Sam sighed, watching her girlfriend’s sleeping form as she rested in the back of the van, the countryside speeding past outside the window. She was nestled up against Leif’s side, her head lying against the other girl’s shoulder, with her cat sleeping in her lap. Sam’s eyes gravitated to the nasty, hand-shaped bruise around her neck, now barely more than a faded yellow mark after almost a day of healing. Just looking at it made her feel sick, images of Roxy’s purple face flashing through her head, bloody and tear-soaked while that maniac strangled her. She’d been completely useless then, unable to do anything to stop him. If it hadn’t been for Damien…

“Hey, you feeling alright?” Drew asked from beside her.

She hesitated before answering. “Just… thinking about yesterday.”

Drew hummed. “Yeah. Me too.”

They both sat in silence for a moment before Drew spoke up again. “Last night was fun though, huh?” He nudged against her shoulder.

A small smile cracked her lips. “Yeah. Though, I could’ve done without the whole ‘sanding my face off’ thing.”

He smirked. “You’re a big girl, you can take it.” He went in for a hug to try and do it again, but she warded him off with a growl.

“You do that again, and I’ll bite your fingers off.”

They both stared at each other for a tense moment before bursting into giggles. She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “A brat,” she whispered. “Who would’ve thought?”

He hissed and elbowed her off of him. “Not another word. What Leif and I get up to in the bedroom is none of your business.”

She laughed and bumped against him again. “I’m just teasing.” She looped an arm around his and squeezed it like it was a pillow, craving physical touch but not wanting to disturb Roxy’s rest to get it.

Drew grumbled but otherwise didn’t protest. They’d been driving for a couple of hours at that point and were roughly halfway through Oregon. Their destination was a small airfield about an hour south of Fresno, so they still had a decent bit of travel in front of them. There was a bit of debate on whether or not they should just rotate drivers and do the whole trip in one go, or if they should stop at night for food and rest. Roxy was the only one who didn’t have her licence, so it wasn’t like there was a shortage of drivers, but food was an issue. They only had what they could pick up from gas stations along the way, which amounted to little more than insubstantial snack foods and questionable pre-packaged sandwiches, not nearly enough to feed a group of five five werewolves and two humans. Still, time was of the essence, and if they had to go hungry for a couple hours to make it before Chris found out where they were going, they could deal with it. They knew better than to underestimate him after he tracked them down in Seattle.

That still posed the question of what they were going to eat on the flight, though. Sam didn’t know where exactly in Australia they were going, but she knew the flight was going to be long, no doubt with a few stops for refuelling along the way. She was not looking forward to it. The idea of flying freaked her out to the point where she would’ve been tempted to not even go on this little trip had her presence not been specifically requested. Being sealed into a metal tube thousands of feet in the air, where even the slightest mishap could result in fiery death that she had absolutely no control over? No thank you! She’d prefer to be killed by something she at least had a chance of punching her way out of.

“Do you think Chris will find us?” Drew asked quietly, barely louder than a whisper. Sam noticed a distinct hint of anxiety permeating his scent. “I mean, there shouldn’t be any way for him to find out where we’re going once we get in the air, right? Do the hunters even have a presence in Australia?”

Sam remembered the story Clarissa had told them when the two of them first met, about how she’d gotten the scar across her stomach. “I think they do. Clarissa was attacked by them while she was there in the past.”

Drew hummed worriedly. “Still though, they have no way of knowing that’s our destination. We didn’t tell any of Roxy’s family members. The only ones that know are us and the Council. They’d… they’d have to be on high alert at every single airport in the world, and there’s no way they have that much reach. We’ll… He won’t be able to find us. We’ll be okay.”

It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than anyone else. “Hopefully, Roxy ripping half of his face off was enough to discourage him from trying again,” Sam said. She knew it wouldn’t be, but hopefully the white lie would help Drew calm down a little. Chris seemed far too set on capturing them to be turned off by a little injury. If anything, it would make him try harder. He already hated Roxy enough to single her out during the fight even before she gouged his eye out. The permanent disability would only spur him on.

Her encouragement seemed to have the desired effect and Drew’s heart rate slowed. “Hm, yeah. Hopefully.”

Roxy whimpered a little in her sleep, her face scrunching up. Sam’s heart twinged.

“Hey Leif, could you…?” She gestured to Roxy, hopefully getting her point across.

Leif looked at her and then glanced down at Roxy, seeing her distressed expression. “Oh, yeah. Sure.” She looped an arm over Roxy’s shoulders and squeezed her close. Roxy’s expression relaxed a little, but her shoulders were still tense. If she was having a nightmare, there wasn’t really much they could do, but hopefully the physical touch would help her through the worst of it.

They sat in silence for a little while, listening to the sounds of the engine and Pedro’s songs playing from the radio up the front. It was relaxing, and Sam would’ve fallen asleep right there were it not for the fact that the bumpy ride was making her mildly nauseous. It turned out she didn’t exactly do super well on long car rides when she wasn’t the one behind the wheel. Maybe she should offer herself up as the next driver.

It was about half an hour later when Roxy finally woke up, startling herself awake and looking around to get her bearings. Sam gave her an encouraging smile, still feeling the residual fear through her mark from whatever nightmare she’d been having, and Roxy returned it with a shaky one of her own. It seemed a little like Roxy was trying not to cry, from the way she was biting down on her bottom lip and balling her hands into fists. Sam’s chest tightened in worry, but she didn’t bring it up just yet, knowing that Roxy wouldn’t appreciate it if she called her out in front of everyone. They pulled into a gas station and everyone got up to stretch their legs and buy something to eat. Sam and Roxy stayed back for a little bit, catching up on some much needed alone time.

“You feeling okay?” Sam asked, slipping an arm around her shoulders.

Roxy sighed, but smiled up at her. “Just the usual, y’know? Nothing I’m not used to.”

Sam hummed, reaching out to stroke along her jaw. Roxy leaned into it, gratefully soaking up the affection. “I’m here if you need me.”

Roxy reached up and placed a hand on her cheek. “I know.”

They both leaned in and shared a soft, warm kiss, filling Sam’s stomach with butterflies. Roxy smiled against her lips before pulling back, trailing a finger down her face and around to gently hold her chin. “You know… The others will probably be in there for at least another couple minutes. We never really got to take advantage of our alone time yesterday…” She glanced up with a hopeful look.

Sam grinned, leaning back down for another, deeper kiss. Mr. Slinky, sensing the horny in the air, quickly departed from Roxy’s lap, curling up under the passenger seat instead. Sam ignored him, slipping her tongue between Roxy’s lips for a fleeting moment before pulling back, relishing in the way Roxy unconsciously chased her mouth. The shorter girl pouted, and Sam booped her on the nose with a finger. “Sorry, but I’d rather not get worked up only to be interrupted again.”

Roxy scoffed in semi-mock outrage. “Then why did you tease me like that?!”

Sam smirked. “Because it’s fun! Also, I just wanted to kiss you again.”

Roxy grumbled and got up, begrudgingly grabbing Sam’s hand and pulling her out of the van, towards the gas station. Despite her apparent grumpiness (that Sam could tell was just for show) she kept hold of Sam’s hand the whole time they perused the shelves, leaning against her needily whenever they stopped to check something out. They grabbed a bag of off-brand corn chips and a four-pack of Monster Energy for the road before retreating back to the van, where Leif and Drew were waiting, having already finished their shopping.

Leif grimaced as Roxy cracked open a can of the strange-smelling drink. “Eugh, how do you stomach that stuff? The original flavour tastes like jet fuel.”

Roxy shrugged. “Eh, the other flavours are too sweet for me. Besides, I’ve had enough sleep for today. Time to caffeinate up!”

“Oh goodie, now that you’re awake you can enjoy the lovely scenery of bum-fuck nowhere, Oregon,” Leif deadpanned.

“I think it’s nice,” Drew said. “It’s not that different from Washington, just lots of trees and forests.”

Leif sighed. “I dunno, I was just hoping for something new by now. I’ve never been out of state before, it’s exciting, but so far, I’ve gotta say, not that impressed.”

“Well duh, we haven’t even left the pacific northwest yet. California has a lot more desert-y regions once you go a little more south.”

She reached up and ruffled his hair. “Quit it with the sass, tough guy.”

He scoffed. “That’s rich coming from you.” Despite his words, there was a fond smile on his face as he looked at her.

She smiled back. “I guess you must’ve gotten it from somewhere.” She leaned up and they shared a quick kiss.

“Aww,” Sam cooed. “You guys are so cute.”

Leif flipped her off. “I’m not cute, I’m cool. Drew is cute, though, I’ll admit it.”

“No comment,” he muttered.

The others returned to the van, having grabbed all the supplies they needed, and they set off again. This time, Roxy was firmly attached to Sam’s side, hugging her arm possessively. Her nightmare must have shaken her more than she originally let on. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time, to be fair. Sam worried a little for the length of their journey, if Roxy would have to go that long without getting any privacy to let her emotions out. It wouldn’t be too bad for her around the pack, Sam knew, but Roxy generally preferred to have her little cries with as little company as possible. Hopefully the physical touch would help her through.

Another few hours passed slowly, and eventually they crossed the border into California. It was about mid-afternoon, and they still had a good seven hours of driving in front of them before they reached their destination. Having decided resolutely that stopping for the night would be a waste of time, they settled in for the long haul. Six hours of almost non-stop driving had done a number on Sam’s ass, and she wasn’t looking forward to the rest of it. She had earned herself a spot in the driver's seat in a few hours, but that would only be a marginal improvement, and she’d still have to wait for it anyway. She was just grateful that Pedro’s driving hours had been cut short on account of him getting almost gutted yesterday. Healing an injury like that took a lot of energy, even if most of the healing was already done, and she was more than happy to pick up his slack behind the wheel to alleviate her nausea, however briefly. She’d already ended up forcing them to pull over so she could hurl her guts out on the side of the road once, and she really didn’t want it to come to that again.

It was worth it, though, at the very least for the peace of mind that they well and truly had a head start on Chris. She knew it would only be a matter of time with the hunters’ resources before he figured out where they were going, but they were making good time, and there was no way he could follow them efficiently without taking some time to heal from his injuries first as well. She took a calming breath. He wouldn’t be a danger to them for very much longer.

They were gonna be okay.

—

Chris groaned, shifting slightly and wincing as his shoulder moved and sent pain shooting through his arm. The over-the-counter painkillers he’d been able to get his hands on really weren’t effective enough for how well-and-truly beat-up his body was right now. What was left of his eye was throbbing relentlessly, and every time he tried to stand up he was struck with a wave of nausea and dizziness that sent him right back to the lumpy motel bed he was lying in. He knew he just needed to stop and rest for a while, but he didn’t want to lose the direwolves’ trail. While his team was working on tracking them down, he wasn’t the type to just sit idly by while the people who trusted him put their lives on the line to help achieve his goals. It was killing him that he wasn’t able to contribute more to the search.

He sighed, blindly grabbing the remote and switching on the TV, eager for any semblance of a distraction. What he wasn’t expecting to see was an image of his own face in a news report; a still frame from security footage from that Asian minimart he visited while tracking the direwolves. The newscaster said that police were searching for him, seeking him out for ‘questioning’ in regards to an ongoing investigation. Yeah right. This state was filled with werewolf sympathisers; the fact that there was no news about the slaughter of his men made that clear enough. None of the werewolves had even been killed, yet he was the one they were looking for? It was bullshit. He was the one trying to defend humanity from those things, but he supposed the good guys always were the underdogs. He would handle this persecution with grace, and carry on with his mission.

Thoroughly disillusioned with the news, he switched the channel, searching for something to watch, ideally fictional. He didn’t want to think about the sad state of affairs in the real world right now. He flipped through channel after channel, waiting for something to grab his eye, until something finally did. It only ended up making him feel ten times worse.

It was a rerun of a crime show that he and Damien had binged together, early on in their relationship. He used to love it, but now it only left a bad taste in his mouth as images of his ex’s face flashed through his head, a painful reminder of what he’d given up for the sake of his mission. Maybe if he hadn’t made that call, he would be cuddled up with Damien on the couch right now, eating pizza and drinking beer while they watched some other asinine show. Instead, he was in a motel room, alone, nursing injuries that Damien and his daughter had given him.

He grit his teeth and forced those memories to the back of his mind, where they’d hopefully stay. None of it mattered now. The deed was done, and there was no going back. Damien was a werewolf, anyway, so what was there to even mourn? He was an evil, hateful creature. He was a violent killer. A wild beast, who needed to be put down before he hurt someone. A horrible…

Nope. Try as he might, he just couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t reconcile the image of Damien he had in his head; the timid, caring, nervous wreck of a man, with what he knew a werewolf to be. Damien… just wasn’t like that. Yeah, he’d shot him, which came as quite a shock to Chris, even after the whole ‘biting half of his cheek off’ thing, but… he didn’t just do it for no reason. In both situations, he was protecting his daughter. Chris would admit he could understand.

Speaking of the little devil-spawn, on the other hand. Clearly, Roxanne got most of her personality from her mother, because it was very easy to reconcile his mental image of her with that of a werewolf, even without her glowing amber eyes or the claws that slashed his face to ribbons. She was violent and headstrong and wild, through and through; pretty much the textbook definition of a werewolf. He knew all about her escapades, from the fights she’d been in at school to the men she’d cut down during her escape from the outpost. She was a born killer, without a shred of remorse for her actions. Sure, maybe her torture was a valid excuse - anyone who’d been subjected to the things he saw in that footage was bound to be a little fucked up - but still. She’d been just as violent and erratic before her kidnapping as after, she just had the mental fortitude to not kill or mutilate anyone who upset her yet. It was a close thing, though. The way she ruthlessly beat on one of her classmates before breaking her arm in that streetfight made that very clear.

Chris let out a sigh. If not for that girl, they could’ve been happy. He just wished Damien could see that. He just wished… for a second chance, honestly. A chance to prove himself. To show Damien how corrupted his daughter had become by the company she kept. It would be a difficult pill for him to swallow, he knew, but… It was the only way they could be happy again. Damien’s blood didn’t make him a bad person, he realised that now, but if he stayed on this path with those wolves, he was afraid that he might fall into the darkness anyway, just like his daughter. Chris only hoped he could reach him in time to stop it.

…fists colliding with a sobbing face, over and over, blood pouring from a broken nose and split lips.

…“Do you really think you can shoot me? Do you really think you have it in you? Because I don’t. I know you, Damien. You’re weak. You’re scared. You’re a pathetic little man with a small dick who doesn’t have the gut-”

Chris yelled and threw the TV remote at the screen, smashing it. He knew he’d already fucked up, he didn’t need his stupid brain reminding him of exactly how. He could only hope that Damien would forgive him for his outbursts someday, should they manage to reconcile.

There was a knock on the door; two taps, a pause, and three taps. One of his soldiers, in that case. He dragged himself out of the bed with a groan, leaning against the wall until the room stopped spinning and his head stopped pounding. He gingerly made his way to the door and pulled it open, greeted by the sight of his second-in-command, a young woman who he’d been working with since early on in his career. She saluted. “Sir!”

He leaned against the doorframe, far too exhausted to care about appearances, especially with someone he was so familiar with. “Give me some good news, Watson?”

“The van that the wolves are travelling in was just sighted crossing the border from Oregon to California. Based on their route, we believe they’re heading further south, though we haven’t pinpointed an exact destination yet.”

Chris hummed, trying to wrack his brains through the thick fog of pain. “Alright. We should get moving if we want a chance of catching up. Have the guys check out any non-commercial and non-military airfields in California. They know better than to take a commercial airliner with us looking for them, but their goal is still overseas, so I think it’s likely that they’ve sourced an alternative.”

Watson saluted. “Yes, sir! Would you like help packing your bags?”

He waved her off with his good arm. “I barely unpacked in the first place. I would appreciate it if you carried them for me though, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Of course, sir,” she replied without hesitation. He sighed as she passed him, entering the room. Watson was originally a street-hire, like Roxanne. They never ended up being high-ranking members of the Sons, on account of all the ‘obedience training.’ Chris suspected it was difficult for them to even think for themselves, after so much conditioning to get them to listen to commands without question. Usually he would feel bad about taking advantage of Watson’s obedience for such a menial task, but as it was, he was pretty much unable to carry his things himself, so he sucked it up. Besides, he and Watson had a rapport, anyway. It wasn’t like ordering around a random servant. He’d known her since she was in training. They were friends.

His mind travelled to that security footage from the Dewsbury outpost. He remembered the way that Emmerich had come onto Roxanne, convinced that she would reciprocate, only for her to smash his head in. He fooled himself into thinking that her fear-driven obedience was actually trust, and fondness. But… that was different. Emmerich was a sadistic maniac who had no idea how to actually condition a trainee. He was just torturing her to get his rocks off, not putting any effort into actually building a bond and making the trainee want to listen to their superiors. It was different with Watson. Chris hadn’t been the one to condition her, but he was the one to train her squad, teach her how to fight and how to hold herself. Her conditioner actually knew what he was doing. Watson wanted to fight for the Sons.

“Sir? Are you okay?”

He snapped out of his thoughts and turned to her, where she was carrying all of his bags like they weighed nothing. His eyes zoned in on the ugly scar on her cheek, where her conditioner had fumbled with the whip while purifying her, taking a chunk out of her face. It must have been painful. It… must have scared her.

“Sir?”

He shook his head. “I’m fine, Watson. Thank you for your concern, but I’m okay. Let’s get moving.”

They made their way through the hall and down the stairs, stopping at the front desk to check out.

“That was… room five?” The clerk asked, barely paying attention, eyes glued to a TV screen hanging above the counter.

“Yes,” Chris replied, placing his payment on the counter.

The man grunted, looking down to count the money. Once he was done he looked up, and was seemingly about to say something, but he paused when he saw Chris’s face. His eyes narrowed. Chris clenched his fist.

“Hey… Ain’t you that guy from that news report?”

Chris let out a long-suffering sigh. “Watson, would you mind?”

“Yes, sir.”

She pulled a silenced pistol out of her coat and aimed it at the man, pulling the trigger without a second thought. A red spray burst out the back of his head, splattering the wall behind him with viscera. Not wanting to linger any longer, the two of them left the building, heading for their car. They had some wolves to hunt.

—

It was past midnight by the time they finally arrived. The airfield sat quiet on the outskirts of a small desert town, barely even a hamlet, really. Pedro said that the flight needed time to be set up, so they would be leaving in the morning, staying overnight at a nearby motel. As was the American tradition, they grabbed a bleary-eyed dinner at the sole McDonalds in town before settling into their rooms and going to sleep.

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Only, Roxy couldn’t sleep. Try as she might, with Sam half flopped over her torso and drooling on her shoulder, she was wide awake, staring up at the dark ceiling with her heart thrumming away in her chest and an awful anxiety creeping up the back of her neck. Whether it was her earlier over-indulgence in energy drinks or the fear of facing her dreams again, she didn’t know. The night was peaceful, the sound of insects chirping outside combined with the hum of the motel’s neon sign to create a calming white noise that ordinarily would have lulled Roxy straight to sleep, had it not been for the extenuating circumstances.

She let out a sigh, giving up on sleep altogether. It didn’t really matter in the end anyway, there’d be more than enough time for it on the flight. She wiggled her way out from underneath Sam’s arm and stood up with a stretch before walking over to the door, stepping out onto the balcony walk-way.

It was pleasant outside, warm, with a slight breeze that carried a familiar scent on it. She looked to her right and saw Drew, leaning on the railing with his head hanging, one hand covering his face. His shoulders were hitching up and down silently. Her heart clenched in her chest and she walked up to him, nudging him with a shoulder before settling on the railing next to him to look out over the desert.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Can’t sleep?”

He took a while to reply, collecting himself and wiping his eyes. “No,” he sniffled.

“Me neither. You okay?”

He gripped the railing tightly and shook his head, not meeting her eyes.

She sighed. “Me neither.”

“You’re not wearing pants,” he muttered, gazing straight ahead.

She looked down at herself, only dressed in her underwear and a tank top. “Huh, oops.” She looked back up and shrugged. “It’s fine. The breeze is nice.”

That actually managed to draw a chuckle out of him, as small as it was. She smiled at the sound, nudging against him again.

“You wanna talk about it?”

He paused, letting out a long sigh. “I…” he tried, the words catching in his throat. “How… How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Act… so fine, after… after what happened at your grandma’s house.”

“I’m not fine. I’m just… used to it, I guess. Being scared. It’s kinda my natural state at this point.” She cracked a smile, hoping the joke would lighten things up a little. It did not.

“But… How can you be so fine with… with k-” The word cut off, like he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He took a breath and tried again. “With killing people? How do you… do it so easily?”

She took some time to consider his question. In truth, it was never something she tried to spend too much time thinking about. While she was recovering from her kidnapping, any memory of Emmerich was to be avoided at all cost, even the one where he lay dead on the ground beneath her. She didn’t like thinking about the guards she cut down in her escape, so she just didn’t. Eventually, it just sank to the back of her mind, never pulled to the surface again. She killed them because she needed to. Because if she didn’t, she’d be the one who was dead. It was survival of the fittest, the basest instincts in her brain shutting off any thoughts of ethics or morality, because they had no place in the conversation. It was kill or be killed, nothing more. The hunters at her phwa’s house wanted to take away what she held dear, and she wasn’t going to let that happen. Their lives didn’t come into consideration, because they just didn’t matter to her.

“I just… don’t think about it. I kill them, or they kill me. If I stop and hesitate in the middle of a fight to worry about the ethics of it, I’m just gonna get myself hurt. It’s how it’s always been for me. Just one of those… necessary evils, I guess.”

Drew took a while to reply, clearly digesting her words. “I… Before it happened, I always thought, ‘I can do it if it comes down to it. The hunters are a threat and I’ll… I’ll k-kill them if it means protecting my friends.’ But… Now that it’s actually happened, now that I actually have blood on my hands, I just… Can’t stop thinking about it. Those… those men had lives, families, probably. And I… I took that from them. Who says I get to be the judge, jury, and executioner just because it’s in self-defence?”

She hummed. “They don’t have families.”

He looked at her. “Wh-what? How could you know?”

“Because I almost became one of them. Either they’re like me, kidnapped and brainwashed, and they lost their family a long time ago, or they willingly chose to participate in the genocide of an innocent people, and at that point, what they want doesn’t matter.”

He didn’t reply, just giving her this… look. She clenched her fists and sighed.

“There’s probably something wrong with me,” she admitted. “It’s just never really bothered me. My first kill was… the man who tortured me. I killed three other guards during my escape, and since then, I don’t think I’ve felt a single shred of guilt over it. Scared of the repercussions? Yeah. A little shaken up by what I did? Sure, but not once did I ever think I’d done something wrong. The world is a better place without those men in it.”

He was still just looking at her, this… expression of pity on his face. He was looking at her like she was broken. She turned away, humiliation burning behind her eyes and causing her voice to shake. “Sorry. Maybe I’m not the best person to talk about this with. Forget I said anything.”

“Roxy, I…”

She tensed, shoulders rising, waiting for the lecture she knew was coming, for him to tell her that she was a heartless freak, or a psychopath, or any number of things that she’d already thought about herself for this in the past. There was a reason she’d never told anyone before.

“No, I… I think you’re right, actually.”

She turned back to him, surprise etching across her features, a foolish hope growing in her chest. He was frowning and staring at the ground, deep in thought.

“I… I could never even begin to understand what you went through when you were kidnapped, so of course you would have a unique perspective about it, but… but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It’s… just a shitty situation, with no good outcomes. The hunters will never see us as people. They won’t hesitate to kill us if they have the chance. And the only way to beat them head on… Is to be like them. If we see them as people, we hesitate. We can’t hesitate, especially not us, when the fate of our entire species rests on our backs. It’s… it’s awful, it doesn’t feel good. But, like you said. It’s… a necessary evil if we want to fight back. There’s no negotiating with them. This… is the only way.

“It just… hurts. I want to see the good in people, in everybody. I don’t like believing that they’re beyond help. And.. the sucky thing is that they’re probably not. If we had the time, and the space, we could probably work with them to sort out their prejudices. But, we just don’t have the time. We can’t… strike up a fucking conversation with a sword swinging at our head. I don’t think it’s wrong that you feel the way you do, that the world is a better place without them. After what you’ve been through, I can’t take that away from you. I wish I could think like that, this would be so much easier if I could, but… that’s just not how I’m built, I guess.” He sighed, brushing his hand through his hair. “I’m not even sure what I’m saying anymore. This shit just sucks.”

He looked at her, and this time his expression held nothing but warmth. “I know what you were thinking earlier. You were worried I would think you were crazy, but I don’t. I think you’re just someone who’s been dealt a shit hand and is processing it as best she can. You’re not wrong for feeling how you feel about it. There’s just… no right answer here. All I can say for certain is… You’re my friend, Roxy. You’re my friend, and I love you to bits.”

Roxy wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there for, watching him with silent tears running down her face as relief steadily filled her heart, but at that moment it all just came crashing to the surface, spilling out of her in heaving sobs as his words registered. She fell into his arms and he held her, stroking her back as she hiccuped into his shoulder. She wanted to say it back, tell him that she loved him too, but trying to do anything but cry incoherently was pointless. She was sure he got the message, all the same. Being in a pack was nice like that.

—

“What’s up with you two? Didn’t get enough sleep?”

Roxy and Drew shared a tired glance in response to Clarissa’s question. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, probably not much better than her own after their late-night buddy cry sesh. She shrugged, picking up her breakfast muffin and taking a bite. “Something like that.”

“We can just sleep on the plane anyway,” Drew said. “Speaking of which, what’s the plan, bossman?”

Pedro glanced out the window of the McDonalds, across the road at the airfield. “Well, they should have the plane all set up and fuelled by now, if nothing’s gone wrong. I guess we just grab our stuff and go over there?”

“Sounds good to me,” Leif said, mildly distracted by the weirdly intense game of footsie she was playing with Sam under the table.

“What about the cat?” Damien asked. “Are we just bringing him in the cabin with us?”

“I’ll give Jim a call, ask him what’s up,” Clarissa replied. “He probably won’t mind. I don’t even think it’s his plane, we’re just renting it with the Council’s money.”

“What kind of plane is it?” Roxy asked.

Clarissa just shrugged. “Dunno. Guess we’ll find out soon though.”

Leif suddenly howled in pain and doubled over, slamming her head on the table in the process. “Fuck, Sam!”

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m sorry! It was an accident! I’m sorry!”

“What? What happened?” Drew asked.

“She just kicked me in the nuts!”

“It was an accident!”

“Oh my god,” Roxy muttered, covering her grin with a hand. Sam turned to her, looking on the verge of tears.

“I didn’t mean to!”

Leif forced herself to sit up straight, clearly still in a lot of pain. “It’s- it’s fine. I’m fine. I’m okay. Didn’t need those balls anyway. Free bottom surgery.”

Sam let out a guilty whine. Clarissa just shook her head in amusement. “I sure hope there’s some ice on the plane, otherwise that’s gonna hurt something nasty.”

“It already does hurt something nasty!” Leif yelled.

“It’s a twenty hour flight, I’m sure there will be,” Pedro said.

“Twenty hours?!” Sam cried in dismay.

“A little over twenty four, actually, not counting stopovers.”

Roxy was pretty sure she witnessed Sam’s actual soul leaving her body in response to that.

—

“It’s okay, Sam. It’s gonna be fine,” Roxy said, gently stroking her thumb across Sam’s hand, even as she was squeezing it so hard it felt like her bones were being crushed.

The engines started up and Sam yelped, squeezing her eyes shut and praying under her breath.

“If it would make you feel better, Sam, I’m sure Jim wouldn’t mind if you shifted once we get up in the air,” Clarissa said from her seat across from them.

Sam nodded, but still kept her eyes screwed tightly shut. “Okay. okay, I’ll do that.”

They’d all finally piled onto the plane after finishing breakfast - an actual private jet, to the shock of everyone present - and were getting ready for takeoff. Once they’d finished their ascent they would be allowed to move around the cabin at their leisure to indulge in any of the amenities that the plane offered, since there were no staff other than the pilot and co-pilot to take care of them, so there shouldn’t be any issue with Sam shifting and staying in the aisle to ease her anxiety.

“I never would have guessed you were such a nervous flyer,” Roxy observed. She would’ve found it funny were it not for the fact that Sam’s anxiety was leaking over to her through the mark, and thus making this whole takeoff experience very unpleasant.

There was a jolt, and they started moving. Sam all but sobbed in response. Roxy did her best to comfort her as the plane took off and before long, they were cruising along through the air. The very second that the seatbelt light turned off, Sam practically threw herself out of her seat and stripped down right then and there, shifting into her wolf form and settling into the ignorant bliss of her animal brain. Her wolf brain had no reason to be scared of the plane crashing, it would likely barely even comprehend that they were flying in the first place. She was still unsettled by the loud droning of the engines and the slight turbulence as they flew, though, so she crawled back over to Roxy and sat with her head in her lap for comfort, whining a little every time the plane would jostle.

A few hours went by slowly and eventually Sam was lulled to sleep, her head dropping from Roxy’s lap onto the floor with a heavy thunk. She was dead to the world though, so worn out by all her freaking out that not even slamming her head onto the carpet was enough to wake her up. It was more than a little funny. After a little while, Mr. Slinky came slinking up from where he’d been hiding at the back of the cabin, climbing on top of Sam’s sleeping form and settling down into her fur, his one front paw kneading as he purred up a storm.

“Hey Roxy,” Clarissa said, grabbing Roxy's attention away from her two furry idiots. “I've been meaning to ask, what's your cat's name?”

“Mr. Slinky,” she responded.

Clarissa gave her a curious look. “Why'd you name him that?”

Roxy shrugged. “I'm pretty sure I was off my head on painkillers at the time. It just came to me.”

“If his last name is Slinky, what's his first name?”

“No, his first name is Mr. Slinky”

“What's his last name then?”

“Thura, obviously.”

“Hmm.” Clarissa frowned. “I think we should give him a proper first name. Like, something Slinky Thura. Something like Greg.”

Roxy scoffed. “He is not a Greg.”

“Alright, Mrs. Smarty-pants, you give him a name.”

Roxy hesitated, observing the little ball of black fur. “Stinky. Stinky Slinky Thura.” She nodded to herself. The name was perfect.

Clarissa sighed. “God, I hope you never have kids.”

—

They touched down on the tarmac for the final time in the pouring rain, and honestly, Roxy had to give Sam credit. The first time they’d touched down in Sydney for a refuelling, Sam - who had shifted back by that point - was a blubbering mess; the jolt from when their wheels had touched down practically sent her into a panic attack. The attack was worsened when she realised that no, this wasn’t their destination, and they still had another five odd hours of flying ahead of them once the refuelling was done. The second time, when they finally landed for good in Perth, Sam handled it much better, having known what to expect ahead of time. She barely even yelped!

They’d landed in another private airfield a while away from the city itself, where a car would apparently arrive to pick them up and take them to… wherever it was they were going, presumably either a hotel or straight to the Council. Roxy could only assume it would be another van, as she wasn’t sure how they’d fit all seven of them in otherwise.

It was the middle of the night by the time they finally got off the plane, stepping out from the warm, heated interior into the surprisingly frigid and rainy weather. Not eager to get soaked, the group ran across the tarmac and into the cover of a nearby alcove at the control building, Sam carrying Mr. Slinky in her arms as she did so. Roxy shivered as a cold wind blew through, hugging herself and seriously regretting not packing some warmer clothes. “It’s not exactly the ‘warm and sunny’ Australia that I was expecting, I’ve gotta say.”

Pedro raised an eyebrow at her, clearly having expected this from the parka he was wearing. “Well, it is the middle of Winter here. Did none of you pack for the cold?”

Pedro shook his head in exasperation at the chorus of “no”s from the four teens, while Clarissa laughed at them. Roxy could take solace in the fact that her dad was in the same boat as them at the very least, not having really had a chance to pack at all aside from buying a few sets of clothing and a suitcase while they were in Seattle.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for their ride to arrive - another van, like Roxy had predicted - and they all quickly piled in while some unfortunate workers transferred their luggage from the plane to the trunk. The man in the driver’s seat turned around and greeted them.

“Hey there,” he said, holding out his hand for them to shake. “My name’s Matthew, and I’ll be your driver for today. Or, well, tonight.” He chuckled, easy-going and good natured. Unsurprisingly, he had a noticeable Australian accent. “The Council is looking forward to meeting all of you in person, but there’s no real rush at the moment, so if you’d all prefer to head to a hotel and rest up, I can take you there. I should point out that the Council has organised living quarters for you all within their property, so there is that to consider as well.”

After introductions were done, they had a quick discussion and settled on just heading to the Council hideout straight away. They’d done more than enough sleeping on the plane, and were more than ready to find out what this whole thing was about. Once again they settled in for another two hours of driving, heading from the airfield out in the sticks, through a surprising amount of suburbia, and into the heart of the city. Roxy thought they were driving on the wrong side of the road at first and was about to raise a complaint until she remembered hearing that they drove on the left side in Australia. Everything was so different already.

The drive was pretty uneventful, mostly spent staring out the window at passing houses through the rain. Roxy was tempted to ask what the Council wanted with them, but ended up not bothering, considering they would find out soon anyway. Eventually, they pulled into a parking garage, and Matthew told them they were here. They stepped out of the van - leaving their luggage for someone else to collect, at Matthew’s insistence - and followed him to the building next door, seemingly a regular apartment complex. Matthew explained that the Council owned the entire building, and that it was populated entirely by their employees. There was already an apartment set aside for them to stay in for as long as the Council needed them, apparently. That wasn’t their destination tonight, though. Instead, they all got into an elevator that took them down below the surface, where the ‘serious business’ took place, according to Matthew’s slightly colourful explanation.

Matthew spent the ride explaining that only the Oceanian Council Representative was present at the moment - due to the dangers of having all of the Council members in the same place at once - but Roxy was far too distracted to pay attention. There was something about being underground that just felt… different than being on the surface. Something about the way that sound reverberated through the walls around them, something about the pressure in the air, just made it feel wrong. It wasn’t something that most of her group would really pick up on, Roxy guessed, but to her, the difference was night and day, and it made her skin crawl. It was too similar to a certain other underground hideout she spent a lot of time at, and those were not good memories, as hazy as they had become over the past year. By the time the elevator dinged and the doors opened, she was well and truly on edge, eyes scanning the hallway they stepped into, searching for a threat.

If she hadn’t been so hypervigilant at the time, she might not have even noticed the girl in the lab coat that passed by them, a little too eager to get out of their way. She might not have noticed the way the girl’s eyes flitted up from the floor and met her own, before quickly looking away again. Had she been a little less high-strung at the time, she might have seen the girl for who she was; a victim of the hunters’ brainwashing who had tried her best to make up for a horrible mistake, instead of just seeing the face of her father; the man who organised her kidnapping, cut off her finger, and watched on as she screamed from the torture he ordered.

“Hey, Brooke! Come meet our guests!” Matthew called as she tried to slip past, so painfully unaware that they were already more than acquainted.

The girl froze with her back facing them, and Roxy felt as each of her packmates went into high alert one by one as they no doubt finally placed where they recognised that scent from. Even Drew, who had never met Brooke, could sense the tension in the air and was preparing for a fight. The ex-hunter slowly turned to face them, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

“Hey, guys,” she muttered, not meeting any of their eyes. “Been a little while, huh?”

Had she been a little less high-strung, had things been even a little bit different, had the very air of this underground hallway not been putting her on edge, maybe Roxy would have reacted a bit better than she did. But that wasn’t what happened.

Roxy walked up and punched Brooke across the face.

—

Chris smothered his wince at the awful snap of the werewolf’s finger breaking, and ignored the way his shrill screams were piercing directly into his brain, bouncing around his skull like a dvd screensaver. Watson looked up at him, waiting for his go-ahead to break another.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, you know,” he said, giving the sobbing man strapped to the chair before him a pitying look. “If you just tell us where they went, all this pain will stop. If you don’t… Well, I think for your sake we shouldn’t let it come to that, should we?”

They’d tracked the wolves down to an airfield, a little ways south of Fresno, but the trail went cold from there. His men were searching the building for the flight records while he and Watson were taking a more… direct approach with the air traffic controller. Files could be deleted or destroyed. Memories, on the other hand, could not.

He had a silver collar around his neck, preventing him from shifting or doing anything to alleviate the incredible pain he was going through. Internally, Chris couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the man. He’d just been doing his job, and he was rewarded for that by being collared like an animal and tortured for information. Chris had a job to do, too, though, so he wouldn’t spare him that much sympathy.

“Y-you…” The man muttered, trying to form words through the pain. “You’re j-j-just going to k-kill me anyway. You would n-never let a werewolf live. Y-y-you can’t make me t-talk.”

Chris sighed. “That’s the sad truth of the matter here, isn’t it? Either way, whether you tell us what we want to know or not, you’re not leaving here alive. But you can avoid a whole lot of pain if you make this easy for us. Do you know how many bones our bodies have? Let me tell you, it is a lot. And every one of those bones will hurt like hell when it’s broken. If it hurts this much after just two measly fingers, imagine how bad it’ll be once we get onto the real big ones.”

The man looked at him, eyes wide and fearful. It stirred a feeling in Chris, though he couldn’t place what. It didn’t feel good.

“Y-you’re… you’re a f-f-fucking psycho…”

He shook his head. “Wrong. I’m just a man with a job to do.”

He shot Watson a look and she grabbed another of the man’s fingers, wrenching it backwards until it broke with a terrible snap and a horrible shriek.

He let the man sob his pain out, gave him time to calm down in case he decided to actually give them what they needed. The man shook his head back and forth endlessly like a pendulum. “I… I won’t…” He was panting, barely even able to catch his breath enough to speak. “I won't… give them up. They’re… They’re our last hope.”

Chris raised his eyebrow at that. ‘Last hope?’ What was this, Star Wars?

The man’s head suddenly shot up, tears streaming down his cheeks, his eyes piercing through Chris like they could see every inch of him down to his soul. “I will not betray the Council! They’ll win! They’ll win and you’ll lose! You will go down in history as nothing more than murderers and monsters! Werewolves will live on and you’ll be forgotten!”

The sudden bout of vitriolic screaming was interrupted when the door opened and one of his men entered, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “We’ve got it, sir.”

Chris let out a breath and felt the tension drop from his shoulders. He nodded to Watson and she slit the man’s throat without hesitation, leaving him to bleed out in that chair as the two of them approached the soldier. “What have you got for me?”

“We found records of a flight that took off from here roughly two days ago. Security footage confirms it’s our targets. They landed in Sydney, though it seems that might have just been a stopover.”

Chris scratched at his jaw, thinking on the information he was just given. The fact that they flew West ruled out pretty much all of Europe, Africa, and South America as their destination, even if they were using the stopover as some crazy play to throw him off the scent. Most of Asia would probably be accessible to them, but Chris had a hunch that wasn’t it. He seriously doubted most of them spoke anything other than English, not counting Damien and Pedro, not that Spanish would help much in Asia. No, it would make the most sense if they were still in Australia. But… where exactly? Australia was not a small country.

From what he knew of the Werewolf Council, they likely had hideouts set up in most major cities across the western world, and no doubt a fair few outside of it as well. It was highly likely that they had a hideout in Sydney, and it was possible that the ‘stopover’ thing was just a ruse to make him look elsewhere. That being said, he also had to consider if it wasn’t. If the stop in Sydney really was just to refuel and restock, where would they have gone from there? Most of the major Australian cities were on the east coast or thereabouts, so there wouldn’t be much of a point in having a stopover in Sydney when they could have just gone to their destination outright, if that’s where their destination was. That left Adelaide in South Australia, Darwin in the Northern Territory, and Perth, in Western Australia.

He sighed. Four cities to search through, if he included Sydney, and they had to do it before the next lunar eclipse, which could be literally any time, considering how wide their search area was. They really had their work cut out for them.