Chapter Twenty-Three
Fern
The hilt of the long kitchen knife is slick with blood, my fingers sliding in a manner I consider poor blade-handling skill.
I don’t stop until I’m sure though.
Sure that this goyle is dead.
I lean back on my knees and use my forearm to brush a hair out of my sweaty face.
I need to get up, clean up, salvage what I can, and get the fuck out of here.
I drop the knife and stand, pulling off the—now wet and sticky—purple robe I’m wearing. I’m sure I can find some better attire here.
When I had found the small household, I crouched in the grasses at the edge of the clearing, hoping I might be able to steal some supplies.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t gone that way.
I had seen a younger male gargoyle coming and going around the small homestead, working on the usual chores.
Younger alphas that haven’t formed chimes often live communally, I had known that before Ben’s little lecture, so I had wanted to figure out how many there were before I attempted to steal anything.
After about fifteen minutes, I decided I wasn’t going to get the opportunity, and since I didn’t have the time to burn waiting, I started to skirt the clearing.
I was so concerned with keeping an eye on the one goyle, and trying to avoid letting his animals alert him to my presence, that the other gargoyle had practically tripped over me.
As this random bat straightened, grabbing me by the arm and yelling for the first goyle, I cursed myself for an idiot. How the fuck did I let that happen?
Dragged inside, and dumped on the floor, the two spoke quickly, coming to a conclusion I had already expected.
They’d report me. After they had some fun with me.
Well, turns out, I’m lots of fun, especially when I get my hands on a knife.
I’d slashed the first’s throat, as I caught them by surprise, shock written across both their faces that a human could move so quickly.
The second goyle and I had a bit of a tussle before I’d ended up on top, literally.
My parents were a part of the Bell’s Rebels before I was born. My mom was pretty up front that I had been an accident, that she hadn’t wanted to bring a child into this hellscape, even though I had been born before the full takeover and conversion to NUS.
But my parents had been loving and kind and I grew up hearing and learning adult things at a young age.
I learned brewing from them, and fighting.
Not any special form, just a hard-scrabble mash-up of how not to get killed in a battle, from them and other Rebels.
When I was four or so, I started learning with the other Rebel children.
And when my parents died when I was sixteen, I had already learned enough to take over the business and step into the large void left from the battle that took out most of the regional Rebel leadership.
Raquel, from the next region over, an older and established leader, helped me get settled in my newfound leadership position.
I turn to the small bedroom at the back of the house, grabbing a towel to wipe the almost-black blood from the dead gargoyles off my skin.
They were huge, as all goyles, so finding something to wear involves some cutting and tying but soon enough I’m in a skirt made from one of their shirts and a shirt of theirs tied up and covered with a small blanket like a shawl.
I grab some leather gloves and shove them on my bare feet, tying cord around my ankles. Better than nothing, I suppose.
A quick inspection of the kitchen leaves me with some bread and hard cheese and dried meat.
I toss it in a leather satchel I find, along with a waterskin and some spare clothes just in case, and peer out the front window.
All looks quiet, aside from the two cows doing cow stuff.
I slip out and off down the well trodden path towards the woods.
I have maybe an hour of daylight left and I’m going to use it—and the first few hours of darkness. Then, hopefully, I can find a place for a quick nap that will take me to the hours when the goyles will be dead asleep and I can move more quickly and with less finesse.
As soon as the path from the homestead pitters out, I start to lay my trail with false leads and purposely broken branches, even going as far as to sit down in some areas, to drag a foot for a while, to double back.
It was my Mom, with her sandy blonde hair and warm brown eyes, that taught me of woodcraft. She, and Rena, her loud, free laugh still burned into my brain, that taught all the Bell’s children, making it into a game in the forest.
A lot of those kids are dead now. It’s me, and Noah left, along with new recruits. And there hasn’t been too many of those these last few years.
As the years pass, it seems we humans get more resistant, but then less.
The hard suppression efforts that killed my parents, nearly twenty years ago, took a heavy toll on the rebellion.
But our membership did eventually increase.
Just not what it once was. When the gargoyles suppressed a large scale resistance about four years ago, many chapters of Bell’s disbanded, either intentionally or because they were leaderless.
But the last couple years... regionally, at least, we’ve been a real thorn in their sides.
I continue on a more-or-less due east course, hoping I can find a Rebel home or a wayhouse that flies our colors. There’s nothing, just trees, however.
I know my progress is slow, laying false trails, but I think that is best, given Arch and Theo both have military experience.
As I go, I find my mind slipping back to them.
It makes me angry in a way I cannot put a finger on.
The bastards. They had wrung pleasure from my body, only partially against my will.
The part that I keep finding myself turning over and over in my head, is how careful they were with me. How... attentive. How... kind.
I’d had plenty of human lovers in my thirty-some years.
Most for only a night or two, a few as longer term friends with benefits.
But I’d never had sex like that. The raw emotion they had awakened, strummed, used, was shocking.
If I make it somewhere safe, I’ll examine my feelings and reactions more.
For now, I should tuck it away and wall it off in the far corners of my brain.
I need to focus to escape. Even if part of me aches as though I’m running away from my home.
In the darkest part of the night, I find a tree with exposed roots and tuck myself into the hollow below them, pulling out the spare clothes to use as an extra layer.
I curl up into a ball and try to ignore the burning need that aches between my legs.
I will absolutely not rub one out while on the run from gargoyles, hiding under a tree like a rabbit.
It takes a long time to fall into a restless sleep.