Nicoli and Miley, Melissa Nichols [phonics reading books .txt] 📗

Prologue - 1864

Something was wrong. Very wrong. The family's ancestral lands we unusually quiet at high noon. Given the size of my family this didn't happen during the day. Scanning the land around the house, I assessed the situation with an eye and cold calculation acquired during my four years serving the Confederate Army.
I don’t understand. This place should be teeming with life at this time of day. The women should be doing the laundry or cleaning, the men ranching and the children playing. It should not be this quiet!

My horse whinnied and began fighting my control. This was another rarity. Shadow rarely fought me. The only times he had was when we came upon a house holding the bodies of innocent civilians or dead soldiers.
A familiar chill swept down my spine even as a horror grabbed my heart. Dismounting quickly I tied his reigns to a post and sprinted into the house only to stop dead in my tracks as I discovered the scene before me.
Spread across the floor was a scene similar to the many I had faced before. My father, brothers, uncles, nephews and brothers-in-law were strewn across the floor, pale, bloody and very dead. The stench was horrendous and it made my eyes water as I dad but I shoved these reactions aside as I noticed that none of the women and children were among them. My heart pounding with fear, I raced to the basement and again froze. Every woman in my family was dead and among them was my wife, clutching two toddlers in her arms. They resembled me closely and there was little doubt in my mind that they were my sons.
When I saw them, I couldn't breathe. My heart ached and tears stung my eyes as I stared at the bodies of my family and my knees go weak. I think to the ground in my hand touched Sylvia’s cold, stiff fingers.

Slowly, in time, my pain froze my heart and I stormed out of the house with a single thought in my head. If my family was dead, that I'd join them.

Chapter One - Miley

As I stepped out of the Toyota Tundra, I shouldered my pack, tightened the laces of my hiking boots and secured the sleeping bag before I marched into the forest, compass in hand. All day, I hiked through the dense forests of Montana, taking less populated trails. After all, I wasn’t here to find other human. I was here for some time alone, to enjoy nature and to get away from the hustle and bustle of New York City.

When I stopped for a snack, I heard a crack in the bushes behind me. As I spun around, a bird flew out of the fern. As the bird flew out of sight, I relaxed and went back to my snack. Before I could fully process what was happening, a wolf jumped out of the bushes. I brought up my arms in time to block his attack to my face and I screamed when it bit my arm, his teeth slicing through my flesh as his jaws snapped my arm as if the bones were twigs. With my mind clouded by pain, I let my body react on its own. My foot came up and it kicked at the wolf’s belly while my uninjured arm raised and my fist collided sharply with his nose. The wolf yelped as I used his moment of weakness to kick him through the air with both feet. He slammed against a tree and yelped while I got to my feet.

Growling and snarling, the wolf lunged at me again. I pulled up my arms, expecting another facial attack but I was wrong. He wasn’t going for my face. He was going for my legs! But before I could dodge, the wolf had already embedded his teeth in my leg and he jerked fiercely, causing me to fall to the ground. Another wave of white-hot pain slashed my thigh and I looked down. A terribly sharp rock stuck up through my flesh, slick and wet with my blood. I howled in agony but otherwise did not react to the new wound. Instead, I rolled, taking the wolf with me to the edge of the gulley. With a skill and strength I never thought I possessed, I kicked the wolf hard enough to send him reeling through the air and down into the valley below. He landed on the opposite wall, fell again and fell to his knees. I watched as he lay there for a few moments then got up, shook out his fur, growled at me and trotted off.

Seeing the wolf leave I sighed and let myself relax and adjust to what happened before I took off my blouse and tore it into strips, then I ties up my leg then my arm before I limped to my feet and to my supplies. With adrenaline still pumping through my system, I was able to search he underbrush for a branch long and thick enough to act as a crutch.
Back at camp, I unpacked and went to sleep.

Chapter Two - Nicoli

I was in mid-hunt, about to overtake my prey when a breeze brought the scent of human blood to me. Abandoning the deer, I changed course and fallowed the breeze back up the gulley. Along the way, I passed a wolf, limping and his chops bloodied. Beckoning him closer, I put my hand on his head and searched his body for his injuries. Several broke ribs, a punctured lung from one of the ribs and a broken paw. He wouldn’t last very long out here with such severe injuries. After whispering a goodbye, I snapped his neck and drank.

After I finished, I continued my hunt for the wounded human, following the wolf’s tracks.
When the scent of human blood stopped and the wolf’s tracks ended, I looked around. Some of the wall of the gulley was missing and I assumed that new pile of rubble was what had fallen. There was a spot right on it that was big enough and the exact shape of the wolf. I jumped up onto the new bare spot of the wall and saw, shining red in the moonlight, a rock that had never been red. I leaped across the gap easily and landed nearly dead on it. I sniffed it and confirmed it was the human’s blood.
I followed the blood trails through the forest and back to her campsite. As I edged closer, I could now identify the human as I woman but I could now also smell the fresh blood that was still flowing out of her body and the illness that raged around here. I could also feel her fever in the air. I hurried to her and unzipped the sleeping bag. The scents of illness, blood and impending death flooded my senses and I knew she was in serious trouble. I carefully searched for her injuries. Several small lacerations, a broken arm with a chunk missing, literally, and a horribly infected gash in her leg. I sniffed it and drew back with a grimace.
“Gangrene.”
When I spoke, she cried out in her fever, calling for someone and I knew she wasn’t far from succumbing to the fever. I quickly decided and leaned forward.

Chapter Three - Miley

I was dreaming. I had to be. Otherwise there was no way I would be able to see him again.
Ryan stood there, at the head of our favorite hiking trail, looking at me with such love and regret in his eyes.
“Ryan?”
“Hello, Miley.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Then why did you leave me? Do you have any idea how much I missed you, how I cried, how I yearned for you?”
“I’m sorry -”
“Sorry doesn’t cut it! I tried to be everything for you and you left me when I needed you most."
" I know apologizing won't make what I did okay. Nothing will. Miley," he took my hands in his gently. "I was trying to protect you. I'm the one that usually attracts... Danger so I thought that if I left then you'd be safe. But it didn't do any good. They still found you."
"What? Who found me? Protect me from what?"
“You'll find out soon enough."
Just then, space a great wall of fire erupted behind me. The heat scorched my skin and I leaped toward Ryan as I screamed in a mixture of pain and shock.
"It's started." Ryan stared into the fire, ignoring me except for his hands around my forms, his grip gently tightening to the point where I was sure he would leave bruises.
"Listen to me, Miley. Everything I've done was try to protect you. Before you go, you need to promise me something."
"What is it? What's going on?"
"Promise me that you'll stay away from Washington state, what. Space after tonight, space if I see you ever will have no choice."
"Ryan, what are you talking about?"
"I hope you'll never have to discover what I am. Miley, our time draws short." As he spoke, space a young man rose from the inferno. He reached for my hand and I held onto Ryan tighter. "Miley, space he