Bared

IX

“Ben! Wait!” I called into the forest. Ben was just a black shadow, just a flicker in my vision. He didn’t stop. I panted after him. I tried reaching towards him with my mind, but there was a strong metal wall around his thoughts, re enforced with hot flames of anger. I got burned just trying to touch his wall.

    Abruptly, the shadow I had been following stopped. I almost ran into the solid object of Ben’s back. A hand grabbed my arm, and dragged me towards a huge oak tree. I almost screamed and bit him, but the hand was gone as fast as it had appeared.

    Two bright pricks of light flashed in front of me. Blue irises, with lightning bolts of gold shocking through them. I opened my mouth to ask Ben something, but his harsh voice stopped me. “You really want to know why I’m here, Alexis? Why I suddenly appeared in your life from nowhere? Stopped you from killing your brother?” “Austin isn’t my brother! And he never will be,” I yelled. The golden lightning flared brighter, and more numerous; half of his irises were golden.

    Ben’s voice sounded like knives in my ears. “Austin is your brother. More than you know.” Before he could continue, I struck him. His eyes flashed wide with pain, and they flared with anger once he realized what I had done: a sharp strike to the jaw with my fist, which would have broken anyone else’s jaw, but not a wolf’s. Not Ben’s.

    Hands closed around my throat, and my body slammed into the tree. Ben’s eyes were almost all gold now. The only remaining bits of blue were thin rings around the pupil. I envisioned the rings of blue, and forced my way through his mental walls, keeping the vision in my mind's’ eye. His walls burned me, and the sharp spikes of pain and anger caused by red lightning that flickered around his walls now struck me, filling me with the emotions. But I forged on.

    I reached the wall. With the last of my strength, I punched the wall with all I had. My fist crumpled the steel, and, with one more punch, I broke through. Ben’s thoughts engulfed me like a wave, dragging me into their depths.

    I have to tell her, or she’ll die. But I can’t. I won’t. He’ll be angry. He’ll hurt me. Bombs. Plan B. Explaining why I had to to Jon and Quince. My friends. But she’s my friend too. I’m killing her. She’s choking. She’ll die. Her vision-our vision-won’t come true without her. Pups, a pack, safety, a life without the Black Alpha. But it won’t exist if I kill her now, in the woods. Is she watching? Can she sense my pack-link? Can she hear me?!

    The thoughts bombarded me from all sides like hail and knives. I couldn’t think, couldn’t respond to Ben. Some sense in my mind told me that he had stopped choking me, but I was close to death. I had to wake up; I had to get out. But how? How could I possibly get out of the thoughts that dragged at my mind like clawing hands, trying to take me down with them?

    A sudden sense of peace entered me. A sense that everything was fine, that everything would be okay if I died. Everything would be better. My friends would be better off without me, as would the world…

    Anger shocked me awake. I had almost fallen asleep. Sleep would mean death, and I couldn’t die. Frantically, I started to swim through Ben’s thoughts. All of the thoughts that I had left behind dragged at me with death-minded fingers, but I didn’t turn back. I swam through Ben’s mind like the ocean, overcoming waves of emotion and thoughts that would trap me in their embrace like sand.

    I reached the hole I had made, and, without hesitation, I jumped through. Straight into blackness.