Snippet #2686134

Everything happened in a matter of seconds. The events that followed his inquiry for questions from the newcomers seemed to stretch out into several long hours, but in actuality, it was a mere few minutes - perhaps a maximum only of four. Clearly the intent from the intruders was to take Evangeline and any others that belonged to the new group that they could get their hands on, but their goal was to take them with little conflict and pain to their numbers. Eve and Charlie were gone in a split second, and he found Aziel to have been taken down.

"We. Kill. Them. All. And I swear, if you had anything to do with this I will hunt you down and kill you! I'll rip your FUCKING head off with my bare hands!"

Whirling to face the entrance, his eyes flashed a dazzling bright blue, almost glowing in hue. Who were these people to intrude in an area deemed to be neutral public territory? And who were these people to cause the threats to arrive as somewhere that was considered to be a sanctuary to so many, and was now ruined in its safety?

A low growl escaped his lips, the smoke bombs stinging his sensitive eyes but having little affect due to their changed state. Blood caused the air to stink with its heaviness, and he could slowly feel his rage boiling inside of him.

A hissed breath and the scent of a fresh, unfamiliar blood filled the stained air. Whipping his head to the side, his gaze crossed the room and connected with one of the newcomers, Phoebe. Although it was difficult to see, the blood pluming across her abdomen was something he immediately caught.

A newfound anger churned his blood. Turning to face the commotion, he realized that mere seconds had ticked by in his frozen state, as though the world had slowed down from his point of view. Immediately everything rushed back into focus, allowing him to duck to the side and narrowly miss a throw to his face.

Shooting his hand out, he gripped the man's wrist, snapping it upwards and spinning and in one motion heaving him over his back and above his head. Slamming the man into the ground, he snapped around, completely spinning his shoulder. A loud crack followed by a shriek of pain was heard, before he silenced the man with a single foot to the face.

Throwing out his opposite hand, he grabbed another man's upper arm as he attempted to hit him, his other hand still holding the first man's wrist. Releasing it and in the same motion spinning backwards around him, he pulled the man with him, heaving him face down into the ground. He immediately connected his shoe to the back of the man's head, obliterating it in one stomp.

The fight continued in that way for the next two minutes minutes, during which he took the lives of many humans. When the commotion died down and the entirety of the attackers had fallen back, he surveyed his surroundings, blood coating his clothes every few inches. There were streaks of it across his skin, and his clothes were in an almost tattered disarray from the scuffling and his partial change into his wolf self.

He had changed back to his fully human state for the most part, but his eyes still gleamed an inhuman hue, his teeth still an elongated state. The bar was for the most part abandoned, left in a rickety state, and the only bodies inside of it were the dead. Fire had sparked at some point and was slowly traversing the building, and sirens whirred in the distance, gradually growing closer. As they came into earshot, he immediately made for the door, tearing through it like a man on the lamb. The humans that had begun to gather around the entrance shrieked and backed away, making room for him to barrel through them and push his way to the van that was just tearing out of the parking lot. Turning to Russell - they were just out of eye shot of the bar area - he attempted to calm his breathing in order to speak.

"I swear to you that I had nothing to do with this. I swear on my life," he said quietly, his eyes looking into the direction that the faint scent of blood had disappeared into. "I'll help you get them back. Besides, it's not like I have anything better to do," he said, a slight shrug of his shoulders following his offer. "Plus, you can't go rushing in there blindly. What if they have scouts that protect their boundaries? If you run into them, you'll need backup," he pointed out. "And it's not like anyone is going to be able to get there quickly. I doubt they stopped anywhere nearby. They probably traveled to another city entirely," he finished, turning his gaze to the other man.

"I swear on my life that I had nothing to do with what's happened. And I promise to help you retrieve your friends - your family. It would be a shame if those two died - they hold a lot of light and promise for this world."

---

Eve studied Charlie as she went about the motions of climbing the wall - with quite a bit of struggle, might she add - but the woman prevailed, eventually dropping down with a soft thunking sound. The smell of blood trickled towards her from Charlie - a fresh wound that the girl had used to allow their scent to travel in the air a bit further - and she felt a newfound respect filling herself for the young woman.

Tilting her head to the side, she listened as Charlie spoke, and after a few moments of thought, Eve lowered her hand from dabbling at her face.

"Alright. Tell me everything that you can remember from those men," she said after a while.

The next half an hour or so consisted of deep and quiet conversation that was wrapped around the weaknesses in the group of people that had taken them. At the end of the half hour, a soft click was heard, causing Eve to launch to her feet and twirl, immediately positioning herself between the door and Charlie. The girl may be less hot-headed than Eve, but she was also less capable of hand-to-hand combat, leaving Eve as the offense between the two of them.

The door slowly swung open as three men entered, two behind the other and carrying a wide array of weapons on their body, along with armored suits. The lead man didn't stop walking until he was nearly toe-to-toe with Eve, her head tilted back in defiance and one arm out in front of Charlie, blocking her from the intruders. The weapons were definitely a deterrent for Eve to attack the leader, who did not hold the scent of the humans of before.

"Werewolf ...?" she whispered, her teeth clenched together as she glared up at him.

After a moment of dead-pan staring between her and the leader, he quirked a bit of a smirk.

"I'm gonna break you like the little doll that you are, you mangy mutt. And then you're going to tell me everything about your pack and its leaders," he sneered out, a small tinge of laughter on his face. A nod of his head sent the men forward, and before Eve could even move, painful electrical currents were coursing through her body. Her entire being stiffened and went rigid from the electricity, and when the small metal connectors dropped from her body, she collapsed to the floor, limp and her eyes rolling, her skin spasming slightly.. The corners of her vision were darkened, the bodies before her blurred and unrecognizable. Four hands gripped and lifted her from the floor, her frame dead weight and dragging as they pulled her. The further she was pulled away from Charlie, the more her defiance grew, and as they reached the door to the room, her hand weakly grasped at the frame.

"I swear to God ... If you lay a hand on her ..." she snarled out quietly, her voice holding a weakened tremble to it. The men laughed at her bravado, but she managed to cast a look over her shoulder at Charlie - one that held words of encouragement and spoke for her not to worry.

She once again fell in and out of consciousness, only completely awakening when she was dropped roughly into a chair and freezing cold water cascaded over her. It mixed with blood and cuts, causing them to sting and a soft hiss to escape her body as the cold pushed her bones to ache. Lifting her head, her eyes tinged with an ethereal purple glow, she glared at the men surrounding her. After a few moments of complete silence, the lights in the room dimmed, leaving only a bright one to surround her and the grayed lighting from the outside to filter in through the windows.

The leader of the men stepped into the light, hands clasped behind him and face sneering amusingly down at her. The ropes tied tightly around her ankles and wrists stung, obviously laced with one of the poisonous and weakening components out there for werewolves, and she struggled at them futilely as the man approached her chair. Propping one hand against the back of it and just above her shoulder, he leaned down so that he was inches from her face. His free hand rose to roughly grab her jaw and he forced her to meet his gaze.

"I'm going to have quite a bit of fun with you before I have your delicious body completely and utterly deconstructed and deliver to your precious mother and father in a beautiful little gift box."

Releasing her jaw, he turned to face away from her as a loud squeaking sound filled the empty room. Slowly a metal cart appeared, and when it came completely into view, it revealed small tools scattered across a plain white towel that glowed in the lighting. The man approached it, daintily plucking up a shining silver scalpel and studying it in the dim lighting. Her eyes glued to it, a rush of fear slithering through her body. She was frozen where she sat, unable to move even to attempt to rip herself from the chair. When he turned back to face her, a disgusting smile was spread across his lips. it was only when he began to approach her again that she jerked from her statue state and attempted to loosen her ropes. The burning sensation only grew, giving her skin a raw, scratching feeling.

So focused was she on freeing herself that she didn't notice when he reached her. Her only indication was his feet before hers, and when she saw them stop, she slowly turned her gaze up towards him, a dark, burning look of hatred sizzling in her eyes.

"May God have mercy on your soul," she snarled out.

It was then that he brought the small blade down, digging deeply into her upper shoulder and continuing down her arm to her elbow. She made no sound of pain, but instantly sweat broke out across her skin. It was an unbearable agony, the slow cuts that were made to her porcelain skin.

She managed to keep quiet for only forty-five minutes of the torture before her sobbing screams began to escape, turning her throat raw and her cheeks red with tears.

The man pulled away from his project to study the artistry that was her bloodied body. The slices in her arms were so coated in blood that one couldn't tell one slice from another, but she had followed his movements almost to a T. If she wasn't mistaken, he had sliced the words sanctifica and aperirique - Latin for Sanctify and Rectify on the outside of either arms. What this meant, she didn't know, but clearly it was a brand - perhaps a name used to label their group? The name they labeled themselves with? It wouldn't surprise her. They were clearly mad and thought werewolves to be abominations that were to be cleansed from society and the world as it was. She found this amusing, seeing as the leader himself was a werewolf. Did the followers not know?

Her legs were in a similar set of disarray. Along the tops of her upper thighs were two names. Draven was neatly cut into her right leg, and Royce was sliced into the left. However, it was barely legible past all of the blood, which was slowly clotting and drying.

Soft sobbing breathed out from her, mixed with different languages of different religions prayers.

"Our Mother, Thou who art in the heart of Gaia
May the holiness of Thy name awaken our remembering.
May the breath of Thy loving presence
warm the hearts of all who wander homeless.
May the resurrection of thy memory
renew our faith eternally.
We receive this day your nurturing substance
to fill our cup of need,
and implore Thee to forgive us for forgetting Thee.
We ready ourselves to receive Thy blessings.
Mother, lead us toward the light
and the birth of the Christ within.
For Love is the Kingdom
Nurturing is the Power,
and Your wisdom with all merciful grace
is the glory
For all peoples, now and forever more.
Amen.

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference."

Tears dripped down Eve's face and onto her thighs, mixing with the blood of her wounds. The leader snorted and returned the most recent utensil to his tray. Waving the men out of the room, he turned to face her, leaning down so that he was at her height.

"You can't win, you stupid little girl. And no one is coming for you - they won't be able to find you. I'm not going to kill you right away, either - oh, no, that wouldn't be fun," he said softly, slowly approaching her. Using his finger to tilt her bloodied, sweat-streaked and tear-stained face upwards, he smirked at her. "I'm going to enjoy breaking you down until nothing is left and you are a shell of the being you once were."

With that, he leaned forward and dragged his tongue across her cheek, sending goosebumps of disgust across her entire body, before dropping her head and disappearing from the room, leaving her alone in the large area.

Her shoulders trembling, Eve raised her head and let it fall back against the back of the chair, her breathing staggering and slowly evening out.

"To be hurt ... To be lost ... To be left out in the dark ..."

Sucking in a trembling breath, she fought back the tears that stung at her eyes before dropping her head down once again.

"To be kicked ... When you're down ..." A small sob escaped her lips.

"To feel like you've been pushed around ..."

Biting her lower lip, she turned her face so that she cup wipe the blood that was trickling from her nose onto her shirt sleeve. Her clothes were torn and blood stained almost every inch of them, along with her skin and hair.

"Mama ... Dad ... I just want to come home ..." she whimpered.

A loud shriek echoed throughout the confines of the building, causing her head to jerk up, her wet and bloodied hair whipping upwards in the same motion. The scream was clearly feminine and scent chills through her body.

"... Charlie?" she whispered. Another scream of pure agony followed, and instantly Eve's face contorted in pure and utter fury. It was then that the door opened, revealing the leader from before. He approached her, chuckling when he saw her look of anger.

"I see I haven't completely rid you of your attitude. Allow me to shed some light on the situation," he purred out, leaning against her chair with a hand on either armrest.

"You see, right now I have two of my loyal human meat-bags in one of the other rooms slowly torturing your pretty little friend. What was her name again? Charlie?"

Jerking at her ropes, she attempted to pull free and hit him, but found them only to loosen a bit in response to her movements. The man out rightly laughed in her face at her attempt to hurt him, leaning closer so that they were nose-to-nose.

"Perhaps I'll kill her first and them gift you with her dead body. I would love to see the look on your face if you saw that," he purred.

Curling her fingers inward, she scratched her nails against the wooden chair. In a single movement she threw her head forward, slamming it against his. Pain lashed through her skull, no more so than what she had already been put through, however, and so she quickly shoved it aside. As the ropes loosened around her wrists, she slipped one hand free and clenched it, immediately connecting it with his jaw as he was currently still reeling from the head-butt. Wrenching her other hand and one foot free with a simple yank of the ropes, she grabbed his head and pulled him down, pile-driving her knee into his face. His nose completely disintegrated under the movement, sending him howling to the ground in pain. The doors flew open to her room, revealing four armored men - a few of the men that Charlie had explained to her during their talk.

Before they could even register what was occurring, she wrenched a dagger from the man's belt and in one motion turned, releasing the dagger. It flew the air and instantly struck the jugular of the largest man, who gargled for a moment, clawing at his throat, before collapsing to the ground in a twitching heap.

Grabbing the leader's head and pinning him to the floor, she looked up at the three remaining men, her eyes gleaming an inhuman purple and an animalistic expression of pure rage contorting her face.

"One move and I snap his neck like the disgusting flea-bag that he is," she growled out. The men looked at each other, uncertainty tinging their expressions. Her burst of adrenaline wouldn't last long in her weakened state, however, so hoisting the leader up, she turned him so that his limp body shielded her. Glancing over the shoulders of the men, she raised her brows.

"What are you doing here?"

The men turned to look at who she was speaking to, but when they found no one, they turned to face her again - only to find their leader's unconscious body flying at them horizontally. It slammed into them, taking them all down in their off-guard state, and before they could scramble to their feet, she was already gone. The only thing that they saw was her feet disappearing into one of the large air vents positioned perfectly above a few stacked, wooden crates.