Watercolor Girl

29 The Execution

DATE OF EXECUTION

Stev

The blood boiled in me. The weak cowardly pup that had been my brother and could never even hold his own in simple sparring had stolen everything that was meant for me. Everything. He had been handed the beta title, he had been given that which had been bought and paid for as mine by way of the b**ch he had mated. Ciaran had promised to correct the mistake that had taken me years to overcome. To get back from. When I had her in the training room the intention had been to mark her then but apparently she didn’t play as rough then as she plays now, undeniable evidence that she had been meant to produce the next great bloodline. She was worth her weight in gold but instead the goddess had ensured she fell into the hands of my pissant little brother who didn’t have the guts or brains to cash in on it and fortify the next great wave of the wolf. Even her sire had been aware of what she was meant for. Ciaran himself is was weak. The peace of the time has given him a sense of complacency, Lev was to be mine to exterminate and the position would have fallen undeniably onto my shoulders as the by laws of the pack had been written that only blood of the beta heirs could fulfill the title. Ciaran and Lev had been mine to destroy for all the years I suffered finding my way back and building my army. Lev had seen the weakness in Ciaran and exploited it before my plan could materialize. I had set it up for myself and he had stolen my spot yet again. My title, the mate I had chosen, and the title that was to be mine once I had reestablished myself in the pack. His scent hound had found me waiting in the woods to meet with Ciaran. She had taken me by surprise, but I wasn’t done. I had broken free from imprisonments before and I would do it again, but only in the right moment. As the papers had been signed it didn’t matter now, I would always be an enemy of the Storm Solstice pack. I could accept my inevitable fate, but I would not be traveling to the halls of the great beyond on my own. I was going to drag him down with me, as he’d done his entire sniveling life. First him, and then her. I wanted to watch him ripped from her. It’s often said in the world of wolves that there is no greater pain then to witness and feel simultaneously the death of your fated mate. The death of a part of yourself, and I wanted her to have to endure it. If I could dispatch him, and mark her before I could be dispatched myself she would have to suffer the pain of two violent deaths before her own and although that wouldn’t satiate my anger it would bring a smile to my face when the final blow struck me down. Yes maybe the outcome has been screwed up, but they weren’t going to get away from my vengeance.

Lev

Evie wanted to go see him put down. I didn’t like the prospect of it but she insisted and as usual I relented. If she needed this, she needed it. Patrick and several members of patrol would be there, as well as myself as the executioner on this case. She would be well protected not that she needed it. Her nerves had gotten the better of her and she’d slept poorly, but was wired on her 3rd cup of coffee by about 5am. We were scheduled to be at the prison at 8AM. There was a small courtyard that was used for this purpose, it was an old tradition of the dust to dust earth to earth belief that the blood of the guilty should be spilled back into the earth, so all executions were done “outside” in the open air and on natural ground. The concept of due process frustrated her in this case. She questioned why she could m******e 5 wolves in the forest and that was fine but we couldn’t execute the convicted 2 hours ahead of schedule. I understood. But it just wasn’t how this worked. She had at some point popped in earbuds, sitting at the window wrapped in the comfort that music brought her. The versatility of her collection occasionally fascinated me. Right now, she sat singing a song is never heard before, at least that I could place, oblivious to the fact that I was watching her as she rocked a bit, letting the music I couldn’t hear move her.

“…So I'll run so far from these shadows

Makeshift but my heart's still fragile

I'd drown but the water's too shallow

My heads still caught in the gallows

Your kiss is my remedy

I fall to the ground so desperately

Baby, I know that you're mad at me

Filling all the voids like cavities…”

(Guardin - Solitary)

“Ohhhh Evie’s listening to Guardin. Get ready, Lev, it’s gonna be a day.” Rea was in the kitchen pouring herself a coffee.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Guardin is one of her ‘I’m refusing to deal with my emotions’ artists. Give it a few she’ll move on to Hotel Books, or La Dispute.”

“You know her well, Re. Is it better she not come today?”

“When she first started coming into the shop I used to love watching her when she found a song she liked. The way it sort of just became her. I started letting pick the music. And I swear when she was on she’d have fricken hell’s angels dancing around the shop with her.”

“There is a cost, my friends

Of living out some other dream to find the consequence

It comes and goes in seasons around here, I thought again

There's nothing left around to yield this sorry ignorance

If I do echo I hope you never see

There is no one there that's waiting after me

And I hope if there is one thing I let go it is the way that we cope”

(Manchester Orchestra - Cope)

“You ignored my question, Xandrea.”

“I did. Yer right. Because there isn’t an obviously answer.” We both sat watching Evie, lost in another universe, occasionally sipping her coffee.

“So now tell me how your story goes, have you ever suffered?

If so, did you get better or have you never quite recovered from it?

Did you find your lover laying in your bedroom with another and then

Did you let it hover over you and everything else well after the fact?…

…Tell me what your purpose is, who it was that put you here and why?

Did anybody really put you here at all?

And what of those necessities? Like how to cope with tragedy and pain?

Did anybody ever show you how?

(La Dispute - All Our Bruised Bodies and the Whole Heart Shrinks)

I listened to the words Evie was singing and winced.

“I don’t think it’ll do her any good at all to go. But you’d be hard pressed to keep her here. But then I don’t know, Lev. Told you she’d be onto La Dispute eventually. This is all you, guy, I’m going to hide before she realizes I’m awake. I know when to make myself scarce.” I watched Rea disappear down the hall into her room. I went and picked Evie up, sitting her on my lap, she leaned against me, pulling one of her earbuds out and offering it to me. I had plans to install a stereo system in here like I had in the mountain house but I hadn’t gotten to it yet. I made a note to do it sooner rather then later.

“Something about today feels wrong. All of this has been too easy.”

“It’ll be over today little one. Then we just have to deal with the remainder of his stragglers.”

“If you say so.”

The clock read 7:15 and we needed to get going. Evie’s dread was getting to me somewhat and I found myself fidgeting with her hair.

“You ready to go little one?” She didn’t answer but she got up, stretching, offering her hands to pull me up.

The drive to was silent. She didn’t mess with the radio or hooking her phone to the Bluetooth in the truck. I held her hand when we walked in. Patrick had obviously had a rough night as well. He looked pale and tired. Executions in the pack were in essence barbaric. The majority of them were done by wolf, again, a weird sick symbolism of the animals we inherently are. I was opting to not do that. We had a sort of machete that would expedite the process providing the force exerted was enough, and I knew that I could get it done in a single motion rather then the ripping or tearing that it would be if I let Til have it.

Ollie and Patrick went to retrieve Stev, Evie stood in the corner of the courtyard, maybe hoping he wouldn’t notice that she was there at all. It seemed to work, when he trotted out his eyes fixed directly onto me. He was smiling and I wondered if he had always been this sick and somehow I’d just never noticed it in my youth. Stev’s back was to Evie, her face seemed concerned as Patrick and Ollie put him on his knees and fixed his shackles to the metal rings that were poured into concrete blocks and semi buried in the ground.

“Anything to say, Stev?”

“I’ll see you in hell, brother. Much sooner then you even realize.” I glanced up at Evie, Nox had her eyes. I couldn’t read anything on her face as a result. I took a step back, looking my brother and kneeling there and trying to come up with a single decent memory I had with him. A moment where maybe we’d laughed together, or maybe where he had attempted to put on big brother shoes and teach me how to do something, or anything, but I came up empty. Just years of his cruelty. I moved to position myself. Just out of the very corner of my eye, I caught motion. Evie was in motion and pain ripped through my entire body.

Evie

I don’t think Stev noticed me at all. He had remained focused on Lev, never removing his eyes from him. I couldn’t see his face but I could see his hands. Something seemed off but I couldn’t place it. I gave Nox our vision, and she scrutinized, both of us in agreement that something just didn’t seem right about his hands. What was it. He had his hands set down on the ground, somewhat in front of him. Nox scoured him.

“Little one, the lock is disconnected. Shouldn’t it be connected to the chain?” She was right, but maybe they’d undone it for the sake of access to the back of his neck. We scanned. Nox’s eyes picked up the slightest muscle twitch in one of his arms, and we saw it. The shackle had been opened, the twitch had dislodged whatever it was that was keeping it falsely fastened, they were open, I reached out but hit a wall, the prison was built to disallow linking. Lev wasn’t paying attention to me, so I sprung forward slowed by the elemental fortification of the prison. Lev caught my movement and jumped back, but not fast enough, a massive partially shifted gray paw ripped through his chest and an excruciating pain tore through me. Lev stumbled back not quite losing his footing but dazed I kicked my boots off and demanded a shift, but all of my functions were slower. Stev was fully shifted and came back at Lev, who managed to somehow spin away from him mostly but another pain tore through my arm. Pain. Nox was finally in her full form and she hit Stev in her classic calculated but headlong way. He rolled into the dirt and she moved between him and Lev before charging at the slightly dazed gray wolf shaking the confusion off. He squared off with her. Taunting her, but Nox knew better, she waited, the pain radiating out from her chest. The big gray wolf charged, she moved forward to meet it but he leapt throwing her off just enough, she managed to drag her claws with heavy force into his flank, tearing and cutting through the flesh like a hot knife through butter. It was so easy. He stumbled some when he hit the ground, she must have damaged something because he was struggling with a lack of weight bearing on that leg, it had thrown him off kilter, Nox’s teeth found his back, ripping and tearing in an attempt to damage the spine but before she could manage he rolled off of him and was moving for Lev again. Something had to have been damaged in his arm, it just hung awkwardly down by his side. Til had his eyes but they hadn’t shifted, why hadn’t they shifted. Lev’s face was pure rage, but I didn’t have time to focus on Lev, Nox was running down the gray wolf, her body slamming into him again and pushing him off the path of my mate. I reached out forcing myself through the wall, pushing harder then I’ve fought before, screaming shift into his head. Til screamed out “

“Wolfsbane.” Answering.

“You can do what I can do. Try! You have to try!” I was pleading with him unsure if I could even reach him. Lev started to run backwards further away from us who were now wrestling for the blood shot in the dirt. The snaps of missed bites sounding and the pain of claws tearing through muscle and skin raking through my entire body. Nox was airborne, he had managed to dislodge her his claws had torn into her underbelly and she hit the ground hard, scrambling to get her feet back under her body. We watched him charging back towards us. She wasn’t going to get herself together fast enough. Fear of the inevitable end wrapped around us tighter then the pain that had been ravaging every nerve.

“I love you, Lev. In every life.” Nox shifted just barely fast enough for him to catch her shoulder rather then her throat, an unbearable pain tore through the side of her body.

Nox spoke to me “tis but a scratch, little one.”

- “Mercutio dies in that play, Nox.” I answered back. - “I know.” She whispered to me.

She was still fighting but her body was giving out and I could feel the heavy exhaustion coming over her. She knew too, but Nox was never going to submit. Not my wolf. The taste of blood filled my mouth and if I could I would have smiled. The blackness started to take my vision, thunder so loud it shook the ground we laid on. Just before the darkness completely swept over us.

Lev

Evie had known, she had known. As I stumbled back from the pain I watched her shifting, it was labored and slow but she did it, Nox moving like liquid fire over the ground and slamming her body into Zven’s body. Sending him rolling as she’d done to me so many times. Til struggled trying to break through. Screaming in my head, adding to the confusion of everything. When he finally took my eyes he was charging towards Nox, but Nox wasn’t his target. We spun away, catching his claws across our arm. Nox was on him again. Driving him further away.

“SHIFT!!” I reached but couldn’t push through the prison or the wolfsbane. Til screamed out to her, telling her why he couldn’t shift.

“You can do what I can do. Try! You have to try!” Til pushed from the inside, fighting for the shift, pushing, “we need more time.” He roared through my head as we watched our mates battle for the upper hand against a wolf that outsized her. She had pushed out a black because I couldn’t feel any of the pain she had to have been feeling. I backpedaled keeping my eyes on them but trying to give Til just a little bit more time before he turned his attentions back to us, the weak link out here. Always the weakest link. I watched as Nox flew through the air landing hard on her side, scrambling to gain her footing, watching as he closed the gap quickly between them.

“I love you, Lev. In every life.”

He lunged at her, she rolled away but I could see his teeth disappear into her shoulder. I felt it, all of her pain. It fell on me like a toppling building. And then I felt something else, Til was there and then he was in control. He released a deafening earth shattering roar, Zven barely had time to turn his head before his throat was in our teeth. Til was tearing, ripping,

Nox lay in the dirt motionless and a fist grabbed my heart and started to squeeze it, choking it.

Til finished his mission, Zven’s head lay mutilated several feet from his body. Til turned to Nox rushing to her. Patrick and Ollie were suddenly there, but where had they been before? They should have been here.

I shifted, crying, the fist in my chest crushing my heart, I could barely breathe. The pool of blood around Nox dark and shining growing. Before Patrick and Ollie picked her up, carrying her out to my truck where the slid her into the bed. Not my mate in the back. Not like this. Patrick jumped into the drivers seat and I climbed into the back with Nox. I was naked and bleeding and it felt like every bone in my body was being crushed.

“Evie you have to shift. You have to get back to your body.” I begged, Nox’s head in my lap as I stroked the her soft shiny fur. Blood continued to pool but more slowly. Patrick drove like his life depended on it. I continued to plead with Evie to somehow find herself enough to shift. I could feel her fade-in, the fist in my chest squeezing tighter and tighter.

Silver was waiting right outside the clinic, we’d been in just two days ago to have her staples removed. She looked at me with sad eyes.

“Lev, she needs to shift, there’s only so much we can do when she’s in this form.” I couldn’t force out words, the pain and the fist took away my ability to speak. Patrick got out, yelling at Silver to do something, he and Ollie pulling Nox out of the bed of the truck and away from me. Silver paused, and not even a minute later some of her apprentices were there moving quickly. Ollie handed me shorts from where I don’t know, the least of my worries was being naked right now. “Lev you need attention to.” Silver’s voice was pleading. But I want leaving Nox or Evie.

“Later” I forced out and I could see her posture fall. Watching your mate die is supposed to be one of the worst possible pains we can feel. She wanted me gone, and I knew it.

“Lev, I’m gonna hit her with a massive shot of adrenaline, I need you to tell her to shift if she wakes any, the effect won’t be long lasting and she won’t be fully aware of what’s going on out here. You need to be in her head. Do you understand?” I nodded but her eyes showed a distrust, and a fear that scared me soulless. If, if, If repeating in my head. Silver had climbed into the back of the truck, instructing Ollie and Patrick where and how to hold her. “Lev”. She said glancing at me, “get in her head.” I reached out Evie was blank but Nox was a flicker. I started screaming at her to shift, watching her eyes that gave away absolutely nothing. I stayed in her head screaming and pleading but Nox remained faint slipping further away, her dim flicker fading even more. Suddenly her color erupted and I demanded pushing out the Alpha command I’d never used before, shift Nox, almost instantly Evie was in their hands, but there was still nothing from Evie, she remained void of color but they were moving her. Tossing her into a white sheeted gurney that amplified the severity of the blood. I tried to follow but Silver pushed me away.

“Lev you need to go get treatment we have a better shot with her in this form.”

“She’s weaker.”

“We’ll get her back. Just go.” And she ran following Evie through doors and leaving me to stand there, I turned to Ollie and Patrick.

“WHERE WERE YOU?” An outpouring of anger and desperate fear directed at them as they stood, heads bowed. Shame and fear.

“Alpha, neither of us could shift. We had no connection to our wolves, we still don’t. We have patrols searching his cell. Trying to figure out how any of this happened. He hasn’t had access to anything. He hasn’t been out. He’s been guarded constantly, left alone for not even a second.” Patrick reported. “We couldn’t keep up with them.” I forgot that Evie and had a semi immunity to wolfsbane and it’s effects on our kind. Patrick and Ollie would have been relatively useless, weak, slow, and easily confused because of it. I sat down in one of the chairs in the waiting area, blood pooled from my chest onto my stomach.

“Someone needs to go get Rea. If Evie dies she needs to be here.” I reached out searching for Evie, but she remained blackened, Nox was barely a wisp if smoke. Ollie had run from the clinic and I heard the truck take off.

“Don’t let her go, Nox.” I didn’t anticipate a response. I didn’t anticipate anything except bad news.

“We’re fighting, mate.” Nox’s voice was thin, floating through my head bouncing of the walls of my skull like a bullet in slow motion. I sat there until someone from the clinic came out, they brought their equipment to me and worked while I sat there, oblivious really to anything until Rea was beside me.

“I couldn’t shift, Rea. He outsized her by a lot. She’s gonna die and I was right there.” Rea hugged my head to her chest and brushed my hair aside, doing her best to stay out of the way of the apprentices pulling and stapling my skin together. They didn’t dare ask her to move, or step away. They worked around her. I could hear her heartbeat, too fast. I cried into Rea. I couldn’t feel whatever they were doing to my arm, the squeezing in my chest made any other pain feel like a hug. Rea and I waited for hours before Silver emerged from the doors.

“Lev.” All I could muster was the movement of my eyes. Moving them to her slowly.

“We got her back. But her prognosis still isn’t good. I need you to go in there and attach yourself to her. Any place that you can make skin contact directly. But I’m am telling you right now, be prepared because she looks awful. She is connected to alot of machines and for all intents and purposes she’s in a coma. Do you understand?” I nodded and stood up slowly. My eyes shifted to Rea.

“I’ll be right here, cowboy, I’m not going anywhere.” And with that I followed Silver through the doors into what felt like the bowels of the clinic. Is this where they hide the worst of them? Is there where we come to die? No warning nor description Silver could have given me would have prepared me for what Evie was right now. She was a massive bruise, her face, her neck, her shoulders, covered in deep purple and yellow marks. They had shaved half of her head a railroad of staples across it, small tubes ran into her skull. I dropped my shorts and pulled the sheet back, more devastation hit me. Her body looked like a map. Railroads tracks of staples, oceans of bruising, mountains ranges of ripped or punctured skin. One of her legs was splinted one of her arms. I looked up at Silver who had a genuine pity written all over her face. She moved to shift wires or find slack in lines, making a space in the chaos for me. I curled my body around Evie’s very broken one. Silver shifted Evie’s arm so I could press myself against her side. The contact was believed to aid in the process of healing, quickening it, but I wondered if Evie even still existed inside of this. Silver built up pillows around dofferent parts of Evie that I would potentially be putting pressure on. I pressed my face as gently as I could into her shoulder and neck. Listening to the steady static beeping of my mate’s machines. Silver built up more pillow support for my arm so the weight of it wasn’t entirely resting on Evie. She flashed me another sad sort of looking before stepping out and shutting the door. I hadn’t fought any of the emotions that had come to me, but in this moment of alone with my terribly broken little warrior I sobbed completely unrestrained. The beeping and the shallow uneven exhales lulled me into a peace - less restless sleep.