Like a puppet on strings, I can feel my body twitching, my hands claw at my skin like it is alive and crawling, yet I have no control over my actions. I can only try to fight to remain at the front, not giving in to it completely and giving it the control it craves.
The darkness is like its own organism that resides in me. I am a vessel, and it is just looking for an opportunity to sneak through my defenses and run amok.
This is my destruction – me, my will to fight. No wonder they don’t trust me, no wonder they hover. If our roles were reversed, I would be the same. I am a ticking time bomb, and they know it, and now, I do too.
The more I resist, the stronger it calls, and I am helpless in its clutches as I watch myself slip further into the depths of my mind, a passenger within myself.
“Stop, Kitty”, Maddox whispers, the purring in his chest becomes louder, and I try to focus on the sound instead of the feeling slipping over me.
My claws draw blood as they rake over my bare legs. Maddox hisses as he takes my pain. Everything I do to myself, I am doing to him as he takes it from me. I try to focus on my surroundings, anchoring myself. Yet even I know no weight will hold the ghosts of that whisper in the darkness, like trying to weigh down air. I am losing myself in its grasp.
Andrei is driving, his lips move, and I try to focus on his words while Maddox tries to restrain my hands, holding them in one of his. My legs dig into the leather seat as my feet move. Focus, focus! I tell myself. My mind is growing heavier as I fight to remain in the present world. My back arches as he fights me to stay still, my entire body thrashes like a fish out of water.
“Do you need me to pull over?” I hear vaguely, as the darkness sucks me in further.
Andrei’s voice sounds muffled, and I realize why. It is the noises I am making, growling and screaming like a madwoman. Maddox’s arm goes over my forehead as I try to bite him, the other around my chest when he moves, wrapping his legs around mine, but my strength at the moment is hard for him to contain.
The car jerks off the road, and I am thrown into the footwell. Maddox lands on top of me when the car stops. My body is no longer mine. It doesn’t belong to me, and I can only watch as the door opens and I lurch out of it, tackling Andrei to the ground.
His arms wrap around my torso as the darkness forces the shift, but my rabid wolf’s form takes over. My brother refuses to let go, risking my deadly bite as he tries to restrain me.
“Fight it, Kat. I know you’re still in there,” Andrei growls.
My teeth narrowly miss him as he lets go, while I turn in his grip. The moment his grip slips, I lurch forward, trying to escape into the trees. All while I scream at myself, trying to tell my body to stop. There are too many human communities in this part, and we are still an hour out from home, yet nothing I do could pull me forward to retake control.
I am aware, but I can’t grasp the controls and pull on them. Nothing is holding me here. Paws sound on the ground behind me, gaining on me, and I try to push through the veil of darkness. I don’t stop trying to control it. My attention is focused on nothing but that, so they can catch me.
When my paws hit the air, my body careens toward the rocky valley beneath. Teeth sink into my tail, jerking me back quickly, and tossing me back onto solid ground though Maddox’s paws skid on loose gravel. I scream in my head as I watch him go over. The darkness watches, unfazed by my mate, falling to his death.
A vicious growl roars a second later as Donnie’s teeth grip the side of his face at the last second, pulling him back. But my body in wolf form doesn’t wait to see if he gets back to safety. Instead, it takes off and looks for a way out. No matter how much I scream for myself to stop, I run around the ravine and up higher to the road that winds along the mountainside.
I have no idea where the darkness is taking me, but I appear to be heading home. What did the darkness want with me? It feels like it is searching for something, seeking something out. Hearing a howl behind me, I move faster, zipping and jumping over rocks and around trees before darting across roads, continuing the incline to the top. Once there, I turn off onto the secluded road. When I hear the mind link open, it shocks me as Maddox’s voice forces its way into my head.
“Mateo, get the kids inside and lock it down!” Maddox yells. I try to figure out why he talks about the kids and what he means by those words.
Seeing our minivan up ahead, I seem to gain more speed when the darkness takes over with newfound energy. Then I notice its glimmers. I try to jam on the breaks in my own body. Try yanking back on the darkness with horror. Stomach-sinking fear envelops me.
It is chasing them. It wants their power. How have I never noticed the auras that sat around my kids like a glowing beacon calling to the darkness? The darkness wants it and carves their power. My jaws snap at the wheels like a damn dog trying to bite the tires.
Mateo speeds up, flooring it when I hear a loud engine coming up behind me, and I step to the side to see Andrei’s car chasing after ours. As I watch it happen from the sidelines, distracted, I am hit from the side. Maddox’s teeth slice into me and fling me across the now deserted road.
“Stand down. I won’t let you have them, Kitty,” he growls in my head.
I try telling him it isn’t me, that this isn’t me but the darkness, that no part of this I have control over. I dart right, Maddox jumps into my path as he tries to get an advantage, and for once, I curse the training they put me through. He needs to hurt me. He needs to kill me if he has to because I could never live with myself if I hurt one of my babies.