Sharisquatch's Creative Corner

The day had been as perfectly grey and overcast as anyone could expect out of Seattle in mid-February. There had been a steady drizzle coming down all day, leaving everything wet, and playing havoc with my hair.

I loved it.

Somehow the wet outside made my usual coffee shop feel even cozier than it usually was. The perfect weather for an oversized sweater and jeans and hot coffee. The low hum of conversation and the music playing quietly was a nice change from the empty silence of my too expensive, too small studio apartment.

It also helped me feel less like a total hermit.

I bent over my laptop, trying to avoid looking at myself in the window. Every time I caught sight of myself, I was reminded that I needed to touch up my hair. Its dark purple had faded to a sort of lilac color, and there was far too much mousy brown showing at the roots. I had it pulled back into a bun, a vain attempt to tame the curls into something manageable, but the only thing it really did was highlight how badly I needed to shave the side of my head again.

With a sigh I bent back to the laptop. I knew I wasn’t supposed to take my work home with me, but if I didn’t, I’d have to sleep in my classroom. Planning periods were never long enough.

Besides, it’s not like I had any other plans for the weekend. So, a coffee work date with myself would have to count.

At least I was out of the apartment?

Unfortunately, the couple behind me were doing a remarkable job of ruining my Zen.

I could hardly blame them. They were having a wonderful time. They had just found an apartment to rent together and were excitedly discussing decor and furniture options, cuddled together on the same side of their table, pouring over a laptop screen. They weren’t even being all that loud, but each quiet giggle and whisper of delight at what they found was incredibly distracting even through my headphones.

Ah, there it was, that little twinge of pain squeezing my heart.

Three years and moving halfway across the country should have been enough to heal this wound, but every time I think I’ve moved on, something happens, and it comes rushing back. The worst of it was, he and I had never been like that. I’d spent seven years of my life clinging to a man who had no love for anything other than his possession of me. I’d been beat down, worn away to nothing but a fragment of myself.

Leaving had been a whim, I hadn’t planned anything, just thrown my clothes into a bag and hopped on a bus.

I’ve always loved the Pacific Northwest, with its year-around green and near constant sweater weather. It had seemed like the perfect place to hide. Now I had a tiny studio apartment full of secondhand or IKEA furniture, with a closet full of secondhand clothing, desperately trying to piece myself back together.

This was the happiest I had been in a long time.

That didn’t change the loneliness seeping into my chest with every second I listened to them planning a life together.

Oh well, I guess I was done with my coffee anyway.

Quietly as I could, I slipped my laptop into my bag and stood, pulling my raincoat on. I’d need my hood if I didn’t want to look as though I’d styled my hair via power outlet. I slipped out into the street, walking toward home.

Hood on, bag strapped across my body I could have been anyone passing by on the streets. Part of me enjoyed that anonymity, it made me feel a little safer all alone in the city, but it somehow also drove home the alone piece. As if that little thought detour had conjured it, a sudden icy gust of wind blew my hood back and clawed chilled fingers down the back of my neck.

I yelped, the sound loud in the unnatural silence that seemed to fold itself around the street. Shivering, I glanced around, I was only a couple of blocks away from my apartment, this street, these buildings should have felt like old friends.

They didn’t.

They towered over me, dark windows staring down at me, pressing down and crowding out the sky. I realized then, that the street was nearly empty.

My heart rate ratcheted up another notch. Pulling my coat tighter around me, I shrank closer to the nearest storefront. The light from the window barely seemed to make any difference, it didn’t offer as much comfort as I’d hoped. Head down, hood back up, I quickened my pace.

I was so close. The building door was almost within reach. I fished in my bag for my keys., Naturally, they were all the way at the bottom, under who knew what trash I’d collected.

Just as I closed my fingers on them, a hand clamped around my arm.

With a startled yell, I whirled to face them, jerking my arm back. My keys went flying, as I twisted, but their grip was unrelenting, fingers impossibly strong. They didn’t even budge as I threw all 170-some pounds of myself into my frantic attempt to escape.

My scream caught in my throat when I caught a glimpse under their hood.

The first thing I noticed was the blood, red and glistening, streaked with something else, something black and viscous.

Then I saw their teeth.

A mouth full of serrated fangs, sharp as a shark’s, bared in a snarl or a grimace, I couldn’t tell. There was something else, they moved strangely beneath the long, tattered robe they wore, as though their legs bent the wrong way.

I only had a moment to take all of this in before they yanked me into the alley.

I fought back, pulling, twisting, struggling, but all I managed was to tangle my own feet together, tripping myself.

I hit the ground hard.

Pain exploded through my knees as they cracked against the pitted asphalt. My shoulder twisted at an unnatural angle, sending a sharp, electric burst of agony up my arm. I cried out.

My captor jerked to a halt and turned to look at me, their unnatural eyes reflecting oddly in the dim alley light-Or maybe it was just the tears blurring my vision.

There was something strange in their expression, terror? Sorrow? It was hard to tell beneath the blood smeared across their face and their inhuman features.

Eye’s utterly unreadable, they sank down beside me.

“Human.”

The word was strange, like I was hearing it twice: once in my ears, and again in my mind, like an echo of itself.

“I am truly sorry about this.”

“Wha—?” My voice barely formed the question before they grabbed my wrist and forced something into my palm.

A small box.

The moment my reluctant fingers closed around it, pain erupted through me.

It seared like lightning, spreading from my palm up my arm, ripping across my body. My scream never made a sound, I felt it tear from my throat, but there was only silence, deafening and absolute.

The pain built, white hot, climbing to an unbearable crescendo.

Then—

Everything went black.

...

...

...

I’ve no idea how long I spent huddled in on myself on the frigid ground. By the time I was aware of the world again, I was soaked through and shivering. My shoulder and knees throbbed, but whatever that box had done to me had dissipated while I was out.

Slowly, I used my good arm to push myself upright and took stock.

The alley was empty, no mysterious figure, and strangely, no box. The only thing proving it had happened was a bracelet of bruises on my wrist and the faintest trace of blood on the pavement.

My knees protested as I stood. The fall had ripped out one of the knees on my jeans, and I was bleeding from several little cuts. I took a hobbling step back out to the street, hissing and wincing with every step. There were probably pieces of gravel embedded in my knee, I was going to have to pick it all out.

Fuck. That was going to hurt like hell.

There were two men standing near the door to my building, one tall and wiry with dark hair and sharp features, the other slightly shorter and broad, but features no less sharp.

They crowded me to the side as they passed, not bothering to watch where they walked. Briefly, I considered kicking one of them in the shin, but they both looked like they could probably eat me in a single bite, and I wasn’t suicidal.

Right as they passed, they both froze, sniffing the air.

Alright, that was enough weird bullshit for one day.

I tried to dart past them and grab the slowly closing door. It grazed my fingertips, and I scrabbled to grab it. It snapped shut faster than it should have, nearly taking skin off my fingers when I grabbed for it. I gaped at it, hand still outstretched.

What the hell?

Glancing behind me, I caught the two men turned in tandem, eerily in sync. I hadn’t noticed before, but they were both beautiful in an unnerving, predatory sort of way.

Everything about them screamed “danger”!

They stepped towards me, movements too fast, too graceful.

Shit.

My keys.

I could see them, sitting there, oh-so-innocently on the edge of the curb. No way I could get to them without those two noticing. Especially since all of their attention was focused on me. I turned to face them, trying desperately to keep the fear off my face.

The taller of the men tilted his head a slow smile playing across his face.

“I’ve found a little rat with something that doesn’t belong to her.”

His voice was smooth as silk, rich and low, and fear sent my heart straight into my throat. The other one, the broad one, smiled as well, his teeth a little too sharp and his eyes gleaming strangely.

“I don’t know,” he leaned closer and, oh gods, did his teeth just get longer? Had his eyes always been gold? “I think she looks like a rabbit.”

“I- what the fuck are you talking about?”

He chuckled, “You have it, little rabbit, the Breathbound.” He slid closer and I edged along the wall trying to put more distance between us.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I managed to keep my voice steady, though my heart pounded in my ears, and I had to keep swallowing my stomach.

“Then you won't mind us taking it, will you, sweetling.” There was a gleam in his eye that could have been amusement.

Or it could have been hunger. How the fuck was I supposed to know.

“Look,” I said, tossing them my bag and shimmying out of my coat, “If you think I have this thing, go ahead and look through my stuff, take anything you want.”

Neither bothered to glance at the things I’d thrown on the ground, though, instead their gazes trailed up my arm. The same one that thing in the alley had grabbed.

The dark haired one let out an amused little hum, “I don’t think she knows what she has, Rafe.”  

His eyes were focused on the side of my neck, and I unconsciously touched it, feeling for what he was looking at. There was nothing there, just bare skin.

“We might have to take it from you,” the golden eyed one reached toward me, fingers tracing the curve of my neck.

My back hit the wall as I tried to get away from him. Pure terror lanced through me, erasing the pain in my shoulder and knees, muffling my ears. I thought I might die when he leaned in.

“Maybe you should run, little rabbit.”

That was it. I took off, tearing between them, blind to where I was going.