Satomi Ito looked over the faces of her pack, gathered
together at a rest stop on one of the park’s walking trails. It was the middle of the day, so there were only
a handful of other people out taking a quick walk or jog during their lunch
break.
“I
asked you all to meet me here because it will be easier for me to tell everyone
at once,” she explained. She took a
breath and then went right to the point.
“Yesterday afternoon, I was attacked.
The man was skilled, not just a common thug.”
“Do you
think it was a hunter?” Carlos Mariana
asked as a concerned murmur rippled through the pack.
Satomi
shook her head. “No, I don’t think
so. He didn’t use any tactics typical of
a hunter.” She paused, remembering the
incident. “I’m not sure what he was, but
he must have known I was a werewolf.” She
took something out of her pocket and held it up for the others to see. “He missed, but I found this on the ground
afterward.”
“Is
that an actual silver bullet?” Jane
Talbot asked, taking it from her.
Satomi
nodded. “An amateur’s mistake.”
Several
people leaned in to look at the bullet, their expressions dark.
“As I
said, I don’t know who he was, or what code he goes by, but we will all need to
be cautious. He may have been after only
me, or he may have plans against us all.”
“But we
haven’t hurt anyone,” Haru Fujita said. “We haven’t done anything.”
“You
know that doesn’t always mater,” Satomi answered. It hadn’t been a year since the Argent family
had set up a base in nearby Beacon Hills with plans to hunt down every werewolf
in the area. Satomi had hoped they would
be safe now that the Argents had moved on, but it would seem some other threat
was now looming over them.
. . .
“So,
you ready for the chemistry test?”
Travis asked, raising his voice a little to be heard over the morning
commotion in the school’s hallway. It
was unnecessary, his companion would still have been able to hear him if he had
whispered, but Travis had no way of knowing that.
Brett
Talbot shut his locker. “Is anybody ever
ready for the chemistry tests?”
Travis
shrugged and they started down the hall.
“You know, for some reason, I thought the second year of chemistry would
be easier. Like after all that work last
year we’d finally have a grasp on it and it would be downhill from there.”
Brett
scoffed. “In AP?”
“Yeah,
I should have switched to normal chemistry.”
“Brett!”
a girl called behind them.
Brett
smiled and turned to see Dawn Cavaro hurrying to catch up to them.
“Hey,”
he said, giving her a quick hug. “How’s
your grandpa?”
“Better,”
Dawn answered. “They did finally figure
out what the problem was and let him go home yesterday. They said he should be ok.”
“So you
just got back?”
“Yeah,”
she nodded, “we drove in late last night.”
“I
would not have come to school,” Travis said.
“My
parents said I didn’t have to, but I had a test today and two more tomorrow,”
she answered. “So I needed to get in
today’s lessons for the tests tomorrow and now I’m just hoping that most of
today’s will not be over the stuff I missed this week.”
“Well,
I can help you out with some of that.”
Brett slid the strap of his backpack off his shoulder and reached into
the bag. “I made a copy of my notes for
when you came back. The chemistry ones
won’t do you much good since there’s only like ten minutes before class starts,
but maybe the pre-calc ones will help.”
He pulled out a few papers and held them out to her.
“Thank
you.” She smiled and took them. “You’re
so considerate.”
“No,”
Travis said, “if he was considerate he would have taken notes for your
government class.”
“He’s
not in my government class.”
“I
know,” Travis said, nodding. “That’s why it would have been considerate. It probably took him two minutes to do that.”
“Whatever.”
Dawn waved a dismissive hand. “But I
could not ask him to sit through that period of monotonous, rambling torture.” She rolled her eyes and looked back at Brett.
“I appreciate them.”
“Not a
problem.”
“So, I
wanted to ask you to come over for dinner sometime when you’re free,” she
continued. “While we were up there, my Nonna taught me how to make this chicken
marsala that is amazing and I’m going to do my best to recreate it.”
“Sure,”
Brett said as they stopped outside the chemistry room. “We’ve got the scrimmage tonight but tomorrow
or Sunday is good for me.”
“Great,
tomorrow night then.” Dawn started to
walk into the room, then stopped. “Oh,
I’ve got to go turn in my excuse slip thing real quick. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” She turned and headed back down the hall at a
brisk pace.
Travis
sighed and shot Brett an annoyed look.
“What?”
Brett asked, turning his gaze from Dawn.
“When I
go to my girlfriends for dinner, we eat hamburger helper.”
“Well
then you just need to date an Italian.”
They
stepped into the room and made for their usual desks. “I thought she was only like a third
Italian.”
Brett
shrugged. “Yeah, but she cooks like a
full.” He grinned mischievously. “You want me to tell you what we had the last
time I was over there?”
“No,”
Travis said, dropping his chemistry book on his desk with a loud thunk.
He opened the cover and pulled out a scrap of notebook paper. “I want you to forget about it and quiz me on
these definitions before we get started.”
. . .
“So,”
Travis said, craning his neck to see out the window as the bus pulled into the
parking lot. “Beacon Hills.”
“Mmm,” Brett
grunted acknowledgement and stood, stretching.
He stepped into the isle and followed the guys in front of him off the
bus.
As soon
as he stepped through the door and into the open air Brett was struck by the
almost overwhelming scent of anger. Pure
rage-- strong, raw, and violent. An
animalistic grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He’d only ever come across one person who
smelled of anger like that. Liam Dunbar.
“Brett.” Yep, there he was, marching over to the bus,
practically shaking with barely contained anger. “I just wanted to say,” he paused and then
held out his hand. “Have a good game.”
What?
Brett laughed. That was
definitely not what he had come over here to say.
“That’s
cute Liam,” he said. “Is that what they
told you to say in anger management?
Apologize and everything’s fine?”
All the amusement left his voice.
“You demolished Coach’s car.”
“I paid
for it,” Liam growled.
“Yeah,
you’re gonna pay for it,” Brett said, nodding.
“We are gonna break you in half out there. And it’s gonna be all, your, fault,” he
finished, lingering on each of the last words to let them really sink in.
Liam
stiffened even farther, sucking in a breath.
Go on, hit me, Brett mentally bated him. Show
your new team how you are.
But before Liam had the
chance two other kids ran up. One of
them grabbed Liam by the shoulders and pulled him back. The other quickly positioned himself between
Brett and Liam.
“Hey,
hey. What’s going on prep students,” he
said, grinning at them. “Welcome to our little public high school. How you doing?” He held his hand out to Brett. “I’m Stiles.
That’s a firm handshake you got there,” he said, even though Brett had
not shaken his hand. He continued to
babble on, ignoring the blank stares they were all giving him. “We’re very excited for the scrimmage
tonight but let’s keep it clean. You
know, no rough stuff out there. So,
yeah. All right, see you on the field.” He turned and looked at the boy holding Liam,
pointing towards the school doors. “Go.”
Brett
watched them go for a second, tilting his head slightly, trying to catch what remained
of the scent he’d noticed when they’d first come up. Yeah, that Hispanic kid hurrying Liam off was
a werewolf. Hmm, he thought. That should
make the game interesting.
“I paid
for it,” KC parroted Liam, then laughed, the others joining in.
One of
the other boys snorted. “Yeah
right. Doctor Daddy paid for it.”
“Well
he gets to pay for it tonight.”
“Shh,”
Brett cautioned them, glancing meaningfully at the coach, who was just stepping
off the bus. He always road in the back,
so he could keep an eye on all of them, which meant he probably noticed the
confrontation but he wouldn’t have heard anything that was said.
Liam
hadn’t made a lot of friends on the team last season. He played too rough, he thought he knew how
to play better than anybody else, and he often yelled at the others. He and Brett had butted heads a lot.
Liam’s
bad attitude and poor sportsmanship, combined with the fact that he’d started
several fights at practice, had kept him on the bench almost every game. In retaliation, he had taken a crow bar to
their coach’s car. The thing had looked
like it had run through the works at a junkyard by the time he was done with
it. And that had pretty much secured him
the hatred of anyone left on the team he hadn’t already ticked off. Coach seemed willing to let bygones be
bygones, but the boys had other plans.
. . .
“All right, remember guys, it’s
just a scrimmage,” Coach Tom instructed.
“We’re going to focus on learning how to run our plays and how to work
as a team. I want you to do well, but don’t
get too caught up with the score. Got
it?”
The boys standing around him nodded
and muttered acknowledgement. Coach
turned to Brett. “They’re all yours.”
“All right,” Brett said, clapping
his hands together and stepping forward.
“You guys know what to do out there.”
He swept a knowing glance over everyone.
“Let’s get stretched out.”
Brett had had a private
conversation with the team after the last practice. Yes, they were going to practice running
their plays in an actual game. Yes, they
were going to work on learning to play as a team. But yes, they were going to worry about the
score. No mercy rule, no pulling back
once they got ahead. They were going to
run Beacon Hills into the ground. Just
for Liam.
Once they finished stretching they
started getting their equipment on.
Brett could see Liam watching him from across the field. He was talking about him to some other kid,
who was also staring at Brett, just in a very different way. Brett pretended to ignore both of them but he
did let himself listen in to what they were saying. He smiled to himself. Liam was sufficiently worried; with good
reason.
“Brett,” KC grabbed his arm and
pointed to one of the Beacon Hills players.
“Look, they’ve got a girl.”
“Naw.” Brett shook his head. “No, he’s just-“ Actually that was a very feminine face. His gaze traveled down the rest of the kid’s
body. “Ok, you’re right, it’s a
girl. Hey,” he called to the Beacon
Hills coach, gesturing to the girl.
“This is not supposed to be a co-ed sport.”
“It doesn’t say that in the rules,”
their coach called back in a sing-song voice, way too pleased with himself.
By then, several of the others had
noticed her too.
“Can they do that?”
“There has got to be a rule about
that.”
“Coach?”
Coach Tom raised a placating hand
to his players. “I’ll look into it. Just calm down, we’ll get it worked out.”
“But that can’t be fair,” Cameron
insisted.
“Hang on.” Coach Tom looked up to
the other coach, who had walked over to them.
“Can you possibly keep her on the sidelines until I can check the
rules?”
“No need, I’ve got the rules right
here.” The other coach flourished a
piece of paper. “She’s totally
legal. So just tell you’re boys to stop
whining.”
He walked off as another round of
protest rose up from the Deavenford boys.
“Ok, come here,” Brett said, waving
the others to him. Everyone huddled
up. “Between the pads and the helmet you
won’t be able to who she is.” He paused,
still forming his solution in his mind.
“So, just play like normal and don’t worry about which one is the girl.”
“But what if we hurt her?” Cameron asked.
“See that’s what they want us to
worry about. They’re trying to use it to
get an edge on us.” It was a pretty low
strategy, and Brett felt like it should be against the rules. But since it wasn’t, they’d have to deal with
it. “Look, she’s the one who decided to
play. It’s a rough sport, people get
hurt. Like I said, don’t try to figure
out where she is. Just play.”
Within the first few minutes of the
game, Brett had gotten the ball, easily maneuvered around the Beacon Hills
defense and made a shot.
Too
easy, he thought. These guys were
gonna have to step it up if beating them was going to be any fun at all.
He pointed at Liam, skulking a few
feet off, as he walked back to his side.
“That’s one.”
Brett knelt at the half-line in
front of the Hispanic werewolf, who was apparently Beacon Hill’s team captain, and
the ref set the ball down between them.
“Brett?” The other kids said quietly.
Brett looked up at him,
questioningly.
“I know you guys feel like you owe
Liam some payback for what he did, but could you just hold off for one
night? Trust me, one night.”
“Yeah.” Brett nodded. “I can do that?”
“Really?”
Brett scoffed. “No.”
Then the ref blew the whistle and
Brett had the ball again. Liam ran for
him, but two of the Devenford boys cut him off, knocking him to the ground. No one else got in his way and he made
another shot.
There it was again; that blood
thirsty rage. This time the scent was so
strong Brett had to take a breath to keep from partially shifting in
response. Liam jerked himself up off the
ground, and threw off his helmet and gloves.
Panting, he threw himself at the boys who had blocked him, but two of
his teammates grabbed him before he got to them. They held him until he stopped struggling and
everyone made their way back to their positions.
As Liam’s anger faded, Brett caught
what might be the scent of another werewolf, a different one than the
captain. But the rage smell was too
thick for him to zero in on who it was.
Brett shook his head. Between
Liam and two other werewolves, they’d be lucky if they didn’t end up in a fight
before this game was over.
The Beacon Hills kid missed the
pass and the ball went rolling across the ground. Brett dove for it, scrambling to get there
first. Liam and one of their other
players slammed into him, one of them flipping over him and they all hit the
ground.
The ref blew the whistle. Brett groaned, rolling over onto his back,
and gritted his teeth. He couldn’t move
his left leg from the knee down. Several
of his team mates had gathered around him.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his head to see his coach
kneeling over him. “Are you ok?”
Brett grunted against the pain in
his leg and cried out.
“What hurts?” the coach asked, sweeping his
gaze over him.
Brett tried to sit up, but he
barely got his head off the ground when a wave of dizziness hit him, pain
shooting through his lower leg.
“Ahh.” He forced several quick
breaths out through his teeth, afraid to look down at it. It hurt on the outside of his calf, which
meant the bone had probably broken and was sticking out. He yelled into his teeth. Ugh, how was he going to explain that when it
healed.
“All right,” Coach said, “we’re going to pick
you up now.”
Brett felt hands on both his upper
arms and they pulled him to his feet.
That made the dizziness and the pain worse. He cried out again, hopping all his weight
onto his other leg. Coach put Brett’s
arm over his shoulder and dragged him off the field.
“Cameron,” Coach said over his shoulder. “Tell Travis to move up to Brett’s position
and Daniel to go in where Travis was.”
“Right.”
Coach Tom laid Brett on his back on
the sidelines and helped get his helmet off.
“All right, you were dragging your leg, is that what it is?” He felt the coach’s hands on his leg and he
tried to slow down his breathing and tell himself to relax. Coach’s fingers brushed a certain spot on his
calf and he jerked his leg away, moaning at the shock of pain the touch brought
on.
Was that a cut? He looked closer. Yes, there was a thin line of red on the side
of his calf. He knew that hadn’t been
there earlier. But where had it come
from? There shouldn’t be anything sharp
out there.
“Brett, I don’t see anything wrong
with it.”
“What do you mean there’s nothing
wrong with it?” Brett demanded.
“It’s not broken.”
Not broken? Then why did it hurt so much? Something
was wrong with it. Did it have to do
with that cut? He still had no idea
where that had come from. Were there
hunters out here tonight? Someone had tried to kill Satomi just a few days ago,
it might be the same ones. But how would they get to him one the field? Unless maybe it was one of the kids. But-
“Hey, calm down,” the coach said, putting
a hand on his shoulder. “Look at me,
ok? You need to calm down.”
Brett nodded, taking a deep breath. Even if there were hunters, they couldn’t get
to him right now. Not in front of all
these people.
A whistle blast rang out from the
field, shrill and amplified. Brett groan
and reached his hands up towards his ears.
All of a sudden a lot of noise was coming in too loud.
Brett tried again to sit up. He needed to get a better look at that cut,
it had to have something to do with this.
But the dizziness hit again along with an ache in his temples. He moaned and let his head fall back against
the grass, shutting his eyes.
“Is he ok?” The other team’s coach
asked.
“No, I don’t know what’s wrong with
him though. Open your eyes for me,
Bud.” Brett did. “His pupils look kind of dilated, maybe a
concussion.”
Brett shook his head. He knew it
wasn’t a concussion, he hadn’t been hit in the head. Before he could say so he felt his stomach
twist. “I’m gonna be sick.”
“Ok, hey.” Coach started to help
him sit up.
“Why don’t you take him to our
locker room,” the Beacon Hills coach offered.
“Here, I’ve got him.” That was a medic, taking his arm and pulling
him to his feet. “I’ll take him back
there and check him out.”
“All right, I’m going to call his
parents.”
The medic struggled to help Brett
to the locker room. Brett tried to help
him as much as he could, but his other leg was going dead too, so he could
barely shuffle along, fighting the pain in his leg, and the dizziness, and the
urge to throw up.
Luckily it wasn’t that far. Once they got inside Brett slipped away from
the medic and grabbed the lip of the nearest sink with both hands. His knees gave out and he pitched forward,
nearly knocking his head against the sink.
“Whoa kid.” He felt the medics hand
on his back, then suddenly it was gone and the man fell to the floor,
unconscious.
Brett stared at him in confusion
for a second, then he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, his human
hackles raising. Hunters. Whatever was wrong with him was their fault,
and now they had him alone, defenseless.
He tried to get up, but his legs
were now all but paralyzed, so instead he started pulling himself forward, one
hand at a time, using the strength of his arms.
Then in front of him he saw a pair of boots. He looked up and found himself staring at a
teenaged black girl.
“What did you do to me?” he
demanded.
“You’ve been cut with a poison
blade,” she explained, stalking closer to him. “It was laced with
wolfsbane. It won’t kill you,” she said,
fiddling with something in her hands, “but this will.”
She had some kind of wire, and it
was turning red, hot, like it had been in a fire. Brett set his jaw and began pulling himself
forward again. If he could just get back
out to the field where other people would see- But he couldn’t move fast
enough.
“Why-why are you doing this?” he
panted. Come on, you’ve got to get out of here.
She lashed out with her leg,
knocking one of his arms out from under him.
“Because you’re worth a lot of money, Brett.” She stepped over him, straddling him. As he tried to pull himself back up she
slipped the wire over his head and pulled it tight around his neck with a zip, jerking his head up. As the chord cut off his airway, Brett felt a
surge of power, like the wolf part of him was making one last effort to save
him. But then the wire went hot, searing
into his skin. Brett clawed at the floor
with his fingers, panic overwhelming him.
This was it. This was how he was
going to die. Dark spots swum across his
vision, and then it went completely black.
Brett jerked, eyes flying
open. He was laying flat on his stomach on
the locker room floor. The girl was
gone, but someone else was standing in front of him. The other werewolf. He opened his mouth to warn him about the
hunter, but then she appeared was behind him.
She slid the wire over the other
boy’s head and pulled it tight. He
jerked his hands up to his throat, trying to grab it.
“He said we shouldn’t try,” she said, a crazy light in her eyes as she
tried to jerk the wire tighter. “But now
I’ve got you, I’ve got an alpha.”
Brett heard the other boy growl,
deep in his throat. He had the wire in
his hand, pulling it away from his neck.
He turned to the girl, eyes glowing red.
She was in trouble now. He
grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall, knocking her
out. Brett sighed as her unconscious
body hit the floor and let his head rest on the concrete.
With one last glance at the girl to
make sure she was unconscious, the alpha turned his gaze to Brett. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Brett sucked in a pained breath,
rolling onto his side and shook his head.
“No.” He reached down to touch
the scratch on his leg, finally able to get a good look at it. It wasn’t deep, definitely not deep enough for
it to hurt as much as it did, but the wound and the skin around it were already
a sickly yellow green.
The other boy knelt beside him and
studied the cut. “Wolfsbane?”
“Yeah, that’s what she said.”
“Ok,” the other boy nodded. “We’ve got to get you some help. I know a guy that should know what to do.” He stood and took a step toward the door.
Brett looked down at the floor. “I
can’t get up.”
“Here, I’ll help you. We’ve got to go before some adults show up
and try to take you to the hospital.”
Brett nodded and the alfa grasped
his forearm, pulling him to his feet.
The locker room spun wildly, the pounding in his head intensified and
Brett felt himself falling.
“Whoa.” The other boy caught him, placing a steadying
hand on his chest and Brett squeezed his eyes shut, trying to regain his
balance. “You ok?”
After a few shaky breaths, Brett
nodded. “Yeah, I can go now.”
“Ok.” The alpha swung Brett’s arm over his shoulder
and with his help Brett was able to stumble outside.
“Stiles!” the alpha called and
another boy hurried up to them. The
chatty one from the bus.
“Ok, I called my dad,” he
said. “He said he’ll be over here with
some people as fast as he can.”
“Good,” the alpha said. “Let’s get to your car before they get here. You’ve got to get him to Deaton.”
“Ok, right. Wait,” the other boy stopped short and
pointed at himself. “I have to get
him to Deaton?”
“Yes. Violet just tried to kill us both. She’s unconscious in there and I have to stay
and tell the police what happened.” The
alpha started walking again. “So yeah
you’re taking him. I’ll call Derek and
have him meet you there in case you need help.
It’ll be fine.”
The three of them hurried across the parking lot to an old blue jeep
where the alpha helped Brett into the passenger’s seat. “You’re going to be ok,” he told him, laying
a hand on his shoulder.
Brett nodded. “Thanks.”
“Well, I wouldn’t thank him just
yet,” Stiles said, climbing in behind the wheel and starting the car.
They rode the first few miles in
silence, the only sounds the hum of the motor and Brett’s labored breathing. The pain in his leg was getting worse and it
was spreading. He could feel his heart
beating way too fast, hammering away behind his ribs. Brett closed his eyes, leaning his head
against the window, trying not to think about what was happening to him. But still that terrifying word kept echoing
through his mind. Dying. He found himself
wishing his parents had come to the game tonight. It was a scrimmage, he’d told them not to
bother, but if they had, they’d be here right now. They’d probably know what to do.
He heard himself whimper. No,
he told himself. He was not going to do
that. If he was going to die, it wasn’t
going to be crying for his mommy. But why
hadn’t he let her come to the game?
Brett jerked and barely stifled an
outcry, his hand shooting toward his leg as a jolt of pain ran through him from
the cut, this time through his whole body.
Looking down at his hands he sucked in a breath. His claws were out. He hadn’t asked for them and he couldn’t make
them go back. No come on, he pleaded in his mind.
It had been so long since he’d lost control, and now was definitely not
a good time. He groaned and gripped the
door handle, biting his lip against the pain so hard it bled.
“Whoa, buddy,” the other boy said,
looking across at him with a mixture of concerned sympathy and fear. He opened and closed his mouth a few times,
searching for words, then turned his eyes back to the road. “Just please don’t
scratch the seats.
By the time the jeep stopped Brett’s
hands were shaking, his vision was a blur and every sound came in muffled.
“Ok, we’re here,” Stiles said,
throwing his door open. “Told you we’d
make it. Just hang in there a little bit
longer all right? Derek! Give me a hand over here.”
. . .
Dr. Deaton had reached his office
just a few moments before Derek and Peter Hale.
None of them had a very clear idea about what was happening. All they knew was that they had both gotten a
call from Scott asking them to come here, that some werewolf had been hurt and
needed their help.
They hadn’t been waiting long
before the jeep pulled up. Stiles jumped
out of the front seat and yelled for Derek who ran over to the car. Deaton held the door open as Derek and Stiles
dragged in a semi-conscious boy in lacrosse gear.
“Lay him on the table in the back,”
Deaton instructed. “And get those pads
off of him so I can look him over.”
Derek nodded and sliced open the
boy’s shirt with the claws of one hand.
He pulled off the fabric and quickly stripped him of the protective
pads.
“All right,” Deaton said, stepping
over to the table with a small flashlight in hand. “Just relax.
Let’s see if we can figure out what’s the matter with you.” He shone the
light inside one of the boys eyes, making him flinch. His eyes were the glowing yellow of a werewolf,
but they were glazed. He was breathing
hard, the air rattling in his chest.
“He was cut with a knife or something,”
Stiles explained at Deaton’s elbow. “I
think it’s on his leg.”
“Yes, I see it.” Deaton placed the
fingers of one hand on either side of the cut, pulling it open gently to peer
inside. The cut wasn’t deep but it was
tinted yellow, the skin around it noticeably inflamed. “How long ago was he cut?”
“I don’t know,” Stiles answered,
running his hands through his hair.
“Less than thirty minutes.”
If it was wolfsbane it should be purple, with dark veins spreading out
from it. And it wouldn’t have him in a
state like this so quickly. Unless…
Deaton leaned over the boy to smell his breath.
Yes, that was it. He stepped over
to the counter against the wall and opened a drawer.
The boy’s whole body started to
shake, his muscles convulsing so strongly it nearly threw him off the
table.
“Hold him,” Deaton instructed.
Derek put his hands on the boy’s
shoulders.
“It’s all right,” Deaton
tried. “You’re going to be all right.” He wasn’t certain the boy could process the
words, but he hoped at least the tone would calm him down. Not that it would do much good. Deaton pulled a scalpel out of the drawer and
went back to the table. “Help him Stiles,”
he said, nodding at Derek.
Stiles stepped over to the table
and took hold of the boys other arm.
Even between the two of them they could barely hold him. The table shook and rattled under the boy’s
seizing body. Yellow foam spurted up out
of his mouth, choking him.
Deaton licked his lips. The boy would die in the next few minutes if
he didn’t do this soon.
“What is happening to this kid?”
Stiles asked, struggling to hold him down.
“He’s been poisoned by a rare
wolfsbane,” Deaton explained, coming over to the table holding a scalpel. “I need to make an incision and you need to
hold him as still as possible.”
“Hey, Derek,” Stiles said, dodging
some of the yellow stuff, “how about a little werewolf strength.”
“Yeah, well I’m not the only one
here with werewolf strength,” Derek snapped, glancing down at the boy.
“If you can’t hold him still the
incision might kill him,” Deaton insisted.
He laid one hand on the boy’s chest and tried to move the scalpel into
position.
The boy’s eyes widened, the fear
behind them growing as his gaze focused on the knife. With a growl, be lashed out with his arms and
legs, throwing all three of them into the walls. He jumped off the table, glancing around,
confused.
He turned toward the door and was
stopped in his tracks by a blow to the jaw from Peter Hale, who had stood at
the door frame the whole time watching.
The boy hit the floor, stunned, and they all stared at Peter for a
moment.
Peter blinked, his eyes changing
from the glowing werewolf blue back to their less intense human shade. “I guess I’ve still got a little werewolf
strength myself.”
“Maybe more than a little.” Derek said.
“Hey Doc.” Stiles was staring down at the boy. “I don’t think he’s breathing.”
He and Deaton knelt on the floor
and Deaton slid the scalpel into the skin of the boy’s chest just under his
collar bone. The boy gasped and
struggled to get a breath as Deaton dragged the knife down the length of his
sternum. A yellow gas floated up from
the cut and dissipated in the air. The
boy finally managed to suck in a breath and his gasps changed to quieter
panting.
“Is he ok?” Stiles asked.
“I think he’ll be fine, but he’ll
probably be out for a while,” Deaton answered.
“Guys, can you hear that,” Stiles
said, leaning closer. “I think he’s
saying something.”
Deaton leaned in as well, barely
catching the words as he repeated them.
“The sun, the moon, the truth,” the boy
murmured. “The sun, the moon, the
truth.” Then his fluttering eyelids
stilled and he slipped into unconsciousness.
Deaton sat back on his heels. So that’s who he belonged to. “Three things cannot long be hidden,” he
said. “The sun, the moon, and the
truth. It’s Buddhist.” He turned to Derek, knowing he would also
make the connection.
Behind them, Peter forced out a
breath. “Satomi.”
. . .
Dawn shut the door of her car and
studied the building warily. Why would he ask me to come to a vet’s
office? she wondered. Of course,
she’d been asking herself that the whole drive over and had yet to come up with
an answer. She knew this should feel
wrong, but somehow it didn’t. She tilted
her nose ever so slightly and tested the air.
Nothing set off any alarm bells.
Sweeping her gaze over the area one last time, she took a breath and headed
for the door.
She was greeted by the tinkling of
a small bell above her head when she pushed the door open and a middle-aged
black man stepped out from a back room.
“Good morning,” he said, smiling
pleasantly. “May I help you?” He had a gentle sounding voice, kind. She felt herself relax, but only just a
little.
“Yes,” she said, brushing a strand
of her dark hair behind her ear. “This
is going to sound really weird, but I’m here for a friend of mine. He said he needed a ride home.”
Surprisingly, he just nodded, like
it was something he heard every day. “Yes, we’ve been waiting for you. Right this way.” The man opened a waist high gate in the
counter and motioned her through.
She stepped into the back room and
found Brett, sitting on a metal table, wearing a shirt that looked a size too
big.
Dawn let out a breath she hadn’t
realized she’d been holding. “You know,
when you ask me to come to a vet’s office to pick you up, I thought you were
either drunk or playing a joke.”
Brett made a face. “Neither
of those sound much like me.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Which is why I
also kind of thought it was a trap.” She
took a step into the room then jerked back, wrinkling her nose as an acrid,
decaying scent hit her.
“It’s all right.” She felt the vet’s hand on her shoulder as
she accidentally bumped into him. “That
smell is a rare form of wolfsbane, but there is no danger from it now.”
“Wolfsbane?” Dawn felt her heart
speed up. She furrowed her brow and crossed
over to the table, placing a hand on Brett’s knee. “Baby are you ok?”
“I am now,” he said, pushing
himself off the table. He glanced at her
a little sheepishly. “Sorry I had to
call you but I couldn’t get a hold of my parents.”
“They’re not home.” Dawn shook her head. “Satomi took more than half of everyone into
the woods. My parents too.”
“Why?” he asked, concern darkening
his eyes. “What’s going on?”
She glanced out of the corner of
her eye at the vet. “I don’t know.”
“What about Lori?”
“No,” Dawn assured him, “she’s with
me. I told her to wait in the car.”
Brett set his jaw and nodded, then
looked to the door. “We should get
going.” He turned to the vet and paused,
like he wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to. After a minute he just said, “Thank you.”
The man smiled. “Don’t mention it, I was happy to help.”
Dawn felt Brett’s fingers brush her
arm, guiding her toward the door. She
smiled at the vet, not quite sure what to make of him, and followed Brett
out.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked
as they stepped outside. He looked
pretty tired, and the scent of wolfsbane still clung to him.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
She raised an eyebrow at him and he
shrugged. “Fine, I do feel a little bit
sick, but he said I might for a little while.
I’m ok though.”
“You didn’t say anything about
wolfsbane on the phone,” she said, fiddling with the hem of her jacket, her
voice coming out clipped.
He stiffened. “I didn’t think I needed to, there wasn’t
anything to worry about any more.”
Dawn bit her lip and rounded on
him. Wolfsbane was poison. He didn’t think he needed to mention that? “You almost died didn’t you?”
Brett sighed and looked away. “Yeah,” he answered quietly, looking back at
the vet’s office. “If they hadn’t gotten
me to him when they did I would have been done for.”
Dawn softened her expression. She shouldn’t be mad at him. She really wasn’t even mad, she
realized. Not at him anyway. This whole thing with the hunters just had
her on edge. “Who is he?”
“He was the Hale’s druid. I guess he’s with the true alpha’s pack now.”
They started walking again, toward
her car. “Is that who brought you here?” she asked.
Brett nodded.
“How did you get into wolfsbane?”
“Somebody on the field last night,”
he muttered.
“One of the kids?” Dawn’s eyes
widened. “In front of all those
people?” Did they really have to worry
about everyone, everywhere now?
“Look, I’ll tell you later,” he
said, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “I
don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“Ok.” They walked in silence until they were almost
to the car then Dawn shook her head to flip her hair over her shoulder, as if
she could shake her worry off. Time for
some lighter conversation. She forced a
smile as she walked around the car toward the driver’s door. “So how did the game go?”
Brett half-smiled. “We murdered them.”
“Got back at Liam?”
“Oh yeah.”
Dawn opened the door and fell into
her seat. “Mission accomplished then.”
. . .
After Brett explained everything he
had just told Dawn to Lori, they road in silence the rest of the way home. Dawn pulled into the driveway and had barely
put the car in park before she had her phone out. She held it up to her ear and it rang until
it was answered by a voice message.
“Hrr.” Dawn jabbed her thumb into
the end call button. “No answer.” She
ran and hand through her hair, leaning her head back against the seat.
“Let’s try mine again.” Brett leaned forward from the back seat and
looked at his sister. “Have you got your
phone? Mine’s still in Beacon Hills.”
“Yeah.” She nodded, reaching behind
her to pull it out of her back pocket.
“Call Mom or Dad.”
Lori tapped through the commands
and set the phone down on the armrest on speaker.
Brett found himself holding his
breath. Come on, pick up. It wasn’t
like his parents to not answer their phones.
He’d tried to call both of them hours ago, several times. One of them should have called back by now.
On the fourth ring, Lori cocked her
head to the side.
“What?” Brett asked.
“It’s ringing inside,” she said
quietly.
They all got out of the car and
hurried inside the house. The phone
chimed out its last ring, sitting on the kitchen counter.
“Try Dad,” Brett instructed, still
staring at the phone. His mom wouldn’t
have left it. Not while he was at a
lacrosse game.
As soon as Lori hit call they heard
another phone from farther in the house.
Brett knit his eyebrows together.
Why had they both left their phones?
“Brett, look at this,” Dawn said
from the hallway.
He stepped out of the kitchen and
saw her pointing to the wall. There was
a post it note stuck to the kitchen door frame.
He’d walked right past it on the way in.
The writing was his mother’s, but sloppy, like she’d been in a
hurry.
He pulled it off the wall and
read: Brett, We had to leave with Satomi.
Not sure when we’ll be back.
There’s money in the drawer if you need it. Love you.
He crumpled the paper up in his hand and
turned to Lori. “What happened
yesterday?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head
quickly. “I haven’t been home since you
have. I spent the night with Katie,
remember?”
Brett forced out a frustrated sigh
and paced a few steps away. None of this
made any sense. If they had to leave
they would have left them a way to get in touch with them. He looked back at Dawn. “Do you know what happened?”
She shook her head. “Not really.
All I know is that almost everyone went to Lookout Point yesterday. Even my dad.”
That didn’t make sense either. Lookout Point was a normal meeting place, but
Dawn’s dad was human, and he had almost nothing to do with werewolves outside
of the two in his house.
“I thought maybe it was just to
talk about the hunters,” Dawn continued.
“I was sure they’d be back by now.”
For a moment, no one said anything,
worry hanging thick in the air among them.
Demarco had been murdered last
week. Carrie Hudson had gone missing two
nights ago. Hunters had nearly killed
him last night. Had they gone after
their parents too?
No, he told himself. If the whole pack was out there that was
nearly thirty wolves. No hunters would
be that stupid. But then why weren’t
they back yet?
Brett sighed and tried to push all
the jumbled thoughts to the back of his mind, feeling even more tired. He couldn’t process all this right now. He looked down at the crumpled note in his
hand. Don’t know when we’ll be back.
“Mom knew they might be gone a while,” he said. “For all we know they’re fine.”
The girls nodded.
“Right,” Lori said. “Maybe whatever they’re doing just takes a
long time.”
It wasn’t much to go on, but at
least that line in the note meant there was a chance that everything was all
right.
“Yeah, let’s hope so.” Dawn sighed, turning toward the door. “I guess I should get going then.”
“Or you could hang out here,” Brett
offered. “I mean, if you don’t want to
be home by yourself.” Even if their
parents were fine, there were still hunters around. It wouldn’t be safe for her to be alone.
“Ok. I was kind of hoping you’d say that
actually,” she said. “Thanks.”
. . .
Satomi rubbed a tired hand across
her eyes. So many had died in such a
short time. And it seemed the rest would
soon follow. Nearly the entirety of her
pack lay here in the woods, struck by some mysterious disease, and she could
think of nothing to save them.
Not moments ago Haru had
passed. At least they’d managed to keep
from him that his daughter, little Rose had died a few hours before. She was only two years old. Satomi had a plan to explain the other
deaths, but she didn’t know what she would say happened to Rose. Haru had two older children as well, human
children. Their mother would get full
custody of them now, if she wanted them, but it was more likely the
grandparents would take them.
“I can’t see,” came a voice,
interrupting Satomi’s thoughts.
“Brandon, I can’t see.”
Satomi went over to where Jane and
Brandon Talbot sat, leaning against a tree.
Brandon, half transformed, held his wife close, whispering something to
her. Satomi knelt beside them, laying a
comforting hand on each of them. By now
they all knew, blindness was the last stage.
“Satomi,” Jane whispered.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Take care of my babies,” she said,
her sightless eyes pleading. “Brett and
Lori. Look after them once we’re gone.”
“You know I will,” Satomi assured
her.
“Tell them I love them.”
Satomi nodded. “Of course.”
Jane relaxed and shut her
eyes. A few minutes later she was gone. Brandon took a shuddering breath and hugged
her body even closer, tears welling up in his glowing eyes. Looking at him, Satomi knew he wouldn’t be
far behind his wife.
. . .
Dawn spent the night with the
Talbots, sharing a bed with Lori, listening for hunters that never came. They spent most of the day marathoning
movies, trying to use the TV to distract themselves, but it wasn’t helping much
anymore. They’d still had no word from
their parents. Every time Dawn told
herself whatever they were doing was just taking a long time she believed it a
little less.
Something buzzed angrily. Dawn started, adrenaline spiking at the
sudden noise. Someone knocked the remote
off the couch and it snapped in half when it hit the tile floor with a crack, further startling them.
The buzzing came again and Dawn
laughed at herself. It was just her
phone. She scrambled to answer it,
relief flooding through her when she saw the caller ID. “Hello, Dad?”
“Dawn.” He sounded tired but ok. “Are you all right? Where are you?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she
answered. “I’m at the Talbot’s.”
“All right, I’ll be over to get you
in a few minutes.”
“Ok,” she nodded even though she
knew he couldn’t see. “Love you…Bye.”
She hung up, a smile spreading over her face, glad whatever had been
going on was over. “He’s said he’s
coming to get me,” she explained.
Brett sighed, looking like a weight
had been taken off of him. If her
parents were back, that should mean his would be coming home too. “Everything’s ok, then?” he asked.
Dawn shrugged. “He didn’t say, but I guess so. He didn’t sound worried or anything.” She was sure he would have told her if
something was wrong.
“Good,” Lori said, bouncing a little
in her seat. “What do you think took
them so long?”
“You can ask them when they get
here,” Brett said, reaching down to collect the pieces of the remote. “Right now, I don’t even care as long as it’s
done.”
. . .
All three of them were on their
feet as soon as they heard the car pull into the driveway, crowding into the
hall. The motor shut off and two sets of
footsteps approached the door.
When it opened Dawn’s dad was the
first to come in. He looked really
tired, his eyes dim. Brett looked at
Dawn in time to see her face fall.
“Dad, what’s wrong?” she asked.
“Come on, let’s go home,” was all
he said, reaching for her arm.
She pulled back and Brett heard her
heartbeat pick up. “Dad, what happened?”
she demanded.
“I’ll tell you in the car,” he
said. “Let’s go.”
“Ok.” This time she let him take her arm and lead
her outside.
Watching her leave, Brett saw
Satomi standing by the doorway and a cold fear settled in his stomach. Why would she be here?
“Satomi.”
When she met his gaze, the look in
her eyes deepened his worry. It was
sadness, but worse than that, pity.
“What happened?” he asked, fighting
to keep his voice level.
He felt Lori move a little closer
to him. “Mom and Dad are coming back,
right?” she asked their alpha. “They’re
ok, aren’t they?”
From outside, Brett heard a
strangled half-roar, half-scream.
Dawn.
His breath caught and he looked
back at Satomi, terrified of what she might say. By now she had crossed over to them and she
laid a hand on each of their arms. “I’m
so sorry,” she said, taking a breath. “But they’re gone.”
“You mean… dead?” Brett asked, hardly believing the words. That couldn’t be it, they’d been fine
yesterday.
“What?” Lori took a step forward. “No.
What happened?”
“There was an illness,” Satomi
explained gently. “A poison. We didn’t know how to treat it. I’m so sorry,” she repeated, not managing to look
either one of them in the face.
“No,” Lori sobbed. “No, no.”
She threw her arms around Brett’s waist, burying her face against his
chest. Dimly aware he was doing it,
Brett put his arm around her shaking shoulders.
The sound of Lori’s crying grew
distant and his mind slowed to a still.
He couldn’t think, couldn’t feel.
A cold numbness settled over his entire being, shutting him down, and
all he could do was stand there and stare.
. . .
“Brett. Brett.”
Satomi’s voice barely filtered through the fog over his mind. “Brett, listen to me.” She took his face between her hands. He blinked, bringing his gaze back into
focus. “There’s a list,” she was
saying. “A bounty of supernatural
creatures someone wants dead and you’re on it.
You’re worth a lot of money and now that your parents are gone they’ll
think you’re an easy target. I’m sorry,
I’ve let you be as long as I can but we have to go. This is the first place they’ll look for
you. Do you understand?”
Hunters. Right. They’d tried to kill him at the
game. They would try again. They’d come here. They had to leave.
“Brett?”
He nodded slowly.
“Ok.” She took her hands from his
face and moved them to Lori’s shoulders.
“Let me have her. Go and get some
things for the two of you. We have to
leave.”
He nodded again but didn’t
move.
“Brett!” Satomi snapped.
He started.
“Did you hear me? We have to go.”
“Right, sorry,” he stammered, his
brain finally kicking into gear. There
were hunters, it wasn’t safe here.
Gently he pried Lori’s arms off of him and stepped away from his sister.
Satomi knelt in front of her and
hugged her. “Hush now, Lori,” she said,
soothing but firm. “Hush now.” She pulled back a little and wiped the tears
from Lori’s face. “We have to go now.”
Brett didn’t hear the rest. By then he was too far down the hall, fighting
to get his thought in order. We have to leave. What do we need? Come on, what do we need?
He went to his room and dumped the
school books and things out of his backpack, then started replacing them with
the necessities that were finally coming to mind.
Soon they’d left their home and gone
to Satomi’s large house near the edge of town.
Brett sat on the bed next to Lori,
in the room she’d be using. She had her
knees pulled up to her chest, hugging them to her tightly.
“I’ll be down the hall if you need
anything,” Satomi said gently, then left them alone together.
Brett sighed and ran a hand across
his face. He looked at Lori, searching
for something to say to her, but he couldn’t think of anything. There was so much sadness in her face, the
scent of her grief filling the room. She
look up at him, her eyes red and swollen, seeming just as at a loss for words
as he was. She scooted closer and put
her arms around his neck and for a minute they just held each other.
“Hey,” he said, pulling away. He leaned over the edge of the bed and opened
his backpack, pulling out a small fleece blanket. “I took it off their bed,” he explained,
holding it out to her. “It still smells
like them.”
She took it from him and pressed it
up to her face, taking a deep breath.
“It does,” she confirmed, rubbing it against her cheek.
“We should probably get some
sleep,” he said after a pause. It seemed
like the only thing left to do.
“Stay with me?” she asked, her
voice sounding so small.
“Yeah.” He nodded and lay down next
to her.
She settled in, clutching the
blanket close to her. After a little
while she started to cry again, but it was softer this time and she fell asleep
pretty quickly.
As drained as Brett felt, he
couldn’t get to sleep. So he just lay
there for a long time, listening to her breathing and wondering what they would
do now.
. . .
“Where are you going?” Satomi’s
voice came from the kitchen, stopping him before he reached the front door.
“School,” Brett answered, adjusting
the strap of his backpack.
“You know you don’t have to go,”
she said, stepping into the hall. “I
called the school and told them not to expect you for a few days.”
“I know,” Brett said. “But I want to go.” Honestly, he felt like he needed to go; like
he needed the familiar routine. At least
it would be better than sitting around here trying not to think about what had
happened. He needed the distraction. Thinking about it just made him feel guilty,
because all he could do was think
about it. He didn’t feel anything. He wasn’t sad, he wasn’t angry, nothing. And hee hated that.
“If that’s what you want,” Satomi
said.
He nodded. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”
Brett rounded the corner on his way
to his next class and nearly ran into Coach Tom.
“Brett,” Coach exclaimed. “I’ve been worried about you. You disappeared Thursday night.”
Right, he had. Wow that felt like a long time ago. “Sorry about that. I meant to call you,” Brett said, launching
into the excuse he’d prepared days ago.
“My mom came to get me and was freaking out and wanted to get to the
hospital to get me checked out so, yeah.
Like I said, I meant to call you but…” His voice trailed off.
“Yes, then that,” Coach said. “I’m sorry about what happened to your
parents.”
Brett glanced down the hall and
nodded acknowledgement, not sure how to answer.
“Are you all right though?” Coach
asked. “About the concussion I mean.”
“Yeah,” Brett said, nodding. “No concussion actually. I’m clear to play.”
“Good. Well, whenever you’re ready to come back
we’ll be glad to have you.”
“I’ll have to miss this afternoon,”
he said, (the funeral was this afternoon) “but I’ll be at practice Wednesday.”
Coach looked surprised. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to
because you’re captain or anything. We
can get on with out your for a little while.”
“I don’t need any time off,” Brett
insisted. “Really.”
“Ok,” Coach said. “That’s up to you. Like I said, we’ll be glad to have you
whenever you’re ready.” He clapped Brett
on the shoulder and continued down the hall.
Each class he went to was pretty
much the same. The teacher would looked
surprised to see him, and then either before or after class would quietly offer
him their condolences. Two or three of
his friends asked him if anything was up, but he just shrugged and told them it
was nothing. Dawn wasn’t at school and a
few people asked him about her, and he would tell them he didn’t know where she
was. Other than that, school was pretty
much normal, and for the first time in a long time, he was glad for it.
. . .
Dawn straightened her back,
refusing to even glance at the reporters and other onlookers standing at the
closest respectful distance. It was two
days since most of the pack had been wiped out.
What remained of them now stood in the cemetery before a row of fresh,
open graves.
The official story would say that
members of Satomi Ito’s Buddhist sect had gone out into the woods without her
to take part in some ritual involving mushrooms, but that they had picked the
wrong kind, with fatal consequences.
That was ridiculous. Necessary to explain the deaths to the rest
of the world, but it still grated Dawn.
Her mother had been murdered.
They all had. But everyone would
think they were just some stupid Buddhists who had eaten bad mushrooms. It wasn’t fair; but they couldn’t seek
justice because no one could know what they really were.
Dawn struggled to swallow the lump
in her throat, squeezing her hands into fists so tightly that even her clawless
fingernails dug into her palms. No, she
wasn’t going to cry. Not here where any
hunter slinking around might see. She
wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing how broken she was.
A few graves down she could see
Brett, stoic, with one hand on his sister’s shoulder. Lori was trying not to
cry as well, but her eyes still shimmered with her barely contained tears. Brett was impassive.
There,
Dawn told herself, if he can do it, I can
too. She would try anyway, but she
didn’t know how he was doing it. She
knew she couldn’t manage to look that withdrawn.
She closed her eyes and took a
breath, steadying herself, then she stepped forward with her father to toss a
handful of dirt onto her mother’s casket.
It landed with a thud that seemed to echo in her ears. This was it.
Her mom was gone. Taken.
She squeezed her fists again, this
time letting her claws out, the physical pain distracting her from the pain
around her heart. Her dad stayed by her
mom’s grave, but Dawn continued on, dropping a handful of dirt into the grave
of each fallen member of her pack. The
other survivors were doing the same.
Then it was over, their last goodbyes
said, and they had to make their way past that small mob of people. Her dad slid an arm around her shoulder and
pulled her close to him. “Don’t look at
anyone,” he whispered. “Don’t stop. We’ll just move right through them.”
The
sun, the moon, the truth, she thought, not sure she could trust herself to
not tear apart the first person who said anything about mushrooms. She set her gaze on the ground and focused
her hearing on the heartbeats around her, letting their words fade to the background.
The next thing she knew they’d made
it to the car. Her dad released her and
she quickly got in, slamming the door shut behind her. She sighed and leaned her head back against
the seat.
“I’m sorry it had to be like that,”
her dad said. “But it’s over now.”
“Mm.” Dawn nodded, but as they
drove off, she realized it was really only over for the people they’d just put
in the ground.
. . .
Later that evening, Dawn sat cross
legged on her bed, snuggling a cloth doll close to her chest. She’d had to dig it out of a box in the back
of her closet, where it had lived for years.
She’d grown out of it a long time ago, but it was a doll her mother had
given her. She’d brought it back from a
trip when Dawn was five or six. Over the
years they’d made dresses for it together and her mom had taught Dawn to braid
hair with it.
Her dad came in and sat on the bed
near her. He didn’t speak, but his
presence was enough of a comfort. After
a minute or two, Dawn sat the doll in her lap and started fiddling with its
hair.
“I ask mom once why I didn’t have
any brothers or sisters,” she said, not looking up from the doll. “She told me that you guys wanted lots of
kids, but for years you couldn’t get pregnant.
She said she tried everything.
Then she heard about how werewolves could heal and she thought maybe
that would fix what was wrong with her.”
“I didn’t believe in werewolves,” her dad said, “but she was desperate,
so I let her look. I didn’t think she’d
actually find some.”
“She said it took her almost a year
to find Satomi. Then two months later,
she got pregnant,” Dawn smiled, remembering how her mom’s eyes had shone when
she told her that part. “She said it was
a miracle.”
“Yes, she did.” Her dad
nodded. “And it was. But I don’t think it was because of that
bite. She always did, but if that had
been her miracle the pregnancy wouldn’t have been so hard on her.”
“Yeah, she said they told her
having another baby might kill her.”
Dawn paused. “She told me that
even though she wanted a big family, she wanted to be my mother more.” She looked up at her dad. “She wanted to take me to my first day of
school, help me with my homework, move me in at college. To see me get married, and have kids and…”
She hugged the doll close to her chest again.
“And now she’s not even going to get to see me graduate.”
Her dad put an arm around her
shoulder and she leaned against him for a few minutes. Then he kissed the top of her head and stood. “I’m sorry sweetheart, but I’ve got to get
some work done before tomorrow.” She
heard the strain in his voice, and thought about how hard it must be for him.
Wanting to be strong for her when he was grieving too.
“It’s ok,” she said, giving him a
weak smile as he left the room. She
sighed and nuzzled her doll, whispering, “The sun, the moon, the truth.”
. . .
While the first day back at school
had been a welcome interlude of normalcy, the second day was anything but. When it was finally over and he got back to
Satomi’s house, Brett barely paused at the front door, making straight for the
stairs.
“Brett,” Satomi called from the
living room.
He stopped, but didn’t answer or
even move, half-hoping she would let him go.
“Did you hurt the door?”
Oops. He hadn’t really meant to slam it. He walked backwards three steps and inspected
the door over his shoulder. “No.”
He glanced over at her; she had the
coffee table pushed up against the wall and was doing yoga in the middle of the
room.
“Why don’t you come and join me,”
she offered. “You look like you could
use some relaxation.”
He hesitated for a moment, wavering
between going upstairs or not. You might as well. He dropped his backpack and kicked off
his shoes, then joined her on the floor.
For a few minutes they were quiet, Brett mirroring her movements as she
went through whatever routine she had in her head.
“Are you going to tell me what
happened?” she finally asked.
Brett stretched his arms over his
head and took a deep breath, not sure that he was. “Everybody knows about it now,” he answered
after pause. “Everybody’s talking about
it.” He’d picked up snatches of
conversation about it all day. What really
bothered him was that, especially as the day went on, more and more people had
connected him with the tragedy. “I just
can’t stand the way they look me,” he continued. “It’s like…” He wasn’t sure how to describe it. With the people who recognized him but didn’t
actually know him, it was like the way you might look at a dumped puppy on the
side of the road or something. And that
wasn’t too bad. But with his friends it
was something different. A mix of pity
and sympathy and something else he couldn’t identify. “And the guys are the worst,” he continued. “They’re all…tip toeing around me. Like
they’re afraid to say anything wrong in front of me, or to act too happy.”
“Your friends know something
terrible has happened to you,” Satomi said.
“They’d like to help you, but they don’t know how.”
“Well if they want to help they
should just act normal.”
“They will,” she assured him,
“given a little time.”
They lapsed back into silence for a
little while. Brett grabbed his ankle
and pulled himself up, balancing all his weight on the opposite hand and
foot.
“Satomi,” he said hesitantly,
glancing up at her.
“Hmmm?”
“Did it hurt?” he asked. “When they died. Was it painful?” He hoped whatever had killed his parents
hadn’t been as bad as the wolfsbane that had nearly finished him.
“No,” Satomi answered. “No, it didn’t seem painful. The beginning was a little difficult, because
they lost control of the shift, but after that it was….peaceful.”
Brett nodded, letting himself down
and switching sides. Peaceful. That was something at least.
“Do you want me to tell you about when they
died?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Your mother died in your father’s
arms,” she said. “They weren’t afraid in
the end, they’d made peace with it. Their
last thoughts were with the two of you. They
both wanted me to tell you and Lori that they loved you and that they were very
proud of you.”
Brett let himself down again. Those were the kind of things you would
expect a parent’s last message to be. He
could have guessed that without being told, but he realized that didn’t really
matter much. He knew they meant it.
. . .
Brett lay in his bed, staring up at
the ceiling, unable to sleep. He didn’t
really know what was keeping him awake, but as he lay there, he started to
think that the darkness of the room was particularly black and oppressive tonight.
He sighed and got out of bed, then
walked over to the window and pulled the curtain open. The light of the half-moon shone into the
room, creating a contrast of silver and shadows.
Brett shut his eyes as pain stabbed
his chest, all of a sudden overwhelmed by a feeling of loss. He let himself
down to his knees and wrapped his arms around himself, sucking in a choked
breath. For days he had wanted to feel
something—anything --over his parents’ death.
Now that he did, he wanted the numbness back. It was better than this. This pain rising up inside him was too much
for him to handle, like the delay had only made it stronger now that it was here.
It would drown him. His body lurched and the tears he’d felt he
should have shed days ago finally came.
Behind him, he heard the door open
then he felt someone beside him. The
scent was Satomi’s.
“Brett are you all right?”
He made himself nod, struggling to
control his breathing, to blink away his tears.
Yes, he was ok. He’d been getting
on fine for days, why should this happen now?
He just needed to get a hold of himself.
“Oh, Koibito, come here.” Satomi
put her arms around him and pulled him close to her. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “Don’t think you have to hide them from
me. You’ve been so brave, and I have
been proud of you for it. But you need a
chance to grieve as well.”
He felt her hand on the back of his
neck and he let his cheek fall to her shoulder as he tried to stifle a
sob. But the grief clawing away inside
his chest was too much. He found himself
clinging to her, and he didn’t try to fight the next one.
“It’s all right,” Satomi said
again, gently rocking back and forth.
“You just cry for a little while.
It’s all right.”
. . .
“There,” Dawn said to herself,
closing the dishwasher. Now that that
was finished maybe she would have time to read a little before she went to
bed.
“Dawn,” her dad called from across
the house. “Come here for a minute. I want to talk to you about something.”
She stopped at the door frame,
leaning into the living room. “Mmhmm.”
“Come here.” Her dad patted the
couch cushion next to him.
Oh, a serious talk about something, she
realized. What’s this about?
She sat down and looked at him
expectantly, getting the feeling she might not want to hear what he had to say.
He paused for a minute, seeming to
consider how to begin, then he said, “How much trouble do you think it would be
if you switched schools?”
Dawn blinked. She didn’t know what she had expected him to
say, but that wasn’t it. “Why would I
need to switch schools?”
“Because,” he said, “we’re going to
move to San Francisco. Nonna and Popi
are going to put us up until we can find a place there.”
“No,” Dawn said simply, sitting up
straighter. “I’ve lived here my whole
life, we can’t just move.”
“Honey.” Her dad held out a staying hand. “I know a move will be difficult for you, but
in the end I think it will be for the best.
We’ll be with our family.”
Dawn shook her head. “My family’s here.”
“You’re pack maybe, but that’s not
the same.”
His words were gentle but they
stung. Yes, it was the same. It was more. Her pack was more her family than her
relatives in San Francisco. Her dad
couldn’t understand that. He was human,
he didn’t even really like the idea of her having a pack, but up to now he’d
allowed it. Dawn balled her hands into
fists. He couldn’t take her pack away,
not now. She couldn’t lose what was left
of them too.
Her father put a hand on her knee.
“It will be safer for you there, without all this list nonsense.”
Safer? Dawn almost scoffed. She stood, pushing his hand away. “No it won’t,” she insisted. “We move, you make me an omega.”
“Beta, omega, epsilon, what does it
matter?”
“Ugh,” Dawn huffed, grabbing a
handful of her hair. He’d never bothered
to learn about werewolves. He’d never
like that she and her mother were wolves.
He’d tolerated it because he had no choice.
“Lone wolves die, Dad.”
“Well, plenty of pack wolves died
last week,” he snapped. “Being together
didn’t stop that.”
Angry tears stung Dawn’s eye. That wasn’t fair. It was the stupid hunters fault, not the
packs. Satomi had done everything she
knew how.
Dawn couldn’t leave her pack. She wouldn’t.
“You can’t move me,” she said. “I need them.”
“There’s hardly any of them left
Dawn. The way things are going the rest
won’t last long.”
She opened her mouth to argue but
he cut her off.
“Your boyfriend is worth a million
dollars dead, how much to you think someone will pay for you?” He shook his head. “We’re moving. Soon.
You’ll learn to get along without them.”
Dawn squeezed her eyes shut,
letting a tear slide from them. She
shook her head. No, she wouldn’t. She needed them; now more than ever. He couldn’t take her away. He wouldn’t.
She wouldn’t let him.
She opened her eyes, meeting her
father’s gaze.
“Dawn-“ he started.
“No.” She turned and hurried out of the room,
toward the front door. She slammed her
body against it, feeling it rattle, and threw it open.
“Dawn!” She heard her dad behind
her but she didn’t stop. She ran, down
the driveway and across the side walk, tearing through the night. She knew she was going too fast. That is someone saw her they’d know she was
running faster than a human could, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care if
someone saw, she didn’t care where she was going. She just needed to get away. The only thing she cared about just then was
staying with her pack.
. . .
A pounding on the front door
sounded through the house. Brett
stiffened, every sense going on alert.
He dropped his toothbrush, swallowing the paste and headed for the
stairs. He paused and saw Satomi open
the door. Dawn, flush faced and
breathless, stood on the steps.
“What happened?” Satomi asked,
hurrying her inside.
Brett flexed his fingers, ready to
get his claws out if he needed to. Had
she been attacked? If she had, were the
hunters still after her?
By now Lori had come up behind him
and they both started cautiously down the stairs.
Dawn shook her head in answer to
Satomi’s question. “Nothing. I mean, I’m ok. It’s just--”
She paused to get her breath. “My
dad wants us to move. I told him I
couldn’t leave my pack, but he won’t listen to me.”
“All right,” Satomi said, taking
her arm. “Come sit down and we’ll talk
about it.”
They all moved into the living
room. Satomi lead Dawn to the couch and
then sat down on the coffee table across from her. Brett slid onto the couch beside Dawn, Lori
hanging back a little.
“Now,” Satomi said, “what
happened?”
“He just out and told me we’re
moving to San Francisco to live with my grandparents,” she said. “He didn’t ask me or anything, just said
that’s what was going to happen. I tried
to tell him that I needed to stay with my pack, but he won’t listen. He says it’ll be better for us, that I’ll be
safer.” She paused. “I think he’s wanted to move closer to his
family for a long time. But he never
really said anything because he knew Mom wouldn’t go. Now he thinks he can make me.” She set her jaw. “But I’m not going. I’ll run away for real if I have to.”
“Now, don’t make any hasty
decision,” Satomi cautioned. “It’s
getting late, and you’re upset. You’re
father’s worried, as we all should be.
He’s just trying to do what he feels is best.”
Brett felt Dawn stiffen and he put
a hand over hers. Satomi couldn’t really
be saying Dawn should go. She’d be
alone, an Omega.
“But you are right as well,” Satomi
said. “You might be safer elsewhere for
now but not for long. I’ll speak to him
about tomorrow, ok?”
“I’m not going,” Dawn
insisted.
“I hope you don’t,” Satomi
said. “But it’s something you should try
to work out with your father.”
“Are you going to send me back?”
Satomi shook her head. “Not tonight.” She swept her gaze over all three of
them. “We can worry about all this
tomorrow. For now, all of you get to
bed. There’s another spare bedroom up
stairs Dawn can have.”
Brett nodded and stood, the girls
doing the same.
“Goodnight Satomi,” Loris said,
giving their alpha a hug.
“Goodnight dear, sleep well.”
Brett and Dawn started to follow
Lori out of the room.
“Are you two upset with me then?”
Satomi asked, an amused smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
Brett stopped and shook his
head. “No.”
Dawn breathed a quick laugh. “No.”
They both went back and hugged her
goodnight. Satomi took Dawn’s hand as
she started off again. “Don’t worry
about it too much tonight.”
“Ok.” Dawn nodded.
“Do you think she’ll let me stay
here if I have to run?” Dawn asked as they started up the stairs.
“I don’t know,” Brett
answered. He hoped so. He didn’t want Dawn to leave her dad, but he
also wanted her to stay. “I don’t think
she’ll want to split up the pack.”
“Tell me you won’t let him take me
to San Francisco,” she said quietly, an almost vulnerable tone creeping into
her voice.
“You want me to fight your dad?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I just want to hear you say it.”
He stopped and turned to face
her. “I don’t want you to move.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Brett took her upper arms in his
hands and held her gaze for a moment before softly saying, “I won’t let you
leave.”
She gave him a smile that didn’t
quite make it to her eyes and put her arms around his shoulders. “Thank you.”
He held her for a few seconds,
aware that this might be one of the last chances he had to do so, then she
pulled away. “We should go to bed before
Satomi gets on to us.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, pushing a strand
of her hair behind her ear.
Gun fire rattled outside, followed
by the sound of shattering glass and Brett ducked, throwing his arms over his
head. He growled, half-transformed, and
looked up to have his gaze met by Dawn’s startled, glowing eyes.
“Hunters,” Satomi growled,
stumbling into the entryway.
The scent of blood stung Brett’s
nose. At least one of the bullets had
hit her.
“There’s maybe half a dozen of
them.” Satomi looked up at Brett and Dawn.
“Run.”
“But we can help you,” Dawn said.
“Help yourselves and go. I’ll catch up to you.”
They both got up and Brett sprinted
down the hall. Lori stood in the doorway
of her bedroom, wide-eyed.
“Come on.” Brett pushed her back
into the room.
“What are we doing?” Dawn asked.
“They’ll be expecting the back
door,” he said over his shoulder. He
stopped at the back wall and jerked open the window.
The girls stood on either side of
him, all three of them just staring at the window for a few seconds while gun fire
continued to ring out from down stairs.
“You first,” Dawn said, still eying
the window warily.
“Right.” Brett climbed up on the
window sill. It’s only two stories, he told himself, taking a breath. Then he pushed himself off. He hit the ground, grunting slightly as his
ankle turned. He’d probably sprained it,
but that didn’t matter, it would heal in a few seconds.
Lori nearly landed on top of him,
Dawn right behind her.
“Ok,” he whispered, glancing
around. He couldn’t see anyone on this
side of the house. “Let’s go.”
They hadn’t run thirty yards when
someone yelled, “Over there! Look!”
More gunfire and this time it was
aimed at them. He grabbed Lori’s hand
and broke into a full run.
. . .
Rain pelted the ground, coming down
so hard Dawn could barely see more than a few feet in front of her. The thugs that shot up Satomi’s house had
attacked every remaining pack member all at once. That first night, they’d all gotten away,
meeting up at Lookout Point. Those
attackers were amateurs, probably more used to running drugs or guns than
contract killing. But since then, they’d
remained in the woods, trying to leave town, to get away until the heat died
down. For days they’d been hiding out,
trying to find a way through the perimeter of hunters and assassins that
surrounded the area, but with no success.
Now, almost to Beacon Hills, they’d been tracked down yet again and
attacked. And this time the killers really
knew what they were doing. She’d lost
the others and she could hear the hunters catching up to her again, the growl
of their ATV engines growing closer.
She’d tried to stay in the thicker
underbrush and more uneven ground so it would be harder for the humans to follow
her, but there wasn’t a lot of that available.
She paused, desperately glancing around for an escape route.
Her ears pricked at a sound behind
her. Her hand jerked up before she even
realized she’d told it to and she turned, catching an arrow that would have
imbedded between her shoulder blades.
She stared at the arrow for a second, trying to process how it had ended
up in her hand. A second arrow slammed
into her leg, sending her down on one knee.
Dawn transformed all the way,
jerking her head up and roaring at the two hunters that were stalking towards
her. They backed up, startled, almost
like they’d never seen a wolf before, and one of them tripped over a tree root.
By the time they gathered
themselves, Dawn was up and running again, barely aware of the pain that shot
up her leg with every step. A roar
reverberated through the trees not too far away. Dawn shifted her course to the left and
hurried towards it.
. . .
Brett and Lori sprinted out of the
woods. Brett looked around,
panting. Was that the high school? He turned around, hearing the hunters crashing
through the underbrush not far behind them.
“Head for the school,” he told Lori.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will be working late.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’ll be right behind you. Go.”
She ran off and Brett moved deeper
into the trees, just as the hunters came into view. He snarled and sprinted farther into the
woods at top speed. Once he couldn’t
hear them anymore he slowed and circled back toward the school, being careful
to stay quiet and not leave a trail. If
he was lucky, the hunters would think they’d run back into the woods and maybe
they’d waste enough time looking for them there that he and Lori could get
away.
He soon cleared the trees again and
ran off toward the school. Where had
Lori got to? The stupid rain was keeping
him from being able to pick up her scent. There she was, in a narrow alley between the school
buses and the fence surrounding the yard.
As he started towards her, he heard the hunters again. He hadn’t bought them much time at all.
Lori stumbled into the chain link
fence surrounding the bus yard and slipped on the wet cement, hitting the
ground. The hunters were right behind
them now. Lori was trying to get back to
her feet but she was tired and the ground was slick.
Brett ran for her, tapping into
whatever werewolf strength he had left, and grabbed her by the waist, pulling
her to her feet. “Go, Lori come on,” he
said shoving her forward. “Run!’
Zing.
Something slammed into Brett’s
shoulder near where it joined his neck.
“Gahh!” he screamed, stumbling forward.
“Go!” he yelled at Lori when she slowed.
With a growl he tore the arrow out of him, barley dodging another.
Someone jumped out at him from
between two buses. He grabbed the man’s
arm and threw him into the fence. The
hunter rounded on him, lifting an unloaded cross bow to strike him. Brett dodged and ducked under the man’s next
blow, but as he straightened the hunter slammed the butt of the weapon into his
chest, knocking him to the ground.
Fine,
he thought, letting his eyes glow and his claws come out.
The hunter raised the crossbow
high, ready to slam it into Brett’s head.
Brett sprang up, jabbing the heels of his hands into the man’s chest and
sending him slamming into the fence. The
hunter rebounded off the fence and fell face first onto the concrete, out cold.
With one last glance around he
hurried after Lori. Up ahead she was
just leaving the fenced off area. “No,
wait,” he yelled, but she didn’t here. Not out there. That was the field. She’d be out in the open, with nowhere to
hide. He sprinted after her.
“Lori, wait.” By the time she heard him she was standing in
the middle of the field. She turned and
looked at him questioningly, her eyes wide and frightened. Brett hesitated on the edge of the bleachers,
then went out to her, positioning himself in front of her. Maybe they could get back out before the
hunters noticed.
Lights snapped on all around the
field and any hope still in Brett died.
This was what the hunters wanted.
They’d been herding them here, so they’d have a wide open shot for
yards. Lori grabbed his arm.
Brett looked down and saw three
tiny red dots dance over his stomach then converge over his chest. He swallowed.
“Brett,” Lori said. “Brett, what’s happening?”
“Close your eyes,” was all he
said. She didn’t need to see what was
about to happen. He just hoped she’d run
as soon they hit him. Maybe she’d have a
chance to get to cover before they could reload. She squeezed his arm tighter, hiding her
face. Brett braced himself for the shot.
Zing.
Clang!
Brett started. A girl stood just a few yards in front of
them, from out of nowhere, holding a sword.
She’d cut the arrow out of the air. “Run!” she yelled.
Brett turned, shoving Lori in front
of him and they ran back out the way they’d come in.
. . .
Dawn had found the Marianas, Carlos
and his grown daughter Gabby, and the three of them were creeping along the
edge of the wood line. For the moment
they’d lost the hunters behind them, and while they wanted to put more distance
between them, they were worried about leaving what safety the woods
offered.
“Somebody’s coming,” Gabby
announced and they all ducked down farther.
Dawn peered out from behind the
underbrush, struggling to make the person out in the rain. “It’s Lori,” she said, then stood. “Lori! Over here.”
Lori paused then started running
for them. Dawn bit her lip. Where was Brett? She stood up straighter, searching for him. Then she sighed. There he was.
The two of them came to a stop once they entered the tree line. Lori slid down beside Gabby and Brett rested
his hands on his knees, both of them breathing hard.
Dawn limped over to him. “You ok?”
“Yeah,” he panted, nodding.
“There’s someone else,” Carlos
said, and growled. “It’s not one of us.”
“She’s with us,” Brett said and
straightened. “She just saved me.”
A girl around Dawn’s age ran over
to them and skidded to a halt. “Hi,” she
said, flashing a rushed smile. “I’m
Kira. I know it seem pretty lucky that I
just happened to show up, but I promise I’m on the list too.” She lifted something, a sword, and sheathed
it. “Scott wanted me to try to find
Brett, I just came here to see if I could get a scent. Looks like I found more.”
“We shouldn’t stop,” Brett said. “They’ll be on us any second.”
They all lifted their heads as a
howl echoed through the woods. Dawn
sighed in relief. “That’s Satomi.”
Carlos howled in response, then
offered Gabby a hand. “Let’s head that
way, they’ll definitely be on us now.”
. . .
They met up with Satomi, who had
what remained of their pack with her, and then Kira led them all back to the
vet’s office the alpha had sent Brett to when he’d been wolfsbaned. She
unlocked the door and motioned everyone inside.
“Scott’s going to meet us here,” she explained. “He shouldn’t be long.”
The group crowded into the back
room and no one spoke for a minute while they all caught their breaths. Brett leaned against the wall, wondering how
long it would be before the hunters found them again.
“You know, you remind me very much
of a young women I used to know,” Satomi said to Kira.
Kira nodded. “My mother, she told me about you.”
From the other side of the room
Dawn grunted sharply.
“Lo siento,” Carlos said.
“You broke it off too close, I can’t get a hold of it.”
“Well, you’ve got to get it out, I
can’t run like this anymore,” Dawn said. She was sitting on the floor with her
back to the metal table, Carlos kneeling beside her. She had a large blood-stain on her pants and
from the middle of it an inch or so of an arrow shaft stuck out of her
thigh. Brett chastised himself for not
noticing the injury earlier. He’d been
too worried with getting Lori out of there to pay much attention to Dawn. He should have been looking out for her too.
Satomi went over to them. “She can’t heal with it still in her
body. We’ll have to cut it out.”
“Ok,” Dawn said. “Let’s do it then.” She reached back and took one of the table
legs in each of her hands.
“Hold her leg still,” Satomi
instructed Carlos, flicking out the claws of one hand.
“Let me do that,” Brett said,
stepping over to them. He may not have
noticed before, but he could help her now.
“Unless you’d rather Carlos did it.”
She gave him a smile that was half
a grimace. “Knock yourself out.”
Brett knelt beside her and placed
his hands on her leg, one just above her knee, the other on her calf.
Satomi looked at Dawn. “Are you ready?”
Dawn took three or four quick
breaths and nodded.
Satomi dug her claw into Dawn’s
leg. She jerked and Brett had to lean
his weight into his hands to keep her leg still. Dawn gasped, and squeezed her eyes shut,
leaning her head back.
“All right,” Satomi warned as she maneuvered
her fingers around the shaft, “here it goes.”
Dawn screamed into her teeth, and
Brett set his jaw, drawing some of her pain into his own body. Then Satomi pulled the arrow free and he
felt her body relax.
“There,” Satomi said, holding it up
for her to see.
Dawn sighed and reached out a
slightly trembling hand to take it.
“Well,” she said, “looks like I got a souvenir.”
Brett laughed under his breath,
patting her knee. He noticed dents in
the table legs were her hands had been.
“That’s one way to look at it,”
Satomi said. “Let’s just hope we don’t
end up with too many more.” Then she
turned back to Kira. “Now, you were
saying.”
. . .
It wasn’t long before the bell over
the door jingled.
“That should be Scott,” Kira said,
hurrying into the vet’s waiting room.
She came back in a minute later, leading the Hispanic werewolf by the
hand.
“Satomi,” she said, “this is who I
was telling you about.”
Satomi turned and smiled at
them. “I know who Scott McCall is.”
“Are we safe here?” Lori asked him.
Brett put a hand on her arm, without
taking his eyes off Scott. He hoped that
if the alpha had been looking for him it meant he had some sort of a plan.
Scott looked them over. Brett knew they looked pretty pitiful-- wet,
dirty, half of them covered in patches of dried blood.
Scott turned back to Kira. “We’re gonna need help,” he said. “A lot of help.”
. . .
Scott took them all to a warehouse
on the outskirts of Beacon Hills. It was
nearly morning by the time they got there, but still early enough that there
wasn’t really anyone around to see them go in.
It was mostly empty, full of broken sheet rock walls and sheets of
plastic that hung from floor to ceiling.
“I know the guy who owns this
place,” Scott explained. “We should be
safe here for a little while.”
The pack settled in to get some rest while
they could. Brett sat next to Lori,
leaning his head against the wall. She
laid her head on his shoulder, and he reached up to brush her hair out of her
face. He wondered how long ‘a little
while’ was. Maybe it would at least be
long enough to get an hour or two of sleep.
The next thing he knew, Brett was
opening his eyes to the mid-morning light.
It was probably between eight and nine.
Lori had her head in his lap, still asleep, as were most of the others
around him. Then his ears pricked. Footsteps, echoed through the building,
getting closer.
Gently, Brett moved out from under
Lori.
“Mmm,” she mumbled.
“Shh.” Brett shifted into a crouch and peered around
a flap of plastic.
There was one man, walking through
the building, an assault rifle held out in front of him.
That’s
it, Brett thought. He was done with
running. He could take one hunter.
He started when he felt a hand on
his shoulder.
“Wait,” Satomi whispered, so quiet only
someone with werewolf senses would hear.
She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out one of her metal
bolts. “Once I throw it, go.”
He nodded.
Satomi drew back her arm and threw
the bolt through the plastic. It glanced
off the hunters arm, making him drop the gun.
By the time he turned around Brett was nearly on top of him, fangs
bared. But the hunter had pulled a
pistol and it was now aimed right at Brett’s face. He wasn’t about to let the phase him. He snarled, pretty sure he could get to the
man before he fired the gun.
“Wait! Wait!” That was Scott. “Brett wait.
This is his place, it’s his.”
This
was Scott’s friend? Brett closed his
mouth, letting his fangs retract. Ok then.
He turned and walked back toward where his pack was, most of them
now on their feet. Dawn gave him a look
like ‘what were you doing?’
He shrugged.
“Scott,” the man said, lowering the
gun, “if you’re bringing guests, you could have called.”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to
take them,” Scott answered.
“I know this man,” Satomi said,
walking up to him. Her tone implied that
she wasn’t on good terms with him. “You
may not remember but we’ve met before.”
Maybe this guy was a hunter after all.
“You can trust him,” Scott assured
her. “I trust him.”
“How do we know he’s not like the
others?” Satomi asked.
The man furrowed his brow. “What others?”
“Last night,” Kira explained,
“there was a whole team after them. They
used crossbows.”
“They’re hunters aren’t they?” Scott asked.
“Not if they’re killing for
profit,” the man said, shaking his head.
“Can they find us?” Brett asked, still
not sure they should trust this guy. No
matter what he said about the others, he was still pretty obviously a hunter.
“They may already know you’re
here,” he answered. “They may be waiting
for dark.”
That made sense, they usually did. Great.
“So we’re not safe here?” Kira
looked at Scott.
“We’re not safe anywhere,” Satomi
answered for him. “We’ve been trying to
get out for days. Everywhere we turn, we
find someone new trying to kill us.”
“They’re coming Scott,” the man
said, stepping closer. “And they’re
coming for you too. You’re still number
one on the dead pool.”
“I know,” Scott said. “I know Lydia can get the answer from
Meredith, she just needs more time.”
Brett didn’t know what kind of
answer Scott was hoping to get, but he did know that time was something they
were running out of. Fast.
. . .
They stayed in the warehouse the
rest of the day. Scott called in some
woman, who was probably another hunter, and another werewolf, one of the
Hales. The man who owned the building,
Argent, had had them helping him lay ‘preparation’, which to Brett felt a lot
like busy work.
Now the sun was about to set and
everyone just stood around, waiting.
Satomi’s pack stood in a group off to themselves.
“I’m sorry you two,” Satomi said,
looking from Brett to Lori. “I promised
your parents I’d look after you. But I
haven’t been able to get you away from this.
I fear I’ve failed them.” She
looked at the ground.
“Satomi.” Brett reach out to her. He couldn’t stand to hear her talk like that,
she was doing everything she could.
“None of this is your fault. You’ve taken great care of us,” he said. “Some things just can’t be helped.”
She smiled and touched his
arm.
“I can’t do this,” Lori said,
shaking her head. “When they come, if I
shift…I can’t control it.”
“That doesn’t really matter right
now,” Brett said, turning to her.
“But what if I hurt somebody.”
Brett leaned over until their eyes
were level. “They’re going to hurt you,”
he said. “You do whatever you have to.”
She wrung her hands together. “I don’t want to lose control.”
“I know,” he said. Losing control was scary and Lori was just
learning. But honestly, he’d rather she
lose it and maybe kill somebody, than not let herself change at all and be the
one killed. Maybe that was selfish of
him but he didn’t care. “Look,” he said,
“you’re not gonna lose control. Ok?”
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can,” he insisted. “To stay in control you have to find
something that holds you to your humanness.
You haven’t really had that before, but you do now.”
“What do I have now?” she asked,
not convinced.
“Mom and Dad,” he answered,
glancing at Satomi. She nodded at him
encouragingly. “You’re going to think
about them,” he continued, “about what they’d want you to do. When you feel yourself losing it, you think
about that, and you’ll be fine.” He made
her look him in the eye. “Ok?”
She nodded and quietly said, “Ok.”
Across the room, he heard Scott
talking with Derek Hale, Kira, and the gun toting woman. “Have you heard anything from the others
yet?” the woman asked.
“Lydia is talking to Meredith,
Stiles and Malia are heading to the lake house,” Scott said. “They’re trying to stop it.”
Brett rolled his eyes and walked
over to them. What was he talking about,
‘stop it.’ Obviously they hadn’t been
hunted enough yet, if they thought somehow they could just make this mess end. Misplaced optimism wasn’t going to help
anyone.
“What if there is no stopping it,”
he said. “What if this doesn’t end until
we’re all dead?”
Scott and Kira’s faces fell, like
for the first time they were actually considering that. Derek Hale just nodded.
“Then let’s send a message,” he
said, looking over everyone. “Let’s make
it perfectly clear to anyone with a copy of that list. It doesn’t matter if they’re professional
assassins, hunters, or an amateur who just picked up a gun. Anyone who thinks that they can just hunt,
and kill us for money is going to be put on another list, our list. They get to be a name on our dead pool.”
All
right, Brett thought, finally feeling like they might just have a
chance. That’s more like it.
.
. .
Darkness had finally fallen. And Dawn had thought everyone was antsy
before. She sat perched on a three
legged desk, Gabby balancing out the other side. She swung her feet, drumming out a rhythm on
the desk’s side. Kleavon Jones leaned
against the wall a few feet away, cracking his knuckles every few minutes. Brett stood in front of her, arms crossed
over his chest. She was pretty sure he
hadn’t been still since the sun set.
Carlos sat at the desk’s chair, the calmest out of all of them, but
still tense and alert.
Dawn was nervous, but she found
that she didn’t have most of the dread she’d carried for days. Derek Hale was right. It was time to show these dead pool people
that they weren’t just going to wait around to get killed. They were going to make every death cost
their hunters as much as they possibly could.
After days on the run, she was ready to put up a fight.
One of the alarms Mr. Argent had
set up earlier started to sound.
“Here they come,” Gabby said,
taking a breath.
Dawn hopped off the desk and flexed
her fingers, letting out her claws. Here we go.
She looked over at Brett.
“You ready?”
“Let’s do this,” he said, wearing
that cocksure grin she often saw before lacrosse games. It faltered a little as the gun fire started
to ring out, coming from every direction. “Stick close.”
She nodded and then together they
sprinted toward the nearest group of intruders.
They all wore black, with body armor, helmets, flashlights and radios. They looked like a swat team from a movie and
there were dozens of them. Each carried
a large gun, the laser pointer sights of which were shining all over the room.
Dawn roared, fully transforming and
lunged for the first one she came to.
.
. .
The place quickly descended into
utter chaos. Hunters and werewolves
running everywhere, fighting, breaking apart, fighting again. Gun fire continuously rattling, roars and
shouting coming from all directions.
Brett grabbed a man by his gun arm
as the guy hurried right past him, heading for Carlos. He threw him into the wall. The man yelled, falling to the ground in a
heap. He scooted back, raising his gun
to bear on Brett. Brett kicked the gun
out of his hands and leaned over him, slashing his claws across the man’s arm
when he reached for a knife handle that was sticking out of his belt.
Brett roared, stumbling back as a
bullet slammed into his stomach. He
turned and dove around the corner of the wall to get away from the
shooter.
He grunted, pressing a hand against
the wound. He’d felt the impact more
than any pain and it was already closing up.
When he took his hand away it was sticky with blood, and clawless. He’d
changed back to fully human without realizing it.
Brett jogged down the hall and into
the next room, seeing Scott kneeling over the form of a hunter. Scott stood and hurried over to him, taking a
bullet in the process. “Go find the
others,” Scott said, “tell them to hide.”
Brett nodded and turned back the
way he had come. He wondered what had
changed, why hide now? But he assumed
Scott knew what he was doing, or at least he hoped so.
He found most of his pack back in
the room they’d started in, along with another half dozen hunters. Dawn was backed into the corner, snarling at
the man who had her pinned there with a knife.
Brett charged forward, slamming into the man and knocking him to the
ground. Dawn lunged at him, ripping off
the man’s helmet and Brett drove his fist into his jaw. The hunter went limp.
“Thanks,” Dawn panted.
“Where’s Lori?” Brett asked, raising his voice over the
gunfire.
“I don’t know,” Dawn said, shaking
her head.
Panic rose up inside him. Where was she? “Scott wants us to pull back,” he told
Dawn. “He said to try and hide.”
“I don’t think we can,” Dawn
answered. “They’re everywhere.”
“Yeah, just tell Satomi ok,” he
said, glancing around, looking for the best route back out of this room. “I’ve got to find Lori.”
She nodded and he got back to his
feet sprinting off.
A few minutes later, all the
gunfire just stopped. Brett ducked,
hiding behind a pile of smashed sheetrock.
He held his breath, waiting for whatever came next, but to his surprise,
the hunters just stood there, looking back and forth to each other in
confusion. Then, one by one, they
lowered their guns and started to walk away.
Brett stared after them. What
just happened? He shook his head in
disbelief. Maybe Scott had found a way
to stop it after all.
Once they’d gone, he got back to
his feet. “Lori!” he called, pausing to
listen for a reply. “Lori!”
He closed his eyes, filtering all
the sound coming into his ears for her voice.
When he found it, the sound made his blood run cold. She was crying.
Oh
please no, he thought, running toward the noise. Please
let her be ok.
He rounded a corner and saw her
with her back to a wall, her knees pulled up to her chest and her face buried
in her hands.
“Lori.” He ran over to her and
knelt in front of her. “Lori, Lori look
at me.” He pulled her hands away from her face, then started running his hands
over her, looking for any injury. “Are
you ok? What’s wrong?”
“Brett.” She threw her arms around
his neck and clung to him. “He was gonna shoot me,” she said. “He had the gun on me and he was gonna shoot
me but Scott grabbed him. He was gonna
kill him. His eyes. They were terrible.” Then she started crying.
“Hey,” Brett said, hugging her
tight. “It’s ok. You’re ok.
It’s over now.” He let his head
drop, feeling a few tears sting his own eyes as he breathed in her scent. He should have been there to protect
her. She’d been that close to
dying. He didn’t know what he’d do if he
lost her too.
“Come on,” he said, pulling
back. “Let’s get back to the others.”
She nodded, sniffing and wiped her
sleeve across her face. They both stood
and he took her hand, leading her back to the main room. When they got there everyone else was
standing there, looking a little shell shocked.
A few bodies on the floor were all that remained of their
attackers.
“Is it over?” Kira asked
Scott. “Really over?”
He stared at her for a moment, then
nodded once.
Brett felt Lori squeeze his hand
and he looked down at her. “It’s
over? They’re not going to come after us
anymore.”
Scott turned to her. “No,” he said,
looking much more confident now. “No,
not anymore. The Benefactor cancelled
all contracts. It’s over.”
Gabby laughed a little hysterically
and sank to the floor. The nervous, half
crazy laugh spread to them all and they look around at each other with
diminishing disbelief. They were going
to be ok. The dead pool was over.
“What do we do now?” Lauren asked,
turning to Satomi.
“We’ll remain here for the rest of
the night,” she answered, “to insure word gets around. That is,” she turned to
Mr. Argent, “if our host doesn’t mind.”
He shrugged. “By all means.”
Satomi smiled. “We’ll remain here for the night, and then we
should be able to return to Devenford tomorrow.”
Scott and his friends left within a
few minutes, heading for their homes, leaving Satomi’s pack alone in the ware
house.
Brett let out a breath and sat
down, all of a sudden realizing he was exhausted.
“We made it,” Lori said to herself.
Brett looked over at her and
grinned. “Told you we would.” Though to be honest, he hadn’t been so sure
when he’d said it. He let himself fall
onto his back and Lori lay down too, taking off her jacket and laying it under
her head.
“Brett,” she said, after a minute.
“What?”
“You didn’t hurt anybody did you?”
she asked. “Scott was going to tear that
guy to pieces.”
“That guy was going to kill you, he
deserved it.” She made a face and he
sighed. “No, I don’t think I did any
permanent damage.”
“Good,” she said, relaxing a
little.
Dawn came over to them and to
Brett’s surprise, she lay down next to him- right next to him- and rested her
head on his arm. Even though they’d been
dating since February, they hadn’t really done much snuggling. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it now,
after everything that had just happened.
She smiled up at him tiredly. “Is this ok?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, this is fine.”
“Good.” She shut her eyes, nuzzling his arm as she
settled in.
Brett glanced over at Lori, then
down at Dawn and smiled. He still had
both his girls. He rolled onto his side,
reaching for one of Dawn’s hands with his free one. The warmth of her body so close to his felt
good. Brett sighed contentedly and closed
his eyes, feeling safer than he had in a long time.
He woke up to pins and needles stabbing
all up and down his arm. “Dawn,” he
grunted, trying to pull it out from under her.
“Dawn, I need my arm back.”
She stirred and lifted her head,
blinking.
Brett sat up and grabbed his
shoulder, trying to message some life back into it.
“Sorry,” Dawn said. She reached out and took his forearm, rubbing
it between her hands.
Over to their right, Lori
giggled. “Aw, you two are cute.”
It was mid-morning, and most of the
pack was already awake. Several of them
sat across the room, talking with Satomi.
“All right, thanks,” Brett said,
pulling his arm from Dawn’s grasp and shaking it out. “I don’t think we’re going to have to cut it
off anymore.”
Dawn laughed and rubbed her
eyes. “Ugh, my dad will kill me if he
finds out about this.”
“Come on, that wasn’t bad.”
“No, but he’ll still kill me.” Her expression clouded.
“What?” Brett asked, stifling a
yawn.
“The night I ran out on him is the
night we went to the woods,” she said.
“He probably thinks I actually ran away.
Or that I’m dead.”
“Well, you’ll get to tell him
otherwise soon,” Satomi said, coming over to them. “It should be safe to go back now.”
“Can we get something to eat
first?” Lori asked.
Brett’s stomach growled in
response. It had been two days since
he’d eaten, and that had been a snack bag of chips from a convenience
store. He felt like he could eat a dozen
McDonald’s breakfast biscuits by himself.
Satomi smiled and nodded. “Yes, I think we could all do with a meal.”
. . .
Dawn stood on her front step,
hesitating. She hoped her dad wouldn’t
wig out too much when he saw her. She
hadn’t had a bath in almost a week, if you didn’t count the other day’s down
pour. She was dirty, and her clothes
were torn and stained with blood.
Would he be mad at her for
leaving? She’d run out of the house with
hardly a word and then disappeared.
She took a breath and reached out
her hand, paused, then made herself knock.
She couldn’t just open the door herself and walk in like nothing had
happened.
The door opened and Dawn held her
breath, waiting.
Her dad just stared at her for a
moment, so many emotions mixed in his scent and expression she couldn’t
identify them.
“Hey Dad,” she said, shuffling her
feet.
“Dawn.” He stepped outside and put his arms around her,
pulling her to him.
That wasn’t what she’d expected,
not right off anyway. But it only
startled her for a few seconds. She
rested her cheek against his shoulder and hugged him back, tears starting to
sting her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered.
“Are you all right?” he asked,
still not letting her go.
She nodded. “I’m fine. It’s over Dad. They called off the list.”
“Oh thank God.” He reached up with one of his hands and
stroked her hair. “Thank God.”
. . .
The lights clicked on over the
field and Brett started, feeling his adrenaline spike. The ball KC had thrown to him sailed right
past him.
“Come on Dude, that was an easy
one.”
“Sorry,” Brett said, jogging after
it. He shook his head, and tried to slow
his heart rate back to normal. There
were no hunters out here tonight, he knew that.
No crossbows, no poison knives, just lacrosse.
He glanced up at the stands, where
Lori, Satomi and Dawn sat, waiting for the game to start. Dawn caught his eye and smiled at him.
Brett nodded to himself. Just lacrosse. He scooped up the ball in his net and threw
it back to KC. The other boy had to take
a step back to keep his balance when he caught it.
“There we go,” KC said. “That’s more like it.”
. . .
Even without the vendetta they’d
had for the scrimmage, they were still mopping the field with the other
team. Scott wasn’t at the game and the
Beacon Hills team was suffering without him.
The only other kid with much skill they had was Liam, and he wasn’t on
his game tonight. Something was wrong
with him, Brett decided. He kept losing
focus, freezing up.
Liam snatched up the ball and this
time ran with it. But he wasn’t really
trying to make a play or even get to the goal, he was just running, running
scared. He was losing it.
No
you don’t. Brett started moving toward him. If Liam shifted out here in front of everyone
they’d all be in trouble again. He ran
into Liam, shoving him. The other boy
flew back, landing flat on his back.
The Beacon Hills side of the stands
shouted angrily and the ref blew his whistle.
Brett pulled his helmet off and
looked down at Liam, who had also thrown his to the side.
“What did you do that for?” Liam
demanded.
“Because you’re afraid, I can smell
it on you from across the field,” Brett said.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you still alive?”
“Obviously.”
“Then get up,” he snapped.
Liam stood, glaring at him. He didn’t seem to get that Brett had probably
just kept him from showing everyone what he really was. And probably from tearing somebody apart.
“Are you good to play?” the ref
asked, running over to them.
Liam nodded.
The ref looked at Brett
disapprovingly. “Do you plan on pulling
something like that again?”
Brett didn’t take his eyes off
Liam. “Only if I have to.”
Quietly, Brett slipped into the
Beacon Hills locker room. He found Liam,
sitting on one of the benches, staring at the floor and fiddling with his
lacrosse stick.
“You ok?” he asked, leaning his
shoulder against one of the lockers.
Liam looked up at him, confused.
“We lost.”
After everything that had happened
over the last few weeks, Liam could still get hung up on a lacrosse game. Brett wished he could bounce back that
fast.
“But you’re ok,” he pointed out. “Right?”
“Why did you do that?” Liam
asked. “Why did you help me?”
“Because of Scott,” Brett
answered. “He saved me. He saved all of us. Do you know how lucky you are?”
Liam looked at him crosswise. “What do you mean?”
“Scott’s a True Alpha,” Brett
said. “That means he didn’t get his
power because he was born with it, he didn’t get it by stealing it, or by
killing someone. He earned it.” That just didn’t happen every day. True Alphas were one in a million.
Liam still didn’t seem to get it.
Brett smiled. “Look, you’re not strong because you can lift
a lot of weight now. You’re strong
because you endure,” he explained. “Satomi
calls it ‘strength of character.’ You’re
lucky to have him.” He pushed off the
locker and went back out. His team
would be looking for him soon.
Dawn met him just outside.
“What are you doing here?” he
asked.
“Remember what happened the last
time you were in there?”
“How could I forget?” Brett said, subconsciously reaching a hand to
his throat.
They started walking back toward
the others, and he noticed she was smiling at him funny.
“What?” he asked.
“It was nice of you to check on
him,” she said.
“Ah,” Brett looked
scandalized. “Were you eaves dropping?”
Dawn set her face in the picture of
innocence, then she smiled and flashed her eyes, pointing to her ear. “Can’t help it.”
“Yes you can.” He nudged her with his shoulder.
She laughed quietly and looked back
at the building. “I thought you didn’t
like him.”
Brett shrugged. None of that seemed all that important
now. Funny how almost dying a few times
could do that. “Well, Scott’s not here,
and he was struggling out there.”
She nodded. “You know, I was actually
hoping Scott would be here. I wanted to
thank him.”
“Thank him?” Brett said, trying to
look jealous. “Should I be worried?”
“No,” she said like it was obvious
and stepped in front of him. Taking both
of his hands, she raised herself on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against
his, lingering for a few seconds.
Brett smiled against her lips,
kissing her back. He’d been joking; he
knew he had nothing to worry about.
Honestly, he’d been hoping to get to talk to Scott as well.
She pulled back and started walking
again. “Besides,” she said over her
shoulder. “I think you’re more enamored
with him than I am.”
They were almost to the parking lot
now, where everyone else was loading up to go home. Home.
Brett felt a slight pang at the thought.
A month ago, home had looked pretty different. Back then it had still included his
parents.
But Dawn was standing beside him,
and across the parking lot he could see Satomi and Lori. His parents might be gone, but he still had a
home, and a family, even if it was smaller now.
He took Dawn’s hand and laced his
fingers through hers. “We’re gonna be
ok,” he said. “Aren’t we?”
“Yeah.” She nodded, squeezing his hand. “I think we are.”
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