Lost In The Woods Ch 6
Summary: Reader is so desperate to get away from the werewolves, they are willing to do something idiotic if it means freedom.
Warning: Yandere, Dead Dove, Obsession, Slow burn, MDNI, Forced co-dependency, Implied neglect, Blood, Popping stitches, Talk of stab wound, Reader puts their life in danger, fall from high place, graphic details, implied imprisonment, thoughts of reader dying, referenced murdered minor character
Words: 2,681
A/N: I have no words for why my brain decided on this, but I think it's stupidly ridiculous and shows Reader's desperation. We're getting close to what will be my favorite part of this story so far. I promise the romance will happen eventually, but I like a good step up for a yandere romance.
You thought the pain killers would have knocked you out as soon as you hit the mattress, but your brain refuses to shut off. Every noise makes you jump, you think you see things in the shadows, and you can’t get the aching feeling of being alone to go away.
You can hear the tv from the living room from how close to the stairs your room is. You can hear the laughter, can imagine the teasing, the kisses shared between them. What is wrong with you today? You never thought this intensely about someone else’s romantic relationships before. Stockholm syndrome doesn’t kick in the first 24 hours of captivity, though it doesn’t explain your fascination with these men. Is it because they’re werewolves? is it because they were showing more care of your well-being then-
Focus!
You glance at the window for a long moment, a single crazy idea crossing your brain. You hobble over and stare down at the ground, plotting, strategizing. The fall will hurt, maybe pop a stitch, but you will be less exhausted, and ready to collapse, than taking the stairs. The biggest drawback was the potential of breaking something else and making escape impossible. Could you ever leave at that point?
You are too drowsy to try it today. You would end up half conscious and stumble face first into a tree with your luck. Tomorrow maybe, if you skip the pain killers to stay coherent.
*****
The pills take ages to kick in, but they hit hard once they took affect. You were in and out of it most of the day and into the night. Only awake for necessities, the boys made sure of it. You always had something to drink on the nightstand and Kyle made sure you ate at least half a plate before he allowed you to rest some more.
The pain killers from dinner waned around midnight, meant you were wide awake in total darkness. There is no sound of the men moving around, probably still stick to their old military routine and don’t stay up late. Perfect! You could test the fall from your window.
You have a vague memory of being told to lie flat on your back, while protecting your neck and head with your hands in the event of an elevator crash. You hope that same logic applies to jumping out a second story window. Time to test the theory, you guess.
As soon as the window is open and you figure out how to pop the screen out, your nerves slam into you. You were crazy for thinking this was a good idea! You could break your back! But what was worse, staying here and potentially never being let go or jumping out of a window like a lunatic?
Your brain takes all of three seconds to answer that; lunatic option it is.
Trying to fit yourself through the window without causing yourself more pain was like fitting a square in a circle hole. You are unable to figure out a way through without pulling on the healing muscles in your side.
You were ready to give up, exhaustion and pain starting to become intolerable, when you give it one last chance. Putting your injured side on the sill first, breathing for a few minutes to calm the pain, then putting the rest of your lower body out the window and finally slowly getting the top half of you out.
You stare down at the ground—holding on to the sides of the window for dear life—the drop seems endless, like a void ready and waiting to swallow you whole. Your heart was in your throat as you try to breathe through the panic, not that it was helping. You realize you will have to push off the window quickly or you will never commit yourself to go through with this idiotic plan.
3.
2.
1.
Push.
You thought the fall would last longer, feel more like you were floating in the air as your life flashed before your eyes. Instead, it was like one minute you were looking down at the ground and the next, you were looking up at the stars trying to peak through the curtain of clouds.
You wanted to scream as the pain bloomed throughout your body, but you had no breath, and you would wake the werewolves if you did. You slapped your hand over your mouth while tears stung your eyes and your mouth opened in a silent scream.
This truly was the worst plan you could have thought of. You hurt worse than before—you doubted cushioning your head actually helped as your head is burst with pain—and still had no idea where this house was or even what direction was north. You could possibly stumble around in the woods for days and never find civilization again.
Was it really so bad to stay? It’s not like they treated you horribly. Sure, it was awful to not be allowed to make your own decisions, but what they had done was keep you safe and make sure you rested. Were you just dramatic?
The gnawing thoughts of crying out for them to rescue you is becoming all consuming. It’s too bad you are too damn stubborn; you were going to find a way home or die trying. They were not going to be your safety net to fall back on because you regret your decision.
You have to slowly work your body into standing up, the pain intensifying every time you move. It felt as though someone had shoved razor blades inside you and every time you moved, the blades would cut you up inside. You need to keep taking multiple breaks to breathe through the pain before continuing.
Once finally standing, you realize blood was starting to soak into your shirt, the bandages barely doing anything to stem the flow. It is fine, you will be fine, don’t freak out. You will get to a road or neighbor’s house and get some medical attention. But you must start moving.
Your walk is slow, your body wants to collapse, but you refuse to let it. You stumble to the ground for the first few steps, muffling screams even though it feels like you are pulling apart your own muscles every time you fall. Once across the clearing the house rests in, you use trees to help bear some of your weight as you push through.
After a few minutes of walking, you can’t shake the feeling of unease, like something was watching you. Keeping you in its line of sight until it finds the perfect moment to strike. You throw glances over your shoulder—looking, searching—but ultimately finding nothing.
The feeling grows worse by how eerie it is to not hear any animals, or even bugs, making noise. Like they share your same fear and think being quiet will make the thing go away. All you can hear is the sounds of your hastily thrown on shoes and the leaves and branches that crunch under your feet. The sounds making you think you can hear steps mimicking your pace, trying to hide its presence from you. You think that every time you stop abruptly, it will take an extra step after you, not expecting the change in movement. You never hear it when you try.
Trying to placate yourself that it was just the sound of your steps bouncing off the trees and that the quiet stillness was frazzling your nerves. Despite your fears, you feel you are making good progress; not as quick as you can go, but as good as you can considering the circumstance. Your body is screaming for a break, deciding to be lenient to yourself and lean against a tree. The blood stain on your shirt was getting worse, starting to drip down to your pants. You worry you will bleed out before you can find help, but that is irrational. Right? Humans have a lot of blood, you might need a blood transfusion once you arrive at a hospital, but you can risk bleeding some more.
You can still only hear the sounds you make. Still, something was off. Closing your eyes to hone in to whatever the animals hear that was making them so silent. The quiet stretches on as you listen closely, nothing but your harsh panting audible.
You sigh, opening your eyes to look forward to plan the next part of your journey, trying to see where to go to avoid the rougher terrain you had seen ahead. Though your vision is obstructed by a ginormous wolf that stares back at you; it’s fur black as night but with white around its face where you think the skull underneath would look like. White where there would be bone, black where tissue, cartilage, and ligaments would be. The sight tearing a scream from your throat; your legs getting twisted up in the roots of the tree as you try to quickly back away from it, causing you to tumble to the ground. You scramble back on hands and feet quickly, before flipping over to hands and knees to get back on your feet. You stop abruptly at the sight of boots in front of your face.
You gasp, the fear and terror dropping into the pit of your stomach. You don’t want to look up, already knowing who will be standing over you. Your mind tells you that closing your eyes will make them disappear, like a figment of your imagination, but you know it is illogical. Nothing can save you here.
John wanted to sigh in annoyance, be angry that you would do something this absurd. He truly isn’t surprised; his boys had, sadly, done dumber things to get out of being bedridden. Though jumping out of a window is a first.
Simon shifts from paw to paw behind your trembling form, watching like a hawk for any sudden movements he deems as fleeing. His amazing hunting and stalking skills still shining through even now. John knows he could have found you just fine by himself, due to the small blood trail you left in your wake, but Simon hasn’t had a good hunt in ages, and he was just itching for John to ask for his assistance.
Your slow movements of sitting back on your heals to look up at John is what makes his gaze flick back to you. You look at him with detest, like he slaughtered your whole family in front of you and was taking you as his prize. Such a stubborn pup.
“Done yet?” He asks, pretending he doesn’t know you won’t attempt this again, spite fueling your drive to repeat the same action regardless of consequences.
“No.” You say obdurately. John has to suppress his laugh at your bullheadedness. They will have their hands full trying to keep you inside the house. He won’t admit it is a small bit fun to have a new pup who is this stubborn, he hasn’t had to wrestle one of his boys this hard in a long time.
John crouches to your height, leveling you with the gaze of a disappointed father. “Since you want to act like an unruly pup, I’ll treat you like one. You’re sleeping in our room tonight and one of us must be with you at all times.”
John sees how your defiance warps into fear and anger. All wind leaving your sails as you try not to give into the part of your mind telling you to beg to free yourself from this predicament. Not that it will help you.
He scoops you up into his arms, orders given and time to return to base. He has to grip you tight as you start to thrash in his hold and curse at him, saying how you refuse to sleep in a bed full of kidnappers and that you will take your chances with the actual wolves.
John let’s you have your fit—get your anger out before getting settled for bed for the night—as Simon trots behind the two of you. He had dealt with six pups of various levels of unruliness and learned it’s best to just let them get that fight out. After you’ll be tired, all fight leaving your body and the anger that has a hold on you. It’ll be easier to address your wounds, and you won’t piss someone off because you refuse to sleep out of pure spite.
By the time they are back to the house, you are trying to muffle the quiet sobs leaving you. The realization that trying to escape werewolves will be impossible if they can locate you that quickly; you will die here. Your body, and that of the man who tried to kill you, will be buried in some shallow grave on this property. Your family and friends never knowing what happened to you. One moment you were there and the next a ghost in the wind. Another missing person poster weathered with age, but ultimately never found.
All of the others are waiting in the kitchen as you watch the door to escape close behind John. You refuse to look up, want to pretend none of this is happening and that your back home and some nice stranger brought you to your home because they were worried about your safety.
John is giving orders, you don’t care to listen to them. You can see Simon’s outline stand to his full wolf height through your tears. The black shape stretching from a small mass on the floor to a void nearly reaching the ceiling. You can’t make out more than the dark shape of him as he moves around on two legs, not till he is so close you can smell his breath. You feel a soft pad and coarse fur brush under your right eye, the claws attached to the hand just barely touching your cheek, though the sharpness to them takes your breath away. Not dull like a dogs, but sharp like a cats; you could see how easily they could cut through flesh and the thought terrified you.
You hide your face in John’s neck, unsettled with Simon and his hovering. He seems to get the idea as he is moving past John and out of your line of sight. You think that will be the end of the weird wolf nonsense for the night. Finally, you will be able to breath a sigh of relief; that is till a deep angry growl makes your entire body freeze on the spot while you cling tightly to John. The asshole only laughs—at what you expect is your misery—unknowing or caring for what caused the growl as long as it isn’t you.
John couldn’t help the chuckle as he watches Johnny drop Simon’s tail after pulling on it as he passed by. Cheeky twat. But that is the silent rule of the house; if you don’t want your tail pulled, don’t wolf out in the house unless you willingly accept the consequences.
He rubs your arm, soothing your panic from hearing your first werewolf growl. The growl was not aggressive even though it sounded so. Simon has the deepest growl, which had been mistaken as aggression in the past and not the playful tone it was meant to be. The best example was now, the deep growl is followed by the ever-tiny sway of Simon’s tail that showed he wasn’t annoyed like he pretended to be.
You will get used to it. All the growling, nipping, rough housing, and aggressive affection that they share between the seven of them. It will take a while for you to learn how they work, but you are clearly smart, you will figure it out.
John passes you off to Nik, sending his boys off to take care of you while he handles a delicate situation. He waits for you to be back in your room to be assessed for damages, pulling his phone out to call an old friend.
“Kate, it’s me.”