Silencing Alice

-Alice-

“Come out come out wherever you are.” He whispered and I could hear his tongue click against his teeth. I shrunk further into the closet as I heard him draw closer. I tried to look away but the blood that soaked the walls and pooled on the floor kept drawing my attention. Even if I closed my eyes I could still see their faces. I couldn’t stop seeing their blank eyes stare unseeingly into the distance as the blood drained from their bodies and crept closer to where I hid.

“I can hear you breathing Alice.” His footsteps stopped and I could feel the choking silence grow heavier around me. I focused on the steady dripping sound of water droplets as they fell to the floor from his wet clothes. Drip. Drip. Drip. He clucked his tongue again as he reached for me, his fingers brushing the wooden frame of the closet door. He was seconds away from opening it. Something warm and wet soaked my pants and the sour smell of urine clogged my nose.

“I found you.” He uttered and through a crack I could see the edge of his twisted smile as his dark eyes glittered through the slits of my hiding place.

When I opened my mouth to scream, all that came out was silence.

It was a loud crash, like the sound of something being shattered into a thousand pieces that pulled me from my nightmare.

“WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG!?” a voice roared and the sound of splintering wood echoed throughout the room. When I went to open my eyes I found my eyelids to be heavy and glued to my cheeks with my tears, the remnants of a nightmare I could never escape. My body ached, mostly my right arm which made me see stars when I tried to move it. The pain was enough to force my stubborn eyelids open and the groan that spilled out from my pursed lips cut through the tense atmosphere.

Before I could even take note of my surroundings he was there, his storm blue gray eyes peering anxiously down at me. Before I knew what was happening he was pulling me from the bed and cradling me in his arms. A sharp cry spilled from my lips when my arm was jostled and I could feel the worry and anxiousness pour from the large man who held me. My heart pounded in my chest and beat furiously against my bruised ribs but the strength was gone from my body. I could barely lift my head from where it rested in the crook of this strange mans neck. All I could do was stay where I was and breathe in the strange aroma of rain water and earth.

Faintly, I heard a door in the distance creak open and a tentative voice say something but I could feel my strength leaving me. Everything was fading and my eyelids were closing again. I tried to fight it but the darkness once again consumed me.

-Rowen-

When I watched her fall my heart stopped in my chest. I’ve never felt more fear then in that moment when I thought that I had lost her. She was mine. My heart, my golden sun, my soul. I’d only known her for a few moments but she was already everything to me. When I looked down to see her crumpled form, her hair spread out around her like a golden halo I could feel something in me twist up and die.

When I carried her in my arms, I could feel how small and fragile she was. How helpless I was to save her. I never wanted to feel that feeling again. The woman I went to was a skilled healer. She was not descended of the wolf but she was of witches blood and power surged through her veins. She was my last and only hope and if she could not save her, I knew that no one could.

She clucked her tongue when I brought her in and shook her head as if she’d been expecting us. A bed had already been prepared and she gestured me towards it. Unwilling to part from her but understanding the severity of the situation, I set my love down gently on the bed hoping beyond hope that she could be mended.

“You need to step out.” The old woman stated and my inner beast roared with a new kind of fury I’ve never experienced before. When my eyes turned to silver and cut towards her I could smell the edges of her fear that she tried to hide. The calm mask she wore only faltered a fraction before she stated in an even firmer voice, “If you want her to live you have to leave. What must be done can only be done without you here and time is of the essence.”

The voice that fought its way through my lips was garbled, rough with the hint of the beast lurking behind it. “I will leave but if anything happens to her I will kill you.”

Leaving her there was the hardest thing I have ever done. It took all of my willpower to stay away from where the witch was healing her. The cage holding the beast within me was groaning with the strain of containing him, with every second he grew more restless, more furious, and I knew that if I were to wait any longer he’d devour me in his rage.

“WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG?!” I roared and the chair I threw smashed into a thousand pieces against the cabin wall. I was seconds away from tearing the door off its hinges when it opened and the hunched weathered form of lady Neveah appeared. She gestured me inside and shut the door quietly behind me. When I looked down at my mate, quiet green eyes peered back up at me.

I pulled her to me and cradled her against me desperately needing to have her close, to reassure the beast within me that she was alive. I could feel the warmth of her breath against my skin and the light caress of her eye lashes as they brushed against my neck. When her breath grew slower and steadier, I knew that she had fallen asleep. I heard the door behind me slowly creak open and a voice tentatively call out to me filling the tense silence.

“It is time Sir.”

-Alice-

When I came to, I was alone. To my surprise, I found my arm no longer hurt and the deep ache in my ribs were gone. When I remembered how steep the hill I had fallen down was and how my bones crunched when I landed I winced. How was I okay though? I know I had broken an arm because I remembered the searing pain. I remembered the sound of bones snapping and the blinding agony it left behind in its wake.

I moved the heavy blankets away from my prone form and slowly urged my legs over to the side of the bed. My joints were stiff and my muscles ached when I moved as if unused to movement. My body was slower than it used to be, as if it took a while to process the commands I sent it. I was forced to grab the bed post in order to steady myself when my feet finally touched the smooth wooden floors and my stiff knees buckled with the new weight.

When I looked around me fear began to settle in my belly like a tightly coiled snake. I was no where I knew of and the image of the strange man who kidnapped me and the two fighting wolves kept cascading in my mind. Where was I and who was he?

The room I was in was pristine and almost bare. There was only the bed I had crawled out of and a small window on the other side of the room. The last thing I noticed was that there were three closed doors total in the room. I knew that one of them was my escape route. I needed to leave before my kidnappers realized that I was awake.

Slowly, I shuffled to the door closest to me annoyed at how slow my body reacted to my commands. When I twisted to door knob I was disappointed to find a large bathroom. Quickly I tried the second door only to find a large closet filled with men’s clothing. I was seconds away from closing it when I heard something. I held my breath and listened tentatively to the heavy silence around me until I could pick out the heavy footfalls of someone’s boots as they drew closer. My heart raced at the sound. I had heard those heavy footsteps before. Not wasting any time, I clambered into the closet and closed the door behind me. The suits on the rack above me brushed my hair as I crouched below them and made myself as small as possible praying that the owner of the footsteps could not hear the song of fear my heart played in my chest.

Outside somewhere I could hear the door swing open and the footsteps stop on the threshold. Then they were moving again edging closer to where I crouched. The bath room door was swung open and I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. The sound of his boots rang in the still silence around me and tears pooled in my eyes.

And then from the deepest darkest corner of my mind a voice whispered “I can hear you breathing Alice.” I opened my mouth to scream but the words got tangled up in my throat and all I was able to produce was a garbled cry when the door to my hiding space was ripped open.

A part of me realized that it was the strange man who had kidnapped me but another part of me was stuck somewhere seeing someone else. His eyes were not blue anymore they were green and that worried expression on his face seemed to morph into another colder and more sinister face.

Then he was reaching for me and I reacted. I curled up into a ball and held my hands over my ears like I was eight again. Wild sobs shook me but only mangled cries were able to free themselves from my stubborn lips. When I was lifted up off the floor I snapped and became like a wild animal as I kicked and bit at the hands that restrained me. I grabbed fistfuls of hair and clawed at unsuspecting flesh but the one who held me never loosened their grip.

“Shhh….i’m not going to hurt you little one.” A voice whispered and something about the gentle nature of this voice soothed me. The rough texture of it should have frightened me further but I could feel my erratic heartbeat slow down and the fog that had cleared my mind was beginning to ebb away until I was settled back into reality. I stayed still for only a few seconds, just enough time for my body to calm down and my mind to sharpen before I pushed away from my captor.

Storm blue gray eyes peered inquisitively back at me and despite everything I could feel the beginnings of shame creep up. Then I remembered that he was a stranger and he had taken me against my will and the shame at my behavior was gone. My green eyes glared accusingly back at him. I angrily signed ‘Who are you?’ and grew frustrated when he looked at me with a perplexed expression. Slowly this time, I signed it out again but when his gaze did not falter I tried a different method. Unsure of myself I very slowly reached out and grabbed his hand. When I traced out what I wanted to say on the palm of his hand, the coarseness of his skin rubbed against my fingertips like sandpaper. I looked up at him then but then shied away from the intensity of his gaze. A new understanding now glittered behind those storm blue eyes and for some insane reason I was afraid to look longer in the case that I would find disproval in them.

“My name is Rowen. I am your mate.” I started at the last word, unsure of what he meant. “What is your name love?” he asked and I debated on whether or not I should tell him the truth. Finally, after deciding that there was no harm in telling him, I traced out Alice and then quickly let go of his rough hand disturbed by the small tingling sensation that traveled up my arm when I touched him.

“Alice.” He said and somehow, I could breathe a little better when my name left his lips as if something deep within me was settling into place. I don’t know why but when I looked up at him again I smiled. He was big, strange, and scary and I had not forgotten that he had kidnapped me but for some reason when he talked it made my soul sing. He was rough and unrefined and far from inviting but when I looked into his storm grey eyes the deepest darkest part of me tormented by shadows and nightmares was soothed. Who was this man?

Rowen offered me his hand and I slowly took it allowing him to pull me to my feet. He began tugging me to the door but I planted my feet firmly and shook my head. He turned to look at me then and I braced myself to see steel cold blue eyes and a frown in place because when you were with Rowen the power and sternness that rolled off of him in waves seemed a cold thing fit only for expressions of stone. I was taken aback though when the eyes that met mine were soft, the expression gentle on this strange giant.

“Do you want to know who and what I am Alice?” He asked and I looked down at my feet as a war of emotions battled in my chest. I wanted to know but I was afraid of the truth. Finally, I nodded and looked back up at him and the patient expression he wore.

“Then I will show you.” He said and I let him take my hand and guide me to the world of werewolves, magic, and death.