"According to the guest sign in there were only two rooms rented out in the past week," Allison said. She stepped over the body of the clerk who had been working the front desk. "Rooms 110 and 111 were rented out earlier, a few hours after Aunt Kate escaped from the hunters in the woods."
Allison didn't even glance at the body of the man as she walked out of the office lobby to join her father just outside the door. The air was cool. She sniffed and pouted, all she could smell was gasoline. Normally that was enough to make her happy, not tonight though. Tonight, she was very upset at her aunt and even killing the man at the desk hadn't cheered her up.
"Don't worry, darling. We'll find your toy," her father Chris said. "Let's start with the rooms. We'll see if we can pick up their scents."
With Allison's little puppy missing Kate was on the bottom of the hierarchy. Her aunt fidgeted next to the police cruiser, probably hoping not to draw attention to herself. Allison grinned to herself thinking of what she would do to punish Kate for losing her toy. Allison had loved him, loved him since her mother had given him to her when she was just a little girl. They had grown up together. She had trained him perfectly. She had just bought him a collar but never got to put it on him. Allison ran her hands over the spiked leather in her coat pocket. The spikes were on both sides of it, she'd had it custom made for him. He'd have looked adorable.
"Kate, you check 111. Allison, make sure she does it right. I'll check 110," Chris said.
She followed Kate as the older woman walked toward the hotel room. Allison stopped briefly to get another canister of gasoline from the open trunk of the cruiser, idly splashed it onto the motel in various places humming softly as she went. Kate hesitated outside the door to the room, sniffing the air to make sure the room was unoccupied.
Allison grinned when her aunt looked back at her and then the canister of gasoline; it was probably throwing off her senses. Allison didn't care. She tapped her foot impatiently waiting for Kate to open the door.
After a few moments Kate turned the handle to the room, it was locked. Allison sighed at her aunt and dropped the canister of gasoline, not caring that it landed on its side and started spreading its contents onto the sidewalk. She pushed Kate to the side.
Allison kicked the door open, her enhanced hearing heard the sound of a wire snapping but it was too late to do anything about it. She dropped to the ground in case there was a gun rigged to the other side of it. There was no gunshot, but a hissing in the air as white smoke started pouring from the room.
She tried to hold her breath, but she wasn't fast enough, the gas had gotten into her lungs. She coughed; it burned her eyes and her mouth. She felt hands wrap around her ankles and drag her out of the billowing cloud.
Allison retched, her nose and eyes, her ears, they were all swelling. It was wolfsbane. The fucking hunters had ground wolfsbane into some sort of powdered aerosol and set it to detonate. It would have been harmless to humans.
"Daddy!" she screamed.
Kate was trying to wipe at her face to get the stinging film off her, but she was just spreading it, making worse. She backhanded Kate, only mildly satisfied at the sound of the cheekbone cracking. Blood vessels in Allison's eyes burst; tears of blood ran down her face.
"You're going to be fine, baby. Hold on," her father's worried voice was barely audible. She felt like she couldn't hear, wondered if there was more to that poisonous gas than she guessed. She felt her father pick her up, kick through the door to another room, maybe it was 112. All she could see was red.
She felt blood trickling from her ears and lips, it hurt. Her father dropped her into the bathtub of the room. He turned the shower on, tried to wipe the film off her skin with a cloth, it probably hurt him. Kate should have been the one caught in that blast; she should have kicked the door open and not waited for Allison to do it.
"Chris, I'm so sorry, I thought there was something on the other side, but I wasn't sure," Kate tried to explain.
"Shut up! Go search the rooms, find something useful and I'll think about not telling her mother," Chris said.
It was an empty promise. Allison had already decided to tell her mother, she was certain her father knew that. It took almost fifteen minutes for the burning to stop, another half hour for her skin to heal itself. She was not happy.
"I want Chocolate back, daddy," she was whining but that was the best way to motivate her father, "I miss him."
She wanted to see his dark brown eyes, wanted to look into those large and frightened depths. That always helped her feel better. She wished he would cry out more, ever since the night with the fire poker and charcoal he'd been too quiet. She loved how he smelled when he was afraid, loved the salty taste of the tears on his cheeks. She missed him terribly.
"We'll get him back I promise. He probably misses you," Chris said. "He was crying out for you earlier remember, honey?"
Allison did remember, it had sounded so delicious. He had sounded like he was in some extraordinary pain. It was a noise she'd never heard him make. She wanted to know how it was done, wanted to be the one to give it to him that pain again.
She stepped out of the shower and took the towel from her father's hands, they were red and blistered but the marks were already fading. Whatever had been in that smoke bomb was incredibly vile. She wondered if that's what they had used on Chocolate. She wanted some of her own.
"There's nothing here, Chris. Nothing useful," Kate said as she came back into the room. She picked at her nails, looking down at the floor and not at Allison or her father.
Chris sighed. He whipped around suddenly claws wrapping around Kate's throat. Allison grinned as her father forced her aunt to her knees. When Kate started screaming Allison clapped her hands delightedly. She didn't know Kate could make such wonderful noises.
"First, you lose Allison's toy in the woods, second you let her get hurt. Now, you're telling me that you haven't found anything useful?"
Allison loved the cold rage in his voice. She wanted it to turn into burning anger; there was only one thing more adorable than her father lost in fury. She couldn't wait to tell her mother what Kate had done, couldn't wait to see what her mother would do. Allison was going to record it.
"I'm s-sorry," Kate struggled to gasp out. She cried out in terror when the tendons in her neck snapped under Chris's grip.
"Daddy you have to stop. Until we get Chocolate back Kate's my only playmate," Allison said.
Her father released her aunt and stepped over her gasping body without a second glance. Allison stepped on Kate's wrist as she walked out, laughed at the sound of the bones cracking, at Kate's gasp of pain. She went back to the car and got a few more canisters of gasoline.
She smiled as Kate walked around her in a wide circle, clutching her hurt wrist to her chest on the way back to the car. Allison quickly forgot about Kate, lost herself in the joy of spreading the fluid around various parts of the motel. The Argents had already killed the few visitors and staff when they first arrived. She regretted that now. Sometimes she got too excited. She wished there were still some of them to play with.
Allison went back to her father's car to retrieve several road flares. Her aunt sat in the backseat looking at her hands for some reason. Allison ignored her and looked at her father. He was looking out into the woods. Her mother was coming.
She threw the road flares into the gasoline. She smiled as the motel started to burn. Allison loved to watch things burn, she wanted to watch the whole world burn. She sighed and pulled her phone out of her pocket, she looked longingly at the picture of a brown eyed boy. His eyes were empty, broken, barely alive. She missed him, she wanted to taste his blood slipping down his skin, wanted to smell the spicy fear that radiated off his body when she stroked him with her nails, with her claws, with her knives.
Tears started to fill her eyes. She was never going to see him again. She closed her eyes, let the pain of it claw its way towards her heart. Warm arms surrounded her from behind, her mother's scent enclosed protectively around her. She turned to face her mother.
"I miss him, mommy," Allison said, "and the people who took him hurt me."
She looked into her mother's eyes, was cheered up by the burning red anger that ignited in them. Her mother was savage and furious, a primal goddess of the hunt. Allison wanted to be like her when she grew up.
"Don't worry," Victoria said, "I'll find you something to play with until we get him back."
"Really?" Allison smiled and pulled up a picture on her phone, "Can you bring me this one? I see him in the woods all the time. We go to school together. He was Chocolate's friend, maybe I can get them to play together for me?"
"Whatever you want dear, I'll get him the next time he's in the woods. If he lives through the bite you can keep him," Victoria said.
Allison grinned. She hopped Jackson would survive the bite, she could have a light-haired and a dark-haired toy. She was so happy that she thought momentarily about not telling her mother about what Kate had done. She got into the front of the cruiser with her dad, her mother sat in the back with her aunt. The opportunity was just too much to pass up.
"Mommy, did daddy tell you about what Kate did at the hotel?" Allison asked.
She twisted around in her seat to look at the two women in the back seat, savored the rising tide of terror in the air. She couldn't wait to hear the screams start. She was so excited she almost forgot to hit record on her phone.