War Dog

Chapter 12

The room was small, especially with my large frame crammed into it. I hunkered down low, gun held loosely in my hands as my heart hammered in my ears. I tried to breathe through the adrenaline and my heart beat calming them down so I could open my ears to any hint of Ceri as she hunted me down. I swallowed hard knowing it was only a matter of time before she'd found me. I'd barely escaped her the first time, and I strongly suspected she'd let me go to prolong the hunt.

I moved carefully through the house, careful to not touch a single thing and leave my scent lingering for any longer than it needed to. I carefully nudged the back door open with the toe of my boot and slide out of the house, along the darkened alley. The concrete and brick walls providing me with a semblance of cover as I move to the street. I pause as I hear something behind me. I turn slowly and find nothing. My eyes scan the alley way and beyond carefully. My keen senses pick up nothing and I wonder if I was hearing things. I stay poised where I am, crouching, gun up ready to shoot should Ceri make her presence known to me. Only, I feel her behind me too late, one of her hands at my neck as she presses in against my body, claws pressing delicately to my skin, ready to rip my throat out at the slightest provocation. I freeze, heart just about leaping out of my throat knowing that I'm dead. She'd caught me and wasn't letting me get away this time. 

"Dead and buried, darling," she whispers huskily in my ear, chuckling as I tap out acknowledging her win. My heart slows down now that the chase is over. 

We'd both spent the better part of the day preparing for this. Marcel had been in my ear on the radios, watching the CCTV camera's in the security room guiding me, but he had gone silent about ten minutes ago. I suspected that he'd been taken out and had been trying to make me way back to him when Ceri had found me the first time, letting me get away and had been toying with me like a cat and mouse. 

"Damnit, mongrel." I mutter as she takes a step back, grinning pleased to have caught me so off guard. My insult at her only seems to slip off of her like water on a ducks back. That she has such a thick skin pleases me for a moment until my mind runs back through the scenario trying to figure out how she had managed to distract me. 

"Easy," she responds, and I look at her confused, so she expands on her comment. 

"It was easy enough to distract you. I was on the roof," she says, pointing up to the roof above us, the training room buildings being built to miniature scale meant that she would have had no issues climbing up and leaping down easily. "I threw a rock in the direction I wanted you to focus on. I threw it far enough away you'd think I was still some distance off. The rest was easy."

"I should really know better by now to look up. Poor form on my part." I murmured softly. "Why'd you let me go the first time though?"

She tapped her ear piece. "Hoftstedtor told me too. I followed his orders, he wanted to see if you'd try and make it back to Marcel to check on his safety after I took him out first. When the Lieutenant was happy that was indeed your aim, he let me have free reign to take you out."

It made sense. "Ok. Well, you won, but I don't think anyone really expected me to be able to beat you. I had hoped to make it a little longer however. I mean, Marcel even covered me in that damn spray to hide my scent." I curled my lip, the scent hanging heavily to my mask filling my nostrils. Not to say the scent was unpleasant, quiet the opposite, but I really did not enjoy smelling lavender and jasmine constantly.

"Marcel said they'd covered the entire auditorium in that stuff to make it harder for you, so how did you find me so quickly?"

She looked up at me, her eyes wide and innocent. I didn't believe her act for a second, but she made her hybrid features work for her. Anyone else might have believed her cute act, but I'd seen the feral gleam of hunger in her eyes as she casually chased me down the street playing with me while she pretended like she couldn't outrun me easily.