Roxy finally reached the Walkers’ house after about ten minutes of straight sprinting. Tumbling to a stop outside the front door, she gave herself a few seconds to just catch her breath. She’d never run like that for that long before and it kind of felt like she was dying, if she was being honest.

Another spark from the mark on her neck reminded her of why she was here. Those weird emotions had mostly fizzled away during her run, but the mark kept up a steady vigil of signals every few minutes or so. None were as intense as the first shock, but the weird sensation of phantom static inside her muscles was certainly keeping her on her toes.

Finally having cooled down enough to force herself out of her doubled-over position, Roxy held her hand out, ready to knock, but instead found herself hesitating. Was she being unreasonable about this? She’d gotten a random shock and felt kind of weird and, instead of taking even a single second to try and think of a sensible explanation, she’d immediately made an incredibly rash assumption and literally ran with it. A bit of an over-reaction, she’d say. Was she really about to disturb her girlfriend’s family because she was paranoid?

It then occurred to Roxy that she literally was literally dating a werewolf and nothing about her life made any sense anymore. Another spark of feeling, this time accompanied by a pang of second-hand fear, steeled her resolve. There was no way this was nothing.

Roxy began pounding on the Walkers’ front door relentlessly as her fear grew, amplified by the borrowed emotions swimming through her body. As was to be expected, it didn’t take long for someone to answer the door with the racket she was making.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming!” Carol called through the door. The lack of worry or fear in her voice was reassuring, but only slightly. There was no way to know if Sam was even home right now. The door opened.

“Roxy!” Carol greeted cheerfully. Her face dropped when she took in the girl’s dishevelled appearance. “What’s wrong? You look terrified.”

“Is Sam here?!” she replied urgently.

Carol looked perplexed. “No, she’s still out. Why, what is it?”

Roxy’s heart dropped just a little. Sam wasn’t home. There was no way to verify if she was okay, no way to even find her if she was in trouble. She dropped her head into her hands, groaning in frustration and more than a little fear.

“S-something’s wrong. Something’s wrong and Sam’s scared. She’s hurt or in danger or something, I don’t know!” Roxy threw her hands up and shouted as emotions, both her own and potentially Sam’s, overwhelmed her.

Carol looked at her with a worried expression. She put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Calm down, sweetheart. How do you know something’s wrong?”

“I-I just do! I-it’s hard to explain…”

“Why don’t you come inside and catch your breath? Have a nice cup of tea, collect your thoughts, and maybe things will seem a bit clearer, hm?”

That… sounded really nice, actually. Roxy sagged and nodded in defeat, following the older woman inside. She led her through the living room and into the kitchen, where a single plate of untouched dinner sat on the island counter. The dark-haired girl slipped onto a stool and tried to calm her pounding heart as Carol prepared her tea.

“So,” the red-headed woman said after a few minutes. “Care to try again? Why are you so worked up?”

Roxy sighed, trying to get her head in order. “I… I just got this really sudden feeling that something was horribly wrong. Like, it wasn’t just a passing thought, it literally knocked me off my feet. I genuinely fell over. The… The reason I think it’s got to do with Sam is because…” She felt her cheeks warm as she realised what she’d have to admit to get her point across, and to her girlfriend’s adoptive mother no less. She coughed awkwardly. “Well… a while ago… Sam, uh… sh-she, uh… um… bit me.” It came out as a whisper. Roxy noticed Carol turn her head to look at her from where she was working on the counter. “A-and, um, ap-apparently it was actually s-some sort of werewolf thing that, uh… c-connects us, or something. A-and… the place where the feeling came from was the same place where she, uh… y’know.

“Anyway, I heard somewhere that werewolves used to be able to feel each other’s emotions through those marks or something, and, I know it’s a stretch, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I felt. A lot of fear. A-and pain. And I know it wasn’t mine, I was just at work, there was nothing to be scared about.”

Carol turned to her and walked over, holding a mug of hot tea. “And you were so shocked by it that you left work and ran all the way here? It must’ve been quite intense, I imagine. I can understand why you’re so worked up.”

She placed the mug in front of her and Roxy smiled gratefully. Carol’s bedside manner was always able to set her at ease, at least from the few times she’d been comforted or patched up by the part-time nurse. She took a sip of the tea. It was hot, but not enough to burn, and exactly what she needed to settle herself down a little.

“Now, I can’t say for sure whether or not Sam’s okay, as she’s obviously not here right now, but I can say that she’s not someone who’ll go down easy, as I’m sure you know. I have no doubt she’ll show up safe and sound at any mo-”

Carol was interrupted by the sound of the back door sliding open. Both of them turned their heads to the noise. Roxy’s heart stopped.

Sam was here.

And she was covered in blood. It wasn’t clear how much of it was hers.

It coated the bottom half of her face, sticky half-wet liquid surrounding her mouth, dripping down her chin and neck and onto her once-grey shirt, irreparably staining it. It was covering her hands and arms all the way up to the elbow, revealed by her torn up flannel. It slowly leaked through her fingers as she desperately clutched her side, trying to stem the flow that had already reddened most of what remained of her clothing.

Their eyes met. One of Sam’s was as red as the blood that stained her face, while the other was her usual icy blue. Both were streaming tears down her cheeks, expressing the same pain and fear that was still echoing through Roxy’s body.

It felt like time was frozen for a few seconds before everything snapped back to reality. Sam’s legs buckled and she collapsed to the floor with a weak whimper, blood already spilling onto the tile from the apparent wound on her side. Carol moved to her with a purpose, grabbing Sam and picking her back up, leading her over to the island. Roxy was still too stunned to move, at least until Carol shouted her to attention.

“Roxy! Clear the island and help me get her up!” The older woman ordered with uncharacteristic intensity. Roxy obeyed automatically, still too stunned to properly process what was happening. It didn’t make sense to her. She’d just seen Sam a few hours ago and she was fine. Where did all that blood come from?

She cleared the untouched plate and her mug of forgotten tea and helped to lay Sam down on the countertop. Carol stepped away for a second to grab the first-aid kit and Roxy finally remembered how to speak.

“Sam… Wh-what happened? Wh-where did…” She paused and mentally shook her head. Those kinds of questions weren’t important right now. She took a breath and steeled herself, burying the fear that had threatened to consume her. “Where are you hurt?” she asked, surprising herself with how authoritative her voice sounded.

Sam winced and whimpered as she moved her hands away from her side. “Hunters… S-stabbed… H-healed a little… Can’t a-anymore… N-no wolf.”

Fear gripped Roxy’s heart like a vice at those words, but she forced herself to keep calm. There would be time for freaking out later. Carol returned with the first-aid kit and placed it down on a stool near Sam’s wound, pulling out supplies and lifting Sam’s shirt so she could get easier access to the injury.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” she asked.

“N-no… just… there.” Sam panted, before wincing again. Roxy moved to her other side and grabbed her hand, squeezing it and trying to offer any comfort she possibly could. She couldn’t even imagine how much pain Sam must be in.

Carol slipped on some gloves and got to work, cleaning and sterilising the wound before beginning to stitch it up. Sam cried out at the sting of the needle, but it was obvious she was doing her best to keep still. Roxy noticed a flutter of second-hand fear still swimming around her stomach and went out on a limb.

“What’s going on, Sam? What’s scaring you right now?” she asked carefully.

The blonde’s mismatched eyes flicked to her, desperation clear as tears started to well up. “M-my wolf i-is gone. I-I can’t feel her. I-I can’t shift. I d-don’t know what to do.”

“Please don’t shift while I’m stitching you up.” Carol’s calm, focused voice cut through the tension in the room. She briefly stopped her work and looked up. “Are you sure your wolf is gone? One of your eyes is red, sweetie.”

Sam’s face flashed with confusion. “Wh-what? I-I don’t feel anyth-”

All of a sudden, Sam jerked and screamed in pain. Roxy watched in alarm as her teeth visibly grew before shrinking back to their original size and shape. She barely noticed it on account of everything that was going on, but the sudden spasm happened at the exact same time that her mark sent another spark shooting through her.

Sam collapsed back to the table, panting and gasping. “I-I don’t know why th-that keeps h-happen-ning.”

This was all getting to be a bit much for Roxy. She needed to do something more to help, she couldn’t just sit by and do nothing while Sam was hurting like this. She pulled out her phone and scrolled to a contact she’d added just in case something like this happened.

She brought the phone to her ear. He answered after just two rings.

“Pedro speaking.”

She swallowed nervously. Sam and Carol were both looking at her, confused. “I-it’s Roxy. Y-you told me to call you if we were ever in trouble?”

“What happened?”

“S-Sam was attacked by hunters, sh-she was stabbed and now she can’t access her wolf to heal.”

“What about the hunters, did they get away?”

Roxy looked at Sam. Her face was stricken and pale, fear and what looked like guilt covering every inch of her expression. Roxy mentally slapped herself. Sam was a werewolf, of course she could hear both sides of the conversation.

“I-I’m not sure. Sam hasn’t really said.”

Pedro was silent for a second. “Hm, okay. I’ll be right there. Walkers’ house?”

Roxy was a little stunned. “Y-yes, how did you-”

Pedro had already hung up. Roxy sighed and put the phone away. Carol had finished up Sam’s stitches and was taping a bandage over the wound. The girl in question was screwing her eyes shut and breathing rapidly. She looked to be on the verge of a panic attack.

Roxy grabbed a wet cloth and made her way over to Sam’s head, cleaning the blood off of her face and gently shushing her, trying to calm her down. Sam let out a long whine.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Roxy asked. Sam was silent for a moment, clearly barely holding back her emotions. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out, save for a few tears leaking from her closed eyes. That is, until…

“I killed them! I killed the hunters! I-I didn’t mean to, I swear, I-I-I just lost control after he stabbed me! I-I don’t even remember it, I just blacked out and they were all dead and I could t-taste blood and- and- and-”

Sam broke down sobbing, covering her eyes with her arm as she cried. She was muttering apologies over and over again. Roxy just stood there, waiting for some sort of reaction, any reaction, to hit her. After hearing something like that, she expected herself to be scared. Her girlfriend had killed people, plain and simple. She was a killer. It was a shock, to be sure, but other than that, she mostly just felt sad for her. What a horrible thing that must have been to go through.

Roxy continued wiping Sam’s face clean, stroking through her hair and trying to comfort her. “It’s not your fault, Sam. You were defending yourself. You were in the right. I know it’s probably hard to believe, but you had no choice. I don’t blame you, either.”

Sam just kept crying, muttering horrible things about herself under her breath. It broke Roxy’s heart to hear, but all she could do was keep reassuring Sam that she didn’t do anything wrong, so that’s what she did. Carol sat back onto a stool, mental exhaustion clear on her features.

“Why don’t you take Sam up to the bathroom and get her cleaned up a bit. Get her ready for bed. She’s no doubt had enough excitement for one night.”

Roxy hesitated. “Uhm, actually, could we wait for the person I called to get here first? He’s a werewolf, he might be able to figure out why Sam’s wolf is acting weird. Also, he, um… might be able to give us some advice on how we should deal with… what Sam just said she did.”

Carol leaned back, slightly impressed. “When on earth did you have time to meet another werewolf? And how?”

Roxy rubbed the back of her neck nervously, her other hand still stroking through Sam’s hair in an attempt to comfort her. Her cries had quietened and she was now just breathing shakily. “He was actually the detective that interviewed me about the Shepperton street murders. He could smell that, uh… mark that I talked about earlier, and obviously he knew that the murders had something to do with werewolves, too. It seemed like he knew Sam, though she didn’t know who he was when I told her about him.”

“What was his name?” the redhead asked.

“Pedro. Not sure about last name.”

“Hah,” Carol surprised Roxy by laughing. “That son of a bitch. Moved all the way up here and didn’t even bother popping by to say hello until now.”

“You know him?” Roxy asked, perplexed.

“He went to highschool with Deb and I, back in Palm Springs where we grew up. Hell, he even dated Debbie for a bit, before she met Mark.”

Roxy’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. It was a hell of a small world, apparently. She looked down to Sam to gauge her reaction to that little nugget of information. Surprisingly, she hadn’t reacted at all. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that Sam had fallen into a light slumber. The raven-haired girl smiled at her gently.

She slipped out of the kitchen to get her partner a pillow from the couch. As she made her way through the living room, she spotted Ava coming down the stairs, clearly completely unaware of what had occurred in the kitchen.

“Hey, Rox. Didn’t know you were here tonight,” the brunette greeted.

“Uh,” Roxy replied as she grabbed the pillow. “I wasn’t meant to be. Something’s, uh… come up.”

Ava raised an eyebrow and followed her as Roxy made her way back into the kitchen, gently slipping the pillow under Sam’s head.

“Oh,” Ava exclaimed as she took in the situation before her. “Is she okay? What happened?”

“Hunters found her,” Carol explained tiredly. “She was stabbed, but she should be alright. Gave as good as she got, it seems, so hopefully they think twice before trying again.”

"Shit,” she whispered. “Is there anything I can do?"

"Just let her rest for now. She needs it."

"Alright," the brunette said, looking over her sister's sleeping form sadly. "She's gonna be real torn up that her favourite flannel is ruined."

"Yeah…" Roxy responded weakly. Things were silent in the kitchen for a while, everyone content to just let things settle after the drama of the past few minutes. Ava eventually left and returned to her room, while Roxy and Carol stayed, still tending to Sam and making sure that she was comfortable. Well, as comfortable as one could possibly be while lying on a stone countertop after being stabbed.

About fifteen minutes passed and eventually there was a knock on the door. Sam stirred and groggily opened her eyes as Carol went to answer it, but she was clearly struggling to parse her surroundings. Her mismatched irises locked onto Roxy.

“Ro-Ro…” she groaned. “Iss’at… you? Why’re you… up-ssside down?”

Sam’s slurring words and general delirium as well as her adorable and unexpected choice of nickname would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so worrying. Hopefully it was just a symptom of blood loss and she would be back to normal after a good rest, but given all of the other strange symptoms she was showing, Roxy knew better than to hope for that. She could hear Carol and what could only be Pedro conversing in the living room, their voices slowly getting louder as they approached the kitchen.

“...I’ve patched her up as best I could, though she’s still not able to call out her wolf to heal on her own. She’s also been occasionally having… spasms, or something, where her wolf briefly flares up before disappearing again.”

“She’s also, uh… delirious, I think. I’m not sure if it’s just blood loss or not, though,” Roxy butted in as the two adults entered the room. Pedro looked a lot more cleaned up than the last time she’d seen him, his stubble shaved mostly away with only a moustache in its place.

“Sounds like all the hallmarks of classic silver poisoning to me,” he said. “Though, I won’t be able to tell for sure without testing the wound, which I don’t think Sam would appreciate. It’s strange, though. I didn’t think direwolves were susceptible to silver sickness.”

“Who's th… there? I don’ know you!” Sam slurred wobbly, attempting to lift her head to limited success. Roxy shushed her and gently laid her head back down on the pillow.

“That’s just Pedro. He’s here to help you,” she consoled, stroking her hair. Sam grumbled but didn’t attempt to move again. The man in question walked over and frowned.

“Her eyes are a little troubling. I can’t say I’ve seen anything like that before. Could just be a direwolf thing, though. Still begs the question of why the silver affected her in the first place, but that’s a bit beyond my expertise.”

“What’s the deal with silver? Why would she even have silver poisoning in the first place?” Roxy asked.

“Silvered weapons are standard kit for hunters going on hunts. Blocks a werewolf’s transformation or ability to call their wolf out in any capacity. Most silver-poisoned werewolves sadly don’t tend to live long enough to see the other side-effects, for obvious reasons,” Pedro explained. “Again, it isn’t supposed to work on direwolves, as far as we know, so I’m not sure why Sam’s experiencing symptoms.”

“B-bad sssilver… d-different… n-new…” Sam muttered. “P-priest said… M-m-made for m-me… M-made for d-d-de… B-big wolf…”

“They must have figured out a way to bypass the resistance, then, I suppose.” Pedro hypothesised. “On the bright side, if she’s able to understand the conversation, her delirium can’t be as bad as it usually would be. It should clear up in a few hours, along with the spasms. Her access to her wolf should come back once the silver clears out of her system, which shouldn’t take longer than a week.”

Sam whined loudly, tears visibly prickling the edges of her eyes. Roxy gently consoled her.

“Did you manage to find out if the hunters got away?” Pedro asked the raven-haired girl.

Roxy swallowed thickly. “No, they didn’t. Uh… Sam… she…”

“She did what she needed to do in order to defend herself,” Carol interrupted sternly, making intense eye contact with Pedro. He seemed to understand well enough.

“It’s… for the best,” he said with a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair. “If they had gotten away they would have just regrouped and come after her again. It’s impressive that she was able to do that after getting stabbed, though. Did she say if it blocked her wolf right away?”

“She… said that she was able to heal a little bit, so it must not have been instantaneous, at the very least.”

“M-my teeth… worked… and c-claws… don’t r-remember all… b-but I bit him… f-for mommy… d-daddy… revenge… after that… all black…”

Roxy frowned at her. “You mean… he was the same one that…?”

“It’s highly likely.” Pedro said. “Small outposts like the one here don’t tend to have lots of change in management. They’ve probably had the same priest leading their hunts for years.”

“You sure know a lot about hunters for a werewolf.” Roxy observed.

“If we didn’t understand them, we wouldn’t be able to fight them. Most werewolves these days are raised learning about how the hunters work. It’s not an idyllic childhood by any means, but necessary if we wanna stop them from wiping us out.”

“Do you know where the outpost here is?” she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“If I did, this wouldn’t have happened. I’m too old to be stalking hunters and planning raids anymore. The whole reason I moved here in the first place was so I could take a more passive role after-” He cut himself off. “Well, that’s a story for another day. I have work to do.” he turned to Carol. “Do you have a shovel anywhere?”

“There should be one in the garage,” she answered.

“Right.”

Pedro left to go do… whatever it was he needed to do. Carol turned to Roxy, exhaustion showing on her face.

“Now that that’s sorted, do you think you could get her ready for bed, please? Those bloody clothes can’t be comfortable.”

Roxy nodded and gently led Sam off the table. The injured girl leaned on her heavily, moving slowly and carefully as she was taken up the stairs to the bathroom. It was an arduous journey, only made easier by the fact that Sam seemed too out of it to process any potential pain she might’ve been feeling.

Once they got there, Roxy helped Sam out of her ruined clothes and laid her down in the bathtub, turning on the water and waiting for it to heat up before letting it fill. Sam, for the most part, didn’t do much of anything besides stare at Roxy with a half-lidded gaze as she struggled to keep her head up.

“Just lie your head back, hun. I’ll take care of you, okay?” she whispered gently.

“Mmkayy… ‘re you gonna join me? Leh… Let’s have a bath tog-g-gether!” Sam giggled drunkenly before wincing as the action no doubt irritated her injury.

As much as that idea appealed to Roxy - she no doubt needed one after her mad sprint earlier - there were more important things to worry about. “Sorry, Sammie. Not tonight. Let’s just get you cleaned up so we can go to bed, hm? Doesn’t bed sound nice?”

Sam pouted and whined, limply flicking her arm at Roxy and splashing water all over her before giggling at her own childish antics. Roxy couldn’t help but lightly laugh along. It was a nice moment after the constant crushing fear that the rest of the night had laid upon her.

…Great, now she was thinking about it again. She sighed as she looked over Sam’s body, slowly being submerged as the water level rose. Her eyes caught on the surgical scars across her lower chest, from where the doctors had cut her open to remove shards of her own broken ribs from her lungs. They travelled to her left arm, also covered by pink scars from when Sam had desperately tried to save Roxy from Blaine, even with multiple broken bones. And of course there were the ones on her face, marring her cheek like a permanent reminder of that horrible night every time she looked in the mirror.

She already had so many scars, whether they be big ones like from the fight with Blaine, or the many small nicks and cuts she’d collected throughout her time running around carelessly as a wolf. And now she’d have a new one. It didn’t seem fair to Roxy. Why was Sam always the one to get hurt?

Sure, Roxy’d been knocked around from time to time, and she had that scar above her right eyebrow from getting hit in the head with that rock when Kimberly was chasing her, but compared to Sam it just didn’t seem fair. Why was the world so cruel to such a sweet soul? Her whole family had been murdered when she was barely older than a toddler and since then she’d just been chewed up and spit out over and over again. Sam never wanted to hurt anybody, and yet tonight she’d been forced to kill. What kind of benevolent god would allow that to happen? Roxy just didn’t understand it.

Something wet on her cheek tore her from her thoughts. She turned her head to find Sam looking at her curiously.

“Why’re you crying?” she asked, compassion and empathy clear in her voice, even in her impaired state. Roxy couldn’t figure out what she’d done to deserve someone like her in her life.

She quickly wiped away her tears, sniffling a little bit. “It’s nothing, Sam. Don’t worry about me, okay? Do you think you can sit up a bit so I can wash your hair?”

Sam did as she was told and slowly shuffled into a seated position. As she did so, Roxy’s eyes caught on another of her partner’s scars, one she hadn’t noticed during her previous inspection; the circle of puncture wounds around her calf.

It was the one she’d gotten on the day they’d first really met. Roxy, just walking through the woods without a care in the world, and Sam, stuck in a bear trap and calling out for someone to help her. A chance meeting that had changed both of their lives in ways they could never have imagined. Roxy found herself welling up once again, though for different reasons than before.

She was suddenly wrapped up in a very warm, very wet, hug from Sam. A damp hand loosely stroked down the back of her head.

“Don’ cry, Rok-sy. Issokay… Issokay…”

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Despite Sam’s instructions, Roxy instead started to cry more, all of her pent up emotions from this incredibly taxing day starting to spill out like a faucet slowly being turned up. The sadness of her and Sam’s trip to the den, the exhaustion of running all the way from 7-11 to Sam’s house, the shock of finding Sam covered in blood, and the fear. Oh god, the fear. From the moment she had woken up to the moment that she currently found herself in, fear had pervaded every single second of her day, whether it be a loud and very clear thing, like the after-effects of her dream or the moment when she was first hit by a shock from her mark, or more in the background, like the uneasy energy brought on by the stillness of the forest before the storm. Roxy had been so scared all day.

A sob slipped out of her throat and at that point it was hopeless to try and stop it. Roxy pressed her face against Sam’s bare shoulder and everything just came out. Sam continued to gently shush her and stroke her hair. Part of Roxy was mad at herself for letting it continue - after all, she was the one who was supposed to be taking care of Sam right now, not the other way around - but there was nothing she could do.

She was spent.

—

Pedro sighed. His back ached, his hands covered in black dirt and sticky blood. He trudged through the woods as a light rain fell, Carol’s shovel dragging limply along the ground at his side. He hadn’t known what he was expecting to find when he left to search for the remains of the hunters, but the sheer level of carnage had surprised him.

All but one of the hunters had had their throats violently torn out, the last remaining one miraculously still alive and desperately trying to crawl away from the scene with mangled legs. Pedro had no choice but to put him out of his misery. To let even one get away could have potentially disastrous repercussions for Sam and her family, be it from the hunters or just regular law enforcement.

There would be no missing person reports for the hunters who had been killed, but that wouldn’t matter if someone happened to stumble upon the bodies, so it was up to Pedro to dispose of them. He spent what felt like hours digging a hole big enough to fit all of the corpses, shovelling dirt until his hands were raw and his muscles cried out in exhaustion, before painstakingly dragging every hunter over to the pit and throwing them in, which was a process in its own right.

The bodies had been quite spread out, some of them being several minutes of walking away. He still couldn’t wrap his head around how Sam had been able to cause this much carnage after being stabbed. He’d seen it with his own two eyes; Sam was suffering from acute silver sickness, there shouldn’t have been any way that she’d be able to hold onto her transformation for long enough to do all of this.

And yet, all of the evidence said otherwise. Someone without any access to their wolf wouldn’t have been able to tear out throats with the clear ease at which Sam had. That is, unless she was hit by a silver spasm at the very moment her jaws closed around their neck, but what were the odds of that happening five times in a row? It simply wasn’t probable, further disproven by the tufts of golden fur that Pedro had occasionally seen, clearly torn out during Sam’s rampage.

The only possible conclusion he could draw was that the hunters had somehow found a way to improve their silver enough that it was able to affect direwolves, but clearly not in the way that they had intended. Getting stabbed must have caused Sam’s wolf to lose control, no doubt amplified by the presence of her parents’ killer, causing it to briefly take over Sam’s mind as it desperately tried to resist the silver attempting to dampen it. Clearly, it was able to achieve its goal before the silver kicked in and blocked it out entirely. Given that her clothes weren’t completely destroyed, it mustn’t have been a full shift, at the very least.

Those were the thoughts and theories that travelled through Pedro’s mind as he did his grim work, dragging bodies and discarded weapons through the bushes and throwing them into the hole he’d dug before filling it in, never to see the light of day again. Now, he was slowly making his way back to the Walkers’ house to return the shovel he’d borrowed and figure out his next move. The hunters had found Sam, just like he’d feared they would. He wasn’t going to continue to stand idly by and wait for them to come again.

He reached the back door that led into the kitchen. There was a dim orange light emanating from the room, much warmer than the usual bright yellow that had engulfed the house when he was there earlier. Sliding the door open and stepping inside after resting the shovel against the wall, he found Carol, sitting on a stool at the island and nursing a glass of whiskey, the bottle sitting beside her without a cap.

“Oh,” she said, startling slightly at his entrance. It was clear this wasn’t her first glass. “Hi, Pluma.”

Despite himself, Pedro smiled. “Haven’t heard that nickname in a while.” He glanced at the clock, only just registering how long he’d been out for. “I take it the girls have gone to bed?”

Carol nodded. “Yeah, they needed it. Sam had already fallen asleep once before you got here and, though she was hiding it better, I could tell that Roxy was struggling to hold on as well. I think I heard her crying in the bathroom after she took Sam upstairs earlier.” She nodded her head towards the bottle of whiskey. “Care to join me?”

Pedro considered it. He didn’t have anywhere else to be tonight except for his empty apartment, and after what he’d just had to do, something to take the edge off would be nice. “Yeah, alright,” he answered, moving to the sink to wash the grime off his hands. Carol got up and pulled out a glass for him, filling it with ice from the freezer before pouring a generous helping of drink into it.

Pedro raised an eyebrow. “You trying to get me shit-faced?” he joked.

Carol’s eyes slowly travelled to the glass she’d just poured, taking a few seconds to register the werewolf’s meaning. “Oh! I forgot about your crappy wolf tolerance, sorry.” Despite her words, she wore a teasing smile on her face. It made his heart ache a little bit, bringing back bittersweet memories of highschool.

He waved her off. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t mind getting a little wasted after what I just had to clean up.”

Carol’s face dropped as he sat down next to her. “It was that bad, huh?”

“Yeah,” He replied, taking a drink. The liquid burned as it went down. “She made a real mess of them. I’ll spare you the details.”

“Thanks. I’ve had enough violence for one night.” She sighed, burying her head in her hands.

“...You alright?” he pried.

Carol took a few seconds to answer. “No, not really. I had my daughter’s girlfriend almost knock down my door looking for her, spouting some stuff about a ‘mark’ and how she could ‘feel something was wrong,’ about two minutes before said daughter shows up covered in blood.” She lifted her head out of her hands and looked at him with a teary gaze. “Hunters found my daughter, Pedro. They’ll find her again. What am I meant to do? How am I meant to keep her safe? It’s not just her, either. Her friends are in danger, too! Roxy and Leif knocked out one of their members! Just how long will it be until they decide to get their revenge?”

The bit about Roxy’s mark piqued Pedro’s interest slightly, but he filed it away. A question for later. He considered his options. “I’ll have a talk to them tomorrow, try and get some more information out of Sam once she’s a bit more lucid. The hunters might have said something before they attacked her, considering they got close enough to stab her. I’ve been trying to figure out why they didn’t just pick her off from a distance while she was unaware, so maybe she knows something.” He sighed, taking a long drink. “Regardless, I’ll figure something out. Get everyone who might be a target together and maybe talk about training them up a bit, werewolf style. It’d probably ruin their summers, but if it means that they’ll be able to better defend themselves should those pendejos show up again, that’s all that matters.”

Carol leaned against the countertop heavily. “I suppose it’s all we can do, isn’t it?”

Pedro put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Hey, there’s no use in losing our heads about it right now, is there? Let’s talk about something else.”

She smiled back at him, appreciation clear on her face. “Yeah… We do have quite a lot to catch up on, don’t we?”

“That we do.”

—

Roxy woke to the sound of groaning at her back and a squeezing sensation around her waist. She carefully shifted herself around until she was face to face with her girlfriend, who was currently grimacing in pain. She realised with some sense of both relief and loss that she could no longer feel Sam’s phantom emotions swimming through her senses.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” she whispered.

“H… hurts…”

She was about to suggest Sam bring her wolf out like she had at the hospital, but quickly remembered that that wouldn’t be possible. “Would you like me to get you some painkillers?” she asked instead.

“Y-yes, please.” Sam replied weakly. She slowly opened her eyes to reveal that her left iris was still red, a fact that made Roxy’s gut churn with slight worry.

She gently kissed her forehead, tasting the salt from her sweat on her lips. “Alright, just stick tight, hun.”

Roxy groggily lifted herself out of the bed and made her way downstairs, following the smell of food into the kitchen. She was surprised to find Pedro, sitting at the counter and already digging into a plate of scrambled eggs while Carol cooked up more on the stove. She must have slept in later than she thought.

“Morning,” she greeted. Pedro waved a drowsy looking hand at her and Carol briefly turned away from the pan to return the pleasantry. “Um, Carol, do you have any painkillers anywhere? Sam’s hurting a bit.”

“Top shelf of the cupboard, sweetheart.” The older woman replied. Roxy quickly found what she was looking for and made to leave back for the bedroom, only to be stopped by Pedro calling to her.

“Hey, kid?” He started. Roxy turned to him. Upon closer inspection, he looked a lot more dishevelled than he had the night before, and she noted that he was still wearing the same clothes. Had he spent the night? “Could you do me a favour and call up that friend of yours? Uh, what was their name…?” He looked away slightly. Roxy could almost hear the gears grinding in his head.

“Leif?” Carol provided.

“Yes!” Pedro clapped his hands, then immediately winced as though the sound had hurt him somehow. “Could you call up Leif and ask them to come over?”

Roxy raised an eyebrow. “What do you need her for?”

“I want to get everyone who might be a target of the hunters in one place so we can get everybody up to speed and talk about where we should go from here. I suspect things may start to get worse after what happened last night. It would also be helpful to see if Sam knows anything else, once she’s more awake. There are some things that aren’t quite adding up for me.”

“Makes sense, I guess. I’ll send her a message.”

“Thanks,” he responded, slowly turning back to his plate and massaging his temple.

Noticing this, Roxy tentatively reached out. “Um, are you okay?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” he dismissed her with a wave.

“Oh, don’t worry about him, the baby. He’s just hungover from having two glasses of whiskey last night.” Carol teased with a laugh.

A patchy growl rumbled from Pedro’s throat as his face reddened slightly. “Shut up, pendeja. With the way you were pouring, it was more like six.”

“Still as much of a lightweight as you were in highschool, Pluma. Some things never change.” The redhead sang. Roxy watched the interaction with amusement. It was a side of Carol that she’d never seen before, but it was clear to see now where Ava had gotten her teasing attitude from.

She left them to their bickering, grabbing a cup and filling it with water before she went. Returning to the bedroom, she found Sam sitting up in the bed, looking despondent.

“You alright?” Roxy asked, offering the pills and water.

Sam took them gratefully, quickly swallowing them down. “You mean, ap-part from th-the hole in my s-s-side?” She attempted to smile, but failed miserably. “No, n-not really. S-still in a l-l-lot of p-pain, too.”

Roxy noticed that Sam’s hands were shaking, as if the wobble and stutter in her voice wasn’t enough of a tip-off towards her emotions. She slipped into the bed beside her and gently took her hands in an attempt to calm her. “Hey, what’s wrong? What’s eating you up right now?”

The blonde was silent for a few seconds, her face twitching and her mismatched eyes shining as tears built up along with her emotions. When she next spoke, her voice was barely even a whisper, as if she was scared to know the answer to her own question.

“H-how can you e-even s-s-stand to t-touch me r-right now?”

Roxy blinked. “Wh-what?”

Sam tore her hands away, instead tightly gripping her hair as she curled up, her voice breaking apart as the movement clearly caused her pain. “I-I’m a m-murderer. I k-killed people last n-night. It d-doesn’t matter i-i-if I d-didn’t mean to. I took lives. I’m j-j-just as b-bad as th-th-them. I d-des-serve this p-pain.”

Roxy’s heart ached. “Sam, no,” she chided gently. “You were defending yourself. They would have killed you and laughed about it later. You were doing what you needed to do. It was self-defence!”

“No it wasn’t!” the blonde all-but shouted. “They wanted me alive! If I had just gone with them, none of this would have happened!”

“Wh-wha… a-alive?!” Roxy responded. She cradled the werewolf’s face as gently as she could, desperate to get her point across. “Sam, if you went with them, they would have just killed you anyway, only it probably would’ve been after whatever fucked-up thing they want you for. I understand that you’re distressed about what you had to do, but please remember that you had no choice! I can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through right now, but you are not like them. The fact that you’re so torn up about this makes that clear. They wouldn’t have even batted an eyelid at killing you.

“You’re not a killer, Sam. You’re not a murderer. You’re just a sweet, too-caring-for-this-world girl who got caught up in a bad situation and did the best she could with the cards she’d been given. No one blames you for what happened, so please don’t blame yourself. I love you, Sam. I know you’re not the monster you think you are.”

Sam looked back at her silently, her eyes shaking as tears fell down her cheeks. Roxy watched as her expression broke apart and she started to sob. She pulled her into a hug and stroked through her hair as she cried. Sam had cried too much in the past few days. It was such a painful sound to hear.

“Th-thank you, Roxy… I-I needed t-to hear that. I l-love you too.” Sam muttered into her shoulder after a few minutes. They had shuffled back down into the bed as sitting up under her own power was beginning to irritate Sam’s injury.

“Of course, sweetie,” Roxy replied. “You should probably also tell Pedro about how they wanted you alive. He’s trying to figure out what they’re planning, I think.”

Sam grunted. “He’s s-still here, then?”

“Yeah, why?”

She let out a long sigh. “I just don’t understand why there are so many werewolves here. I-in town, I mean. This is supposed to be my family’s territory. There shouldn’t be any werewolves apart from us, but we’ve already seen three! What if there are more? I-I’m not gonna complain about Dr. Parker at least, but I just want to wrap my head around why. I thought territories were supposed to be sacred. You’re not supposed to break them. That’s what my parents t-told me.”

Roxy pulled her head back and kissed her on the cheekbone. “Maybe you’re just misremembering what your parents told you? It was a long time ago, right? Why don’t you ask Pedro? I’m sure he’d be more than willing to explain how it works.”

“I guess,” she mumbled despondently.

“Well, you don’t have to make up your mind right away. For now, why don’t we go downstairs and grab some breakfast. Carol’s cooking scrambled eggs!”

That managed to put a smile on Sam’s face. “Hm, alright.”

—

Leif walked down the street, clutching her umbrella tightly. The rain was coming down incessantly, drenching the bottoms of her legs even with the meagre protection afforded by the flimsy piece of fabric and metal that was currently trying its hardest to turn inside-out. She groaned internally. What could possibly be so important that she had to walk all the way to Sam's house in the middle of a storm? It almost felt like Roxy was being intentionally vague in her message, just telling her that there was 'someone there she needed to meet.' She could only assume that it was somewhat werewolf related and she was being cagey in case there were hunters reading her messages or something.

After what felt like way too long, Leif finally reached Sam's house. Once she was under the protection of the front porch, she shook the water from her umbrella and knocked on the door, maybe a little harder than was necessary. Could anyone blame her, though? It was hardly a nice day for a leisurely stroll and she was eager to get someplace warm and dry.

The door opened to reveal Roxy, looking uncharacteristically worn down and wearing what could only be Sam’s pyjamas, as they were far too big on her smaller frame. Leif was perfectly ready to get mildly angry that she had to literally weather the storm while Roxy was lounging about in PJs, but something about her friend’s face set her on edge. There was a pervading tiredness, a deep-seated worry in her eyes that Leif hadn’t seen since… Well, since Sam was hospitalised. A small bead of dread settled in the bottom of Leif’s stomach, but she put on her happy face and did her best to ignore it.

“Oh good, you’re here. C’mon inside.” Roxy said, stepping aside to allow Leif entrance.

“So, what’s the occasion?” she asked as she walked into the warmth. Sam’s house always had such a homely vibe to it.

“Uh-” Roxy started, before being interrupted by a familiar husky voice.

“Leify! Gimme a hug!”

Sam was lying on the couch, arms spread as wide as the smile on her face. Oddly enough, her left eye was red. Leif tried not to think too much about it. She didn’t really know much about werewolves, after all. Maybe that was just a normal thing?

“Hey, mutt.” Leif greeted, walking over and reciprocating the embrace. Upon closer inspection, Sam looked weirdly tired, and her hug wasn’t nearly as tight as it usually would be. “You alright? You’re looking a bit run-down there.”

The blonde’s bright expression immediately dropped. Something had definitely happened. She was about to ask about it when Roxy said something that made her heart stop.

“She was attacked last night. By hunters.”

Leif whirled to Roxy in alarm before turning back to Sam, giving her another once-over. Nothing immediately stuck out to her as wrong, but that wasn’t exactly reassuring given the werewolf’s clear exhaustion.

“Don’t worry, Leif. I-I’ll be okay after some rest.” Sam reassured her.

Leif backed up until she found an armchair and flopped into it. “Oh man, th-that’s… shit. I-is that why you called me here?”

Roxy hesitated. “Yes and no. There’s this other werewolf, Pedro, who helped us out last night. He wanted everyone who might be a target of the hunters here so that we can… try and figure out what to do, I guess? He thinks that we all might be in danger now that they’ve tried to come after Sam.”

Leif nodded shakily. “R-right. Where is he?” she asked.

“He stepped out to grab a change of clothes or something. He should be back soon, though.”

“O-okay.” She sat back down, looking over at Sam. “S-so, what actually happened? If you wanna share, that is.”

The blonde sighed. “Th-they ambushed me in the woods. One of them stabbed me with a silver knife, which blocked out my wolf, so I can’t really heal it. I-I-I’m okay now, though. Carol sewed me back together.” She laughed lightly at her own mediocre attempt at humour, though her half-assed smile didn’t last long. “I… uh, I m-managed to fight them off, so hopefully they take a bit to regroup before coming after m-me again.”

Leif could tell that Sam wasn’t sharing the full story, but she wasn’t going to pry. “Jeez, Sam. I’m glad you’re okay. That must have been awful.”

“It’s not what I would call fun, that’s for s-sure.” Sam grunted as she slowly pulled herself upright. “For now, can we change the subject? Let’s just watch some TV or something until Pedro gets back.”

“Yeah, good idea.”

—

Pedro opened the door of the Walkers’ house and stepped inside, feeling rejuvenated by the shower and change of clothes his apartment had provided for him. Sam, Roxy, and one other teenager whom he could only assume was Leif were sitting in the living room waiting for him. Sam seemed to be much more awake than she’d been when she stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast that morning, but she still retained that wary glint in her eye every time she looked at him.

He stepped over to where the newcomer was and introduced himself, holding out his hand for them to shake. “Hi, I’m Pedro. Would I be correct in assuming that you’re Leif?”

She took his hand and shook it firmly. “Yep, that’s me.”

“Have you been filled in on what’s happened?”

Leif nodded. “Y-yeah, Sam and Roxy gave me the, uh… the gist of things.”

Pedro nodded in kind, shifting an armchair around and taking a seat on it so that he could face all three head on. “Good. Now, first things first, let’s get this out of the way. I’m here because all three of you are in danger. You’ve all, in some way, had run-ins with hunters, and are thus potential targets to them, Sam especially. I’d already known that Roxy had encountered them in some capacity before, but, until now, I didn’t worry too much about it because it didn’t seem like they were going to act against her. However, after last night, I believe it’s time for priorities to change.

“Before we discuss any of that, however,” He turned to Sam and looked her in the eye. “What’s your problem with me, Sam?”

The girl in question startled a little. She averted her eyes. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

Pedro sighed. “I can see it in your eyes, kid. You’re wary of me. I get that you barely know me, but this isn’t going to work if there isn’t trust. I don’t know what I’ve done to put you on edge, but it’s clear that you have some sort of grievance against me, so let’s just get it all out in the open so we can move on, okay?”

He watched as she frowned and bit her lip, contemplating.

“Why are you here?” she asked firmly.

Pedro blinked. “I-I’m not sure I understa-”

“I-In Dewsbury! Th-this is meant to be Reed pack territory. There shouldn’t be any other werewolves here, not w-without consulting me, a-at least.”

It took a second for Pedro to parse her meaning, but when he did, he smiled softly. Her fundamental misunderstanding of werewolf culture was, in many ways, his own fault. He was the one who made the decision to leave her in the care of the Walkers and this was just that decision coming back to bite him.

“Fair question, I can see where you’re coming from, but it doesn’t actually work like that.”

“B-but my parents told me-”

He held up a hand to stop her. “Sam, you’ve got to understand that, having been raised by humans as you are, you have no idea how our culture works. Territories haven’t worked like that for centuries. Even the most traditionalist werewolves were forced to give up the practice almost a century ago for a number of reasons. Whatever your parents told you was probably just misinterpreted by your young mind and mixed in with whatever myths about us that humans have passed around.”

Sam, understandably, looked like her whole view of the world was collapsing. “B-but… why? I-I don’t understand.”

Pedro sighed. It was about time for her to learn about her own species anyway. “I’m no history expert, but I can give you a quick rundown, if you’d like?”

She hesitated, but only for a second. When she looked back to him, there was no wariness in her eyes, only burning curiosity. “I-if you wouldn’t mind, I-I’d like that. I d-don’t actually know much about us.”

“I’d expect not.” He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. It wasn’t hard to recall what he knew of their history. Given how dangerously small their population was, it was incredibly important that every werewolf knew at least a decent amount about their shared past, to ensure the information wasn’t lost, especially for those who worked with the Council like he did. Passing down the information for the next generation was just an extension of that duty.

“This might sound a little bit fantastical, but please, bear with me.” At the chorus of acknowledging nods from the teenagers across from him, he continued. “Basically, for reasons we don’t really understand, every werewolf is born with a certain amount of… for lack of a better word, magic. It’s what gives a werewolf all of their supernatural qualities: heightened senses, improved strength and agility, and, most obviously, shapeshifting. Over time, this magic has diluted, becoming less potent, and as such it isn’t capable of doing many things it used to be able to do.

“Now, an idea that you need to understand in order to grasp how this ‘magic’ worked, is the idea that every werewolf is connected to one another, almost like a giant web. Back when the magic was more concentrated and our population was greater, the power it gave us allowed us to amplify these innate connections to form meaningful pack bonds. A magically amplified werewolf pack would be closer than family. Some rumours say that they were even able to innately understand each other without even speaking. Of course, we still have the concept of packs today, but without the magic giving those connections strength, the end result is far less… satisfying.

“Back then, werewolves, for the most part, lived in tribes, separately from humans. The idea of pack territory was strongest back then, when a whole tribe would belong to the same pack. As the human population grew, it became more common for werewolves to live among them, and as such, territories became more inconvenient to keep than anything else, as it wasn’t always easy to find the pack head and ask for permission to live there. Nowadays, since our population is so low, most werewolves don’t even have a pack to form a territory with, outside of just packing with humans. Not that it would matter much with the fact that there aren’t anymore werewolf tribes, anyway.

“Now, mating bonds take the idea of a pack bond a step further. It’s said that werewolves who had marked each other would be able to literally feel one another's' emotions. The practice of marking is still around today, as you two are familiar with, but without that magic it’s more just to mark what’s ours more than anything else.”

Pedro was going to continue, but he stopped himself when he noticed Roxy holding up a hand as though this was a classroom or something. The idea made him chuckle a little. “Yes, Roxy?”

“Sorry, you said that people with a mark could feel each other’s emotions? I-I’m pretty sure that happened to me last night, every time Sam had a spasm. It’s the whole reason I knew something was wrong in the first place.”

Pedro watched as Sam turned to her, shock written on her face. “Wait, what? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Roxy hesitated. “I mean, you were pretty out of it, and I was a little preoccupied at the time, what with everything that happened.”

Come to think of it, Pedro did remember Carol mentioning something of the sort last night. That was certainly interesting. Could it be that Sam still has enough magic in her to make that sort of connection, even with a human? The fact that it was triggered by the silver spasms was strange, though. Perhaps whatever the hunters had used to amplify their silver had some sort of arcane source?

Pedro hummed, dragging the teens attention back to him. “Now, I’m really not sure about why that might have happened, but I do have one theory. The main cause of magic dilution was apparently werewolves reproducing with humans. The end result of that union would still be a werewolf, but the fact that one participant had no magic to give would mean that the resulting child would have a little less than their werewolf parent. The fact that Sam’s a direwolf is likely the reason that there was still enough magic in her system to cause some sort of actual magically enhanced mating bond between you two, most likely amplified by her spasms.”

Upon witnessing the blank faces in front of him, Pedro elaborated, realising that direwolf heritage was not, in fact, common human knowledge. “Direwolves don’t have any direct human ancestors, so the rate of dilution among them was much slower. When a direwolf reproduces with another direwolf - or just a regular werewolf - the result is a direwolf. However, when they reproduce with a human, the result is just a regular werewolf. The relative lack of human-induced dilution means that their magic diluted much slower, hence why Sam was still able to form that connection.”

Now Leif was the one sticking up her hand. “Sorry, I’m a little behind here. What is the difference between a werewolf and a direwolf?”

“The direwolves were the first werewolves. It’s not exactly known how or why we came about in the first place, but they were the first of us. Every single werewolf in the world can be traced back to a direwolf, somewhere along the line. We’re not exactly sure why, but they’re a lot stronger than regular werewolves. Usually bigger, too. You can tell them apart by their red eyes. There used to be a decent amount of them, but between the countless cullings of the 19th and 20th centuries and our massive drop in population, most direwolf families were either killed off or forced to give up their pride and reproduce with humans just to stay alive. Now, unless there’s another undocumented one somewhere, there’s only one direwolf family remaining. I don’t think I need to tell you which family that is.”

Every head in the room turned to Sam. The girl herself was taken aback, eyes wide and mouth agape. “You mean… I-I’m-”

“You, Samantha Reed, are the last direwolf.”

—

Brooke walked into her dad’s study, ready to tell him that they were out of milk, but when she found him hunched over his desk, cradling his head in his hands exasperatedly, she hesitated.

“Dad? Are you okay?”

He slowly turned to her, taking her in for a few seconds before looking away again. “I-it’s just work stuff, don’t worry too much.”

Despite his words, she couldn’t help but worry. It was a bad habit of hers. “What is it? Could I help?” She’d gone with him to work quite a lot, learning about how their processes worked so that she could take over from him once she got old enough, so maybe she’d be able to offer some input.

He hesitated. “I sent a team out on a hunt last night. None of them made it back.”

Brooke’s heart lurched. “Wait, not even-”

“No, not even Father Thompson, I’m sorry.”

Her eyes welled up. Father Thompson was like a grandpa to her, always looking after her when her dad had taken her to work because he was too busy to watch over her at home. Now one of those wretched werewolves had taken him from her, just like they’d taken her mother.

She forced her emotions back. To cry was to show weakness; not at all becoming of the future head of an outpost, even a small one like the one in Dewsbury.

After a few moments, Her dad’s eyes lit up as though he had an idea. “Brooke, do you know someone by the name of Samantha Reed? I believe she goes to your school?”

She didn’t really know where he was going with this, but she played along. “Yeah, she’s in my year.”

“Could you tell me anything about her?”

Brooke wracked her brains. “Well, she’s kinda weird, I guess, but I think she’s just neurodivergent or something. She’s super tall… so there’s that. I’ve been spending a bit of time with her lately just because she’s close with one of my other friends. Uhhh… Oh yeah, she’s dating Roxanne Kindley!”

Her dad raised an eyebrow. “You say that name like it means something to me.”

“She’s the one that Mr. Emmerich asked me to keep an eye on, remember?”

He leaned back. “Oh yeah, his little ‘pet project.’” A slight smile graced his features. “I might be able to work with that, actually.”

He suddenly turned back to her, eyes sharp. “Brooke, you need to be very careful around Samantha Reed.”

“What? Why?”

“She’s a werewolf. The same one that took out our hunting team, actually.”

Brooke felt all of the blood drain from her face. “Wh-what?”

“You can’t let her get any idea that you know, or she might come after you to keep her dark little secret. It’s very possible that this ‘Roxanne’ isn’t aware of the true nature of her… partner, either, or she is aware, and Samantha has brainwashed her out of her natural feelings of repulsion and fear. Either way, you can’t say anything to her.”

“Wh-what should I do then? She’s my friend, I can’t just leave her in that kind of danger!”

Her dad gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. All you need to do is see if you can get some kind of schedule from her. We’ll pick her up and see if we can’t undo the brainwashing that horrible creature has subjected her to. After that, I believe she might do quite well as one of us, don’t you think? Emmerich’s hunches are very rarely wrong.”

Brooke nodded, reaffirmed. “I’ll see what I can do, dad.”

“Thank you, Brooke. You’re an angel.”

She left the room, all sorts of emotions writhing around inside of her. This whole time, Sam had been lying to them, pretending to be this bright, bubbly girl while in reality she was nothing more than a violent monster. The thought filled her with rage. Roxy would be saved, and Sam would get what was coming to her. Brooke Harrison would make sure of it.