Wrinkling her nose in disgust at the taste left in her mouth by the memory Ida stood up with far more ease in Estelle's damaged body than she would have in her own aged one and stumbled to the sink. It was full of dirty dishes but the half-open cabinet above the sink showed her a row of glasses as mismatched as her own, likely purloined as hers had been. Helping herself to one she filled it with water, rinsed her mouth thrice and then drank what remained. It tasted of rust, of blood and earth and didn't help in the least. She could feel Estelle deep inside her stirring, shifting and beginning to wake enough to start fighting for her body again. Displeased, Ida forced her back down, sending reassurances of safety and freedom soon. She knew she'd have to make good on her promise soon, her control would only last so long and if she didn't keep her word, there was no way Estelle would let her do this again.
Turning to Mars who looked a little lost and vulnerable, Ida regretted the time-crunch. Now would be a great time to comfort him and convince him he needed to reassert his manhood and control and wouldn't she just be so happy to help him out? Nothing like a good gallop to set a man straight. But there was no time for it. No time at all.
"That was a fucking fail safe." She said, spitting onto the floor. "Whatever he's been dealing with left something in him to keep him from spilling what he knew."Or what he'd seen. Ida was oddly amused and disturbed by the thought. Gabriel hadn't know much all's said and done. It was the taste, the confirmation of what they were dealing with that was helpful. A sense of direction too. But the sight of that emaciated form in green, that struck Ida as significant. Had the werewolf's death been because of Vanity? The fact that he'd died once she saw the figure made Ida think it wasn't an idle thought. What were they dealing with?
"I got something though. We'll have to track down your buddy Hassun and see if he pops like a tick if pressed too"
It got her to thinking for certain, and the young, purloined body she moved about in directed her thoughts towards an area she wasn't ready to face. Theft, vanity and youth. Could it all be so simple? Looking at the lowering light visible out of the filthy windows Ida shook her head to clear it of such thoughts. She could dwell on that later. .
"We are out of time. We need to get Estelle to safety. Take me back to my house and I'll let her loose. Once she's in the wards we'll have 'til dawn before we make the next move."
She headed towards the front door then down the dilapidated steps towards Mars car. The night air was no cooler than it had been when she'd stepped into Gabriel's house but there was more of a breeze. It trickled through the thick trees and tugged at her borrowed hair. It was thick with the smell of swamp, vegetation and gasoline. Familiar smells but underneath them all was a cloying scent of sweet rot. She slid into the car and barked at her chauffeur
Werewolves were hardly this complicated. If someone had a problem, they dealt with it as a pack or one on one, usually through a physical fight that was forgotten about as soon as it started. As alpha, Mars didn't have many challenges, and there weren't many in the pack or outside of it who were tough enough to take him on. Obviously, something had snapped inside of Gabriel, his eyes had gotten too big for his stomach and that desire had forced him to seek outside help. Whatever Ida saw within the dying man, whatever fail safe that was, the magic behind it was evil—Mars could just tell. It was in the air, thick and murky, maybe even a little green. How Hassun fit into all of this, however, would have to wait until dawn.
After Ida headed toward the door, Estelle's hips sashaying her back out into the darkness of the night, Mars breathed a sigh. Still kneeling on the floor, Mars gave a wary glance to Gabriel's body and the slowly drying pool of blood that had dripped onto the dirty linoleum. He may have been a traitor, a pain from day one, but he had still been a friend. Reaching over, even as Ida barked at him from outside, Mars passed his fingers over the other man's red-stained eyelids to close them. If it hadn't been for all of the blood, Mars might have thought the man was just asleep.
Rising from the floor, Mars wiped his hands on his shirt and pants, feeling sticky and dirty down to his core. "Is she going to be safe back at your place?" Mars asked, sliding into the driver's seat and cranking the engine. It roared to life and he wasted no time peeling out of the unpaved space. Gravel and dust flew up behind his tires, and Mars made a wide turn back to the main road. "Whatever got you got past all your spells, right?" He was wary, though not about to really argue with her and her decades of experience. As much as he didn't want to, Mars had to trust that her magic was stronger than whatever was out to get them.
The headlights illuminated the dirt road in front of them, leaves and tree trunks only flashing into view for a second or two before they were gone. If Mars had driven them to Gabriel's quickly, then they couldn't leave fast enough. There was an underlying scent to their air, something rotted and even a little sweet, much different from the murk of the swamp as the road as road beneath the tires became a little more spongy. Somehow, it was darker on the bayou that night, as if the stars were hiding from the bad omens in the air. Mars was on edge, eyes more alert than ever and checking the mirrors every few seconds. Part of him thought something might jump out of the water and devour them both right then and there.
Skidding to a stop in the soft ground on the other side of the bridge, Ida's shack looked untouched and benign. There was a vibration in the air, however, or maybe it was just all of the adrenaline pumping through his veins—if they made across that rickety bridge, maybe there would be no more ugly surprises until dawn. "What happens if there's another fail safe on Hassun?" he asked, having realized that much of the ride back was silent.
After getting out of the car, Mars moved protectively around Ida, letting her cross the path first. He set an arm around Estelle's shoulders, not caring if the old woman inside didn't appreciate the gesture. He was more resilient, and it was important that she was safe.
"They got me because I wasn't looking and I wasn't in my house! The land has wards but you try making anything permanent in the swamp! Stuff shifts and rots. The house is where things are more stable and permanent. So the house is where we'll go. Shit boy, you were there last night. You saw what was out there and it couldn't get in. Besides, we don't have any better options, now do we?"
With that an a harrumph that was totally out of place on the soft, youthful face of Estelle, Ida folded her arms and fell silent. There was the matter of the spirit jar to be considered too. She hadn't got far in her study of the essence trapped inside before she'd been summoned by Estelle. And now with a sunset in the makings she wasn't sure there would be enough substance left to draw conclusions from. She snorted from her seat, deep in a sulk, certain that if they got back to the place in time they'd see worse than there had been the night before. The thing that was laying in wait for her and Estelle like a spider must be aware that they were on to her. The death of Gabriel couldn't have gone unnoticed.
Mars got them back in decent time, though she spent most of it in a snit. Sulking over the missed opportunities, the lack of real understanding as well as a plan and finally, the reality that she was going to have to give up this body and she might not have another chance. She hadn't even got more than that kiss and grope from Gabriel and that had hardly been satisfying. Mars hadn't been likely to put out any time soon, but there had been appeal in trying. His vexation had been delicious. Ida reflected petulantly that she simply wasn't ready to be dead, there had to be a way to fix things. She'd borrowed this body, hadn't she? It was her grand daughter but, it wasn't as if she'd hurt Estelle… It was an ugly thought, one that made her tired for all that she knew she'd be pondering it again and again.
She didn't even have the energy to lean into Mars and take advantage of his closeness when he put his arm over her shoulder. His touch wasn't for her after all, it was for Estelle. Young Estelle who had thrown everything away, who had spat on her heritage and left. Pretty Estelle with her soft, young body full of life and promise, who didn't appreciate all that she had. She felt her ties loosening as they crossed over the bridge towards the small rickety house that had house her and her family for generations. The very house Estelle would sell and leave if given half a chance.
Heart full of spite and weariness Ida slipped out of her granddaughter in a rush. Under his arm Estelle, suddenly thrust back into her body, stumbled and gasped in alarm. Flailing her hands grasped at his shirt, her clumsy fingers stroked over his skin, unable to find purchase on his shirt. Slamming against him she whimpered and blinked, trying to make her vision work again. She'd only had the faintest of senses of what had been happening or how long it had been.
"Mars?" she asked in a voice that was unmistakably hers. "What the hell… How long… What?"
Too many questions and a tongue that didn't want to work properly, Estelle peered up at him, confusion and fear filling her pale eyes. "What the fuck is going on?"
The wards on her land were impressive, and probably the only thing that had kept that sinister creature from attacking them the night before, but that didn't make Mars feel any better. He didn't like to be out of control, or even take a backseat when danger was involved and just riding out the night like sitting ducks left a lot to be desired. Regardless, there was little room for him to argue with the older witch; they didn't have a better plan and Estelle's safety was, unfortunately, more important than his pride. Of course, admitting that was another monster entirely and Mars was more than content with just getting back to the swamp and the falling-down shack that sat on top of it.
Everything looked normal enough when they arrived back, and luckily, they made it back across the bridge and into the house without any incident. Getting Estelle inside, Mars locked the door behind them, his arm still halfway around her before the woman seemed to come to. As she gripped his shirt, stained with the spatterings of Gabriel's blood, Mars drew her in closer, worried. It was easy to assume that Ida had finally vacated her granddaughter's body after hours of possession and judging from the frantic and confused look in Estelle's pretty eyes, the ride hadn't been an easy one for her.
Not that it had been any easier for him, but he was glad to have her back.
"It's alright," he attempted to soothe, looking down into her eyes, "you're gonna be okay." After all that had happened, picking a starting point to fill her in was difficult, and quickly, Mars gave a cursory glance around the room for Ida. All of this was her doing, she should have been the one to spell it out for Estelle.
Taking a deep breath, Mars touched his hand to the young witch's cheek, cradling her face as he gathered himself. "Gabriel's dead too," he explained, "there's some kind of...other witch, I don't know." He didn't fully understand the situation himself, and it was hard to think back to the scene at Gabriel's place. The man was still laying there, having bled to death after having bits of the truth beaten out of him. Flexing his other hand, Mars set his aching fingers on Estelle's waist, Delphine's frightened face coming to mind. What the fuck was he doing?
"Ida thinks she knows what killed her, I guess," he added, almost as an afterthought, "we're going to talk to Hassun in the morning, but it's not safe right now." He didn't want to tell her that whatever was out there, whatever his friends had gotten him tangled into, wanted her as well. Wasn't it stressful enough without making her worry? "She said we're okay here until dawn." Whether Ida was still hanging around was beyond Mars, but the world outside, from the chirping crickets to the bubbling of the frogs in the swamp said that this was just the calm before the storm. There was an energy flowing through the cabin, pent up and frustrated and Mars worried that it would come to a head at the most inconvenient time.
Sliding his thumb across her elegant cheek bone, Mars put on a half smile. "You need anything? Water? Something for your leg?" Poor girl, that cut must have been killing her by now. It was lucky for Mars, at least, Estelle was easier to focus on than the mess that had become his life.
It was slow to build, but build it did. It certainly wasn't immediate, as it had been the first time he'd touched her. It was as if the energy needed to remember who she was now that she was back inside her own body. His arms slid around her and pulled her close in a gesture that would have seemed forward and overly familiar if it hadn't been so damn welcome. As she settled back into herself she'd felt only the comfort of human contact but then, slowly that same electric charge started to build up where he touched her. It felt almost like a relief to feel it rising. It felt nearly like she always imagined coming home would feel like, if she'd ever really had a place she wanted to call home.
She'd been distantly aware of some things occurring around her while her grandmother had ridden her body. Unfortunately it all had a hazy disconnected feeling to it, like a phone conversation that broke up or someone else's conversation that you were sleeping through. His words didn't do much to piece things together that she hadn't already known, the brightest piece being that her grandmother had learned something. That Ida had taken her sweet time and taken advantage of Estelle's generosity was a matter for another time. She would deal with that betrayal when they were alone. Mars didn't need to see that.
Estelle only had enough resources to pay attention to the way Mars had lifted his hand to her cheek and the resulting tingle in her skin. She found she was leaning into the touch, acutely aware of the way his hand found its way to her waist in a gesture that was confusingly possessive and tender. She nodded in agreement to his plans. Hassun in the morning. She could do that. She'd sent that tracking spirit after him. It should survive past the dawn and be there for her to track. She did look reflexively out the window when Mars mentioned it wasn't safe to go out. She looked through the darkness for some sign of the creature that had filled the night with hungry malice. There was no sign of it yet, but the faint line of color peeking over the scraps of horizon the swamp allowed in told her it was early yet.
"They held last night." She said in what she hoped was a reassuring tone as she returned her gaze to the large man who stood holding her when he had no business doing so. She didn't push him away but let the energy that rippled between them revive her. His thumb slid over her cheek, a velvet feeling that had her lips parting and her lids half lowering. She sucked in a half-breath and thought long and hard about his question, which proved difficult in the face of that warm electric feeling. Did she need anything? Hoo-boy was that a loaded question, she thought.
"How about some Moonshine. My leg is killing me. What the hell did Giga do? Go running in my body?" She didn't move though away from him but stayed where she was with a distant, conflicted expression on her face.
"She didn't, umm, take advantage of you, did she?" she asked while the night outside the cabin, some distance from the wards that kept her momentarily safe, began to shift and move.
Although her words weren't exactly reassuring, Mars couldn't complain. For now, it was better to take the night an hour at a time and worry about disaster when it came knocking down those wards. "Then they'll hold tonight too," he agreed, easily keeping his reservations from his face as their electric connection purred back to life. It was good to feel her again, to know that Estelle was truly herself and not her grandmother trying to gain a second chance at life.
Being stuck there all night, bored and nervous, was bound to be better with Moonshine and Mars didn't have any objections. He chuckled lowly as Estelle complained, recalling the spill that Ida had taken and he was sure that she was feeling rather beat up. With time, that soreness would heal and Mars could only hope that Ida wouldn't need to make another appearance through her next of kin anytime soon. The older woman wasn't all bad, and before Gabriel's death, a few of comments had lifted his spirits, but it was hard to get a real kick out of anything when the situation continued to grow more dire.
"She tried," he answered when asked of the old woman, "my ass feels like a pincushion, but," he trailed off, still not all that bothered by the multiple violations and crude comments, "I've dealt with worse." It may not have been true, but there was no sense in turning into an argument, not when Estelle had been a passenger in her own body, and not when someone was picking them off like bottles on a fence post.
Standing there for an extra moment, Mars quickly realized that neither of them had pulled away. He looked down into Estelle's eye, half-lidded and prettier than the moon glittering off of the swamp water outside. He was glad to have her back, but a nagging feeling in the back of his mind prevented him from drawing her closer, from showing some kind of gratitude. Delphine was somewhere out there, scared and possibly alone, and he was having a hard time picturing her face when every touch with Estelle tingled beneath his fingers. It wasn't fair to his wife, and a half-hearted promise still counted as something to honor.
With an incredible amount of reluctance, Mars stepped back. "Moonshine, right?" he asked, and kept one hand on her, offering to help her into a chair or onto the bed. After such a long few days, she must have been exhausted. "You still got that tracker on Hassun?" Mars continued to make conversation, dying to stay on topic as he moved about the small cabin and took two glasses and the bottle from the night before. It was a little lighter in his hand, but the liquid inside was powerful enough to ease some of their pain.
Pouring Estelle a glass first, he passed it off before pouring his own and taking a seat at the rickety table.
Estelle let him settle her onto the bed. She'd considered letting him help her onto one of the mismatched chairs that surrounded the table but they were hard and rickety and she wanted to stretch out on something solid. Besides, what passed as a first-aid kit sat on the battered table next to the bed and she was certain she'd need to tend to her wound though it had clearly stopped bleeding.
As he bustled about fetching glasses from the open shelves that ran over the battered sink and stove she shifted herself back until she could lean against the headboard she'd never look at the same way again after Giga's overshare. Once settled she crooked her good let and then, with care and half an eye towards Mars, she lifted her gypsy-tiered skirt high enough to see the gash in her thigh but not so high she'd flash him her panties. The gauze she'd taped on was soaked through with blood but it was dark and old, something she took to be promising. Wrinkling her nose in anticipation of pain she grabbed a corner of the tape and in one fell swoop, ripped it off. She hissed at the sting and the throb of pain as the battered flesh protested the rough handling.
Setting the soaked bandage aside she noted that the cut had scabbed over and remained whole throughout her inexpert removal of the bandage as well as Giga's hijacking. She looked up when Mars asked her about the tracker.
"Yeah," she said as she fished out another gauze pad. "I do, it should hold past the dawn but it won't last too much past noon. Sort of a 24 hour thing I patched together on the fly. But that should give us plenty of time to use it once we are done with this." She waved her hand to indicate the cabin around them, their trapped state and the darkening night.
She took the glass of moonshine from him, sipped it, made a face and then poured a trickle over her wounded thigh. The amber fluid splashed on her cut where it turned rust with blood. Estelle hissed as it burned even as it rolled down the soft slope of her inner thigh onto the bed where the old quilt drank it up thirstily. She took another long pull from the glass and then set it aside before setting to clean and bandage her leg anew.
"So we get through the night then what? Hope Giga makes an appearance and tells us what the fuck she learned? Do we then go track Hassun and see what he knows if she doesn't? Or is that a given?" I feel like we are just hoping behind one tree for shelter and then in between bullets scrambling for another. Yeah we are making progress but not much and halting. But,"
She paused and cocked her head to look at him. "We know this shit is all tangled up together, don't we? Whatever killed Giga killed your friends, didn't it?"
Running away, heading north and leaving all the stupid paperwork for her mother (who she still hadn't bothered to see) was really no longer an option. This was something bigger and until she knew that it was just a local thing, she couldn't pretend it wouldn't follow her wherever she went.
All they could do was wait for the sun to rise, and Mars intended to do so comfortably. He kicked his feet up onto the edge of the chair across from him and slid down further into his own as Estelle checked out the wound of her dusky thigh. Judging from the state of the discarded bandaged, it had stopped bleeding hours ago and had even held up through her grandmother's visit—that was probably the best news to come out of the evening. Mars gave a sympathetic wince as Estelle poured the alcohol from her glass over the deep cut, and if it bled again, she didn't seem bothered by it. For good measure, Mars took another drink and sucked his teeth as the burn in the back of his throat subsided.
"You know as much as I do," Mars answered with a sigh, at a loss and feeling rather useless. All they really had was Giga's powers, and there was no guarantee that her ornery spirit would make another convenient appearance, or that the tracker would have any real information on Hassun. Together, they were like fish in a barrel, swimming and waiting to be shot. "Guess we'll have to see what the morning brings." If they made it that long.
When she paused, the second part of her question, or rather, her morbid realization, hit a little harder. Before Gabriel had gotten tangled up with Hassun and other pack, Mars had been completely ignorant of the old woman in the swamp and her granddaughter—it wasn't fair that he fit into this tangled web of magic and lies, but he planned to find a way out of it before the next moon. More bloodshed wasn't what he wanted, but if he had to fight his way back to the top, there would be no hesitation.
"And what?" he asked, letting the glass rest against his thigh as he looked at her on the bed, "I'm next?" That assumption had been on his mind from the beginning, the very thing that forced him to seek out Giga in the first place; that first meeting seemed so long ago. "Let me tell you something, alright? What happened to your grandmother, and to Jules and Gabriel ain't happening to me." Mars scoffed, perhaps in arrogance or just to cement his stubborn point, "we're gonna figure this shit out—because the only thing that's gonna kill me is time."
After a moment, he looked away and out into the blackening night. The scene beyond the window looked innocent enough, but there was an ominous feeling in the air and Mars was sure that his sensitive nose picked up on the beginnings of rot. "Giga said something about other magic," he finally mentioned, "you know anyone else like you?"
Did she know anyone else like her? No, not really. There had been friends of Giga's who were touched, such as Willa and a few others here and there, but no one was gifted like Giga and like herself. She had lived under the assumption that people like her existed, they were hardly special and unique in their squalid little lives. But she'd never met anyone with the level of gift that put them on the same level. She half-wished Giga was around to ask, but then how much could she trust Giga on the matter. Giga had lived her whole life in the swamp, her mother had too and so on and so forth. Lessons had been learned not by magical tomes but by word of mouth and hand-written scraps of information tucked into cook books and in old, nearly illegible diaries. So there was every chance that Giga didn't know and if there was one thing Giga didn't like was admitting ignorance. With the sheer amount of ignorance she'd had to admit to, the question of whether or not there were others like them was likely to be answered with lies.
"I don't know." Estelle said, not afraid to admit she didn't know. Most everything of late was something she didn't know. She took a long swallow of the moonshine, appreciating the burn and explosion of warmth in her belly.
"I always saw the whole thing as a dirty little secret and didn't look into too much. But I can't imagine there aren't. And that thing last night came from somewhere, maybe it was called by whatever. Your end of the problem with that Hassun is a territory thing. Maybe our end is too. Either Hassun wants to clear everyone out or he's working with someone like us. A -you scratch my back I scratch yours- sort of deal?"
It seemed like it might be plausible but it also felt like she was blindfolded, spun about and told to strike a damn piñata and kept missing.
Packing up the first-aid kit she put it on the table next to the bed then gathered up the used bandage and various tapes. Standing she put a little weight on her leg and sighed when it didn't twinge or feel like it split open. She moved to the kitchen area and tossed the mass into the trash and then paused to wash her hands.
"We have an old black and white thing," she said, indicating a small dark TV complete with actual antennae wrapped with tinfoil. "It didn't used to get much in the way of reception. I can't imagine it's improved but it might be better than nothing. It's going to be a long night."
She tried to imagine the hours before Dawn granted them release and how they might spend it. Checkers? Backgammon? Thumb-wrestling…
Estelle moved to the small dirty window through which they had seen the creature the night before. Leaning close she peered into the darkness, the sky only faintly colored above the dark fringe of trees. Was the creature out there, lurking in the darkness?
-smash-
The loud retort of a gun firing filled the cabin as the window before Estelle shattered, a diamond-crystal rain that seemed to halo her head. Screaming, Estelle stumbled, her head whipping away from the flying glass, a sharp scattering of pain across the skin of her face blurred into the greater pain of landing on her ass, jarring her leg.
There was merit to her words, but all either of them had was speculation. Over the years, Mars had had his fair share of run-ins with Hassun and his pack, but territory disputes and the occasional misstep had never resulted in anything like this. For the most part, both alphas tended to mind their own business and keep their wolves in line. Circumstance had gathered them for a reason, though—the deaths of his two closest friends, the monster that had cornered him with a witch, the mysterious death of Giga and that old woman from his mother's trailer park—it was more than bad luck. Mars was inclined to agree with Estelle, whoever was behind this, they were all just pawns in a game.
"We got a while to think about it, anyway," but that probably wasn't a good thing. Trying to shake off the web of conspiracy theories in his mind, Mars took another long drink from his glass and watched as Estelle slowly got up from the bed. That leg of hers had seen a lot of action recently, and it would have done her some good to rest for a few hours. Telling her what to do felt like a new monster, though and Mars didn't want to cause more problems for himself.
Instead, he turned when she mentioned the television. The small box with its bent rabbit-ears had clearly seen better days, but even the soft buzz of static was better than the silence that settled in between their conversations. Setting his glass aside—after yet another sip—Mars hauled himself up from the chair and went over to take a look. "I haven't seen one of these since I was a kid," he admitted and glanced to Estelle standing by the window as he turned the ancient device on.
The thick screen glowed to life and hummed with static just as the sound of a shotgun blast rang out. Mars whipped around, the glass from the window shimmering in the new light from the TV as it rained down on Estelle, who was screaming and trying to get away. If the land was supposed to be protected by wards, they'd failed, and they were fucked. "Shit," he hissed, getting low and quickly scrambling toward the witch on the ground. There was no sense in asking if she was okay, her screams said enough and Mars could only hope her eyes weren't lost.
With one arm, Mars took her and slid them both through the glass on the floor and back against the wall. "Did you get a look at anything?" he asked, brushing a hand though her hair to knock away the remaining shards. He was much gentler when he reached her face, fingers delicately wiping at the sliver-thin cuts and coming back bloody. "Just tell me you ain't blind," he begged, "or tell me your crazy grandmother keeps a gun around here somewhere."
Shifting up onto his knees, Mars peered over the windowless frame and out into the blackened night. It was hard to see anything, but his powerful ears picked up on footsteps, shoes shuffling through patches of moist grass and clumps of wet dirt. If there was more than one person out there, they'd know soon enough.
Estelle was afraid to open her eyes. She worried that if she did, the miniscule fragments of glass that littered her forehead and hair would fall into her eyes and blind her in truth. She was also afraid that she was already blind, that it was too late to save her vision. In a flash she imagined how her life would be, stuck in a swamp, shuffling about. The pain she felt was so encompassing and generalized that it was hard to narrow it down to any specific location. Her general state of panic make rational thinking a neat trick she wasn't even remotely capable of.
She shook her head when Mars asked if she was blind, thinking that say it was so, would make it so. She heard a soft patter of glass shaking loose from her wild mass of curls onto the floor. Her large mass of curls which must have been camouflage for whoever had been taking a shot at her. If her hair had been a smaller mass, decorous and civilized that bullet would have hit her somewhere in the vicinity of her left cheekbone. His voice washed over her, rumbling like thunder and she found comfort in it. She wasn't alone, she wasn't completely a sitting duck. She had a fucking werewolf with her. She didn't like being a damsel in distress, but by god if she was going to be one she'd wanted a huge, pissed off, hot werewolf by her side.
She started to laugh, soft and just a touch on the edge, but as quick as the shattering of a window, it shifted to sobs.
"Fuck." She muttered, trying to hold it all in. They weren't dead but the might be if someone didn't do something. Mars was asking after a gun.
"Yeah," she said pointing towards what she thought was the bed but was in truth the battered cabinet not far from it. "It's under the bed. Giga had it rigged in some sort of duct tape and hemp-rope holster she made. At least it was there when last I was here. I didn't check this time."
She tentatively touched her cheeks and felt the grit of glass and the stickiness of blood.
"Fuck," she said again. "It was a sawed off shotgun." She amended. "Ammo's in the nightstand, or it should be."
She stretched her hand out, lightly feeling across the floor for a spot she could put her hand down without slicing up her palm. She needed to get the glass off her face so she could see and maybe help. Clearly whatever wards Giga had were not set up to stop people from getting close. But that didn't mean there wasn't shit Estelle could tap into if she could pull herself the fuck together. A sweet sticky scent of rot danced on the breeze coming in through the shattered window. The night outside was largely silent, the creatures not yet recovered from the unexpected sound of the gunshot, but for someone listening with acute ears would come the soft shush of feet moving over moss. Something was moving through the night, careful and quiet.
Unsurprisingly, this wasn't the first time that he'd been shot at. It wasn't even the second or third time, but it was the only time that the stakes felt so high. He was thankful for whatever luck was out there and although Mars didn't know what had kept Estelle from taking a shotgun blast to the face, he wasn't going to take another chance with her. The wards that were out there, Ida's charms and old spells, were supposed to protect them through the night, but was clear that magic didn't apply to humans—or whoever was out there shooting like a madman. They were the epitome of sitting ducks, and Mars was angry that he'd let himself get so comfortable.
If Estelle wasn't blind, she wasn't making a great case for herself, but Mars didn't bother to correct her direction as he pulled himself away from the window. For such a small bed, there was a hoard of junk underneath the frame—empty bottles, little herbs, a miniature chest of drawers—behind and between all of that, though, a sawed off shotgun laid in a redneck rigged holster. "Got it," he assured her and discarded the holster onto the mattress before shifting on his knees to rifle through the nightstand.
After finding a sack of ammo, Mars began to load up and glanced over his shoulder at Estelle. She was feeling around on the glass-covered floor, probably slicing up her hands in the process. "You just stay put, okay?" he said, "I'll come back for you when it's all clear." Because Mars didn't believe that he was going to die; it wasn't much of an option and there wasn't a chance in hell that he was going to let himself be attacked without ending up as the victor. "Try and open your eyes, I don't know who's all out there." It was the best advice that he could give, and as the last shell refused to fit into the barrel, Mars grabbed a few more and shoved them into his pockets.
Glass crunched underfoot before Mars was out the door. The night around him was eerily calm, and the still moonlight on the murky swamp water seemed to amplify every sound. For a long moment, he just stood there, listening into the night for more footsteps or a heavy breath, but the only thing his senses picked up on was the sweet smell of rot. It couldn't have been the creature from the night before, not when the area was free of purple mist.
A bit of sweat clung to his upper lip, facial hair suddenly feeling hot and itchy as he stepped away from the cabin and out toward the rickety bridge. He could see his parked across the gap, seemingly in-tact and (hopefully) not tampered with. Whoever was trying to kill them wasn't very good at securing the scene. With the shotgun raised, Mars took a few more steps, his sensitive ears separated the sound of his own footsteps in the wet grass from the quick paces of another. There was someone behind him, and Mars quickly turned, weapon raised, pointed and eye down a very crooked sight, but he was only met with more darkness.
Suddenly, the butt of another gun slammed into the side of his head and Mars grunted in pain, nearly knocked off of his feet by the blow. He kept hold of his own weapon, blood pouring down the side of his face and dripping off of his jaw as he fired into the stars obscuring his vision. Something wet splattered his face, the close range blasting a hole through human flesh—maybe a shoulder, because the guy wasn't going down just yet.
Another shot rang out, but missed him entirely. His vision was beginning to clear, and the light from the blast illuminated a few feet in front of him. There was a familiar face there, square and twisted into a look of anger and pain, tan like him, but naturally so like Hassun.
That son of a bitch was too lazy to come and finish him off himself? He had to send a beta to do his dirty work?
Mars fired again, much less prejudice behind his trigger finger as the shell hit the rival wolf square in the chest. A gurgling sound broke through the ringing in his ears, and the man staggered back, blood pouring from his mouth in a way that reminded him of Gabriel—an eye for an eye. Just because he was mad, just because it was his job to protect those beneath him, just because he fucking could, Mars squeezed off another round. The man was knocked over, his blood-soaked body falling to the ground in a heap. His corpse rolled slightly, face in the water to drown out his final moments.
Scowling, Mars wiped his face and gave another look around. There were no more footsteps, no other breaths but his own and he had to assume that there had been only one attacker. That rotten smell continued to hang around, though, cloying and clinging, intensifying slightly as Mars marched back toward the cabin.
"Let's get the fuck out of here," he said, offering a red hand to Estelle once he found her.
She heard the sound of a scuffle out at the back of the house and it galvanized her. She stood up in one motion and scuttled forward with her hands in front of her. If they were wrestling with Mars they weren't going to be shooting in the windows and so the only real danger she faced from standing up and running was running smack into a wall. She was as cautious as her panic would let her be and so when she hit the wall it was with minimal force and her palms outstretched. She grunted and felt along it until she found the bathroom door, the one true door inside the house. She didn't bother with the light, she couldn't see and didn't want to bring attention to her location.
The sound of a shotgun blast made her jump and squeak before she turned the water on full force in the shower. She stuck her head in it, letting the water run over her face and down her chest, rinsing the shards of glass off her face, onto her white-tank and then hopefully down the drain. The sound of the shower drowned out any sounds from outside which of course made her certain she was hearing footsteps approaching. She could just picture the face of Hassun, twisted in malice as he crept up on her while she stood leaning over the shower. It was like that movie everyone knew about but she'd never personally seen, Psycho or something. The image made her skin prickle so badly that she risked scrubbing her face and felt only a few pricks of pain in hand and along her cheeks. Little cuts that bled thin threads of red which the water washed away. Blood into the land for so many generations.
She was just cautiously opening her eyes, focusing on the darkened whorls of knots in the weathered wood planks that made up the wall of the bathroom when Mars returned. Startled she yelped and whirled to face him. Her eyes seemed to have come through just fine, though it did seem she was weeping blood as the water spray on her face kept her small cuts from clotting.
"Shit!" she gasped when she saw it was him and not her imagined assailant. She lowered the fist which she'd raised instinctively.
"Oh thank god." She said and threw herself at him, past his out stretched hand, in relief. She pressed her wet cheek against him, her wet torso along his and let the strange tingle of their contact soothe her for a second before his words caught up with her.
Yes, they should indeed get the fuck out of there. Pulling back from Mars' broad chest reluctantly she looked around the room and spotted the old imitation Native American buckskin bag Giga kept despite it being about as authentically Native American as she was. It held her odds and ends of magical paraphernalia. She'd called it her "to-go" bag and the sight of it had always filled Estelle with a flush of shame. But there was no time to gather anything, not if there were more out there or, worse yet, that giant unnatural spirit was back.
Grabbing the hideous bag from its spot she slung it over her shoulder and moved for the door.
"Where to?" she asked, licking her lips nervously and waiting for him to lead the way out the door.
After being hit in the head with a gun and shot at, Estelle's raised fist was the least of his worries. Mars kept the shotgun lowered and pointed at the floor as she rushed over into his arms, her wet face pressed to his chest as that electric feeling blossomed between them once more. Instinctively, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, smearing her with blood, sweat and probably a bit of swamp water as well, but she didn't seem to mind. "You alright?" he asked, attempting to calm her, though he was relieved to see that her eyes were open and functioning. Aside from the paper-thin cuts that marred her otherwise smooth skin, Estelle didn't look that bad for taking a window to the face.
When she pulled away, Mars stood by the door and kept watch as Estelle looked around the room for something. He wasn't going to be caught off guard again, and he certainly wasn't going to rely on Ida's magic to keep them safe anymore. For a second, he turned back to Estelle and saw the bag over her shoulder. It looked old and beat up, the material soft from years of use and there seemed to be some embroidery on the front, but he couldn't make it out. In the long run, it didn't matter and the only thing that did was whatever was inside.
"I don't know," he admitted, though didn't sound any less confident in his ability to protect them, "we just gotta put some distance between us and whatever the hell else is coming." Because he was sure that one beta wasn't the end of it, and considering what had happened to Jules, Gabriel, Willa and Ida, the powers that be were determined to make the two of them just as dead. "You got any ideas?" Mars silently vowed to drive all night if he had to, as long as Estelle was safe.
Outside, the night was black as ever, thick with humidity and the smell of fresh iron. He didn't look twice at the body in the water, slumped a little lower as the bayou bubbled with curious life, ready to take a bite of a free meal. Mars took Estelle's hand and lead her across the bridge, their charged connection kicking up once more. It was a little more intense, perhaps feeding off the adrenaline between them, and bits of something deeper. Mars put that out of his mind, however, as he and Estelle reached the other side of the bridge. His car sat quietly, but he didn't trust it to run properly, for the brakes to be in-tact and he didn't believe that there wasn't some cartoonish and unnecessary bomb rigged to the ignition.
Partially concealed in a swath of old willow trees, the beta's truck sat untouched, windows down and the first lucky break they'd had all day. "Do you know how to shoot?" he asked, accepting that he couldn't do everything as he checked the cab for a set of keys. "That guy was one of Hassun's and they're going to notice that he hasn't come back soon," Mars added after finding what he was looking for.
He got into the driver's seat and turned the key, letting the engine rev to life as Estelle got situated. Pulling away from the little shack, Mars racked his brain for a viable destination but came up mostly empty. The lake was their last bet, but putting his pack in danger still felt out of the question.
Estelle followed Mars out into the night, feeling the wards and bindings on the place tickling along her skin like cobwebs. She shivered, both from the sensation and knowing that she was now outside some of the wards that had kept her safe. Shots had been fired, and that changed things. The wards and protections were tied to Giga, not her and so they couldn't tell her when people approached the way they would tell her grandmother. Not that it had done much good for Giga in the end.
She didn't look at the body bobbing in the water directly but its presence felt like a cancerous blight on the land. The noises of the bayou hadn't recovered from the violence and the eerie stillness prickled along her skin. How had she come to be in a place where dead bodies were a thing? She'd fled Boston and her shitty boyfriend to come home and tend to her grandmother's affairs and somehow had become mixed up in a mess that resulted in dead people. She'd been shot at for fuck's sake.
They passed Mars' car and continued on up a ways to a partially concealed truck that presumably belonged to whoever it was that bobbed in the swamp. Car theft seemed like a natural next step, didn't it?
She looked back to Mars as he asked her about shooting and wrinkled her nose. Did she know how to shoot? Of course, once upon a time she'd been part of this swamp and had spent many summers shooting tin cans off of stumps with Giga who insisted she know "her way around a gun". Never exceptional, Estelle did know her way around it enough to hit a target more often than not, but that had been many years earlier. How much of her skill remained to be seen.
"I'm alright." She admitted and took the shotgun while Mars got the car open. Sawed offs were less about precision in any case. She'd make do. A flicker of movement at the end of the bridge, not far from where the body floated, caught Estelle's attention. Faint and hard to make out, it took her a moment to recognize Giga standing at the limits of her territory. The shade of her grandmother made gestures but in the dimness of the night the faint ghost was hard to see. Estelle squinted and watched as the woman's hands pantomimed slipping into something and pulling something else out. Estelle made a face and nodded, only belatedly catching on that it had been pulling something out of the bag.
Reaching in to the To-go bag she felt the usual packets and baggies and instruments but also a box that seemed to be the bulk of the bag's weight. Pulling it out she saw it was an ammo box full of green shells, the sides of which had been scratched and scrawled all over with the spider web marks that were Giga's runes.
"Holy shit," she said in wonder as she slipped into the tuck alongside Mars. In the glow of the overhead light she examined the shells and tried to interpret the runes. Her head hurt from the effort. Her eyes kept wanting to slide off of the marks no matter how she concentrated. She still wasn't certain what the bullets were meant to do, other than the obvious.
"Magic Bullets." She said and rattled the box. "Looks like a full dozen. I have no idea what the fuck they are supposed to do but I'm thinking we shoot some things and see. You know, Field test them."
Mars pulled out and she fiddle with the shotgun to see if she remembered how to load the damn thing.
"We need to bring this fight to the source, Mars. They know where to find us and we don't know where to find them. Hassun's man was here shooting at us. Why don't we go return the favor? Shoot him up a little until he tells us what he knows about the spirit thing and what happened to Giga. I'll be he knows. Feel like making him tell?"
Just being alright would have to do because they didn't have any more options. Most southern women knew their way around a weapon, and the ones who didn't tended to improvise with whatever was closest to their hand. Estelle seemed like the latter, the kind of woman who might hit him over the head with a frying pan one day just because he'd said something she didn't like. The thought made him smile, a brief chuckle from nowhere that eased some of the mounting tension and calmed him for a moment. Despite the body floating in the water and overlooking the latest attempt on both their lives, the night hadn't been all that bad.
Maybe luck was on his shit, maybe shit was about to look up and not hit the fan for once.
"Hn?" Mars grunted and cocked an eyebrow, more focused on getting out of the area than whatever Estelle was looking at. He glanced to her, though, down at the box and shotgun shells in her hand. They looked different than the ones he'd loaded into the gun and fired previously, but couldn't tell how until Estelle filled in the gaps. He wanted to laugh because it just sounded crazy—magic bullets—like the kind that killed JFK, or the stuff a person might have heard about in wild stories. With all that he'd seen and been exposed to in the last few days, however, Mars was inclined to take everything for what is was. If Estelle said they were magic, they must have been. "At least Ida comes prepared," he added as they set off into the night.
A field test was probably the smartest thing to do, and Mars smirked when Estelle suggested they pay Hassun a visit. It seemed like the perfect place to test their new weapons, and Mars was still angry about the ambush. "You're petty," he teased, thinking it probably ran in the family, "but that's a good thing." Crossing over into Hassun's territory was just begging for a fight, and while Mars wished that he had a few more trusted betas with him, someone with a little more muscle than Estelle, he was at least confident in his own abilities.
"You ever been over there?" he asked, taking a turn that lead away from town and into the next. There was a large hill with some old train tracks that sat at the bottom, and for years the two packs had used that as a divide for themselves. There may not have been many things that Mars actually respected—his marriage for one—but he made sure that his pack knew the consequences of crossing those tracks and causing trouble on the other side. During more peaceful times, Mars and Hassun once had an agreement to deal with opposing pack members as they saw fit and his side of the swamp had come to know several bodies.
It wasn't like that anymore, though, and for some reason, the other alpha wanted him dead. Taking a deep breath, Mars breathed out frustration and tension, his shoulders finally relaxing for a moment as they drove along the quiet road. It wasn't long before there was a flash in the mirror, however, another pair of headlights that had Mars craning his neck and squinting into the glare. Another truck was coming up fast on their bumper, the lights growing closer as both vehicles began to speed up.
"Guess we're starting early," he said, eager to see what Estelle could do. He took a hard turn down another dirt road, but the second truck caught the same right and stayed close. They weren't going to lose them on the backroads.
Having a car chase in theory was vastly different than actually being in one, Estelle was finding. But it felt words better to be jostling on the seat of the truck beside Mars than to be huddled in the house hoping to survive whatever was coming. Action versus reaction. She was read for it. Pocketing the magic bullets, they only had twelve and she didn't want to waste them, she loaded up the shotgun with regular bullets and cocked it then, waited. She'd never actually shot at anyone, she was telling herself as she glanced at the lights approaching behind them, swerving and trying to catch up and maybe run them off the road. That's what they did, wasn't it? Run people off the road? At least that was what they seemed to do in the movies. When had her life become a movie? Right about the time Mars knocked on Giga's door, she thought.
Her finger twitched on the trigger as she willed herself to take action, only doubt kept creeping in. Yeah they were on a deserted road just into what Mars had indicated as pack territory. But the trucks following them hadn't actually done anything. How much of the menace she was feeling prickling on her skin was real and how much was her imagination getting the better of her?
Then, obligingly the car behind them tapped their bumper. With a yelp Estelle was flung forward, crashing into the dashboard and letting the shotgun drop, which was just as well since she could have shot her own brains out had she not. Cursing like a sailor she righted herself and reached for the gun.
"Mother Fuckers wanna play rough?" she muttered as she slid open the window in the back of the cab. "Then we'll give them what they want."
She knelt on the battered bench seat and spread her knees, giving herself more stability in the jostling truck. The soft curve of her hip and breast pressed into the solid warmth of Mars as he maneuvered the truck. She stuck the gun out and aimed towards the truck behind her and pulled the trigger. It was dark, the target was moving and she really wasn't sure where to shoot in the first place so it was almost a surprise when she hit. The loud crack of the gun filled the cab and the flash of the bullet striking metal flashed in her eyes. The truck behind them swerved and the headlights behind that swerved to avoid the first car.
She fired again and again, loading up more of the regular bullets. She'd shot about three before they began to return fire and so twice in one night she was fired at. The glass behind them cracked and shattered filling the night with stars as the fragments caught the headlights. The truck was too old for safety glass, too old for air bags too. Cursing and laughing because what the hell else was she going to do, Estelle kept on loading and firing until at last she hit something worth hitting. She wasn't sure what she hit but whatever it was, likely the driver, the truck immediately behind them swerved, careened into a tree, whipped around and in its whipping clipped the bumper of the other truck which then had its own little crash.
"Mother-fucker!" Estelle shouted as she fist-pumped the air. Only then something leaped out of the first truck, something big and furred with teeth big and white enough to catch the gleam of the moon's shine.
"In coming," she gasped as she fumbled in her pockets for the magic bullets.
A tap was just a tap until it happened at fifty-ish miles per hour, and then it was just a dick move—something a coward would do. Mars sneered into the mirror as Estelle gathered herself, and he didn't think to ask if she was okay when he saw the look in her sparkling eyes. If she was no good with that gun in her hand, she was about to get good, and Mars made room for her beside him as she leaned out the cab window. His sensitive ears caught her mutterings, and he smirked to himself as his foot revved the engine, climbing to new and more dangerous speeds as Estelle leaned against him. Their electric connection was still there, buzzing around his skin and raising a good kind of tension between them.
Several loud shotgun blasts and bursts of light filled the truck, making Mars wince as he drove, but the suddenness wasn't enough to shake him, nor was the ringing in his ear. "Goddamn!" he praised when the truck behind them swerved, kicking up dirt and bits of grass as it sped off of the road and into a nearby tree, but not before taking the other truck with it. The grin on his face was wide and impressed as he whooped and hollered along with Estelle's curse. He was proud, grateful, and even a little (more than he cared to admit) turned on.
But who wouldn't be? What was better than a pretty girl with a shotgun?
Nothing—and that was what their celebration felt like as another problem came their way. With two cars now crashed and the drivers likely dead, Mars had slowed his driving some, but when he squinted through the darkness, he too caught a glimpse of white teeth in the moonlight. He wasn't around Hassun's pack enough to know who was who, or who looked like what when they changed, but there had to be some kind of magic at play for a werewolf to change on command. "Fuck all this," he spat and sped up once more. Outrunning it wasn't going to happen, but a chase bought them some time for Estelle to load the magic bullets.
"Hang on!" he warned, another hard turn took them off of the road and into a spongy field, jostling the both of them in the cab. Instinctively, Mars grabbed Estelle with one arm, hoping to keep her from flying out of the shattered window by holding onto her waist. She fit in the crook of his arm perfectly, warm and tempting even as the wolf kept pace and continued to charge toward their direction. Mars cut the wheel again, the old truck leaning onto two tires as it struggled to keep up with the erratic maneuvers.
It landed with another thud, rocking them further, but a glance in the mirror revealed a clean bumper—no wolf in sight for the moment. "Aim for the heart when you can," Mars said, feeling like a bit of a traitor to give truth to those old tales.
The ground below them was deceptive, difficult to gain a lot of speed on and more muddy than anything. They were headed toward another swamp—because why wouldn't they be—everything was a fucking swamp in their neck of the woods. Mars cursed aloud and gunned the gas, but the wolf, black and large in size, had caught up to them. The bed of the truck creaked and heaved when the beast jumped up to meet them, teeth barred and growling, dripping with foamy saliva as it stared Estelle down. "Kill it, girl!" Mars shouted over his shoulder.
Aim for the heart? That was a trick. That assumed she'd been really aiming in the first place. Aiming for the general vicinity was more like. Hitting a speeding car which had two bright place-markers was considerably different that hitting a fist sized spot on a hulking mass of muscle, fur and hate, dark fur at that. Not that Estelle didn't plan on trying. Nor was she planning on whining aloud about it because in the end it was try or die. Plain and simple and spectacularly sucky.
"Sure thing!" she said with a bitter laugh as she fumbled the rune-marked shells into the shotgun, no easy task considering the jostling and bumping the truck was enduring. That she didn't bounce right out the window was solely owing to Mars' strong arm about her waist. Which was only a little more arousing than was appropriate for the life and death situation. How her body had the resources to be anything but terrified was beyond her. Yet there she was, terrified and turned on. It totally wasn't fair.
She maintained the wherewithal to not drop any of the precious bullets onto the floor and finally got everything where it should be. She was just about to shrug out of Mars' grasp when the truck shook and jostled anew only this time it wasn't from the terrain.
"Shit!" she shouted as she whirled around. Some instinct or body memory took over and she found herself facing backwards, thighs spread for balance, kneeling on the bench seat in the cab without any real thought or conscious effort to get there. With that same, strange sense of autopilot the shotgun rose. Time slowed, as cheesy and Hollywood as that sounded, there was no other way to explain the stretch of time that passed between one heartbeat and the next. Or the way that her hands seemed preternaturally steady as she took aim and fired.
At that close a range she couldn't have missed. There was no glory for her in it, no sudden finding of skill. She shot straight ahead and the thing that had been coming for them either lacked a sense of self-preservation or doubted that any bullet she sent could kill it. It wasn't a silver bullet after all. But what it was, was enchanted and clearly done well enough that if a standard bullet to the chest didn't kill off the thing, the magics imbued in the bullet did.
It hit the monster full in the chest, not dead center but at a close enough range that perfection didn't really matter. The force of the blow was enough to send the thing careening out of the back of the truck bed and as it fell (time was still slow as fuck) Estelle could see the edges of the wound begin to smolder and curl as if the creature were made of layers of parchment and they were layer by layer burning. It hit the ground with a thunk just as time resumed its normal pace and she realized a high-pitched whine of fear was emanating from her mouth with was pulled tight in a comically straight line.
"I got em!" she forced out, turning towards Mars just as the darkness behind them seemed to thicken and roil and the sweet stench of rot filled the night.
Another loud blast of the shotgun brought a ringing to his ears, the sound high-pitched and so overwhelming that he barely heard Estelle's triumphant holler. It was difficult to miss the extra weight slipping off of the back of the truck, however, and in the rearview mirror, Mars saw a plume of black smoke, darker than the night around them, billow into the air. His eyes were on the reflection, not paying attention to the slow crawl of the truck or the mud that continued to gum up the tires. It was a fascinating sight, to watch a creature crumple and disappear into the wind, its body like singed crepe paper—there one minute and gone the next.
"Nice shot!" he praised over the fading ringing in his ear. This wasn't the first time that Estelle had saved his ass, although Mars supposed that Ida had more than a little to do with those other times. He wasn't the type of man who liked to owe a debt, especially not one so large, and it was difficult to come to terms with how he might, one day, repay her for everything. Mars suspected that her life was complicated enough before he showed up on her doorstep, and since his arrival, he'd only brought more unholy bullshit.
Seconds later, the ringing wasn't the only thing that stopped. The mud that they had been driving on had finally become too thick and gummy, and the truck didn't have the engine power to keep them going forward. Mars cursed under his breath as they came to a hard stop and he gunned the gas a few more times, but the only result were spinning wheels. Frustrated with their lack of luck, or rather, his lack of foresight to not drive toward the swamp, Mars killed the engine and turned back to Estelle. She was still up on her knees, still had that gun in her hand, and the adrenaline from the whole chase hadn't entirely faded.
The electric connection between them was hard enough to ignore, but it was damn near impossible after almost dying, and as if they were trapped in some cheesy romance movie, Mars found himself leaning over. His hands fit perfectly on the soft angles of her face and little shocks formed between his palm and her cheek before his lips met hers. It wasn't a soft kiss, more urgent than aggressive, and full of the fire that he had been trying to ignore since meeting her. Behind the blackness of his eyes, Mars was having trouble remembering what his wife looked like, and a more selfish part of his mind wasn't bothered. Estelle was everything in that moment, exactly where he wanted to be.
After a moment or two, Mars pulled away, the nerves in his body tingling as he looked at Estelle under the moonlight. They didn't have anywhere to be, and for the moment, no one was trying to kill them. Was it that wrong to take advantage of the situation?
Wrinkling her nose in disgust at the taste left in her mouth by the memory Ida stood up with far more ease in Estelle's damaged body than she would have in her own aged one and stumbled to the sink. It was full of dirty dishes but the half-open cabinet above the sink showed her a row of glasses as mismatched as her own, likely purloined as hers had been. Helping herself to one she filled it with water, rinsed her mouth thrice and then drank what remained. It tasted of rust, of blood and earth and didn't help in the least. She could feel Estelle deep inside her stirring, shifting and beginning to wake enough to start fighting for her body again. Displeased, Ida forced her back down, sending reassurances of safety and freedom soon. She knew she'd have to make good on her promise soon, her control would only last so long and if she didn't keep her word, there was no way Estelle would let her do this again. 
