Chapter 9 When She Screams
When I was nine, a squirrel ran up to DaiSzek as he was lying on the front porch, watching the sun set.
He was so still. The small rodent must have thought he was a majestic statue.
Krimson and I watched quietly, waiting for the great and powerful RottWeilen to pounce.
To hunt that squirrel before we even would have a chance to blink.
But instead, we witnessed the squirrel coming to the realization that there was breath puffing out of DaiSzek’s nose.
It stood upright, still, and unsure as understanding draped over its small body.
And just as it took off in a sprint of survival, Krimson and I jumped to our feet, hollering for DaiSzek to hunt it down. We were children desperate to see if the stories and legends about his power were true.
But DaiSzek adjusted positions to sleep on his side and closed his eyes for the next nap of the day.
I kicked dirt and swore up and down that he was no predator. Just an old pup.
Our trek in the daylight has been nauseating. Not because of Niklaus’s sickening presence, but because we haven’t come across any food at all. No berries. No animals to hunt. Nothing.
How did my parents survive out here when they were on the run?
How did my father always provide food for them?
Over the years, we heard stories of the time they escaped the asylum.
How my mother took a leap of faith to break him out of confinement.
Krimson and I always laughed at the fact that he could have left anytime he wanted. Our father was simply waiting on her.
My feet are blistering. Fire smolders in my joints, creeping into my lower back until there’s a constant ache. And god, I’m so hungry.
What is it now? Late afternoon? Is the sun setting? How long are we going to go without eating?
“Dellilian hungry.” The Morphing Onyx Short-Haired Windila trails behind us, still mildly pouting at Niklaus’s cruel mood toward her.
Niklaus’s back tenses at her small voice entering our minds like a puff of smoke.
He rolls his shoulders and keeps walking.
I silently applaud him for not saying anything else callous to her.
I’m in no mood for it. With this empty stomach, I feel mean, resentful, and harboring a dark cloud of hate toward him.
After another hour, the ill-mannered man I’m traveling with slows his pace suddenly, staring off at something ahead with unbreakable focus.
Speeding my aching pace to take his place in the lead, I bump his arm with my shoulder. Hungry. Pissed. Pained. Exhausted.
But a hand snatches my hair from the back of my head, knotting it in a tight fist, and yanking me backward.
“What the fuck!” I shriek.
His mouth is pressed against my ear with bristly facial hair scratching against my soft skin. “Would you rather I let you fall into that hunter’s trap?”
I shiver against his smooth, ice-cold tone.
His spare hand points to the ground a few feet in front of us, outlining a space covered in giant leaves, twigs, branches, and moss. A distinct patch of earth that is meant to fool an animal.
“I already saw that,” I lie.
“Mmm-hmm.” Niklaus releases his grip on my hair, investigating the area.
“Dellilian very hungry.”
Niklaus turns his neck slowly, glaring in her direction with a wild storm of cruel ideas churning in his icy eyes.
“Easy,” I warn him, standing in front of the innocent dog-wolf to prevent her from interpreting his expression any further.
A nasally growl is muffled from inside the hole. A sleepy, gruff noise that brings our rising argument to a halting stop. Niklaus squats in front of the covered hunter’s hole, listening closely to analyze what is most likely an injured animal.
The growling turns into a weighted breath, much like snoring.
Niklaus gives me a sidelong glance. “That sounds like a large meal to me.”
I nod timidly.
It sounds massive.
“Aurick is very lucky that he kept his genitalia that night.” A deep, booming voice punctures our quiet bubble of discovery.
Wait. Did I just hear the name…
Niklaus pops his head up, looking south into the woods.
That name…
“Did you just hear Aurick’s name?” I whisper to Niklaus kneeling before the hunter’s trap.
He doesn’t spare me a look of acknowledgment.
“You’re so slow, we could have been there by now if we didn’t have to move like snails!”
My blood runs cold.
I know that voice. It’s lighter. Younger. Softer. The innocence and gentle nature of that tone is almost unrecognizable from the voice of the woman I grew up knowing.
That’s my mother’s voice.
Niklaus recognizes it too. He shifts his distant stare back to me in muted surprise.
“Oh my god!” I mouth to him.
“Oh, so it’s me holding us back, huh?” the baritone voice says to my mother.
My back goes rigid as I pause to think back on the history we learned about my parents’ journey during the years of the asylum and the war. She traveled through these forests with…
“Impossible,” Niklaus hisses, stumbling back. The color drains from his face, and behind that palpable look of shock—he’s scared.
My father.
Chills sprinkle over my back and legs as I gasp cold air into my lungs. I’ve never heard his voice before. I’ve never seen him walk. I’ve never seen him awake.
A sob crawls up my throat.
“We need to hide!” Niklaus grips my arm, tugging me to the blanket of a nearby tree, bushy with overgrown leaves, vines, and shrubs. “We can’t know what happens if we’re seen!”
Dellilian sits quietly to my left, observing two individuals appear through the shadows of the evergreen trees.
My mother, dressed in a black lace and cloak, comes jogging forward playfully.
The grin on her rosy cheeks is one I haven’t seen before.
Yes, she’s smiled, laughed, been happy. But this grin is dressed in desire and giddiness.
“Yeah! We need to get you in shape! Have you lost all of those big muscles or something?” my mother teases breathlessly.
And right behind her comes a man who seems to eat up the space in the forest with his dark presence. He’s taller than Niklaus, broader, stronger, unyielding with heavy muscle. His chocolate brown hair is without the speckles of gray and white strands I’m used to seeing.
I peer at him through the wispy leaves swaying in my view. I blink at the tears gathering in my straining eyes.
It’s him…
He looks like Krimson with his eyes open.
My dad.
The muscles in my thighs begin to tremble as I try to overcome the urge to cry.
“Oh, so you think my muscles are big?” my father, Patient Thirteen, calls to my mother with a half-smile.
Something soft tears open in my chest. His voice, warm and strong, I somehow recognize within the marrow of my bones.
It hurts.
Oh god, it hurts.
The tingling tautness coating my nerve endings is cut off by the sound of my mother’s laughter as she falls through the hunter’s trap. My posture straightens as I witness a wave of golden hair disappear into the hole.
Niklaus slaps his hand over my mouth before I have the chance to scream for her.
There’s a whoosh, then a thump as her body hits the bottom.
“Skylenna!” Patient Thirteen yells, diving into the hole after her.
I thrash against Niklaus’s arms and hand covering my mouth. His hold is unyielding, as sure as stone surrounding my core.
“We have to help them!” I grumble into his palm.
“You don’t think your father can handle himself?” he mocks against the shell of my ear.
I can’t blame his tone. We’re both non-believers of the endless stories. The sleepy growl of that trapped beast sounded like a caged titan. My father is no match for that kind of feral, brute strength. He’s only a man.
There are muffled words coming from the hole. The feline snarl of the creature. Dellilian leans forward with perked ears, waiting for something.
A thick drop of chilled sweat runs down my spine. What’s the right thing to do here? Help? What if this wasn’t supposed to happen? What if we’ve already changed something and kill my parents before I’ve been conceived?
My mother lets out a blood-curdling scream.
Shit!
Niklaus lurches forward first, acting on instinct to help before I get the chance to react. But something snaps like a whip through the trees, cracking through branches, and splitting leaves in half with the sheer ferocity behind a blast of movement.
The blur of blackness shoots across the forest floor like a train.
An animal.
A wolf.
A RottWeilen.
I stumble back into Niklaus’s hard chest as DaiSzek—my DaiSzek—gallops like a rabid stallion into the hunter’s trap after my parents. His roar and attack can be heard miles away. Teeth ripping through flesh, bones, and vital organs.
Goose bumps ripple over my cool skin, and a ringing echoes violently through my ears.
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
He looks so much…younger. That can’t be the old boy DaiSzek I grew up with. The same sweet boy who sleeps on the porch at sunset, eats scraps out of Grandpa’s hand under the table, and always gets in the way when we’re trying to cook.
My parents climb out of the hole, covered in dirt and splatters of blood.
“Just don’t look at it,” Patient Thirteen says as he peels off his shirt. “I’ll patch it up when we get out of here.”
My mother stares at him with parted lips, gawking as if her brain has temporarily fried. I’ve never seen that look on her face before.
The beast in the pit yelps, snapping my mother out of her trance as she whips her head to the left. “DaiSzek!” she yells. “Oh, Dessin! Is he okay?”
My father leans over to examine the inside of the hole, exposing his bare back to my side of the forest. Scars. Huge, raised scars in the shape of wooden slats. Burn scars. I narrow my eyes and glance back at Niklaus. He looks away quickly, as if those marks are none of his business to inspect.
I’ve never seen them before.
My mother shrieks as DaiSzek leaps gracefully from the hunter’s trap. Blood drips down his chin, and he does his best to shake it off like an unwanted insect.
“Is he hurt?” my mother gasps.
But my father doesn’t seem too concerned as he checks DaiSzek for any injuries, then slaps him on the butt.
“We need to put as much distance between us and your parents as possible.” Niklaus spins me around to meet my eyes. “We’re not going to want to have a run-in with your dad.”
It looks like it pains him to admit he’s scared of the infamous Patient Thirteen.
“Thought you didn’t believe the lore about him?” I taunt.
“I don’t. But are you prepared to gamble with your life on his temper and paranoia for strangers watching him in the forest?”
My eyes dart back to my father, lifting Mom off the ground and carrying her away.
“I guess not.”
Niklaus’s cold blue eyes track their movements until they’re out of sight. He lets go of my shoulders and takes a step back. “The world we were raised in is a lot safer than the one our parents grew up in.”
Obviously.
“We need to stay out of sight,” he adds.
“Out of sight,” Dellilian agrees with that innocent, soft voice floating through our minds.
I flinch, forgetting she’s been by my side observing this whole time. Looking down at her curious little eyes, I smile at her comment. She blinks in surprise, wagging her tail, then going abruptly stiff.
My smile falls.
“Spitfire.” Niklaus’s voice rings with a warning, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
I turn to see a great RottWeilen standing behind us. Large cinnamon eyes. Mahogany markings on his brows, chest, and paws. Residual blood still dripping from his mouth in long, goopy strings.
I’ve never seen him like this.
Shit. He’ll know me in a few decades. Not now. I’m a threat.
“DaiSzek,” I mutter.
The RottWeilen’s lip curls up, showcasing his sharp incisors. He snarls, taking slow predatory steps closer. I sense Niklaus shift his wide-eyed stare to me, probably expecting me to call him off. To command my massive future pet to stand down.
“Do something,” Niklaus says through clenched teeth.
“He doesn’t know me yet!” I hiss under my breath.
I think back to when I was eleven, and I tripped over DaiSzek in the hallway, falling on my tailbone. It was the first time I cursed. My mom heard me call him a big, stupid animal. She told me to be careful with how I speak to him.
“He isn’t like most animals, Sapphire. He can understand your words clearly. The same way you’re understanding me now. It’s what makes him so wonderful, and so dangerous…”
“DaiSzek,” I say again, forcing the shakiness from my voice. “You don’t know who I am yet. You don’t know if I’m a threat or not.”
He snaps his thick teeth at us with a growl that could make a lion bow to him.
How am I supposed to prove to him that he can trust me?!
I hear my mom’s voice again. “DaiSzek spent so much time lying his head on my pregnant belly before you two were born. He could catch your scent and Krimson’s miles away when I gave birth.”
“But how could he recognize our scents if we were in your belly?” little Krimson asked.
“Because you have the same blood in your veins as his two favorite people in the whole world. Me and your dad.”
Of course!
“Wait!” I hold up my hand as he lunges forward again.
“You can trust me, DaiSzek! You know me! Just smell me! Look into my eyes. Can’t you see it?
I look like your two favorite people in the whole world.
” My vision blurs. I lay a splayed-out hand across my chest, clutching at my heart.
Why does this make me so sad? I point to my left brown eye and the right green one.
Can he sense the heavy emotion pouring off of me? I didn’t realize how much it would sting to have my sweet, lazy boy not know me as he stares into my eyes.
That gargantuan head leans in, nostrils flaring as he huffs and sniffs an inch away from my forehead.
“Please believe me, Big Guy.” My chin trembles. The rusty odor of fresh blood crawls up my nostrils. The wind calms. The trees stop whispering. No one moves a muscle.
DaiSzek’s wise, ancient eyes turn down as he registers my scent, then they snap up to meet mine abruptly.
He is stiff and unflinching, quiet with slow breaths.
And then there is his famous head tilt. It’s the small movement of his neck, making those ears twitch when Mom talks about my father. When she says his name.
Dessin. Kane.
And he always checks the house as if his old friend has finally come home.
It’s that head tilt that tells me he knows me. DaiSzek may not understand how he recognizes my scent, my eyes, my face…but he does. All of it carries strong, unbreakable ties to his two favorite beings in the whole world.
My parents.
The enormous beast sighs, accepting that I’m not a threat to him or the people he protects. And with that, I lift my hand like I have done all my life and stroke the sleek fur up his snout and between his eyes.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Those eyes filled with simmering coals and ageless awareness share one final look with me before he chuffs, turns away, and vanishes into the trees.