Blood & Juniper

Accounts of Ashlen, October 2017.

"You just tried to persuade me! You're using your mojo to manipulate me!"

Sam winces and motions for me to keep it down. 'Are you kidding me?' He just tried to influence my decision making by force. I have half a mind to smack him!

"Ash, listen. I didn't want to do it but…"

I don't care for his excuses. I can't deal with this right now, "No! Leave Sam, I don't want your help with this one."

I stomp away to find a better place to work out how to get to my family. I can't just leave it all behind, they're still my family and I'm not dead. They don't deserve to be left in the dark, forever wondering what happened to their daughter. I'll figure something out! I have to.

My arm is seized from behind. My ears feel hot, he is really pushing my buttons. I admonish as I flip around, "Sam!"

"Stop."

The single word is like a club to the back of my skull. I feel weird like I'm shrinking in my own skin. What is going on?

Green. It's all I can see, the world is being absorbed by this green void. Sam's eyes are rich and bright. I strain my eyes trying to look away from the emeralds flickering into vivid bright green but it's like a powerful magnet locking me into his gaze.

I can't move! What did he do to me?

This is unbelievable! I can feel my mouth working, I bl.u.s.ter, "You-"

"No yelling. Don't speak for now."

The sound is strangled and cut off immediately. Why are you doing this to me, Sam? Why!

Everything in my body feels like it's being taken over, like it doesn't belong to me. Move an arm, a leg? Something, move something!

This is really scary, my limbs aren't obeying! And Sam did this? How could he cross me in this way! I can't do anything but glare as I scream at him in my head, it's like I'm kicking in a ten layer straight jacket. I'm trapped!

No! This is my body! I don't want to do this. Damn you, Sam! How could you!

Melancholy words sail into my ears smooth as a thousand orc.h.e.s.tra strings, "It's time to leave. Follow me."

I follow like a zombie. An invisible leash latched to my neck and a haze in my brain. It's singing to me and I can't disobey. Threading into my bones like a handmade marionette. I'm a puppet.

I'm ensnared and the more I thrash about the more tangled I become. 'Let me go!'

I'm pissed, hollering in the deep recesses of my mind but I can't control my movements. I continue to shrink inside my own body. It's like I'm looking out from a tiny window. Amnesia is threatening like a massive mushroom cloud and forming into a twister to suck out every bit of cognizance.

Where are we going? This isn't what I want! This isn't ok!

'No…' I growl in my head. I can feel my teeth grind uneven, lengthening. Teeth against teeth, I hold on to that feeling for dear life. I can control one thing, I don't stop grinding my teeth.

'I won't…' my eyes burn through the frosty anger. I'm livid.

'No! You can't make me!' I scream in my head willing my legs to stop. They don't feel like my own legs, it's clunky and robotic. The halt comes in a harsh jerking maneuver like rusty hinges. 'I've stopped! Mine, *mine*, yes!'

Sam realizes I'm no longer following like he demanded. He spins with a mixture of gloom and shock.

His eyes resume a somber stare into mine, the world blurs around him. Only his eyes blaze cleary in a fiery jungle, gripping like gravitational orbit.

"Come with me," his words are husky and weighted. My c.h.e.s.t seems to lurch forward in response. Invisible hooks shootout to grapple the soft tissue of my brain.

Fury. I scream in my head, but I'm going with him against my will, again! He can't force me, I won't allow it! No!

'Stop…' I command silently.

'I won't go…' I protest without words.

'This is my body! You can't make me!' I feel myself twitching in my rage, quaking beneath flesh, feel my lungs expanding and contracting.

I'm getting more and more worked up. I can't see straight.

I freeze in place. Gnashing my teeth, convulsing with tiny tremors willing my fingers to move with laboured effort. They tingle as if numb. I can't speak and no screams are coming out.

Sam's brows are furrowed this time looking back, "Come with me, Ashlen. This is for your benefit."

His eyes are searing and commanding in his skull but I'm beyond ticked off. The blinding jade circles start to shake and blur, convulse like the earth is violently tossing us about.

'Mine! My will! You won't force me!' My mind is flying in a whirlwind of rage, I'm seeing red. Like wire tethers snapping I tear at the invisible force.

I hear a low menacing growl and realize it's coming from my own throat as it rumbles.

The growl turns into a feral drawl, "No..."

He c.o.c.ks an eyebrow with a tilt of his head, "You can not go to your apartment, it will put you and your family at risk."

"You...can't ...force...me…"

His eyes are nearly a pale green, blinding. It's crushing, but he can't put a top on this volcano. *I'm* in control! Something zaps like a deadly volt of electricity frying all circuits. I force it out as one does with snake poison. Green shatters like a baseball through stained glass.

I scream, swinging at him, "I said no!"

His eyes flash wide following the swipe of my open palm. I slap him hard across the face. His head jerks to the side, a flurry of emotions scramble his features.

"Ash…"

"Arahhhh!" I shove him backwards, he sees it coming but doesn't block or move out of the way.

I send him into a parked car, he leaves a dent in it. The vehicle skids back to bumping and rocking against the curb!

I am in a fit of rage. I charge, swinging a second time, this time it's balled into a fist. Again, he stares blatantly at my fist but doesn't really react, bracing but nothing more.

I hit him square in the jaw and his head snaps sideways. He grunts, only grimacing for a second.

"How dare you do that to me! How dare you force me!"

He spits blood on the ground as I take his shoulders and rattle him against the car. Angry tears spill, "I hate you! This is your fault! I wish you never found me! I hate all of you!"

A wince of stark suffering flits across his face. My words seem to sting worse than all my hits. His jaw and lower cheek are swelling and showing discoloration.

"Ahhhhh!" I bellow as tears flow, throwing my fist harder than I had before. He prepares himself for the hit but doesn't move away.

I smash it into the side of the car leaving a dent about the size of a plum in the metal plating.

My breath comes hot in furious heaves, ragged like an enraged bear. I'm itching to sink my teeth into something and rip it apart. I'm crazed, I need to kill something.

I knot my fingers through my hair pulling it by the roots and stare at the road. It's blurry, I'm seeing double. Anger, heat, kill. *Kill*. There's a pulse far off. I'll hunt it down. Make it bleed, tear out it's throat.

'No more. No more!' a voice of reason tries to talk some sense into me from within. It's too quiet, it's not making a lot of sense.

The purple from Sam's jaw line fades slowly. Healing just like that. Did I do that to him? I'm out of control. What the hell is wrong with me? I can't calm down!

I see Sam reach out from beneath my mess of hair, looking regretful and frustrated, "Ash, I'm-"

"Don't! Get back," I snarl, leaping backwards. My voice is unrecognizable, vicious, "I'm not in... Just don't."

My teeth ache to plunge into flesh as my head pounds with blinding wrath. I'm not under his influence anymore but something still seems to cut into my restraint, it's all muddled. Violence, I need violence.

I'm frenzied and sprint from him without looking. The cool October air is ineffective at quelling the furnace in my body. An animal, I'm no better than a wild beast.

Male, sturdy, smells of salt from physical labor, sweet and sour. Perfect.

I inhale deeply tracking him. I feel his pulse pounding into the ground like a beacon spreading like tree roots. Marked.

My teeth are large, my eyes dense and concentrated like marbles, a bloodl.u.s.t unbridled.

Each breath sends me thirty yards further, I'm closing in on him fast. I'm going to tear him limb from limb.

'Enough!' I brawl with the inner animal, sinking thick claws into a beat up Toyota. It's nails on a chalkboard times five as they drag from side door to hood.

I roar, lowering myself into the gutter crushing palms into my head. Rocking and jerking about on my heels as I curl into a ball.

'Calm...calm…' The voice of reason coos as I fight against myself and the wild burst of ferocity.

It's almost working, but that pulse. That damn pulse is getting near, his musk is thick… Blood. 'No... Don't!'

"Hey you," a man calls, feet pad up to me, closer, closer, closer, "Shit! Do you need me to call an ambulance?"

I pounce on top of him.