Blood & Monsters (Part Two) ~ Adriane

The wolf and the rabbit,
The fire,
The flood,
The nightmare inside her,
The monster; the blood,
The wolf, the wolf,
Dire and black,
Lock all your windows,
The hunter is back….
The rabbit, the rabbit,
Roguish and brave,
But a predator‘s lurking,
And guess who’s the prey?

I miss them.

Actually, that kind of surprises me. I mean, most days I want to stuff them all in a shoebox and ring some guy’s doorbell and drop them off on his front step. Then run away. (Far. FAR away.)

But I guess you never miss them until they’re gone and all that crap or whatever.

I even kind of miss Sky.

Even though she’s a crack head. Even though she’s a crack head who wears too much makeup. Even though she’s a crack head who wears too much makeup and often looks like a dead raccoon. Even though she’s a crack head who wears too much makeup and often looks like a dead raccoon and sometimes smells like one, too. Even though she’s a - oh, shut-up. Who am I kidding?! I feel fifty pounds lighter!

Well, actually, that would make me feel really dead…but you know. I feel like I can fly. And stuff. Like, I don’t have to worry about where she is. And stuff. So…yeah.

But I miss Dune. And Zane. And the twins.. And Azul. Even though she gnaws on her fingernails and then spits them out clear across the room with no regard whatsoever to who she’s aiming at.

It's funny losing them, though. Well, okay. Not ha-ha, Sky-just-woke-up-in-a-coma-funny. But weird-funny. If that makes sense.

I am alone. When did that happen?

My eyes are clouded; the air is thick. I feel like I’ve been buried alive. ‘You’re sleeping,’ someone says. No. Can’t be. You dream while you’re sleeping.

Yooooohoo, sleeping-girl? Are you awake?

Blah. I don't even know if I'm dead.

Yooohooo, crying-girl? Wake up! You've got to wake up.

I'm not crying. Am I?

Listen to me...

My eyes fly open.

In the dark they gleam; my pupil narrows to ebony fleck. I am majorly pissed.

I'm lying across a seat, my arms folded beneath my head. I don't sit up right away, but breath slowly - rhythmically - in the darkness. I can see my breath curling like smoke in the shadows.

Stupidly enough, the door is unlocked.

I pull out of the car, squinting in the sunlight.

The sky’s a bloody smear.

Red and orange and indigo round the clouds and streak the sky like broken chalk.
The car’s pulled over crooked in the breakdown lane; someone left the engine running. The highway rumbles like thunder and I wobble a bit from the drugs.

Car after car rockets by, the wind and the whoosh and the roar sounds like a railroad station. The air is clear and sharp, but exhaust ghosts across the ground; a truck honks in the distance.

There’s a strip of grass by the car; trees and brush growing between the lanes soaks in the sunlight. It spills over their branches, casting shadows at my feet. Drake is standing a ways away, shielding his eyes from the glare. There’s two other guys beside him. Both of them are talking quietly and staring at the sky. I feel like I can bolt down the highway and they won’t even notice. Or care. But knowing me, I’d probably get squashed by a tractor trailer or something.

I limp/saunter over to them, furious.

“Stargazing?” I snarl sarcastically.

He sees me out of the corner of his eye, but doesn’t look over, or move. Or do much of anything. They're still chatting.

So I stand there, tapping my foot on the ground, so mad I’m almost frothing at the mouth. And they just keep talking! Lalalaa. Lalala. Hello? Lalala. Done yet? No? Lalaa. UGH!

So I take the last few steps forward, spitting, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

And he STILL doesn’t do anything. Just completely ignoring me. “Dude,” I growl. “I’m talking to you.”
No reaction. I reach over and grab his arm as if I’m about to hit him. This triggers a response.

In the time it takes me to blink, there is suddenly a sickening CRACSNPAK!.

That would be my arm. Ow.

He twists around so fast my eyes can't follow the movement - a swift, but accurate strike like a leopard lunging from the underbrush. The storm settles and I look down, blinding pain firing in my arm. It's twisted around backward, his fingers curled around my wrist like the fangs of an adder sunk into the skin. His face is suddenly inches from mine.

"Yesss?" he hisses softly.

Our faces are inches apart. I want to shrink from his gaze but I will not let the fear conquer me. I glare back; eyes heavy with hatred.

"What do you think you're doing?" I repeat.

Looking faintly amused, he released my wrist and pushed me roughly away, smirking lightly. "Kidnapping you," he admitted calmly, turning back towards the sky.
(Well, duh.)
"Impatient little thing, aren't you?" he added, as more of an after-thought.

I opened my mouth to say something snarky, (isn't that a cool word? it reminds me of an elephant.) when he reached into his pocket and tossed me a box of jelly beans. I snagged it out of the air in utter disbelief. What?

BUT OH MY GOD. I was so hungry and I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY like jelly beans. I sniff them suspciously.

They were still staring at the sky. "That cloud looks like a bunny," I add helpfully, pointing towards the vague direction they are staring in.

One of the other guys sighed. "Why are you so annoying?"

"Why does your mother still dress you?" I snapped back.

His face started to look a bit purple. Drake snorted.

And that's when things started to get strange. My head began to pound even faster - my blood began to beat beneath my skin, like the sway of an ocean tide. The world became fuzzy and soft, colors swimming and fading beneath my gaze. I reached out to grab something as if to catch my balance, but I couldn't think....I...everything felt so...far away. I began to fall, vaguely aware of Drake catching me...vaguely aware of...

"She's going out..."

A russet-colored cat let out an excited squeal, drinking daintily from a tea cup. "Ooohooh!" said Sky eagerly. The garden was sparkling with tea lights, a ten-layer cake balancing precariously in the center of the tablecloth. Azul as usually, was stuffing her face. Zane and Dune had kicked up their feet and were resting them on the table, while the twins licked frosting from their fingers.

"What are you doing here?" scolded Sparrow. "You can't be here. Look at the sign - ," she says, pointing. "You can't show up without a friend."

"And where's your hat?" added Zane. "Everyone has to wear a hat!"

It was true. Everyone was, even the little brown cat had a baseball cap dripping over his ears. "Oh, ssssh!" the cat hissed. "Don't be rude. It's not her fault she hasn't got anybody."

What is going on? "I need to go," I manage to say. "Why?" laughed Sky. "You can't get out of here. You can't do anything right. Nothing to do but sit here and eat cake."

Raven sprinkled some salt into his tea; the cat giggled madly.

Maybe they're right. I head towards the garden, pushing through the bushes, until the teaparty is out of sight, but only end up right back at that stupid table. Everyone laughs at my attempts. "Do it again!" cheers Dune, clapping.

"See?" says Azul. "You're such a screw up. Pass the sugar, please."

The world fades again. There's a man standing over me, looking rather sick, kind of blue. (Hey! Get purple-faced guy back out here and we can start a rainbow!)

But this time it isn't a dream.

"She's losing a lot of blood...,"

I wake up, this time for real, on a street corner not far from the house we're staying at. It's in the middle of the night, and rain sprinkles the sidewalk. I pull myself shakily to my feet, rubbing my neck. In my wrist are a few small pricks where the noses of needles penetrated my skin. I barely have time to make it to a dumpster before I vomit a bucketfull of blood.

Drugs, I think as I sink to my knees, wiping the blood from my mouth. That's all I can think of. Drugs.

I remember almost nothing.

But what was it all for? Was it just Drake, or was the company involved, too? He did something to me. Something.

I don't know what.

But I have a horrible, horrible, feeling that I am going to find out.