Metamorphosis (Breaking Free, book 2)

Chapter 5-Owen

Heaving, I pushed myself up off of the muddy ground, my arm screaming from the gaping wound that glared out from my upper arm. Tears sprung up in the corners of my eyes and I grit my teeth, stumbling to my feet. My vision was tinged with darkness around the corners, warning me to move slowly, before I steadied myself. My arm felt like it was on fire, blood, thick and hot, coating my naked body like a second skin. This wasn't good. I desperately tried to recall all of my survival classes from before I ever got involved in this war. Scrunching my face up, I desperately tried to pull to mind what the haggard old man had taught me to do if I was ever bleeding out. His words just slipped past my hand, all but the sound of him saying 'staunch the bleeding.' My hand shaking with pain and with fear, I pressed my hand over it, holding it tightly. Biting my lip till blood filled my mouth, I held back a scream.

The world around me was dark, with thunder rumbling every couple of seconds in time with the pouring rain. Huge trees, large and looming and ominous-and mostly dead, littered the area around me. Spinning slowly around I looked for something that would point me in the direction of a road or a home or something that could guide me back. There was nothing around me except for a fallen log and dead trees. Shivering, a hollow feeling settled into my gut. I was lost.

Dropping to the ground, I frantically patted the slippery forest floor. Sighing with relief, I pulled the slightly damp and mud-coated letter out of ground. Scuttling around I searched for my phone, my mind foggy and afraid. I needed it. If I could just find it I could call Milo and get them to send help. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to hours with no phone in sight. There was nothing I could do.

"Hello?" I called out, my voice echoing back to me. My voice cracked, and I coughed. "Is anybody there?" I tried again, my heart thrumming, and my eyes wide. I could feel my pulse pounding heavily in my wound and I winced, pushing myself to my feet slowly, and taking a step forward. My gut twinged and I squeezed my eyes shut. I was wounded and alone and in a place I didn't know with no way to contact anyone and with classified and highly dangerous information with an assassin who looked a good deal like my friend coming for my head. This wasn't good. Not by a long shot. Swallowing, I resigned myself to silence. I would have to make my way on my own. I couldn't risk being caught.

The rain began to come down harder, chilling me to the bone. The world around me tilted and I shook my head, righting myself. Glancing down at my arm I saw the blood flowing past my fingers and dripping to the forest floor.

"Shit." I hissed. There was nothing I could do but hold it tighter. Biting my lip, I pushed down the scream that was threatening to come free. There was barely a doubt in my mind who had done this to me. I could see the shock of red hair that had fallen out of that woman's hood and I felt my heart squeeze. She would never. Yet here I was, believing she had.

But as I trudged on through the mud, with every squelch of my feet and every pound of my heart, dread settled further into my gut. I could deny it all I wanted, but I knew that figure. I knew that hair. And I knew that strength and grace and power with a knife.

"It's stupid. I don't know why my parents are so nuts about me knowing how to fight. And with knives of all things? Ridiculous." She would say with a roll of her eyes every time she had to explain that she was going to practice knife-based self-defense. Her parents had always insisted, and despite all of her complaining about it, I knew that she secretly loved it. She was one of the best in the nation, having gone to national and international competitions multiple times, each time coming back with a title to defend. You couldn't do that if you didn't love it. There was no doubt in my mind who that woman was, and at the same time, I didn't want to believe it. I didn't want it to be true that a girl I had known since I was 14, who was all about saving the earth and the turtles and being kind to the people around her, would attack me with the intention to kill.

The world around me shifted and I stumbled, clutching onto the rotting bark of the tree beside me to steady myself. I was flooded with a sense of nausea for a split second. Then I doubled over, throwing up all of the contents of my stomach. I heaved with nothing coming up for a couple of seconds before I righted myself, wiping my saliva off of the side of my lip. I had to keep moving.

A twig snapped a couple of feet away. Freezing, I listened carefully for signs of danger. Something large was breathing heavily nearby, it's breaths long and languid and loud. Another twig snapped. I felt my heart crawl up into my throat. Then a pair of large, beady eyes appeared from the brush, it's thick brown pelt swaying with every large stride towards me it took, it's sharp claws glinting and it's yellowing teeth bared back in a menacing snarl, drool dripping from its jowls. The bear's eyes were trained on me, hungry and vicious and my eyes widened.

Adrenaline jumped my system into action. Snapping to a run, I felt the pounding of the bear's large paws hitting the ground behind me, it's warm, rancid breath fanning over my back as if it was saying 'I am here. I am here and you can't escape.' My heart pounded in my ears and I ignored the screaming in my arm to push myself farther. To go faster. I couldn't die. Not only for the information I carried that could turn the point of the war. I couldn't die because of Milo. Milo needed me just as much I needed him. If I died, he wouldn't be able to live, at least not in his current state.

Darkness coated the world around me and I cursed. This was life or death. The bear snorted behind me and I pushed myself just a little bit faster. I could see lights shining ahead, civilization just within my grasp, so close I could touch it. So close I could feel hope swell in my chest and forget all about watching my surroundings.

Without warning the grass turned to pavement and my eyes widened. I had done it. I was safe. The bear was standing at the edge of the forest, pacing hungrily on the side of the road, snorting and growling with frustration. I couldn't help the triumph that built in my chest.

"Beat that!" I cried out, pumping my good fist in the air. A horn blared in my ear and I turned, my eyes widening as headlights rushed towards me. Jumping out of the way I whipped my head around me. I was in the middle of the main road of the town. The rain had slowed and there were cars all around me, the people inside yelling at me. Another car whizzed by me, and I yelped, jumping out of the way once more.

"Get out of the way!" Someone yelled, their voice high and scared.

When I was young the teachers would always lecture us about the mundane world and nature. She would say that humans, as they were, had destroyed their own magic in their desperate thirst to improve and gain power. She said they were evil and that any creation of theirs that hurt animals was corrupt and to steer clear of it. She always said that cars were the worst of them, because not only did the kill innocent creatures, but they killed other humans and the planet as well. She said to never go near a road or get in a vehicle of their creation. She was kind of crazy so no one ever listened to her, but she did always say to trust nature. Nature will always work as it should, so you must respect the world and it would respect you in turn. And the creatures of nature, if ever they acted threatened by something, were always right. Now I understood what she meant. It was crystal clear to me, and the full weight of what she said settled on me heavily.

The bear clomped off back into the woods and I heard the screeching of tires on pavement and the screams of a young girl before something slammed into me, the world coming out from under me. I could see the sky, the dark clouds clearing and parting. The moon, seeming to smile at me, to reassure me that everything was ok. I could see the wide eyes of a young girl and a young bear cub romping after it's mother before I slammed into the pavement and pain flooded my senses.

The world around me went out of focus, the pale, scared, crying face of a young, blonde girl coming in and out, her eyes wide and scared. She was saying something to me that I couldn't hear, the screaming of my head and my arm taking over anything else.

I thought of Milo, the Milo from before all of this when he was carefree and happy. I thought of our kiss at the party and all of our kisses after. I thought about the times he clung to me like I was his air, and the times we clung to each other, holding each other together through the hell that our world had turned into. I loved him. I loved him with all my heart, and as the world came to a close around me, I wondered if I would ever get to say that to him again.