Pretty When You Cry - Chapter 3
TITLE: Pretty When You Cry
FANDOM: Ginger Snaps
RATING: Hard R
DISCLAIMER: I wish I owned it. Werewolves could revert back to human form and the one chasing Brigitte would be a total hunk. BUT I don't own it, so I must settle to write fan fiction that no one reads for free. Life sucks, huh?
3. DESTINATION UNKNOWN
There was a loud knock on the door, an almost violent one. It awoke her immediately, made her search for a clock, then suddenly remember she wasn’t at home, trying to sleep in late and evade school, but in a cheap motel room with half her body wrapped in white bandage. Ginger pulled herself up carefully, slid on the dead girl’s jeans and walked to the door barefoot. It got knocked on again before she made her way to it and yanked it open, prepared to give the motherfucker the lecture of his life, because seriously chips and some coke were not food. Only she wasn’t facing a naked and very embarrassed Jason behind the door as she’d hoped, but a completely unknown person.
Her eyes grew cold and bitchy quickly and she snorted at the stranger impolitely, “What the fuck?”
The man had at first given her bald head a look of disapproval but now he was as blank as a board. “Your boyfriend rented the room for four days. Time’s up,” he said, sounding pretty eager to get rid of her when he finally regained his speech. Ginger was already cursing her fucked up luck in her head for being forced to submit to yet another unexpected situation in such short notice. “Give me ten?” She asked, getting a nod as an approval. With that the manager just turned around got going. She slammed the door shut after him and looked around the room more than irritated.
Where was that son of a bitch? He was supposed to return by now. Hell, she hadn’t spent three days in her lycan form, she’d barely held onto it for two days. How stupid did you have to be to fuck up such an easy thing? Just revert, return, and get all these piling problems off her fucking shoulders! He was supposed to deal with everything! Ginger hit the wall beside her without thinking and hurt her fist to the point of the friction scraping off skin in the process. Fuck, everything was going wrong again!
Sure, her regeneration was starting to kick in because she could move again and not instantly reopen the wound, but she wasn’t anywhere near the point where she had more strength than your average 16-year-old. She was too vulnerable without him right now, had no means to support herself until her metabolism started getting fast again. She barely had any hair on her head right now! She looked like a freak, felt like she was a freak. If Jason went haywire and got himself killed didn’t that mean she was alone? That she had no one to turn to for this shit? It frustrated her near tears.
However the truth was she only had ten minutes to pack everything up and get the hell away from this place. Ginger started acting immediately, gathered everything Jason had brought in into a neat pile. He’d bought her a black cap somewhere, saying that she could wear it and hide her baldness that way. Considerate and she hadn’t even given a fuck then. She pulled the cap on now, then her overcoat and socks and shoes. Gladly there wasn’t much to carry, because she didn’t want to haul a lot of crap when she didn’t even know where she was going. She just took the wallet from the table and dumped everything else into the trashcan.
It didn’t take her long to get outside and stop by the main building to return the key. She exchanged an annoyed look with the clerk and asked if there was a place to eat around here. He pointed her towards the direction of the small diner next door. “There’s a shop too if you need something else,” he said, seemingly focused on the book he was holding.
“You have shops in the middle of nowhere?” Ginger asked, getting a very solemn answer that explained to her there were a lot of campers in the area and that they kept the business going. She walked out without thanking and headed out to the diner as her stomach was beginning to ache from hunger.
She’d basically stayed in doors, watching TV for the three days she’d been waiting for Jason’s return. Her regenerative powers had seemed to kick in yesterday so the wound wasn’t even bleeding anymore; albeit still painful enough for her to knock out its effects with the painkillers he’d provided her with. The diner was empty, smelled of burned French fries and had one bored looking waiter sitting behind the counter. She was looking at the TV, nonchalant and unmoved by the events of the series she was apparently watching.
Ginger strode to her, looked through the list of food and ordered the first thing that sounded okay enough to eat. The waitress barely flinched when she said the price while still looking at the general direction of the TV. She probably had the whole list memorized, Ginger thought while passing her the money. With the cling of the cash register and the change hitting the table, the waitresses’ eyes were upon the TV again. Ginger took the change quietly and sat next to the window then, pulling the coat off her shoulders.
The place looked different in daylight. Least in the dark it’d had that shifty motel charm. Now it was just some place people stopped by to go hiking. Now that was a family activity she’d sworn she’d never try again: camping. That one time with Pamela complaining about the wildlife and Henry trying to make fire for hours, while she and B sat in their tent reading horror novels had been enough.
It was then that it really struck her. She had no idea how far she’d gotten while injured. She had no idea if they… she was even in Bailey Downs anymore. She could be anywhere, alone, near-broke and without a single clue where the only two familiar faces she even wanted to see right now were. God damnit McCardy, he’d really gotten her into a mess, hadn’t he?
Okay think Ginger, think. Ginger let her eyes wander all around the cheap looking motel. There was no clue here as to where she was and if she asked that stupid clerk he’d probably think she was junkie and report her to the police. Think, think. She looked outside again, trying to find a signpost or a phone booth or something. Nothing, the place looked deserted, like it was just a random motel at the side of the road where all the family men dragged their hookers to when they had a minute to spare from work and their families.
For once her cynical view on the world was not comforting. It quite clearly supported the cruel belief that Jason the ass had gotten himself killed somehow. It only served him right naturally but left her in a rather uncomfortable pinch. Where was that fucking brat when you needed him? A moment after a police car ran by. She frowned at it, continuing to contemplate her little problem. A moment later another police car ran past the motel and then yet another one.
Great - Were they having a police gathering near here, or what? Suddenly it became clear to her though. Jason’s metamorphosis had been approaching its finale, hadn’t it? Then wouldn’t he be looking for something to tear apart perhaps? Devouring guts and entrails? Hunting for prey? And another police car turned Ginger’s sour look into a smile. She could learn to appreciate his predictability.
She marched back to the counter, put on her most empty-headed look and approached the waitress. “Why are there so many police cars passing by?” She asked, batting her eyelashes a bit. The waitress seemed to find her question more interesting than the soap reruns she’d been watching so far so she turned to Ginger, asking, “You don’t know?” She seemed genuinely surprised. Ginger shook her head.
“There’s a camping area near-by. A family was found dead there yesterday, all in terrible shape, practically in pieces. It’s been all over the news,” the waitress told her. Ginger wanted to smile, let her see a big fat smile on account of this horrible deed. She didn’t smile though, just pretended to be shaken by the news and asked just how close the camping area was. The waitress gave her pretty solid instructions and as it turned out, it wasn’t all that far from here.
Ginger went back to her spot, more than satisfied with her amazing skills of deduction. Seriously, there was no limit to Jason’s stupidity, was there? Ginger could outwit the idiot any day, and in time she’d beat him in his own game. Pack her ass, she’d use him as long as he was useful to her and then hang him to dry. And she’d enjoy every fucking second of it. The thought made her patient enough to wait for her meal and finish it before she headed outside again, this time more than sure that she could still find Jason.
Ginger pulled on the hood of the coat when she began striding along the road. She blocked everything else out efficiently; forgot all about the irritation in her scalp that indicated her hair was growing: the pain that her wound was radiating all around when she pushed herself too far: the cars passing by. Just the goal remained dominant in her thoughts; find Jason, beat Jason into submission, find B, fuck B up. She repeated it like a mantra, reciting it silently like a woman obsessed.
By the time the camp site appeared in sight she was already surrounded by people again. The police had sealed off the premise rather efficiently, leaving the crowd consisting of civilians and the press on the verges of the entrance. There were flowers and candles all around, arranged into neat little piles here and there. Ginger felt the desire to knock them down clutch her insides when she was passing such a spot for the first time but considered it too startling since there were too many witnesses. Besides she had other business here: she needed to find a jerk, didn’t she?
There were whispers all around here, the clearest voice belonging to the news reporter who was currently taping his report on the incident. The interesting part however was that not once did she hear the word ‘murder’ or ‘suspect’. This was being labelled as an animal attack by a deranged bear maybe? Some people mentioned Bailey Downs but even in that context she didn’t hear anything about murders, just attacks. Now this was certainly interesting. Did it mean that they had no clue what the Fitzgerald sisters had been up to? Even with the bodies and state of their home? - Big fucking hurray for once.
Ginger couldn’t get caught in that now though, no she closed her ears and refused to listen to it further. Jason was somewhere in the near vicinity, probably still changed too and if they found him it wouldn’t take them long to put him out like the pathetic thing he was. They’d find him eventually, use dogs or something. She just needed to be quicker. She needed to focus now. Her metabolism was boosted again so that had to mean her sense of scent was getting sensitive too. Jason had said he’d been able to smell her from miles away, and she’d smelled him too while supposedly human. She should be able to track him, right?
She tried to recall his scent, remember just what it’d consisted of. It’d been so different from everything else around her, stood out like a hint of red in a grey world. If that’s how it’d been with him as well, she should’ve been able to sense him like she was seeing a beacon in the dark. He couldn’t have gone that far, just far enough to avoid the initial search parties, elude humans with all costs. She just needed to see past the distance, really focus on this and she’d find him even in this weak state, she knew it.
Ginger focused her thoughts on him once again, envisioned him standing there leaning over her. How’d he smelled? What effect had his scent had on her except well, throwing her off in all the ways possible? Back in the woods when he’d held her, forced her to take a side, he’d been like the sun, blinding off everything else. Something like that couldn’t escape her now could it? And yet she couldn’t sense the faintest thing. Annoyed like hell Ginger starting striding off the camp site thinking furiously. What if she entered the woods a little further off and just let her instinct guide her? If it didn’t work out she could always just walk back in her own tracks.
It‘s what she did; walked down the side of the road for a few miles and went into the woods then. This time she couldn’t cut off her doubts though, for she was barely able to recite the mantra. McCardy was too troublesome, high-maintenance really. And with her pathetic excuse for werewolf abilities she wasn’t any better. Then again she wasn’t really in any place to bitch. She hadn’t really wanted to spend the rest of her life looking like an oversized, bald rat now had she? Being back in human form was a blessing in disguise really.
She thought about yelling his name after awhile but decided against it, seeing as he might not be in shape to even recognize it. So she just continued going onwards, her feet moving in front of one another almost mechanically by now. This went on for hours. Eventually she had to admit that she had no clue how long she’d been walking, or if this was even the correct direction to be walking towards. And quite frankly she was getting very cranky again. The wet underbrush had wet her trainers and jeans by now and the feeling wasn’t comfortable at all. It also looked like it was gonna start raining anytime soon so she wasn’t too thrilled about finding him in the middle of nowhere either, if it meant she was gonna be stuck with him waiting for the rain to end in some hole.
Ginger was suddenly brought to a halt without her even knowing why she’d stopped in the first place. There was something here though, a vague sensation, a familiarity. She didn’t smile for success yet though. The sensation was different from before, like she was responding to it in some unconscious manner. Ginger looked over her shoulder, to both of her sides and found nothing. Now this was just getting creepy.
“McCardy!” She shouted, still keeping her voice rather low. She didn’t want just anyone to hear you know? A moment later she was pretty sure that her skin was crawling down her bones and leaving this place by now because she just couldn’t stop herself from shaking. “Jason?” her voice was tenderer now, more worried. Something made a noise in the bush behind her, a branch cracked into two. She instantly turned her head to that direction but couldn’t really see anything.
It was grey all around with the clouds blocking the sun, and there seemed to be hundreds of hiding places here. She gathered her courage and took a step towards the direction the noise had come from. Even in werewolf form, Jason would smell her, know it was her. - Right? Oh, convincing herself now was futile when her mind was betraying her, the fear trying to spread paralysis in every limb. Something moved in the distance, too quick for her to catch details but it was huge and black. Her big bad wolf estimation might’ve not been too off after all, Ginger thought nervously.
Then she got bored of playing a wuss and made her feet stop moving. “Fuck it McCardy I know it’s you! Come out already!”
Her words were met with a low growl and a lot of distinctive noises that seemed to come all around her. She waited patiently, turned her attention to a new direction whenever she could trace the noise to one. Great, she was playing hide and seek with a wolf now. Cynical thoughts kept pooling in her head, coming out one at a time. Why the fuck was that bastard playing with her: Hiding in the dark trying to make her paranoid? She didn’t like this one bit.
Another growl and a thumping sound approaching her from her backside, Ginger turned around disbelievingly as her eyes met with the tall creature. He was hunching, walking on four feet, but he was still almost her height and fucking tall if he stood over two feet. Jason certainly didn’t look like a fucking rat. No, he was a wolf all the way. He had a wolf’s head; his fur was rich and dark gray, his eyes two burning yellow orbs that gleamed evilly at her.
Ginger stared at him with mixed fear and respect. She couldn’t tear her eyes from him. The lycanthrope moved closer to her now, never removing those eyes from her figure either. She let him come close, let the curious beast bring its muzzle to her hand, smell it, lick it. She was by no means comforted by anything he did; she merely froze still completely, allowed him to continue the scrutiny. All she was able to think now was how huge he was, how completely different from her.
He raised his head again, made eye contact. She looked back unwaveringly, refusing to fear him. Then he lifted one paw from the ground, used it to knock her down on the ground. Ginger gasped in both pain and shock as she fell on her back. What the fuck was he doing now!? The beast moved to her side, kneeled and set itself lying over the ground. Ginger was about to get up, but one hairy arm flung across her waist, forcing her back down. It forced the air out of her lungs but other than that the huge paw didn’t do her any damage. Ginger stiffened again when the creature laid his head on her stomach as well. It looked like he was going to have a nap, using her as his pillow. How not-cute.
She swallowed her annoyance though, and pulled an arm behind her head. He observed her for a short while before closing his eyes and apparently giving into sleep. Well this was certainly one way to make sure she didn’t go running off into the other direction, Ginger thought amused. She straightened her remaining hand and inched it closer to his head. As there was no seeming reaction she loosened up a bit and touched his fur, running hand down his cheek. He breathed in deep, sounding pleased, which made her do it again and move her hand to caress his neck.
One ear twitched as if irritated by something and Ginger moved her hand to scratch it gently. Her temper was calm now; she was relaxed even with his weight on her. She felt powerful, being able to be so close to him in this from and still prevail, remain alive. He had no ill intentions in store for her. It was like she could smell it in him, sense whatever he was feeling. Right now he was pleased, even a bit joyous after finding her.
Tomorrow she’d give him a piece of her mind concerning all of his stupid stunts as of late, but right now she was just content being here, so close, so safe.
TBC