didn’t get to change back. They’d be stuck, crying to a moon that had turned her back on them. It was a sad fate to live, but all species had this in one way or another. Now if you got bitten by a Lycan gone bad, there was no telling what would happen.
I reached out and peeled up the top eyelid of his left eye, looking down at the white circle coated in red. His pupil was dilated, looking as if it were about to burst out of its socket. He was hot to the touch, like burning on fire. I knew right then there was nothing I could do. We had to let it pass and see what happened, but with how he was breathing, I had a sinking suspicion that he wouldn’t make it out of this. I couldn’t recall hearing about any cases of anyone having made it alive from an attack of a bad Lycan.
“Well?” Stan pressed, and when I turned to look at him, he was wringing his hands, his eyes on his son.
“I can patch it up, but…” My voice trailed off, and I looked at the boy again. “That’s all I really can do.”
