Chapter Fifty-Six--More Than I Ever Needed To Know

Chapter Fifty-Six--More Than I Ever Needed To Know
I slipped into one of the guest bedrooms, closing the door behind me. Crossing the room, I lowered myself on the far side of the bed, and slid to the floor. I pulled my shirt from my shorts, spilling the notebook onto my lap.

The picture I’d seen earlier tore from the page and fluttered to the floor, upside down. The tape at opposite corners held fibers of the blue lines pages. I stared at the white back, edged in yellow, as if one too many cigars had been smoked in its presence.

I reached to upturn the photograph, pausing an inch from the offending material. I’d seen the horror already. Did I have to again? I closed my eyes and swallowed, opened the beaten blue cover.

I stared at the inside cover. In elegant scrawl I remembered from notes to school, and on the dry erase board from the childhood home I’d spent my first years of life, a list of three rules were carefully plotted.

1)              When Grey issues an order, do so without question. No matter how unpleasant they may become. Remember E798, and what happened to him when he refused. Once you’re in, you can’t get out.

2)              Always cover your tracks, no matter what it takes. But, if the S find you out, and you’re brought in, never, ever betray your brothers and sisters. You are on your own. Take as many with you as you can.

3)              Protect the human race. They can never know what lays in wait out there on the full moon.

Clara had taken time to carefully scrawl these out. Where these code used by all hunters, or just her? I skipped to the first page, and my heart clenched. No date marked the passing of the first entry, but I didn’t need one. The scribble was messy, and parts of the ink blotched, as if she’d cried over this page.

He came to H in a whirlwind. I saw him first on a trip to the post office. After that, I kept seeing him everywhere. He’d watch me, and I’d blush. It was about three months ago that he finally talked to me.

And now, I’ve fallen in love with him. He is wild and free, doesn’t adhere to society’s way of things. He doesn’t care about what people think of him. Better yet, I think he feels the same way about me, though he hasn’t said so. He has become my life, when my husband no longer notices me. At night, I sneak out to see him. When my husband worked, and my kid was at school, B12 would come to me. The things he does to me, I can’t even describe how he excites me.

In the end, he opened my eyes to my own life, and how miserable I was.

I’m not cut out to me a mom of a sad little girl. Every time I look at her, I see my husband. I don’t want to anymore. It took me too long to figure out I wasn’t meant for this life. I have a greater purpose. One that is far more important than rearing some kid, being a housewife to an ungrateful man, who only needs me to clean his house, cook his meals and screw him twice a month. God forbid if I don’t. He never shuts up, his complaints keep coming.

Now that has changed. My husband and daughter have no one to blame but themselves. Had they been better to me, maybe I might’ve chosen them over my duty to the world, now that I know what’s really out there.

B12 finally opened up to me about what he was hunting in the mountains.

As I write this, I’m sitting in a car, racing away from H, as B12 drives away. He’s taking me to Grey’s people. I had to leave. I had no choice. I would’ve lost my sanity if I’d stayed with him. Besides, my family couldn’t handle what I’m becoming. None of those idiots from H would understand the importance.

Tonight, I saw them. Their violence and greed. They’re killing HBs, right here, so close to H, where I’ve lived. Where I’ve been that stereotypical girl that could never escape small town living. No more. I’ve made my decision. I’ve seen the light. Out of the captives the S were hunting, I grew up with one, and knew the other. She was a daughter of one of my mother’s friends. People are dying, and for what? Sport? Amusement?

I will show them sadism.

They will all die.

I sniffled, as I turned the page, then another. More garbage about B12, and her resentment of H, which I figured meant Harbor. S meant shifters, HB, human beings. B12 was beyond me, until she talked more about herself as E294, and other letter number combination, was E202. Obviously codes, but what did they mean? As I continued to read, her reverence clearly showed in other numbers, related to ones that began with A and B. She talked about D and E with scorn, as if they didn’t matter as much. C was rarely mentioned. Ranks. They had to be. Based on her team as I knew them, Gruff Man was E202. What about Hero Boy?

Didn’t take much to figure out B12 was Mr. Quiet. The love of her life.

A thought chilled my blood. What if the numbers meant a recruitment order? E202 implied there were two hundred and one ahead of him, the lowest rank of all. If Clara was E294… The immensity hit me. We weren’t dealing with just a couple of zealot, but hundreds, maybe thousands of hunters. Organized. No doubt financially backed by the “Grey,” Clara had never met or personally spoken to.

I shuffled through the pages. I came to a plastic pocket, containing a few dozen loose photos. Bile rose as I pulled them from out. Clara was in every one. The first two, she stood or sat with Mr. Quiet, close and intimate. The third was her holding the carcass of a very small, bloody tiger in a back alley, a beautiful smile lighting her face. A shifter, not even half grown. A child. On the back written: My first kill.