Disclaimer: All concepts belong to L.J. Smith and her publishers. They are borrowed here for non-profit entertainment and no infringement on copyright is intended.

Rating: R (violence, language, mature content, gore)

Spoilers: Scotch’s Story and basic Night World concepts

The Puma Trilogy

Thursy’s Story

Part One

Thursy West sat on the basement floor and rocked. The chains attached to her wrists clicked rhythmically as she moved back and forth with her arms wrapped around her knees, face hidden. She created a cave in the space between her thighs and her shoulders where she could hide with her auburn hair spilling over either side like waterfalls.

For some reason, the rocking made it all easier to bear.

She didn’t know what time it was and wouldn’t let herself guess because she knew the execution was set for dawn. She just rocked and pretended that she was going to spend forever like this, curled up and quiet.

She had quit crying hours ago, when Scotch and the human girl left. Or rather, when Thursy sent them away. She knew that Scotch wouldn’t have gone if she had asked him to stay.

No, maybe he would have. She had seen him kiss that human girl and his hand unconsciously rubbing the back of her neck. She had seen him betray her as if unaware of what he was doing.

She didn’t think she knew the Scotch she had seen today.

In fact, she was working hard to pretend that she hadn’t seen anyone today. She didn’t remember most of the day, so why should it count? As far as she was concerned, it was still the Wednesday before, and Kiria was fine, and Scotch loved her, and the entire village hadn’t condemned her to death, and Yared-

Yared.

Thursy swallowed and rocked a little faster. She had loved Kiria, her heart mourned for Kiria, but it was Yared she came back to over and over. Her brother, her only family, the one who had woken her up each morning and wished her sweet dreams each night.

No one would say what was wrong with him. She had overheard things while upstairs but no one would speak to her and she couldn’t get any straight information. Once she had thought she heard him screaming from far away.

If she had hurt Yared, she truly deserved to die. That much she was certain of.

"Thursy," a voice said.

Was it time already?

Her hands clenched around her calves. "Thursy," the voice said again, and she felt fingers forcing her chin up.

"You okay?"

She opened her eyes and saw the lamia girl crouched in front of her, black hair everywhere, eyes hidden by her thick bangs.

"What?" Thursy whispered.

Maple sighed. "I asked if you were okay."

Thursy lifted an eyebrow and then said deliberately, "Yes."

She didn’t want attention, even if it was a few moments care before she died. She didn’t want people pretending they were sorry to see her go.

Behind Maple, the basement was empty. The door leading upstairs hung open and let in a shaft of light.

"Where’s Tish?" Thursy asked.

"Upstairs. Everyone’s in a tizzy about Scotch and Coalise, they’ve forgotten to set a new guard. So I thought I’d say hello."

Thursy looked at her blankly.

Maple shrugged. "And offer you something."

She drew open a pouch on the side of her hip and removed a tiny bottle of clear liquid and a glass syringe. She held them up.

"Pain killer," she said. "Very strong. It has an anti-panic agent, too. I saw a guy amputate his own foot while on this stuff."

Thursy released a slow breath. For a split instant, she had thought Maple might kill her right then and get it over with. Now she didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed.

"Do you want it?" Maple asked.

Thursy held out her arm.

She’d never had an injection before, not having needed human vaccines, but it didn’t hurt. The needle slid in cleanly and a warmth filled her arm, which began spreading into her hand and her shoulder.

Maple put the syringe away and then sat for a moment, watching her. Thursy let her eyes close as the warmth moved into her chest and up her neck. All fear began to appear useless.

"Shit," Maple whispered, almost regretfully. For some reason it struck Thursy as vaguely funny that people were still worrying over things while she didn’t have to. She was going to die pretty soon, what did she have to lose?

She heard Maple walk up the stairs without another word. The warmth had filled her whole body and was throbbing gently with her pulse. She felt like she was submerged in a warm ocean full of slow waves.

Her fear receded. There was nothing that could be done now, nothing she could do to change anything. If Scotch was in love with a human, well, fine, let him join Circle Daybreak. Kiria was dead, but Kiria had been depressed all her life and in love with a guy who would never love her back, so maybe it was for the best.

The only thing she couldn’t reconcile was Yared. She could never forgive herself for having hurt Yared, for making him scream like that.

She just needed to see him. If she could hear him say, "Thursy, I’m going to be all right," – thought he always said that, even when he wouldn’t be all right – and tell him once that she loved him, she could go through this.

Distantly, she knew she was kidding herself. She wanted Scotch beside her, fighting for her, and Kiria’s death was a travesty, and two minutes with Yared wouldn’t be near enough.

But the warmth reduced it all a little. She let herself rest against the wall and wait, knowing that her paralysis made wanting and worrying useless.

Sometime later, she heard her name called again. She hadn’t realized how far away she had drifted until she opened her eyes and the world re-established itself around her.

Gedmark was standing at the foot of the stairs. "Hi," Thursy said meekly.

"Hi, honey." Gedmark’s tone was parental—You’ve been a very bad girl, but I still love you. Thursy couldn’t really be angry at her.

"Time to go?" she asked.

"Okay."

Gedmark helped her to her feet. Preza and Jinchae were standing at the top of the stairs, watching in case Thursy tried anything as her shackles were unlocked. She didn’t really want to move, the warmth inside her urged rest and relaxation, but Gedmark ushered her to the stairs with a firm hand.

Alber and Corrie met them upstairs. The four guards made a square around Thursy and Gedmark as they walked through the living room and out the front door for the last time. Outside, the grass was wet with dew and the sky was just beginning to lighten to blue. The color reminded Thursy of Scotch’s eyes, and she smiled sadly to herself.

If she hadn’t been about to die, and so drunk on whatever Maple had given her, she would have been angry at him. She would have been furious. But there wasn’t time to think things through or reconcile the way her life had turned out, so she was going to give up and pretend he was still around, still loving her. Trapped, maybe, in his bedroom, shouting at Ramble to let him out so that he could stop the execution.

While she was at it, Thursy thought as she walked into the central courtyard, why not restore Yared and Kiria, too? Kiria was too upset to come, she had run off into the woods this morning and was throwing rocks off the top of Mount Aurora, cursing the world. Yared was at home, in his bedroom, listening to the same Dar Williams song over and over. He wasn’t sick or injured or crazy or whatever was wrong with him, he was just holding his own service for her and not buying into the village’s farce.

Thursy kept the image in her mind as she was led to the center of the courtyard.

Red and orange and brown bricks spiraled out from the trunk of a giant tree. It had been cut down before the pack settled here seventy years before, and the flat stump was twelve feet across. All of Thursy’s memories were tied to this place, village meetings, her parents’ memorial, plays she and her friends had put on. The courtyard was where her life rose and fell.

Gedmark helped her up onto the stump. She didn’t seem to find it odd that Thursy was slow and disoriented, but maybe she assumed the girl was exhausted. Thursy was tired, when she had a moment to think about it. She was sort of eager for this to be over just so that she could rest.

The pack was assembled around the stump like stones arranged around a campfire, some in human form, others in puma. Kimber was still weeping pitifully, and Thursy wished she could say something to the woman, something soothing like, "Your daughter died quickly."

But she didn’t know how Kiria had died. She couldn’t remember.

Galdwyn and Tish were standing on the stump. Galdwyn was wearing a nice suit and his hair was still wet from a shower. Tish was wearing a floral dress that barely came to her knees, and if she leaned over it would probably split down the back.

Little old Simone was there, too, and Thursy realized that if this had been anyone else’s execution, she and Yared would have been standing with them. They were the five voices of the pack, they decided when to move, where to go, and what rules the pack lived by.

The five had been reduced to three, Thursy noted sadly. Yared was in his room, listening to music.

"I’ve got to leave you here," Gedmark whispered.

Thursy glanced at her and realized the woman was crying. "It’s okay," she told her. "I’ll be fine."

Gedmark nodded, pursing her lips, and Kvyn came to lead her away.

The pack members were silent. Simone took two tiny steps forward and touched Thursy’s arm with her cold, bony hand. "Human or puma?" she asked.

For a moment Thursy didn’t understand the question, and then answered, "Human." She didn’t have the energy to ‘shift.

"Sit down."

Thursy had sunk halfway down when her knees buckled and she fell hard on the stump’s surface. Didn’t hurt, though, she was grateful for that.

She sat with one foot turned under her and stared into the crowd. Some stared back, some glowered, some looked away in shame. Thursy didn’t judge them, she just waited.

"Do you have anything say?" Simone asked.

Thursy turned to look at her and saw that Galdwyn had already changed into cat form. He was prowling a few feet away.

"I guess," she said, her eyes still on Galdwyn, "just please take good care of Yared. And, I’m sorry that all of this happened." She swallowed. "That’s it."

Simone nodded to Galdwyn, who strode to Thursy’s side. Having him so close, she felt afraid for the first time. There was a look in his eyes that terrified her, like he was enjoying himself, and she began breathing quickly.

Her eyes met Gedmark’s. Thursy’s chest was heaving up and down, she couldn’t breath or the air was too thin or her lungs had huge holes in the bottoms where everything that flowed in flowed out before she had time to extract the oxygen.

Calm down, Gedmark mouthed. So much like her son for a moment that Thursy felt dizzy.

"Thursy."

I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you, she heard herself tell him.

"Thursy," Simone said again.

Thursy jolted, turning toward her quickly.

"You have to stay still, or else this will be much worse."

She nodded, but she really couldn’t breathe and holding still made it worse. "Tish," Simone said, and she stepped between Thursy and the crowd to clamp the girl’s shoulder’s in one place.

Thursy felt Galdwyn’s breath on the back on her neck, and then his canine teeth brushed against her skin. She shuddered, closing her eyes just as her gaze met Gedmark’s again, but Tish’s arms absorbed all motion and kept her as still as a marble statue.

Galdwyn bit.

For an instant there was horrible pain, pain blotting out the entire universe and digging deep into her head and her chest and her eyes.

Then it was gone.

Light exploded around her.

She lost all sense of herself. From far away came a few voices, and then a loud noise like a bundle of sticks being snapped.

"Still?" someone asked.

Thursy wondered what was happening. The drugged feeling she had had was wearing off, but she was feeling no pain. Her disinterest was leaving as well.

"I have the ax," someone said, and a moment later she heard a blade cutting into wood.

She felt her head and her neck again. Slowly, her torso and then her limbs returned.

She thought she must be dead. What else could explain her painlessness?

People were cursing. Some were crying. Somebody was…throwing up?

"I’ve never seen anything like this. Do her arms."

Thursy managed to open her eyes and look around. On television, humans were always floating up out of their bodies when they came close to dying; maybe she, too, was a smoky ghost.

She could see the edge of the stump, Jinchae and Wen, and behind them, Mount Aurora rising up into the dawn. Jinchae had covered his face, but Wen was staring at her, aghast.

"I can’t believe this," Law said, amid a storm of cursing.

"What have we done?" Ramble moaned. He was one of the ones crying.

"Legs," Simone said darkly. More hacking sounds, and this time Thursy could see sprays of blood rising up in her peripheral vision. Were they chopping up her legs? Why was she still trapped in her body?

She opened her mouth but no breath came out. Half a dozen people screamed.

"Isis shat, she’s trying to talk!"

At least two more people threw up. Simone said, "Cut the torso in half."

"If that doesn’t work," Falash said, "let’s set her on fire."

The peace Thursy had felt from Maple’s potion was gone entirely. In its place was a rising panic that she couldn’t even express physically. Behind her, the ax came down again, and she heard bones breaking and skin tearing. The scent of blood and internal organs filled the early morning air.

"Thursy." It was Gedmark again, and she was lifting Thursy’s-

Thursy’s head. Her head, which she now understood was severed from her body.

Gedmark, to her credit, didn’t hesitate before picking up Thursy’s head and setting it in her lap so that when she looked down they were facing each other. "Thursy, hon, can you understand me? Wink if you can."

It took a moment of concentration, but Thursy managed to wink.

Gedmark swore and almost burst into tears. "Are you in a lot of pain? Wink if you are, blink twice if you aren’t."

Thursy blinked twice.

"Well, that’s something. I’m so sorry, baby, something went wrong and-"

She cringed as a chunk of flesh flew past her. Blood splattered the ground like rain.

Gedmark chuckled nervously. "I guess you’re just a fighter," she said, and then she began sobbing. "I’m sorry, honey, I’m sorry we did this to you."

Thursy felt tears miraculously fill her own eyes.

"Let’s get some lighter fluid and set her on fire," Falash said again, and Narsa echoed.

"No," Simone told them firmly. "I’ve seen this before. See how the heart keeps beating, even after its been cut into quarters? And the fingers are still moving, even ten minutes later, without a brain to direct them. This isn’t just strength, my friends."

One of Gedmark’s tears splashed Thursy’s face, but she couldn’t feel it.

"Then what is it?" Nieka demanded.

Simone paused dramatically before saying, "Thursy is a bogeyman."