Howl

Disclaimer: What do you think, dumb ass? I'm writing a fucking fanfic! (Yeah, I'm in an uber bad mood.)

Rating: R for violence, nasty flashbacks, sexual activities, and bad language.

Chapter 5 - Unnamed (Tell me what you think to name it. I'm out of ideas.)

"Blue?"

The disbelief of seeing her was overwhelming, leaving her unable to move, elation and incredulity running thick through her veins. Blue had been there for her, had helped her when she thought the world consisted of only assholes who could give a shit if a young woman died. She had been graced by the knowledge that no one cared about her, that Mashin had raped her and then, months later, killed her baby, that nothing was going to get better; it couldn't get better, because no one wanted to make it better. In her mind, these wolves were the only good people out there. Because no one, not a one, had cared when they saw her staggering down the street covered in blood. No one, not a fucking person, had ever offered her shelter. No one had helped her up when she fell. No one had helped her mother when she was being kicked when she was down, and no one was going to help that mother's daughter, either. Because no one cared.

No one except these wolves.

Blue looked up from her conversation with Hige and smiled brightly. "Sou! You're alright. I was worried. Who did this to you? I'm so sorry I couldn't come with you, Sou. I'm sorry. I could have stopped it..."

During her tirade, the female had walked to Sou and knelt by her side, a worried and guilty look on her beautiful face. Sou could tell that Blue was feeling badly about not being able to stop the men from getting her yesterday, that she was second guessing herself about staying behind and not coming with her. At the time, Sou had understood about the soldiers, and she felt no regrets about what had happened with the gang yesterday.

"Yes, Blue. I'm fine. A gang attacked me yesterday, and I'm fine. These guys rescued me, even though I didn't even know them."

Blue glanced behind her at the males and then met Sou's gaze again. "I'm glad they ran into you. Now," Blue looked behind her again. "Since I'm sure you don't want these guys to be nosey..." She trailed off and cleared her throat. Grumbling from Hige and Toboe was heard, and Sou saw Tsume and Kiba cast one more glance at her before they followed the other two pack members out of earshot. "As I was saying. How's your stomach? Does it still hurt when you run?"

"Yes, it hurts when I run. But I'm sure I'll be okay." Sou tried to sit up, but Blue put her hand on her shoulder and gently restrained her. The feel of a touch of an old friend felt so comforting, like she was finally home, and she wouldn't have to run anymore.

"You shouldn't move. You were out of it for a long time. Hige came to get me from the town I was meeting him in, and then I saw you, and you looked so...God, Sou, your face was so pain-filled. Have you been having nightmares again? Mashin didn't catch up with you, did he?"

Sou shuddered at the thought. For weeks after Mashin had attacked her, she had lived in stark fear of him finding her, and taking her back to the life of pain he had forced her to live in. That kind of fear had paralyzed her time after time, made her knees go weak and her spine tingle with the terrifying thought Even now, Mashin would remember her, and keep an eye out for any sign of her. He had always said she was his most prized bitch. It made her ill to talk about it, but she had to. "No. Mashin didn't find me. And...I've had a couple nightmares. I'm fine, really." Sou brushed off Blue's hand and sat up painfully, then stilled, breathing in gasping breaths of pain. The waves of agony subsided, and Sou looked at Blue. "Oh God...Blue, I missed you..." Sou wrapped her arms around the ebony wolf, burying her nose in the messy hair adorning her guardian angel's head. "So much...I'm glad we met again..."

The other female laughed and returned the embrace, stroking her friend's back as Sou cried silent tears. Blue was the only person she had ever trusted, the only wolf she had ever opened up to. She didn't know why, but Blue had always calmed her, and the love Blue had emanated had given her the courage to tell her about her past.

"I missed you too, Sou."

They finally released each other, Sou wiping tears off her face and taking deep breaths to still her heart. "So...how do you know Hige?"

"Hige is my mate." Blue met Sou's eyes unwaveringly, ready to confront anything the other said. "That's why I couldn't go with you before, I had to throw off the soldiers to get to Hige."

Sou was speechless, shock running through her again. Instinct pushed her to stand up, and then she looked down at Blue. "Come on. Let's go back to the others and make sure they haven't combusted from waiting." Blue stood and nodded. "By the way, Blue...I'm glad you're happy." Now Sou knew what had drawn her to trust Blue when she had met her. She had been in love. And that love had made her caring, trustworthy.

They approached the pack, four silent teens sitting in different positions and looking various different stages of bored. Toboe was skipping stones into the river they were staying by, and Hige was lying on the ground in wolf form, making puppy eyes at Blue. Tsume was staring at Sou, and Kiba was gazing off into the distance.

"So, are you done with girl talk, Blue?" Hige had risen, and was now padding over to his mate. She nodded, and without another word, they walked off into the woods. Sou watched them, thinking of what kind of love they had to share. Hige treated her with such infinite care, such gentleness, as if he were scared that he would break her and their love. In all the time Sou had lived, she had never known love. Her pack had died off and she had never known her parents, and living on the streets called for brutality in order to survive, making everyone who comes in contact with another to harden defenses, to make sure they weren't hurt. Because everyone, every animal and human, every person who slept on the hard concrete at night and roamed far and wide by day for food, everyone, had been crucified in their own way. Hung up to dry by those who they thought would protect them, battered and bruised by those they thought could never lay a hand on a loved one, kicked when they were down by people they thought had loyalty to them. And that was why the streets were so vicious, because those who had nowhere else to go and were cornered in life, those who didn't have anything to lose anymore, animals who had been abused and humans who had done the abusing, they were all there. They were all there, all dead inside, like she had been.

And so, this love was new to her.

"Well, are you okay, Sou?" Toboe looked up from his rock skipping to gaze at the only female present. "You looked pretty bad when I found you."

Her scars stretched with every step, and new wounds flexed and burned with new pain, the nerve endings getting bombarded with pain as she made her way to the pup, sparing a glance at the other two as she sat down slowly. "Yeah, I'm okay, kid. And you didn't find me; I believe I ran into you, remember?"

Toboe laughed and said, "Yeah, you're right. Are you sure you're okay?"

A sharp look in his direction from her silenced him. Suspicion rose, honed from long years on the cold, hard streets. "I said, yeah. Why do you keep asking?"

"Because everywhere you sit, blood drips onto the ground." Tsume had spoken this time, interrupting Sou's mistrust in the kid and catching her attention. "And of course, the fact that your clothes are in tatters, there are more scars on you that even I can count, and every look you give is to kill."

Sou looked at him in shock, a mixture of anger and uncertainty running through her. The feel of those emotions were sharp in her mind and heart. Thoughts that she shouldn't have trusted any one of these wolves zipped through her at quick little intervals, and she started to rethink asking Kiba to let her stay. "What's it to you, hot shot? So what if I bleed? If I didn't, what would you say? And my scars are from a whole lot of bad situations that I am goddamn proud of getting through with only a few marks on my skin. Plus, maybe looks can kill where you're from, but in the city I grew up in, they only intimidate."

Tsume laughed. "I want to talk to you alone. Take a walk with me?" Kiba's head shot up, and he stared at Tsume. Sou could see nothing but the boisterous strands of dark hair on the back on his head, and she wondered what those sea-green eyes were saying to Tsume with no words. The air grew heavy with unspoken words, and Tsume finally grunted and said, "Come on, Sou. Do you need help?"

"Tsume, I've only accepted help from five people: You, Hige, Toboe, Kiba, and Blue. What makes you think I'm so dependant on everyone? Or that I want to walk with you at all?" Sou looked boldly into his yellow eyes, and saw a flicker of vulnerability and the need to be accepted. If only for a moment, at least, she imagined those were really what he was feeling and not just a ploy to get her to walk with him. She'd seen enough traps in her life, and walking alone with Tsume in the woods while she was weak and wounded didn't make her feel very safe. But that only pushed her pride to make her go, because anything that scared her should be challenged, and defeated. Not many things scared her. She had been held at gunpoint when she was ten, stabbed three times when she was fifteen, and beaten in the stomach with a baseball bat to be forced to have a miscarriage at nineteen. None of it had scared her. It had hurt, and it had made her angry. Hell, when Mashin had beaten her she had been worried about her child, but not scared.

Nope, Sou didn't scare easily.

She didn't wait for his answer, but struggled up and stood on weak limbs. Breathing hurt. Standing hurt. Thinking hurt. Fuck, even living hurt. But that didn't stop her, she just breathed in deeply and stepped forward with pride and determination. A tiny little voice, minute and undersized compared to the other voices from her delirium and fever a few nights ago, told her that it was just a walk, relax, try to trust someone.

The voice was squished under an imaginary thumb.

Her jeans swished against wounds, and she bit back groans of pain as she treaded silently beside Tsume. She refused to be carried back – even though riding on his back had been...enjoyable. Regardless, her pride wouldn't allow it. She walked on.

"Who hurt you so much?" The question came out of nowhere, almost startling Sou and making her pause in the middle of a step, causing her to stumble. Tsume's hand shot out, catching her around the waist, and held her while she regained balance.

Sou tried to ignore the pain of her sides while she answered, "No one. I was born this way. I have no heart."

"Sounded like you had a heart when you were screaming in your sleep about rapists and gangsters stealing your food. Looked like you had a heart when you were hugging Blue, and crying into her shoulder. Felt like you had a heart when you were sleeping on my back."

"You think too much. And those are figments of your imagination. What did I scream about?"

They had stopped, Tsume's hand still resting protectively on her hip as she grit her teeth and faced him. Tsume smirked. "Can't resist asking? Fine, I'll tell you. From what I can gather, some guy named Mashin raped you, kept you drugged and beat you, to the point of you losing your child. Blue says she met you after you got away from him, and told us you had nightmares like crazy while she helped you out. So, Sou, the way I figure it, you have two options; trust me and tell me now, or don't trust me and I'll just wait to hear the rest of your sordid tale while you sleep."

It happened so fast, Tsume didn't even feel it until his mind caught up with her action. When he looked up, he was lying on the ground, winded, with a black eye starting to swell, and Sou was running away again.

What was up with her and running, anyways? Didn't she get that she had to stop and slow down to heal?

Tsume was on his feet as fast as he had been knocked off of them, and giving chase.

Sou's lungs burned. That damn scar on her thing was twitching and pulsating, telling her it was time to stop, and the wounds she had recently accumulated started to crack painfully, open up again. She seemed to sense the blood dripping off of her and onto the ground, instead of hearing or feeling it. Her entire being was one big mass of pain, pain everywhere, nothing she did made it stop. IT had to stop.

She had to stop. Stop running. Stop playing games.

Sou stopped, sitting down to wait for Tsume to catch up with her. Pain racked her in another giant tidal wave and she collapsed, heaving great breathes, but still knowing Tsume was coming. She could sense him the same way she sensed the blood dripping, and the wind wafting over her convulsing body. She pressed her ear to the land, closed her eyes. The cold ground felt good against her pounding head, and then above the pulsating between her ears, she heard the vibrations of another's footsteps, knew that the other's huge paws would be in sight soon, that the gray male would be there soon, to help her.

And she accepted that. She could be helped. She had to let go. Move on. Trust Tsume and the others. Start a new life. And to her, it now was okay. She could do it. Sou felt her pride easing back, letting her mind and heart have control. The new feeling was odd, as if she was holding something alien in her hands, and at the same time it was in her mind, and she was touching it there, too.

And then Tsume was there, skidding to a halt in front of her prone figure, a gray wolf with furious yellow eyes. One was swelling up, a testament of her rash actions. His voice was breathless as he yelled, "What do you think you're doing? Is it not enough that you're on the verge of going comatose from blood loss and injuries? You have to go and run off again, too? What the fuck is the matter with you?"

He stopped to catch his breath, glaring at her still frame. "Sou? Answer me, damnit!"

Sou fought the darkness even as she surrendered unconsciously to it, the languid feeling seeping in a dulling her senses. A monotonous thought crawled through her mind, declaring that she had been fainting a lot lately, especially around these wolves. As she watched Tsume kneel before her, a leather wearing punk with a lot on his mind, her mind was enveloped in fog. Tsume gently picked her up and balanced her onto his back, and Sou's fingers started to tingle painfully. She tried to shake them, remove the stinging, but found she couldn't even make her digits twitch. Sou remembered the lethargy, knew her body was shutting down again. Trying to save energy to fight a death that seemed inevitable. This time, it was unlike the others. It felt final, this self-induced slumber, like it was the end, but her mind was too sluggish to react at all. Maybe she would never wake up. Maybe this was the finishing line. Maybe she would go to paradise.

Tsume's golden eyes stared at her over his muscled shoulder, and Sou met his gaze, saw those beautiful, deadly eyes, and something inside her clicked. Like she finally got it, and there wasn't anything wrong with it. It was a perfect knowledge, caressing her slothful mind, trying to get her to understand fully, but a part of her brain had shut down already. Red and black dots swam in her vision, melding with Tsume's yellow eyes. Sou sucked in a shaking breath, gasping for air as she realized she hadn't been breathing.

Somehow, she wasn't alarmed. It all felt right, somehow. Her heart rate was slowing down, making her oddly calm, and suddenly she couldn't hear anymore. The edges of her vision dimmed black, and she wrapped her legs around his waist with a great effort. Tsume's eyes flickered with surprise, and Sou fought her body, made her arms go around his neck to secure herself, then she leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I do trust you."

Tsume's reply was lost to her, as the darkness consumed her and the final thought of the inevitability of this crossed her mind, and she regretted not loving anyone in her life. She regretted not saving her child, and she regretted not accepting Tsume and the others before. She might not be in this situation if she had. Sou's eyes drifted closed as Tsume turned around and sprinted back to the others. Yeah, it was too bad. She would have liked to find paradise with them.

Tsume burst through the trees; going at a breakneck speed, knowing Sou's life depended on his swiftness. Already, the breaths that fanned across his ear and neck were becoming farther spaced, and her limbs were becoming looser as she lost consciousness. Anger at her, at himself, surfaced, fueling his pace until it was so fast the trees blurred and only his good reflexes were saving him from crashing into a tree.

The rhythm of his feet calmed him a little, but still he hurried. He didn't want to lose Sou before he got her. She had looked so peaceful, so calm as she passed out, her face relaxed and serene, an emotion Tsume would have never guessed her capable of, given all she had been through. Suddenly, the tempo of his steps did nothing to quiet his temper as the thought of that guy, Mashin, passed through is mind. Tsume felt an uncontrollable instinct to flatten him into the ground, rip out his throat and make him suffer for putting Sou through hell.

He reached the others, shouting for help. Kiba was first up, followed by Blue, who screamed when she saw Sou. Toboe took one look at the look on Sou's face, such tranquil harmony, and tipped his head back. The brown pup howled, as Hige rushed over and then sprinted off to get herbs for her wounds. Blue fell to her knees, silently crying, looking at her formerly alive friend, and seeing only death in her place.

Kiba knelt by her prone human form, his fingers placed gently on the column of her throat, feeling for a pulse. Toboe's howl continued, the pup was pouring his soul into a cry without words. Hige could be heard crashing through brush, searching blindly, needing to do something, anything, to help.

Even if it was futile.

Tsume felt an all consuming horror, sickening sadness and devastation of not being able to get to know Sou better washing over him, making his body react in odd ways. His heart felt ripped out, and his stomach was churning. Tsume's limbs were tingling and whirling, his head was clouded and his thoughts muddled. Nausea set in, and Tsume grasped his stomach and darted to the bushes, then collapsed, the grief overtaking him and he vomited, seemingly trying to purge himself of the sense of death he had surrounding him. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, life didn't seem worth living. The only thing to do after you were born was to die, and that's all life was about. Dying. Everything died. All he cared about kept dying, and that thought made him retch again, making him helpless in his misery and pain.

"She's alive."

Tsume didn't comprehend the words for a moment. Still he was lost in his own word of inner turmoil, unable to find a way out of it, and everything felt two-dimensional. Then Toboe stopped howling, and Blue fell silent, her sobbing having ceased. Hige's whoop could be heard from the surrounding thicket, and then the sound of the stocky wolf tearing around, looking for herbs again, filtered through to Tsume and the others, and it sunk it.

She wasn't dead.

Tsume stumbled out of the bushes when he had been heaving, and then stood, taking in the scene before him. Blue was rocking on her heels, her eyes closed, her lips moving in silent prayer. Toboe was staring at the night sky, eyes open and full of hope. Hige was still searching, with renewed purpose, in the surrounded woods, and Kiba was leaning over Sou, Holding her head in his hands as he kept her airway open, making sure she could breathe.

Tsume felt unable to help, and quickly got frustrated. Kiba heard his low growls and looked up. "Don't sweat it. You can't do anything now, so chill." Kiba looked down at Sou, who seemed to be in a trance, not moving, her breathing deep and slow as if she were simply asleep. But Tsume knew better. She was on the verge of passing away, teetering on the edge between comatose and death. Running his hands through short, silver hair, he paced across the clearing, finally deciding to check out how many herbs Hige had collected. Sou would need all the help she could get.

The pack worked non-stop, bandaging her wounds with spare clothing and dripping water into her mouth. Sou drank it without complaint, silent except when she seemed to be fighting inner demons, thrashing and screaming, trying to fend off unseen predators. It killed Tsume inside to see her like that, knowing that he couldn't help her at all.

Finally, one by one, they fell asleep, except for Tsume, who sat by her side, unmoving, blinking away sleep as he watched her comatose form. Sometime during their fight for Sou's life, Tsume had gone hunting from pure frustration, and killed a deer. He gnawed on a piece of meat now, knowing that if he wanted to carry Sou while they traveled tomorrow, he had to keep some semblance of strength up. At last, his eyelids drooped, and he curled up, a gray wolf with battle scars, beside the beautiful woman who slept, unaware of the wolves watching over her.