Chapter 44

Despite knowing her situation was dire, Lola kept on fighting. Her body wanted to give up on her. It was exhausted. And in so much pain. She was having a much harder time pushing it away now and only seemed to be racking up more injuries. Nora, on the other hand, looked fully healed now and sauntered toward Lola in a lazy, over-confident walk. She had all this cockiness, like she knew exactly what was coming next. The disgusting, human bitch was done. Finished.

“I really wish I could stay and play longer but it sounds like it's time for me to finish you off and get going,” Nora said, flashing a chilling, broad grin. Her teeth were pointed and as she smiled at Lola, she brought up one of her claws and licked the blood off it.

Lola’s blood.

She saw that and a dark, eerie sensation rippled through her. Seeing this woman casually taste her blood was like being forced to watch someone eating bits of yourself. It was creepy but it was meant to, she supposed. Just another scare tactic to throw her off her game.

“I hope you choke on me,” Lola shouted.

“No need to worry little bunny. I’ll make sure to chew thoroughly.” Nora laughed and before Lola was completely ready, she darted forward.

Lola sucked in a breath at the sudden lunge but managed to dodge out of the way at the very last second. She took yet another hit to her arm as Nora’s claws slid across her flesh and split it open. She screamed, faltered, and tripped. There was a moment when she was falling where she remembered thinking this was the end. Nora was going to kill her now for sure, just as soon as she landed. So instead of giving her that opportunity, Lola turned her fall into a forward roll. The pain was enormous. She had to put a lot of weight on her broken arm and as she did, she felt it give way even more. But she managed to stay alive, at least, adding seconds to her dwindling lifespan.

Lola had been correct in her assumption. Nora did try to grab hold of her right when she fell but ended up with nothing but air. She let out a growl of frustration and quickly reoriented to chase Lola down. The girl, however, was nimble and kept dodging out of the way.

What the fuck do I do? She kept asking herself this but still, nothing would come to her. The terror was really starting to sink in. Death was practically breathing down her neck now.

“Stay still, bitch!” Nora screamed, her voice gaining a hysterical edge to it that gave Lola a little bit of satisfaction.

Lola gave the sadistic werewolf a lunatic smile of her own and flipped her off. Nora’s eyes flashed with wild anger at that, which made her attacks more erratic and crazed. That also had the happy side effect of Nora becoming much easier to manipulate.

Maybe that’s the plan, she thought to herself. Get her so angry that she does something incredibly stupid and then capitalize on that by either running away or calling for help. It was, by no means, a sure bet but it was better than nothing.

“It’s funny,” Lola said, gasping. “Here I am, bloody and messed up and yet you still can’t manage to catch me. You know what? I think I might have been just fine if I hadn’t hid back when you fucks attacked my village. You’re all so inept and weak, I probably would have been fine.”

“Big talk from someone who can barely walk,” Nora said. What Lola said made the woman angry, sure, but not angry enough.

I need to go to the next level, Lola thought to herself. But what would piss off this woman she didn’t even know enough to make her react in a blind rage? It wasn’t too hard to make the logic jump on that one.

Drake.

Nora had crossed into an enemy nation’s country and directly into their stronghold just to kill someone on that crazy asshole’s command. She must have some incredible devotion to the guy to do something like that.

Devotion or…

Love.

Lola was pretty sure it was the latter. It wasn’t all that hard to spot.

“Drake too much of a coward to come kill me himself? He had to send his little bitch?” Lola let out a long, insulting laugh. “I mean, really? He has to do all this just to kill one human girl. It’s ridiculous. And so…”

She paused and locked eyes with Nora.

“Pathetic,” she finished, laughing again. It hurt to laugh but she really wanted to keep doing it. Judging by Nora’s reaction, it was starting to work.

“Shut up!” she screamed, her voice so high and loud, Lola heard the guards take note.

The faint sounds of armored boots hitting stone suddenly stopped for a few seconds, and then picked up again. There were other, almost inaudible words, but the important part was, they sounded like they were getting closer. Which meant, Lola was thrilled to realize, the guards were coming toward the little park.

Well, that works too, Lola thought to herself. She hadn’t screamed herself, thinking that would only force Nora’s hand and make her kill her a lot faster. Getting the psycho she-wolf to scream herself, however, worked nicely too.

“Go ahead,” Lola taunted. “Scream a bit louder. I don’t think the guards heard you the first time.”

Nora’s eyes flashed.

“You stupid bitch,” she shouted, slowly stepping toward Lola. Lola, in turn, took several steps backward. “I can hear those fools. They’re still too far away. By the time they get here, you’ll be in pieces.”

Damnit, Lola thought to herself. She was probably right about that. Once Nora stopped messing with her, she was done for.

Maybe she could trick her again. Stall her some more.

She was about to open her mouth when the worst possible thing happened. Nora got serious.

“No more games, little bunny,” she said, her voice losing all traces of mockery and insult. More of her body transformed and in seconds, she looked like a hybrid between a human woman and a wolf. She barked out a roar and then darted right at Lola.

For the first few minutes, Lola actually held her own. Well, to a degree anyway. She couldn't really hit back, not with one broken arm and another one slashed open in several spots, but she could at least dodge out of the way. That weird, icy sensation really proved invaluable with this as it seemed to alert her to imminent danger moments before it actually happened. But even with that advantage, ultimately, her body had been pushed too far past its exhaustion point. She was breathing harder. Her moves got slower. She stumbled and tripped a lot when her legs started to burn with the effort to keep her out of Nora’s reach.

“Fucking done now, bitch,” Nora spewed. She bounded across the lawn at Lola on all fours, yet still managing to look both graceful and deadly at the same time.

Lola tried to get out of the way but her body wouldn’t respond to her. Nora crashed into her with all the force of a rampaging sasquatch. She felt her breath explode out of her. The cracked ribs screamed at her. Her broken arm flared up as well. Added to all that was another bone that snapped, this one in one of her legs. She wasn’t even sure which bone but she could definitely tell it was broken. As soon as it snapped, it could no longer support her full weight. She went down with Nora still on top of her. The back of her head slammed into the ground, making her see stars. Nora’s weight was like having a hundred pound sack of grain slammed right onto her chest. Her vision swam and darkness crept across it.

She was going to pass out.

“Now,” Nora said, staring down at her. “It’s time I shut you up for good.”

Lola struggled uselessly to get away, gasping like a fish to get much-needed air back into her lungs. The darkness got more pronounced. Her heart fluttered erratically with terror. She heard the guards again. Or at least, she thought she did. They sounded close now.

But not close enough.

Directly above Lola, with her face hanging over her like some kind of moon, was Nora. The smile was back. The same one that unnerved her so deeply before. She held up both of her clawed hands.

“Good night, little bunny,” Nora whispered.

Her claws flashed down.

And the world went black.

But Lola didn’t die. Darkness overcame her but there were also flashes of images. Weird images. She saw claws and fangs but they weren’t Nora’s. They looked slimmer somehow. More pointed. There was also a lot of blood. She could remember that pretty vividly. It sprayed into the dark, night air and splattered against the lawn, the tree, and the stone bench. Probably other places too but she couldn't remember that. It was like a whirling, hellscape, nightmare world that someone had thrust her into, just to see what she did.

And then the images stopped.

They stopped as suddenly as they appeared.

It was sometime later when she “came to.” The darkness slowly receded and it felt as if the world knit itself into being again. She saw stars first, way up in the sky. Then a smattering of clouds. The moon. Then she could feel things. Grass poking into her bare back. A chill breeze across her skin. Sounds came next. People’s voices. Booted footsteps. The rattle of weapons against armor.

What just happened?

She slowly, and very carefully, started to get up. It took her a full three to four minutes before she realized something was wrong. Well, something other than the confusion of still being alive when she knew she should be dead.

Then it hit her.

She wasn’t in pain anymore. With a look of utter shock, she glanced down at her body and found it whole and undamaged. All the wounds she suffered were gone. Her broken bones had healed.

And, she realized with dawning horror, she was completely naked. There were shredded bits of cloth all over the place and when she saw her mostly intact cloak, she crawled along the grass to it and grabbed it up.

What was underneath, however, caused her heart to leap with terror. It was a carcass, ripped to bits and barely recognizable as human. There were deep gouges in the flesh as if something had taken big chunks out of it. Slashes of every size and shape covered most of it. And to make matters worse, it was in at least four different pieces.

Lola instantly recognized it.

The corpse was Nora.