Chapter 10 – Taming Lisa

In a continuous movement, Aniya pushed Lisa against the bush and took a wolf’s bane flower from the purse she was carrying. She showed it to Lisa, who immediately stopped smiling as her face contorted in pure pain. While she used one hand to cover her mouth and to muffle the scream, her other hand was scratching her naked belly, taking huge chunks of skin and flesh. With each scratch she made, it became more difficult for her to control the screams. She removed her hand from over her mouth, and while she was screaming, her eyes became flooded with red, as a few veins exploded in her eyeballs. Lisa jumped at Aniya with her fingernails pointed at her like claws.
Aniya reacted immediately. She grabbed both wrists of her friend from the bottom side as she let her body fall backwards and put one foot on Lisa’s stomach. The continuous movement sent Lisa flying for two meters, and she landed on her back, hard.

Aniya was already on top of her when Lisa was still blinking and pinned her down by sitting on her belly, feet over Lisa’s hips, and knees over her arms. She approached Lisa’s face while grabbing her wrists. “Focus, Lisa! Listen to my voice! Look at me! Stop struggling, you are not a wild animal, you are my friend, Lisa Kent!”

Lisa kept on growling, trying to bite her face. Aniya frowned and her voice became deeper and a faint yellow light surrounded her. “Stop right now, Lisa! I mean it! Stop it! Do as I say, goddammit!”

The growling red-haired girl immediately froze and stared into Aniya’s eyes. She slowly nodded and answered in a low voice, “Yes... I am sorry Aniya...”

“I am going to let you go, and you will go pick that blue flower for me. Focus on me and my voice. If you go crazy on me again, I will pin you down. I will do it as many times as necessary until you pick up that flower and put it in my hand! Get up!”

Aniya got up with a jump and Lisa stuttered, still lying on the ground, “Y-you don’t know w-what that flower is! It’s poison for me, Aniya! I can’t even smell it. How can I touch it?”

“You can, and you will. You have no idea how much in danger you are, but I won’t let them take you! And for that, you must do as I say! Go get me that flower! Now!”

Lisa slowly got up and walked towards the blue flower on the ground. She stopped and looked back as if she was waiting for Aniya to tell her she didn’t need to grab that scary flower. Lisa gulped as she noticed Aniya was glowing, the same glow that she saw when Aniya was holding hands with that gorgeous man. Lisa faced the flower again and crouched to pick it.

As Lisa was about to touch the flower and already feeling the pain increasing in her body, Aniya’s voice reached her, and her heart calmed down, and the pain diminished. “Focus on my voice, Lisa! You can do this! A stupid flower can’t beat you! You are the red menace, you never bow to anyone, how can you bow to a blue flower?”

Lisa slowly grabbed the blue flower by its steam and felt a light, bearable pain in her body. She got up, still holding the steam, and walked to Aniya. With her mouth wide open and completely blown away by what she was doing, she stretched her hand to deliver the flower, and Aniya ordered, “Take a good sniff of that flower, Lisa. Yes, you heard me, a big and long sniff, so that your nose gets used to it.”

Lisa was about to say something, and Aniya spoke while tilting her head left. “Did I stutter, by chance? Sniff it! You either do it yourself, or I will shove that flower up your nostrils!”

Lisa trembled, not only because she was afraid of that flower but also because Aniya never ordered her to do anything. She immediately approached the flower with her nose and sniffed it. The pain in her body got bigger, but still bearable. Aniya bit her lower lip and asked, “How do you feel? Is it still painful?”

“Just a bit... like an annoying tooth pain. One tooth the size of my body, but I can manage it. I... kind of like this smell. It’s rather nice. But... how did you know...?”

Aniya grabbed the flower and put one hand over the right shoulder of the inquiring red-haired girl. “The Hunters suspect you are a Werewolf, Lisa. They normally use this wolf’s bane on their suspects, and when they lose control like you just did, they get all the proof they need to restrain that suspect, and on the next full moon, they kill him when he changes. I saw a list of their most recent suspects, and your name and photo were there.”

Lisa wide opened her eyes and stuttered, “H-how d-do you know all that?”

“Because I saw a gorgeous man changing in my back garden last night. It seems we also have a strong bond because he says I am a Werewolf as well, and we are supposedly soul mates. I also found out yesterday that my parents are Hunters, and they kill Werewolves like him and you.”

Lisa put both hands over her mouth and spoke between her fingers, in a low voice, “You are a Werewolf, your parents never found out, and they are Hunters? That...”

Aniya wrinkled her nose, “I never changed, and I never knew I was one...”

To Aniya’s surprise, Lisa put one arm over her shoulders and burst into laughter. “Ahahah! That is so funny! Hunters with a Werewolf daughter! Talk about divine punishment! Ahahah!”

Lisa immediately swallowed her laughter when she thought of something and grabbed Aniya’s arms, saying, “Aniya, if they find out about you, they will kill you! Or one of their Hunter’s friends will! Follow me, we need to talk to my parents! They are inside!”

Aniya asked as her friend dragged her, barely having time to grab her purse from the ground, “What do you mean, talk with your parents? They know?”

“Duh! As if I could hide such a thing from them! One of my great-great-grandmothers was also one, but besides me, no one else in my family suffers from this! At least, that’s what we know! We do not discuss these kinds of subjects in our family meetings, you know? We just know a few things about my condition, but we know the Hunters killed my ancestor.”

As Aniya was being dragged along the main corridor after the back door of Lisa’s house, she was shouting her parents’ names, trying to find them. The maid that received Aniya pointed to the door of Lisa’s father’s office, and she pushed Aniya inside, locking the door upon entering.
As Lisa rushed to the big stereo in an open cabinet, Aniya smiled and approached the desk of Lisa’s father, Frank McCarty, the owner of a big newspaper. On the right side of his desk, Sharon McCarty, Lisa’s mother, a social worker, was looking at some papers in front of her that were splattered over her messy desk.
While Frank’s desk was meticulously organized, matching his trimmed short beard and perfectly aligned hair, Sharon’s was the complete opposite. Her red curly hair was a mess because she kept on rubbing her head in exasperation caused by the papers she was reading, and her desk looked like a hurricane had just fallen on it.

As soon as Aniya greeted them, Sharon rushed from her seat and hugged Aniya with a worried expression, “Look at you, you gorgeous young lady! Your hair is a mess, and your dress is all dirty! What happened to you? Did you two fight? Because Lisa is just like you, all messed up!”

The music coming from the radio echoed in the office, and Lisa lowered the volume, just enough so that they could hear each other and the people outside couldn’t.

Lisa pulled a chair for Aniya and her mother, and sat in front of her father, signalling them to approach. “I just found out one cool thing, and Aniya may need your help! Aniya, give me that pretty blue flower!”

As soon as Aniya took the wolf’s bane out of her purse, Frank McCarty jumped up and immediately grabbed his chair, staring at Lisa with a frown.

She leisurely grabbed the flower by the steam and sniffed it, “I am alright, father, see? I am not sure what Aniya did outside, but now I can even take a good sniff of this flower and I don’t go crazy. It still hurts a bit, but not much. By the way, she also knows I am a Werewolf and she might be one as well, but she never changed.”

Frank put his chair on the ground again, looking at Aniya, dumbfounded, while Sharon was speechless, until Frank whispered, “You did what? How is this possible? The first time that Lisa changed was when she was sixteen. I had to knock her out when she was changing into a nightmare because she tried to bite my neck!”

Aniya explained the best she could about her meeting with Nick, and what their parents told her about the Hunters.
When she finished speaking, they were all silent for almost one entire minute.

Then Sharon interrupted the awkward silence, “You mean, Lisa is not the only one. There are more like her, and the Hunters are still around? We did our best to keep her condition a secret, but how did they find out?”

“Perhaps one maid heard or saw something, or the Hunters were tracking another Werewolf and they bumped into Lisa by chance? Nick told me that Werewolves could smell other Werewolves in their human form. I don’t know, maybe the Hunters have a Werewolf working for them? That could explain the huge file of suspects that my father showed me.”

Frank McCarty looked worried. “If they have one Werewolf… That would be a disaster! Did you see that file? Do you remember some names? Maybe we could contact them and, I don’t know, warn them? Or ask for support if one day the Hunters come for Lisa?”

Aniya grinned while looking at him. “Let them come. They will test Lisa with the wolf’s bane. That’s why I tried to make her get used to it. It seems they use that plant to test their suspects, then arrest them and keep them in custody until the next full moon. When they change, they are killed. I think I can use the vast resources of my company to contact some of those suspects, but I think there are some on that list that I can’t contact raising no suspicions, but maybe you can, Mister Frank. Do you mind if I use your computer?”

Frank McCarty slowly nodded, wondering what Aniya’s idea was.

She quickly accessed her encrypted folder in her cloud and pointed at the photos in there. “I took pictures of that suspect's file. You can download this entire folder and help me contact the names in there. Just make sure no one can access this, or I will be done for. The Hunters sound like a group of extremists and crazy people, and even if their reasoning might sound right to them, it is still the murder of people, and it’s even worse because those people can’t control their beast form when they change.”

Frank took a USB pen drive from a drawer and gave it to Aniya. “You can put that folder here. It is encrypted, and it also has a self-destruct programme that erases all content if anyone besides me tries to access something on it. I will try to contact some of them, disguised as an interview or something. I still do fieldwork, so no one will find it strange if I leave the newspaper to track a lead. Sharon can also help by tracking their social numbers.”

“Perfect. Just make sure they understand how in danger they are, and we will probably need a safe place for me to meet them. I want to try the same process I used with Nick and Lisa, to make them used to the wolf’s bane. I am not sure if I can do it again, but I have to try. I haven’t changed yet, but it might happen one day, and I may need all the help I can get if the Hunters come for me or Lisa!”