CHAPTER 3: Escape and Evade
-----I find myself running through a forest again. The Cathedral Forest.
This is the eighth time I've had this dream, so I've learned to recognize the difference between the hazy, indistinct details of my normal dreams and the vibrant realistic details of this world. I'm starting to suspect that this is more than a dream, but I can't help but think that my overactive imagination is just running away from me.
The forest is exactly the same as the first time I was here. The freshly fallen snow, the barren trees, the dappled sunlight created from the massive overhanging branches, the perfectly smooth lavender sky. Nothing has changed. It's as peaceful and serene as ever. Now all that's missing is the entrance of the white tiger.
No matter what direction I go or what speed I run, every road leads back to him. That fearsome white tiger with the dark, piercing eyes. I know it's only a matter of time before I come face to face with him again in this dream.
Resigned to my fate, I look up at the branches and admire the graceful forest ceiling in the same manner as I've done every time I've been here. I don't think I could ever get used to the beauty of this place. The poignant silence touches my soul, as if trying to tell me Gaia's secret of nature itself. I want to phase into my cat and fully blend into the white snow that covers the ground, but for some reason I feel like I should be in human form. I am always compelled to stay in human form in these dreams.
As soon as I feel the telltale prickling sensation on the back of my neck, I know he is there, glaring at me from behind. I sigh, exasperated and annoyed with these recurring and all-too predictable events, and turn around to face my adversary.
Bracing myself to face his unforgiving glare, I turn and look into the black abyss of his eyes. Those eyes, which I've only seen in the ripples of my dreams, always haunt my waking hours. They are deeper than any I've seen before, almost ageless and eternal, stretching into infinity. For some reason I know they have the ability to physically pierce my soul, peel back every layer of my being until they can dissect the essence that is me. The very anatomy of my cat. The mysterious past of my tiger blood. I want to shut my eyes against his probing stare, but I can't.
He is standing in the same proud position that he stands in every time I've seen him—tall and bold and unmerciful, as if I'm trespassing on his territory and he holds my life in the palm of his hand. Which, given his size, he probably does.
His white fur glistens in the sunlight and I can see that the fur on his back is standing on end. He is angrier than usual. He growls threateningly and stalks toward me. I can feel his bottomless black eyes burning into me, but I still cannot find the will to break eye contact.
This time I refuse to run away, even though I am practically panting in fear now. Every time he approached me in the past, fear would flood my veins and I would flee before I even made a conscious decision to do so. But now, I am making a conscious decision to hold my ground.
'This is, after all, a dream,' I think, panicked. 'You can't die in a dream.'
He makes a straight line to where I am, tense and clenching my fists repeatedly, until his snout is inches away from my face. I see his nostrils inhale, taking in my scent. I've already tried to catch his, but it's always only a faint wisp, as if his scent is just around the corner and I could fully discover it if I followed the trail.
His body blocks out everything else, it's all I can see. Blinding white fur, deep black eyes, flaring nostrils. I imagine how it would feel if he decided to end me—his claws ripping through the flesh of my belly, cutting through me like butter. I wouldn't stand a chance. Are all male tigers this massive? I really wouldn't know—I've only been around Zane, and he's barely bigger than me in cat form.
I'm anxious and on edge after these long moments of closeness, and I can't help but give in to my instinct to slowly back away and put more space between us. He loudly chuffs in annoyance, making me jump. He obviously doesn't want me to move, but he keeps advancing. And I keep backing up.
Until I feel the ground disappear beneath me and hear a splash. Water—I've started walking into some sort of pond, I guess, but there's no way I would risk taking my eyes off the tiger to see for sure.
When I continue backing farther into the pond, the tiger chuffs louder and his eyes flash—eyes that I had once thought pitch black suddenly become a dark, haunting green.
"Edie."
I bolt up in my seat, immediately tense and alert like a rubber band stretched taut. My heart is pounding and I scan my surroundings thoroughly until I see Zane stretching outside of the stopped car.
"Edie, we're here." Zane peeks in the opened door of the Chevy truck, letting the bitter cold morning into the previously heated car.
For a moment I'm thoroughly disoriented. I don't know where I am. But then it all comes rushing back.
After leaving Portland, we headed straight toward the border of Maine and into New Hampshire. We needed to get past state lines as fast as possible—before the Pureblood tracker could get to the border. We had been running for days before we found a car that Zane deemed inconspicuous enough to steal from one of the isolated houses nestled in the thick New Hampshire forest. He conveniently forgot to mention his talent at hot-wiring unsuspecting vehicles.
We ended up running north through White Mountain National Forest and into New Hampshire, heading straight for the Canadian border. Out of the city, out of the state, and straight on out of the country.
My eyes grew moist at the thought. Leaving behind my past and all my roots proved more difficult that I had imagined.
The tracker had been following us for days and Zane insisted that if we were to escape and evade we needed to find help from other werecats we could trust. So we aimed our exodus for Quebec, where Zane knew some trusted Panthera Tigris, in other words loner Purebloods similar to Zane himself. He already told me that he cut all connections to respectable Panthera Tigris on account of his "good sense of distaste." I rolled my eyes at that one. What a drama queen.
We had to be extremely careful to only phase into our cats when it was dark, so as not to be seen, which aggravated me since we would have been moving a lot faster without the hindrance of our human bodies. I longed to free my lithe white tiger and stretch my legs out in a speed unconstrained and unrestricted. To feel the wind in my fur and the soft dirt of the forest under my paws was something I had not experienced in many months. But, remembering the dangers of phasing in human living areas and realizing the fact that our lives were at stake, I ignored those impulses and made due with my human legs, all the while looking forward to the moment when I would be free to unleash my cat.
With only a backpack filled with a map, water, and some junk food stolen from a gas station, Zane and I weaved our way through long miles of trees. I regretted the fact that we had to abandon all our clothes and belongings, but we made sure not to leave anything valuable behind. The only thing I owned that had any value to me was an amethyst pendant necklace, which remained heavy and reassuring around my neck.
The amethyst stone, a dark, almost unnatural violet cut in a delicate teardrop shape, was the only proof I had that my mother even existed. The old-fashioned necklace once belonged to her, before she died in a car accident when I was only a week old and left me to grow up in the oh-so-capable hands of my foster parents. It's the only connection I have to my mom, a woman I never knew and who never knew me. And I probably never would know anything about her, because no matter how hard I researched, I could never find out anything about her.
I unconsciously rubbed the pendant in between my fingers, hoping to somehow absorb strength from the lost soul of my mysterious mother. It was a habit I'd picked up after many anxious nights of no sleep.
And so we went. Me and Zane running through the forest wilderness with nothing but a backpack and an amethyst necklace to our names. Luckily, having a body temperature of 107 degrees, the frosty November weather didn't bother me as it would a human. In fact, the cold wind exhilarated me while I ran, and from the wild laughter Zane randomly bust into, I could tell it refreshed him also. Before I knew it, I was giggling right along with him until, at random intervals, we could be seen sprinting over fallen logs and mossy hills hysterically laughing like a couple of deranged children.
I couldn't deny that his carefree antics relaxed me in this mad run for our lives. Through wind, rain, and hail, we ran on, and I tried to ignore the underlying fear that crawled under my skin.
By that time we were in Canada and Zane was positive we had lost the tracker.
He passed the time explaining the details of the Panthera Tigris world and I just listened, not interrupting nor asking questions for fear that he'd change his mind and stop talking. He told me about the Purebloods' hate for the Mixedbloods, and how certain Mixedbloods, called dissenters, rallied back against their own persecution.
"They created their own headquarters," he told me, "where they plan attacks against Pureblood-held cities, like London, Milan, and—well you know, the most expensive cities are usually controlled by Purebloods because they thrive on being envied and fawned on by the humans. They are extremely cultured and intelligent, often responsible for history's greatest art, literature, and academic discoveries. But not always, I mean sometimes humans are responsible for the great discoveries...but not often.
"But anyway, not all Mixedbloods are dissenters, because these guys are basically terrorist radicals of the community, they take things to the extreme. It's stupid really—you can't fight fire with fire when it comes to the Purebloods. Although the last time I heard, they had some successful missions..." he trailed off musingly.
