Volcanic
L
I lost vision in my right eye five years into my imprisonment. Twelve years after my initial capture, I escaped the three-by-three cell Peter and his fellow Mercenaries kept me in. I grappled onto a shred of freedom and ran from the Mercenary who had held my life in his hands since I was a child. In the bunker, time was nothing but a shadow haunting the corner of my mind. Years passed, I knew that. I grew older. The shadows under Peter’s eyes darkened with time. The light I struggled to hold onto slowly slipped from my desperate grip. And yet, somewhere under the scars and fear, hope simmered, waiting for its chance.
By the time I made it from my cell and out into the open world for the first time I was met with the same darkness that crept into my cage all hours of the day. The moon called to me from the sky but I ignored its bright luminescence and kept moving with my freedom in mind. It wasn’t until I made it several miles from the bunker I was held in that I collapsed against a tree. Black dots clouded my vision and sweat dripped down my forehead, through the cracks in my skin, and off my chin as I knelt, slumped over the ground. Those cracks, made from rogue branches and painful collapses as I made my way through a dense forest somewhere in the US, stung and cried while sweat leaked into them and spread, the drops dissolving into the layer of muscle underneath flesh. The slashes in my skin burned with the salty perspiration, but I ignored the pain and kept moving. The further from the bunker, the safer.
An unknown amount of time slipped by since I fled Peter’s prison. The muscles in my legs screamed for me to stop, and my brain thumped inside my skull. With nothing but willpower to keep me going, I knew my time fleeing was coming to an end. Exhaustion crept up on me. Its fingers tangled in my hair and swept around my neck to pull me down. While the landscape remained the same, I knew I was far enough away from the bunker to rest. The smell of oceanic waves crashing into rocks and freshly fallen pine needles filled the air. I inhaled as much of it as possible, the fear of being captured again looming over me.
I rested against the earth, my hip dug into the hard ground while my shoulder fell toward a tree. My shoulder cried out as loose bark dug into my torn shift and exposed flesh but I paid no attention to the pain as I looked forward, the right side of my vision blacked out by an injury sustained by Peter long ago. Since then my loyalty shifted to my ears more than when I had vision in both eyes. The movement of leaves and the rustle of the damp earth below me set my ears ablaze in dread at what could possibly happen now that I’d escaped into the open world. Once on the ground, I allowed my eyelids to fall toward the lashes above my cheeks. My head hit the bark, a trickle of blood staining the wood. Cold air seeped into my mouth and itched at my lungs. Years passed since I breathed fresh air, and it tasted just as sweet as I remembered from my childhood.
I may have been alone but I had the moon and its glimmer of alabaster light to hold me in its arms as I drifted off into a stream of void, lulling me to sleep with its sweet songs of night.
*****
Amid a dream, the thundering of paws through an unwelcoming forest forced my eyelids to peel open, a layer of crust at the seams. I pushed my lowest arm into the wet dirt and heaved my body so I sat with a shoulder against the bloodied bark behind me. My flesh held on by a thread while I steadied my legs. The sky above me hadn’t changed from earlier; blinding stars and the moon still lit up the forest floor with a soft glow. An amber haze brightened by fireflies and the eyes of smaller animals than myself. As the paws grew closer my head burned with Peter’s words at the realization of why the air smelled so distinct:
“Packs are terrible things, L. They’ll rip your throat out. They’ll slice you open before you can plea for your life.” I shuddered and pulled my knees to my chest through the burning sensation of opening wounds. Burying my forehead at the tendon, I hoped to silence Peter’s voice. The words repeated in my brain, the Mercenary’s claws at the base of my neck while his lips spit saliva into the folds of my ears. I shivered away from the hooded figure in my head and looked up at where the paws came from – their eyes a hundred shades of yellows and blues and greens. Their teeth were bared and feet ready to shove into the dirt and lunge forward without hesitation. That is if they considered my presence a threat. It was too late to hide and shield my face from the horrid wolves in front of me. It was too late to flee with what little energy I kept bottled inside for cases like these. I was doomed to suffer the consequences of finding my way into their territory, and I planned on taking it without a fight. The sooner everything ended, the better. A hard bite to the neck was sure to do the trick.
I turned my gaze to the ground. These wolves were from a pack of Lycans, and I couldn’t give them any more reason to execute me on the spot. Submission was something you were taught as a child, but whether the higher ranking members demanded their people to show submission was different for each pack. My own, Ruby, never demanded that from us. Alpha Cole instead demanded equality between the ranks and refused to accept lower-ranking wolves to show their necks in obedience. We were a family despite our differing last names.
The wolves’ shadows bit at my sides and overcrowded my vision. One, a lonely and much taller shadow, came closer and overtook my entire figure until two human feet covered in mud-soiled boots were directly under my gaze. A human amongst the wolves.
“Look at me,” a voice spoke down at my crouched form. I dared not look up. His voice was calm but his threatening stare burned holes into my skull. “Please look at me.” He came at me again, this time with slightly more formality than before. I hesitated. Early on, Peter told me to look at him, only to hit me after I did. It was something learned, to expect a trick in a gentle request. Knowing I had no choice but to obey the order given, I craned my neck up. The dark hair in front of my face parted in the middle in sweaty strands of black. It fell to the sides of my face at my shoulders and allowed my features to be seen in their entirety. Despite the ever-growing threat to my right, I didn’t take my eyes off the blonde man just above me. Waves of pale golden hair fell around his face. He had enough stubble to mark the skin of anyone who got too close, and his eyes were as blue as the ocean Peter told me about. A deep azure that shifted under the moonlight. It swept my mind away with spikes of light gray near his pupils. I longed for a closer look. The wolves behind him rumbled in anger. Their cheeks puffed as they stepped forward. The blonde’s head snapped back and he let out a growl of his own. His chest reverberated with the heavy noise, and the others bowed their heads almost instantly.
“Stand down,” he barked and held a hand out to stop them from moving further, closer. “Report back to your stations. I will take care of this.” His voice didn’t belong to an Alpha but someone close to them, someone high ranking. The angry wolves waited a moment but eventually turned to leave. Their figures disappeared into the steely fog that hung in the woods near the ground. The towering man brought his attention back to me. He knelt, his knees bent and his elbows rested on his thighs as he balanced himself on the balls of his feet. Dark jeans pulled at the seams as he steadied himself, and the stubble on his jaw glimmered in the moonlight. In the twelve years I knew him, Peter kept his face clean-shaven; no hint of hair except the dusty brown atop his head. If I weren’t on the run or afraid of what the man kneeling in front of me would do, I would’ve reached up to feel the harsh, spiky hairs that poked through his skin. Instead, I kept my hands close to my body in case I needed them for defense.
I shuffled backward against the tree but my body refused to go anywhere. My feet slid in the mud and shards of wood buried themselves into the broken flesh under my shoulder blades. I ignored the painful prodding, the oozing blood that trailed down my back, staining the old shift around my body.
“Whoa – whoa it’s OK.” He brought his hand up and my eyes widened, arms ready to clash with his attack. “I’m not going to hurt you.” His words brought my arm down from the defense and I looked up to him. His eyes were burning with sadness, his pupils larger than they were earlier. The blonde lowered his hand to his knee and let out a cold breath. “My name is Jaxson Anderson. I’m the Beta of Emerald pack and the wolves you saw were some of the night patrols.” The introduction slipped through his teeth with a gentle smile in hope that I’d bring down the defensive barrier in front of me. I turned my eyes back down to the ground and let my shoulders fall. His announcement of his position forced submission from me. Being away from Ruby for over a decade, and with a man keen on forcing me to lower myself to him, I kept my vision on the ground, at his boots that sunk into the wet dirt.
After a moment, he reached forward again with his hand, this time much slower, only a few fingers further than the others. I watched his movements carefully, in case they sped up at all but he kept a reasonable pace that allowed me to move back if necessary. I kept still. Awaiting what, I wasn’t sure.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated. I didn’t move but his cold touch made a shiver burn through my spine. He pulled my chin up with his hooked finger and he turned my head to the side so that my right eye was in full view. “Are you blind?” He asked. He watched the side of my face – the white spiderwebbing over my iris and pupil. A clear indicator of the damage.
I nodded and pulled my chin away from him but didn’t drop my eyes. I refused to meet his gaze again, instead looked out at the forest behind him in case any of his friends hid in the distance waiting for him to break attention.
“Can you speak?” His voice embraced my ears in a loving hug. Jaxon let himself fall to the ground so he sat in front of me, never minding the mud that now oozed underneath him. I shook my head once he settled on the dirt. But before he opened his mouth again I nodded. Conflicting voices in my head battled for control; whether to lie to him and find out the hard way later what he and his friends do to those who deceive, or to admit the truth.
“You don’t want to speak?” Jaxon urged forward. This time I nodded and pulled my legs up toward my chest, an attempt to hide my body from him. To shrink into the size of an ant and disappear.
I let my eyes wander toward the dark forest behind Jax. Gold and blue eyes glowed between trees but none advanced. Jaxon knew of their presence but he didn’t turn to shoo them away. I kept my eyes on the one furthest to the right.
“Are you running from someone?” Jaxon’s voice grabbed my attention again and I pulled my eyes back to him, narrowing them. Could I even mention Peter and what he’d done? He was sure to find me and move my execution date. He’d find a way to take my head before the trial.
I shook my head and pulled my body back toward the tree until loose bark dug into the thin flesh on my back. Jax went to stand. He craned his neck toward the eyes in the distance and nodded. Slowly, each set vanished until we were surrounded by the black forest and nothing else. The air around us quieted as each one dispersed in a different direction until my breathing and Jaxon’s fingers tapping against a brick in his hand were the only sounds in my ears.
“I’m going to take you back to Emerald. You need medical attention and our head surgeon will help.” He reached down with both hands this time and I scurried away, my feet struggling over a large root poking out from the ground. I managed to scramble a few feet away but Jaxon’s strides made up the distance between us with no effort.
“N-no!” I yelled. My voice scratched against my esophagus but I managed a rough tone regardless. “No!”
“Hey – hey it’s ok,” he said and froze in his place. “So you can speak,” he chuckled, his voice soft as he continued his trail toward me. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Jaxon repeated this at least two more times until his arms gathered under my shoulders and knees. He lifted me off the cold ground and into a warm chest. The moment his eyes caught mine I froze and any chance of escape slipped from my mind. He had these deep navy eyes that struck through my skin and pierced my nerves and muscles until my limbs went numb. I stared into them until the ocean tides washed me away out to sea where his pupils lay. Thin spears of gray pointed out from his pupils, but they were nearly hidden by the intense blue.
My tongue went white between my teeth and I scrunched my nose against his touch but I had no strength compared to the man who held onto me.
I turned my head up to look at Jaxon who kept his eyes forward as he moved through the forest. Without looking he ticked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“Would you like to tell me your name now?” He pressed on about a way to identify me. I knew I had to tell him eventually but I couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth. At the beginning of my time with Peter, he tightened a muzzle around my mouth and jaw to keep me from speaking. The phantom of that same leather mouthpiece held my lips shut and I had no way to break through it. No matter how hard I clawed at it in my head the muzzle tightened until my eyes squeezed shut. The brush of leather on my cheeks made my skin sizzle. I pinched my eyes, a sob wrecking its way up my throat. He muzzled me like an animal, a dog needing trained. Tears billowed from the corners of my eyes as the memory surfaced and replayed behind my eyes. His voice, Peter’s voice, irritated the insides of my ears. I held in the cry with another bite to my tongue.
“Hmmm?” He still hadn’t turned his eyes down to look at me. Tears burned my cheeks as they fell and my fingers trembled from their grip on his thin shirt. He must have noticed because his gaze fell on me and he took in a quick breath.
Jaxon stopped moving.
“Hey,” he said to wake me from the memory.
I peeled my eyes open to see his blue gaze on me, full of concern as he watched my panic unfold in front of him. I broke through the muzzle in my head, the leather bindings shredding as if a knife dug through them as quickly as it could manage.
“L-letter L,” I choked out, the tears continuing their stream down the soft flesh on my cheeks. Jaxon furrowed his brows and began his journey again through the undergrowth. “Name,” I clarified with a nod and cleared my eyes with a few blinks.
“L? That’s it?” He questioned. “Your name is L?”
“L,” I repeated.
“Does it stand for anything?” Jaxon asked after a moment. I shook my head, not just with confusion riddling my brain but with a sigh of defeat. Peter began calling me by the single letter a few months after my arrival. Prior he simply used my gender as an identifier but grew tired of such a long name, and resorted to L as a quick way to yell for me. To punish.
We walked in silence for the rest of the way until Jaxon stopped at the edge of the forest line. He turned his chin down toward his chest and glanced over me. A certain gleam came to his iris’ but that minute amount of sympathy vanished the moment another voice and set of footsteps came into hearing range.
“Ja- who’s this?” A smooth voice reached my eardrums. I let my eyelids flutter closed and I allowed the vibrating steps to linger in my ears. Even though I didn’t physically feel the approaching figure, my bones shook the closer he got to us. His voice sounded like satin draping over bare skin.
My eyes shot open, fingers clutched at the shirt of my protector and I looked up at Jaxon to get his attention. The approaching man didn’t slow his pace despite my silent protests I shot his way. I couldn’t twitch my toes; I’d lost feeling in them minutes ago but I pulled on the blondes’ shirt so that maybe he’d send the other man away. The approaching figure closed the gap but kept a small distance from Jaxon.
“It’s OK, L. I promise it’s OK,” Jaxon murmured down toward me and adjusted my near-limp body in his arms.
“N-no!” I chirped with a scratchy noise. The tears from before came back but this time they refused to wait for my permission to fall down my cheeks. “No more,” I refused to look at the approaching man, and instead let my wet face fall into Jaxon’s shirt, the cotton a soft warmth on my cold flesh and scorching tears.
“Who is she?” The same voice came through into my eardrums and allowed a kind of vibration my head didn’t have any way of fathoming. A moan made from the softest mice purred between my lips but didn’t make it past the shirt I held and pressed my face into.
“I found her in the woods,” Jaxon answered. “She needs medical attention and I’m not too sure I should tell Alej about her.” I scrunched my eyebrows at the name spoken between the two men. For over a decade, the only name I knew was Peter’s. Not even his friends were willing to reveal their names to me.
“He’s getting worse – I’d keep him out of this one,” The other spoke, his boots crunched the fallen leaves on the ground. “He can’t tell the difference between our patrol and rogues anymore.” Their terminology half confused me, but I caught on quickly as I recounted what Peter taught me over the years, and of my time at Ruby before my world crumbled around me.
“For now this stays between us. I’d take her to the medical center but there’s a chance Alej will find her there. Can you take her to the cells? Make sure she has something warm, and food. A change of clothes, as well.” Jax went to move me away from his chest. Almost in instinct, I grappled tighter onto his shirt, my fingernails dug into the fabric until it nearly ripped open and exposed his flesh. Cries echoed from my lips, but they didn’t affect the man who held me. Flashes of fear swept over my vision again. I pinched my eyes shut to keep the invading images from burning into my memory but they were there behind my eyelids. No escape.
“No,” I whispered into his chest. “Don’t leave,” I begged him. Jaxon was soft. He was warm and didn’t yell. If he left, I’d be alone again. Alone and bare to the elements, and to Peter finding me.
“Hey, hey it’s alright L. I won’t be gone for long.” His voice echoed through the baby hairs around my ears.
“Are you getting Dean?” The other voice spoke. Confusion riddled in my head. Names fired off left and right, and I had no idea how to identify them.
“If anyone can help her it’s him,” Jaxon said. “He’s worked with children before and from what this girl looks like…” He trailed off, arms loosening around me. A growl reverberated in my throat at the idea that I was a child. I didn’t spend my entire adolescence locked in a cage and tortured into thinking I murdered my family to be called a child.
“No!” I raised my voice. But it was too late. Before I could fight against the transfer a scorching heat filled my bones and nerves to their breaking point. My hand balled, lips quivered as the fire spread through my limbs into individual toes and fingers. It singed, a wildfire spreading. The scream that left my lips didn’t last long, however, as the flames died into a kindling of what they were. It still burned, but this was manageable. It burned differently than with Jaxon. This felt like a fireplace in the dead of winter. A welcoming warmth that toasted marshmallows and tickled hands with gentle kindles of heat.
The man didn’t say anything – how he couldn’t feel the same as I did I had no idea. I turned my eyes up to him. Near black hair, tousled and shiny glistened against the dark evening covered in stars. Soft features covered his face with the exception of long stubble that covered his jawline and neck just below his chin. No mustache balconied above his lips but offered a sidewalk underneath. Before I could stop myself, I brought a hand up toward his chin, fingers outstretched toward him but as he turned his eyes down to me I froze only for a second before burying my arm against his chest again, fabric brought into my grip. My advances were out of my control and were sure to get me hurt if I kept them up.
I didn’t take my eyes off his, though. He had these light gray eyes that glistened like freshly melted silver. They held smiles in the form of thin red veins and bits of black in the iris’. The heat inside my bones settled into a gentle flame I could have stood next to with my hands outstretched, warming. My lips twitched into a smile and I brought the side of my face against his chest and allowed my eyes to fall closed. A singular touch other than Peter’s harsh hands and words brought butterflies into my stomach. Shivers ran up my spine like marathon runners at full speed. I brought my feet together and crossed them as they hung toward the ground, bent at the knee with his forearm underneath.
“What’s her name?” The man who held me asked. His voice purred in his chest, the noise a chorus in my ears.
“L,”
“L?”
“That’s all she told me,” Jaxon sighed. I refused to open my eyes to the disappointing look he possibly sent me. “Seemed pretty adamant about staying quiet about where she came from – maybe you or Dean can get more out of her.” At his words, I stiffened. I didn’t want them to ‘get more out of me’. If I mentioned Peter or his position as a Mercenary they were sure to send me back to him.
The black-haired man’s eyes burned holes through my skull. He didn’t let his attention waver despite the conversation. “I’ll try,” he said and adjusted his arm under my knees. “Have Dean come down in the morning, she needs rest.”
Footsteps dispelled into the distance and the man who held me started moving as well. He didn’t say anything else but his breaths were enough to tell the story of his life and who he was. They were soft but full of the same warmth in my bones. He told me about his family and the pack he lived in without using actual words. Even if what he told me was wrong I felt as if I knew him. I knew this man who held me to his chest. I knew him in a past life and for that, I tilted my head just a little closer to his hard chest and allowed the beating of his heart and warmth of his breaths to lull my mind into a slumber I had no intention of escaping. His torso grumbled. The volcanic heat between us spread the closer I pushed myself into him. A blanket of warmth keeping the icy world at bay. For the first time in twelve years, I found myself lowering the barricade between me and the world. For the first time in a long time, I felt safe.
