” Are you okay. You passed out.” Said Catori gazing straight into the eyes of Amelia as he laid her on the floor of the mountain. She was dazed in shock and didn’t quite seem to fathom where exactly she was. Everything seemed to have happened so quickly and now she could hardly remember a thing. ” Hey Catori.” She said as she turned her gaze from side to side to gaze the familiar mountains terrains of the mountains. ” Yes my dear you passed out from exhaustion. We were running and you fell. He said with his big palms cushioned by the side of her fair face.
” I’m sorry.” She whispered in exhaustion. ” I’m not strong” she said as her face fell in disappointment. ” Don’t say that about yourself. You are the strongest lady I have ever met in all my life. Your bravery is unrivalled.” He said with all the seriousness he could muster.
” How flattering. You still haven’t smiled.” She said and shrugged up to sit while he helped her up.
” We would rest a little while and then proceed he said.” and too his hands off her as she gazed at her surroundings in new light of awareness.
” My God!” She gasped with her eyes wide open as she stood up.
” Are you okay Amelia?” He asked and quickly sprang up to be mobile her side for the fear that she was going to fall down from feeling dizzy.
” I know this place.” She gazed around and sniffed in the serene air.” It’s the lavender mountains.” She said to him as she peered at the blooming lavenders around them.
” Yes it’s the Lavender mountains, is your cottage around here?” He asked her as gazed down the meadow which was covered in thick forest.
” Yes it’s that way to the south. It’s far but not so far.” She said with excitement as the feeling of revisiting her family home made her feel so excited. ” Catori let’s go. I don’t feel tired. I just don’t.” She clamored as he headed downwards while he walked by her side in caution.
” How long have we been traveling, the sun isn’t out yet.” She asked as they lanced through the woods.
” Two hours, maybe three. I can’t really say. ” He said as they gained more grounds towards their target.
” I told you it wasn’t so far away from us. You said miles.” She chuckled.
” I must have over estimated he said as they kept moving across the pine trees that reigned supreme in the woods.
” And here we are. Oh my home.” She said , feeling emotional as she gazed at the black wooden cottage that didn’t seem to have changed from how she had left it.
” It’s beautiful. Well done Amelia, he said and paused for while as if he was receiving revelations from above.
” Let’s go in and check it out.”
” Amelia wait! Don’t go in yet. There’s something in those cottage.” He said and held his spear horizontally while he bent his knees to give him more balance.
” Something? What do you mean dear let’s go” She said as she. Kept on walking towards the cottage as if she was enchanted by memories of the cottage.
” Stop.” He leapt forward and grabbed her by the hands.
” Do you breed dogs” he asked her as he paid a keen hearing to the windows of the old cottage.
” No! I don’t have dogs. Do you smell a dog around here.” She inquired while gazing into the dark room of the cottage whose major door was thrown open.
” Just hold.” He said as he slowly advanced towards the cottage, like a giant feline stalking it’s prey. He was at the door when he realized Amelia was standing alone and scared.
” Come over! Be at my back.” He whispered to her and quickly turned his gaze back at the hallow darkness of the cottage. In as much as he had wanted to quickly run his diagnosis on the cottage, he felt constrained by the presence of Amelia and finally decided on what to do.
” Come. Climb onto my back.” He beckoned in a whisper as he paused.
” Your back ?” She enquired in mild surprise.
” Yes. Quick.” He resounded while keeping a keen hearing on the series of sounds within the confinement. She did as he had said, climbing onto his back and wrapping her legs over his abdomen to steady her balance. Soon he was inside the dark room which had sparse lighting.
” Where was the last place you saw the weapons? He asked her as he stood studded in the middle of the room after making sure no threat hung on the ceiling.
” The room by the left. It used be the room of my parents. There’s a bunker beneath the bed and that was the last place I saw the guns.” She said and pointed towards the direction. As they approached the room, the atmosphere of the edifice turned from musty to horrid , causing her to take one arm of his shoulder and clutch her nose.
” Do you smell that? Some animal may have died in here. It’s so horrid.” She said in a nasal tenor. He pauses, sniffed thoroughly for a second or two before proceeding in to the room.
” My god. Someone was here.” She muttered after finding the bed broken in two and the mattress ripped aside in a thousand pieces.
” Someone was here.” He reckoned and hurried to the foot of the bed to check on bunker.
” Empty? How can it be empty.” She said as she shrugged off his back till she was finally standing on the wooden tiles of the room. She hurried to the edge of the bunker and pulled apart the broken frame. The bunker indeed was empty but the wooden crate was lying in it, open and without a single riffle in sight.
” I can’t believe this. It’s all gone. Gallagher must have taken them.” She cried out in rage as she turned around the room In slow circles to see who was present apart from them. The silence on the face of Catori, broke her even More till she was compelled to apologize.
” I’m sorry Catori. I wasted your time.” She said in a sullen tenor as esteem fell in disappointment.
” No, Don’t be sorry. It’s all fine. You did your best. Thank you.” He said and gazed around the semi lighted room.
” Who is Gallagher?” He asked as he moved closer to the ripped mattress that lay on the floor.
” A scary Thug from the city. He was the one and his gangs who had chased Maximin in this cottage.” She said as she gazed at the brute manner in which the mattress were torn away. She had been heartbroken with her failed mission to keep worrying about the strong stench that was attracted the flies who had just flown in from their slumbers.
” A thug chasing Maximin into the woods? He must be strong.” He said as he gaze onto the ceiling.
” He is big and scary. Very strong and nasty.” Said and frowned in reflection of the past days. ” You seem to know him very much.” He asked , turning towards her.
” Yes I do, since I was a kid in the city.” She said and still had that frown on her face.
” I see. What sort of a thug chases a man like Maximin into the woods. I wonder why he would do that. I mean was there a rift between the two of them or was there a bounty on the head on his head?” He asked, no throwing the question straight at Amelia but throwing it into the air.
” I think it’s about a bounty or something of that nature. Gallagher Is a money monger and does all things for money and money alone. If he tried to capture Maximin, then I have no doubt that a bounty was placed on his head.” She Said and briefly paused to reflect on what he might have done for a bounty to be placed on his head.
” So Maximin might be a defaulter if the law pay a dime on his head.” Said Catori and placed his palm on his chin as he imagined what crime the werewolf had committed.
” I’m Just thinking of the same thing now. He looks good and has charming manners. He just places himself first and in a city where few resources are up for grab, being individualistic would only see you stepping on more toes than you could ever think of.” She said and inhaled softly as her sense of smell began to set in violently.
” You seem to know much about the city and it’s people.”
” Yes I do. Let’s get out of this place first. It stinks.” She said and walked to her own room.
” Someone was really here. My room is ruined to.” She said and sauntered into the room, gazing from side to side as she walked with caution.
” Easy. I would check out the dark corners.” Said Catori as sniffed, occasionally.
” You are going to make throw up! I can’t believe you are sniffing so much of the foul air.” She said as she walked in a tiptoe manner to avoid matching the dark heaps of matter, which couldn’t see clearly.
” There’s no guns here to. I think this Gallagher took it all.” Let’s go back home.” He said and turned away from her bed, as no bunker was in site.
” Goodness!” She exclaimed as she fell over a heap of matter after loosing her footing on a slimy surface.
” Amelia are you okay “He muttered as he hurried towards her.
” I just slipped on.. what .. Catori!!” She screamed out in horror after coming face to face with the decomposing skull of an adult female. He scrambled towards her in defense and picked her off the ground without knowing what had caused her to scream so much.
” Run. It’s a human corpse.” She cried tapping his back in fright while he composed himself to have a clearer gaze the mutilated corpse on the floor.
” It’s an elder lady. She was killed about four days ago. Relax she won’t harm you.” Said Catori as he gazed at manner of wound across her mutilated neck. They were mostly deep insitions which made it look like something sharp but irregular object.
” Werewolves” he whispered as quickly sprang up on his feet before rushing out of the cottage, when he was finally out, all she had for breakfast spilled over his body, as she puked and cried simultaneously.
” Why aren’t we running Catori? There’s a monster our here.” She cried after he halted at the foot of the lavender mountains.
” Wait, I want to check out something. Some irregularities seem to go be going on around here.” He said in an abstract whisper and turned around.
” Hell yeah Catori we just saw the dead body of a woman. Let’s go.” She said and quickly stood up, trying to scamper into the unknown.
” Stay by my side Amelia, what killed that woman is very much active around here.” He said as sniffed in softly to pick a smell.
” It’s probably a wolf or a grizzly. Let’s go before they pick out scents as well.” She cried out with so much fright in her voice that it brought him to a new position_ how was in love with a lady that even didn’t know what he really was.
” Are you really that scared of wild Animals or is it the corpse that scares you so much?”