Trial of Fates

Chapter 13

"Are you okay?" Natania asks. They're curled up on the couch in Gretchen's apartment, freshly cleaned. They hadn't lingered after the wolf was sated and Natania had used her "see me not" magic to get them out of the building unseen. It was only a matter of time before the body was discovered, and they didn't want to be anywhere nearby when it was, especially considering it was half eaten. That'll be a fun headline. Natania cringes, she shouldn't have eaten him, but the urge was getting harder and harder to ignore the more time that passed.

She knows it means the demon half of her is getting stronger. Her father had warned her about relying on that side of her too often, but if all it wanted to do was eat a few corpses, what was the harm? They were dead anyway, and once dead, meat was meat. Natania shakes her head to banish the thought.

"No, I'm not." Gretchen surges off the couch, beginning to pace. "That was my only fucking lead and it was a god's damned dead end. What kind of person doesn't even make note of who hired them to assassinate someone?"

"Someone who doesn't want evidence linking them to a crime?" Natania ventures.

Gretchen throws a pillow from the armchair at Natania, scowling. "Do I look like I'm in the mood for your fucking jokes?" she snarls.

Natania winces and lowers her head. "Sorry," she mutters, but Gretchen isn't done.

"Especially considering you almost killed me today! What the fuck is wrong with you?" Her voice is full of rage.

Natania curls into herself. "That wasn't my fault. He had black magic fueling that wolf's charisma."

"And that just makes it all better, doesn't it?"

"I fought it! I didn't want to hurt you." Natania's voice is quiet. "I love you."

"Well I don't love you." Gretchen is shouting now, her voice scornful and vicious. "How often am I going to have to look over my shoulder to make sure you're not trying to kill me? You've already tried to take my arm off once."

"I-" Natania slides off the couch onto the floor, wrapping her arms around herself. "I didn't do it on purpose," she whispers. "I'm sorry." Tears burn at the corner of her eyes. Natania hastily wipes them away.

Gretchen manages a pretty convincing snarl for a human. "Just get out of here. I don't want to deal with you right now."

Natania hesitates for only a moment before scurrying out of the apartment. The elevator is too slow so she sprints down the stairs, leaping down multiple steps at a time. Her foot slips on a step near the bottom floor and she tumbles down four or five steps. Hissing in pain, Natania uses the railing to pull herself up. "Stupid steps," she mutters, wiping dirt off her pants.

"You shouldn't run down the stairs." An elderly lady pokes her head around the corner of the stairwell. "You sounded like a herd of elephants there. And people are trying to sleep."

"Sorry," Natania replies sheepishly. Not wanting to engage any further, she ducks her head and enters the third floor, intending to cross to the stairs on the other side of the building instead. She limps for a few steps until her ankle heals up, it was only a minor sprain.

Once she's safely outside the building, she dives into a nearby copse of trees. It's still dark outside, probably around 12am so there's no one to see her shift. She runs for an hour, keeping to the shadows. She doesn't blame Gretchen for being angry, she had almost killed the human. Shame burns through her pelt, she should have been able to fight it. There had to be something she could do to make it up to her.

A thought comes to her mind and Natania looks for a place to shift back. Once human, she looks around for a gas station she had seen a few blocks back and calls for a taxi. The clerk had been a bit nervous when she'd asked to use the phone, but a light brushing of Charisma had calmed them.