The Last Shifter

Chapter 6 - Final Chapter

Derrick pushed me behind him and glared at Nate. "Don't you think dad, Lenny and you have done enough to her?!" he yelled in a whisper, not wanting to wake his other older brother and father. "She just wanted answers and you guys treat her like cattle - no, worse. The three of you don't have a human bone in your body."

Nate raised an eyebrow. I guess Derrick had never stood up to his brother like this before. "Take it back to the basement," he growled.

"SHE has a name," argued Derrick. "And it would be a cold day in Hell - twice - before I take her to that torture chamber, BROTHER." The way he said it - brother - you could tell he felt Nate was anything but. "I won't let you hurt her anymore. You don't get to decide her fate."

"And neither do you," Nate said as he took a swing at Derrick.

Derrick saw it coming and quickly tripped Nate so he landed on his back with a heavy thud. Grabbing my hand, Derrick flung the door open and dragged me to his jeep. Nate had gotten up and started to come after us. Pushing me into the passenger seat, Derrick rushed over to the driver's seat and started up the vehicle, gunning it just as Nate reached my door. Derrick took a sharp turn to the left. I could see Nate rushing back into the house, probably to wake Lenny and their father. Derrick kept the jeep over the speed limit. It was good that hardly anyone drove this late, because we would have crashed by now, had the road been filled with cars.

Taking many different turns, I thought we lost them, that was, until I saw head lights a little distance behind us. Probably less than 200 feet away. I cast a nervous look at Derrick, not sure if we would be able to shake them. More twists and turns and we were finally creating more distance between them and us. Thirty minutes later Derrick took a sharp right, surprising me, into a border of trees, turning the jeep's lights off. We waited. And waited.

About five minutes later the truck - he's father's vehicle, no doubt - zoomed passed us in a falsh, speeding down the curvy road. We let out a relieved sigh.

"I don't think they saw us," he said.

I looked at him, a little doubtful. "Are you sure?"

He gave a short nod. "Yeah, but to be one the safe side, I think we should turn around and go to the exit we passed a little ways back." Turning the car on, he turned the jeep around and sped down the road, looking for the said exit.

It wasn't that far away. He turned onto it and drove to a gas station.

"I'll just fill it up and we can go from there," said Derrick. He pulled out some money and handed it to me. "You can go in there and get some bottled water and snacks and stuff, I don't know how long it will be before we reach another gas station."

I gave him a nod and took the money, stepped out the jeep and headed to the change store.

Before I knew it we were on the road again.

"So where are we going?" he asked.

I gave him a confused look. "We?"

Sending a sad smile my way he replied, "Well I can't really go home now, now can I? I helped a shifter escape, they see me as the enemy now."

This was my fault. Even though they were horrible people, they were still his family. If I hadn't stayed like Derrick asked me to back in the woods, we wouldn't be in this terrible mess. If I had only let go of what the hunter did to my pride I wouldn't have had Derrick take me to him and all of this wouldn't have happened.

Derrick must have seen the look on my face, revealing how I felt, because the next thing he said was, "Hey, it's okay. I wouldn't have took you to my father if I had known what he would have done. I should have know, though, because he brags about it all the time - him and Lenny and Nate all do. Besides, it's about time I left them anyway, should have ran away a long time ago. I guess, I was pretending that they would change. That they would want to become better people, like my mom."