CHAPTER 18

Melisca moved towards Lorna. Her eyes were still fixed on her tattooed arm. She held the girl's arm to get a closer look.

"What are you doing?" Lorna looked at her with knitted eyebrows as Liz encircled her hand just above her elbow. She had stopped moving to let the girl stare at the writings on her skin.

"Where did you get this?" Liz asked, almost not blinking, and even bent down a little and lifted a hand to trace a finger on the markings. The tattoo doesn't look special or unusual at all, but it is interesting.

Two bold black vertical lines stood opposite with a single serpent. Its tail started from the top side of the standing line, then the body went through the second line, forming the letter 'S'. Its head under in the middle of the two verticals, with a tongue sticking out, hissing. The two slanted eyes gazed as if ready to strike its prey. The serpent's blood-colored body made it look like 3D art. It somehow resembles a viper. The scales of its skin are realistic.

"Wow, this seemed like a real-life snake in your arm. It's intricately made." Melisca expressed and let go of the girl's arm. She stood straight to end up marvelling. "It looks like a viper." She added. The markings are now engraved in her mind. She just had to think deeply about where she had seen it before. She felt like it was somewhat important to her.

"It is a saw-scaled viper." Lorna stated as she walked past her and went straight to the outlet, where Melisca had plugged the charger she borrowed.

It's in front of a small vanity table with a single drawer. "I thought you were charging a phone." She said when she noticed a little rectangular-shaped shiny black metal on the desk.

"Nah, it's my electric lighter." Liz replied, sitting on the bed. She bent down to fish her knives inside her boots and placed them beside her.

"You smoke?" The hair blower's slight buzz echoed in the whole room. She started drying her hair when she settled down on the chair.

"Yes." Her accompany's short response.

Lorna stilled at the vanity table as she looked at Liz from the reflection of the mirror, pulling out her hidden weapons from her boots. Was it the thing she used to flatten one of the wolf's wheels earlier when they had been chased?

The woman is something.

Melisca turned to the other one when she finished yanking her boots off her feet. She noticed the buzzing of the blower halted. She glanced at Lorna, who stared at her from the mirror with a tense look.

"What? You're not the only one with sharp objects here." She said with a shrug and kicked off her boots. Finally, her feet could relax. She stretched her long legs and stood up. Though the bed was summoning her to lay down already, the sweat of exertion and the frizziness of her hair bothered her to remain feeling like a mess.

"What do you do, Liz?" Lorna inquired, turning on again the blower, and the slight noise from it started. Combing the strands by the hand as she dried her hair. Focusing her eyes on the woman she just met, following her every move through the reflection of the vanity mirror.

"Do you mean for a living?" Liz asked back with a shrugging expression. She appeared like someone who doesn't care about anything at all, as if talking about having weapons in each of them is the same as having their lipstick when an occasion arises.

"Yes."

"Hmm, nothing really. Just a bounty huntress." Melisca wondered if she had made the right choice by telling the truth about where her money came from or what she did the whole time. But saying most of the truth along with the lies is a greatly effective one to make people believe.

The girl paused in the middle of her hair blowing. The buzzing stopped as she looked at Melisca, wide-eyed. Lorna turned her body from the chair to finally face her. She had put the blower down on the desk. The look on the girl's face is not that of terror, her grinning lips and glazed eyes as she stares at Liz under star struck. Though Liz had turned her back on her.

Melisca was taking off her jacket. She had put the gun in her backpack when Lorna was in the shower earlier.

"Really?!" The girl's high-pitched voice irked her ears. Even not seeing Lorna's expression from behind her, just by her excited voice, she knows the girl is amazingly surprised and sounds delightful.

"Yeah."

"So that's how you know how to escape from danger."

"Not really. I just don't panic easily when I'm in danger. Panicking is much more dangerous." She explained and untied her braided hair. Tossing on the bed the small, thin elastic bond she had used to tie the end of the braid, she snatched her bag and then got to the bathroom.

"My turn to finally feel fresh." She mumbled loud enough for Lorna to hear. Opening the door, she heard Lorna reply something.

"Let's talk more about it when you finish."

Liz closed the door, the girl's voice muffled. She heightened her senses to feel the girl's movement beyond the closed walls. She placed her bag beside the large sink. The bathroom smelled of shampoo and floral soap. Not bad, but she has her own necessities. Her liquid soap, shampoo, and conditioner. She only brought a few extra clothes, but she plans to call the hotel's reception to ask if they have laundry service available.

The hotel they were at was not in the city's capital, but it sure looked decent enough for a three-star category. The hazy glow of the white light doesn't hurt anyone's eyes.

Melisca looked at herself in the mirror, some of her strands went disarray from the braid. She untangled her hair and spread it around her. The braid left a few dents, making it wavier. She rumpled her hair upwards and combed her hands forward, it reached 6 inches below her chest. The bright red underlayer was now visible. Streaks of red complemented the natural dark brown colour of her hair. She loves her long wavy strands, for her, it's what's only keeping her feminine enough as she doesn't act like one.

Picking night clothes from her bag, she had touched something from the bottom inside. A thin, rectangular, plastic-like sticker, she pulled it out.

Then she saw her mom's face smiling in the picture, along with her father and a two-year-old girl in his arms. Melicia draped her arms around the man and their daughter. Embracing them from the side, leaning her face to her husband's biceps.

Melisca gently rubbed her thumb unconsciously at the people's faces in the picture. A thought that she could touch them somehow, to feel their warmth. Her breathing got heavier and heavier as her chest constricted. She traced the smiling face of her mom.

"I miss you so damn much." She whispered with a broken voice in the end. "Dad.." Turning to her father's figure. His big grin that she got as her mom always said. "I won't put everything for nothing. I swear."

She stopped wiping her thumb as she noticed something incredibly familiar in the photo. Bringing the picture closer to her face, to scrutinize if what caught her attention was the exact thing she had seen a while ago.

The markings in her mother's arm that were draped across her dad's, were two verticals with a red viper entangling the straight lines.

She hadn't noticed she had held her breath long enough that she exhaled heavily. The thumping of her heart rapidly banging in her chest. That's why the tattoo on Lorna's arm looked so hauntingly familiar. She had seen it from her mother.

Melicia and Lorna were from the same group of people. The same people who had murdered her mom. Melisca's lips curved into a smile as she looked at the markings on the arm. Her smile turned into a wide grin and a chuckle came out from her throat.

At last, she now knew her mother's clan, but she won't be that impulsive. Looking up in the mirror, her eyes with a maniacal gleam, hungry for something, for a kill.

"Liz? Are you okay in there?" Lorna's voice from the other side of the door woke her up from the depths of thought.

Lorna is the key to her mission. She had to stick to the girl, ready to risk everything just to infiltrate her clan's organization.

"Yes, I'm fine." She replied, hiding back the photo inside the bag and pulling some clothes for a change.

She lay her garments on the tiled floor beside the sink. The full mirror in the lavatory is wide enough to get the reflection in the whole bathroom. With a glass partition for a shower, there's also a curtain to cover up and be private inside.

Melisca removed her sweaty and dusty clothes, leaving them on the covered toilet bowl. She sees it clean and puts them on it.

Entering the shower to finally clean up herself.

Outside, Lorna had wondered how much longer Liz was gonna take her shower. She wants to continue chatting with the woman. When she heard that she does bounty hunting for a living, she got so excited because it was her first time to know someone who really did it. It's a really cool yet dangerous, still so amazingly cool job.

After some time, Liz finally came out from the shower. Her long wet hair dripped some water. A small bath towel draped over her neck and twisted the clothes to her hair to keep the water from dripping to the floor. She put on black pants and a baggy red T-shirt. The sleeves almost reach to her elbows.

Melisca went to her bed and tossed her backpack on the mattress. In her left hand, she carried her used attire. "Is there a laundry service in this hotel?"

"Yes. Just scan the number in their brochure beside the telephone." Lorna pointed to a booklet on the bedside table.

She approached it and picked up the booklet as she plopped down on her bed with a bounce.

As she scanned for the laundry service number, she heard Lorna's phone vibrate on the vanity table. The girl grabbed it and glanced at the screen.

Lorna stood up and went to the terrace, closing the sliding door behind her. Melisca scoffed, knowing that it was no use for she could still hear with her abilities.

She focused her sense of hearing on the girl while staring at the booklet she held close to her face.

"Hello?" Lorna's hushed voice, sure she doesn't want to be heard.

"Lori, wherever you are, you have to be extra careful. The alpha king is in the city." Came the gruff male voice she was speaking with on the phone.

Alpha king? Melisca remembered her father once told her that an alpha king is the leader of all packs, the alpha of all alphas. He is extremely powerful and influential. But she doesn't know him or any other packs. Her father never even told her about his family.

"He's here?" Lorna asked in an alarming whisper. She seems to be horrified by the information.

"Yes, that's what they said. He scans the whole city and visits the Wildcrest pack to warn them. So, he could be anywhere now at night. He knows you are with someone else too."

Lorna grunted, "Of course, that mission captain would report everything. But at least no one knows our identity."

"But he had seen you both."

"You're right."

"Anyway, your new friend, are you sure she's real to you? She's human?"

"Yes, she's completely human, yet, she's something, she's capable of most things. She would be a great asset to the clan."

"Don't trust too suddenly, Lori. Oh, the alpha king from Vrona is the one who's in the city now."

"I know, I know."

"Stay safe, see you soon."

Then the call ended.

Melisca's mind left with the voice from the phone. Alpha king from Vrona? Isn't it the city she lived for the past four years? And the king, what if it's the same alpha who was after her?

"Fuck. That extreme aura." She then remembered his incredulous presence when she felt it. And he's here. What a nice small world. She thought she had travelled far enough from him. But fate is really bringing them closer.