Savored Poison

Family Fued

By the time I had the guts to ask Sean what he meant, Jeremy and Makala we're back. They were laughing together, running down the hill, until they turned to see us. They could feel the tension between me and him and cut it with a knife.

 I knew that they wouldn't try and as what was going on, but either way they could probably get what was going on by reading my mind. 

Great.

Did they already know what was going on? These three were already werewolf buddies or whatever species they were, so they must share a lot of information with each other that I didn't know about. 

Right?

 I was just the outcast. I was just HUMAN.

"You know that's not true," Sean murmured, his eyes holding sorrow in them, but I didn't listen. 

Instead I announced that I needed to use the restroom and would be back before we left. Before they could reject the idea I had already walked down, farther into the forest. Away from them. 

When I was out of earshot, I started taking some deep breaths as tried to keep from crying but a few tears betrayed me and dropped down from my lashes. 

So I quickly wiped them away, not wanting them to show when I'd go back to the group.

This was so damn hard! All this running! All these secrets that were being kept from me. Getting used to these people, these invaders. 

The enemy. 

Everything! Just goddamn everything.  I wanted to just curl into a ball and pray that all my problems would go away.

Even though I knew they wouldn't.

But why did it have to be me?! It always had to be me! No matter what, I was always in the middle of everything! I was always the one o get hurt, even when I'm the one trying to help everyone, to protect them. I didn't deserve this. To give my whole self just to be beaten down to scraps, but even when I thought that way, I knew that I'd still want to help. That's just the kind of person I was and it sucked. 

So I got back up and I wiped myself off. I could do this, I convinced myself. I could totally do this. I just needed to take one step at a time. One foot in front of the other. And that's how I was able to make it back. How I was able to hold my head high and put on my mask of confidence.

"Let's go" I said, grabbing a granola bar from my bag, taking a bite or two, then putting it back. We needed to save everything we could. 

Sean looked at me, he probably knew what I was doing in the forest, he probably heard me, but he didn't say anything about it. He knew that I wouldn't answer him. 

So taking his clothes off, he threw them to me once more, Jeremy then threw his to Makala.  That puzzled me. Looking at her, I saw that she had a bag, similar to mine. Then Jeremy and Sean both bent down, they wanted us to climb on both of their shoulders. 

I then made the connection. 

They wanted to take shifts, to give each other little breaks for the rest of the journey so they could get more rest. 

That was a great idea. But then I started to feel bad. I couldn't give anyone a break. I just had to sit her the whole time and watch. 

I was useless.

They all had to be exhausted. But there was nothing I could do about it. I would just have to sit here and get a free ride until everything was over. I couldn't fight, couldn't run, I couldn't even make any suggestions because I knew absolutely nothing about anything. 

Taking one more deep breath I made sure that Sean didn't hear me as I whimpered, letting out my emotion the only way I could without being detected. But it wasn't enough, the only thing that I knew would relieve everything was if I could just scream. 

Scream until I couldn't, when I had nothing left. When I would just be done.

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For the next few days Sean didn't speak to me, he just kept on running. Once or twice he got distracted and tripped over some of the underbrush, but immediately he made sure that I was okay by falling face forward, so I wouldn't be flipped and crushed under his weight. Looking me up and down until starting to run again. 

Jeremy and Makala kept switching off, one would sleep on the others shoulders for a few hours before they would repeat the process. But during the next stop, Jeremy suddenly spoke up, "Shanik?"

 Sean looked up, "What is it?"

"Do you want to transition now. You don't look very good." 

Sean shook his head, "I'm fine"

"Alright.." Jeremy looked puzzled, "...Well if you change your mind...." 

Sean growled, LITERALLY GROWLED, "I said I'm fine!" 

This time Makala intervened, "Okay, okay. Calm down. But can i ask something else at least?"

 He nodded, trying to keep his emotions in check, so Makala continued, "Alright. Can we please switch? I'm not as strong as you. When Jeremy gets a break can you take him and I can have Alex?" 

Sean looked feral, almost as if he was going to punch her, so this time i was the one to talk, standing in front of her I made sure that his eyes were on me, "Sean?..." 

He didn't look at me, so I spoke again;

"Shanik?" His head whipped around, hearing his real name on my lips. Finally I got his attention, so I continued, "...Please give her a break. If your not going to take a break yourself you might as well help them out." 

He clenched his hands into fists, obviously not pleased with the idea whatsoever. But I didn't care, why was he making Makala and Jeremy have such a hard time. I didn't get it. They were his friends. 

 "Fine." he grit out. 

Good. 

So the next time we left, I was riding on top of Makala and Jeremy was on Sean. But every once and a while I would catch his gaze on me. 

Then it dawned on me, was he was worried about me! Maybe he wasn't just trying to be a non-compliant jackass earlier, maybe he was just trying to be protective! He actually cared about me, he just was trying to hide it. 

Hide how much he really did care about me. He...

Suddenly I was in the air, flying towards the dirt floor. Smashing into the tough ground. Pulling myself up all I saw was blurs of motion. Well... that was great for my concussion. Trying to focus my eyes I saw three....four...seven wolves I think. It was hard to be able to tell.

Then their was movement in front of me, Sean was in front of me, guarding me in his wolf form. Others were circled around me I realized. Then getting out my bag, I fumbled with everything until I could feel the knife that was placed at the bottom. 

Taking it out, i held it in a offensive position, if anyone tried to get me they'd have one hell of a fight. 

But that was pretty hard when I couldn't see straight. So I just prayed that Sean would get us out of this mess. He started to back up into me, warning the other wolves with a growl and snap of his jaws. Even I could tell what he was saying without being one of the them. 

He was saying that in order to get to me, they'd have to go through him. And that scared the hell out of me.

 I knew that Sean was strong and Fast, he even had the height advantage but no way could he defeat six wolves. Wait....where was Makala and Jeremy? 

Looking around I saw that Makala was on the ground, she must have been injured but Jeremy was still nowhere to be seen. 

Then looking at the other wolves I could see one, one wolf that peaked my interest, one that felt familiar. Then my eyes widened, it had to be Maliki. 

He was here to collect his prize.

He was here because of me. And now Sean might die because of it.