“Da fuck,” Viper said. “Doc, take Dagger with you and circle around to the right, we have to find the other two. We’ll get this pervert.” They took off, moving to the right, as we moved around a little to the left. We kept as quiet as we could, finally getting about a hundred feet away.
The big wolf finished, rolling off the other wolf. She was beat up, her fur matted with blood, especially around her neck. Another wolf lay to the side, it was dead, its throat torn out. The naked man had his back to us.
The smaller wolf shakily got to her feet, and a moment later a naked human was in her place.
It was Vivian.
I started moving forward as fast as I could without making too much noise, my pistol at the ready. Vivian was moving away from the man, scooting back on her butt towards the edge of the clearing. The naked man was stroking his flesh as he stalked her. “You’re a hot little wolf, young one,” he said. I watched him grab her hair, trying to force himself into her mouth, when I saw her hand come up. She had the knife I had given her in it, and she stabbed up into his thigh. “BITCH!” He backhanded her, but she stabbed again, this time getting his stomach.
I was thirty feet away, too much in the way to shoot, and they hadn’t detected us yet. The big wolf suddenly shifted, a large man in his place. As the first guy fell to the ground, he grabbed my Vivian by the neck and hauled her up, lifting her off the ground. “You’re going to be fun to break,” he said with a grin.
I had no more time, the mud and brush were too thick to run to her and she was being killed in front of my eyes. I lifted my pistol, let out my breath, and squeezed the trigger.
BANG. The round hit him in the hip, causing him to let Vivian go. I saw the man fall to the ground and shift back into his big grey wolf. He turned towards me, letting out a ferocious growl as he ran towards me. It sounded like fireworks going off then, I emptied my magazine into him, Viper as well, and even Dagger got a few shots off. The wolf collapsed and died just before it reached us.
“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS THAT SHIT?”
I ignored Doc’s question and pushed past the dead wolf, intent on saving my girl. I finally broke into the clearing and its solid ground, and I ran over to where she was laying on the ground. I carefully rolled her onto her back, checking her pulse and breathing. I let out my own breath as I heard her heartbeat. Doc knelt next to me. “Jesus H. Christ, they really tore her up,” he said. It was true, she had cuts and gashes all over her neck, shoulders and chest. I could see flaps of skin and puncture wounds on her legs, and her left shoulder was swollen and bruised. “We have to get her help,” he said.
“Take her back, we can take their Jeep,” Viper said. I picked her up carefully, holding her carefully to my chest. “Doc, go with them. We’ll clean up this… whatever… the hell these guys are.”
Doc went ahead of me, following the trail we made in and bending back the branches so we could pass. It took a good fifteen minutes to make our way back to the road, during which Vivian never made a noise. Her cuts and wounds weren’t bleeding as bad, but she was pale and ashen.
We broke through to the road and Doc yelled at Crash to come up. I gently set Vivian in the back seat of the Jeep, wrapping her in a blanket I found in the back. “Wait for the others,” Doc said as he got into the car. “We’re taking her to the hospital.” He started the SUV up and put it in drive, turning around to head back to town.
The bumps as we turned through the ditch woke her up, she groaned in pain. I held her hand, while my right hand brushed the blood-soaked hair out of her face. “You’re going to be all right,” I promised, “We’re taking you to the hospital now.”
She shook her head no. “No…” She coughed a little, blood coming up. “No hospital.”
“You’re hurt.”
“Can’t go there… please.”
I suddenly understood. “Because of what you are.” She nodded. “A werewolf.”
“Yes, so were those three. I’m not like you, they can’t take my blood. I’ll heal. Just get me to a hotel,” she said. “And get the medical kit out of my saddlebag.”
“Doc, back up,” I told him. We went back to where the Charger was parked. “Crash, DeWalt needs her saddlebags,” he yelled to him as he pointed to her bike.
He waded in, removing them and bringing them back. Her clothes were ruined, but the medical kit was in a sealed case, along with her other stuff. He went back to see if her bike could be saved; shaking his head, he yelled back that it was totaled.
I looked around in the back of the Jeep, finding a suitcase with some clothes and a couple towels. While the others stayed busy, I carefully cleaned the excess blood and dirt from her, using a bottle of water to help clean the wounds. She bit her lip and cried as I worked, but we both knew it had to be done. When I had her as clean as I could get her, I carefully put a T-shirt over her head.
She held it to her nose, a sob coming from her throat as her eyes flashed in anger. “What is it?”
“Later,” she said, pulling in down over her torn skin. I had a pair of swim trunks with a drawstring, I carefully put it over her legs and had her lift her butt to get it on. The blanket under her was soaked in blood from all the cuts back there, so I pulled it away before she sat down. I tied the string so it would stay in place.
I found another bottle of water in a cooler, along with a Milky Way. I gave both to her as she sat in the seat, shifting uncomfortably. She was looking past me, nervous, shaking. I moved into the seat on the other side, and got he to lie down with her head in my lap. “That better?”
“Someone tore my ass up, and it wasn’t you,” she said, laughing a little before the pain from her ribs hit.
“Just rest,” I said. “You scared me out there, Vivian.” She stilled. “I thought I had lost you. Nothing I saw there changes how I feel about you, and it never will. I love you, Vivian.”
She started to cry. “I love you too, Snake. I’m so sorry.” She fell asleep as we waited for the others to return.