True Nature

Ambrosia smiled to herself upon waking up and looking around her completely unpacked room before falling back into her pillows. Stiles had stayed later than she thought he would to finish helping her with her boxes, taking the empty ones to the basement for storage. They had talked a lot – he had loads of questions about the places she had been and she asked him about growing up in Beacon Hills to which his answers had been even more evasive than she had been earlier in the evening. She knew he was hiding things, but she didn’t press it. After all, she was still the new girl and he didn’t owe her anything.

The rest of the day had been spent preparing for their trip into the woods. Her father had laid out the map, circling the most likely places for the Nemeton to be, routing the best trails to those places. She wasn’t much for hiking or being in the outdoors, but from what she could see from her balcony, the preserve looked really beautiful. It made her wish they were going out in it during the daytime so she could properly see everything. She made a mental note to do that.

She could even invite Stiles.

She’d never done a picnic in the woods before …

“Ambrosia!”

“Coming!” She called, skipping down the stairs to where her father waited for her at the door. Her mother was busy explaining a vile of some brownish liquid in her hands. “What in the world is that?”

“For bears.”

“Bears?”

“Just in case.” Her mother finished explaining. “Be careful, you two.” She picked up a backpack and handed it to Ambrosia, slipping the gross looking vile of ‘bear repellent’ inside of it.

Her father tossed his bag into the back of his dark green Land Rover and climbed inside with her following suit. He played some Rolling Stones, both of them singing along to it even though he was very off key. He was always calm, she noted, any time they were heading out on any of these adventures. He never seemed to get anxious or worried except the times she got hurt. Even then he had been very rational and simply hurried to get her help. She wondered why that was. Maybe he had just seen too much that nothing really shocked him anymore. Both of her parents were like that. Excited about research and discovery, but never scared or apprehensive about what they could stumble across.

Ambrosia didn’t know what he had come across before she was born. All he ever told her was that he had seen things when he was younger that made him believe in the supernatural. He met her mother at some kind of conference for the occult and the rest was history. She was still curious about what it was exactly, but he was just as evasive as she could be. Something she got from him, she was certain. He always deflected, saying it was unimportant. She wanted to believe him, since he was her father, but being good at reading people made her question it when he told her that.

He parked on the side of the road, nowhere near the main entrance to the preserve but closer to one of the spots he had circled on the map. They climbed out, grabbing their bags and Ambrosia holding the map and a flashlight to help direct him, as was her usual job. She had a pretty keen sense of direction and had been reading maps since she could read, period. “All right, you ready? You excited?” He teased, grinning down at her. She merely shook her head and chuckled.

“Of course I am, dad.” She rolled her eyes and looked down at the map. “Looks like we head northeast for about a mile.”

“Let’s do this.” He clapped his hands together and took his flashlight to lead her in the direction she pointed him in. It was obvious how much more excited he was about their hiking trip than she was. She actually thought it was pretty cool that he was so passionate about his job. She just wished his job was more … normal at times. Most times, actually.

After about a mile, she directed him straight east towards the mark on the map, unfortunately coming up empty. All they found was an old, decrepit well with vines growing up the stone. It was deep and dark, she merely flashed her light down it to see water and nothing more before they passed right by it to head south towards the next mark on the map. On the walk, she couldn’t help but hear things. She was a bit jumpy all the time but it was always worse in the dark. She would wildly flash the light around, catching her father’s attention who had of course heard nothing, before she would realize it was probably just her imagination.

“Do you even know what it looks like?” She finally asked, stumbling onto the second marked location and coming up empty.

“I figure we will know it when we see it.” He answered, looking around. “How far is the next one?”

“Two miles southeast. Near water, it looks like.”

“Ah, yes. The one with the star on it. That is my top theory.”

Not even knowing what they were looking for was not unusual for them but it definitely made things easier when they had some kind of idea. Nemetons were tricky, from what she knew. The little research on them stated they could be a variety of things so it was going to be very hard to tell if they even found it. Halfway towards the next location, she definitely heard something close by but had no idea what it was and it stopped her in her tracks. She felt like she was being watched, and not necessarily by a forest creature. It actually kind of felt like she was being watched by a predator … like she was being hunted. She turned to tell her father but couldn’t seem to find him. He had gone ahead without hearing her stop.

“Dad?” She called, taking a few steps forward while still trying to be quiet in case someone was watching her. “Dad!”

Lucian stopped, hearing his daughter’s voice but not seeing her behind him anymore and felt his heart rate spike. It wasn’t their first time being separated but these woods were large and he had a feeling there were creatures in it that weren’t at all friendly. “Ambrosia? Where are you?”

She couldn’t hear her father as he called for her, but she could hear the same sound to her right and stopped, paralyzed. She wasn’t sure she should run and attract more attention to herself or stay completely still. She flashed her light in the trees beside her, looking for any indication she was being watched or followed and found nothing until she was turning back forward and, suddenly, there were glowing eyes and they were right on her. She only saw the blue before it was jumping at her, too quick for her to get a good look and she was tackled back onto the ground. She hit at it with the heavy metal flashlight but it didn’t deter it one bit before she felt fangs sinking into her shoulder.

The scream rang out through the trees and her father started to sprint back towards it but another was on her before he could get there, shooting at it with a rifle. She couldn’t tell if it had been hit or not before it ran away, her savior following it without her getting to look at him, either. Her hand flew to her shoulder where she was bleeding profusely, the shock concealing most of the pain but boy could she feel it. She had witnessed some scary things in her time around the world but being attacked by something so vicious wasn’t something she had experienced. She immediately wondered if her father was right – that it wasn’t simply a wolf that lived in these woods. The way it had watched her ... she shook that off though just as her father stumbled towards her.

“Ambrosia!” A flashlight hit her in the eyes and then he was next to her, pulling a first aid kit out of his backpack to bandage her crudely. “We need to get you to a hospital, get you stitched up immediately.”

“There was someone here, dad.”

“What?”

“There was someone here. Someone shot at it.”

“I think you probably imagined that. The shock of being attacked. Come on. Can you make it back to the car?”

“He bit my shoulder, not my leg.”

It was a lot more grueling to get back to the car than she realized it would be. True, it was her shoulder, but the pain was now not only excruciating but making the entire right side of her body throb which inevitably made it harder to walk. Her father helped her while shouldering both bags but she still stumbled all the way, keeping the gauze pressed firmly to her shoulder. She listened while he called her mother on the way to the hospital for her to meet them there even though she swore she didn’t need stitches. He wouldn’t hear it and before she knew it she was being walked into the emergency room where she immediately spotted a familiar face – Scott’s mom.

“Ambrosia, right?” She asked, looked her over. “What happened?”

“She was bit by something in the woods. I think she might need stitches.” Her father responded, letting Mrs. McCall lead her away while he waited in the lobby for her mother.

“Did you see what it was that bit you?” She asked, peeling her sweatshirt that had ripped down her shoulder to get a good look at it. Something crossed her face, but it was gone as quick as it had come.

“No … no I didn’t. I think a wolf, but my father tells me wolves don’t really live around here.”

“The wolf population has increased a lot lately.” She mumbled, turning around. “Good news is you don’t need stitches, but it definitely needs some cleaning. I’ll, uh, be right back.” Ambrosia didn’t even have time to ask before she was out the door to the room, leaving her sitting on the cot. She hopped down, walking towards the door and poking her head out to see she had walked down the hall and was on the phone. “Scott, I think you should get down here.” A pause. “It’s your friend, the new girl? She’s … she’s been bitten. You weren’t in the woods tonight were you? Well, someone bit her. Wouldn’t be Derek, would it? Maybe it was just a – no, I don’t know. Okay. Be careful. Love you.”

She slipped back inside and hopped up on the cot, Mrs. McCall coming in shortly after to clean up the wound and bandage it properly. She was discharged not long after to both her parents in the lobby though it seemed the nurse was reluctant to do it. The phone call with Scott was still weighing on her mind as she rode in the car with her father on the way home. He was asking her questions, but she didn’t really respond to them. One word was throwing her off – someone. Not something, she was assuming it was someone that bit her. And who was Derek? And why was she asking if he had been in the woods? She’d have to ask Scott about it at school on Monday.