Shifters (Feline english version)

Chapter 14

All these news must have put me in a state of shock, because when Jude leapt on his feet to crouch behind a pile of shaky cardboard boxes near the door with a knife in his hand, I didn't even react and sat there with my head in the clouds. The door opened slowly and I heard a familiar voice that brought me out of my trance and stood up. It was Charles. Jude must have called him while I was asleep, apparently rightly believing that there was no longer any immediate danger.

We didn't linger any longer in this damp cellar and returned to the village where Jude and I had to go through the infirmary hut, especially him. Curiously and without explanation, he asked me to keep silent the fact that he had drunk my blood. He seemed so concerned about my answer that I promised him, without forgetting, however, to ask an explanation later.

Having to stay a little longer than me at the clinic, it was a young blond man named Sean who brought me to the building on the edge of the forest where Charles had stopped on the morning of my "hunt" in the woods. He opened the door to the same apartment and told me, leaving me on the threshold, that I could wash and rest there. Finally, he left without a word, gently closing the door behind him.

I remained passive for a moment, only able to find the strength to lean softly against the door and close my eyes. I was exhausted. Not wanting to collapse there, at the risk of staining the floor because I was so dirty, I forced myself to reopen my eyes and analyze my surroundings in order to find the bathroom as quickly as possible.

I was in a kind of rather large and bare studio, almost impersonal. The small open kitchen with its different shades of grey was well arranged and separated from the rest of the room by a bar surrounded by two high stools. Against the left wall, and hidden by a small recess, stood a double bed, adorned with grey sheets. The whole place felt empty, a bit like a sample house. Which must have been close to it, because I suspected that this studio was being used by visiting guests.

I easily found the bathroom in one of the only two other rooms in the apartment and accessed it through a door to the right of the entrance. It was white and functional, with clean and seemingly my size clothes, waiting for me, fold on a chair next to the sink. Slowly, I took off those that had turned into rags and quickly slipped into the shower, staying under the stream long after the last red spots had disappeared through the bunghole.

I was numb. The water may have been hot, but I couldn't warm up and it was then that I realized that I was shaking. I let myself slip gently to the ground until I found myself sitting, curled up in a corner of the shower, knees up against my chest. I would have liked to be able to cry, to relieve some of the tension, both emotional and physical, that had accumulated over the past few days, but I couldn't do it. I just sat there, foolishly under the water, waiting for my incoercible tremors to finally stop.

I would have liked someone to come in at that moment and hug me and whisper in my ear that everything was going to be fine, just like in the romance novels.

The saddest thing about it was that my unconscious had given my imaginary protector the features of Jude. I don't know if it was that or my little daydream that had finally helped me let go, but suddenly I started sobbing.

When I stopped and I was finally able to get out of the shower without falling, I dried, then wrapped myself in a soft grey towel hung on a coat hook behind the door, before realizing that some clean ones had been placed on the hinged lid of the toilet there for me. Then I started to untangle my hair with a comb on the small shelf above the sink. I hoped that this simple and daily task would relax me, when a familiar scent from the towel suddenly came to tickle my nostrils.

The fabric had an inimitable scent of undergrowth and particularly warm breeze. Smell that I now inevitably associated with Jude. Oh shit, I was in his house! I hurried to throw the towel, now dirty, into the basket next to the shower and dressed quickly. So much for my hair. Anyway, with a simple comb, it was a lost cause. I didn't know why it bothered me so much to be in his house, but it did. Perhaps the feeling of being even more of a troublesome burden, my conscience whispered nastily to me.