"Damn!" Nathaniel had sent out a tracking alert and would soon find her. She threw the phone with all her might into a neighbor's yard and crossed the street, running a little further and crouching behind a set of large bushes several paces from the sidewalk without a moment to spare. Headlights shined down and Nathaniel's car screeched to a halt near where she had stood only a minute before. Two doors closed.
"Here?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah, you try this side, I'll get the other." Nathaniel's footsteps came nearer and were on the lawn. A dog inside the house barked, scratching at the windows. Moments later, the owner opened the door.
"What the hell are you doing in my yard? Get out of here before I call the police!"
"I'm looking for my dog."
"You don't have a dog, Jensen. I'm calling the cops on the count of three. One…two…"
"Screw off, old man. Daniel, let's go. Maybe she tossed the phone and went the other way." Nathaniel turned back to the car. The doors opened and closed again. To Juliette's relief, the road of the engine grew softer toward Nathaniel’s house and continued onward.
Her heart threatened to jump out of her chest. Her limbs were icy. An internal battle of emotions she couldn't identify raged on. Searching for her phone would be too risky, and if she found the device, too dangerous to carry. Without it, she had no way to call for help.
Convinced that Nathaniel wouldn't be back in her direction for a while, she ran to the sidewalk, alternating sprinting and walking, her feet slapping the concrete. Each time a car purred, she ran for cover. She paid no attention to where she headed. For several miles through unusually quiet streets lined with stately homes, she had nothing but adrenaline to carry her. Guessing the hour must have been near midnight when she saw the familiar rise of the Observatory, she willed one foot to go in front of the other, again and again, up and up. At last she reached the south side. For seconds only, she observed the twinkling city lights until her legs could hold her up no more and she collapsed.
* * *
On the way home from watching a film premiere, Tristan decided to take a detour to relax his mind. He never understood why fans worked themselves into such a tizzy over seeing a movie star from several yards away. His buddy Derek had scored a date for the following week, but Josh had not. The utter ridiculousness of everything gave him a headache. Missing his friend, Juliette, made the ache worse. Perhaps seeing the lights of the city from the spot he had started to consider "theirs" would help him feel closer to her.
He rounded the last corner and headed nearer to the wall to park. He almost passed his usual parking place when he spotted someone balled up on the concrete. But without making sure the person was all right, his conscience wouldn’t settle. So he parked, and his heart nearly stopped on him. The sheet of blond hair matched Juliette's. For a fleeting instant, he envisioned her on the ground like that, and shook his head to clear his thoughts.
Quietly he crept up on the woman, not wanting to startle her. "Miss, are you okay?" The woman's shoulders trembled. He stepped closer until her face met his. Two glassy blue eyes stared straight ahead, unblinking.
"Juliette! Oh my god, what happened?" Love swelled in his heart as he swooped down and pulled her up into his arms. Holding her like glass, he carried her back to his car and set her next to him on the hood to get better look at her. Swallowing, he took in her cut lip and swollen eye, the raw flesh on her hands, the dried blood on her legs. She had no shoes. Her fists stayed clenched to her chest, her head bowed, her eyes wide and unseeing.
With apparent hesitation, she lifted her face to his, and the tracks of dried tears stood out on her cheeks.
"Did Nathaniel do this?" Tristan asked as she turned away from him to heave. He caught her shoulders to keep her from falling over. When she was stable enough to sit up again, he pulled her to him with a minimum of resistance. "The first time he hurt you was already too far. I won't let you go back this after this. I can't, okay?" To his relief, she slowly nodded. "Can you talk?"
Juliette stared at him, and her tears started fresh. She dropped her head to his chest, and cried her heart out. Fear mingled with relief. "I'm so glad you came. I'm s- s-s-so....”
"What happened?"
"Oh my god, Tristan. He…Nathaniel sold me. He sold me like property to Daniel, and he…Daniel…tried ….he tried…and I screamed no, and still he tried...and I fought…and I got out the window…" She blinked hard and pressed her fingers to her eyes, massaging as if trying to erase a memory. Her body slunk against Tristan.
Tristan held her tightly, attempting to remind himself why tracking Nathaniel down and killing him would be a bad idea. "You’re a brave woman. I’m proud of you. Do you want me to take you to the police?”
“No,” she whispered.
“An emergency room?”
“They’d call the cops.”
Tristan bowed his head, confused. “Why would that be bad?”
Juliette softly chuckled. “It would be the word of the ex-foster kid against the popular guys. Who’d believe that I wasn’t...wasn’t ‘asking for it’?”
“Let's go to my place, get you cleaned up. Is that okay?” Tristan tried focusing on the remaining options. “My sisters should be there, and we can figure out what to do. You're not going back to Nate."
He supported her to his car, helped her sit down in the passenger’s seat, and retrieved a light blanket he kept in the trunk to wrap around her.
The drive home was silent except for Juliette’s occasional sniffles. As much as he wanted to take her hand, he let her have her space. Turning off the main road onto the long driveway, he slowed down until the manor came into view, and parked in the garage.
Juliette cleared her throat, brushing her tears away. “It’s like he wasn’t human. Neither of them were, Tristan.”
“What do you mean?” Tristan’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, eyes staring ahead at the white walls.
"When the housekeeper quit, she told me--no, insisted--Nathaniel's friends can turn into animals using their pelts and she overheard him talking to one of his them about destroying some coven up in Canada. Nathaniel's got a temper and snarls like a demon hell-beast sometimes. He’s scared me before, but never like this.”
"What?" Tristan breathed hard, lowering his gaze.
"Some old lady's superstition. She probably eavesdropped on him saying something about his trip to Canada, where he tracks wolves. He'll be wolf-tracking, he said. I don't know how she came up with turning into things and covens. Aren’t those usually witches? But it’s like he didn’t consider me to be a human tonight and..." Juliette voice hitched and pressed her palm against her mouth, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
For the second time in an hour, Tristan felt punched in the gut. All this time she had been closer to death than he’d realized. His head spun. The world around him shrunk. He struggled to speak. “Let’s get inside, okay?”
Tristan slowly made his way to the passenger door and opened it, pushing the new information from his head. Juliette grasped his outstretched hand and stood. Without warning her legs buckled. Swiftly, Tristan scooped her up.
“It’s all right. I have you,” he breathed softly into her ear. Juliette fell limp in his arms.
At the back door, Tristan adjusted his hold on her just enough to keep her balanced and reach the handle. He flicked on the kitchen light with his elbow and carried her to the living room.
She pulled her knees toward her chest. "Who's in there?"
"I don’t know. I hope one of my sisters."
"What will they think about you bringing me here? Like this?"
"Don't worry, it'll be okay." He continued on.
Jareth glanced up from the television first and glared at the woman his brother held. "Tristan, what's going on?"
Ash turned on a table lamp. "What the hell happened?"
"Obviously she's been hurt, and he brought her here." Sunil rose and closed the distance between them. He brushed Juliette’s hair f
rom her bloodied cheek. “Who did this?”
"Where are Gabby and Emma? Is Will around?"
Ash strode to the bottom of the stairs and called up. "Gab! Em! Important! Come down!"
"William is at work," Sunil answered.
"Of all nights for him to go out playing the superhero."
Together, Gabrielle and Emma walked down the steps, their eyes widening at the sight of the injured Juliette.
"You’re Juliette, right?" Emma whispered. "What happened?"
She stared up at Tristan and bit her lip. Tristan answered for her. "Nate. Her ex-boyfriend."
Gabrielle slowly stepped forward. "Let's take you upstairs, get you cleaned up, and bandage your injuries. You're safe here. Can you walk?"
Juliette nodded. She kept her arms around Tristan’s neck as he set her on her feet and waited for her to balance.
"It's all right. Go on," Tristan said with a small smile, gently kissing her forehead. He and his brothers watched the three women slowly ascend the stairs, whispering among themselves.
For several long minutes none of them spoke or moved.
Sunil broke the silence. "What are you, or we, going to do? I need to report this."
"No, Sunil. You can’t do that. I have to keep her here. I don't know how to make sure Nate doesn't find out though. When school starts up again, he can follow her. He might even suspect she’d have called me, and he knows where I live thanks to our study group a few months ago. And if he sees her in public…"
"Whoa, she's not our concern, Bro!" Jareth protested.
"Shut up!" Ash chastised. “We can't send a survivor back to her abuser. From the looks of it, he already tried to kill her."
"He sold her body in an auction of some sort and she escaped out a second floor window."
Ash slammed his fist into a pillow. "What the hell, man! Making her a punching bag wasn't bad enough. He had to go off and make her a prostitute against her will?"
"Yeah. To someone named Daniel. For her first time."
"That's just evil, but she can't find out what we are." Jareth changed a channel on the television.
Sunil frowned at him, grabbed the remote, and hit the off-button. "We will be fine, Jareth. Stop your bellyaching about us being discovered. Tristan, why can’t I report this? You know I’m mandated."
"Because if you do, it could make things ugly for a lot more people. She said the housekeeper told her Nate can change into animals and is on his way to Canada to destroy a coven of something, but the lady wouldn’t say anything more." Tristan sighed loudly and propped his elbows on his knees. “Think he’s after the same one?”
"What? How could she know?" Jareth asked with alarm.
"The lady heard Nate talking about it, but Juliette doesn't believe her."
Sunil closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "So what are we going to do, Tristan? You’re right. I have to go against medical ethics this time. She can't go back, but we have to get up to Canada to find them before Nate does."
"I know. I got a couple things to research online. Can someone try getting a hold of William? We need him more than he needs to play Batman at whatever club he’s bouncer at tonight."
* * *
Emma brushed Juliette's freshly-washed hair while Gabrielle finished bandaging Juliette’s knee. They had helped her wash and dress in one of Emma's softest cotton nightgowns.
"I hope this ointment will prevent scarring," Gabrielle said, moving to start on Juliette's hands. "So much skin was planed away. Are you sure you don’t want me to get Sunil?”
Juliette shook her head, mindful of Emma’s brushing. “I’m not really comfortable. He’s still a professor to me, even if he’s actually a doctor too. And I don’t really want any guy to touch me right now. Daniel’s fingers...” Her head dropped and her eyes squeezed shut. A tear slid down her cheek.
“This is all so wrong.” Emma split Juliette’s hair into three sections. “I can't imagine escaping out a window and having to slide down a drain spout, or someone doing that to me. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to breathe. Do you mind if we throw your clothes away?"
"It's the only one I have unless I go back to Nathaniel’s." Juliette shuddered. "So I need to keep it."
Gabrielle gave a wry laugh. "Don't worry, we have the means to clothe you in something other than the remnants of an assault. We're not going to put you back in that outfit in the morning. We'll lend you what you need until we get the chance to take you shopping for some new clothes."
"How can you afford that? And this house? Tristan said you're siblings, but I don't understand. You're all in your early twenties, maybe younger, and not much alike."
Gabrielle shrugged. "Well, we adopted each other, Tristan and I first. None of us have parents anymore. Sometimes I still use Tristan's last name because when we started this family grouping, an unrelated man and woman living together was not proper. So we pretended."
"No one's cared about that for a long time."
"All the same." Gabrielle averted Juliette’s gaze and pursed her lips.
"And the rest?"
"I came along next," Emma said. “My husband, Sunil, was after me. Then Ash and William. Jareth joined us last, and he's still working through things."
"If you're all orphaned, where did this kind of wealth come from? I’m sorry to be asking personal questions, but there isn’t some connection to drugs that I could get busted for, right?"
"Tristan and I both were only children from families with old money.” Gabrielle leaned to the side and grabbed more gauze. “We're the last in our familial lines, so it all fell to us. My late husband also had a fortune. Cash is in joint accounts, and anyone in this family can tap it."
"Don't you worry you’ll overdraw?" Juliette couldn't understand how seven people could spend so lavishly without worrying about going broke.
"Not at all. We have more than plenty, keep a few non-profits funded, and have a great deal in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. In the 1980s there were risky technology investments, but had we a go at it. Those would have made us wealthy even without the rest. Tristan has a knack for picking wisely."
Juliette lowered chin to her chest. "I'm going to be such a burden here. I'll leave soon, I promise."
"And go where?" Emma asked. "We can take care of you. Trust us on this. You can’t go back to Nate."
"No, I won't. He’s evil. He frightened the housekeeper the other day too. After she heard him talk about turning into animals and going to Canada, she warned me to run. And then he did this to me. I won’t go back."
Emma and Gabrielle stared at each other, jaws dropped.
"What else did she say about changing into animals?" Gabrielle asked, tearing her eyes from her sister to finish the bandages on Juliette's hands.
"Not much, just nonsense about how he and a friend saying they needing to go hunt and call together some of their friends for help. She's a superstitious woman and probably overheard them planning for their wolf-hunting trip in a few days. That's all." Juliette yawned, holding a wrapped hand to her mouth. "I am so tired. And I’m sorry to be rude, but I need a little time alone to think about some things."
"You'll be staying in my room, and I'll stay with Emma.” Gabrielle carefully hugged her. “We'll go ahead and head down, but if you need anything, just come on down, okay?"
"Thanks, Gabby, thanks, Emma." She was asleep within moments of her head hitting the pillow, before the lights were even out.
* * *
"Tristan!" Gabrielle hurried down the stairs, followed by Emma close at her heels. "I think Nate's a--"
"I know. She told me about her and Nate turning into animals using skins." He closed his laptop computer and set the machine aside, shoving a credit card into his wallet.
Sunil walked back from the kitchen with a stainless steel carafe and a few cups. "We were figuring out what to do, Gab. Either of you want coffee?"
Both women shook their heads as the front door opened and slammed shut. Emma sank onto the couc
h next to her husband. "What's the plan?"
"Plan for what?" William stretched his arms.
"Nate did a bunch of bad stuff to Juliette, and it turns out he's a skin-walker trying to find the Canadian clan. Juliette's upstairs now, and we're making a plan of action." Tristan let his head flop backward.
William froze. "What the hell? I'm gone for four hours, and this happens?" He cracked his knuckles.
"Hey, at least you got to enjoy a little more of your life." Jareth’s eyes narrowed as he gazed toward the stairs.
"Give it a rest, Jareth!" Ash threw a pillow at him. "She is not at fault."
Gabrielle perched on the arm of the sofa. "So exactly what did you plan?"
* * *
Bright moonlight lit the room. A gentle breeze lifted the gossamer curtain from its resting place. Juliette stared out the window to the back yard. Her body was numb beneath the borrowed pajamas. A flash of a phantom hand forcing its way under her clothes. One after another, snips of her the near memories assaulted her mind in quick succession. Unthinking, she tightened the nightshirt around her.
Swallowing hard, Juliette stepped softly toward it the door. Careful to make no noise, she turned the knob and pulled, grateful the hinges had been well-oiled. Down the hall light shone through the lights of a doorframe, and the sound of a laugh track came softly from another room. Toward the other end, a clock ticked the seconds. For several of them she stood and listened until satisfied no one was awake.
Thick carpet silenced her movements as she made her way down the stairs to the front door. Out of the corner of her eye a motion caught her attention. She whipped her head to see who it was. A plush cat leaned against the couch next to an abandoned robe. Juliette exhaled, her heart racing. Hesitant, she continued until her hand touched the warm wood and found the doorknob. Only then did she turn her face from the very realistic toy.
Unseasonably chilly wind tousled her hair. Juliette inhaled. The planks of the covered porch cooled her bare feet until they met the cobblestone at the bottom of the steps. She sat on the lowest stair, wincing at the pain she had starting in her ribs. Stars sparkled overhead, all but the brightest drowned out by the shining of the moon. The weight of reality began pressing down on her. She was one alone in the world, unsure where to go or what to do, too frightened to return to Nathaniel, too scared to stay away. A thousand thoughts flittered through her mind, a jumbled mass all out of focus. A single tear slid down her cheek.