The Blood Moon

Vengeance

It was hard to tell the difference between the cries of pain in my memories and the ones that tore apart my present mind. Tears flowed, my throat burned, and my heart pounded, both in the woods and the police station. The clamorous noise of my emotions created an impenetrable wall of static that choked out any attempt at rationalizing what I just saw. The only thoughts that managed to find definition in the chaos was the recollection of how his skin hitting hers sounded and how their sweaty bodies joined together beneath the moonlight.

I felt the acidic sharpness of bile rising up from my knotted stomach. I felt a pull at the back of my throat, threatening to evacuate everything inside me so that my body felt as empty as my soul. I felt myself crumbling beneath my own weight, as my congested head failed to send any proper commands to my tired limbs.

Yet one directive did break through the cage holding my sanity together. Run, it demanded. Run away and don't look back.

Both my past self and my present heeded the call. My memories sprinted through the forest along the well trodden trail, while my present self reached for the anchor that Hen had repeatedly told me to grasp.

"Let me out," I said, sending my words into the aether for Hen to find.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Del. I know this hurts. I can feel your pain, I am shedding your tears. But if we pull out now, I will have to start all over again. I'll need to recreate the runes. We'll have to find the thread again. I may lose work I've done on dialing back the curse. We'll lose time and going in and out of this can be both physically and mentally tasking. We may exhaust ourselves before we discover who killed the alpha."

"Screw the alpha," I replied with a snarl that did not reflect on the lips of my past. "In fact, fuck all the werewolves and their perverted rituals. If the wolves want me dead, tell them they won't have to wait long before they have proof of my crimes. I'm getting out of here and I'm hunting down another alpha that I really will kill."

My past self found a fresh burst of energy once she spotted the chauffeur waiting for her out at the end of the road. A vicious plan was formulating in her head and her excitement clouded her vision. She missed the gnarled root of an old tree and her foot — my foot — caught it in my haphazard sprint. With a painful twist, my ankle gave way and I shot my arms out to catch myself before colliding with the rough dirt of the trodden trail.

"Del..."

The pain zapped my senses and I hollered out as if the injury was freshly gained. My past saw me writhe on the ground, but in the blink of an eye, my chaperone appeared by my side. I rolled on my back and looked up to see the Blood Moon staring down at me with a dark sense of humor in its rusty red glow. Then the driver bent over and invaded my view.

"Take me back," I commanded through gritted teeth.

"Take me back!" I reiterated, channeling the pain, the anger, and the desperation into one thought. The emotional cacophony of that night silenced in a second as it all found a single objective, a unifying conviction, and a worthy goal in my resolve — revenge.

With a lurch, the vampire chauffeur lifted me off the ground, just as I forced myself back into the present.

"Del," whined a familiar voice that now hit my ears with clear directionality.

"I need to know," I growled, pushing away from the cold metal table so that the legs of my chair pierced the quiet room with their screeching slide.

"I get that," groaned Hen as she massaged her temples. "Really I do. I recognize that anger and resentment that your feeling. Believe it or not, I've felt it myself in my own life. However, I didn't have somebody else in my head at the time nor a curse blocking out a significant portion of my memories."