Page 1 of Muted Voices (Broken Ashes #1)

I can constantly hear them, the voices. It doesn’t matter if I’m in a crowded room or the middle of a desert; I hear them, the indistinct voices. I can never really work out what they’re saying, not even so much as a word; it’s just a constant murmur. I’ve long given up on trying to understand them; although unlikely, I imagine that if they actually want me to hear what they’re saying, I would hear them.

Losing focus and getting stuck in your mind when you’re walking the back roads in this town is unwise, especially when there’s something about this specific stretch of road that always makes me feel uneasy. I never feel it until I get to this point, and the feeling doesn’t last that long, but it’s always in the same place. No matter how many times I walk it, and I walk it every day to and from work, the feeling is always the same, a wariness that suggests imminent danger.

There’s nothing obviously worrying about it; it’s just a simple country road with cracked asphalt that’s seen better days, and fields stretching for miles on either side as far as the eye can see. There are no street lights out here, and it’s so dark that I can see millions of stars up above me. It should be peaceful.

I don’t dare admire the stars though, not yet, not when this part of the road always makes me want to want to run as fast as I fucking can, just so I can get to the part that makes me feel not so uneasy, and if I’m being honest with myself, not so fucking bat shit crazy either. I don’t do that though, no matter how much I want to, because my instincts scream at me that if I were to run, it would make it worse.

Make what worse? I have no fucking idea, but my instincts have kept me safe this fucking far, and I don’t intend to go against them now. At least, that was my intention. I can’t help but stop in my tracks as the voices fall silent for the first time in my thirty years of life.

Silence.

“Run!” one single clear, deep voice cries out with concerned panic inside my mind.

The sound kick starts my feet, and I take off at a sprint; despite my instincts having always told me to keep my pace even on this part of the road, the panic and clarity of that one voice override them entirely.

I run, my speed picking up as I get the distinct impression of something racing after me, approaching fast; I can sense the place where my instincts always switch back to normal just up ahead, and I force my feet to move faster, somehow sensing that if I don’t get across that fucking line soon, then I’m dead.

Just as my feet cross that imaginary boundary, I feel a hot breath on the back of my neck and wince in pain as something pierces my skin. I don’t stop, I don’t make a sound, I just keep running; even when the feeling of being chased fades away, I force my feet to carry on moving. I’ve never been a runner; in fact, I fucking hate it, you know that saying? If you see me running, you better run too because something is chasing me? Yeah, that could’ve been written about me.

Yet, my feet carry on moving, my breath staying strangely even, as I run up the dirt track that leads to my tiny farmhouse much sooner than I thought. I guess that’s the perks of adrenalin and running for your life. I have never been more grateful to see the faded paint and sagging porch of my home before, and that’s saying a lot because I love my house, and I’m always happy to see it at the end of a long shift. Pushing through the front door, I quickly slam it closed behind me and lock it, grabbing the shotgun I keep by the door just in case and making sure it’s loaded.

Something tells me that the gun would have little effect on whatever was chasing me, but it makes me feel better having Betty, the shotgun, by my side. Now that I’m inside the familiar walls of my home, it seems that my earlier ability to run without losing my breath leaves me entirely, and I bend over, Betty still in one hand, as my breath saws out of me unevenly.

“Well, that was more than I bargained for tonight, Betty,” I mutter, somewhat amused despite the situation and the fact that I am talking to my shotgun.

As usual, the salty bitch doesn’t deign to give me a reply, but that’s okay; we have an understanding, her and I, I talk, and she listens; it works great for us. As I stand back up, my breathing finally sounding somewhat normal despite having run the last five miles to my house, the back of my neck spasms in pain, and I remember that whatever was chasing me sliced me. Gingerly, I lift my fingers up to probe the area, and I’m unsurprised when they come back red with blood.

Ah, shit.

That fucker better have washed whatever he fucking cut me with. The last thing I need is a fucking infection, I have bills to pay, and I eat a fucking lot despite the fact that my frame doesn’t look like I do. If I’m honest, I think my skinny frame has something to do with my later teen and young adult years as well as everything that happened afterward; I’m still not used to eating as much as I do, and I mostly tend to snack and make quick meals. I really don’t see the point in cooking for only one person.

Heading into the kitchen, I pull open the fridge to grab a snack since, now I’ve thought about it, I’m fucking hungry, before realising I got distracted and I was supposed to be figuring out how bad the cut on my neck is. Shutting the fridge door again, I rest Betty on my shoulder and head back toward the front of my house to go up the stairs.

It's not until I enter my room that I realise that the voices are back, their usual murmur, still indistinct but somehow slightly clearer. I tilt my head slightly, and my eyebrows crease as I try to listen to what they’re saying. I feel like they are closer than ever, like I can almost hear them, but standing still in my bedroom doorway, they’re still out of reach.

“For fuck sake, I give up,” I announce to my room like it’s listening to me, and really, who’s to say it's not? “Now, what the fuck was I doing in here?”

It’s a regular thing that I walk into a room and forget why the fuck I was in there, glancing around hoping for a clue; the blood on my fingers catches my eye, and it clicks; right, I’m bleeding. I should probably be more concerned than I am. I mean, a normal person would be, but blood isn’t a new thing for me, and my pain tolerance is pretty high. If this needs stitches, I have no fucking idea how I’m going to do that, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. If not, I’ll just smack a bandaid on it and call it good.

Fortunately, my silver hair is already up in its typical messy bun hairstyle that it’s usually in for the diner slash bar that I work at when I’m not working my other significantly more deadly job. This means there’s no blood in it, and I don’t have to pull the strands off of the cut, which always hurts like a bitch. With Betty still resting on my shoulder, since I’m not quite ready to put her down yet, I head into my bathroom and grab a hand towel, wetting it slightly before holding it up to my neck and gently removing the blood, there’s more than I thought there was, and as the cloth swipes across the cut pain radiates from the area, making me grit my teeth. Once I’m sure that I’ve got the blood off and it’s no longer bleeding, I search my drawers for my hand mirror. I’m sure that it was in here.

Oh, no, wait, I last had it in my room. Moving back through the door and into my bedroom, I make my way over to my dresser, pull open the bottom drawer, and find the mirror mixed in with my hoodies because, of course, that’s where a mirror should live. Heading back to the bathroom, I stand in front of the mirror again, ignoring my mismatched dark green and blue eyes, as well as my stained Bobby’s work shirt, and lift my hand with the mirror and angling it to see the cut, my eyebrows raise, it doesn’t look like it was done with an ordinary knife, it almost looks like a single claw mark, which is weird as hell, but then so are the voices so who the fuck knows.

Honestly, it kind of looks like a wolf shifter claw, but I’d need a closer look to be sure. I didn’t think there were any shifters in town, hence why I settled here. The supernatural presence in this town is practically non-existent, apart from some lower-level supes that barely register as anything more than human, and I like it that way. Of course, a shifter claw mark would explain why I got the feeling Betty wouldn’t do much damage.

The cut is bad enough that it most likely needs stitches, but like fuck am I going to the hospital, and I can’t do it myself, purely because of the awkward angle. Putting the mirror down, I rummage in the drawer and pull out three bandaids, then stare at them in my hand for a moment before reluctantly putting Betty on the counter. Awkwardly, I start placing them over the cut. By the time I’m done and inspecting my handiwork, the cut is still obvious, but I feel better, so I call it good.

Grabbing Betty again, I head back into my room, place her on the bed, and quickly strip out of my clothes before I double-check that the safety is on Betty, then climb into my bed, putting her on the other pillow and placing my hand on her just in case.

As I’m drifting off to sleep, the memory of that one voice comes back to me. It kind of sucks that it only exists in my mind, it was sexy. Can a voice be sexy? I have also never had anyone sound so concerned for me before; it was intriguing.

*********

Gasping awake, I sit up, grab Betty, and take a shot. The explosion of the shotgun wakes me up properly, and I realise that I must have been having a nightmare that, for the life of me, I can’t remember.

Looking at the wall opposite my bed, I sigh, “For fuck sake, Betty, we blew a hole in the fucking wall again.”

Shrugging, I flick the safety back on Betty and flop back down on the bed; I’ll worry about that tomorrow, and just like that, I fall back to sleep.

*********

The beeping of my alarm comes far too soon, and I reach for my phone, tapping the screen with my eyes still closed in the hopes that I will press the right button. I have no idea if I succeed in turning it off permanently, but it does fall silent, so I’m calling that a win. At least I no longer have any dents in my wall thanks to my launching alarm clocks; I’m decidedly more careful now that I set my alarms on my phone. Speaking or, I guess, thinking of dents in the wall, I vaguely remember shooting the wall with Betty last night. I lift my head, peering over the top of the covers, and sure enough, there’s a giant gaping hole in the wall opposite the bed.

Fuck knows what I was dreaming last night that caused that reaction in me. I should probably stop going to bed with Betty, but what happened last night really had me spooked, and I wasn’t going to risk it. Not that Betty would have had any effect on what I’m now assuming was a wolf shifter; she isn’t loaded with silver bullets, although she will be from now on.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against supernaturals or shifters; however, this one hunted me and marked me. Therefore, he’s fair game as far as I’m concerned. Just like anyone else would be if they’d done the same and were stupid enough to stick around. The thing that’s bugging me about the whole situation though is that I have always gotten the same weird feeling while walking along that stretch of road, but nothing has actually ever attacked me, and the voices have never become clear enough for me to understand, not once in my life and I’ve been in plenty of life-threatening situations before, so I know that’s not what triggered the voices to act differently.

Sighing as I get out of bed and fish a clean Bobby’s uniform out of my dresser, I head to the bathroom to shower as I resign myself to the fact that I most likely will never have the answers that I need because I have no one that I can ask, and I don’t want to seek anyone out because knowing my luck, the voices in my head mean that I need to be locked up or something equally as ridiculous and there are a fair few people that would jump at the chance to put me behind bars.

The warm water from the shower stings the claw mark on the back of my neck, and I hiss as I reach back and pull the three bandaids I’d put on it last night off so it can be washed properly. Wolf shifter claws aren’t exactly known to be clean and sterile since they use them to run on, and I should have cleaned it properly last night, but I was already exhausted from my fourteen-hour shift, and then after the adrenaline rush came the inevitable crash, I’m lucky I put bandaids on it.

It's not long before I’m standing in front of the mirror once again and putting three bandaids across the slice on the back of my neck. It needs stitches, but there’s no way I’m going to the hospital, and it’s not still bleeding, so the bandaids will have to do. Although they aren’t really doing much, the cut is big enough that you can still see it even with them; I’ll have to wear my long, silver hair up in a ponytail instead of its usual bun since we have to have our hair up for work. It won’t hide the slice entirely, but no one pays me much attention at work anyway, and even if they did notice it, they most likely wouldn’t say anything anyhow.

Everyone knows that supernaturals exist, but that’s not where the issue lies; the problem is my weirdness. One, I’m not in transition, which would typically happen with a claw slice this deep, and the beast who did clearly had the intention of harming me and causing me pain. Not many humans can survive being turned; they can’t handle the pain that accompanies it, so it would have been a sure way to ensure a painful death for me.

That is how it would've been if I had been normal.

I, however, am not a normal human, so I’m not going to transition. I’m not a supernatural either. It’s also not nearly as painful as it should be, considering it’s a half a centimeter wide and two and a half inches long slice. My pain tolerance has always been high, but then again, I wouldn’t have survived for as long as I have if it wasn’t.

All of that means that if anyone recognised it for what it was, then they’d have questions, ones that I don’t know the answers to, and I just can’t be bothered to deal with any of that.

Grabbing Betty off my bed, I head downstairs with her and into the kitchen, pouring myself a giant mug of coffee, which I chug in one and then pull open the fridge. I don’t bother grabbing a plate or anything as I help myself to some grapes and a few strawberries and then call it good. I then head toward the front door to start my long walk to work; it occurs to me that, of course, I’m going to have to walk along the same stretch of road that I got attacked on last night. There’s no way around it, and there’s no alternative route; I live in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors anywhere near me, which is how I like it and why I chose to live here. This means I’m going to have to walk it whether I like it or not. I can’t afford to miss work.

Looking at Betty, I sigh heavily when my reasonable side comes out to play, and I realise that I really can’t take a sawed-off shotgun with me to work, not only would it raise some eyebrows, but it would also get me a lot more attention than I’d like. That means I’m going to have to take one of my handguns, and if I remember correctly, the one that I keep in the left boot of a pair of rainboots is still loaded with silver bullets from when I took it on my other job, the one that does require me to have a gun.

Fishing it out, I quickly check the chamber, pleased to see that I was right, considering I don’t have time to find my stash of bullets now. I reluctantly put Betty down by the front door, and then place the handgun in the back of my pants since I don’t have time to find my harness either.

Pulling the door open, I immediately groan as I see the rain falling in sheets; although my rainboots are good enough to keep guns and bullets in, the left one is decidedly leaky, so there’s no point in changing my shoes. Fortunately, my work boots are reasonably waterproof, so they’re going to have to do. I quickly grab my thin raincoat and hope that it's going to last just a few more wears before I'm forced to replace it. As I step outside and lock my door behind me, I take in a deep breath; I absolutely love the smell of rain when it’s been warm. There’s nothing quite like it, and it’s definitely a silver lining to the fact I’m going to be soaked by the time I actually get to work.