Chapter Text
January 17th, 2022
It’s been four months since that night. Four full moons, come and gone. All quiet. After six years, he had gotten used to the sleepless night of prepping and hunting. Looking up at the full moon from his porch, he could almost smell the blood that wasn’t on his face. He could almost hear the growling that wasn’t there.
He took a swig from his beer. Nothing but crickets and wind. Nothing out there that his rifle couldn’t handle. A chiming sound rang out, disrupting the quiet. His phone lit up. A text. He didn’t have to look at it to know who it was, but he looked anyway.
1-607-555-8249
“Clockwork.” He took another sip.
He should’ve scrubbed his information from public records. Every full moon since that night he got a text from that number. He hadn't gotten any other texts besides these. His phone, with a contact list too short to scroll, was primarily for work. Between this and his radio, he could always be on call. He preferred to stay busy. But, somehow, she had gotten his personal number. He had sensed who it was before he looked it up after her first text last September. It wasn’t surprising he was right. She was smart. Resourceful. If she had wanted to find him, it was only a matter of time. He let out a tense breath through his teeth and put his beer on the ground as he reached for his phone. He opened the notification:
September 20, 2021
“Full moon tonight.”
October 20, 2021
“A bright one tonight.”
November 19, 2021
“Partial eclipse this time.”
December 18, 2021
“Got acquitted. Merry Christmas, I guess.”
Today
“Happy new year.”
With a click, his phone darkened. He never responded. She was determined, though. He knew that better than anyone. He didn’t bother himself wondering why she texts him. Every full moon he thought of her, too. Every time he almost picks up the phone to call his brother, every time he thinks he sees a flash of white in the woods, every time sees Caleb - he thinks of her, too. Maybe that’s why he never blocked her number.
For a moment, the woods in front of his cabin vanished and he was on the floor in the Hackett house again, blood on his face and in his mouth, arm in searing pain, and he was looking at her. She was covered in blood, but perfectly healthy - human. “ Thanks… for uh… not killing me.” In a flash, the rest of that night filled his head.
He winced his eyes shut. Standing up, collecting his beer and gun, he was about to pack it in when, ding.
Today
“Happy new year.
“Do you still remember everything from that night? I can’t stop thinking about it.”
He stared at those words. The break in pattern filled him with unease. She was probably hundreds of miles away, living whatever normal life a vet student lives, but she still unnerved him. He could never get a good read on her. Even after two months of interrogations and surveillance, after losing a goddamn eye - when others would've been broken - she had surprised him. She got herself out. He knew it had been his fault for easing up on her. Though, sometimes, he felt like it was luck that kept her from killing him that night. He didn’t know how long he was staring at his phone, calculating, when another text rolled in with a soft sound:
“Nevermind.”
He let out a breath, almost a scoff. He tossed the phone on the sofa and continued to pack everything in for the night. He picked up his gun, again, which was never far from his side anymore, and locked the door after one last look at the treeline. He always expected to see something crawling towards him. Of course, it never happened. Her second text swam through his head. There it was again, the scent and taste of blood. The screeching. Her teeth in his arm. Chris.
He needed something stronger. His heart rate was picking up as he opened the liquor cabinet, his shoulders stiff and face expressionless. He poured a healthy portion of whiskey and backed it without a thought. Leaning against the countertop, he stared at the phone on the couch. With a tisk, he sneered at it. What was she expecting?
After several minutes, he sat down beside his phone with another glass of whiskey. Her text made it feel like she was in the room with him. He didn't like it. As if the barrel of her gun could be pointed at him from somewhere.
He ignored it, focusing on the good burn in his throat, the crickets outside, and the ticking of the clock.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. ” He could almost hear her voice say those words. Her voice had always been grating. Demanding. Annoying. At least until she had that gun in her hands, “Let’s fucking do this .” Something in his chest moved when he remembered the end of that crazy fucking night. She was reckless. She had been ruthless with her good intentions. Like him. He hated what it did to his family, and maybe it was a mistake to work with her. In the end, though, he knew he would've done the same in her shoes. At least he could respect it.
Something solidified in his mind - his resolve, maybe. He picked up his phone and in only a few seconds he sent her two words - his first words to her since they hurriedly parted that August morning.
-
Laura rolled over in bed. Her roommate was hosting another party in the living room, but she hadn’t been feeling up to company. Max had wanted to hang out, too, but she had told him she needed to study. He hadn’t noticed she was always too busy to hang out on full moons.
She stared at the ceiling. She lifted her phone to her eye line. “Ugh, stupid.” She groaned as she re-read the text she sent 10 minutes ago. ‘Nevermind’? Great, very dramatic.
She couldn’t make this up. Texting her kidnapper? The man who imprisoned her for 58 days and then enlisted her to help his family of werewolves?
Then again, she hadn’t been just a victim. If he had had to pay for what he did, she probably got more than enough vengeance already. Laura winced, remembering Kaylee and Constance. After everything she did that night, of course he wouldn’t respond to her. She didn't expect him to. He probably blocked her after her first text last year. Why would he talk to the person who got away with what she did to his family? She was crazy to even text him at all. She couldn’t even remember why she texted him the first time. Momentary insanity? Reeling from the trauma of rejoining the world after two months in his custody, a night of bloody violence, and the legal proceedings with all the news outlets calling her and the others psycho killers? Take your pick.
Somehow, on full moons, when her chest felt tight and all she could hear were growls - when she irrationally watched herself for that aching burn under her skin as if it could still fly off of her at any second - she couldn’t bring herself to text anyone else.
She checked the group chat with the other counselors from that night. Nothing. The last activity were the well-wishes and platitude celebrations after they were all acquitted in November. If they were still talking to each other, it wasn’t here. She couldn't blame them. They didn’t know her, really. She didn’t have a chance to bond over s’mores and hikes last summer - Travis saw to that. Ryan had texted her a few times since August, but it never went anywhere. Turns out sharing one night of traumatic supernatural gore isn’t the best fertilizer for friendship. Every time you talk to them you either relive your trauma or you try to awkwardly find common ground until it fizzles out when no one is watching the same TV show. Everyone had moved on. College, jobs, art. Even Max, in a way. Texting any of them, or even trying to talk to Max about her nightmares or the flashbacks, was embarrassing. Max had some nightmares, too, but he didn't know how deep this went for her. Not that he didn't care. He was supportive. He just couldn't understand what it was like. The smell of gunpowder and blood. Taking lives….
Distracting herself, she re-opened her text history with “0707”. If anyone - if Max - saw the name “Travis” in her contacts she would have to explain to them something she couldn’t explain to herself. They'd probably check her into a facility. They'd accuse her of Stockholm syndrome. She re-read her texts. This was unhinged, even to herself. How would it look to the others?
“What am I doing?” She groaned, lowering her wrist to rest on the bridge of her nose in defeat.
Something on the screen caught her eye.
He was typing.
What the fuck? Her insides jumped. She couldn’t tell if she was terrified, relieved, or excited. It changed with every second. By the third second of typing, she was only terrified. Her stomach turned to stone when she suddenly remembered that at the other end of this incoming text was the, very real, man who had put her through hell last summer. He locked her up and subjected her to sleepless nights of never knowing what he would do to her or Max, or whether they’d both be alive the next day, or if he would ever let them go. You don't forget those feelings. She thought about the night that ended it all, too. He had almost killed her... but he didn't. She could have killed him, too. She didn't, either. They worked together. Her brain couldn't decide how to remember him. A creepy kidnapping asshole? Or someone who saved her and Max from something worse?
After killing Silas she had run back to the island for Max, she couldn't even remember what the last thing she said to Travis was.
It was like the months and the blur of the court proceedings, which he had mostly evaded with years of practice covering up his tracks, had made him seem less real. He had become just a part of a two-month long nightmare that no one could believe and everyone who knew it was true was moving on from. The pit in her stomach, a sudden reminder of all the pain she experienced with and because of Travis, the disgust for him and what they put each other through, was almost unbearable until his words came through:
“I remember.”
She re-read it several times.
That curt, unreadable reply. It was familiarly frustrating. It was like she could hear his footsteps walking away from her cell again. Involuntary disgust crept up. An automatic response from those 58 days of conditioning. She knew it wasn't real anymore. She swallowed back the bile of those memories.
After what she had done, she could imagine how much he hadn’t wanted to text her back, but, for some reason, he cracked. She got something from him. Just like old times. Her lips turned up slightly in a pained grin.
She read each letter of those two words again.
He remembers. The person who knew, better than anyone else in the world, what she went through, because he put her through most of it, hasn’t forgotten. He didn't tell her to move on, too.
Her repulsion calmed slightly, but not completely, and gave way to something new. Something dangerously close to gratitude. He didn't have to break the silence, but he did. Why? Maybe he understood. Maybe he thought about it all, too.
For the first time in months, she didn’t feel as alone on this full moon.