The morning came in a flash, and Daniel woke to the sounds of Olivia, Lilly, and Aidan moving around the cave. His eyes felt like they had sand in them as he tried to rub the sleep out of them. He sat up and started massaging his stiff ankle.
“How’s it feeling this morning?” Aidan asked as he repacked his bag.
“Sore,” Daniel muttered, “but I can walk on it.”
“Good,” Aidan replied, sitting down across from Daniel. He called back over his shoulder to the two girls. “When you two are done over there, you wanna join us?”
After a few minutes of organizing their things, Olivia and Lilly sat down with the two brothers. “What’s wrong?” Olivia asked as she sat down to Aidan’s left, her sister across from her.
“Decision time,” Aidan responded. “Where to now? We can’t go back to either of our homes, so where should we go? What do we do?”
The four young outsiders looked at each other, glancing from side to side, waiting for someone else to speak first.
“We could go back to a house that Lilly and I stopped at on our way here,” Daniel offered. “It looked like it had been deserted for a while. We could hole up there for a bit.”
Aidan chewed his lip as he contemplated Daniel’s suggestion.
“How long do you think we can stay there?” Olivia inquired.
Daniel looked over at her. “As long as we want, I would guess. I don’t think the people who lived there are coming back anytime soon from the looks of the place.”
Lilly nodded her head in agreement. “But...” she started.
“But what?” Daniel broke in, catching the stern expression on Lilly’s face, clearly annoyed by his interruption.
“BUT, how long do you think we can stay there before Argyle’s men find us? They’re bound to come through there and if they do, do you think we can fight them off?”
Daniel was taken back at her bluntness. “Well, maybe they won’t find us,” he finally managed to reply. “There’s no reason for them to look for us there.”
“True,” Lilly shot back, “but maybe they will. I don’t think we can just hide and hope they don’t come looking for us.”
“What do you suggest?” Aidan asked, tossing a small rock into the air and catching it.
“I think we go there for a little while, just to rest up and let Daniel’s foot heal. Then we leave.”
“And where will we go from there?” Daniel grumbled.
“Then I think we should go fight.”
The three others stared at Lilly, the same flabbergasted expression on each of their faces. It took a moment for Olivia to respond.
“WHAT?”
“I think we should go fight,” Lilly repeated in a matter of fact tone. “Argyle’s men have been coming out here and taking us as slaves for a long time, too long. I think it’s time we fight back.”
“How on earth do you expect us to fight Argyle’s men?” Daniel stammered.
Lilly’s eyes flickered in his direction before staring straight ahead of her. “The same way you did last time.”
Daniel froze, his jaw clenching in an involuntary reflex. His eyes dropped to the dirt in front of him.
Olivia sat staring at Lilly, dumbfounded at her sister’s suggestion.
“It might work,” Aidan offered, giving Lilly a little wink of encouragement, forgetting that she couldn’t see it. Lilly smiled and blushed anyway at his compliment. Aidan continued, watching the rock rise and fall in front of him. “We’ll follow his gathering parties and ambush them,” he suggested. “With the four of us working together, I think we can do it.” Aidan turned to Olivia. “I saw you shoot back at the house. We can loop around and get in front of them. We’ll find a spot where they have to cross an open area. Then, we’ll hide you at the far side, somewhere high up for a better view. You could do some real damage from a distance. I can do my thing with the nearby animals and with Daniel’s speed he could move in and out of their group before they even knew what hit them.”
“What about me?” Lilly asked, a little pout in her voice. “What do I do while you three are attacking them? Just sit by and brush my hair?”
Aidan was caught off guard by the question and only half mumbled a senseless answer.
“You get to help us find them,” Olivia offered, picking up the planning where Aidan had been kicked off track. “We’ll need your help to figure out where they are. Plus, you can reload for me. I’ll be able to help a lot more if I can shoot, hand you the rifle, and shoot again.” Lilly sat up a little straighter as she realized she would be able to be of assistance.
“Well, when do we leave?” Lilly asked, the excitement evident in her voice.
“Now hold on a minute,” Daniel interjected. All eyes turned to him. “It’s all fine and dandy that we got the best of Argyle’s men once. I think it’s a bad idea to go searching them out.”
Aidan glared at his brother. “What do you suggest we do?” Aidan asked.
“I...I don’t know.”
“We can’t go to the little cottage and hide forever. They’d catch us eventually. What, you scared?”
Daniel was on his feet in a flash and on Aidan before anyone else could react.
“Take that back!” Daniel screamed at the top of his lungs, pinning Aidan to the ground beneath him. The girls struggled to pull Daniel off.
“What? Was I right? What are you afraid of?” Aidan answered, his voice rising in anger at Daniel’s hostility.
Daniel punched him once in the face and was pinning his arms down again before Aidan could even suck in a breath at the sudden pain flaring across his left cheek. “Take it back,” Daniel yelled.
“No.” Again a flash of pain seared his cheek. Aidan felt his eye beginning to swell. “You think hitting me will change anything?” he seethed, his anger rising with Daniel’s. He knew he’d hit a nerve and pressed further. “You can hit me all day, but it won’t change the fact that you’re being a coward.”
Daniel let out a bellow of rage and disappeared. The dust kicked up in the air lightly along the path that he’d followed and then settled gently back down to the earth. Aidan sat up and wiped his now bleeding nose with his sleeve. Both girls glowered at him with sour expressions.
“What?” Aidan asked, pushing himself to his feet. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Are you serious?” Olivia replied. “Why did you do that? He’s your brother.”
“Brother or not, we’re better off without him if he wants to run and hide.”
“NO,” Lilly yelled. She reached out to find Aidan’s arm and turned him to face her. “No, we’re not. He saved me, and so I owe him. And he also has an incredible gift. We need that. In case you didn’t notice, his gift can come in handy in a fight. I don’t know what you look like, but it sounded like he punched you hard, and you’re probably hurting a little. He can do that to them too. Now I don’t know what your problem is, but you’d better fix it.” With that, Lilly let go of his arm and fumbled around until she found her pack and a rifle. “Now let’s get on the road to that house. Hopefully he’ll meet us there when he calms down. You get to carry his bag since it’s your fault he took off.” Aidan mumbled something under his breath, grabbed Daniel’s sack, and pulled the straps up onto his shoulders.
“What was that?” Lilly asked, turning and stepping close. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Aidan answered.
“If you have something to say to me, say it so I can hear it. If not, you need to learn to keep you mouth shut, or I’ll make you look worse than Daniel did. Understand?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Aidan stammered, taking a step back, hand up defensively in front of him.
“Good, come on sis,” Lilly called to Olivia who stood with her hands over her mouth, trying to hide the smirk that was curling up at the corners of her lips despite her best efforts.
Olivia picked up her stuff and joined her sister. “Let’s go.”
Olivia and Lilly stopped briefly outside the cave to p
ack the meat they’d left on the fire the night before. The heat from the fire had thankfully been sufficient to dry the meat properly, giving them a few day’s worth of food if they needed it. The trip took them most of two days. They stopped a few times during the days to eat and to allow Aidan an opportunity to rest. Carrying the two packs had obviously started to take its toll on him given the pace Olivia was setting. He didn’t gripe though, and no muttering could be heard. The breaks were for the most part silent, broken only by the sounds of chewing and swallowing and instructions as to who would gather what to eat or drink. They arrived at the cabin shortly before dusk on the second day, the dining room in the same condition Lilly and Daniel had left it previously. Lilly and Olivia began cleaning up while Aidan went to get a couple of buckets of water.
At the creek, Aidan took some time to undress and bathe. The water was cold and a shiver ran through his body. He was filthy so he jumped in anyway and gave himself a quick scrub. Washing his face took a bit longer as he cleaned off the dried blood from his nose and gently washed over the huge knot that had formed on his left cheekbone. He winced as the pressure of his fingers glided over it.
“Coward,” he mumbled and climbed back out of the creek and onto the leaf-strewn shore. He stood for a while allowing the cool breeze to dry him off. He closed his eyes and projected his mind out, trying to find some of his animal kin. There was an abundance of wildlife in the area. He could feel them in his mind, moving around him. He was moving from creature to creature when he came across a frightened doe. She was being chased. She splashed along the banks of this same creek, farther to the west of where he now stood. He probed more. He sucked in a shocked breath when he realized what she was running from. It was a pack of werewolves and they were headed straight for him.
Aidan reached down and grabbed his clothes, leaving the buckets of water behind as he ran wildly for the cottage. The cramp that developed in his side was barely noticeable as the adrenaline surge pushed him forward, faster, harder. His feet slammed on the bare earth in some places, on thorny weeds in others. They didn’t slow him down. Even the bristly shrubs that tried to catch at his thighs and shins barely registered in Aidan’s thoughts. The only thing that bothered him was his eye. The swelling made it difficult to see, to judge distances. But he couldn’t slow. He felt the deer getting close. He caught a glimpse of the house through the trees and his heart leapt. The last hundred yards passed in a flash as he rounded the house and burst in the front door, slamming and barricading it behind him.
“Close and lock the windows!” Aidan yelled at the two stunned girls behind him. Aidan quickly pulled on his trousers and ran to a nearby window. As he shut it, he called back over his shoulder. “There are werewolves outside. They’re on the trail of a doe and she’s going to be passing by here any moment.” He ran to the next and slammed it shut. The two sisters snapped out of it and started scrambling around the room securing shutters as Aidan was doing. Although the windows to the two small rooms at the back of the cabin were locked, they shut the doors to the bedrooms as well.
Aidan collapsed into a chair near the front door, sucking in air as fast as his lungs would allow. He felt like his heart was going to burst.
“Oh!” Olivia cried.
Aidan jumped up and scanned the room, looking for the source of her alarm until he realized she was looking at him.
“What’s wrong?” Aidan panted.
“What happened to your feet? And your legs?”
Aidan looked down and saw blood oozing from numerous cuts on his feet. Thin lines of crimson had also started appearing and spreading on his pant legs. He sat back down in his chair and leaned his head back, trying to slow his heart rate and breathing.
“I guess I got cut up a bit. I, uh, didn’t have time to get dressed before I ran back,” he croaked, his dry throat making it difficult to talk. His blood rose into his cheeks as he continued. “Although you probably already noticed that when I came in.” This time it was the Olivia’s turn to blush.
“Won’t they smell the blood?” Lilly whispered.
Aidan’s eyes shot open. He hadn’t thought of that. Of course they would smell the blood and that would bring them to the house. “Oh, no.”
Aidan reached out to the doe, trying to track her progress through the woods. He found her soon enough, still racing along the creek. This time she was without pursuers. They’d stopped chasing her a short distance back. Still, she ran on, fear still driving her legs to keep going. Aidan pulled back and broke the connection.
“They smelled me,” he told the girls, his eyes still closed. He opened them slowly. “I’m so sorry.”
Olivia grabbed the rifle and started digging in her bag.
“What are you doing?” Lilly asked, hearing her sister digging frantically through her stuff.
“Daniel gave me silver bullets,” Olivia replied, without even looking up. “Ah ha!” she exclaimed, pulling a small gray pouch out of her pack. She immediately started loading the rifle.
“You can’t go outside,” Lilly cried, grabbing at Olivia’s arm.
“I’m not going outside,” Olivia answered, pulling her arm away. “There are slots in the window coverings. It’s not just to let light in.” Lilly moved her hand to a nearby wall and felt her way to a window, inspecting with her fingers the cross-shaped openings Olivia had been referring to. “I can shoot through those. If I can see them, I can shoot them.”
The three jumped when they heard the first howl from the approaching wolves. Olivia pulled the ramrod out of the rifle and moved to a nearby window. She set the end of the weapon in one of the crosses and waited. The three were absolutely silent as they listened for the sound of the pack.
A rustle in the woods outside alerted them to their arrival. Olivia pulled the butt firmly to her shoulder and readied herself. Aidan moved stealthily across the room and looked out the window opposite Olivia. After a moment, he turned his head back toward Lilly and murmured that the wolves were moving around to Olivia’s side of the house. Lilly leaned over and whispered to her sister. Olivia nodded her head.
The blast from the rifle was deafening in the confined space of the cottage. Aidan’s ears rang as he ran across the room and looked out another window.
“I missed,” Olivia growled as she picked up her bag of silver bullets and dug out another. She tore open the paper with her teeth, primed the pan and dumped the remaining powder and ball into the barrel. She shoved the paper down in last and used the ramrod again to pack the bullet down. Again, she raised the rifle to her shoulder and slid it into the cross, searching for another target. Lilly slipped around her and pulled out another few cartridges to try and help her sister reload faster. Grabbing the other rifle, Lilly went through the same loading process Olivia had just performed. She dropped the ball in, but it didn’t feel right so she dropped it back out and started over. After a few attempts she tossed the gun on the table in disgust and went back to standing by the window with Olivia.
“What’s wrong?” Aidan asked.
“The shot is the wrong size for the barrel,” Lilly replied. “She can’t use that rifle.”
“Great,” Aidan mumbled. He stood by, watching and feeling helpless as Olivia shifted her stance to get a better view off to her right.
The next crack of the rifle was followed immediately by a loud yelp from outside. Aidan hurried to a nearby window and looked out. He couldn’t see anything except a softly swaying bush at the edge of the tree line. He glanced over at Olivia who was already reloading. A small smirk rose on her lips.
“Got one,” she announced. “He was poking his head out of the bushes when I saw him. He fell back when he was hit. How many more are there?” she asked looking at Aidan.
“I don’t know,” Aidan answered, shaking his head. “I can’t feel them like I can other animals. Maybe at least four or five based on the howls that we heard earlier. I can’t be sure though. What can I do to help?”
“Why don’t you take
a look out those windows over there and tell me if you see any.”
Aidan stumbled across the room after kicking a nearby chair and sending up a large cloud of dust. “I don’t see anything on this side,” he coughed, waving a hand in front of his face to try and clear the air.
There was a loud crash at the front door that shook the very frame. Both girls cried out and Aidan stumbled backward, catching himself on a bookshelf.
“What was that?” Lilly asked. A snarling from the front of the house answered her question.
Again the werewolf threw itself against the house. The top of the door splintered but held.
“It’s not going to hold much longer,” Aidan announced. “Keep your eye out for a target. Shoot anything that moves. I’m going to try to barricade the door.”
Olivia was focused out her window again, weapon at the ready. Aidan pushed the table across the room and flipped it onto its side before pushing it against the door.
“Maybe they went away,” Lilly whispered hopefully. There was another impact against the house and the table trembled. “Maybe not.”
“Keep quiet,” Olivia whispered. “Another one is creeping out from the tree line close to where the first one went down.” Olivia let out a long breath and gently squeezed the trigger. Another cry indicated she’d hit her target. Aidan ran across the room and looked out. Sure enough, the werewolf lay about twenty feet from where Olivia had said she’d hit the other one. Two more moved slowly into the clearing, their muzzles twitching as they explored the scene. The larger of the pair, probably the leader, let out a long howl and charged back into the brush. The other followed. Aidan caught glimpses of three others as they joined the leader.
“Looks like they’re leaving now,” Aidan cried.
Lilly gave a little jump and pumped her fist in the air. “Yes!”
Olivia leaned the rifle against the wall next to her and walked slowly to a nearby chair. Her knees seemed to wobble beneath her and she collapsed into her seat.
“You okay?” Lilly asked, moving to her sister’s side.
Olivia nodded. “I...I just need a moment.” She looked at Aidan. “I was so scared.”
“We’re safe now,” Aidan said gently, walking to her side and kneeling down next to her. He put his hand on her shoulder. “We’re safe. You drove them off. Good job.”
Olivia nodded as she took a couple deep breaths. “You think they’re scared off for good?”
Aidan paused. “I think so. I don’t think they’re used to being hurt.”
“Except by silver bullets,” Lilly interjected.
“Except by silver bullets,” Aidan agreed, looking up at the younger girl. “But I don’t think they run into those very much. I think they’re gone for good,” he told Olivia, pushing himself back up to a standing position. “Excuse me for moment.”
Aidan walked gingerly to one of the bedrooms and closed the door quietly behind him. Olivia’s eyebrows raised in a silent confusion of what he might be doing, and she whispered her question to her sister. Lilly shrugged and started putting cartridges of silver bullets back in the small bag. Aidan emerged a few minutes later. Olivia noted a small figurine in his right hand that he massaged between his thumb and forefinger. He stood in the center of the room turning slowly in a circle, his eyes raised to the ceiling.
“It’s hard to tell exactly where they are, but I think they moved off pretty quick. I get a few weak feelings from some animals north of here that I think might be the werewolves passing by. I’m not really sure. There’s also something weird from the west. I don’t know. That’s all I can get. If they were closer, I think I’d be feeling something stronger from the animals nearby.”
“I guess that will have to do,” Olivia responded, noting that Aidan seemed distracted, not completely focused on the location of the werewolves. “You think they’re far enough away to risk going back down to the creek and getting our buckets of water? We really need to do something about your legs.”
Aidan looked back down at his crimson-streaked pants and was about to answer when the front door exploded inward, tipping the table and sending it careening across the dining room floor.
Chapter 13
A Cold Welcome Home