Chapter 11: Billie

Chapter 11: Billie

David threw me into the foyer and slammed the front door. I knew he’d be mad, but I didn’t expect him to be violent The intensity of his hand against my shoulder resonated through me until I felt numb standing there in the parlor. He radiated heat behind me while I stared at the floor holding back all the excuses I’d composed in the car. I thought I’d be ready to face David, but what I didn’t anticipate was Colt beside me angry too, and I didn’t know if he was angry at me or something else. David stepped closer and both of us tensed.

“Not only did you directly disobey me, but you interfered with business that could have gotten you killed,” David said, each word growing harsher. “Do you care about maintaining order in your pack? Or is the only thought in your head about yourself? Because it seems to me you don’t give it a shit about anyone, least of all me, when you get up in the middle of the night and disappear!” He grabbed me again, this time turning me around to face him.

“I can’t just hide in the manor anymore—!”

“You were almost killed!” he yelled down at me.

His voice tore into me and weakened my resolve. My legs nearly buckled from the pressure. I just wanted to apologize and take whatever verbal lashing he had to give me, but my nagging anger wouldn’t let me back down. I couldn’t now that I was fighting on behalf of my freedom. Yes, it almost got me killed, but it put me in Muriel’s path so I could help her. I was meant to be free, not wasting away in Hexen Manor! I ripped my gaze off the floor and stared back at David. “If I wasn’t there, they would have killed her!”

“I would rather a stranger die than my own daughter,” David shot back.

“But I was able to help her.”

“Billie,” he strained my name. “It’s not your duty to patrol the territory or protect anyone. Someone else would have found that woman. Your duty is to stay in the manor where it’s safe, where you’re out of the way, and keeping the pack’s communal spaces clean. You have a role and it’s not out there!”

“Out of the way?” I echoed, anger rising. “You’re missing the point. I helped that woman! I wanted to help her because I want to be strong enough so I can go outside. I was brave enough!”

“You were being stupid!”

“Please, David!”

“What do you want, Billie? You want me to reward you for giving in to your selfish impulses and putting your life in danger?”

“No, I… I just want you to understand! I have my wolf now, the manor isn’t enough space for me! Why can’t I have the same freedom as my packmates, like Colt and Catrina?” My throat swelled painfully.

David shook his head. “You aren’t like them, Billie. You’re delicate.”

“No, she’s right,” Colt chimed in. “So maybe her wolf was a little late, but she can transform now. She can hunt and patrol with the rest of us!”

“Oh, she can?” David challenged, looming over his son. “She could barely go get dressed at the Grandbay house without having to hold your hand.”

“I didn’t need Colt to go with me,” I argued.

But Colt glanced at me with hurt, as if I’d said I didn’t need him at all. “Billie’s capable of being independent. Why can’t you just give her a chance?”

“What happened near the perimeter is why I can’t take a chance on Billie. It’s bad enough she’s gotten hurt!”

“But I’m still alive,” I said.

“By total fluke,” said David. “If Gavin hadn’t turned up, the dragons would have slaughtered you and left your corpse for one of us to find. You know this, Billie!”

“Then teach me how to fight, or at least what to do next time I run into dragons!”

“There won’t be a next time!” David growled and balled his fists.

The front door burst open, revealing Catrina disheveled from the darkness. Her black hair was unkempt,her clothes scuffed with mud, and a holstered handgun hung on her hip. We all glanced at her, but the one she zeroed in on was me, her white teeth glinting in a snarl.

“You think Billie can be independent? Then let her deal with Catrina on her own,” said David.

The coldness in his voice anchored me to the spot. Catrina was always meanest when she had me alone, and when David moved away, she was all too quick to fill the space he left behind, grabbing the collar of my t-shirt while David held Colt back.

“You little whore,” she hissed, dragging me across the floor and thrusting me against the nearest wall. “What, was this some kind of scheme to get close to Gavin? I heard about how he came to your rescue! I smelled him where he fought off the dragons, I smelled both of you—you’re that desperate to seduce my boyfriend?”

David’s anger I could fight, but Catrina’s wrath was something else entirely. She wasn’t afraid to cut right through me. She didn’t even try to soften the blow. I knew right now she had a very legitimate reason to lash out at me, and she wasn’t going to hold any of it back. I tried to push her wrists away, but she growled and shook me instead.

“Answer me, Billie! You think just because you both had a Moondream, you have a right to mess around with my boyfriend?”

I gasped as my head rattled. “No, Cat—that wasn’t what I was doing!” I said. “I didn’t mean to run into him!”

“Don’t bullshit me!”

“Gavin’s way out of my league. He hates me, Cat. Why would I even try to mess around with him?”

Colt craned his neck past David. “We already talked about it. She doesn’t want Gavin, so just relax!”

“You better not!” Catrina threw me against the wall and backed away, steaming. “I can’t believe you’ve run off into the woods twice already. Now I have to worry about you stealing my boyfriend. It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”

Breathing hard, I stabilized myself against the wall and tried to stop shaking. The tone of her voice accused me of a deplorable crime I hadn’t even committed. My cheeks were so hot I wanted to break apart and cry, but I held fast, my strength arising from the anger that became more and more potent the longer I possessed it. “I don’t want anything to do with your stupid boyfriend,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “I want to be free to explore the territory as my wolf.”

Catrina lit up like she’d been doused in gasoline. “You’re not going anywhere! I’m gonna have Dad put a shock collar on you after the shit you pulled.”

“No!” I looked desperately at David, but he seemed like he was considering it.

“Billie, the life of a wolf isn’t for you. I’m grounding you another week. Disobey me again and I may have to take drastic measures like Cat suggests,” David said somberly.

I didn’t understand. Why was it so impossible for them to let me be free like everyone else? My heart shattered, but I should have expected David would punish me rather than hear me out. “That’s it? You’re just going to lock me up again?”

“I’m not locking you up. I’m keeping you safe from everything out there that wants to hurt you. Including Gavin, you stupid girl,” said David.

Including Gavin? Gavin was just worried about me. David and Catrina wanted me to stay locked up so I wouldn’t interfere with his and Catrina’s relationship. Bitterly, I slumped in defeat. “Will I ever be allowed to go outside?”

“Don’t pout,” snapped Catrina. “If you were strong enough like the rest of us, maybe. But you never will be.”

David shot a glance at Catrina as though to transmit something unspoken to her. I realized something, too; David and Catrina had a reason to not want me outside, and it wasn’t for my safety. It wasn’t about keeping me from Gavin, either. It had gone on long enough and without a real explanation that it was obvious now: they were hiding something from me.

“It’s something we’ll discuss another time. Right now, Billie, I just need you to go to your room and stay there,” David said firmly.

I was done with this conversation. David didn’t need to tell me twice; I turned and retreated to the stairs, glad for the silence that followed. The Hexens could talk about me all they liked once I was out of earshot. I knew they would. My solitude was much more welcome than trying to fight a losing battle.

After closing my door,  I paced instead of crumbling to the floor and crying in despair at the consequences I’d incurred. I was angrier than ever. I couldn’t forgive them for smothering me and acting like I was incapable of protecting myself. My wolf had proven to me that I could be strong enough. Even Gavin agreed that I shouldn’t be trapped in Hexen Manor, so… I’d find my way out.

All night, I lay awake thinking about where to start. I thought about all the salted and dried meat we had stored away, and my binoculars that David had hidden, and the handgun on Catrina’s hip that I’d never seen before. With the proper equipment, I could survive the wilderness. I didn’t need the Hexens. I was going to be free.

Tension gripped the manor over the next few days, which I was painfully aware was my fault. Somebody had to stay in the manor to guard me, and if not David or Catrina, then it was a packmate or two lounging in the parlor, or it was Colt in his bedroom studying. Nobody actually talked to me. I spent those days cleaning and  returning to my bedroom without talking to anyone. My entire family was angry at me and I was in the wrong for being so disobedient; it poisoned me a lot to think about, but I couldn’t just… stifle what had been awoken in me. Sometimes in moments of weakness, I did want to grovel for forgiveness and admit I was wrong. I was always tender-hearted; it was hard to be emotionally distanced from the only people I’d socialized with through my life, the people I depended on for guidance and affection, now my enemies. I didn’t even trust Colt, his silence feeling like a betrayal after he’d been so protective at the Grandbay house. The feud made me melancholy, and so did my empathetic thoughts of the aftermath of me running away, but I had to stay focused or else depression would stop me before I ever got started. I simmered and planned in every moment I was alone, knowing what was best for me was to be free. I thought of Muriel who had escaped the dragons and would be on her way home soon—I yearned to see her again—and mustered the courage to be like her. If I was brave enough to try to protect her, I could be brave enough to run away.

On a hot, cloudy afternoon, I was in the butchering room in the basement, sanitizing everything after a white-tailed stag was butchered earlier that day. Savoring the silence, I knew the hunters unwinding from the hunt were monitoring the basement door for my activity, but that they wouldn’t bother me if I just stayed down here. I wiped a stainless steel countertop and schemed about how I’d sneak down here to get rations to tide me over until I could hunt. My concentration broke when the basement door opened and I straightened up, expecting to have to prove to a nosy hunter I was still working.

Colt came downstairs and into the chilly butchering room wearing a sweater too big to be comfortable in the summer heat. Surprised, I held my tongue, undecided if I was still mad at him. Colt looked over his shoulder at the door. “It’s gonna rain later,” he commented.

I was still mad. Scrubbing the stainless steel, I kept my eyes down and hoped he would go away.

“Hey,” said Colt, inching closer. “Billie, what did I do? You haven’t talked to me at all these past few days.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, anger welling up. It felt like a reflex to get angry now.

Colt shoved his hands in his sweater pocket. “I do understand. You don’t think I agree with Dad and Catrina, do you? I defended you.”

“But you’re still going to make sure I never leave,” I said. “You have to do what David says. I get it.”

He looked over his shoulder one last time before pulling something out of his pocket and slipping it into my hands. Its weight told me instantly that they were my binoculars. “If you leave, you’re gonna need those. And you’re gonna have to be smarter about where you run.”

Surprised, I slipped the binoculars into my cleaning apron. “Thank you. But what makes you think I’m going to run?”

“Well if you weren’t thinking about it before, you’re probably thinking about it now,” he said under his breath.

“I don’t even know where I’d go,” I said quietly too.

“You can’t go to Gavin.”

“Yeah…” I wanted to see Muriel, but Gavin was probably the first person they’d question. I couldn’t risk him handing me over again.

“There’s something else too, Billie, if you are going to be out in the forest. Catrina told me that Dad met with someone the other night, a guy named Lothair. He’s one of the dragons.”

My stomach dropped. “What? Dalesbloom is supposed to chase the dragons off.”

“I don’t know. Dad didn’t tell me, so I assume he didn’t want me to know. It means they’re probably still in the territory, so… please be careful. You know what they smell like now, right?”

“Yeah.” I’d remember that burning tar stench for a long time.

Colt put his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to do this alone. I’ll help you, Billie.”

I knew he meant well, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I couldn’t trust him completely. If he was keeping the same secret as David and Catrina, he was just as bad as them. I moved his hand off my shoulder and stood back. “I only have one chance at this.” Before I got the shock collar.

“I know. I promise I’ll help you get away from here. Billie, I want you to be happy.”

My guard lowered a little. Colt always cared for me more than anyone else. Couldn’t I trust him? I mulled on it for long seconds while Colt watched me decide his fate, finally I sighed. “Okay. I have some ideas.”

Colt brightened. “Let’s make them happen.”