Forbidden Drink Read Free

feet apart facing off at each other. I tried to open my mouth, to say something, to scream stop , but my mouth wouldn't move, couldn't move. The slow realisation that I was about to watch my ex-best friend kill another person, someone I think I can also call a friend, and do nothing about it, dawning in my mind. Like a cancer I wanted rid of, but knew it had passed that point of no return, no longer possible to be stopped, no longer possible to be excised. Just like Rocky, I would stand by and watch this happen and do nothing to stop it.
    I'm not usually one for tears. I was raised on a farm. Every Spring I would fall in love with the lambs only to have them taken by a truck at the end of Summer to the slaughter house. When I was very young, my parents, my Aunt and Uncle actually, would make a story up, so I wouldn't know what was about to happen to them. But when I turned five, my Uncle decided I was old enough to know the truth. I cried that Summer, like I had never cried before, but it didn't stop them from herding up the lambs, from loading the truck and from the truck driving away to the abattoir. My Aunt cooked lamb for dinner that night. I don't think she was trying to be cruel, I think it was just what she had it in the freezer and that was what dinner was that night, but I didn't want to eat it. I swore I'd never eat lamb again.
    But, then I smelt the roast from my bedroom, the succulent smell of rosemary and garlic, roast lamb and potatoes wafting toward my room. I'd been crying all afternoon, unable to face my Uncle, but the smell of that delicious meal pulled me out of  my bedroom and into the dining room. My Aunt and Uncle didn't say anything when I sat down at the table and started eating my meal. They didn't apologise for taking the lambs away to be killed, they didn't ask if I was OK, they just nodded, as though I had done a brave thing and went on with their meal.
    I learnt a valuable lesson that day. Some things you can change, some things you just can't and others you just have to accept for what they are. Tears didn't help. Reality doesn't answer to a sob. So, I try not to cry, whenever I'm faced with something that is too much to bear. I try not to, but sometimes there are some things you just have to cry over. And lately, I seemed to be having that issue more and more.
    I felt the hot wet flow of tears down my cheeks into the dirt and dust of the underbrush beneath my face. My vision became blurry, my breathing more of a hiccup than a shallow gasp. I was still unable to move, the Taniwhas' power escalating to such a level that I felt frozen in time, but I could see everything. Although distorted, I could tell what I was looking at. Man on man, beast on beast, it's all the same when you're fighting to the death. Taniwhas are strong, even in their human form, they can rip a man's arm off, use their human teeth to tear flesh from bone. Their nails are not claws, but the marks left behind can be just as deadly.
    Jerome fought for a while. I think it's instinct to fight back. You either give in to the flight response immediately, or you fight. He didn't have a choice to flee, he was only ever going to have to face this and not run, but initially he fought back. He landed a few blows, he made Rick's job harder, but then he settled into it, like an old familiar coat, he accepted its weight. And when Rick had least expected it, when he had resigned himself to a battle to the end, Jerome simply stepped forward at the right time, angled himself towards Rick's fist at the right moment and let physics take over.
    He went down like a dead weight, because that's what he was.
    I held my breath, just as those gathered held theirs and Rick slowly stepped forward and knelt by his mentor, his Alpha, his enemy, confirming he was dead with a howl from his thrown back head. Letting it carry away on the wind under the gaze of a Full Moon.
    The rest of the Hapū began taking up the howl. At first so fierce and then so sad, like