Jodi and I picked up on the episode we had previously stopped on last time and it was relatively easy to fall into the lives of the characters and their absurd problems in order to almost forget my own for a while.

When the curse was not prickling at me over little reminders, I almost felt relaxed, or as close to relaxed as I could manage with anxiety as a constant low noise in the background.

But still, it was nice. I could probably be actual friends with this girl if the curse was not constantly weighing me down.

"I'm going to get more popcorn," Jodi announced as she paused at the end of an episode.

From the corner of my eye I watched her get up and walk to the kitchen before returning with a bowl and two cans of cola from the fridge.

"Want a pop?" she offered.

"Yes please," I said. She handed one over to me. "Thanks."

"No problem."

Before she could hit the remote, I asked the question that had been knocking around in my head since she had interrupted supper with documents a week ago. "Why did y-you ask to, y-you know, to hang out and watch tv with me?"

I expected it was likely well meaning pity.

"You know that feeling when you're just really bored and you see someone who might amuse you? Yeah, that one," she said and then hit the play button on the remote.

It was not the answer I expected, maybe that's why I felt more normal around her. She was not wandering around me like I was some poor abused puppy.

I turned my attention back to the screen and tried to dissolve into a fictional world.

* * * * * * * * *

We watched a full two more episodes and were several minutes into the third when I heard Serge talking and moving around in the back of the house. I could not hear what he was saying or doing, but it sounded enough out of the ordinary that my curse flared up and ran over my skin and dived into every fibre of my body.

I did not move or make a sound, but I stiffened and listened attentively to see if I could discover what had happened.

Jodi let out a light sardonic chuckle at something, but my attention was fully on the leader of my pack.

I was not surprised when he came out of the hallway, still talking on the phone.

"Yes, team two. Yes. Yes. Southeast? No, send a second. I'm on my way. Check in in five," he said.

His direct, blunt tone made me feel like leaping out of my skin. I realized that even his orders to me sounded more like suggestions.

If he used that tone on me, I would be helpless but to obey his every command. My mouth felt dry at the reminder of the power he had over me.

I felt fear crowding through me, the curse reminding me I deserved nothing so much as to be treated like the thrall I was. I gritted my teeth and reminded myself that he would not do that. The only order he had ever given me had ended in me criticizing him and crying.

I ignored the curse's nagging and reminded myself that I could trust Serge.

"What's wrong?" I heard Jodi ask across from me. She had paused the show and I had not even noticed.

Serge's voice was hard. "Another attack."

"Again, already?" she asked, sounding concerned.

The attacks had grown more frequent in the last couple of years, but this was alarmingly unprecedented.

"Yes," he said, but it seemed his mind was already elsewhere. "Jodi, I'm leaving you in charge of Elise. Keys for the truck are in the top drawer of my desk and the keys for the gun safe are in the fake book on the top shelf. Get both of you to the shelter."

"Yes," she agreed.

He frowned. "It might be bad when I'm gone, but you'll have to manage. Command Elise only as a last resort."

"Yes, Serge." It sounded like a promise.

"Elise, I'm sorry," he said. Without another word he walked away. I heard the front door slam shut behind him and the skin on the back of my neck pricked with fear.

Jodi was already in motion and out of the room. I well remembered what had happened when I was out of range of Serge so I had the presence of mind to start walking towards the door before she came back.

I made it almost to the door when the curse hit me like a downed plane. The ice stabbed into the back of my neck and my heart pounded frantically as if the only way for it to be safe from the overwhelming fear was to flee my body entirely.

Somehow I was on the floor. Jodi came into the room. With her help I managed to pull on my boots.

"Come on, get up," she said.

I tried, but I felt like I was frozen.

She hoisted me up until I was standing and began to half carry half drag me out of the house and across the driveway. "Come on, Elise," she groaned. I could feel where she was touching me, but the little ripples of a pack members touch were dwarfed by the agony of being too far from my master.

I felt shivers wrack me again.

"Damn it, Elise. Get into the truck," she growled after she unlocked the doors and opened the passenger side for me.

I forced my stiff and disjointed limbs to move. She helped drag me up into the passenger side. "Damn it, Serge, if you had a smaller vehicle..." she muttered to herself as she slammed the door, rounded the truck and jumped into the driver's side.

She started the truck and slammed it into drive and we were hurtling forward at a speed that I would have feared even without the influence of the curse.

* * * * * * * * *

We pulled to a screeching halt in front of the shelter. I leaned against the door of the truck and looked at the floor while tremors ran out from the nape of my neck. My nerves were electric ice and my veins flowed with liquid frost.

The truck door opened and the ground rushed towards my head.

I was caught in strong arms and carried into the shelter. I did not know who had me, only that he was a normal human member of the pack and that he was not Serge and that there were members of the pack all around me.

At the edge of my awareness, I could feel that we were heading down a flight of stairs. I was deposited on a chair and someone slipped a blanket around my shoulders.

I sat there, pitiful thrall that I was, in a blank haze of fear. I might have been hysterical, but I had no energy to express it.

It was like I was one of those poor patients in insane asylums in movies, staring into space while the demons fight in my head.

I could not see the demons, but I knew they were there because they would splash up from under the placid surface of my cursed terror.

The demons were afraid.

For my father.

For Matthias.

For Sean.

For my old pack.

For my new.

For Serge.

If he died in the fight tonight, I would know before anyone else.

I would be free.

And he would be dead.

I wanted my freedom, but not for that price.

I swallowed and tried to push my true demons back under the surface of the curse.

* * * * * * * * *

I dozed in the chair, frequently jolted from sleep by the sounds of the pack members around me. From the edge of my vision I could see most of the children were doing the same thing I was, dozing in chairs or on the floor or cuddling up against their mothers. The sound of their steady breathing was low under the murmured conversations around me.

Though I could not directly look at their mothers, I could see that a handful of them were holding rifles. I also knew that the area around the shelter and strategic locations in the town would be guarded by fighters who were past their prime, women and regular humans. They would all be armed to the teeth in case the line of our fighters was broken and the enemy got through.

It was not much different than my pack, although when I was with my father at least there were ways that I could contribute. Here I was little more than a waste of space.

"Are you Elise?" asked a girl beside me.

I jumped a bit at the sudden intrusion into my thoughts, although it probably was not detectable amongst all the other shivers and quakes of my body.

I nodded.

"My mom's been taking care of you," she commented.

I swallowed. "Does that mean y-your m-mom is K-K-Karen?"

"Yeah. I'm Macy," she agreed.

"Sh-she's been very k-k-kind to me."

"My dad's Dan. He's second. He's out fighting right now," she explained.

I swallowed. "H-he sounds very brave."

"Yeah, he is. My mom's brave, too. She's outside the shelter."

I nodded.

"My dad says she's a crack shot."

I smiled at that.

"My brothers are over there, acting stupid."

I almost managed a laugh in spite of the curse. It reminded me of childhood memories with my brother and his fool friends. I could not look, but I could at least picture the scene.

"If she was here she would remind them that death matches are not allowed in our family."

"That s-seems a g-good r-rule," I agreed.

"Peyton and Sebastian might anyway when our parents aren't looking. They fight a lot. Peyton likes to aggravate Sebastian until he loses his temper. I don't know why. If Sebastian ever really fought he would win, because he's bigger and stronger."

As the younger sibling in my family, I sympathized with Peyton.

"So, what's it like to be cursed?" she asked me.

I tried to think of what to say. "I-it m-makes me afraid."

"I'm afraid, too. I'm afraid of the dark, of spiders, and that something bad will happen to my mom and dad," she told me seriously.

I knew that feeling, but at least during the years when I was a kid there were only one or two attacks. How must it be for her with as many attacks in a two week period?

I wanted to comfort her, but what could I say that was true? Her father was in danger. My father had almost died the last time he took a serious injury in battle. Sometimes our warriors did not come back.

I swallowed. "W-we can see better in the dark than regular humans. In a one on one fight y-you could definitely take down a spider. And y-your m-mom is a great shot and y-your d-dad, h-he's a skilled fighter."

He would probably be fine.

They would all probably be fine. Most of these skirmishes ended with the enemy retreating and our fighters came home alive, if injured.

Yet the curse amplified my fears and swept me under.