Derek staggers after us, one hand clutching his ruined nose, the other gripping his switchblade. His steps are unsteady, his breathing labored, but there's a fierce light in his eyes. He knows what's at stake here. Not just our lives, but Elias's humanity. If we can't bring him back from the brink, if we can't reach the person beneath the monster…

Elias gains the upper hand, his greater size and strength bearing me down. He pins me beneath his bulk, his fox muzzle inches from my face. I can see the madness swirling in his yellow eyes, the fury and the pain. His sclera have this… piss-colored glaze to them. His jaws snap at my throat, razor-sharp teeth grazing my skin. I twist my head away, feeling the hot rush of his breath on my neck, dampening my costume, which is already soaked in a mixture of our blood. My own teeth are bared in a snarl, ready to fight to the last.

But I know I can't match him like this. He's too strong, too big If I'm going to save him, if I'm going to save any of us, I need to change tactics. I go limp beneath him, my body relaxing into submission. He swings in, constantly pressing forward from an expectation of resistance. He overshoots.

With a burst of strength, I wrench my arm free and grab his muzzle, forcing his jaws shut. He thrashes against my grip, but I hold on tight, my fingers digging into his fur.

"Elias, listen to me," I hiss, my voice low and urgent. "This isn't you. The Fly, the powers, they're messing with your head. But you're stronger than them. You're still in there, I know it."

He snarls, and yanks his jaw open, hissing in pain. He wrenches free of my grip, his claws raking across my face, carving a gash into my mask and the skin below, driving folded layers of… I don't know, materials, into the wound. I cry out in pain, feeling the hot gush of blood. But I don't back down. I can't.

It rips across my lip, and he shoves his hand down, grabbing me by the throat. Even if his bear paws aren't flexible enough to grasp things like a human being, his sheer weight and size makes it easy for him to simply crush the life out of me. His eyes are glimmering with tears, but they don't look like sadness or regret. Just pain. Just anger.

"Does this look like a fucking anime to you, superhero?" Elias snarls, his voice squeaking through his pointed fox teeth. "I'm lucid. I'm aware. I know what I'm doing. This isn't a possession requiring exorcism. There's nothing new here."

Derek's breath comes in wheezing, haggard gasps. "Man… I wish you told me."

Elias whips around, dragging me across the carpet, ripping what exposed skin I have across pieces of office equipment and destroyed furniture. My costume is padded and cut resistant but not impenetrable. Enough force, and it tears, like it does now, digging sharp scratches across my exposed cheeks and chin, my upper arms and forearms where the padding is thinner and not armored. "Oh, you wish I told you? Was mentioning to you every other week how they denied my claim, denied it, denied it, denied it, that not enough for you?"

His arms twitch. His legs shake. His fingers spasm against my neck, and I suck in what little air I can get. "They won't even pay for my diapers, dawg. Can you even… Can you even fathom how miserable my life is?"

Derek wheezes, unconvinced. "You promised… We'd never… Play misery olympics…"

"Look what you made me do, Derek," Elias growls, his voice a mixture of anger and anguish. His bear paw tightens around my throat, cutting off my air. I claw at his arm, desperate for breath, but it's like trying to move a mountain. "You just had to get involved, didn't you? Couldn't let me handle this my way. No, you had to be the hero, bring in your little superhero friend here." He jerks his head towards me, his fox muzzle wrinkling in a snarl.

I can feel my vision starting to tunnel, darkness creeping in at the edges. My lungs are burning, screaming for oxygen. But Elias barely seems to notice, his attention fixed on Derek.

Derek staggers forward, his face a bloody mess. "Elias, please," he rasps, his words slurred by his shattered nose. "This isn't right… You're hurting her… You're hurting yourself."

Elias barks out a harsh laugh, the sound grating and unhinged. "Hurting myself? Derek, I've been hurting for years. Every day, every goddamn minute, I've been in pain. And nobody cared. Nobody did a fucking thing to help me."

His grip loosens just a fraction, enough for me to suck in a desperate gasp of air. It's like knives in my throat, but it's the sweetest thing I've ever tasted. "But now, with these powers, I can finally do something about it. I can make them pay. Make them all pay for what they've done to me, to people like me."

Derek shakes his head, a look of profound sadness in his eyes. Something beyond snark. "This isn't you, Elias," he squeaks through his broken nose, his voice nasal, wet. "My best friend, he wouldn't do this. He wouldn't hurt innocent people."

For a moment, just a fleeting second, I see something flicker in Elias's eyes. A hint of doubt, of remorse. But then it's gone, swallowed up by the rage and the pain.

"Maybe you never really knew me at all, Derek," he says, his voice cold and hollow. "Maybe this is who I've always been, deep down. Maybe this is what anyone would do if you took the limiters off." He turns his gaze back to me, his yellow eyes boring into mine. "I'm sorry, hero. I didn't want to hurt you. But I can't let you stop me. I won't let anyone stop me. Not anymore."

His paw tightens again, and I feel myself slipping away, my body going limp. Dimly, as if from a great distance, I hear Derek shouting, pleading. But it's too late. The darkness is closing in, and I'm falling, falling into the void. All I can see is the red in my mind's eye. See Derek's hand tightening around something, raised up to his throat.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Let her go, Elias," he says, his voice calm and steady despite the fear pulsing through him. "Let her go, or I'll do it. I swear to God, I'll do it."

Elias freezes, his bear paw still tight around my neck. For a moment, I think he's going to call Derek's bluff, call his bet and raise him a crushed windpipe. But then, slowly, his grip loosens. I look up to see Derek with his switchblade raised to his own throat, hand trembling, the tip of the knife digging into his skin just enough to draw a tiny pinprick of blood. Holding himself hostage.

I suck in a frantic gasp of air, my lungs burning with the sudden influx of oxygen. But I don't move, don't try to wriggle out from under his paw. I can feel the tension in the room, the hair-trigger balance that could snap at any moment.

Derek doesn't lower the blade. Instead, he presses it harder against his skin, a thin line of blood welling up beneath the edge. I can see it in my blood sense, a bright, vivid thread of crimson against the pulsing map of his veins.

"Where did you get it, Elias?" Derek asks, his voice still unnervingly calm. "The super-drugs. Where did you get it?"

Elias stares at him, his yellow eyes wide with disbelief. "Why the fuck would you want to know? What are you, a cop?"

"A trade," Derek says, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "You tell us where you got the super-drugs from, and let Bloodhound go, and I won't slit my own throat."

He sounds almost cocky. I don't like that he's willing to gamble my life on his friends' willingness to not see him kill himself, but at this point, I don't exactly have much of a choice. I can feel my body struggling, straining to re-knit itself together. Thin, shallow cuts are already scabbing over. The deeper ones fill with… you know, gunk. White threads. Bruises… un-bruise. Blood vessels reach for each other like lovers reaching over a cliffside.

The seconds tick by, each one an eternity. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, feel the rasp of Elias's rough, shaggy fur against my skin with each labored breath. Even I don't understand why Derek wants to know. What difference does it make, in the end?

But Derek doesn't waver, doesn't back down. He just keeps staring at Elias, the switchblade steady against his throat.

Finally, Elias relents. He's already done his damage, already made his point.

"You really want to know so bad?" he says, his voice thick with emotion. "Just some guy. I was rolling out of physical therapy, I got caught on the shitty, underfunded Philadelphia sidewalks, that are always at an angle so I have to wheel my wheelchair weirdly so I don't roll into the street, and some guy helped me get to the bus stop. And then he asked me if I wanted to walk again. And I told him that I had never been able to walk to begin with."

As he speaks, tears begin to stream down Elias's face, mixing with the blood and snot. It's a vile, heartbreaking sight, a glimpse of the pain and despair that's driven him to this point.

"He said he could fix me," Elias continues, his voice cracking. "I obviously missed the bus interrogating him. You know all the fucking acupuncturists and chiropractors that think they can fix me. But then, you know, he made lightning jump from between his fingers, and I knew he had powers. Just some guy. White. Bald. Boring. Convinced me."

He's sobbing now, his shoulders shaking with the force of it. The bear paw on my throat goes slack as he brings his other hand up to cover his face, smearing the blood and tears across his fur.

Slowly, carefully, I wriggle out from under his grip, my eyes never leaving Derek. He's still got the switchblade at his throat, still holding himself hostage. But there's a softness in his eyes now, a glimmer of understanding.

"It's okay, Elias," he says gently. "It's going to be okay. We'll figure this out, together. Just like we always have."

Derek sucks up a mixture of clotting blood and snot up into his nose. At some point, he's ripped up strips of his own shirt and stuffed it into his nostrils, but he spits out a glob of, you know, mixed something onto the carpet.

With a convulsive effort, Elias's form shifts, his bear and alligator features melting away like wax under a flame. In their place, the sleek fur and powerful haunches of a deer emerge, his body streamlining itself for escape.

"Elias, wait!" Derek calls out, his hand outstretched. But it's too late.

In a flash, Elias is bounding away, his hooves finding easy purchase on the debris-strewn floor. He moves with a grace that belies his bulk, a liquid fluidity that's almost beautiful to behold. And then he's gone, smashing through the seventh-story window in a cascade of shattered glass. I catch a glimpse of his form shifting in mid-air, but I can't make out what he's becoming. Something built for speed, for fleeing the scene of his crimes, for surviving the fall.

I start to give chase, my muscles tensing for the leap. But as I take my first step, my legs buckle beneath me, the adrenaline that's been keeping me going draining away like water through a sieve.

I stumble, my vision swimming. I'm dimly aware of Derek lunging forward, his arms wrapping around me before I can hit the ground. He's holding me up, supporting my weight, even though I can feel him trembling with exhaustion and pain. "Are you alright?" I ask him, wheezing.

"Shut the fuck up," he replies. "You think I haven't broken my nose before?"

Together, we stagger to the shattered window, leaning against the jagged frame for support. The night air is cool on my face, carrying with it the distant wail of sirens.

We barely catch Elias hauling ass around the corner, in some new, unknown form, police cars chasing behind but continually losing ground. Leaving only a trail of blood and broken glass in his wake. A part of me wants to follow him, to chase him down and drag him back. But I know it's futile. He's too fast, too far gone.

For a long moment, we simply stand there, leaning on each other, the weight of our failure hanging heavy in the air. We had him. We had a chance to end this, to bring him in and get him the help he needs. And we blew it.

"We'll find him," I say at last, my voice a ragged whisper. It hurts to speak, my throat raw from Elias's chokehold. "We'll find him, and we'll make this right."

Derek nods, his jaw set in a grim line. There's a haunted look in his eyes, a pain that goes beyond the physical. I know he's thinking of Elias, of the friend he once knew, now twisted into something monstrous.

"And… we need to check that lead with the drugs," he says raspily. "If someone's selling this stuff, we-"

He breaks off into a coughing fit, his body wracked with spasms. I hold him steady, my own pain forgotten in my concern for him. I can see his blood vessels pulsing beneath his skin, bruised and battered but still strong. Still fighting. "Let me worry about the superhero shit, man. Don't you," I start, breaking out into a coughing fit of my own. "Don't you have werewolf stuff to worry about?"

In the distance, the sirens grow louder, the blue and red flashes of police lights painting the walls in shifting colors. I can hear the thump of boots on stairs, the crackle of radios. They'll be here soon, with their questions and their suspicions.

"Yeah. You mind if I bounce?" He says, not letting go of me.

Together, we limp towards the stairs, every step an agony. But we keep going, leaning on each other for support. We're battered and bloodied, but we're not broken. Not yet.

"Do whatever you need to, man," I reply.