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David...

When he forced his weight against the door to the brightly lit room, the latch gave way and the solid wood swung open. In the blinding brightness, a human man in a pitiful state came into focus, crouching by the wall. At the sight of David in his Bear form, the creature let out a pitiful, high-pitched scream. He was not Blossom. The cameras were there, the lights, the chemical smells of their technology, but no other Sheep remained in the space, just this pathetic man dressed in fancy clothing that neither fit nor flattered him.

Urine spread across the wooden floor toward David's heavy paws. David took a step back as the cowering man brought up his hands to shelter his face. "Please, no." The Sheep trembled. Voice wavering, he cried, "Bear. Hey bear."

David paused. His plans to rush in and kill the men who were torturing his friend fell apart. The strange vision of the cowering Sheep held him as the slippery scent of smoke caused his fur to rise.

The nose blind fool raised his arms, trembling harder when David didn't move. "Go on, Bear." He'd never seen a human so terrified. The wild-eyed creature looked toward the glittering camera lense. "Jesus, did you bastards hire the trained bear from the video?" The man raised his voice. "Handler!" he screamed out.

David rose on his hind legs and roared.

"David!" Jeremiah's voice rang down the hall, and David drew back enough to see his approaching ring brother. The powerful scent of a fire registered. "How did you get in? Show me! We have to go right now. The fire is spreading fast."

Mind spinning, he looked at the pitiful human and spared him one frustrated cry, before dropping back to all fours. Fire would do as well as claw. Trusting his ring brother, David loped back toward the side entrance he had entered by. Flames were spilling light across the front yard, and a new kind of screaming was beginning downstairs. David had ripped the brace from the door on his way up without even considering why it had been placed there.

Jeremiah followed, hot on his tail. His ring brother rushed past him onto the stair landing as David swiveled back toward the wicked house. He would not let them escape. Using his strength, he pulled free boards, dismantling the landing as Jeremiah raced down the stairs.

David lunged his entire body against the delicate stairway, pushing hard the spiral away from the damaged landing. Angry creaks sounded as Jeremiah called to him from below. Full of rage, because his friend wasn't there to save, David slammed himself into the staircase as it broke free from the structure. He lept free before it struck the ground, landing hard in the grass. The fire was spreading fast, crawling around the outside of the house. As a Bear, he limped toward Jeremiah.

*

Orp...

Orp's face went ashen under his mask. "No. Oh my God, no." He hadn't considered the dangers of a possible fire when he'd arranged for their guests to be locked in while the transformation happened.

Balor's hand stilled, the end of the wooden dowel inches from the cringing girl. "Did someone beat the bid?"

Pointing to a screen that was out of the line of sight of the camera, he said, "There is a bear on the second floor."

"What?" Sam stood, forgetting his plan to stay out of the line of sight, exposing the side of his face to the camera. "From where?"

Pulling up different angles from the second floor, Orp said, "It climbed the second floor servant's staircase and entered the second floor."

Sam scoffed. "How would a bear fit? I can barely squeeze myself up that infernal thing." The back of his head and his back were being projected to a thousand dark corners of the web.

"Gentlemen, do you mind?" Balor gestured to the girl. "I was in the middle of something."

Orp pushed up his beaked mask, his face obscured from the camera by Sam's arm as he gaped at the panel of screens. "The Great House is on Fire."

A shrug came with Balor's dark chuckle. "What does that matter to me? That life is part of our past boys." He shoved the end toward the girl. She tried to deflect the blue from her face with her hand and a streak smeared from her palm down her forearm, fading out at her elbow. "Welcome to the future."

*

Kennedy...

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The forest floor was soft, and Kennedy's shovel sank deeply into the loamy ground full of wriggling worms. A living place. She and Terry worked together as Red kept watch, moon lit and wary. Every twig snap garnered a direct look, and a cautious consideration.

The big man beside her worked in silence on his mother's grave. Terry sank his shovel blade deep. Next to the hole they were digging and the soft pile of loamy soil, what remained of his mother, had been placed lovingly amongst a cluster of thick ferns. Kennedy didn't ask permission before she slid down into the widening space. He grunted in complaint, but she ignored him.

This was the grandmother of her child. The woman deserved her respect and effort. His mother had protected them. Kennedy forced her blade into the dirt as behind her Terry widened the side, spilling more soft dirt to the bottom. They were bound to touch his father soon. She could smell the molder and ash.

Red had explained to her how bones don't burn easy. He had only been a boy, when he had been the one to dance on his old man's bones. Kennedy grimaced, stepped down on the blade, and felt a scraping slide. "Terry, I hit something."

*

David...

The two ring brothers, man and Bear, stumbled into the shelter of the trees and came face to face with the wide eyed Wolf pack David had traveled with. From the back stepped a lovely wisp of a girl in her human shape, Holly, a child with a grim line of a mouth. Her body was striped with scratches from running with her pack in this more vulnerable shape. Her trembling hands held a phone. "She isn't there. Not in that house." Jeremiah looked from the girl to him, bent forward, catching his breath.

David looked toward the house. Flames licked the roof. No internal water system was kicking on. After scanning the trees for any cameras, he shed his heart shape. By the time he was whole and had taken a deep breath, half of the children had turned.

A dark-eyed boy with tawny skin, naked in the stark moonlight, shuddered. "They told us not to come." He gestured to the empty woods. "But we did. We thought the others were coming here." He pointed to a Wolf who remained in her shape, twitchy and on alert. "Madaline can drive."

"You stole one of the van's?" David scanned the tree line for adults as more children began to morph and change.

"What else were we supposed to do? Blossom's safety is our responsibility. She is one of our own."

Jeremiah asked, "Where are the grown folks?"

"We don't know."

With a hand trembling with fury, the girl turned her phone toward them. "Here."

Somewhere far from the flames behind them, the vulnerable young Wolf, smeared with blue, remained trapped in a cage by her captors.

The young leader turned toward the flames and said, "They can't all be bad. We don't cull without consideration."

Jeremiah shook his head, bristling with bitterness and anger about what he had seen. "They came to watch a child be tortured. Let them burn."

"Those Sheep have been tricked into thinking she is a monster," Holly countered.

The dark-eyed boy added, "Some of them think she is an actor. Ansel told us. Stupidity is not a strong enough reason enough to cull. We have to open the doors and let fate save the innocent."

"I forbid it." Jeremiah demanded.

The feral youth looked at him and then at their defiant leader, naked as a wood spirit, marked with dirt and scratches. She told him, "You aren't in charge." As a group, the young pack turned their faces to their wild leader.

Before he could say another word, they moved like smoke disbursing through the trees. His ring brother rolled into his shape and followed them. Cursing, Jeremiah fell behind.

*

Orp...

Her scream was pitiful, and her nails raked her cheek. Along the seams of both of her wrists, her skin split. The forced change was brutal and never contained the elegance of a heart shape being taken. The child was rent, flipped inside out with a brutality that left her meager garment on the floor of the cage. Panting and bloody, a wolf lay within the cage.

The smile that Balor turned toward the camera was triumphant. This was everything he had been saying all along. He pointed with the end of the dowel toward the camera. "And your future, too. If you dare to believe in me."

Orp cut the feed. And within the borrowed apartment, the four men stared at the creature within the cage.

Sam stood frozen, his gaze locked on the rise and fall of the wolf's ribcage. The blue worked.

"Shit." Cursed Cary. He ripped off his gloves and threw them on the floor. "I thought I was going to get to show some of my talent. He pushed his mask up.

"You big cry baby," Sam mocked, "Who didn't get to use all of his new toys?"

Cary gave a derisive snort. "You could have warned me. We could have added into the planned flow." He picked up the little jar from the tray. "What the hell is it?" He sniffed. "If we put it on her again, will she become human?" The skinny wolf pressed herself into the corner furthest from Cary.

"Doesn't look like she likes that idea much." Sam mused.

Crouching down by the cage, Cary peered in at her.

"Stop that stupidity," Orp snapped. "We have much bigger problems." He was flicking through the few remaining cameras that still worked in the big house. "The fire department will not get there in time. No chance."

Balor, one hand on the table, leaned over Orp, watching the destruction. "This is going to be a PR challenge."

Orp looked up. "Aren't you upset about the house?"

"No. You can't pay for this type of publicity, and amongst our own people, it's proof that there are others who don't want us to have what they have." He scrolled through the cameras. "Roll that one back. The fire started there, right? Let's see how."

The image of Jeremiah intentionally setting fire to the curtains came into view.

"Hey," Sam said. He looks familiar. Isn't that the mechanic that was connected to the couch girl?

"Indeed. I think you are right. Now, what is he doing there?"

"Fucking with our plans." Orp grumbled.

Cary lingered by the cage. "What about the girl? Are we going to torture her into changing like we had planned?"

Balor clicked his tongue. "Your blood thirstiness is showing." He waggled his finger. "We aren't supposed to look like the bad guys. Now that our fans know that chemicals can work on those who have been initiated, the torture just looks like it's for sport."

"And if it is?" Sam asked.

"That can come later." Orp felt Balor's gaze land on him. "What I'd like to know right now is why they can't get out?"

Orp avoided their leader's gaze. He wondered if his pet, Remmy, would have the sense to run.