Thinking I was imagining things again, I blinked several times, attempting to clear my vision. I was both heavy and light, my body useless and trembling, my teeth chattering despite the suffocating heat that seemed to come from every inch of me. Widening my focus, I tried looking past the eyes to find a pair of lips thinned in displeasure and surrounded by a thick beard. I knew this face; it was the man who’d saved me. It was Eagle.
I blinked again, feeling sluggish, heavy, aching. The light was too bright, my tongue lay flaccid inside my mouth, and it hurt to breathe or even swallow. A drink, God, yes, I needed a drink.
“Thirsty,” I rasped, gagging over the lone word.
My body jerked, and I found myself suddenly floating, lifted above the softness and missing it instantly. Eagle’s face loomed over mine, and it took me a moment to realize I wasn’t actually floating. He’d lifted me, and I was in his arms, so close to him I could feel his cool breath fan across my face.
Something cold nudged my lips and I readily opened my mouth, eagerly swallowing the water he offered. I swallowed slowly at first, the liquid splashing over my lips and spilling down my chin and chest. My hand reached up, wrapping around the cup—around his hand, and I tipped it back, needing more. I swallowed greedily until there was nothing left and the cup was gone, snatched from me.
Crying out, I grabbed for it, growling and slapping at his hand as he held it out of my reach.
“No more,” he said, and tossed the cup away. “You’ll puke again.”
As if on cue, I started to feel queasy. I snarled up at him, hating that he’d been right.
“Keep growling at me,” he muttered. “And see what the fuck happens.”
As he set me down, a thousand thoughts trampled through my mind, running rampant and wild. I tried to grab on to any one of them, but every time I had one in my grasp, it slipped instantly away. Looming above me, Eagle stared down at me, his nostrils flaring as if it were paining him having to breathe the same air as me. His eyes were narrowed, anger burning outward from their depths while his arms were crossed in front of him, his large muscles twitching.
He didn’t speak, and neither did I. Dislike and distrust swung back and forth between us until my stomach surged in protest. Placing a hand over my stomach, I attempted holding the nausea at bay only to realize something. These weren’t my clothes. Panicked, I awkwardly patted myself down, my hands roaming over unfamiliar material, clothes that were obviously not my own.
I lifted my arm and my eyes widened at the sight of my skin.My pale and clean skin.
It was gone, all of it. My camouflage, my weapon, my protection ... it was all gone. He’d taken it from me, taken all I had left. Furious, I looked at him and a growl tore from my throat, but he merely shrugged and shook his head.
I couldn’t take it anymore, it was too much—this place, these people, this man. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened my mouth to scream, and the anguished wail freed from my lungs.
“Shut up!” I heard him shout.
But I wouldn’t, I couldn’t.
A hand clamped over my mouth, and my eyes flew open. He was close again, too close, and his mouth was moving, yelling things that I couldn’t make out. I thrashed beneath him, no longer caring about the pain I was causing myself. I would fight until I had nothing left. I would fight until he killed me.
His hand raised, looming over me as his fingers curled into a fist, and I watched as it barreled toward me. I bit down on the other hand clamped over my mouth and heard him shout out in pain, and then ...
Everything went black.
• • •
I blinked against the veil of darkness, panicking for only a moment before calming. I was home, inside my cave, and I was safe. Straining my ears, I listened, as I did most nights, to the sound of the wind blowing through the treetops, rustling the leaves, and the soothing sound of water rushing through the ravine. Breathing out slowly, I closed my eyes again.
Another sound broke through the near silence of my cave. A sound both familiar and wrong, the sound of snoring, loud and intrusive, similar to the noise my father used to make while he slept. I would hear him through the walls, his loud snores keeping me awake at night, frustrating me to the point where I would put my head beneath my pillow and squeeze my ears.
But my father was dead. Everyone I had ever known was dead. And this snoring was all wrong, louder and deeper than my father’s. The panic returning, I bolted upright and let out a short sharp cry as pain sliced through my middle. I clutched my abdomen against the pain and felt something strange. Lifting up my shirt, I found a strip of cloth wrapped tightly around me.
I’m clean.
My panic rose, tightening like a noose around my neck, my breaths coming short and fast, leaving me light-headed and dizzy.
I was clean.
They would smell me.
They would come, and they would feed.
I gasped, desperately needing air.
“Calm down,” a deep voice ordered. “Just calm the fuck down.”
