Tales of the Journey | Part 1

[Drew Schultz]

They hadn't run into much trouble when they had left the city of Bruniik, which was honestly surprising. The mob controlled much of that part of the country, but he supposed that word about his defection hadn't gotten out just yet. The problem came when the money had run out. They couldn't afford a taxi, and Drew didn't know how to drive. Lilith didn't know how to hotwire a car, so even if they'd managed to steal one, they wouldn't be able to get it moving. That meant that their journey through the wilderness had taken a turn to walking, mostly. He was grateful that Lilith hadn't started complaining about it, because even he couldn't have carried her all this way. Thankfully, getting from one end of Wuld to the other was as easy as following the river.

The wolf in him preferred this method of travel, but it wasn't without its difficulties. He had never managed to be particularly adept at hunting, considering his size. Through trial and error, he was improving, but he sourly hated the days when he had no luck, and Lilith had to go hungry as a result. Why had he never looked into how to set traps to catch food? All he could manage was the ambush approach, and it usually left them with far more meat than they actually needed. Deer weren't very smart, after all, but lone wolves didn't often do very well in a hunt.

It was early fall, and the nights were growing colder, but he'd been lucky that afternoon when he'd gone looking for a meal. The pair of rabbits he'd caught had frozen instead of fleeing, and he had two that Lilith could try to stew. Approaching from the front so as not to startle her around the fire she'd built, he knelt in front of the flat stone that would be good for skinning.

"Herbs?" he asked her, looking up as he pulled at the knife he kept at his belt.

His voice was getting stronger, but it still hurt to say more than one or two at a time. Lilith seemed to be getting better at deciphering his one-word sentences, but he still would have used sign if it hadn't been so dark.

The hot blood beneath his fingers made the wolf surface as he skinned the rabbits, and his eyes lightened in color to a pale amber. His nostrils flared as he felt hunger twist his insides, and he looked down to focus on what he was doing. There was plenty of meat on these two, but he knew that cooking them was the only way that he would get Lilith to eat, although the wolf didn't care one way or the other.

[Lilith Prescott]

When they had slipped out into the night, Lilith had given zero thought into where they were going to go, or how they were going to get there. As a result, they were walking through the wilderness. It wasn't really her thoughtfulness as much as the money had run out. This wasn't exactly planned, and some days it was uncomfortable to keep walking like this but she was grateful for the comfier clothes she had on. Drew seemed at home in the wilderness, and Lilith kind of envied this, because the bugs were killing her.

She didn't want to complain, and didn't want to make it seem like it was Drew's fault, because it wasn't. It was just where their circumstances had landed them. She enjoyed the sun when it was shining though, and the food when they had it. Even though it wasn't as often as she would like, like every day like they would prefer. But when they did have it, Lilith was slowly learning how to conserve it. She wished she had internet and could search how to make jerky...it would probably help them a lot more, especially when they had more meat than they could handle. Without a way to preserve it, it was useless to carry the extra wait.

While Drew was off hunting again, Lilith had built a fire, and had a small gathering of branches next to it to keep it going for as long as they needed it. The nights were cooling down considerably, and Lilith stayed close to the fire as Drew walked back into their little camp. She offered him a smile. "You were lucky tonight." She smiled as he asked her to pull out the herbs. Between them they had found some and she had stored some in a small pocket of their bag during their journey. She pulled out a few now, using a rock to grind them smaller while Drew was skinning the rabbits. She watched him and his eyes turn amber, blinking. She wondered idly if there was a connection between raw animal and that because she only ever really noticed it when he was skinning their food. She finished with the herbs, looking at Drew. "So how shall we cook tonight, stew? Shishkabob a la rabbit?"

Keeping some kind of good humor was what Lilith needed, she had slowly felt herself become stronger, emotionally as they have started this journey. It was early into it, and there were a lot of issues to work through. But right now, with the fire before them, Lilith just wanted to pretend they were camping. She didn't want to think about why they were in the wilderness in the first place.

[Drew Schultz]

He smiled at her, trying not to show how tired he was. It was wearing on his mind, having to constantly rein the wolf back in, knowing that it would frighten her to know just how fragmented he had become. Not to mention the fact that he had such a difficult time sleeping because they were out in the open. A secure campsite would have been preferable, but with only the two of them, it was nothing but a fantasy. She had human senses, and that meant that it was a lot easier to sneak up on her than it was him, even with the trauma of recent events making her more watchful than she used to be. Neither part of his mind could fully rest in this sort of environment, especially when there was every chance they were being pursued.

He said none of that. What would it help either of them to freak her out entirely? It was only recently that she'd stopped waking up screaming in the middle of the night. It was impressive, really. It'd taken him months longer to get to the same point, the first time.

"However you like," he told her, his eyes tight but his mouth smiling.

His voice broke on the last word, and he swallowed to ease the dryness and sting that came from talking too much. With the skins removed from the rabbits, he peeled the meat away from the bone and put it aside, trying not to allow his nose to twitch. The wolf wanted to eat the guts and entrails, but he knew that a human would never want something like that. They would have considered it disturbing. If he dared to obey that impulse, would it be harder to resist the wolf's desires the next time that they clashed with human sensibilities?

Breathing in shallowly, he sighed an exhale. Standing, he carried the rabbit meat over to her and scraped it onto the surface where Lilith had prepared the herbs. With only the guts and bones remaining, he took the skins and walked away from the campsite, burying the remnants far enough away that they wouldn't be bothered by hungry predators in the night. It took a lot of his self-control not to lick his fingers, but to wash them in the cool stream instead. The moisture hissed off in curls of steam that drifted off into the night.

Looking up across the stream, he sniffed the air to make sure that there was no one around. Aside from a few prey animals, they were quite alone. He returned to the campfire and sat, his hands lingering over the licking tongues of flame.

[Lilith Prescott]

Lilith gave him a smile, noticing how his didn't quite reach his eyes. She loved the sound of his voice, even if it did break when he said more than a couple words at a time. She wanted to touch the scar healing on his throat. It was the only real visible evidence that wasn't covered by their clothing and Lilith watched him as he worked, pausing from the herbs. He certainly was something else, and Lilith felt a wave of exhaustion hit her for a moment. She blinked it away, pulling out a small pot from their bag and after Drew put the meat on her herbs she moved to the river, filling it.

Once she had the pot situated on the camp fire, she went about preparing the meat, using the herbs like a dry rub. She prepared some potato's and carrots, some of the easier things to find or cheaper things to buy and placed all the ingredients into the pot. She put the lid on and moved over to where Drew was by the fire, sitting next to him, placing her head on his upper arm.

She was so tired from their journey, it really took most of her might to stay away. She somewhat enjoyed the silence her and Drew shared as the sun set. If it was any other time, she might have admired the sunset. She stirred the food once in a while until it was done cooking and served it up in their small bowls, making sure Drew's had the most meat in it with little to no vegetables. He needed it more than she did. She knew the stew would be a little bland with their limited supplies, but at least it was food.

Casting a glance at Drew she looked back at her food. "So how long do you think till we find a place we can call home?"

[Drew Schultz]

Taking his bowl, he sipped quietly at the stew, grateful for how it soothed the soreness of his throat. He didn't notice how Lilith had given him most of the meat, considering how distracting it was to have the scent of hot food so close, but he would have protested if he had. She needed to keep up her strength, and she'd not come close to recovering the weight she'd lost in that nightmarish place. The rabbit meat wasn't as hardy as deer meat, and it was only made more tender by the stewing, so he ate it appreciatively, forcing himself to eat slowly. It would last him longer if he took his time, instead of practically inhaling it, as he wanted to. He'd always eaten more than the average person, and he knew that he was starting to lose weight because of the days that he wasn't able to catch anything. Just more reason for him to improve.

At her question, he looked up at her and then over to the river. Unfortunately, reading maps wasn't a skill that he'd ever had reason to learn, so he had no real idea where they were heading, or what they would find when they got there. All he knew was that they needed to get as far away from Bruniik as quickly as possible. The further they got away from Axium, the safer they would end up being. Of course, all of that was too much to communicate through sign language, and he had to choose his words sparingly. Turning back to look at her, he summarized as best as he could.

"Don't know," he said, wishing he had a better answer for her. "Far."

He pointed toward the river, hoping she understood what he was trying to say. The river would lead to the sea eventually, and when they got there, he wanted to try to cross over. Virgil had once told him that there were lands across the sea, some with magnificent deserts, and others with lush forests and mountains, and still others that were islands of magic and superstition. Any one of those places would be safer for them than this place.

It was a couple hours before the fire began to die down, and he added more kindling to the fire to grow it again. It was Lilith's turn for watch, but he was loathe to wake her. She had never been forced to do the hard labor that allowed her to do this kind of forced march without exhaustion. But there was no denying that he was too tired to take both of their watches tonight. If he fell asleep, who would be keeping watch then? Kneeling beside her, he gently shook her shoulder to wake her.

"Watch," he told her, his deep voice soft. "Sorry."

It didn't take him long to drift off to sleep, with his level of exhaustion, and the wolf found the ambient sounds of the forest soothing. He slept on his back, his fingers entwined over his chest and his head resting on the guitar case. Deep in his sleep as he was, he didn't register the scents or faint shuffling of the men who were approaching.

[Lilith Prescott]

Far? She watched as Drew pointed to the river and nodded. She understood that they would follow the river, and Drew had some sort of plan? She hoped, even if they didn't know, anywhere was better than here. She felt a yawn over take her and gave Drew a small kiss on his shoulder before moving into her makeshift bed, which was really just a blanket with her head cradled in her arms. It wasn't super comfortable, but it was alright.

Lilith fell asleep within moments of laying down, wishing she could go back to the days with no worries between her or Drew...no one chasing them. It was thankfully a dreamless sleep due to her exhaustion but it didn't feel like long at all before she felt her shoulder shake. Opening her sleepy eyes, she turned her head to Drew and nodded. "It's alright, love." Sitting up she rubbed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair. Maybe tomorrow they should take a river bath, she didn't care how freezing the water was, she felt gross. Pulling her hair up, she got up as Drew laid down and gave him a small smile.

Her exhaustion wasn't fully gone, and she felt so tired. She paced a couple times, noticing how fast Drew fell asleep and sighing. How were they going to make it anywhere if they were always so exhausted. She sat down, leaning against the tree. The silence of the night closing in. The only thing that kept her company was the sound of the river next to them. She stood up and walked over to it, not hearing the quiet footsteps behind her until it was too late.

There was suddenly a hand over her mouth, eliciting a muffled scream as she tried to kick the guy behind her. He was bigger than her and she heard the guys behind her shuffling around. "The boss is gonna be happy we finally found them" The guy holding her said and she bit down on his hand when it loosened a little bit causing him to curse before giving her a slap. "Drew!" Lilith saw more men moving to surround and take down Drew, all holding guns, and she felt a gun barrel pressed up against her head.

[Drew Schultz]

The creature that woke to Lilith's voice was not Drew, at least, not in the strictest sense. After a few weeks of never getting enough sleep, it would have taken a jet engine to wake the man who slept there on the ground. Instead, when it opened its eyes, there was nothing but pale gold in the irises. The smallest of cracking sounds indicated the growth of fangs beneath his lips, and the very tips began to peek out from the edge. Their full size was revealed more fully when the wolf growled, a threatening snarl that made the men around him take a step back in alarm. More than a couple looked around, wondering where the sound had come from. The man who had been the Boss's bodyguard had been human, to their knowledge.

Laying there on its back, the creature didn't seem to have any justification for the threat, but when the first man got a little closer than was wise, they all learned exactly how justified it was. The creature's massive clawed hand grabbed the ankle first, pulling the man down to his level to shield him from the series of gunshots that followed. The man's screams met with deaf ears - literally deaf, because the wolf's acute hearing had been overwhelmed by the noise, and was hearing nothing but a dull ringing. It couldn't even hear its own feral snarling as it got its feet under it, launching itself toward the next closest human that happened to be standing too close. His fangs sank into the side of mob peon's neck while the guy, who was much smaller than Drew, shot wildly. His neck snapped as the wolf slammed him into a nearby tree at an awkward angle.

Drew, asleep despite everything, would never have gone about a fight this way, not with Lilith there. She could have easily been shot, and Drew would never have taken that chance. But the wolf... the wolf had no such caution. All it knew was that there was blood to be spilled.

It didn't stay out in the open for long, using the trees for cover as the gunmen struggled to get a clear shot. They wasted a lot of ammunition, and the tree trunks were getting the worst of it, shredding into splinters and pulp, but the wolf was having a lot more luck. In the darkness, in the trees, it was in its element. It could see perfectly well in this darkness. More importantly, it had an abundance of targets, and it was still hungry. All that the men saw was the blur of movement in the darkness, and another man disappeared, his screams echoing through the trees.

"Fuck this!" a man finally shouted, turning and sprinting away from the fight.

A running target... Even more fun for the wolf... It raced after him, catching up quickly because of its massive stride. Tripping the man with a quick swipe of his foot, it watched the runner sprawl into the earth, his ankle cracking loudly. Blood was smeared across Drew's chin as he finally began to awaken from a place deep in his own mind. By the time he was fully cognizant, the pale gold darkening into an amber, he had the man dangling by this throat, his claws dug deep into the neck. The man's abject terror was evident in the foul stench rising from his trousers, but it was nothing to the terror that entered Drew's eyes at that moment.

He dropped the man, unknowingly, on his bad leg. The man crumpled into a heap and lay there whimpering as Drew could only stare at the blood on his hands, wondering where the hell it had come from.

"What...?" he breathed, tasting the human blood on his tongue.

There were three mob peons still alive, counting the one that held Lilith, but Drew still didn't even know what was happening. He looked around the trees, horrified at the stench of blood and death that was heavy on the air. His hands were beginning to shake as he looked at the scene of destruction around him. The last thing he remembered was laying down to sleep. Was this all part of some kind of screwed up dream?

[Lilith Prescott]

Watching the guys surround Drew, Lilith felt herself shaking as the man who held her tugged her back against him so she couldn't escape. Her arms were painfully pulled behind her back but it barely registered as Drew suddenly moved, attacking the men. Gunshots rang out, causing a scream to erupt from Lilith. She just wanted to duck down with her hands over her ears but the man made sure she couldn't move her arms as they stood there. She opened her eyes, shut from the gunshots, and what was happening before her eyes caused her to freeze.

What she was watching was not Drew...or something any human would do. As man after man was killed, Lilith felt her whole body shaking, unable to tear her eyes away from the scene before her. Drew has launched into the tree's, and one man went running. Judging from his screams, he didn't get far. She felt the mans grip loosen on her arms and a glance back, regardless of the gun barrel pressed against her head, showed a look that was not exactly smug anymore. More like deeply afraid and trying to hide it. The other two guys she could tell just wanted to get out of there.

Looking forward, she saw Drew again, a man dangling from his mouth and almost took a step back into the man behind her. She watched him pause and drop the man, staring at his hands. Did he have no idea what was happening? Lilith felt her body shaking as the man dropped her arms, and she felt her knees hit the ground. She felt the gun barrel still pressed against the back of her head.

"Y-y-you better cooperate or the...the girl dies!" The leader of the now non-existent band of mob guys voice shook as he pressed the barrel harder into Lilith's head, cause her to lean forward a little to relieve the pressure. He was trying to sound tough, but his voice was more high pitched than anything, betraying his fear. The barrel hurt, but Lilith couldn't stop looking at Drew and the horrified look on his face. What kept the other two men there, Lilith had no idea, she had no idea what had just happened with Drew, but she sat there, clenching her fists to keep them from shaking. She didn't dare utter a word, waiting for either sweet death, or the guy to just be too scared and run. 

[Drew Schultz]

With his hands shaking like they were, Drew could only sink to the ground and stare blankly at the dead body closest to him, trying to come to grips with it. He'd had moments where he'd blacked out before, usually only for a few seconds, wherein he had woken to having done something so horrific that he thought he'd had traumatic amnesia of some kind, but he'd never experienced anything quite as extreme as this. It had to be the monster in his mind that was responsible for all of this. He could even taste human blood and flesh, and the thought made him gag, almost throw up. His shaking hand clapped to his mouth, smearing the blood further across his chin. Had he partially eaten those people? He'd never experienced self-loathing to this extent before...

His hearing was slowly returning to a fairly normal level, but there was still an overwhelming ringing in his ears that blocked out most of the sounds of the night, silent as they had become because of the commotion. It took a sudden familiar clicking sound to get his attention back to what was going on. He knew that sound. It was the sound of a revolver being cocked back. His dark amber eyes lifted from the grisly body to where Lilith knelt across from him in the forest. There was little to no fight in his eyes as he stared, seeming completely dumbfounded by what he saw.

"What... do you want?" he asked, his voice dry and just barely audible.

The mob peons flanking the leader looked too obviously relieved to hide their terror, but they both walked forward, leveling their guns on him as they did so. With Drew on his knees, they were pretty well convinced that he wasn't going to be too difficult to subdue, but then again, he'd been lying on his back the first time. All that Drew was certain of was that the more guns that were pointed at him, the fewer that were pointed at Lilith. However this had happened, whatever had happened, he had that core certainty that Lilith's safety was the most important thing. 

"You're coming with us," one of them said, putting a bullet in the chamber of his gun. "If you cooperate, she's coming too. If you don't, we'll redecorate her pretty hair in crimson."

"Poetic," the other commented, smirking. "But yeah, what he said. Hands on your head."

Drew lifted his hands to rest lightly on the back of his head, staring down at the ground with his pulse racing. The moment was coming, and if he was too slow, Lilith would die. He felt cold steel close around one wrist, and the man knelt to pull his arm down behind him, while the other kept his gun pointed at the back of Drew's head. Leaning to the side to put the asshole's head in the path of his comrade's bullet, he grabbed the wrist of the man directly behind him, pulling his gun into easy reach for Drew's off-hand. He killed the man behind him with a single shot through the throat, and then he held the disarmed man in front of himself and stood in a single fluid movement, aiming the pistol at the gunman by Lilith. The open cuff dangled from his wrist, swinging back and forth.

"Boss?" the hostage said, sounding nervous. 

"Drop it," Drew said, his rasping voice tight.

At the moment of hesitation, when he saw the man's grip on the trigger loosen, Drew saw his second of opportunity. Kicking his hostage down to his hands and knees, he lifted his free hand to steady his aim. His hands were still shaking, but at least Lilith was on her knees, out of the probable line of fire. Each of the three shots fired hit the man at center mass, but re-enforced the deafness in both of his ears. It seemed to take the man a long time to fall, but he sank to his knees in the ringing silence that Drew was hearing, and then slid to his side with lifeless eyes.

Drew's eyes were slowly fading back to their usual dark brown, as the threat was diminished, and he looked down at the man who was quivering on the ground in front of him. Gritting his teeth, he kicked the man in the side of the head, hard enough to knock him unconscious but not hard enough to kill him. As if it really mattered, leaving just one alive. How very merciful of him. In his last vestige of control, he hit the magazine release and pulled the slide to empty the pistol and dissembled it into a half-dozen pieces in the space of a few seconds. He wasn't sure why. Maybe it helped to make one thing, at least, less dangerous.

What was he supposed to do now? He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to wade into the river until he drowned or froze to death. But he did nothing but stand there.

[Lilith Prescott]

Lilith felt frozen. Like the world had stopped. Drew was just on his knees and Lilith had no idea what was happening. Well, she had something of a hunch but not any really good idea. As the guys who were left went up to handcuff Drew, she blinked, missing what had happened but suddenly Drew had one of the guys hostage, the other dead, and was aiming the gun at the boss. She felt her heart stop as three gunshots rang out into the night that put an end to what had happened. Lilith watched Drew stand there, finally feeling unfrozen and stood up, finding her footing even though her legs were asleep from kneeling for so long.

She ran to Drew, tripping into him and throwing her arms around him. The death around them was something she worked on ignoring, and she didn't care about the blood on Drew as she held him. His eyes were back to their normal brown and that was what let her know it was her Drew who was back.

But what had caused the snap? Lilith felt the question tingling at the back of her head when her eyes caught Drews guitar. "No.." If there was anything Lilith was completely upset about, it was the state of the guitar that she had bought Drew. She stepped back, looking at the damaged guitar, pretty much crushed under one of the goons from the beginning of the fight and she frowned. It wasn't the death, but the guitar that upset her? Lilith let that process through her head and shook her head slightly, taking Drew's hand. He still looked in shock and she touched his shoulder. "You keep saving me..."

Lilith led her love to the river, having him sit down as she grabbed a rag from their bag and started washing off the blood on his skin. "What happened...I have never seen you lose control like that..." Lilith's voice was quiet as she went about her task of washing the blood off of Drew.

[Drew Schultz]

He probably would have stood there for hours if Lilith hadn't run up to him, wrapping her arms around him. He didn't really respond to her embrace, just stood there as he stared into space, but he allowed her to lead him to the stream. Kneeling there on the banks of the water, he stared at the water as if it would have the answers he was seeking. In all of his life, he'd never had self-destructive urges so strong, but he had never scared himself this badly before, either. His stomach was getting increasingly unsettled, and as the cool water touched his skin, he turned away from Lilith and retched violently into the stream, bracing himself on the earth as he threw up bits of blood and tissue that he had eaten when he'd lost control.

He sat back up on his heels, spitting the acrid taste of blood and bile into the stream as he seemed to come back to himself for a moment. Awareness returned to his eyes, and he glanced over at Lilith with shame in his eyes. Dipping his fingers into the stream, he allowed the water to sweep away the red that discolored them. The cold hurt... But watching the water wipe away the blood was oddly satisfying. He froze again at her question, pulling his hands back.

"I... I don't remember," he rasped quietly.

His eyes glowed blue for a moment as he heated up his hands, and steam billowed off of them until they were some semblance of dry. They returned to a normal temperature quickly, but he looked at them with resignation. He'd been called a living weapon more than once. Was he really just fooling himself to think that he could ever be anything else? But as he looked at his hands, it occurred to him that there was another way to communicate with her, aside from using the throat that hurt so badly from speaking and from the acid of vomiting.

His fingers began to shape words as he faced her a little more fully, though he didn't lift his eyes to meet hers. He was too ashamed to do that.

Sometimes, when I am very angry or hurt, I have times that I can't remember, he signed. At those times, I feel the wolf. The wolf protects me, takes over when I am... overwhelmed. But I've never lost control for this long before. Usually, it's a couple of seconds. A minute at most.

[Lilith Prescott]

Watching as he wretched, Lilith stayed quiet and when he turned towards her she looked at him as he started moving his hands. She paid attention, watching his explanation paint the night air, only their fire and the moonlight lighting up around them. When he was done, Lilith placed her hands over his now clean ones and the look on her face matched the concern in her heart. "Is this because of the experiments?"

Lilith felt like she had been fooling herself as reality slapped her in the face. There was no true escape from the horrors that had happened to them both. There was no escaping the nightmares, or the problems that all the experimentation and the torture had caused for them both. Drew more than her, though. He was loosing control to the wolf...which meant what she had seen earlier hadn't been Drew, but the wolf inside of him. She thought about his eyes that had been nothing but gold. "So...when your eyes change to more of a gold..." Liliths voice trailed off, a memory flashing across her mind to a few months ago.

She had had a nightmare and when she had sought out Drew, he had been awake, his eyes the same pale gold. Blinking Lilith looked at Drew, running her fingers along his cheek. Should she tell him? She didn't want him to get more worked up but..he was thinking this was the only time he hadn't had control for more than a minute..."A while ago I had a nightmare...and you were awake...and I realize now it wasn't you, but the wolf. Drew I don't think this is the first time you haven't had control for more than a few minutes.." She sat up, her deep blue eyes searching the dark eyes of her love.

If the wolf inside of him was more separated to where even Drew couldn't figure out when the wolf was in control sometimes, then what would that mean for them in the future? Would he be able to control it, even if they were under a life or death threat? She leaned back, looking at the river, loosing herself in her own thoughts for a moment as she thought about the detriment everything had done to Drew mentally.

[Drew Schultz]

Drew looked up at her as she asked her question, his deep brown eyes troubled. The fact that it had never really occurred to him to tell her about this was a testament to how integral in his consciousness it really was. He was so used to the duality that he lived with every day that he forgot that not everyone had the same experience. But even he hadn't noticed that it had gotten worse over time, not until he had woken up covered in blood and guts. He couldn't have found out in a worse way, but now that he knew, his eyes flicked back and forth from the rapidity of the thoughts that were running through his head. Those times that he'd woken up feeling more exhausted than when he'd fallen asleep... Had he even been asleep?

He was losing control... The thought of it terrified him to the core, and not even the wolf could protect him from the naked reality that stood before him. He was under no illusions about how dangerous he could be, how primal and deadly the wolf was. If his grip on that side of himself was slipping, what would be the consequences? Was it safe for him to stay with Lilith, knowing that he could become a mindless death machine without his knowledge or consent? The wolf didn't seem disturbed by the thought, and he wondered about how it had known not to attack Lilith, even without him at the reins.

At her last sentence, he recoiled as if he'd been punched. Not the first time? How many times had this happened before? What had he done, that he simply didn't remember?

To make matters worse, the wolf was reacting to his fear, and amber bled into his dark eyes as it tried to discern the source of danger. His pulse was racing again, his nerves on edge, and he hated it. It was like being a black-out drunk, except that there was nothing he could do to predict or stop it. He had never hated the wolf like this before, and the fight between him and the wolf was clear in the way that his eyes were pulsing back and forth between colors. Lowering his head as he turned his attention inward, he took a calming breath to reassure himself that there was no more danger. That didn't help, considering the stench of death and blood was everywhere on the wind.

Get a grip, damn it... he told himself silently.

He stood slowly and walked along the stream, leaving her there on the bank without a word. How had this happened? It was possible that it had been happening for years, and he simply didn't remember, but he doubted it. He would have noticed significant gaps in his memory, wouldn't he? No, it was more likely that it had happened as a result of the month from Hell that Lilith had been witness to. Was it related to that damn serum they had injected him with? Or was it simply because he had given over to the wolf one too many times?

[Lilith Prescott]

Her thoughts had been focused inward, trying to handle what was happening that she zoned out into the river next to where they stood. Drew's movement caught her by surprise as he suddenly stood and started walking down the stream. She watched him, slowly standing. She was unsure if he needed to be alone, or if she should follow him. As worried as she was, Lilith didn't think that following him would produce any answers. She looked at the mess around them and sighed. They would have to move camp down a little and move the bodies so wild animals didn't come. Maybe they should just push the bodies into the river...but Lilith didn't want something bad to happen to the water and she couldn't move the men by herself. She sighed, moving over to pack up their stuff.

All the crap that they have gone through, and nothing could stop it. No tears graced her face tonight though, because her heart was too hard as she packed up their bags. Kneeling, she took Drew's broken guitar in her hands. The one she had gotten him. She touched the smooth face of it and put it back down. Everything was ready to move. The only thing they had left to do was put out the fire and do something with the bodies.

Walking back over to the river, Lilith leaned over, washing her hands in the icy cold of the water. She looked down, seeing Drew. It had a been a little bit and she stepped closer to him. "Drew..sweety...we need to go." Lilith was actually a little frightened to touch his arm. She didn't want to scare him and with everything so unpredictable right now with his inner workings, maybe it was better that way. Her hand had been poised mid air to touch his arm though, and she dropped it slowly, staring at the ground. Would they ever be able to be normal again?