I wrote this a few months ago on a dare (my friends were entering a contest for fun. Yep, writing peer pressure at its finest). I should add that I don’t normally write in this genre. Birthplace was an experiment, but I don’t know much about the werewolf/shifter/paranormal genre myself and can really offer just my unique take on it, which involves a lot of the stories that shaped (and terrified) my childhood.
Anyway, this is sort of like a Birthplace 1.5, happening between the first novel and the planned next one, Birthright.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw the cat scamper through the darkness. My jaw quivered and my haunches gave an involuntary twitch, but I didn’t move. I had eaten the day before—a motorcycle accident from the mortuary. His entire family had been knocked senseless by cheap beer and gin and had not disturbed me.
I would have preferred a fresh kill—I had been hoping they would take him to the hospital first—but under those circumstances, it was the best I could hope for. I didn’t have time to search for better prey. I had to eat, had to sate the hunger-lust, even if it meant consuming dead prey. In any case, cats didn’t do it for me. I’d tried before. They were too much hair and bone, and not enough people.
I ran one hand over my mouth. I felt my mouth, and the day-old growth of stubble over it, and remembered that I was human once again. Human. I didn’t know whether to chuckle at the absurdity of that word, or spit at the emotions it stirred within me. As if I could ever be truly human again. Being human had been fun—had meant long, lazy mornings waiting for my mom to finish breakfast, or wasting hours lounging around in the billiard hall with drinking buddies. Being human did not in any way resemble this…sneaking through the alleys behind funeral parlors and hospitals in the hopes of finding an unattended body, or running through the roads in search of vehicle crashes so that I might, for a little while, stave the hunger that threatened to consume me.
Because I didn’t want to kill anyone. The others, I’m sure, would find it laughable, but I didn’t want to kill, not unless that person was about to die, anyway. Which meant avoiding people. Not that I needed any more of an excuse for that.
My phone began to vibrate. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to look inside of me. Hello, I told the monster. Are you sleeping?
He didn’t answer, but I could feel his whiskers twitch with every shuddering breath I took. I shook my head and flipped the phone open. The text message within gave me directions to the nearest hospital. I stared at it.
You don’t have to be there, I told myself. You really don’t.
But I wanted to be. No—I had to be.
I left the roof and started walking. The hospital wasn’t far. I had been there before. I think, of course, that that goes without saying.
I crossed a busy street, nearly getting run over by a speeding white van. I didn’t care. I flipped the driver off, who swore back, taking the cigarette out of his mouth long enough to spit at me. I think that a part of me had become almost nonchalant about life and death after I’d turned, like I was almost curious to see if I could die. And if I could, then so what? It would put me out of my misery.
The front entrance was brightly-lit and crowded. No one turned to look at me, which was good. There were times when I’d forgotten to change my shirt or at least wipe it clean and there were still flecks of blood and I had to make up some sorry excuse about going to painting class or something stupid like that. Painting class. Hah! Like I’d ever be caught dead in a painting class. I went up to the front desk, peeked at the text message, and cleared my throat in front of the nurse.
“Yes?” she asked, looking bored.
“Room 194-B, please,” I said. She looked at me, hands typing. I smiled. Toothily. It was a hard habit to break.
She pointed at the hall. “Follow the green lines,” she said.
I stepped over an injured man on my way. The hospital was so full that they didn’t have enough room for everyone. My ears twitched as I felt him grab my ankle. He asked me to call a nurse. I pulled away, because all I could hear was that throaty gasp that told me his life was ending very soon. You’ve just eaten, I reminded myself. I could normally control myself really well when I’m full. But I was also an opportunistic eater, and everything around me…
I felt my ears burn. Perhaps this was a mistake. Perhaps I should turn back. Perhaps…
“Pablo!”
I saw Luna appear around the corner. I hadn’t seen her since I left school months ago. She came up and grabbed my wrist. “I didn’t think you’d come,” she said. “But she was sure, so sure. I kept telling her not to get her hopes up, but…”
I swallowed. “How is she?” I asked.
“Touch and go,” Luna said, and I felt the pit of my stomach drop. She smiled. “But she’s fine now, they said. They were able to stop the bleeding. She’s with the baby. Do you want to see them?”
A baby. I shook my head. The hunger pangs were strongest around the little ones. “I shouldn’t have come,” I said. I shouldn’t have. But when that first message said, She’s dying, I didn’t know what to do.
Before I realized it, Luna was dragging me down the hall. I felt my senses swim, and I was powerless to resist it. I hadn’t seen her in months. To have all of this thrown at me from out of nowhere…
A nurse walked out of the room. There was blood on her scrubs. Luna pushed me in before I could protest. “She was looking for you,” she said, like it was an apology. She drew away.
“Pablo?”
I turned my head. Rachel Ann was lying on the narrow hospital bed. There was a baby in her arms.
My nostrils flared. “I shouldn’t be here.” I glanced at the door. Luna was no longer in the room. We were alone, with a gap wider than a chasm between us. I wanted to cross it, even as every other part of my body screamed No!
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought…I thought it was the end for me.”
“You know what this can do to me,” I hissed.
She shook her head. “You’re better than that. I’ve seen…”
“Nothing,” I said. “What you’ve seen—that was a fluke. You haven’t been around the past few months to see what I turn into, to see all my struggles. And now to tempt me, all this blood, here, with that…!” I gestured helplessly at the child. It began to cry, a long, wailing sound that made the hair on my arms stand on end.
There was fire in her eyes. “Tempt you? That’s what you think this is? I called for you because I wanted you here with me. Because I thought I was dying, and I needed…” She stopped, placing her hand on the child’s cheek. “Have you forgotten who you are, Pablo?”
“What the hell do you mean?”
She gestured at me. “Are you gone? Is there nothing in your life but this monster?”
I laughed. “If you know what I’ve had to deal with to control it…”
“You’ve been standing there a good five minutes now, yet you haven’t attacked us.” She nodded at me. “Do you want to see him?”
I looked at her in shock. “Why?”
“I want to prove to you that you’re still human. That you are not just this thing. Come closer, Pablo. Now.”
I felt myself move at her last word, like a whipped dog approaching its master. I watched her hold her child out like it was an offering. Fool woman, I thought, but I looked at it anyway, at its round, red face and puckered lips. I felt emotion stir within me. None of it resembled hunger.
I was right next to the infant now. A moment later, I touched its smooth face.
I felt Rachel Ann’s hand on my face, her thumb running along my cheek. “Oh, Pablo,” she murmured. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’m scared,” I blurted out. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t think I could live with myself if…”
She drew my head in towards her and kissed me, her fingers running through my hair. Her lips were soft and tender, and now I could feel hunger, but not the kind I had been trying to avoid. This one overtook me like a wave. I felt the burden of the last few months lift. I had thought—had believed—that I would never see her again.
She pulled away. The baby was mewling for attention. “Pick him up,” she said.
I smiled. “I shouldn’t. I think it’s bad enough already that I’m here, don’t you think?”
“I want you to,” she said. “It’s not like his father will.”
I hesitated.
“Pick him up,” she insisted.
I reached out, taking the baby. I had heard somewhere you were supposed to support their necks, so I did that before I transferred him to the crook of my arm. He was so small. I didn’t think babies could be so small. “What’s his name?”
“Emmanuel.”
“Ah. What, Pablo Junior wouldn’t have worked?”
She smiled at the joke. We had once toyed with the idea of passing the baby off as mine. I returned Emmanuel to her before I could drop him. She placed her hand on my arm. “Please don’t go,” she said.
I felt the grin fall off my face. “I have to,” I said. “For your sake. For his.” I inclined my head towards the baby.
“You’ve just proven to yourself that you can control this. I need…I need you here with me.” There were tears in her eyes. “I’m scared, too. I can’t do this alone.”
“You won’t be alone. You’ve got…”
“My parents?” She laughed. “Yes. They’ll pay for everything—for all of this—but I think it ends there. They’re giving me an apartment, away from the same of having to deal with this. Why do you think Luna’s here and not them?”
“I was wondering why you’d call Little Miss Prissy Perfect.”
“I thought that was your nickname for me.”
“Perfect? Please. Don’t flatter yourself.” I pretended to look away, but only so she couldn’t see the look in my eyes at seeing her with a baby in her arms. If you had told me a year ago how beautiful she would look like that, I’d have laughed in your face.
I heard people outside the hall. “Speaking of your parents…”
She frowned. “They said they wouldn’t be caught dead here.”
I pulled her hand away from my arm. Losing the warmth of her touch, after months of having gone without it, suddenly seemed like the most painful thing in my life. And I’d been hit on the head by a man who thought I was some common dog in the dark. “They shouldn’t see me here. You’ll get into more trouble.”
She glanced at the baby. “A little too late for that, don’t you think?”
I smirked. After a moment, I drew back, and kissed her one more time. “Fine,” I said afterwards. “I’ll humour you.”
She pressed her fingers over my lips. “You’ll humour me?”
“But promise me one thing,” I said. “Promise me you’ll keep a bolo under your bed from now on. Just in case. If I lose control, kill me. Don’t ever let me hurt you…or him.”
She smiled and drew her sheets up. “You don’t think I’ve already thought of that?” I saw the edge of the steel blade gleaming from the shadows. I had to laugh at that; I knew there was a reason I loved her.
~~~
I returned to the shadows, shedding my clothes as I turned. Now that I had made the decision to stick with the woman I loved, I wasn’t going to take any chances. The night was young, and the streets of Manila were always full of dying men.
