I look him over, a sad smile stealing my humor. “Come on, let’s hose the rest of the blood out of your fur before we crash. Your weird, cat-bath lick fest didn’t get it all.” He hops in the tub and I use the little trial sized bar of soap to clean his coat, toweling him off.
As much as I’d rather just pass out, I’m disgusting in a way I’ve never been before, and I already know I’m going to be sore as all get out tomorrow. At least if I take a hot shower now, it might stave off some of the ache.
The water doesn’t get nearly warm enough, but beggars can’t be choosers. I change right back into the same clothes, just in case we need to make a run for it. The fall air is chilly, but the walk kept me warm before. Now, damp and less keyed up, it’s clear just how poorly heated the room is.
Ozzy is already stretched out on the hideous, floral bedspread when I reach the bed. I shove him over to one side and out of the middle, pulling back the blanket and slipping beneath. It’s not the first time that he’s crawled into bed with me in recent weeks, but my bed back home is far larger. Now, he’s pressed against my back, and I chastise myself for keeping that distance until now. He’s like a personal heater and I scoot closer, the low purr vibrating his body lulling me to sleep like no comfort I’ve had before.
Six
Cole
Ismooth my hand over Sarah’s forehead, brushing away the sweat and trying to hide my worry. Despite the fact that she seems to have beaten the worst of whatever hit her, she’s far from healthy. Honestly, I’m surprised she’s rebounded this much after the last hospital sent her home, claiming they just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. They pumped her full of broad spectrum antibiotics and gave us something to try and manage her fever, but none of the doctors we’ve brought her to these last couple of months have been able to come up with a diagnosis.
She’s small for an eight year old, and she’s lost weight over these past few months that she already couldn’t afford to lose. Her dark hair brushes her shoulders, tangled from a fitful sleep, and I gently run my fingers through it.
We don’t run under the same laws as the humans; we take care of our own. So when her parents were killed, everyone in the area stepped up. We’re all her family, despite the fact she stays with a pride a couple of miles from mine. They already had a few kids close to her age so they didn’t even bat an eye at slipping another kit in the litter, but not a single soul around expected them to get saddled with the brunt of the medical debt.
Damn it, Osiris. You goddamn idiot. What did you expect when you got in the city? Kidnap a fuckin’ penthouse doctor and cart his ass back here? Rob the entire bougie pharmacy and just start working your way through the pills until something worked?
As usual, he doesn’t answer. The pack link only extends about ten miles give or take, and now that over a month has passed without him returning home, we have to assume the worst.
Humans don’t like us on the best of days, but by the note Osiris left saying he was going to the city to look for answers for Sarah? I won’t be surprised if his face is the next one that we see in the paper. Just recently they provoked a bear shifter into changing so they’d have an excuse to put a bullet in his head. My brother doesn’t stand a chance if he went there already keyed up and overly emotional.
“She’s strong, she’ll beat this,” Ares states, face harder than ever.
He’s taking the loss of our pride brother harder than even I am, assuming responsibility of our chosen family. That Osiris was able to slip away without him knowing is a hard blow, and going on the assumption he got himself killed, that he suffered alone for gods know how long?
“He should have told us,” I mutter instead, walking out of the house and beginning the trek home. I don’t even feel like shifting for a run, more depressed than angry anymore. “We could have gone with him, helped him.”
Ares scoffs, running a hand through his short blond hair and turning his bright, orange eyes on me. “You think they would have let our pride into their precious city together? Like hell. They keep us separated so they can overpower us. We’d never have made it through the checkpoint.”
Logically I know that he’s right, but that doesn’t make me hate it any less. “So what do we do about Sarah?” I finally ask, effectively changing the subject so we don’t dissolve into yet another fight.
I never realized just how much Osiris balanced us out, that he was the glue keeping our pride together, until he was gone. Now we’re just broken in a world that already mocks the strength it bestowed upon us. We genetically rose to the top of the food chain just to stay oppressed beneath the humans’ feet.
They hunted the old predators to extinction so the world sought to give them a second chance, yet still they spit on the gift.
“What can we do?” he whispers, not wanting to voice the words we all know deep down to be true. “We can’t send anyone else to the cities, and none of the pack doctors or hospitals we’ve brought her to have any answers. All we can do now is try to keep the fever down, have her rest and drink as much as possible, and hope for the best.”
My stomach churns at placing all of our bets on nothing more than faith. As much as I hate the way Osiris went and got himself killed, I can’t say I wouldn’t have gone myself if he hadn’t.
By the time we get home, I completely ignore everything piled up waiting for us. We’ve barely kept up with the house these last few weeks, and I’m not hungry enough to bother making dinner either.
Walking towards the stairs, I pause when Ares offers, “I’m going for a run. Want to come? Might be good for you.” I hate the concern in his voice, even more so when he softens his typically gruff approach to coax me out of the house. “You haven’t shifted since he left, Cole. It’s not healthy.”
I grimace at the pity in his tone. “Enjoy your run.”
Then I shut myself in my room, crawling into bed despite the fact it’s only late afternoon. The air’s getting crisper, the nights colder, and it seems only fitting that nature’s on the verge of becoming as desolate as my life. I’m not even sure if I want to see the other side of winter, to watch the world carry on like everyone dying around me doesn’t matter.
Seven
Ares
My muscles burn, pushing myself farther than usual, but I’m not fool enough to think I can outrun my problems. Even the fringes wouldn’t handle me roaming around loose well, and while we aren’t as territorial as our ancestors, we still try to respect claimed shifter land here in the wilds. The temptation is strong though, to see how far it actually stretches. Nothing goes on forever so I’m sure I’d eventually run into another fringe town, and I think that’s why I’ve never gone more than a hundred miles into the unclaimed land.
I don’t want to know.
I want to be able to hold onto that fantasy, to imagine that if things ever got to be more than I could stand, there was somewhere devoid of all life out there waiting for me. Somewhere that nature overran so completely, not even a shifter would dare build a home there.
