Silent Shadows

The smoke choked my lungs and the sounds of fighting were muffled. A burning beam fell, cutting me off from my parents.

And through the smoke I saw a fang filled smile, just before the vampire ripped my mother’s throat out.

I sat up, chest heaving and my heart pounding so loud it drowned out everything else.

“What’s wrong?” Danny startled me when he rolled over. I’d forgotten he’d be in the bed with me.

“Nightmare.” I said, trying to control my breathing.

“Relax, it was just a dream.” He rubbed my back and I stiffened up under his touch. “What happened to your back?”

“Got thrown out a window. Plus getting knocked over by Arin.” I winced as he peeled the back of the shirt up and flicked on the light.

He hissed between his teeth. “See this is why I told Jimmy we needed to check under your shirt too.”

“Can I just go back to sleep?” I didn’t want him poking around back there while I was so tired and it hurt so much. “I’ll let you mess with it when I wake up.”

“Okay.” He turned the light off and I lay back down on my side, trying to find a position that didn’t make my body feel like someone was stabbing me. I never managed to get comfortable, and the memories of that night kept running through my head on repeat. I probably didn’t sleep more than two hours that night.

Since I was awake at seven anyway, I got up and padded to the kitchen. I felt even worse than I did the night before, which was saying something. Still, I rummaged through the cabinets until I found what I needed and got to work cooking. I figured if I was gonna pull my own weight I might as well make use of my cooking talents.

It was the smell of cooking bacon that drew them to the kitchen. Meat to a wolf is like a flame to a moth.

“You can cook?” Zack said around the piece of bacon he’d swiped off the plate. He was a pretty good looking guy, if you looked past the silver in his face. I was honestly surprised he didn’t have any visible signs of infection.

“Yep. Grab your plates.” As the others filtered into the kitchen, I served them and finally sat down with my own plate. Even Matt looked somewhat pleased.
“Those Danny’s clothes?” He asked, sipping some coffee. It was pitch black, much like I suspected his soul was.
“Yeah.” I hadn’t bothered getting changed, since my clothes were pretty much trashed.

“When Zack and Arin go into town today they’ll get you something.” I didn’t say anything to that, just nodded.

“Let me fix your back.” Danny said, putting down his own cup of coffee. From what I could tell so far, Matt was the alpha, Jimmy was his beta, and Danny was sort of their healer. Arin was the youngest and Brian, Zack, Jorel and Johnny were sort of in the middle.

“What happened to her back?” Brian asked. They never spoke directly to me, just around me.

“Got thrown out a second story window by a sucker.” I answered. It pissed me off that they talked about me like I wasn’t in the room.

“Let me see it.” Matt said. Obediently, I turned and flipped the back of the shirt up to show them. I’d looked in the mirror this morning: my back was one solid purple and yellow bruise. My bird tattoos had almost completely disappeared in the mottled bruising.

“Ouch.” Jimmy said. “Looks like it hurts.”

“It does.” I dropped the shirt and went back to washing the dishes. As the others left, Danny came over and motioned for me to follow him out of the kitchen. We returned to his room, where I was directed to pull the shirt off and lie down on my belly. He unhooked my bra in the back and I couldn’t help but think about everything that had happened in the past few days that led me to be topless in front of a stranger.

It felt like he was smearing some kind of ointment on my back and it felt okay until he started massaging it in.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” I clutched at the bed, my knuckles turning white.

“I’m sorry, this is gonna make it better, I promise.” He kept rubbing it into my skin and I was practically in tears by the time he’d finished. “Are you okay?”

“No, it feels like you just threw me out the window again.” My back was throbbing and I just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep.

I just wanted my mom.

He left to do god knows what and I lay on the bed, trying to sleep. After about an hour I gave up and put the shirt back on so I could leave the room. I paused by the door, straining my ears to listen for anyone in the house. As far as I could tell, I was alone.
First order of business was looking around Danny’s room. There was an entire dresser filled with medical supplies: bandages, herbs, ointments, and some sharp knives I didn’t want to think about. The closet held his clothes and there was nothing in the nightstand that gave me any information on his personality. I sat on the edge of the bed, swinging my feet and thinking about this almost sterile room I was in when my heels clunked against something. When I peeked under the bed, I found a long metal box.

“Jackpot.” I whispered, popping it open. Inside were books upon books, all kinds from fiction to history books. There were some old letters but I didn’t touch those. After all, even snoops have standards. I had just started sifting through the books when I heard footsteps on the other side of the house and shoved the box back under the bed. I had just enough time to lie back down on the bed when the door opened.

“Kid?” Arin stuck his head in. “We brought you some clothes.” He held out a big bag and I took it. “We had to guess your size. Hope they fit okay.”

I pulled on a pair of jeans that fit relatively well and a t-shirt. They’d even bought some underwear, which I didn’t know whether to be happy about or not, having guys pick out my panties. It just felt good to have clean clothes on, especially clean underwear.

--
The days passed in relative routine. I would get up after a sleepless night, make breakfast, and take a shower. Then I would sit around and stare at the walls while everyone else went about their daily business. Then I would make lunch and do some more staring. After that busy afternoon, I would make dinner, and then pretend to lie down to sleep.

The guys weren’t home during the day. It took me about a week to figure out where they were going. The mystery was solved when I walked into the kitchen and found a very naked Danny and Arin standing there.

“Shit!” I jumped back into the living room, clapping my hands over my eyes. Arin came in a moment later, thankfully wearing a pair of shorts.

“Sorry bout that.” He said, rubbing the back of his neck like he did when he felt awkward. “We were shifting back.”

“Why the fuck were you shifting in the kitchen?” I still couldn’t get that image of them standing there buck naked out of my head.

“We just came back from patrolling.” Danny explained.

“I’m just gonna pretend I never saw either of you, okay? This never happened.” I shuddered.

“Deal.” Arin and Danny said together.

Then came the daily torture session of Danny rubbing that ointment shit in my back. It seemed to be helping, since my bird tattoos were starting to show again. I was almost healed and Matt still hadn’t told me if I’d be allowed to fight again. That was another thing that kept me up at night, aside from the gruesome images of my parents being murdered.