HUNT (A Shifters Short Story)

Steve stood where I’d left him, his back to the fire, his white-knuckled fist still clenching a bloody knife. He watched me carefully, steadily, blade held ready, and again I saw too little fear to suit me, and nowhere near enough shock. He’d have to be either foolish or insane to openly challenge a giant cat, and frankly, I was hoping he was both.

I growled, and for one surreal moment, I wondered if he could see the other me peeking through my greenish cat eyes. The human me, who’d once suffered what he and his friends had tried to deal out. That Abby couldn’t fight back, but this Abby could. And would.

Steve’s blood whooshed rapidly through his veins. His eyes were bright and glossy with exhilaration. His arm tensed. He raised the knife for a strike, but I saw it coming because he wore his intent like a badge of stupidity pinned right to his shirt.

I swatted the blade from his hand with my front paw, and my blow swung him around. He went down a foot from the campfire, but was up in an instant.

“Good kitty…” he whispered, his voice low and steady, both hands spread in a defensive posture as I growled. He glanced over my head, and a sudden scuffle at my back made my fur stand on end. I leapt to the side, but was too late to completely avoid the blow. Billy’s huge knife slashed across my front right leg, several inches from my shoulder.

I hissed, and suddenly the blood-scent on the air had a new flavor. My flavor.

Dani scooted away from Billy. I took a step forward, trying to drive the men closer together, where I could see them both, but my injured leg half-collapsed beneath me. I couldn’t walk on it. Not for long anyway.

Steve noticed the limp, and I could see him assessing his chances. He had a real shot at survival now, and he knew it. He backed slowly toward the tent and hauled Robyn up by one arm. She screamed again. I limped forward, hissing, but before I could pounce, he glanced behind me, at Billy.

“We can’t bring them both,” he said. “Do her.”

“No!” Dani shouted, and her shuffling grew frantic. She understood before I did.

I whirled to see him haul Dani up by one arm. She dug her heels into the dirt, trying to pull free. I stepped toward them, and my leg folded again. Billy shoved his knife into her stomach and dragged it through her flesh toward her sternum. Dani’s eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open. I roared in grief and outrage. He let go, and she collapsed onto the dirt, blood pouring from the gaping hole in her torso.

“Stay, kitty…” Steve said, slowly pulling Robyn toward the woods. Terrified and sobbing, Robyn glanced from me to Dani, then to Billy, whose bloody knife glinted in the firelight. But she didn’t fight his grip this time. She knew better.

Billy circled me slowly, leaving plenty of room between us. He held his knife ready, and though I growled the whole time, I didn’t pounce again. And he didn’t expect me to. A natural-born cat—they probably thought I was a melanistic jaguar—would never chase three healthy humans into the woods on an injured leg, when there were three fresh bodies to eat right there in the clearing. And there would soon be a fourth.

Dani was still breathing, but she wouldn’t be for long, and I couldn’t let her die alone. Especially since I couldn’t reasonably rescue Robyn. Not in cat form, when I couldn’t put weight on my injured front leg.

Steve backed into the trees, pulling a shocked and sobbing Robyn with him, her face streaked with tears, her shirt streaked with blood. Billy stepped slowly out of the clearing on his side of the fire, and moments later, I heard him clomping through the underbrush toward Steve and Robyn. Then they headed through the woods together.

The last thing I heard before their footsteps faded from even my sensitive cat hearing was Billy’s whispered question, and Steve’s even softer reply.

“So, we’re just giving up on Abby?”

“No way. We’ll regroup at the cabin.”

I huffed softly through my nose as I limped toward Dani. There was a cabin. And they were obviously expecting me—the human me, the only one they knew—to return to the camp site. But why would they expect a girl they assumed to be helpless to return to the scene of a blood bath? Did they think I hadn’t heard my friends screaming? Was human hearing really that bad?

Regardless, if they were planning to come back for me, the cabin must be close. I could track them. I could get Robyn back. But not until Dani was gone. And not until I’d made a phone call.

Triple homicide in a werecat territory, involving a werecat tabby, was definitely a notify-your-local Alpha situation.

Even mortally wounded, Dani tried to scoot away from me as I approached. She was dying, and she knew it—I could see mortality gleaming in her eyes, along with reflected flames from the campfire—but she wasn’t eager to speed up the process by being eaten alive. And she had no reason to think I wouldn’t do just that.