Survivor

Chapter 19

The only thing Ruby saw was Aarons white chest dripping with blood, his muzzle colored red.

She had no time to react as he crossed the distance between the sawmill and the fence with shocking speed. A sob left her as he ducked through the hole and turned towards her. She was almost blinded with terror as he looked at her with piercing blue eyes.

Then he seemed to notice the cable tie and the scope in her other hand, which she clutched so tightly that her ankles whitened. He tilted his head and looked at the flat roof. When he realized that Ruby had almost a clear field of vision, Aaron let out a deep sigh. He sat down, tail curling around his front paws and closed his eyes. Then his body began to tremble.

The sight snapped Ruby out of her state of shock. She jumped to her feet and backwards, as far away from the him as possible. The cable tie cut painfully into her wrist as she tugged at with every ounce of strength she possessed. Her eyes fell on the scope in her hand and without a second thought, she it at Aaron.

It hit him the moment he braced himself with his hands and looked up. The metal case crashed against his nose, causing an awful cracking sound that echoed in Ruby's ears. What made her flinch, however, was the animalistic hiss that rose from Aaron's throat as the pain spread through his face like a bolt of lightning.

Ruby's breath caught in shock as Aaron pushed his broken nose back to its normal position with a brief jerk. Except for a suppressed growl, he didn't react as the blood flowed over his mouth and dripped onto his bare chest. There was no anger in his eyes as he looked at Ruby, but her panic still flared when he stood up. She frantically tore at the cable tie that held her in place and thus prevented her from following her overwhelming instinct to run for her life.

"Stay away from me, you monster!"

Her words made Aaron pause for a moment before he took another step and finally stopped about half a meter in front of her.

"Ruby, listen to me. I can imagine that what you saw is a lot for you right now," the redhead couldn't suppress a shaky laugh at his words, "but nothing will happen to you. You have my word."

"What is the word of a monster worth?" Ruby wiped her cheek with trembling fingers, irritated by the wetness on her skin, until she realized that she was crying. "You murdered Sam! How could I ever believe anything out of the mouth that ripped Sam's throat out!"

At the memory of the gruesome scene, Ruby shuddered. Suppressing a sob, she pulled on the cable tie once more and flinched at the pain in her sore wrist.

"Leave me alone! Please, just go." She whispered the last word as she pressed her hand to her mouth, on the verge of a panic attack. "Please."

Aaron sighed as he looked at the trembling woman in front of him. Her panic was so intense that he felt the need to cover his nose if it wasn't still pulsating painfully. The pungent bitter smell dissuaded him from his original plan to get her to come back to the Range Rover with him and drive home with the others. Instead, he pointed to the cable ties.

"Okay. I'll go, just like Torin, Benji and Nik-," Aaron cut himself off as he almost revealed the woman's identity. Ruby didn't know who the third jaguar was, as Nikita hadn't shifted, and it was only up to her to reveal to the redhead what she was.

"I mean we and the other jaguar will go. But only under one condition. You let me free you."

Ruby sucked in a sharp breath at the thought of Aaron getting so close to her. But even with her mind clouded by adrenaline and fear, she knew that she couldn't free herself on her own. She nodded hesitantly before surveying Aaron's naked torso before looking up into his bloodied face. His nose had now stopped acting as a waterfall and if she wasn't so scared, she would almost feel sorry that she had broken his nose.

"But you don't have a knife. How are you going to get the cable ties off me?"

A smile flickered across Aaron's features as he shook his head and stood up. He grabbed her wrist, making her flinch, before holding up his hand.

"I don't need a knife." Startled, Ruby's eyes widened as Aaron's nails turned into claws. "I have those. Hold still."

With one smooth movement, Aaron cut through the plastic of the cable tie. The moment the pressure around her wrist disappeared, Ruby scrambled backwards, away from the white-haired man. He raised his hands defensively.

"I'll go now. We'll leave the car you came with here so you can drive back to LA." He was already turning around when he stopped again and looked back at Ruby, who was sitting on the dry forest floor, holding her sore wrist protectively against her chest.

"Ruby... Why did you come here in the first place? You couldn't know what you were going to see, but you knew you'd be at risk of getting hurt or even killed. So, why are you here? "

The question made Ruby pause. She thought about it as she slowly stood up and leaned against a tree, not trusting her shaky legs.

"I went after you all because I just couldn't do nothing. Torin and you said that you would come back safely, but I didn't believe you in the slightest. How could I have known that you were fucking killing machines." A harsh laugh escaped the redhead before she stopped abruptly. "I... was afraid for all of you. You all may be strangers, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't care if you were injured or killed especially if there was something, anything I could have done to prevent it. I wouldn't be able to live with that."

Ruby let her gaze glide to the side over the grounds of the sawmill.

"That was pretty stupid when I think about it now."

When she looked up again, Aaron was gone. Startled, she turned around, but couldn't see either the young man or the white jaguar. Ruby turned in the direction she thought the car was parked and started running. She just wanted to get away from this place. Away from the corpses and the things she had seen. Away from the impossible, true fact that shapeshifters existed.

Ruby ran as if her life depended on it. Maybe it did. The forest around her blurred together as she sprinted towards the car that seemed like her lifeline in a world she no longer understood. A startled sound came from Ruby's throat as her foot got stuck on a root and she crashed headfirst against a tree trunk.

As she slowly straightened up again, she groaned in pain, touching her forehead lightly. The burning stinging made her flinch, and she could already feel a throbbing headache settle in her skull. When she pulled her fingers back, they shone red in the light of the setting sun. At the same moment, the first drops of blood ran down her temple.

Frustrated, Ruby closed her eyes briefly to collect herself a little before walking on. She reached into her pocket and was surprised to find that she hadn't lost the car key, contrary to her expectations. At least one positive thing on that terrible day. After Ruby closed the car door and started the engine, she put her hands on the steering wheel and propped her head against it. She ignored the flaring pain in her forehead, as well as the fact that she smeared blood onto Benjamin's car.

For a few moments, she remained like that, staring into the darkness of the footwell as she desperately tried to collect herself. She felt like she was about to explode. Sighing, she finally leaned back, starting the car and reversed to get out of the forest path. When she was finally back on the highway towards LA, she had turned up the radio as loud as she could to drown out every thought. She was still shaking. Ruby had simply reached her limit. Mentally and physically.

Once she arrived at the hotel, she would book the return flight for the next day and pick up Nikita to-

The thought of the brown-haired woman made her slam down on the brakes abruptly, causing the car to sway. Cursing, Ruby gripped the steering wheel tightly before bringing the car to a halt. Only now did she realize that she hadn't seen Nikita anywhere at the sawmill. A terrible thought crossed her mind.

Had Aaron and Torin killed Nikita too?