The Keeping(151)

The woman nodded, then burst into tears and ran from the room.

As Greyson hurried down the stairs, he considered calling the security guard that had remained on duty to help in the search for Cassandra. When he reached the main floor, he hesitated. What if she had transformed into a wolf? No, it was too dangerous. It was better that he looked himself. She’d listen to him, no matter what form she was in.

*****

Mel and Ryne crawled on their hands and knees through the sewer pipe. To Mel, it seemed like they’d been doing this for hours. Her knees were complaining from the unaccustomed use and her palms were screaming for mercy as tiny nicks and cuts abraded their surface. The bottom of the pipe was covered in a sludgy substance that hid rocks, twigs and other sharp bits of debris. It also made disgusting sucking sounds each time they moved as if it was trying to keep them from escaping its slimy clutches. Ryne insisted it wasn’t a sanitary sewer, but rather one that was used to collect runoff from rain water. Mel dearly hoped he was right, but had her doubts given the stench that permeated the air.

At least they were no longer commando crawling on their bellies like they had been initially. After making their way through a series of mesh gates, the pipe had widened to a more comfortable height and they were now on their hands and knees. Finally off her belly and able to open her mouth without fear of ingesting the disgusting muck that splashed in her face, Mel made her feelings known.

“Ryne, if we ever get out of this pipe, I’m never listening to another idea of yours again.”

“I didn’t hear you come up with a better one.” He paused in his crawling and looked back at her over his shoulder. The lighting was almost nil, but Mel managed to make out his filth splattered face.

“Well, if you’d listened to me, we wouldn’t have turned left at that last junction.”

“So I made a wrong turn. With the fumes down here, I can’t scent which direction fresh air is coming in from.”

“But I said we should have gone right. If you’d listened to me we wouldn’t be crawling backwards out of a dead end right now. We might even be out of here.”

“It was only a short detour and besides usually werewolves have an impeccable sense of direction.”

“Yeah, if they know where they’re heading in the first place. We have no idea where this tunnel might be taking us.”

“So, in other words, you think you could do a better job leading us?”

Mel hesitated. Could she? “Maybe... It probably couldn’t be any worse.”

“Fine. When we get back to the junction you’re in charge.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t really expected him to agree, but wasn’t about to back down from the challenge. She kept crawling in reverse until they reached the relatively more roomy ‘T’ where the tunnel branched off. Wiggling herself around, Mel headed to the right and Ryne followed behind. He was soon muttering under his breath.

“Now what are you complaining about?” Mel peeked under her arm to look at him.

“Your feet are splashing this muck up into my face.”

She smiled knowing he probably couldn’t see. “Oh. So sorry. It’s not like I had to put up with that when our positions were reversed and you were in the lead.”

Ryne grunted, but kept quiet after that.

They crawled along in silence for a while. Mel mulled over the idea of turning into a werewolf, still not totally convinced, but realizing that perhaps, just in case, she should try to be open to the idea. It surprised her that she hadn’t freaked out more when Ryne changed in front of her, but she supposed the clues had been there all along. Her subconscious must have been processing and accepting them for a quite a while so that when she was told, it wasn’t too big of a leap to acknowledge werewolves existed. As for turning into a werewolf herself, if she did actually have those genes within her, then there was no use crying and complaining about it. It was a done deal.

Mel was, if nothing else, practical and decided she’d just make the best of the situation. In a way, it was sort of sexy, the idea of shifting shapes. She wondered if her strength would increase to a level similar to Ryne’s, or if being a werewolf with mixed blood created certain limitations. Hopefully, it would tone her muscles and increase her metabolism so she could eat as much as she wanted without any adverse effects. A smile spread across her face at the idea of being able to add whipped cream to her cafe mochas and not feel even the slightest twinge of guilt.

Lost in that happy thought, she suddenly let out a shriek as something cold and slimy grabbed at her ankle.

“Shh! Are you trying to let everybody within a ten mile radius know where we are?”