“I’m sorry,
what?”
“You’re ‘sorry what’ what?” Leaping on the opportunity to break the silence, Alex glanced from the passenger seat to Annabelle, who signaled that she needed a minute. Other finger.
“What the hell happened?” Leaning forward as she shifted her phone to the far ear from her companion, she lowered her voice, “A fight?” A moment later, her eyes bugged. “
Six!” She swore under her breath as a correction was spoken through the line. “
Others? How does
that even happen? Is he alright?”
“Your boyfriend?” Even half paying attention, the motel manager flashed Alex the same finger. Sighing as she lowered her voice to a near hush, Alex glanced out the window, tapping the seat as he looked out at the vast, seeming nothingness before turning to the empty car next to them. He crossed his fingers. Shouldn’t be long now.
“Which hospital is this?”
“Ann?” Suddenly nervous, the passenger glanced to his driver. “Is everything okay?”
“Can you text me the address? ...Thank you Candi.” Pinching her tear ducts, Annabelle hung up her cell, trying to block the emotions from seeping through. Her voice was near mute, but something was shaking it. “We need to go.”
“Sorry?” Blinking a few times to confirm reality, a slight panic set inside Alex before his eyes started darting between the empty car beside him and his companion. “We’re about to get paid!” Her eyes narrowed. “Hopefully?”
“We can’t wait.” As soon as her phone buzzed, she turned the ignition, bringing her sedan to life, radio roaring. “We’re leaving.”
“At least leave me behind! Maybe you’re alright with passing up on
who knows how much of a reward, but I-”
“What if things go wrong?” Cold, Annabelle’s eyes reminded him of who they brought there, “You don’t even know what’s down there. You’d risk the fallout? Alone, with no escape?”
His mouth hung open, eyes glaring, but no words came out to form a reply. After a few moments of grumbling, he buckled his seatbelt.
“At
least drop me off at Fate’s.”
: | : | : | : | : | : | : | : | : | : | : | : | : | : | :
He couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Just sitting up left Serif light headed, all of what little blood he had left seeming to rush out of his skull, and bowing his head, it was that hunched position he was stranded in. Long breaths rolled out of his body as he fought to stabilize himself, but as his trigger finger twitched, echoes of the past roared within him. He could feel the flash of his old rifle blind his eyes, his shoulder twitched with the kickback, and although his eyes were closed, he could see the crimson burst. Tugging his shredded clothes tighter to his body, he tried fighting the cold sensation creeping over him before slowly sliding a hand into his pocket, gripping a rusted key and running a finger along its engraving. His breath shivered in a small relief. He had to focus on the future, not the past. Trying his luck standing, his legs shook before he could even rise an inch, but as he glanced to the red tubes connected to each arm, trailing them to the dangling blood packs beside him, he could hazard a guess as to why. Frowning, he closed his eyes once more. Too many days were vying to be the nearest he’d come to dying.
Time seemed to drag as his head bobbed, doing his best to resist the sleep his body demanded, but quickening footsteps soon stole his attention. Swaying back and forth despite his best efforts to stay still, his palm gradually found his knife, but the moment a figure appeared in his doorway and instantly gasped, he jerked the limb away.
“Annabelle?”
“Oh my God…” She was as pale as he should’ve been, her hands cupping her face as she slowly approached him, “What- what happened to you?”
Doing his best to relax her with a hint of a smile, a hair of a smirk twitched on him, but only for a moment. “Would you believe I’d been worse?”
“No,” Ignoring the expression, despite it being as foreign on him as an alien, Annabelle cautiously approached him, motioning to the mass red that stained his… everything. “Are… how much of that is yours?”
“Most of it was from the wolf,” He made the attempt to grin again, tugging lightly on his recently deceased fur coat, but it worked about as well, “Most of what’s left is mine. Beyond that, I couldn’t tell you. May I ask you something?”
“How do you get in a fight in a
hospital?” The words were blurted, catching both the man and woman off guard, but Annabelle seemed to recover faster from her hasty question, hands uncomfortably finding her hips before reestablishing eye contact.
“I’m sorry?” Blinking at the abrupt question, Serif would’ve barely processed it even without the blood loss.
“And
you instigated it?”
“Can we please have this talk later?” His blues averted for a moment, but found her at the end, “It’s been an excruciating couple of days.”
“I know.” Sliding her arms up and folding them, Annabelle slowly took a seat beside him on the bed, “And do you know how I know? Because I spent the entire night thinking something happened.” She looked at him until he turned away. “The morning, too. I called here as soon as I woke up, I called the RHG, I called the police, and I called the fucking
vet, Serif.” A brief silence lingered. “Then I called all the others in
ten miles. I thought you were dead...”
“I wasn’t.” Rolling his shoulders, Serif tried getting his blood moving, “Why are you here, Annabelle?”
“Am I on the right side of this?”
“Pardon me?” Slowly, blue eyes met the greens once more, the redhead’s hands having slid to the edge of the bed.
“With you, your side.” Tapping the metal bars holding the hospital’s furniture together, Annabelle almost seemed to be talking to herself, “When I was a little girl, back before my parents divorced, there was this dog,” Her wrist began rolling as she talked absently, “He was a white, brown-spotted pit bull with half his ear bitten off. He typically growled at you when you approached, or if you got too close, he’d snap. We’d assumed he was a fighting dog that ran away, or he’d been abused, but Dad was worried he’d attack me, so he called the pound. When the dog catchers came to get him though, he ran off. They looked for him for
hours, but couldn’t find him. The next day he was back. You could see his ribs and there was this, sadness in his eyes, you know? He just lied down in the street, watching people as they went about their day.
“I don’t remember who I was playing with at the time, but we watched him from the back yard for a while, and after a bit, he watched us back. He just looked so… lost. Eventually though, I made a sandwich, took it outside, and tossed it a little ways to him. It spooked him at first, but he eventually walked up to it and started sniffing it before devouring it in a couple bites. Dad saw the dog, called the pound and the cycle repeated with him in the driveway the next day. After a few more, my mom caught me trying to make...
something in the kitchen, and she started buying dog food for me to put out. In about a week, I could pet him. In a month, we convinced Dad to let him in the house.” A smile was beginning to grow on her face. “Beast spent the next ten years thinking he was a sixty-pound lap dog, and I’d always counted him as one of my best friends. He loved me... And I loved him. He was my proof I was a good person, my little symbol of hope.”
Silence overtook the room as Serif failed to reply. Annabelle’s smile began waning as the quiet persisted, but after a few more uncomfortable moments passed, she spoke again. “Tell me a story.”
“Pardon me?”
Once more, the girl had to fully face the inked man. “I
barely know
anything about you. I’ve got your name, that girl’s name, the name of where you’re from, and that’s
all. Just… show me there’s something more to you than...” Her hand motioned to the red soaking his clothes, “...That.”
Eyes following the gesture, Serif slowly nodded, trying to filter through his life as Annabelle brushed some of the hair out of her eyes. Seeing the red, however, a memory clicked for the hunter. “Do you have hellfoxes here?”
“...I feel like you’re missing the point.”
A genuine grin found Serif as the woman gazed quizzically at him. “They’re a creature on Gemini, named for their fur. It begins black as a starless night, but exposure to sunlight reddens it bright as a strawberry. They shed each summer so they never become fully red, and as their fur grows, the individual strands are all ombre, still remaining black at the roots and brightening with a slow fade.
“One morning, I saw a kit’s paw in a bear trap. The blood was dry so it must’ve chewed it off sometime in the night, and although I was sure it couldn’t have survived, I followed the trail it left behind. I found it about a dozen yards away, huddled tightly in a bush, but when I reached out and touched it, it shivered and yawned before opening its eyes. Expecting its mother to be nearby, I searched for a few minutes before kneeling beside it, but once I did, I began tending to the wound. Cauterizing it, stitching it and wrapping it before lifting the kit up and cradling her in my arms.” After taking a moment to think, Serif added, “She was about the size of a baby, maybe eight pounds at most, and nuzzled my chest as I held her close. The fox was the first thing I found when I went out, but the moment she curled, I knew my hunt was over and headed into town. A friend of mine, Melody, was studying veterinary care, so rather than waiting for anywhere to open -it was just past five at this point- I just showed up where she lived and let myself in.
“She gave me a key, for the record. Regardless, I reached the fox out to her as she slept, and she awoke with a start as she licked her cheek. I chuckled; she cursed under her breath, but before she could get as mad as she had every right to be, I gave her the animal and she melted like a snowman on fire. The fox lapped the warm milk Melody poured her, and then she did a much more thorough job patching and disinfecting the wound than I had. It made a full recovery in about a month, but because we couldn’t put it back in the wild with only three legs, it lived with her in that time. She spoiled that little fox the entire stint, so even afterwards, she never strayed far from Melody.” Chuckling, he added, “She ended up naming her San-Serif, and called me Feet shortly after.”
“Feet?”
Smiling, the hunter nodded, “A serif is the ‘foot’ on the end of a letter.”
Returning it, Annabelle found a soft smirk of her own. “You need to do that more often, by the way.”
“What?”
“Smile,” Stretching, the girl got ready to stand, “And it’d be nice if you stopped being a dick to people, too.” Her grin grew more playful, but began leaving her as she glanced to the door. “But… seriously. I know under all your ice you’re afraid, but… you need to stop biting people. You’re not off the hook, not by a long shot, and I’m holding you to that talk later,” Rising to her feet, she turned around and pulled him up as well, slinging an arm over her shoulder before leading him to the door, “I need to keep you on a leash in the meantime. And maybe muzzled too. It’s just that right now, I think we could both use a bed.”
“Just the one?”
“I can drop you.”
Scoffing as the girl chuckled, he hobbled alongside her, but as they made it to the hallway, he looked into her eyes one last time. “Now may I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
Digging into his pocket, Serif gripped his metal key, carefully reaching it in front of Annabelle, thumb rubbing the engraving as she grabbed it. “‘One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. One man’s crypt is another man’s crib.’”
“I can read, Serif.”
“Does this mean anything to you?”
“...It means that a bed isn’t happening, is it?”