It was a lazy day, a little over a week since their celebration party, roughly six days until the lunar eclipse, and Roxy and Sam were spending it doing what they did best: being obnoxiously affectionate in front of all of their friends. Not that any of their friends minded, anyway. So long as they weren’t literally screwing in the living room, no one really cared. They could cuddle all they liked.

The two of them were curled up on the couch together having a nap, Roxy fondly running her fingers through the coarse blonde fuzz below Sam’s navel where her shirt had ridden up, Sam nuzzling the top of Roxy’s head with her nose buried in the other girl’s hair. Everyone else was caught up in similar states of lazy-day fever. Drew was sprawled on the floor in his wolf form, snoring away. Roxy’s dad was sitting in an armchair, wrapped up in a book while mindlessly stroking Mr. Slinky in his lap with his free hand. Clarissa rested on the other end of the long couch, flipping through channel after channel on the TV with a bored expression on her face. Leif was currently having a shower and Pedro was absent, off spending time with Valerie. It was peaceful, but that peace never lasted long in their pack, so Roxy was making sure to soak up as much of it as she could before something inevitably crashed in and broke it.

Eventually, Leif finished her shower and came out into the living room, her hair wrapped up in a towel. She reached down and gave Drew some scratches as she passed, before heading into the kitchen and opening the fridge.

“Shit, we’re out of milk,” she said.

Clarissa perked up at this. “Wanna go for a grocery run? It’s boring as hell around here.”

Leif shrugged. “Yeah, alright.”

“There’s a list of everything we need on the bench,” Damien said, not looking up from his book.

Clarissa sprang up and trotted over to the kitchen, very clearly eager to get up and move. Roxy could understand the urge. She’d suffered it for almost six months, desperately wanting to work out but unable thanks to her broken leg.

“Just let me get dressed properly and we can go,” Leif said, walking off into her room. Clarissa remained in the kitchen, reading the list and bouncing off the balls of her feet. Roxy watched through one cracked eyelid, eager to see how long it would take before she realised what was missing from her outfit.

A few minutes later, Leif came out of her room, all ready to go, and the two of them started to make their way out the door. Roxy decided to have some pity. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Clar?”

Clarissa turned back around and peered at her curiously. She crept closer, clearly unsure, with confusion muddling her features, until she reached the couch, leaned down, and kissed Roxy on the forehead with as much love as she could muster. Sam started laughing.

“No, you idiot! You’re not wearing shoes!”

The woman looked down at her bare feet, then slowly back up at Roxy. “Oh. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.”

Roxy laughed. “Why did you think I meant a forehead kiss? When has that ever been a thing?”

Clarissa sputtered. “I-I don’t know! I just thought you wanted a goodbye hug or something but since you’re already tangled up with Sam I thought that would be the next best thing!”

“Oh, I am so telling Pedro about this when he gets back,” Leif teased from the background.

“Shut up! Whatever! Let’s just go!”

Roxy still couldn’t stop giggling at the exchange. “No, Clarissa, it was nice. Thank you, it made me feel very loved.”

Clarissa gave her a warm smile. “You are very loved, Roxy. Unlike some people.” Her smile dropped and she shot Leif a side eye.

“If you didn’t love me, why are you going grocery shopping with me?” Leif asked with a smirk.

“My love for you is the same type of love someone would have for a shitty little family pet that kept pissing on the carpet and biting you but needed to be walked every day. Begrudging.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”

Clarissa sighed. “Yeah, haha, very funny. Let’s get going.”

“Could you grab me an iced coffee while you’re out? Just one of the Dare ones from the IGA, please,” Roxy asked.

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Oh, by the way, you’re still not wearing shoes.”

Clarissa’s head made a very loud thump as she headbutted the doorframe.

—

Leif mindlessly swung the bag of groceries back and forth as she walked down the street with Clarissa. The sky was overcast, and a cold wind was blowing through, causing goosebumps to ripple up and down her arms. She wouldn’t be surprised if it started to rain soon, and she desperately wanted to get home already. It seemed like most people had the same idea. The street was practically empty. It was a little unnerving, to be honest. Foreboding, maybe. Clarissa, meanwhile, didn’t seem to share any of her discomfort, happily whistling to herself with a spring in her step. Stupid werewolves and their higher body temps. Not for the first time, Leif found herself feeling envious of her furred companions and their ability to grow insulation at will. Oh well, that was what her personal heater of a boyfriend was for.

She noticed another figure on the sidewalk ahead of them, coming their way. From the way that they were dressed all in black - heavy black coat, black jeans, black boots - and the fact that they were the sole person out on the street aside from them, Leif was a little on edge at their appearance. Once again, Clarissa shared none of her hangups, even waving at the figure and jogging over to them. It was only once Leif got closer that she recognised the woman from the bar, the one with the scar on her face who’d drank with them. She was honestly a little surprised she remembered her. Most of that night was barely more than a blur now.

“Anne, hey! Fancy seeing you here!” Clarissa greeted amicably.

Anne smiled, though Leif thought there was something off about it. It seemed a little strained, maybe. “Oh, hi! Uh… Clarissa, right? And… I wanna say Leif?”

“Double bingo!” Clarissa cheered. “What are you up to? Pretty shit day to be out, huh?”

Leif desperately hoped this wouldn’t descend into a long conversation. She really wanted to get home, and this empty street was giving her the heebie-jeebies. It was too quiet.

“Ah, yeah, not the best day, no. Just… Work stuff. Gotta do what’s gotta be done, y’know,” Anne replied, with a bit of stiffness in her familiarly-accented voice. Leif found it interesting that they’d just so happened to befriend another American while they were in Australia. Yeah, the odds weren’t that low, but it was still a weird coincidence.

“Work stuff, huh? What kind of work?” Clarissa asked. Her tone had changed, just the tiniest bit. Probably not enough to notice if you didn’t spend a lot of time around her. It only fueled the unease in the pit of Leif’s stomach. Clarissa had picked up on the tense atmosphere, too. Why did this all feel so… off?

There was a van coming down the road towards them, inconspicuous had it not been for how on edge Leif felt. Anne’s granite-coloured eyes looked incredibly sad when she said, “The unpleasant kind.”

The hair at the back of Leif’s neck rose. She could see Clarissa tense a little out of the corner of her eye as she kept a close watch on that van’s approach. “Anne… Are you alright?” Clarissa asked carefully.

The woman sighed as the van rolled to a stop on the road beside them. “I’m sorry for this.”

Leif didn’t even see her hands move. At one moment they were by her side, and the next she was touching Leif’s neck, her other arm outstretched similarly towards Clarissa. Leif felt a sharp prick a little below where Anne was touching, and her stomach dropped.

“Leif, run!”

She could already feel her senses dulling as the door of the van slid open and three men dressed in all black came out. Clarissa threw her backwards and her ass hit the concrete, groceries smashing all over the floor, but when she tried to lift herself back up to either follow her mentor’s command or try to help her, she found that none of her limbs were doing what they were told, weakly scrabbling at the ground instead of pushing her to her feet. She suddenly felt so, so tired, despite the flood of adrenaline in her system.

She watched as Clarissa struggled, attempting to shift but failing miserably against the spread of the sedative. The woman tried to push the hunters away, but it was about as effective as a puppy trying to bite a rhino, her hands slipping off of their chests uselessly as she lost motor control. With no more effort than it would take to fold a piece of paper, the hunters bundled her into the van and she was lost from view.

No longer having the strength in her neck to support it, Leif let her head fall back to the pavement with a dull thud. She couldn’t even feel it, too numbed by fear and whatever was currently paralysing her and doing its best to put her to sleep. She stared up at a grey sky as her body slowly lost the war with the sedative, trying to call for help through unresponsive vocal cords and a limp tongue. All she could manage was a pathetic, terrified whine as Anne came into her steadily darkening line of sight.

The last thing she saw before everything went black were those eyes. Those sad, remorseful eyes, the only shred of humanity left on the impassive face of a hunter.

—

The rain was coming down hard, hammering against the window in a relaxing rhythm that had nearly lulled Roxy to sleep, curled up against the warmth of her mate as she was. Sam had already fallen asleep, her arms wrapped around Roxy tightly and possessively. They’d barely spent a moment apart since their engagement, always in contact in some way or another, be it a gentle hand on the thigh under the table or intertwined pinky fingers as they walked through the apartment. Roxy just couldn’t get enough of her fiancée, and her fiancée just couldn’t get enough of her.

There was the sound of movement, and Roxy cracked open one eye to see what was going on. Drew had woken up, and was currently doing that big doggie stretch that Roxy had always thought looked really satisfying to do. He settled out of the stretch and shifted, his bones creaking and hair receding until he was back in his human form. Roxy quickly closed her eye again. A naked Drew was not something she wanted to see any more than was necessary, and that split second she’d just caught of his ass was more than enough for one lifetime.

She heard the rustling of clothing as he presumably got dressed, and eventually felt him gently nudge her arm. “Hey, Roxy, are you awake?”

She opened her eyes and looked up at him sleepily. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“What did Leif and Clarissa go out for earlier?”

“A…” She was cut off by a yawn. “A grocery run.”

“Oh.” Drew frowned. Now that she was looking a little closer, he seemed… worried? “Don’t you think they’ve been gone for a bit too long?”

Roxy hesitated. “Now that you mention it, yeah.” She pulled out her phone to check the time, disheartened to find it had been over an hour since they left. “Uh, maybe they’re just waiting somewhere for the rain to stop?”

Drew chewed on his bottom lip nervously. “I hope so.”

The door handle started turning, and they both looked over to it hopefully, but it was just Pedro, returning from his date. “Hey, guys,” he greeted, taking off his coat and setting his umbrella by the door.

“Hey, Pedro. Have a good time?” Roxy asked.

“Yeah, at least until it started raining. We were going to tour Kings Park, but nah, we’ll wait until the weather’s nicer.”

He started going over the finer details of his date as he dug through the kitchen looking for something to eat, which was funny considering they went to a restaurant. Most of it was pretty normal, and a nice distraction from the slight unease of how long Leif and Clarissa had been gone for, but then he said something that gave Roxy pause.

“On the way back, just a little ways down the street there, there were two bags of groceries, just lying on the ground in the rain. It was weird, didn’t look like they’d been there long. …What’s wrong?”

Roxy and Drew shared a look of deep concern, before she turned back to Pedro. “Were there any scents around the bags?”

“Not any that I noticed, but the rain might have been covering it. Why?”

“Leif and Clarissa went on a shopping run a while ago. They… they should’ve been back by now, but they aren’t,” Drew explained.

All good humour dropped from Pedro’s face. “Have you tried calling them?”

“I’ll try now,” Roxy said, pulling up Leif’s contact. Quite horrifically, the call went straight to voicemail.

“Shit.”

All of a sudden, Roxy was struck with an incredible feeling, so strong it had her clutching at her chest and doubling over with a gasp. Everyone in the room felt it at the same time, reacting similarly. It woke up Sam and her dad - who had fallen asleep at some point in the last hour - caused Pedro to have to lean against the table to keep himself upright, and had Drew retching, nearly on his knees. Roxy didn’t know how to describe it. It wasn’t quite painful, but it did hurt. It felt like a punch in the gut, like one of her organs had been ripped out without warning. Something that was meant to be there was gone. It felt like something was terribly, terribly wrong. It felt like a loss.

“What the fuck was that?!” Sam all-but yelled.

“Nothing good,” Pedro replied, looking pale. “All of you, get dressed and grab your weapons. We need to go look for them.”

Roxy needed no more encouragement. She sprang up and ran to her room, putting on a proper pair of pants, tying on her boots, and securing her cane sword to her hip, her heart pounding all the while. She decided against bringing her glasses. If there was going to be a fight, she didn't want them to get damaged, and she could handle the headache of not wearing them. Sam was right behind her, throwing on whatever she could find that was acceptable to wear in public.

Once they were done, they barged back out into the living room. Pedro was already good to go, a pistol holstered under his shoulder and a knife sheathed at his hip, both hidden under his coat. They were hoping to not have to use the Colt 1911 Pedro smuggled into the country, given its illegality here and the dangers that could bring, but this was an emergency, and the hunters would definitely have firearms as well, if that was what had happened to Clarissa and Leif. Roxy knew it wasn’t good to expect the worst, but she couldn’t think of any other reason that would have held them up and kept Leif from her phone, not to mention whatever the fuck that weird feeling was earlier. It had lessened somewhat, but it sort of still felt like Roxy was missing a limb or something.

“Where do we start looking?” she asked.

“We’ll go to those bags, check their contents with the grocery list to verify they were theirs. After that, we’ll figure it out. Their scent is probably still lingering on the handles, so we’ll go from there.”

“Alright.”

Suddenly, all of their phones pinged with a very familiar and very worrying chime. A GPS tracker had just been turned on. A quick check showed that it was Leif’s, coming from somewhere in the suburbs, way further out than she would’ve been able to walk.

“Or, we can just follow that,” Pedro said.

“I don’t like this. It feels like a trap,” Roxy muttered. “I hate to say it, but… maybe we should leave Sam and Drew here?”

“It’s almost definitely a trap, but it would be risky to go with just the two of us. I’m confident in our abilities, but if they’re planning to trap a pair of direwolves, they’ll be more than prepared for two regular wolves without any backup. I don’t think there are any fighters here apart from us, but we can ask the Councilman if he knows anyone who might be able to help. It would cost precious time trying to find him, though, and the longer that we wait, the worse it could get for Leif and Clarissa. In the end, it’s up to you two. Do you two think it’s a good idea to come, even knowing it’s likely a trap?”

“There’s no way you could keep me here if you wanted to,” Drew said. “Leif’s in danger, I’m not just going to sit around and let you guys throw yourselves into the fire alone. Then Sam and I might need to rescue all four of you, instead of just the two.”

“Ditto,” Sam added. “I know it could be dangerous for us to go, but they would both do the same for me if the situation was reversed. We need to go, who knows what condition they could already be in? We’re wasting time.”

Pedro nodded resolutely. “Alright. We watch each other’s backs, don’t let them get the drop on us. Let’s move.”

“I’ll, um, I’ll stay here, in case they come back,” Damien said, his voice shaky.

Roxy looked at her dad, saw the fear in his eyes. They all knew he was going to be staying here anyway. He wasn’t a fighter. But, she knew he still wanted to feel useful, and this was the best he could do for that. She ran up and quickly hugged him before pulling back. “Keep us updated, dad.”

She could hear his heart pounding as he looked down at her, saw her own reflection in his wet eyes. “You too. Stay safe, Roxy. I love you.”

“I love you too.” With a last lingering glance, she turned back to the rest of them. “Alright, let's go save our friends.”

—

The rain was coming down in sheets as they drove down the deserted suburban street in their borrowed Council car. Roxy was leaning her head against the window, cracking her knuckles one by one and praying to herself that her friends were okay. That feeling of crippling loss was still there, but it was slowly fading as the minutes ticked onward. Roxy could only wonder at what it could mean, and none of the ideas her mind supplied were pleasant. She’d never felt anything like it before, but it was clearly connected to their pack bonds in some way, judging from how they’d all reacted at the same time. It didn’t paint a good picture of what they were going to find when they arrived. Roxy tore a strip of skin from her bottom lip with her teeth and tried to use the pain as a distraction, but the adrenaline coursing through her system made it all-but useless.

“Alright, we’re almost there. Just around this corner,” Pedro said. “Be ready for anything. It’s too quiet.”

“It says here that this area was evacuated because of a gas leak. Do you think the hunters orchestrated it, or are just taking advantage of the coincidence to get a quiet place for their ambush?” Drew asked from the back seat.

“I don’t know what their reach is like in Australia, but I wouldn’t put it past them to orchestrate it. They’ve likely been planning this for a while. It’s not like them to do things spontaneously. I have a feeling we might be about to run into some old friends…”

They pulled up at their destination. It seemed like a house that was either under construction, or long abandoned, sitting lonely on a large plot of empty land. Barely anything more than a concrete shell with no windows or doors, it seemed like the perfect place to commit a crime. It didn’t look like anyone was around, and there wasn’t really anywhere to hide nearby except for inside the building, but Roxy knew better than to believe that. The rain was obscuring scents and muffling sounds, so the only thing she could rely on was her eyesight, and it was definitely possible that the hunters could be hiding further away, watching them and waiting until they went in to spring the trap. From her perspective, it seemed like the perfect ambush. She guessed they’d just have to wait and see.

They all stepped out of the car and into the rain. Pedro unsheathed his knife and brought his wolf to the surface. The rest of them did the same. Roxy tried to ignore the way her sword hand was shaking.

“Alright, let’s move in. Eyes and ears open. Be ready.”

Pedro took the lead and they entered the building, moving as one cohesive unit, Drew watching their rear and keeping none of their backs exposed. As soon as they stepped out of the smothering rain and into the confines of the deserted construction site, the smell hit them all at once. It was the scent of fear, and human waste, and all too much blood, mingling together in that disgustingly familiar concoction that could only signal one thing.

Death.

Roxy swallowed thickly, seeing the stifled terror on the faces of her companions as they recognised the scent as well. She could only hope it was a dead hunter, not one of her friends. Leif and Clarissa’s scents were both definitely in the air, along with multiple unfamiliar ones, so the hope wasn’t entirely baseless. God, she prayed it wasn’t entirely baseless.

Silently, they moved further into the house, following that sickening scent. It seemed to be coming from one of the rooms at the back. The building was completely silent. Unnervingly so, in contrast with the pouring rain outside, the only audible noise inside being their pounding hearts and careful, almost reluctant footsteps. Roxy almost didn’t want to step into that back room and see whose body it was. Leif and Clarissa could still be alive, and it could be the abandoned corpse of a hunter they’d fought off, or they could be dead. So long as she didn’t enter that room to see for herself, both possibilities still existed.

Looking through the empty doorway, they could see a large container on the other side of the room, against the opposite wall. It almost looked like a freezer, but it wasn’t plugged into anything and it wasn’t making any noise, so Roxy couldn’t be sure. It was the only piece of furniture in the whole building, so of course it was in the room with the body in it, the one place Roxy desperately didn’t want to step foot in.

Warily, knife and claws at the ready, Pedro stepped through into the room, and Roxy’s heart plummeted.

She watched as his eyes widened in shock, looking at something outside of Roxy’s field of view, before his entire face crumpled with sorrow. He let out a strangled whimper that cracked Roxy’s heart and ducked out of sight, towards where she knew the body to be. She didn’t need to see the body to confirm it, anymore.

It was one of their own.

The three young werewolves rushed into the room behind Pedro, and what they found changed everything.

There was so much blood. It painted the woman’s pale skin, no longer seeping from the horrific slash wound that split half of her neck open. It flecked her lips, clearly coughed up from some last attempt to breathe despite the injury. It was seeped into her clothes, spreading out in a grim puddle over the grey floor. There was none on her hands, aside from where they rested in the pool of sanguine liquid, but her wrists were red and chafed from bindings that were no longer present. Her hazel eyes were still open, cloudy and unseeing, staring out at nothing. Her face was frozen in an expression of shock and pain. She would never again spar with them, never get to go on another run through Dewsbury, delighting in the early morning wind blowing through her hair. They would never see her wolf running around the woods again, playing with Pedro. She would never get to teach another group of dorky kids MMA.

The hunters had killed Clarissa.

The hunters had killed Clarissa, and Roxy couldn’t even find it in herself to feel it yet, because Leif was still missing, and if the hunters had killed her too…

“Shit. Shit!” Pedro shot to his feet, turning back to them. His eyes were glowing brighter than Roxy had ever seen them before, a dazzling, sparkling gold. Fur was sprouting on his cheeks, and his growl made Roxy want to bare her neck. “Find Leif! Watch each other’s backs, I’m going to check the perimeter.”

With that, he stormed out and was gone. The three of them were still frozen, too shocked by the discovery of Clarissa to move yet. Roxy was the first one to snap out of it. She’d seen dead bodies before. Hell, she’d made dead bodies before. She couldn’t afford to get distracted just because it was one of their own this time. Leif was still missing, she needed them. Roxy grabbed Sam and Drew and spun them around, facing them towards the opposite wall. She tried to focus on anything else in the room, anything to get her mind off of what was behind her. There was a puddle of water on the floor a little ways away from the body that caught her attention. No, not water, she realised after noticing the smell coming off of it. It was piss. Roxy blankly realised that the hunters probably made Leif watch what happened to Clarissa, and the errant puddle made a lot more sense. They needed to find that poor girl, and quickly.

“Don’t look at her. We need to find Leif.”

Spinning them around to break line of sight seemed to do the trick. The two direwolves blinked, as if waking up out of a trance. “R-right…” Drew muttered. “Let’s… let’s try this freezer thing. It’s the only thing here, if she’s not in there, then…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence for them all to understand. If she wasn’t there, it meant she was already in the hunter’s grasp. It meant a repeat of what happened last year, just with a brand new coat of paint.

They crowded around the container as Drew fiddled with the latch, unlocking it with shaking fingers. He flipped open the lid and…

Thank fucking god, there she was, curled in a ball with her hands cuffed behind her back, legs tied together with rope. She let out a whimper of fear through her duct tape gag, unable to see who was there due to the blindfold wrapped around her head. She even had headphones on, blocking out all of her senses entirely. The box must’ve been soundproofed, because now that it was open, Roxy could hear her heart beating rapidly, and smell the sharp stench of ammonia that was emanating out and spreading around the room. It didn’t seem like she was injured, but there was still blood on her face. Clarissa’s blood. She must’ve been so terrified… Roxy probably would have pissed herself as well, had she been in Leif’s shoes. She was just so fucking relieved that she was alive.

“Quick, get her out!”

Drew needed no encouragement. She squeaked as he gently lifted her into a seated position, taking the headphones and blindfold away as he did so. She squinted at the light before recognising who was in front of her. Her face crumpled in relief and she started sobbing behind her gag.

“It’s okay now, we’ve got you.”

He picked her up and carried her out of the box, before setting her down and leaning her against it. All of a sudden, her eyes widened, as if in realisation of something, and she started thrashing, trying to speak through the tape.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Roxy said in a placating voice. “Here, let me get that gag off.”

There was a weird pair of thwip noises behind her, and both Sam and Drew suddenly yelped.

“Ow!” Sam exclaimed. She was holding a hand against her neck when Roxy turned to look.

“You guys okay?”

“Yeah, I think a bug just bit me, though,” was Drew’s response.

Leif let out a muffled, panicked cry and started thrashing even harder, so Roxy turned back to her. She grabbed the edge of the tape and was about to rip it off when she heard Sam mutter something behind her. Her voice sounded woozy.

“Oh, shit… That’s not a bug.”

Roxy tore the tape off of Leif’s mouth, and she screamed.

“It’s a trap!”

Something metal hit the concrete floor with a heavy tink-tink-tink and Roxy turned around just in time to see Sam and Drew stumble and then collapse. There was something small and red in Sam’s limp palm as she hit the ground, but Roxy didn’t have the time to take a closer look and see what it was, as she’d just recognised the two smoke grenades that had been thrown in through the windows.

“Fuck!”

Gas started spewing from the grenades as Roxy grabbed Leif by the collar and dragged her over to Sam and Drew’s limp forms, drawing her sword and standing over all three of them protectively as smoke started filling the room. Based on the lack of feelings through the mark, Sam was already unconscious. She and Drew must have been shot with sleeping darts or something like that. With no idea where Pedro was and Leif still tied up, she was completely on her own. The gas was stinging her eyes and making it hard to breathe, so thick and obscuring that she couldn’t even see the end of her sword if she held it out. She covered her mouth with the collar of her shirt and kept her eyes and ears peeled, slowly rotating, ready to take on a threat from any angle. It was all up to her now.

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A shadow moved in the fog and she struck out at it. There was a clang of metal on metal, and her sword was deflected. She struck again, and again, each time with the same result, as though they could see her and her movements perfectly, while she didn’t even know which hand they were holding their sword in. It was useless, she was practically blind. There was no way she could fight in these conditions. She could hear movement all around her now, surrounding her from every angle. Panic was bubbling up in her chest, along with a rumbly growl as her instincts took over, trying to scare away the predator.

“Stay back! I’m warning you, I’ll fucking cut you up!”

“Stand down, Kindley. You’re completely surrounded,” said a voice from the fog in front of her, clearly female, though tinny and muffled. She hated not being able to tell who was who by scent with all this smoke in the air, because she had the distinct feeling that she recognised that voice.

“I’ve been surrounded before, and I’m sure you assholes remember how that went last time.”

“You’re alone. The other wolf is incapacitated. No one is coming to help you. If you surrender peacefully, you won’t be harmed.”

“Is that what you told Clarissa?!” she spat.

There was a surprising silence through the smoke. Roxy glanced around, trying to figure out how many there were and come up with an escape route. It wasn’t much use. Eventually, the voice spoke up, but this time, the tone was harder, almost strained.

“Clarissa was a threat we had no choice but to put down.”

“Lair!” Leif screamed from the floor. “She was tied up and helpless, she didn’t even have the chance to fight back!”

A flash of flame shot through Roxy’s body. The disembodied voice in front of her was the one who took Clarissa from them. The confirmation made her skin feel hot and itchy, made her gums and jaw ache. She roared and charged forward, her wolf sending lightning through her muscles to spur her on. The fog parted for her and she saw her target, a blonde woman wearing a gas mask and hi-tech looking goggles, with a scar on her cheek. She knew she recognised her, but right now, there was no time to think about that. Her wolf was in charge, and it wanted blood.

Roxy brought her sword down in an overhead arc that the woman barely managed to block. She let out a curse and stumbled backwards, her arms quaking, and Roxy didn’t give her time to recover. She kept swinging and striking, her speed and strength fueled by the fire of her wolf, and the woman couldn’t keep up, blocking and parrying each swing by such a small margin that Roxy’s blade almost nicked her skin every time. But Roxy was still pushing forward, and the woman was still being forced back. Someone was screaming in rage, and Roxy faintly realised it was herself.

The woman’s back hit the wall, and Roxy prepared to cut her fucking head off. There was nowhere left for her to go, and even with the smoke obscuring her senses, she could still smell her sweat and hear her heavy breathing. The woman was exhausted, and Roxy was just getting started. First her, and then the rest of them. She would leave them here to rot, just as they had done to Clarissa. She rose her sword, ready for the final blow, and-

“AAAAGGGGGHHH-”

It took Roxy a second to realise that sound had come from her own mouth. She’d been a bit too distracted by the impossible pain coursing through her entire body, locking up her muscles with the uncomfortably familiar burn of electricity. Something was jabbing into her back, the source of the agony. Probably a taser, she realised. She heard Leif scream her name, and the pain suddenly stopped. No longer forced to contract by the arcing current, her muscles went limp, and she flopped to the ground.

She tried looking around, tried regaining control of her spasming, twitching body, but she wasn’t given the chance. The last thing she saw was a boot careening towards her face before everything went black.

~~~

You did good, Roxy. I’m proud. Your form could’ve used a little work there, but I get it. You were angry. I would be, too, if it had been one of you guys, instead.

Man, I’m really gonna miss working you little shits to the bone, I’ve gotta say. You’ll do alright without me, though, and I’m sure we’ll see each other again someday. Look after each other, alright? Especially Leif. Poor girl’s pretty shaken up. And tell Pedro he’s an old bastard for me, too.

I think my time’s just about up, and it looks like you’re about to wake up, too. Things are probably gonna be tough, but don’t give up. Give ‘em hell for me, Roxy. Kick their asses. I love you.

~~~

When Roxy came to, it was not all at once. The first thing to wake up was her trusty sense of smell, but that didn’t really give her much. She could smell blood and concrete and not a whole lot of anything else. Maybe there were some people around, but her brain was still too foggy to parse if she recognised any of their scents yet. Next came touch, which gave her a much better view of the situation she was in, however she’d gotten there. She couldn’t really remember much.

She was laying on her side, her hip bone poking painfully against the hard ground. Her hands were behind her back, bound. Something hot and sticky was on her face, slowly oozing out of a throbbing wound on the bridge of her nose. There was something around her neck, tingling the skin with a slight burning sensation where it touched. It was thoroughly uncomfortable. She tried reaching out to her wolf, but nothing responded. No strength flooded her limbs, no clarity cleared her senses. She was alone.

And then her hearing kicked in, the ever-present ringing finally clearing enough for her to tell what was going on around her. There were three heartbeats nearby; two calm, one panicked and racing. It sounded like it was raining outside, a light drizzle tapping a rhythmic pattern against the tile roof. A chime sounded, and there was a voice, tinny and crackly, with an edge of static.

“The direwolves are secure.”

Roxy felt that this should have alarmed her, but she couldn’t figure out why. Someone in the room replied to the voice.

“Alright. We’ve still got Townsend and Kindley here. What should we do with them? We bringing them along or…?”

It took a moment for the voice to reply back. Meanwhile, Roxy’s vision was slowly, finally waking up. She could just about make out two figures in black, standing near an empty doorway, as well as a figure on the floor, curled up in a position much like herself. It was Leif, wiggling around and grunting against a duct tape gag.

“Tell the lookout team to terminate their wolf, the older hispanic male. We’ll take the other wolf and the human back as insurance. Might help keep the direwolves in line if they have any ideas of escape.”

“Yes, sir.”

One of the figures fiddled with something on their collar, a walkie-talkie or the like. It made a little beep, and he spoke into it again. “Lookout, you catch that? Terminate your wolf and pack up. We’re pulling out.”

There was silence. He tried again. “Lookout, do you copy?”

More silence. “Shit.” He turned to his companion. “Alright, I’m gonna go check on them. You keep an eye on these ones.” He stuck his thumb in their direction.

“Alright, keep us updated,” the other man said. The first one turned and vaulted through one of the empty window frames, stepping into the rain and out of sight. The other one turned to them and frowned. He walked over and kicked Leif in the stomach, causing a surprising amount of liquid to shoot out of her nose as her lungs contracted with nowhere else for the air to go. “Quit struggling, you’ll only make it worse for yourself.”

Anger flared in the pit of Roxy’s abdomen, but there was nothing she could do. Her muscles felt completely dead and worn out, and even if they weren’t she was still tied up. How the heck had this even happened? Everything was still so foggy…

Leif coughed and gasped for air as the man walked away to lean on a wall, pulling a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lighting one between his lips. Roxy couldn’t see how they were gonna get out of this one. Where did Sam go? Wasn’t she with them a minute ago? Something bad had definitely happened. Roxy tasted blood in the back of her throat.

The man busied himself by scrolling through his phone. He was distracted. It was a chance, but how the fuck were they meant to take it like this?

A shadow passed by one of the windows in Roxy’s vision. She couldn’t quite make out what it was, but she caught a whiff of something familiar. Something safe, and homely. The man hadn’t reacted; he hadn’t seen it. This turned out to be quite unfortunate for him, as the shadow suddenly leapt in through one of the windows and plunged a knife into his throat in one fluid movement. It was Pedro. Bloody, panting, and bruised, but alive. A surge of hope came alight in Roxy’s chest.

He looked over to the two of them as the man’s body collapsed to the floor, gurgling and twitching. It looked like something was wrong with his left arm. He was holding it funny, and the skin of his wrist was misshapen and bruised. He didn’t seem to care too much though, running over to Roxy and cutting away at the ties on her wrists.

“Jesus, guys, I’m so sorry. They caught me off guard. Where are Sam and Drew?”

Roxy didn’t reply. Truthfully, she didn’t know the answer. That was okay, though. Leif seemed to be filling him in through the pack bonds well enough. “Shit,” he muttered. “Okay, we can salvage this. Drew turned his tracker on in the car, we can still follow them.”

The radio on the dead guy crackled to life. “Shit, Lookout’s down! Pull out! Pull out!”

Pedro cursed again, moving to fiddle with whatever was around Roxy’s neck. Her hands were free now, and she took pleasure in flexing them. Her arms still weren’t responding much, though, painfully protesting any attempt to move them.

There was a click, and the collar came off, hitting the ground with a metallic clang. All at once, her wolf came back, violently surging through her body like fire. Her back arched and she gasped as fur and claws and fangs sprouted suddenly, electricity tingling her muscles and bringing them back to life. Her body woke up and she shot up into a seated position, looking around, getting her bearings. She remembered.

She remembered the hunters, and finding Clarissa and Leif. She remembered Sam and Drew suddenly collapsing. She remembered fighting that woman in the smoke, before being tased and knocked out. Her head was still pounding like nothing else, but she remembered.

Sam.

The realisation hit her like a truck and she shot to her feet, sprinting out the front door and screaming her mate’s name.

“Sam! SAM!”

Someone called after her, but she ignored them, running out onto the street and looking around. She saw a van, its back doors hanging open. Inside were Sam and Drew, tied up and still unconscious. And standing over them, one eye covered by an eyepatch, was Chris, looking back at her. The doors slammed shut and the van sped off.

Roxy followed.

She ran as fast as she could, her legs and lungs burning with exertion. At first it seemed like she wasn’t gonna make it, but she pushed herself a little harder and started gaining on it, getting closer and closer to the van with every pounding footstep and heartbeat. The van accelerated in response, and she pushed herself even harder. She wasn’t letting them get away. She wasn’t going to let them take Sam from her.

Something in her body flared, lightning shooting out from her core to her edges, rejuvenating and strengthening her muscles even further. The whole world became brighter, sharper, and Roxy followed her instincts, letting out a guttural roar and dropping to all fours to continue her mad dash for her mate. She really started making ground now, and the van’s acceleration just couldn’t keep up. The road was whipping by faster and faster, disappearing under her hands and feet at dangerous speeds. No, not hands. That wasn’t quite accurate anymore.

Once she was close enough, Roxy leapt, pouncing forward with enough power to make up the last bit of distance. The van’s rear doors flew towards her, and she prepared to… Well, she didn’t really know what her plan was. She was just gonna improvise and hope for the best. Probably kill a few hunters, if all went well.

Right as she was about to make contact, something unexpected happened. The van doors flew open, and with them came another fucking boot. It hit her square in the chest and knocked the air out of her lungs, killing her momentum along with any chance of making it to the van on this jump. The last thing she saw before she hit the ground was that woman, with the scar on her cheek. It was Anne from the fucking bar.

She tried to land on her feet, but the second she made contact, something crunched awfully in her leg and she went sprawling, tumbling ass over tit as she lost about half of her fucking skin to the asphalt. By the time she finally rolled to a stop, her entire body was a stinging, bleeding, throbbing mess. She was still winded, sucking in gasping lungfuls of air as she tried to get back up. She could still see the van, speeding off into the distance. She could still follow it. She had to. But the second she put any weight on her right leg, it buckled out from under her and she collapsed back to the road.

All she could do was stare as the van disappeared from view, hidden by the sheets of rain that by now had drenched Roxy from head to toe. All she could do was sit there uselessly as her love was taken away from her. Was this how Sam felt, when Roxy was kidnapped? Unable to do anything but sit there and watch as rain poured over her? Knowing that the love of her life was going to be tortured?

Roxy thought she would’ve been pretty justified in throwing a tantrum right at that point, but she didn’t have the energy anymore. All she could do was stare.

She wasn’t sure how long she was sitting there before something broke her line of sight with the road, but eventually, Pedro’s face came into her vision. He was kneeling in front of her. He had a black eye, a gash in his cheek, and his mouth and front were covered in blood that didn’t smell like his. The change in scenery made her remember herself, and everything started hurting again.

“Roxy? Roxy, are you okay? You don’t… You don’t look so good.”

Her brain went into autopilot, listing what was wrong. “I was chasing them, but I fell and hit the road. I… I’m pretty scraped up, and I- I think my leg might be broken.”

He frowned. “Leif, come over here!” he yelled, before turning his attention back to her. “Are you aware that you’re shifted right now? Way more than you ever have before.”

Roxy looked down at herself. Her hands were misshapen, covered in fur with black pads on the insides of her palms. There was something… new, going on behind her, so she reached around and touched the base of her tailbone. Yep, that was a tail. Neat. She was a little too numb to really think about it right now.

Leif came into view, wincing as she took in Roxy’s… everything. “What do you need?”

“She thinks her leg’s broken. I need you to roll up her pants for me. My wrist is broken, so I won’t be much use.”

Leif nodded and did as she was told, rolling up the leg of Roxy’s pants to reveal a very misshapen knee. Pedro took one look at it and cursed.

“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. Your leg’s not broken, but your knee looks dislocated to me. The Council building should have the resources to fix it up, so don’t worry.”

“But… B-but we need to follow them. Th-they have Sam and Drew. W-we need to follow them.”

“What good are we gonna do in our state, Roxy? You can’t walk, I can barely fight, and Leif-”

“I’m fine,” Leif interrupted. “I- I’m not hurt. I can still fight.”

Pedro looked at her sadly. “I’m not talking about physically, kid.”

Leif grit her teeth and looked away, a small sound escaping her throat.

Roxy wasn’t swayed. “But… But we can’t leave them.”

“It’s okay, chica. Drew’s tracker is still working. We can head back to regroup, and follow it from there.”

Oh… that made sense. Roxy nodded.

“What are we doing about C-” Leif cut herself off with a full-body shiver. “A-about Clar?”

Pedro let out a small whimper, but cut it off. “We… There’s nothing we can do. We just have to let the authorities find her, and deal with it from there.”

“What?! We can’t just leave her!”

“We have no choice!” Pedro yelled. “You think I want to? You think I want to leave my best friend behind in a pool of her own blood? No! But we already stand out, and if we get pulled over with a fucking body in our trunk, we’ll never get to save Sam and Drew. We… There’s just no other option… I’m sorry.”

Leif started crying. Roxy kept staring ahead.

—

When Sam woke up, she immediately knew something was wrong. Well, that much was blatantly obvious from the smell of Chris nearby, but there were a lot of other factors contributing to her knowledge of how fucked she truly was. For one, her hands were bound behind her back, which was never good outside of the bedroom. Also, there was something around her neck, burning her skin and making it itch. Definitely silver of some sort, as she had no access to her wolf whatsoever. God, she hated that feeling. The last thing she remembered was finding Leif, and getting… shot with a dart? After that, everything went black, and she woke up here. It didn’t take long to put two and two together and figure out that she’d been captured by the hunters, even without the absolute devastation Roxy was feeling right now through the mark.

It was gonna be fine. She was smart, she could figure out a way to get out of this. And if not… Well, she trusted that Roxy would find her before it was too late.

She cracked open an eye ever-so-slightly, trying to take in her surroundings without letting the hunters know she was awake. It looked like she was in the back of a van, curled up in the corner. Drew was across from her, in a similar state; arms tied behind his back with a silver collar around his neck. His eyes were open, though. Open, but unseeing, staring into space. His mouth hung slightly ajar, and a line of drool was dribbling down his chin. Every now and then he would twitch, and let out a little whimper. Whatever was wrong with him, Sam wanted no part of.

There were a couple of hunters in the rear seats, including Chris and… Oh god, it was that woman from the bar. Angie or Anne or something. Well, that was probably how they got their hands on Clarissa and Leif in the first place, luring them into a false sense of security with a friendly face. She wasn’t looking too good, with sunken eyes and a downcast expression. She almost looked sick. Good, after what they’d done to Clarissa. Sam hoped she spewed and choked on it.

One of the hunters up the front spoke. “Does anyone have their phone’s location turned on? Says here someone’s putting out a signal. It’s just the one.”

Chris’s eyes widened, and he swore under his breath. “No it’s not a phone. One of the wolves must have activated their tracker. Have you checked their pockets?” he asked one of the other hunters.

“Yeah, we made sure they had nothing on them. Should we… do a cavity check?”

Chris frowned. “When on earth would they have had time to shove something up themselves?”

“I dunno, but the tracker thing we found on Townsend was pretty small. Wouldn’t be that hard in a pinch, and they might’ve done it before they got there, anyway.”

“Not a bad point, but I think it’s more likely that they swallowed it. It’s much easier and it would achieve the same thing, without the need to take your pants off to do it.”

The hunter who’d spoken up blushed. “Y-yeah, you’re right. So, what do we do?”

Chris hesitated. “Bring me that bucket and a glove. I’ll try Basterfield first. Don’t want Reed to wake up and bite my fingers off.”

Sam watched with growing concern as the hunters supplied Chris with what he asked for. He snapped the glove over his hand and grabbed Drew by the hair, forcefully pulling him around until he was sitting upright, hunched over the bucket. He barely even reacted with more than a quiet whimper. Chris then shoved two gloved fingers deep inside Drew’s mouth, prompting him to gag, then retch, then spill his guts into the bucket. Once the deed was done, Chris calmly searched through the mess until he found what he was looking for.

“Aha, here it is.” He gingerly took off the glove and deposited it in the bucket, handing the thing to one of his subordinates. “Dispose of that.”

Sam felt the van come to a stop, and the hunter with the bucket opened the back doors and dumped it on the side of the road. A jolt shot through her as she recognised the opportunity. Yeah, she didn’t have access to her wolf, but she was fit, and the hunters were distracted. It would mean leaving Drew behind, though, and she was hesitant to do that. Her being with the rest of the pack might give them more of a chance to be able to rescue him, though. She couldn’t afford to let this chance pass her by.

Sorry, Drew. I’ll come back for you.

She shot up and sprinted for the exit, and was immediately tackled into the side of the van by Anne. She pinned her to the floor, forearm digging into Sam’s neck and making it hard to breathe. It was ridiculous, Anne was like half her size, how come she couldn’t shake her off? Was this really how weak she would be without her wolf?

“Ah, I was wondering when you’d wake up,” Chris said. “Biding your time, were you?”

Sam growled and thrashed about, trying to shake off the murderous bitch on top of her. “Let me go! I’ll… I’ll fucking kill you!” Her threat came off a little flat due to the way her voice cracked in fear on the second-to-last word. The reality of the situation was really starting to set in now. She’d seen all of Roxy’s scars, heard her recounting how she’d gotten at least some of them. The hunters were going to torture her and Drew, and then, as soon as their usefulness for the ritual was dried up, they were going to die. Oh god, Sam didn’t want to die.

A boot slammed into her face and she felt the cartilage in her nose crunch horribly. She yelped in pain, whimpering and trying to cower away, but Anne was still firmly holding her in place.

“You ain’t gonna do shit, little bitch!” One of the hunters yelled, presumably the one who’d just assaulted her.

“That was unnecessary, Goodman. She’s immobilised,” Chris reprimanded lightly.

“Oh… Sorry, sir.”

The angle and the tears in her eyes made it hard to see, but she felt Chris’s presence as he kneeled near her head. He touched her neck, and she felt something sharp prick her. She hated needles.

“Ah! No, no, no, what is that?!”

“Just something to make you a little more pliable while we transport you back to the outpost,” Chris explained gently. “It’s nice, trust me. Your friend over there is having the time of his life.”

Everything started to spin, and Sam suddenly felt very unwell. “Nnnooo, I- I don’ like th-th-thissss…”

“There, there, Samantha. It’ll all be over soon.”

And so, for the second time that day, Sam’s vision faded to black, and she became dead to the world.

—

They drove in silence. Roxy stared out at the passing scenery, trying to ignore how sore her entire body was. In her legendary tumble, she’d managed to skin both elbows, part of her forearms, and her cheek. Thankfully, apart from her fucked knee, her legs were alright. Her pants had taken the brunt of the damage there. Didn’t mean they didn’t still fucking hurt, though. She’d really pushed them to their limits when she chased after the van. Other than that, her head was still pounding hard from what Pedro deduced was likely a mild concussion, and there was still a cut on the bridge of her nose where Anne had kicked her. Well, what was new there? With the amount of concussions she’d received over the past two years, Roxy was surprised she didn’t have some serious brain damage.

Leif was in the driver’s seat, taking them back to the Council building. Honestly, none of them were in any state to drive right now, but Leif was the only one who physically could, so it was up to her. Pedro was in the passenger seat, staring out the windshield with a blank expression. Meanwhile, Roxy was stretched out over the back seat, keeping her leg straight and elevated. She didn’t know how to feel. She was mostly angry. At herself, for not being strong enough to protect her loved ones; at the hunters, for perpetrating the acts themselves; at the universe, for anything and everything. They just weren’t allowed to be happy, were they? There was always something.

But, she was also sad. Empty. They’d lost a part of their pack today, and Sam and Drew had been stolen from them. Roxy was going to have to go to sleep tonight in an empty bed. Just the thought made her want to curl into a ball and wail. But at least she had a bed to go back to. Clarissa would never be going home, and, if their experiences were going to be anything like Roxy’s, Sam and Drew would be sleeping on hard concrete after being whipped within an inch of their lives. God, it was all just so fucking unfair.

It was going to be okay, though. Drew’s tracker was on. They were gonna fix themselves up, get some help, and go kill some fucking hunters. They weren’t gonna get away that easily.

“Hold on…” Leif muttered under her breath. The car started slowing down. “...what?”

“What’s wrong?” Pedro asked.

“It… My phone is saying that Drew’s tracker is right here.”

“...Shit. Stay here, I’m gonna check this.”

Roxy’s whole body went cold as Pedro got out of the car, walking out of sight. Without the tracker, it… what were they going to do?

It didn’t take long for Pedro to come back, sitting down and buckling himself in while breathing heavily. “Drive, Leif.”

“What? What did you find?”

“They must have figured out the tracker somehow. There’s a puddle of vomit on the road, with Drew’s tracker sitting right in the middle.”

“Wha-? But-”

“Drive. We need to get back and start searching for the outpost as soon as possible.”

Leif didn’t argue any further. They set back off on the road.

“Brooke,” Roxy muttered. “We need to ask Brooke. She… she went to the outpost to get the drug, she must know where it is.”

Pedro nodded. “Okay, let’s stay positive. All hope’s not lost just yet.”

Roxy hoped to god he was right.

They got back to the building and Roxy let herself be carried along as they made their way down into the basement. It didn’t take long to follow the trail of Brooke’s scent to the lab she was in, even slowed down as they were by people trying to stop them and give them medical attention. As soon as they burst in through the doors of the lab, Roxy shrugged the other two off and grit her teeth against the pain, limping over to the bespectacled girl and grabbing her by the lapels of her lab coat.

“Oh my god, what happened?!” she cried, stumbling back against the wall.

“Where’s the outpost you went to?!” Roxy shouted. “We- we need the address!”

Brooke blinked. “I-I can write it down for you, but first, you need help! You’re bleeding everywhere! What the fuck happened?!”

Roxy let out an involuntary whimper as the memory shot to the forefront of her mind. “The- the hunters, th-they killed Clarissa, and got Sam and Drew! They’ve taken them, we need to know where the outpost is!”

Brooke’s face dropped. “Oh… Oh god. I- I… Fuck, Roxy, I’m so sorry. B-but… the outpost I went to, it… it was just a small research station, they wouldn’t have taken them there… I’m so, so sorry, but I don’t know…”

Something inside Roxy broke at that. Their last chance of finding them, the last possible lead they had, was gone. She stumbled backwards, her leg buckling out from under her once again, sending her sprawling to the ground. She’d been holding it in ever since the van chase, but now. Now, Roxy was going to have a tantrum.

She held her head in her hands and screamed.

—

Watson sat on the edge of her cot, staring at her hands.

Today had been a resounding success. They killed a werewolf, and captured both of the direwolves in one fell swoop, all thanks to her own careful preparation. In six days, the eclipse ritual was going to turn all of the Earth’s werewolves into monsters, and the Sons of the Black Son were going to come to the rescue and save the day. They were going to be globally recognised as heroes. They were going to purify the world of demons.

They were going to kill the monsters that they themselves had created. All thanks to her. There was even talk of a promotion, apparently. She would get a unit to herself, standing alongside Captain Langley, instead of just being his subordinate. The extinction of an entire species of living, breathing people was going to be her fault, and she was going to get a promotion for it.

It didn’t feel good. It didn’t feel good at all.

Part of her thought it was because she didn’t see the point. Why would she need a promotion if all of the world’s werewolves were going to be dead by the end of the week anyway? Wouldn’t the Sons disband as they were no longer needed? Wouldn’t she be allowed to go and live a normal life?

The rest of her knew the real reason why it didn’t feel good. She was just trying to ignore it.

It didn’t feel good because the woman whose death she’d ordered today wasn’t a monster. She… was just a person, caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they’d taken Townsend and Thura instead, there would’ve been no cause to kill either of them. But because Clarissa was a wolf, she had to die. She had to repent for the sin of being born the way she was. Watson had done Clarissa a favour. She had released her from the curse of her life as a beast. Now her soul could rest in peace in Heaven, freed from the bonds of the devil’s form, or so Father Superior claimed.

She’d killed so many other wolves in her career, so why did this one hurt so much? Why was she still seeing Clarissa’s wide-eyed, panicked expression as the blade made contact every time she closed her eyes? Why was she still hearing Townsend’s anguished, muffled scream echoing through her head? Why was she still feeling the second-hand shame of that poor girl wetting herself in fear when the blade was held up to her own throat as she sobbed? She remembered the anger that had shot through her when her subordinate had done that. She remembered the way she’d shouted at him. Why did she care so much this time?

No, she knew why, she just didn’t want to admit it. She cared because she knew Clarissa’s name. She cared because Clarissa had broken her nose fifteen times over her MMA career, and now it had changed shape so much that her own elderly mother had barely recognised her the last time she’d gone to visit. She cared because every time Clarissa laughed, she laughed like she’d just heard the funniest thing in the world. She cared because Clarissa always put her loved ones before herself, even to her last moments, pushing Townsend- no, Leif away from them all when Watson had first taken them in, and shuffling in front of her when they’d been lined up on their knees in the half-built house, presenting herself up so that Leif would be spared. She cared because Clarissa obviously wasn’t a fucking monster.

How many of the other wolves that she’d killed were like that? How many were just… regular fucking people with day jobs and hobbies and bad habits that happened to be able to turn into animals? Watson got the feeling it was more than she wanted to think about. What was she doing with her life? Was this really how she’d wanted to turn out? Did she even remember who she wanted to be before the Sons took her in off the street, saving her from a life of poverty and homelessness? For the first time since she’d taken her pledge, she wondered whether or not she’d really been saved. What kind of saviour left the person they were ‘saving’ with permanent scars as a fucking welcome gift?

There was a knock on the door. Slowly, she lifted herself up and answered it.

“Good evening, Watson,” Captain Langley greeted. “May I come in?”

She looked at him. Really looked at him. How did he fit into all of this? He was her captain. He practically raised her, as much as you could raise an adult woman. He looked after her as she recovered from conditioning, trained her in the art of combat, taught her everything she knew. She trusted him with her life, and she knew the feeling was mutual. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say she loved him. He was a killer, just like her, only he hadn’t been forced into this life. He’d chosen to join it, following in the footsteps of family. He, just like so many others, joined the Sons wanting to do some good for the world, to help rid it of evil.

She looked at him, saw the sadness behind his eye that had been there ever since the Dewsbury mission. She saw the way he held himself in front of her, open and honest, shoulders drooping, back slightly stooped, not caring about appearances in front of his oldest subordinate. And she made her choice.

She stepped aside. “Of course, Captain.”

He nodded and entered her quarters, taking a breath. She closed the door behind him.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“Hm?” He turned to her, as if surprised she’d asked the question. “Oh, nothing much. I was just… checking in, I suppose. The purification is going to start soon, and my presence has been requested. I don’t suppose you’d want to keep me company?”

She shivered imperceptibly at the thought. Oh, those poor kids. “If I have the option, I’d rather not, sir. You know that the sound of the whip can still… be difficult for me.”

He nodded. “That’s fine. Do you have any other… plans? Anything to celebrate our win today?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. I was just going to get some rest.”

He glanced at her, and nodded again. “That sounds nice.” He sounded almost longing.

A moment of silence passed, and Watson decided to ask a question that had been sitting in the back of her mind since the van. “Sir, permission to speak frankly?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Granted.”

“Today, during the ride back to headquarters, I noticed you were quite… gentle, with the wolves. Obviously barring the situation with the tracker, the way you spoke to Reed as you sedated her was unexpectedly soft. It just struck me as unusual.”

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, taking measured breaths. “Well, the way I see it, those kids are probably going to be dead by the end of the week, anyway. I don’t see any reason to be unnecessarily cruel to them when life’s already given them such a shit hand. Honestly… I don’t understand why Father Superior is bothering to purify them. Why not just lock them up until it’s time? It just seems… needless, to me.”

It shocked her a little, how easily he spoke his disdain for Father Superior’s methods. That could be grounds for an accusation of treason, if the wrong person heard him say it. It just went to show how much he trusted her.

“...I agree,” she replied.

He let out a sigh, finally turning to face her properly. “Well, I guess I’d better get going. Can’t keep His Lordship waiting when it’s time to ‘purify the sinners’ or what have you.” He walked up and put a hand on her shoulder. “You take care of yourself, alright? You look like you could use a good sleep.”

She nodded. “I will, sir. Thank you.”

With that, he left her in peace, off to observe the torture of two teenagers. Watson sat back down on her cot, hung her head in her hands, and thought about everything. And later that night, once she’d undressed and tucked herself under the covers, for the first time in recent memory, Watson cried. She cried, and she didn’t stop.