The Werecats: Creatures of the Night (Book One) (Revised)

- Five: Kidnapped -

- Five: Kidnapped -

My head throbbed. My ear roared. My throat burned. The dull ache of my body was all I could think about as I sat up dizzily. I remembered being taken and shoved in some car by him. I thought I had escaped that night, but apparently I had been wrong.

I looked up to see him sitting in the driver's seat. "How did I get here?" I asked, my head still foggy.

He sighed in exaggeration, "Someone should've explained this to you a long time ago, but I guess I'll do it. When and mommy and daddy love each other very much, they-"

"No!" I shouted, cutting him off, "I know that. Where are we going?"

"Home." He answered simply after laughing.

"And where might that be?"

"Deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We'll be there just before sunset." He replied.

"What's with you and sunset? The night I saw you standing by the bus stop, you ran off when the sun was setting, and the night you tried to kill me was just before sunset, too." I said more to myself than to him.

"So many questions..." He trailed off, "All of those questions and more will be answered later, okay? For now just try to get yourself onto a seat and relax."

Relax? I growled in my mind. As if I would ever be able to relax after being kidnapped. Maybe I'll just have him pull over at a grocery store so I can buy some cucumber slices to put over my eyes. I sniffed with laughter at the thought.

I hoisted myself up onto a seat in an uncomfortable position, but I was too weak to care. My mind was foggy and I was trapped in a daze. Fighting again is useless, I told myself, if something happens to me then it happens.

A strange sensation had been occupying my head since I had woken up. I was no longer worried about where I was being taken. It was both irritating and a relief all at once.

"Do you know what sucks about this?" I said after a long while of silence.

"What?" Dominique said.

"You've attacked me, hurt me and now you've kidnapped me, and yet when I look at you I can't be afraid or hate you." I said.

"That'll be explained soon, too." He said in a matter-of-fact way.

I was silent. Glancing down at my arms, I noticed that the black vein syndrome had completely disappeared and my arms looked normal again. "The black veins!" I said, "They're gone!"

"That's a good sign." Dominique Norte said.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Because the change is complete. I was kind of hoping it'd hold off 'til you woke up though. I wanted to see your face in the final stage."

"The change? It's like every word that comes out of your mouth is nonsense." I laughed.

"In a day none of this will be nonsense anymore."

By the time the car finally slowed, nightfall was coming. The woods were nothing but black silhouettes against a dark blue sky. I noticed that Dominique had been drinking something out of a container almost continuously since the sun had begun to set, and it made me worry.

"This stuff will keep us from changing tonight." Dominique explained, pointing at the container, "There's still a bit of human blood in your veins so you don't need any yet." Once again, I could not be angry at his words, let alone wonder what they meant.

Suddenly the movement of the car shifted and I could tell we had gone off road. I turned towards the window to see deep woods and a fading side road behind us. Suddenly, the back of the car bogged down and the engine groaned.

Cursing, Dominique hopped from the driver's seat and disappeared behind the car. Something shoved the car and it was rolling forward again, but without a driver. Before I could panic, he was back in the driver's seat and driving again.

"Wha- How did you do that?" I exclaimed, dazed.

"Do what?" Dominique asked.

"You- You lifted the car by yourself! It would take at least twelve men to do that and you did it alone!" I yelled. I would have thrown my hands in the air if I could, but they were still bonded behind my back.

"There's a lot we can do that you don't know about, Riley." He said, cutting me off from my exessive panicking.

"We?" I squeaked, my voice braking.

"Yes, we." Dominique said, imitating my voice.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Dominique said, "We're here."

"Where are we?" I asked. The rain had calmed to a small mist and the moon had come out to shed its silver light on what I thought to be a thick forest.

Instead of answering, Dom jumped out of the driver's seat after parking, came to my side of the car and cut the zip ties binding my arms and feet. Then he walked towards the tree line nearby still without a word. I followed, afraid to be alone in this place.

We walked into the forest and after a while, Dom said, "It's me."

Just as he said this, dozens of pairs of different colored eyes, some lime green and some indigo blue, with slitted pupils appeared from the darkness.