Chapter 14

-Dante-

The new potion was working wonders. I felt better, stronger, and more energetic, but most importantly, my wounds were finally healing. I even started feeling optimistic. I knew it was all fake, simple happy side effects of the herbs, but I was tired of feeling scared and defeated, so even this medically induced positivity was more than welcomed.

But then the nightmares came.

I slept restlessly through the first night after Chase changed my potion, but I thought nothing of it. I hadn’t had any nightmares after escaping the lab, so I wasn’t prepared for it. The second night was far worse, and I had a dream about being locked in that place again. Dreams, memories… they were all the same.

Killian was there. He towered above me like a skyscraper, holding my chains in his hand.

“Get up.”

I couldn’t. I had no strength left. The fear was suffocating me. I had never been as scared as I was at that moment, not even when I was actually there. I was already free, why was I back in that place? I was delirious, not understanding it was just a nightmare…

“Get up!“

The pain that the first hit of the heavy chain left behind was almost surreal. It hurt so bad I couldn’t stop myself from screaming. The second time he hit me was even worse. So was the third.

“Get up! Get up! GET!! UP!!“

“Dante…”

I could feel someone touching me. Someone… good. I looked away from Kilian’s rage-filled face as he prepared to hit me for the fourth time. There was nothing but darkness around me, but I could feel a safe place somewhere. Somewhere… I searched for it, trying to get away from Killian, but I could already hear the whistle of the chains moving fast through the air.

But the chains didn’t hit me. Everything else except for the darkness vanished and silence fell upon me. It was there! I found it! Safe place…

“Dante?”

I gasped loudly when I woke up, sitting up so fast I got dizzy. I was almost too scared to believe my senses, the familiar scents, the warm dusty air, the soft bed under me… Chase sitting right in front of me…

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly, touching my sweaty cheek lightly. The only light in the room came from the small lamp on top of the nightstand, illuminating his kind eyes with warm hue.

“I…” I muttered, looking around the room to see if Killian was there, but when it finally dawned on me that what I saw was just a nightmare, I relaxed a bit. “I think I had a nightmare… But it felt so real… I could feel pain. Horrible pain…”

“That’s terrible,” he said quietly. “I’ll make sure the next potion makes you sleep better.”

I nodded, feeling grateful. “I’m sorry I woke you up,” I muttered.

“You scared the crap out of me,” he said with a gentle smile. “You sounded like someone was pulling your arm off or something…”

I shivered when I thought about the dream. “It hurt so bad… I can almost feel it even now.”

He leaned in to hug me carefully, and I wrapped my arms around him, resting my head on his shoulder. His presence soothed my soul, and the memory of the dream didn’t seem so intimidating anymore.

“You’ll sleep better tomorrow, I promise,” he said.

I nodded against his shoulder, but I couldn’t let go of him just yet. I needed to borrow his strength a little while longer. I felt like a jerk for doing so. He had already done so much for me and had put his life on hold just to take care of me and now I was stealing these little moments of closeness and comfort without giving anything back…

I wasn’t getting ready to let go of him anytime soon, so I had to force myself to get a grip. When I pulled back, he gave me a smile and promised everything would be all right soon. When he left, I felt cold and lonely, and the darkness looked darker than normal. I had to leave the lamp on when I pulled the covers tighter around myself.

Falling asleep again was difficult. Every time I closed my eyes, I could hear the clinking of the chains and Killian’s evil laugh. More than once I shot up on the bed when I thought I heard footsteps in the corners, but no one was there. I was sure I wouldn’t get any sleep, but in the early hours of the morning, I finally fell asleep.

Only to return to the nightmare world.

This time, I wasn’t in my cell. I was standing outside in the corridor, hearing hasty footsteps right behind me. I was facing the door to freedom, but it was miles away. I turned around to see a group of guards coming for me, yelling curses at me.

There was something in my hand that begged for my attention. A key card. A bullet flew right past my head, and I flinched away.

“Get back here, mutt!“

Killian… I started running towards the door, knowing my chances were slim. Another bullet flew past me, nearly scraping my cheek, so I ran faster. The door wasn’t coming any closer… I started feeling desperate and scared. When I looked over my shoulder, the guards were already closing in on me. Werewolves were supposed to be faster than them…

And all of a sudden, someone dropped an iron gate in front of me, blocking my only way out. I slid to a halt and was almost immediately jumped by the guards. They forced me down on my knees with tasers, and I could hardly move in the excruciating pain they caused me.

I would never be free… Not if I didn’t do anything.

I started changing. I was filled with anger in a heartbeat. I was not giving up without a fight, and these bastards deserved what was coming for them. They couldn’t stop me anymore. I was stronger than them. And then the transformation was complete.

I let out a blood-chilling roar when I pushed them all back with one, swift swing, feeling joy when some of them yelled in pain as they got slammed against the wall. I turned around to face them, ready to kill each and every one of them. I gathered my strength to launch at them…

But there was only one left.

“D-Dante…?”

Kill.

That was all I could think of as I ran after him. My instincts took over and even if I wanted to, there was no way I could’ve stopped myself. The images I saw turned blurry and made no sense, but I didn’t care, since I could feel him close by. I was going to tear the whole place down if I had to. They were not going to lock me up ever again. They were not going to touch me ever again!

“I’ll tear you all apart!” I roared as I sprinted out of the room, but it was not my voice. It was something demonic and cruel with no humanity left in it.

“Dante, stop!“

Never. I would never, ever obey them. Not anymore… Not anymore!

I sensed movement on my left, so I went after him, but there wasn’t enough room for me to move. I hit a wall almost immediately and fell downwards, hardly even realizing I had reached a staircase. While I was getting back up on my feet, I heard footsteps hurrying away from me. I roared again in anger and jumped down the rest of the steps, dashing after him.

He stopped for some reason. I launched at him, my claws ready. I hit something, but when I landed, my feet didn’t touch the floor, but sand. I was thrown off guard, especially when the air was suddenly much hotter, and smelled completely different.

And then, without warning, I could feel heavy chains all around me. That pissed me off, and I tried to get rid of them, but the harder I tried the tighter they became, and there were at least a dozen of them. In the end, I couldn’t move a muscle.

I roared in frustration, trying to see what was going on, but the beast in me was still in control.

“It’s okay, Dante…” I heard a tiny voice somewhere close by. “You’re all right… Just… hang in there for a… for a moment…”

I was still too full of anger to understand what was going on. I could feel someone approaching me, and I tried my best to break the chains so I could sink my teeth into his throat, but the chains wouldn’t budge.

“That was a… close one…” he spoke, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry… I let you down…”

Wait… Wait, wait, wait…

I could feel light pressure on one of the chains that were around my neck, and I turned my head towards it. I was slowly getting my senses back.

And then he stepped into my view, leaning against the chains.

Chase.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, wobbling a little when he stopped in front of me.

No… this wasn’t… I didn’t mean to…

“Chase…?” I breathed out slowly, and he smiled.

“You recognize me?” he asked, looking happy, but somehow… There was something wrong with his expression.

Suddenly, he let out a silent gasp and stumbled forward, falling down on his knees. Something big and ugly got lodged in my throat and I could hardly breathe when reality started sinking in. He wrapped his arms around himself, his breathing turning into gasps and coughs, and lowered his head, clearly in a lot of pain.

And I saw them. Three deep wounds traveling across his back. His white shirt was covered in blood.

I did that.

My transformation started at that second, and the pain hit me, but I ignored it. I was horrified by what I had done to Chase. I attacked him again! I hurt him! The transformation seemed to last forever, but as soon as the chains slid off me, I crawled to him. By the time I reached him, I was back in my human form.

“C-Chase?” my voice was shaking when I placed my hand carefully on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry!”

“I’m good… just a scratch…” he chuckled, sitting upwards.

“You’re bleeding… There’s a lot of it…” I whispered, feeling sick to my stomach.

“I think I’ll… have to take one of your… potions…” he spoke between his gasps.

I turned to look at the portal, trying to contain my panic. Then, as soon as my feet were able to carry me, I got up, and carefully placed my arms around him, trying not to touch his wounds when I picked him up. He clung to my neck as I started walking to the portal, trying to hurry through the sand as fast as I could.

As soon as we were back home, he reached out to touch one of the runes on the doorpost, and the portal vanished, giving us a way into the kitchen. I placed him gently on a chair and hurried to the fridge where he kept my potions. I grabbed one of the bottles and hurried back to him, opening the lid on my way.

“Here,” I said, kneeling down on the floor right in front of him. There was blood everywhere already…

“Thanks,” he said, giving me a weary smile. “Could you grab that blue jar?” he asked, pointing at one of the cupboards before basically collapsing against the table.

There were at least a dozen jars on top of the shelves, but I spotted the one he wanted. When I came back to him, he had gone through half of the bottle already. I put the jar on the table before turning my attention back to him.

“Should I call an ambulance?” I asked with a racing heart.

“It’s just a scratch,” he said with a reassuring smile, looking at the jar. “That’ll stop the bleeding… but I need you to take care of it…”

“Just tell me what to do,” I hurried to say.

He told me where to find rubber gloves and clean towels, and I rushed to get them. He had opened the jar and was taking off his shirt as I returned, making my heart quiver in pain when I saw his mutilated skin.

There was so much blood…

“Just… wipe it dry, apply some salve… and repeat…” he muttered. “It won’t stick well if… if it’s not dry…”

I did everything just as he asked, pressing the towel on his wounds for a moment and then hurried to put on a thick layer of the salve that was in the jar, and to my relief, it really stopped the bleeding immediately. But I was scared I was being too slow. The wounds were long, reaching from his right shoulder almost all the way to his left hip, and they were deep. I was scared that he had lost too much blood, but he kept reassuring me that he’d be fine.

Once all three wounds were covered in the salve, and the jar was empty, I started shaking. I sat down on the floor in front of him, taking his hands in mine.

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed out, looking up at him in the eyes, tears burning in mine. “I’m so, so sorry… I didn’t mean to…” I tried to continue speaking, but I had lost my voice. I was trembling all over. I was scared of myself. Not once did I think about stopping when I chased him… I wanted to kill him…

“Hey,” Chase uttered, placing his hand on my cheek. “It was an accident.”

“I almost killed you… I…”

“I know you didn’t want to hurt me,” he said so softly it made me hate myself even more.

“I did!” I gasped, the tears finally spilling over. “I didn’t know it was you, but I wanted to kill you! It was all I could think of…!”

“Dante, please…” he whispered. “It was an accident.”

I shook my head, leaning my head against his knees, crying my eyes out.

“It was just an unfortunate accident,” he spoke, brushing his hand through my hair. “I don’t blame you at all. It was their fault for making you like this.”

His voice was much stronger already, but it didn’t give me any comfort. I hated myself so fucking much…

He leaned in to whisper in my ear, “I know that you – the real you – would never want to hurt me. This will all be over once we find a cure.”

“Unless I kill you first,” I said, feeling devastated.

“I won’t let you,” he said. “I’m already feeling much better.”

I backed a little to see his face. He did look better already. Stronger.

“The potion works a hell of a lot better for me,” he said soothingly. “It’ll take only a day or two before I’m fully healed. The pain is almost gone already.”

I turned to look away from him. I didn’t deserve his kind words. I didn’t deserve anything from him. My eyes landed on the bloody gloves and the towel that I used when treating his wounds. The whole kitchen was covered in it…

When I turned to look back at him, he smiled and placed his hand on my cheek.

“Everything is all right,” he said.

I pushed myself upwards to wrap my arms around his lower back, burying my face against his stomach. I felt his gentle hands on me as he hugged me back, resting his head on top of mine.

I could almost hear Killian’s laugh at that moment. Chase was the first good thing that had happened to me, and I wasn’t talking about just the past six months. He was better than Lena; better than anyone else I’d ever had in my life. I knew that now.

Because of Killian and the rest of them, I almost lost him. I almost killed him because of them…

And that thought woke up the rage inside me.