Page 19 of Taken By Raider Kings
She curled into a small ball and sobbed, each small hitching breath tearing at his heart.
Maybe one of the others could make her understand, because Zach had a sinking feeling he’d just fucked up his one chance.She didn’t have a shaman to train her, and if they ran across other Tribe who found her in this state of abject, terrified misery Zach would have a lot of explaining to do—and there weren’t many of his kind who would listen.He might end up being put on trial, and who would look after his Family then?
In other words, he was right back where he started.And she was worse off than ever.
nine
She wasawake when the window broke.
Well, maybe notawakebut certainly not asleep.Instead, Sophie was lost in fuzzy half-consciousness, utterly cried-out, wishing for her own bed and her own kitchen instead of yet another clutch of near-inedible fast food.For people who ate junk all the time they were awfully slim and energetic, each one long and lean and graceful.
Apparently, being werewolves was good forsomething.Jesus.
She’d refused to eatorspeak further, withdrawing inside her head the way she used to when Marc was on one of his rampages.They left her blessedly alone after a while, so she just curled tighter and tighter around herself, all elbows and knees like an angry preschooler.Julia had kept turning the television up, Zach kept turning it down, while the smell of fried food made Sophie’s head ache and her stomach rumble.
Werewolves.Oh, my God.Tiny shivers would race through her at the thought.But she’dseenit, Zach’s flesh melting and reshaping, hair sliding free, and that sound—a thunderous growl that shouldn’t,couldn’tcome from a human chest, with weird clicking stops at the end.
Oddly enough, he told her she wasn’t crazy.Butwerewolves,for God’s sake.And poor Lucy, and Lucy’s body, and the terrible gaping hole in Lucy’s throat… round and round she went inside her own head, then Sophie would flinch again, pull herself together more tightly, and try to find some way to banish all this terrible insanity from her aching brain.
It wasn’t working.At all
They had arranged themselves on the other twin bed or on the floor to sleep, Julia whining that Sophie had a mattress all to herself and Eric saying, “She’s theshaman,” just like someone would say,It’s raining.Zach stood near the door for a long time, dark head bowed and muscular arms crossed.The others whispered, glancing at him until he shook his shaggy hair as if dislodging a bad thought.They quieted like he’d shushed them, then Zach settled down cross-legged, clearly intending to sleep sitting up.
Sophie turned over, drew her knees up again, and tried in vain to think of a way out.Her head simply wouldn’t let all the horror fit inside—she would try to put everything together, and one piece would fall out, usually with a terrible zinging pain.Lucy’s agonized dying gasps would echo inside her, or the thing snarling with its white shirt blackened-wet down the front.
And she would flinch, her stomach churning.
It didn’t help that her skin felt scrubbed raw.Everything was soloud,clothing and sheets rasping like jagged metal.The sough of breathing like bellows.Her skin hurt, each sound sandpaper over worn-thin nerves.Her entire body flushed and tingled oddly.She wondered if you could get an allergic reaction from just the smell of MSG-laden fast food, and tried to find a comfortable way to lie.
Sleep was an utter impossibility, not least because it would render her even more vulnerable to the craziness.
So when the window shattered and the noise started, she sat bolt upright.A terrible tidal reek of old dirt and rotting spice-rubbed cheesecloth blew into the room.The door shattered, kicked inward; someone leapt on her bed, grabbing and rolling.
The confusion ended with her on the floor between the beds, Zach untangling himself and barking,“Stay down!”before he vanished.The lamp on the nightstand shattered; the growling, snapping, screams shading into yowls like a huge enraged cat reached a pitch just short of madness.Habit sent her hand fishing for her glasses—thankfully, they were right on the nightstand where she’d left them, though the lamp’s shards were sharp against her frantic fingers for an endless, nightmarish second.
She might have stayed there, crouched with her hands over her ears, if she hadn’t heard a gurgling noise, like water swirling down a recalcitrant drain.
It reminded her of Lucy’s throat and the terrible bubbling, gaping wound.Her knee pressed something small and pebbled—Lucy’s tiny jeweled purse, the keys inside ruthlessly spearing her patella.
Sophie grabbed the bag and threw herself toward the end of the bed.Something flew overhead, snapping and snarling; hot drops of foul-smelling liquid spattered.She screamed, miserably, a small sound lost in boiling cacophony, and crawled for the door.Someone tripped over her, a booted foot sinking solidly into her side; all her breath fled as her stomach backed up, trying to wring itself out her throat.
Cold air drenched the carpet as a coppery stink roiled.Sophie scrambled through the shattered door on all fours, crying out again as a sliver the size of a tree trunk pierced the meat of her left hand.Her hastily swallowed yell was lost in the huge noise, too, and the sliver was pulled free as she raised her hand.
She made it to the pebbled concrete walkway outside, scrambled to sockfeet.Ran, the little jeweled purse clutched in her bleeding fist and soles slapping the concrete so hard she felt the reverberations in each tooth.The stairs unreeled under her, and a sudden vivid image of tripping, cartwheeling over and over before smashing her skull on the pavement below, managed to slow her for only half a second.The parking lot blurred by, a Coke machine screaming red; she made it to the lot’s entrance, framed with high holly bushes.Her breath plumed white in frosty night air.
And there, looming out of the night like a fresh yellow beacon of hope, was an honest-to-God taxi.Riverside Car Servicewas painted on the side in orange, with a cheery decal that resembled mushroom but was probably intended to be a grinning cartoon car.
“Stop!”she screamed, waving her hands like a maniac or a drowning woman; wonder of wonders, the cab braked smoothly.She reached for the back door just as the front passenger window rolled down.
“Lady, you on drugs?”The cabbie, a short, thick, bristled fellow, peered through Coke-bottom glasses at her.Her own lenses were smeared and smudged; her head hurt, spikes driven through her temples.The tingling, flushing weirdness on her skin receded under the cold, fresh air.
“Of course I’m not.”Her throat was raw, and she winced, groping for something reasonable to say.The noise wasn’t nearly so overwhelming out here in the parking lot, but in another few minutes that might change.“There’s a party going on here and I want to go home.Can you take me to the train station?Please?”Oh god, don’t speed away, please give me a break, please God help me.
She tried to look drug-free and vulnerable at the same time, digging in the purse and pulling out a random handful of cash—all she could afford to take dancing last night.She’d been grousing to herself over the waste—it was half her grocery bill for the month, dammit.“Look, I can pay and I’m not any trouble, honest.I just want to go home.”Her breath caught on a sob.
Behind her, dim faraway noise took on a different quality—a chilling animal howl ending a series of guttural broken stops.God, you have no idea how much I just want to gohome.Please help me.
The cabbie’s eyes turned round; the lock on the back door chucked up.“Get in, lady.Don’t stand around.”
