Sidetracked Chapter 30 – Safeguard
"…so, you guys are werewolves?" Raven's shocked beyond disbelief as Gaia explained away everything Raven had seen in the woods the day before.
"Yes," Gaia said seriously, a reassuring hand resting on Raven's shoulder.
"And that means Anya…"
"Yes, Anya too," Gaia nodded.
Raven shook her head. She still didn't understand everything. "If you two were on my side all this time, why didn't you help me in the woods? Why did you let Luna attack me?"
Gaia dipped her head looking ashamed. Lincoln also looked away and shifted on his feet.
"We… were stunned, I suppose. We'd never smelled our blood—Anya's blood, inside a human before. Not all of us were around during the dawning of the last Turning Moon. Running into you was a bit of a shock to the system. And besides, Lincoln and I wouldn't have been able to take on Luna, Echo, and Ontari ourselves. Luna especially is extremely tough to take down on her own."
Raven froze. Wait, what did Gaia just say about blood!?
"Uhhh, what was that about Anya's blood being inside a human—Did you mean it's inside me?"
Gaia nodded again, squeezing Raven's shoulder.
Raven's jaw fell open as she drew her brows in thought. "How is that even possible? I'm sure I would remember drinking another woman's blood, werewolf or not!"
Gaia gave a weak smile. "Is there really nothing you can think of where the event might have taken place? Our blood is extremely potent around this time. It wouldn't have taken much."
A sudden flash of the first passionate night Raven and Anya had spent together surfaced. She remembered getting carried away, biting Anya so hard her lip bled. Or at least Raven thought it had at the time. But then she'd thought she'd imagined the whole thing as when she woke the following morning Anya had no evidence of the event having transpired.
"Oh, shit," Raven uttered without thinking. A flurry of other thoughts plagued her next. Every odd event from the past few days, from her new yearning of suicidal-motorcycle-death-jumping to the incident with the pot roast. "Well, this explains so much."
"We can talk more later," Gaia said quickly before turning to Lincoln. "Lincoln, we need to get Raven out of here before Luna returns. We won't be able to take her on ourselves."
Lincoln nodded. They stood as muffled footsteps sounded from the cave entrance.
Ontari turned the corner, the same scowl from earlier still in place. "How's the smelly meat-bag?"
Just as Gaia opened her mouth to protest the other woman's choice of words, Lincoln darted at Ontari in an instant, a knife appearing out of nowhere and embedding itself deep into Ontari's side. Blood poured from her mouth as shocked orbs clung to life.
Gaia rushed to Ontari's side, catching her before she fell. Together, Gaia and Lincoln lowered the gasping, choking warrior the rest of the way to the ground, slowly.
"I'm sorry, sister. I'm sorry it had to be this way. You gave us no choice." Gaia's gaze shimmered with unshed tears as she waited for Ontari to take her last breath before falling lifeless.
Raven noticed a tear did manage escape as Gaia moved to close Ontari's lids.
Just then, a gasp drifted from the entrance passage. Echo stood frozen in place as she watched the scene unfold before taking off out of the cave seconds later.
"Dammit!" Gaia yelled. "We need to get out of here now!"
Lincoln nodded before rushing to Raven and scooping her up into a carry. Together, the trio rushed out of the cave, Gaia stopping only long enough to grab a sword resting against a far wall.
Darkness blanketed them as they made their way out of the cave. A few torches lit the space around the area but nothing more.
They didn't get far before an arrow flew mere inches beside Lincoln's head, disappearing into the brush. Quickly they dodged behind the trunk of a massive tree.
Lincoln lowered Raven to the ground carefully, she shifted all her weight onto her good leg while leaning heavily against the tree, both arms cradling her wounded chest as her head started spinning.
"Why don't you guys change into wolves?" Raven whispered. "You're stronger that way, aren't you?"
She didn't know much about werewolf lore. But she was sure supernaturals were pretty much always better than humans in some way—or every way.
Both her protectors continued surveying the area, not daring to look away to Raven for even a moment.
"Yes," Gaia finally answered quietly. "But Echo prefers her warrior to her wolf. She was trained by Luna herself. We have a better chance in this form."
Raven's confusion must've been evident by her silence as Gaia continued to explain.
"Luna and Lexa are among the oldest in our pack, well over a century. They are perfect warriors and perfect wolves. The warriors make it difficult for us to fight back. They know our every weakness and have exceptional talent at taking us out from a distance. Never giving us a chance to get close is their best defence."
"Shhh," Lincoln shushed as a twig snapped in the distance.
Gaia poked her head out to investigate, sword at the ready. Silence fell all around them, alerting Raven to the ever-growing heartbeat screaming in her eardrums. Carefully, Gaia took a slow, cautious step into the clearing, then another.
A hardly audible whizzing sound cut through the air a moment later. No one expected it, and no one saw it happen, not until after the silver-tipped arrow buried itself deep into Gaia's chest, sending her crumpling to the ground in a choking heap.
Her cry came out mangled with a chorus of suffocated gasps. Through mad panic, Raven bolted in a feeble attempt to move toward the other woman only to be stopped by a firm grip around her waist.
"No, Raven," Lincoln whispered harshly. "It's a trap."
Then the footsteps sounded. They came closer and closer until finally stopping just a few feet in front of a wheezing Gaia. Someone kicked Gaia's sword away before addressing the others.
"Hand over the human, Lincoln. She isn't worth your life… or Gaia's."
The sound of an arrow being drawn reverberated through Raven, a new wave of fear and adrenaline shot through her as she fell certain the projectile was being pointed straight at Gaia.
"Do not surrender!" Gaia rasped fiercely, her breaths troublingly ragged.
Lincoln's jaw visibly tightened before he released his hold on Raven and stepped out from behind the safety of the tree. Echo turned her bow on him, then took several steps to the side until she could get a clear shot of Raven too, but Lincoln stayed in front of her, shielding Raven—a human, with his body.
Echo grumbled, "Move aside, Lincoln. You know that thing isn't worth the punishment our Queen will give you."
"Indeed, it isn't." A new voice purred from the darkness. A sly marbley tone Raven hoped to never hear again.
Luna.
"What's going on here, Echo?" Luna spoke slowly as she stepped out of hiding. Every word dripping with sin and loathing. "Surely, we don't have defects in our group?"
"We do," Echo answered, her piercing glare remaining on Lincoln. "They killed Ontari."
Luna's orbs blazed with golden fire before turning on Raven. She shook her head as she drew a sword from the scabbard hanging behind her back. "I've had enough of this! Enough of you!"
Storming toward Gaia, Luna reached down with her free hand, yanking Gaia up by her neck and bringing the sword to the struggling woman's throat, a stream of blood escaping beneath the blade where it pressed hard.
Lincoln tensed considerably but didn't budge an inch from his defensive position in front of Raven.
"Stand aside, Lincoln. Or Gaia's dead. And it will be all your fault."
"Don't you dare—ah!" Gaia got cut off as Luna pressed the blade deeper, causing even more blood to stream from her neck.
"Make no mistake, Lincoln!" Luna spat harshly, her tone rising. "This is your hand on this hilt, not mine. I'll start counting down. You decide Gaia's fate. Three… two… one…"
With each number Luna pressed her blade considerably deeper, Gaia's coughs turned to gags to chokes in an instant before the blade sliced a quarter of the way through her neck. More blood spurt from her lips like an erupting volcano, Gaia's once friendly gaze quickly lost focus as the darkest, blackest, most curiously colored blood Raven had ever seen gushed past trembling lips. Raven wrote it off as a trick of the light and the darkness around them. Seconds later, Gaia stopped moving entirely.
Luna didn't finish the decapitation. Instead, she just dropped Gaia's limp body to the ground, where she laid lifeless. Lincoln cried out but stood his ground, his whole body trembled, shaking with anger.
Raven couldn't hold herself back any longer. Tears streamed as she screamed out too and lunged uselessly toward Luna, who only smiled manically as she raised her sword again.
Lincoln caught Raven around the waist just as she launched herself toward the murderous monster named Luna.
Golden orbs blazed with verve, narrowed themselves at the pair before Luna lunged forward, sword in hand, aimed right at Raven's heart. It was in that instant Lincoln chose to spin them around, effectively switching their positions so that once again, he was using his body to shield Raven—shield a human.
Raven snapped her eyes shut tight, every muscle in her clenched as she prepared for the weapon to strike Lincoln down. She kept waiting, also bracing for the possibility of Luna's sword penetrating through them both.
She waited for Lincoln to yell or cry out in pain or cripple over in agony or something! But none of that ever came to light. The man holding her from behind never even flinched.
Instead, choking sounds filled the air.
Slowly Raven and Lincoln turned around curious and confused as to what was happening.
Both Luna and Echo grabbed at their necks, choking, as they sank to their knees. They looked just as confused as Lincoln and Raven.
It only took seconds before they keeled over, falling limp to the ground, unmoving. That's when Raven saw what saved them, darts. More specifically, tranquillizer darts. Small pointy canisters devoid of their contents stuck out of Luna and Echo's necks, big ones.
"Raven!? Raven sweetie, are you okay!? Honey, she's over here! I found her!"
Raven couldn't believe her ears. She knew that voice! She knew it so unbelievably well! It wasn't long until she heard her second most loved voice in the world turn the corner too.
"Raven! Hey! Get the hell away from my daughter, asshole!" It was Raven's mom, Becca!
Doctors Peri and Becca Reyes emerged from the treeline in a rush toward Raven, tranquillizer guns in hand, wrist-strapped flashlights mounted to their arms as they aimed their weapons at Lincoln.
Raven threw her hands up in surrender. "No! Moms, it's okay. This is Lincoln. He's my friend, and he was protecting me from those two."
Becca and Peri shared a look before nodding and lowering their weapons and letting out long relieving sighs.
Peri was the first to rush to Raven's side, "We were so worried about you."
"What the hell happened? Why are you out here?" Becca demanded. Although her words were stern, her expression softened in apparent relief of finding her daughter alive.
Peri turned to Becca after quickly examining her daughter. "There's no time, Becca. Raven needs medical attention, now."
Becca's eyes widened when she finally laid eyes on Raven and saw the state she was in. She must have looked awful with her bruised face, blood-soaked chest, and craned over posture as she strained to remain upright over her gibbled leg. Luckily, Lincoln was still holding her upright.
"Dr. Griffin! Dr. Jackson!" Becca called behind her. "Coast is clear. We need medical assistance, STAT!"
Raven looked around, confused. Out of nowhere came running Abby Griffin, Clarke's mom, and her assistant Eric Jackson who'd Raven only met once or twice over the years. They each carried what looked like advanced first aid kits.
"Moms?" Raven was beyond confused. She had a million questions. Like, how the hell did they find her first of all!?
"Relax," Peri insisted, placing a loving hand to Raven's shoulder and taking over for Lincoln in holding her upright. "We'll all have a long talk later."
Raven nodded before remembering Gaia, "Moms, that woman over there. Her name is Gaia. Please, save her too."
Becca and Abby moved to Gaia after first making sure Raven was going to live. Peri grabbed a disposable ice pack from one of the kits, broke it up to release the chemicals that would turn it cold, then pressed it to Raven's face.
She must have been sporting one hell of a bruise, because the moment that pack touched skin, Raven felt as though she'd been slammed with a sledgehammer.
"This one's lost a lot of blood too," Abby announced as she inspected Gaia's body. "And it looks like this arrow in her chest has silver elements. Her healing process won't be on our side."
"As long as we keep her heart beating, she'll heal," Becca added as she took out a giant adrenaline needle from a medical case and stabbed it into Gaia's chest. "This is nothing for a werewolf."
Now Raven had to be losing it. Did Mama just mention werewolves like this was all common knowledge?
WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON?