0182
Blair
"We warned her, now we should leave." I sigh as I pull a sweatshirt over my head.
It was so fucking cold.
I have never felt the cold, not like this.
My nipples could cut glass with how cold I am.
Did Humans always feel like this?
Sammie brings me a blanket, tucking it around my legs.
"I don't think we should go, not just yet."
"We have been here longer than we need to be." I persist. "You only wanted to come here to tell Neah about Cooper. We have done that and somehow, I am still alive and I would very much like to keep it that way, even if it means spending the rest of my life freezing my fucking ass off!" She rolls her eyes at me and tells me I'm being dramatic. "What about your mother? she confirmed your mother was in the pack, just like you expected."
"And?"
"Don't you want to see her?"
"It doesn't matter what I want. They want nothing to do with me. I've already told you why."
"I never pegged you as the type that would give up so easily."
"I am not who I was, Sammie. He took it all away from me. There are too many people in that pack that hate me and that's just the Wolves. Staying here is just too risky for me. Someone will kill me and there won't be a damn thing that you can do about it." "Is that what you want?"
"I don't know."
She sighs and sits next to me, pulling the blanket over her legs too. "Are you scared?"
I mull over her question. It wasn't sarcasm and it wasn't her mocking me. It was genuine and I guess on some level I am. I would be stupid not to be. I used to say that to all the assholes I hunted.
Lycans probably took up most of Black Shadow by now and if they have, that means they would have submitted to Neah. Maybe even Alpha Dane. Who knows how many are living there now, and who knows how many of those I have pissed off and I wasn't sure I was ready to find out.
When I saw Abraxas, I honestly thought he would be the one to kill me on the spot, but he had just watched me. He had been impossible to read and that made it worse. I know what I did. He knows what I did. But he just watched as he asked questions.
It's much easier when people tell you they are going to kill you. At least then, everyone's cards are laid out on the table and I didn't have to feel this impending doom that sits in the pit of my stomach.
Not being able to read people was hard.
"Neither of us can defend ourselves." I mutter. "It's just... We are nothing compared to them, they can snap us like twigs if they wanted too."
She frowns and takes a sip of her coffee, she is addicted to the stuff. "Maybe she will help us."
I laugh. "Please tell me you are not talking about Neah?!"
"I just think that she had a clear opportunity to kill us, yet she didn't. They turned up here, they found us. They could have forced their way in and slit our throats and left like they were never here. But they didn't. Maybe there is a chance for us here." I laugh, "Or maybe she just wasn't in the mood. Or maybe she was too focussed on what she was asking us. She wanted answers."
Sammie bobs her head. "Maybe you are right." She leans her head on my shoulder. "I've been thinking about the questions she was asking. I think someone has gone missing."
"That means he is already here." My heart races. I couldn't stand the idea of being his prisoner again. What would he do to me as punishment for escaping? He had already shaved my head. My hand runs through the dark fluff that is my hair.
I hadn't even looked in a mirror since Sammie made me, I probably looked like I had been electrocuted by how it felt.
"It will grow back." Sammie mutters glancing up to my hand.
"It won't be this short forever." Her arm loops over my waist. Her reflection in the blank television screen showed her smiling. How she was so positive all the time was something I could just not grasp. But I guess it's because she has been living this way for quite some time. She had gotten used to it.
And as much as I didn't want to die, the thought of living like this forever was scary. I hated Humans as a Lycan and that wasn't going to change. Though I liked Sammie, but I think that was because we had something in common.
"Do you think it's true?" I mutter as I watch a candle burnout.
"What?" Sammie asks quietly
"That Neah was right, that I was purposely let out?"
She sighs and sits up, "I had wondered that myself. Five years I was waiting for someone else to make it out of that place. I always wondered if there were others and they had just taken a different route. You know, stuck to the roads and lanes instead of the woods and the fields and that's why they never stumbled upon my farmhouse. But you did say your door was opened along with everyone else's. So I do believe Neah was right."
"What do you think his plan is?"
"He could be coming for you and it will be a bonus for him because he will find me too. Or he could want the female Alpha. I don't think Cooper ever really has a plan. He just rolls with the situation and takes advantage when he can." "Do you think he will attack Black Shadow?"
She puffs out her cheeks. "Without a doubt."
More Wolves and Lycans are going to lose their abilities because of me. Especially if he was already here. I would be the reason our kind falls.
I tell Sammie that I'm turning in for the night and she asks me if I'm okay.
"Just tired." I lie. Guilt was weighing so heavily on me that I thought my lungs were going to be crushed.
I wait for hours after Sammie has gone to bed, just to make sure that she is asleep. Quietly I pull on a jacket and slip out of the house, being extremely careful to not make any noise.
Standing at the end of the drive. I weigh up my options. To go left to Black Shadow and hope for an easy and quick death, or go right and disappear for good and live the rest of my life as a Human. Neither options were ones I wanted.
Checking my pockets, I feel for the rectangle that is my credit card.
I had found it stashed in my vanity table.
Planted there when I first moved in as a just in case card.
There was more than enough money on it to set me up with a new life, far away from any of this shit and somewhere where no one could find me.
I had grabbed it just in case I turned right.
"Where are you going?" Sammie steps up next to me.
I close my eyes, I hadn't heard her. I hadn't even heard the door of the house. "You weren't supposed to know." I murmur
"I knew something was up when you went to bed at seven. You never go to sleep that early. Even when you were recovering from what that asshole did to you."
"It's too dangerous to be here." I whisper back, her face is lit up by a single street light. It gives her grey eyes an eerie look. "If Neah found us, I'm certain Cooper can. Cooper could be watching us right now and neither one of us would know. Black shadow is a few miles that way or....."
She places her hands on my shoulders and spins me around to look at her.
"Who gives a shit if he is watching! He can't do anything else to us. So I will ask you again, where are we going?" Sammie slips her hand into mine. "I will go wherever you want to go." "This is not who I am." I mutter. "I don't go to someone asking for help. I am the help. People have paid me to do their dirty work."
"Okay."
"Okay?" I whisper back.
She nods. "I thought I knew how I could help you. But this has to be your choice, Blair. If you want to leave, we leave. If you want to speak to Neah, we go to Black Shadow."
"Why have you changed your mind?"
"Because I see you. I am not a Lycan anymore but I see the guilt you carry. The sadness that is evident in your eyes."
I start walking, tugging Sammie with me.
"Are you sure?" She questions
"Yes. And if I am killed, don't fight back because it will be everything I deserve and more."
Her hand squeezes mine.
As we walk, she asks me a few questions about the inside of Black Shadow's pack. I tell her that I never made it further than just inside the gates. Jenson had given me some information but not much, though I was never really interested. We come across two burnt out cars. The one at the back looks like it had crashed into the one in front and the one in front looks just like the one Abraxas had hurried Neah into when they left us.
"Is that?" Sammie asks
"I think so." I mutter, hurrying forward.
There are tyre marks on the ground. A trail of blood leads from the windscreen of the car Neah had been in, to the grass verge. Another pool of dried red sits just outside the passenger door of the same car.
"What do you think happened?" Sammie whispers as though someone might be watching.
"I don't know, but they burnt the cars to cover any trace of DNA." I whisper back. "I would have done the same. I have done the same."
"Do you think they're dead?"
"No, because Dane would be knocking down my door. I'm certain of that."
I look around and grab Sammie's hand, "Come on, I would rather not stick around here."