TW: Violence (nothing gory) and discussions of sexual assault
I must have fallen asleep. Jared was there when I woke up, sitting on the other side of the couch with his head tipped back against the wall. He looked over at me when I started moving, eyes bloodshot, expression grim. I locked eyes with him but after a moment it became so painful to look at him that I pulled my eyes away.
"How're you feeling?" he asked.
"Not nearly as fabulous as I look," I mumbled. He didn't laugh.
"What can I do?" he asked.
"Do?" I shook my head. "I need some water." I meant to get it myself, but Jared was already in the kitchen by the time I'd sat up. He handed me the glass. "Thanks." I sipped it slowly, head still throbbing.
"I'm serious Kim," he said. "I uh-I saw what Quil saw." I kept my eyes on my water glass. I tried to keep my expression neutral but I could feel that I was failing. "Let me know what you want us to do about it." Jared spoke slowly and deliberately. "We could... make him sorry."
I shivered when he said the word we. "He barely touched me."
"You might not remember," he said, softly. "I should have been there."
"I remember enough, and it's not your job," I said. Then I groaned. "I shouldn't have drank so much."
"It's not your fault. I'm serious Kim. Let me know if you want us to do something about it."
"Can you turn back time?" My voice sounded so bleak, that he flinched. He didn't say anything, and I instantly felt guilty for pouring the helpless feeling I was weighed down with on Jared. "I'm sorry, I just, I don't want you involved."
"I don't mind."
"What would you be willing to do?"
He looked intense. "Anything."
"Then can we pretend the last two days didn't happen?" My voice broke. "Just for a little bit?"
He watched me his face tight for a moment but eventually he nodded. We settled on the couch. He wrapped his arms around me. We didn't talk.
That afternoon I finally tracked down and charged my phone. When I turned it on it was flooded with texts.
Jess: Hey Kim, thinking of you and hoping you are doing ok! Let me know if you need anything! Here for you!
Lauren: Kim, I'm soooo sorry! I cannot BELIEVE what that disgusting bag of shit did! He's dead to me and everyone else too. Call me when ur awake ok? Love.
Angela: Jess told me what happened. I'm so sorry. Let me know if you need someone to talk to.
Bella: Jess told me what happened. I'm here for you! Let me know if you need company.
Quil: Hey let me know how ur doing.
Quil: Also sorry for being such a dick before
Quil: Also not relevant but I can't believe you didn't tell me! I'm crazy fast now cuz, this werewolf thing kind of rules.
Quil: We can't hang out for a while. I still explode when I get mad. It's crazy. But let's talk on the phone.
Tears welled in my eyes as I read the messages. I wanted to feel grateful that they were trying to be supportive but mostly I was mortified. I would rather no one knew what happened. My breathing sped. How was I supposed to pretend that last night never happened if everyone knew about it? My throat felt tighter as I texted them all back. I thanked them all, but asking them to keep this between us.
Jared stayed with me. He spent the night, made food and watched me eat it. He didn't ask hard questions, didn't bring up Columbia or last night or other things I wanted to forget. When he had to run the next day, he drove me over to Emily's. I sulked in the car, resentful of the implication that I needed to be babysat, but he was adamant. Said it was work related. I thought that was bullshit, but when we got there, Bella was there too, and I started to wonder if maybe he was telling the truth. Emily wouldn't let me sulk. She recruited Bella and I to make banana bread with her. Apparently it was a three person project.
The next day, Jared asked if I'd given any more thought as to what I wanted to do about Eli. I shuddered and told him I didn't want to talk about it. He frowned.
"The council might want to know if you have a decision," he said after a cautious pause.
The council knows?! "I don't need to make a decision," I sighed. "He's only home for a few more days. He's going back to school. It's not like I'll have to worry about bumping into him around town." I shuddered as I thought about it. Thank god he'd graduated. Jared made a face.
"What?"
"It's just," Jared bit his lip. "He's at college right?" I nodded. "What if he does it to someone else?" I went cold. I hadn't even thought of that. I didn't want revenge. All I wanted was to forget. To unwind the clock and skip just one of Lauren's parties. And if that wasn't possible, I just didn't ever want to see him again. But he probably would hurt someone else if I did nothing. Still, I hated the ideas of setting the pack on him. Not that I didn't like the idea of him being scared, I just didn't want it to be my friends scaring him. I didn't want them anywhere near him. It was bad enough that they all saw what had happened from Quil's perspective. And I knew I was lucky that my friends were taking my side, but I couldn't turn back time. No one would forget. And the more the people who cared about me knew, the less they would see me the way they did before. At best they'd see me as a helpless victim, at worst a drunk idiot. Or a slut.
I did some googling at home while Jared showered down the hall, looking at other options. I looked into filing a police report, but blanched at the idea of getting Lauren in trouble. She'd been hosting. We'd all been drinking. On top of that, I dreaded the thought of reliving that night with strangers who, based on most of the horror stories I was reading online would probably ask me what I'd been wearing and how much I'd had to drink. It was bad enough being a victim. It would be infinitely worse to be blamed for it.
Jared stayed with me whenever he could, but he still had a vampire to track. He didn't drive me to Emily's, but I realized I felt better with people around. So whenever he left, I hung out with Jess or Lauren or Bella. I hung out with Emily too. Angela was traveling but she called me from California. I thought about my options. Why weren't there any good options? I thought about sending an anonymous email to his school. I thought about telling his mom. I thought about egging his house. I was coming up with fantasies easily, but grasping at straws when it came to solutions. There wasn't one.
By Wednesday, I felt the overwhelming urge to break something, but I couldn't think of a way to do that legally, so I went to the beach to throw rocks. It wasn't as fun as it was with Jared, and far less satisfying than I'd thought it would be. I even tried screaming as I threw one, but it didn't feel like a release. If anything I was angrier leaving the beach than I'd been when I arrived.
When I got back to my car I scowled. Someone had parked right behind me, blocking my way out. Then my skin went cold when I recognized the car, and the person standing next to it. He glared at me.
"You've got a lot of nerve," Eli spat. Quil had given him quite a bruise, a nasty dark purple shape blooming across most of his cheek. My heart pounded and my fingers went numb. There was no one else on the beach. No one within shouting distance. My phone was in the glove compartment in my car. And if I ran and he chased me, what then?
"Move your car," I said, trying to keep my voice level, as I walked around to the driver side of my car. "You're blocking me." I tried not to show any fear, but my hands trembled as I opened the car door. He closed the distance between us in a second and slammed the door shut.
"That's kind of the point, Kim," he said. I took a shaking step back and he took two steps forward. I backed away from him and he followed. I tripped and caught myself on the hood of my car, then kept backing away. I couldn't breathe. "You really fucked things up for me. Your psycho friends have been going around, telling everyone I attacked you. Even Matt and Tyler are acting like I'm some kind of rapist, which is just bullshit, because you were asking for it all night and I barely touched you! And then, your big Indian friend attacked me." He pointed to the violet bruise on his cheek.
I'd backed into the trees now, numb with fear, but he was still gaining on me. I tripped again and this time fell on my back. I tried to scramble to my feet but he kicked me in the side. I coughed, my vision clouding for a moment, then cried out when he planted his foot on my shoulder. I cried and started to shake.
He leaned down, putting all his weight on my shoulder and sneered at me. "You and your friends are going to ruin my life, spreading these shit lies about me," he hissed. "You're going to pay for what you did." I grabbed his ankle, trying to shove his foot off of my shoulder. He teetered and fell. I tried to scramble away but he grabbed my belt. I screamed and tried to kick. He punched me in the side of the head. My vision clouded for longer this time. Everything seared in white. I tasted blood in my mouth. The trees around me shimmered before eventually coming back into focus. I screamed again as I tried to pull away, but I the force behind the sound waned. "Don't even try," he grunted, pinning my hands again. Again. "No one's here to save you now."
He was right. No one was here. I was so alone. I started to shake. This person, who had already taken too much, wanted to take more. My fear transformed into something else. Gone was the fear of the judgement of strangers, the desire to just let him slip away and bury the guilt of letting him go, free to hurt someone else. I wanted to set the cops on him. Set the pack on him. I wanted to burn him to the ground. Rage, hot and strong filled me. I could feel it, heating my chest and head then filling me from my fingers to my toes. Somehow it grew from there, seeming to expand even after I had been filled. I wondered how my body could possibly contain that much anger. Heat. My shaking intensified, speeding to a violent tempo. Shocked, I realized what was happening.
Eli froze. "Why are you smiling?" He asked, a flicker of fear flashing in his eyes for the first time.
"Because no one's here to save you either."
I phased.
It was more painful than I'd thought it would be; more painful than being punched in the head. Kind of like that, but all over my body, mixed with a feeling of every inch of my skin being stretched. Torn. Jared and his friends did this every day. Did it hurt this much every time?
Seconds later, the pain faded and my senses immediately heightened. Eli was thrown off of me as I transformed. I stood on four legs, heard the rustle of every leaf beneath him as he tried to scramble away from me, terror laid plain on his face. I realized with wonder that I could even hear his heartbeat, speeding and stuttering. I could smell his fear.
I leapt on him, thrilled by the power hidden in my coiled muscles, and then by the sound of the air being forced from his lungs when I landed. My front paws were so massive that I had to keep them tightly together to fit them both on his broad chest. I could have easily pinned him with one paw if I'd wanted to. He struggled, weeping, trying to push me off, but I barely felt his hands batting at my paws. Every shred of his strength was nothing compared to even a fraction of mine. I leaned in and snarled in his face, savoring the terror in his expression that amplified as I got close.
Kim stop! I froze, shocked. I wasn't hearing that. My senses were so clear, my ears so finely attuned to my immediate surroundings. It was coming from inside my head. And it sounded like Sam. Then I remembered. Werewolves could hear each other's thoughts when in wolf form. And the pack was all out today, chasing the female. I felt the others, who were all wordless in shock. It seemed that out of everyone, I was the least surprised by what had just happened. I vaguely heard Paul thinking, a girl?! A girl?! Over and over, like a record skipping. I felt someone panicking? Embry? Then sorrow. Cuz? Quil was there too, his thoughts half a question, half a lament. He'd been worried about me.
I had an audience. Did I care? Yes, I supposed I did, but not enough to let that stop me. Stop! Kim stop! Sam's voice was louder now, firm in my head, but it paled in comparison to my rage. I studied my claws. So sharp and tempting. Lethal. One swipe maybe? I imagined raking one paw down his face, and the marks that would leave. I considered the right amount of force. Not enough to kill him, just enough to leave an ugly scar. I just wanted him to look a little uglier on the outside, to reveal just a hint of the grotesqueness hiding beneath. Wouldn't that be fair? He should look at least as ugly as Emily, I reasoned, who'd done nothing wrong. I felt a sudden flash of intense sorrow. Sam's, I realized. Not my own. I pushed the unwelcome feeling aside and raised one massive paw.
Kim. I froze. It was Jared. His thoughts were soft, pleading. My heart ached and my rage subsided, just by a fraction, but it was enough for me to realize that I could see through his eyes. He was running, sprinting through the forest towards the beach. Towards me.
Please Kim. I was mesmerized by the trees that flew by him as he ran, but Jared paid them no mind. His thoughts were on me. There's no going back, he thought. If you do something, you have to live with it. You don't get to take anything back. I wasn't worried about that. I didn't think I would regret hurting him, but I realized, as I felt Jared there in my mind, that I couldn't bear for him to see me do this. What if he never looked at me the same way? I wanted so badly to get even, but was I willing to give up that?
A sudden reeking smell distracted me. Urine. Oh gross, he peed himself! I felt a chorus of mental laughter, mostly from Quil. Somehow that was enough. A small shred of justice in an unjust world. I sighed and stepped off Eli.
Eli didn't move for a moment, petrified in fear, but then he scuttled away like a crab, got to his feet, tripped, got up again, and ran. I heard his car start and his tires squeal as he sped away.
I was confused to feel an enormous wave of relief wash over me, but then I realized that this relief wasn't my own. The relief belonged to the others. My pack. I felt what they felt. Then, to my surprise, slowly but undeniably, I felt a gentler relief that was entirely my own. I couldn't explain where it came from. Couldn't put the feeling into words. Eventually I realized, that in spite of what he had done, I hadn't let Eli turn me into a monster. It was an odd realization to have while standing on all fours, hyper-aware of my tail for the first time, but I realized that I was still me. Capable of quick thinking, optimism, and mercy. I had not-I would not let anyone take that from me. Least of all Eli. He'd taken enough.