True to her word, Bess came to get me around noon the next day. She stayed for a few agonizing minutes to listen to Dean lecturing us about staying safe from my supernatural stalker, and then we both fled, giggling like teenage girls sneaking out in the middle of the night.
We rolled the windows down, letting the wind chase away the sticky heat.
"Ok," I said. "The whole pregnant women craving pickles thing, is that a myth or not?"
Bess laughed. "It's true for me," she said. "Though I have more of a red meat craving."
I nodded. "And chocolate?" I asked.
Bess made an eager face. "Oh, yes. So much chocolate. Garth keeps half the pantry filled with it now."
I laughed. We stopped at a red light, and I noticed Bess glancing over at me.
I turned to her with a raised eyebrow, and she smiled, knowing she'd been caught.
"Sorry," she said. "It's just- you don't seem to have a problem with me."
I blinked. I knew what she was talking about, but I decided to play stupid anyway.
"Why would I have a problem with you?" I asked.
Now it was Bess's turn to raise an eyebrow. "I am a werewolf," she said. "And you're a hunter. Neither of your brothers are very fond of me."
I shrugged. "I'm not them. And they're better than you think; they're just cautious around people they don't know that well. And overprotective of me."
Bess chuckled. "Yes, I figured that out."
We both laughed, thinking back to Dean's lecture.
"You really are fine with it?" Bess asked.
I nodded. "Really. I don't care if you're a werewolf, shape shifter, smurf, whatever. If you're a good person you're cool in my book."
Bess laughed lightly at my phrasing, but there was a shine of gratefulness in her eyes as she started driving again.
"Thank you," she said.
She turned on the radio after that, some old country station. Generally I'm not the biggest fan of country, but in small doses it's tolerable. Especially in place of the awkward werewolf talk. So I turned up the volume, and Bess and I sang along as loud as we could.
After stopping at the department store, where we bought probably way more than enough buckets of paint, we went to the mall and started for every store with baby sections, because why not?
The mall was a huge, multi-floored monstrosity. The first floor was mostly the large theater and even larger food court, with a few shops thrown in. All the stores we wanted were on floors two and up. We hopped on the elevator, heading for the third floor, where Bess's favorite baby store was.
In the stuffed animal department I threw a purple octopus into the wagon.
"This," I said. "Is adorable."
Bess chuckled. She moved off to investigate a couple of racks over, and I turned the other way, a giraffe catching my eye. I was just turning back to the cart when I collided with someone.
"Whoops. Sorry." I glanced up at the person I'd collided with. He was tall and broad, about as big as Sam, with light brown hair and grey eyes.
He smiled slightly. "It's fine." His voice was deep and rumbly. He gently scooted past me. "If you'd excuse me."
He hurried away, and I watched him go. That was odd. Was it my skin?
I frowned and added the giraffe to the cart, moving to another aisle. There I started going through little plastic teething things. I had no idea if werewolf teething was worse than normal human teething, but either way, teething toys wouldn't hurt.
Still, the man's curt behavior was bugging me, and I continued to worry over it several minutes later. I was so caught up in my worrying, in fact, that I didn't notice the growing feeling of being watched.
I froze as it first occurred to me, breaths changing to sharp hisses. My hand drifted to where my pocket knife was, but it felt somehow wrong to even entertain thoughts of pulling it while surrounded by baby stuff. Slowly I straightened, muscles tense as I turned slowly, scanning around me.
"Hey."
I jumped and nearly screamed as Bess came from behind me, fumbling automatically for my knife. Bess sent me an amused look as she dumped a bundle of cozy looking swaddling blankets in the basket, but as she caught sight of my face her expression changed to concerned.
"It's here," she guessed.
I nodded, eyes wide, and Bess gulped. Her hand came to hover protectively over her stomach, and I cursed mentally. This could not be happening. Not here, not with her. I couldn't chance something happening to Bess or the baby.
"Come on," said Bess. She spun the cart around, and when I didn't move she grabbed my hand and pulled. "Come on."
We hurried down the aisle, speed walking toward the counter to pay for the baby supplies. We shoved our purchases onto the counter, and as Bess tried to hurry the annoyingly talkative clerk through ringing us up, I scanned around. I didn't see anything, but that didn't mean much. I couldn't risk pulling out a knife here; someone would call the cops.
I darted to a little mini fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, shoving it at the clerk. She rang it up, and I grabbed it and stalked away.
From my bag I pulled the book that I'd been reading earlier, bookmarked with a rosary (it was either that or dog-earing the page, and I hate that). I uncapped the bottle of water and started purifying it, doing my best to not let anyone see. I had no idea if holy water would work on something non-demonic- I'd never tried it before- but it was that or nothing.
At last Bess had finished, and we speed walked from the store. I kept the purified bottle of water uncapped, ready to throw at the first person who came up to us, but no one did.
I wanted to take the stairs; something in my gut told me they were the best option, but both Bess and I knew she wasn't making it down those. Especially not with us carrying so many bags.
We resorted to pounding on the button to close the door. Slowly the metal doors started to inch together, but at the last moment someone slipped inside with us. It was the guy I'd bumped into in the store.
"Just made it," commented Bess to him with forced cheeriness.
The man nodded. He glanced around the elevator, eyes sweeping over Bess and me. Then his eyes widened, flashing back over to Bess. His expression twisted, and for a moment I thought I saw something akin to disgust there.
I tensed. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. All of a sudden alarms were going off in my head, screaming that I needed to get off that elevator right now. I realized that the sensation of being watched by someone who I couldn't see had disappeared.
For a moment no one moved. I could feel the tension building in the elevator as everyone realized exactly who we all were- the werewolf, the hunter, and her stalker.
Stalker boy was the first to move. He leapt forward, an angel blade flashing in his hand, aimed for Bess's heart. She yelped and jumped back, and the knife missed her by inches.
A moment later I rammed into him, water bottle splashing all over the place- seemingly with no effect on the stalker. We smashed into the wall, and I tried to wrestle the angel dagger from his hand. It didn't work, and the man threw me across the elevator.
He charged at Bess again, who tried to bat him away with some of the bags. It didn't really work, and she cried out as he grabbed her by the hair and shoved her against the wall, next to the door.
"Get off her!" I charged forward, stabbing with my pocket knife, but he parried easily with one hand, keeping Bess pinned against the wall with the other. Then he shoved me to the floor.
As he turned back to Bess she started clawing at him, nails seeming to sharpen. Her eyes turned a yellowish color, and her teeth were definitely sharper. She made scared, panicked, growling noises as she struck at the man, leaving deep gashes down his face, arms, and chest. Blood ran down his skin.
He stabbed at her, but at the last moment she broke free from his grip and ducked out of the way, and a shriek of fright tore from her lips as she dove to the side. The angel blade sunk into the wall where her head had been only a moment earlier. From where I had crashed against the opposite wall I lashed out with my foot, sending the man tumbling down. The angel blade clattered out of his hand.
I scrambled forward before his head had even stopped bouncing, snatching the angel blade from the ground. With my left hand, which was holding the knife, I held the man down, and with my right I punched him. Hard.
Blood spurted from his nose. I punched again, then again, then, as he stopped writhing under me to get away, I dropped the blade and used both hands to pummel him. There was a red rage coloring my mind, blocking out everything except how completely pissed I was.
"Lucy! Lucy, stop!"
It wasn't until Bess jumped forward and grabbed at me that I heard her yells. I struggled for a moment, but she was deceptively strong, and she managed to pin both my arms back against her.
"Lucy."
I was panting. I could feel her panting behind me, and could feel her heartbeat pounding through her shirt, through my hand that was pressed against her chest.
"Ok." I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head slightly to clear it. "I'm ok."
When I opened my eyes and glanced up at Bess she let go of me. Slowly I stood, backing away from the man.
This was him. I knew it. This was the person who had been stalking me for months now, who I had been living in terror of. He had finally come after me.
It was over.
Except something was wrong. He hadn't been attacking me- in fact it had almost seemed like he was making an effort to not hurt me. He had been trying to kill Bess.
"Bess," I said. "Are you ok?"
"Ye-yeah," she said.
I glanced over to see her backed against the wall, hands pressed to her stomach. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and still slightly yellowish, though the claws and fangs had retracted. Now that the fight was over, her terror was setting in.
"He- he was after me," Bess stammered. "Why was he after me?"
I shook my head. "He must have known. He knew you're a werewolf."
"How? And isn't he supposed to be after you?"
I gulped. "I don't know." I glanced around. Either way, we needed to get off that elevator. Stalker boy would be arrested, and hopefully the boys and I could find a way into the jail to see and him and find out what he was or what he wanted with me. "Shouldn't we have reached the first floor by now?"
Bess cursed. "The lights have gone out," she said. "The elevator must have stopped."
"Probably when he stabbed the wall." I pointed to where the man's angel blade had narrowly missed Bess's head, from which I could see a few wires poking out.
Bess poked at the red emergency button. "It's dead."
I pulled out my phone. "And of course, no cell service."
Together, we slanted a look to the man. Then I grabbed one of the new baby blankets from the bags and tore it in strips. I used them to tie up the man, binding his wrists and ankles.
"Ok." I gazed around again, then spotted a door on the ceiling. "We could climb out."
Bess glanced up. "I'm not going to fit through that."
One look at her stomach verified that she was right, and I sighed.
"You should go," Bess said. "Get help."
I shook my head. "I'm not leaving you here alone. What if he wakes up?"
Bess shot a nervous glance over to the tied up man, then did her best to look confident. "He's tied up," she said. "I'll be fine for a few minutes. Go get someone to call for help, and then come back."
I considered, then nodded with a sigh.
"Fine. But if he wakes up start shouting for me, and I'm coming back down."
Bess nodded, and I set to work trying to knock out the moveable piece of the ceiling. Jumping at it didn't work, so in the end I had to brace my hands and feet against the walls and shimmy up until I was close enough to reach the tile.
I swung myself out onto the roof and looked around. There was no ladder or anything on the walls for me to jump to. The only way I could possibly get to the next floor was the cord that the elevator hung on. From there it was a several meter climb to the door of the floor above us, which, though I couldn't see it that well from where I was, looked shut.
I sighed. Wiping any sweat on my hands off on my jeans, I jumped up, grabbing the cord. It was hard and taught, cutting into my hands, but with a wince I held on. Slowly I climbed, silently thanking Dean for all the many push-ups he still made me do when we trained.
Even still, by the time I reached the door my arms were burning. When I groped for the door my fingers barely brushed it, so, taking a deep breath, I flung myself off the cord.
I smashed against the wall, grasping hands wrapping around the small ledge at the last moment. I heaved myself up, then set to pounding on the door.
"Help!" I screamed. "Somebody!"
I tried to pry the metal doors open with my fingers, but it wasn't working too well. I alternated between that and calling, and luckily, within moments, someone answered.
"Is someone there?" I heard.
I breathed a sigh of relief. "Yeah! I'm here! I'm here! The elevator broke!"
There were distressed murmurs from on the other side of the door. I guessed I'd drawn a crowd with my yelling.
"Alright! Get back down to the elevator if it's safe," shouted the person. "We'll call help. Is it just you?"
I shook my head, then realized they couldn't see me. "No! My friend's with me; she's pregnant. And some guy; he tried to attack us!"
There was a long stream of curses.
"Can you freak out later?" I called. "Get a fricking ambulance!"
There was a minute or two where all I could make out was murmuring.
"Ok, they're on their way."
I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Is anyone hurt?"
"Just the guy who attacked us. He's not hurt bad."
The person on the other side of the door started to say something else, but I stopped listening. I could hear shouting from beneath me.
"Lucy!"
"Shit!" I glanced back to the door shut in my face. "My friend's calling me. Something's wrong."
"Ok, go. If you can, climb back up after and tell us what's going on. We'll let the paramedics know."
"Thank you!"
I threw myself back at the rope and started climbing. After a moment I gave up and slid down, ignoring the pain it caused in my hands.
"Bess?" I dropped down into the elevator, angel blade drawn. My eyes shot first to where the man was crumpled on the floor, but he hadn't woken.
"Here."
I turned to see Bess sitting now, one hand on her stomach and the other clenched in a fist at her side. She was breathing heavily through gritted teeth.
"What is it?" I hurried over, only realizing as I knelt down that the floor around her was wet.
Bess and I locked eyes.
"My water broke."
Ok, I know this is a major cliche, the elevator breaks down and the pregnant woman goes into labor. But I think, considering the fact that it's a werewolf pregnancy and there's also a still mysterious stalker on board, it's hopefully not as bad. Just a warning, the next chapter will be somewhat awkward given the whole labor thing. I'm doing what I can while writing it to minimize awkwardness, but... just putting it out there.
