“Where is Arthur, Levi?”
Levi stared up at the ceiling, eyes struggling to focus. His hands were bound in steel manacles behind his back, his legs tied together with thick paracord under the desk. It was a wooden desk, too expensive to belong in this backwoods cabin. Sure, the building had once been nice, but now it was mostly a deserted, rundown affair. The window behind him hissed, poor weather stripping or maybe a small crack allowing air to push its way through from outside.
“Where is Arthur?”
His head was pounding, a mix of dehydration and the aftereffects of whatever Derrick had injected into his neck. The pinprick itched incessantly, and he had no way to scratch it with his hands bound. He sighed up at the wooden ceiling, swaying a bit in his chair. Such an uncomfortable chair. All stiff-backed and hard against his spine.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” he muttered. His words were slurred, almost drunk, but getting better as he used his lips and tongue to form those familiar syllables.
“You’re a trespasser in Redding territory. You’re in danger. Everyone you know is in danger. Arthur kept you safe, Arthur was your rite of passage.” Derrick held a small black recording stick in front of himself. He tapped the plastic thing on the table twice. “In order to do my job and to fulfil the deal I made with him, I need you to talk to me. I need you to tell me where he is, Levi.”
Levi allowed the silence to stretch out. Tears were pooling, unbidden, in the corners of his eyes. They slid down his cheeks and pattered onto the hardwood floor below. Dammit all...
Levi spoke in a small, cracked voice, throat dry as it was.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he mumbled again, shaking his head weakly. “I don’t want to talk about any of this.”
“I know you don’t Levi, but the only way to keep yourself,” Derrick paused and then let out a sigh, “and Rosa safe, is to tell me what’s happening. And that starts with Arthur’s disappearance. You know where he is, don’t you?”
Levi slumped a little smaller in his chair, as if he could retreat within himself. Like a turtle. A very sad, scared, pathetic little turtle.
“Don’t make me talk about this, please,” Levi pleaded.
Derrick shook his head.
“Ignoring it won’t make it go away. It will just make things harder. You know that better than almost anyone. Tell me where he is Levi. Tell me what happened to him so I can help you.”
Levi’s eyes welled up, vision blurring as tears filled his vision. Everything in the room looked like a smudge, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at Derrick.
“I killed him,” Levi whispered.
The words were soaked up by the stifling stale air of this place, but they seemed to make Derrick almost... relax. Confirmation. Concrete confirmation of what he already suspected. Derrick ran his hand back through his hair, shaking his head softly. The man looked tired. Looked exhausted, actually.
“I killed him!” Levi cried out. He screamed it at Derrick like he was screaming at God himself for the cruelty of the world, of the uncaring universe. The chair jumped under him as he thrashed.
“I killed him,” he snarled again, hot tears running bitterly down his face. “Are you happy now? Now you know, huh? You pompous jackass, kidnapping me, abducting my girlfriend, drugging me! God I hate you! You always act like you’re better than me, like you know best, even though you don’t care about me or my safety at all. You only want me safe because I’m useful to you.”
Derrick tapped his fingers on the table across from Levi, looking at the woodgrain in thought. Why wouldn’t the bastard say something, say anything to acknowledge him.
“I killed him Derrick...” the words came out in quiet sobs now, Levi’s body shaking. The fight left him, and he stopped thrashing. Derrick seemed to think for a few long moments, the silence lingering in the air. It was a heavy kind of silence, sodden, wet, seeming to weigh down the whole room.
“How did it happen?”
Those words were the man’s only reply, quiet and calm into dead air. Levi’s vision was blurred by his tears, but he dragged his eyes up to meet Derrick’s.
“I pushed him,” Levi managed. “It was an accident, but I pushed him. We were on a walk, we were at a railyard, I saw something,” Levi took a shaky intake of breath. He saw that night. He saw the tracks. He saw the red eyes, tearing claws, screaming faces all coming at him too fast. And he saw that golden disk, that tiny moon, at just the last moment. “The train just... there was nothing left. Nothing that looked like a person.”
“You were under the influence of the Call, you saw something,” Derrick repeated back, confirming.
Levi nodded numbly. His eyes burned, tears falling down to carve tiny lakes in the dust on the hardwood floor. He twisted his hands, letting out a quiet whimper as he tried to pull apart the cuffs he was wearing. They didn’t even groan in protest, designed to handle monsters like him. He went slack again, squeezing his eyes shut.
“What about the body?”
“The pieces?” Levi spat.
Derrick didn’t reply.
“I scooped them up with my fucking hands,” he sniffled. “I scooped them up and put them in a garbage bag. And then- Fuck, goddammit, God- I dragged the bag to my car and I drove out to the stone, the one they like to have their parties at.”
He felt Derrick tense at the mention of the site, but the man didn’t interrupt him.
“Fuck, they’re so damn loud. They yip and scream and howl and I can still hear it rattling around in my head when I close my eyes at night,” he shook his head up at nothing, at the sky.
“I left the bag there, for them. I thought, if I gave the body back, then maybe they’d leave me alone. I read something like that when I went through things with Arthur.” Levi knew how it worked. Atone. Confess. Penance and confession went hand in hand. And wasn’t he sorry? Wasn’t he more sorry than any person could ever be? “Never have been great at following their rules though. Didn’t work. Now I see them everywhere, around every corner. And every day the Call gets worse, tearing at me, sinking its teeth into every spare moment I have. It only goes away when I do, when I drift inside of myself and let my body act on its own. I d”
“Levi,” Derrick sighed softly. “Levi, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through that.”
Levi let out a short, bitter laugh. A miserable barking sound that broke back down to tears. Derrick didn’t interrupt him.
When Levi collected himself, at least somewhat, he had a question of his own.
“Where’s Rosa?”
Derrick winced at that question.
“Rosa is-”
Rosa’s arms wrapped around Levi from the side, tears on her face. They had carved tracks in her makeup, little dark lines down her pink cheeks. She cried, and she held him, and it was good. Levi let out a quiet sort of sigh and leaned against her, as much as he could tied to a chair.
Levi’s eyes widened.
Rosa had been sitting in the room, sitting, listening.
Rosa knew what he’d done.
Levi shivered and leaned a little closer to her. Bile rose in the back of his throat.
“You bastard...” Levi said quietly.
“You didn’t want me using her for leverage. I didn’t. Technically, anyways,” Derrick sighed. To his credit, the man seemed genuinely apologetic. Didn’t keep Levi from hating him.
“I wanted to know what was happening,” Rosa mumbled. “I was worried, I was scared, and Derrick asked me to listen, said it would help keep you from running away after the fact. I agreed.”
“She shouldn’t be involved in this,” Levi muttered.
“You’d prefer she was ignorant of the truth, worried sick about you,” Derrick grunted. “What if you had disappeared? What if I had brought you into custody, or if they had gotten their claws on you? She would have never known where you went, what she did wrong. Besides, I hadn’t really planned on involving her. I wish you hadn’t run. That little show at the motel attracted attention.”
“In a few months' time, she would have forgotten about me,” Levi said softly. “And she would have gone on with her life like I had never been a part of it. That’s exactly what I wanted.”
“That’s horrible Levi,” Rosa said quietly. “And I don’t want to forget about you. I don’t want you to drop out of my life. I want to be around you, to experience things with you, even when those things are batshit crazy and involve getting... flashbanged?”
“Was just a smoke bomb,” Derrick provided. “Needed something that would obscure his sight and his sense of smell, that way he couldn’t sense me coming.”
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“His sense of smell?”
Derrick looked at Levi, then looked back to Rosa.
“We can discuss that later. For now, by all means, undo his hands and feet.”
Rosa pulled the keys to the handcuffs out of her back pocket. He had even given her the keys? Derrick was too damned good at this, playing Rosa against him without her even realizing it.
“Didn’t know you were so adventurous in the bedroom,” Levi grumbled as his wrists were freed.
“You wouldn’t know, would you?” Rosa mused teasingly.
“Rude,” Levi sighed. He felt... drained. Drowsy and a little woozy, not to mention a touch betrayed. Likely the aftereffects of whatever he’d been jabbed with. Well, save that last bit. He sniffled, the tears starting to dry up on his cheeks. All he could smell was the smoke. It wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, mostly smelled like paper, but it clogged up what was usually his sharpest sense.
He shook his head. The memories swam around in his brain, bouncing off the walls like a terrible game of pinball. He looked around the room as his hands were freed, flexing them as he brought them into his lap. His wrists were raw and Levi decided he’d likely been struggling in his sleep. That was a touch peculiar; Levi didn’t usually thrash in his sleep even when he had... well, it was hard to call that a dream but he supposed there was no other word for it. It didn’t even really qualify as a nightmare.
The former office was cramped with three people in it. The door, behind Derrick, looked sturdy. Thick, hardwood, with new fittings. He wondered absently if Derrick had replaced the thing just for him. He also wondered if the man had replaced the doorframe. If he hadn’t, the new door wouldn’t do him much good if Levi made a break for it. Levi could just tear the hinges out of the old wood, no matter how sturdy the door itself was.
He stopped, squinting at Derrick’s neck. The man was wearing some kind of... sleeve that ran up to his jawline. It was hard to see, it was colored pretty close to his normal skin tone and ran down into his shirt, so the seam was only really visible where it met with his jaw under his ears. Maybe it was-
No. He forced himself to stop thinking through an escape plan. Rosa was here. No matter how good of a plan he came up with, there was no way he was going to be able to get out with Rosa, not with Derrick just waiting for him to make a move. Worse yet, he doubted Rosa would agree to leave now.
The bonds on Levi’s legs came undone and Levi made a move to stand.
“Ah,” Derrick began, “I wouldn’t-”
The world spun and Levi fell sideways, sprawling out on the ground. It sure was dusty down here.
“Owie...” he mumbled, trying to get his eyes to uncross. “You need to mop.”
“I did my best to warn you,” Derrick sighed. He loomed over Levi, having stepped around the table, but Levi couldn’t really look up at him. All he could see were those shiny black boots. He had a weird urge to chew on them, but he managed to forestall that.
Derrick, very, very slowly, helped Levi to stand back up. He leaned on the man for support, grumbling the entire time. His elbow had hit the ground first and it now ached in protest from the impact. Not to mention the wooziness. He felt like he was going to puke.
Levi let out a long, miserable groan.
“What the hell did you jab me with?”
“Elephant tranquilizer.”
“Elephant tranquilizer?”
“Elephant tranquilizer.”
There was a brief pause.
“Why elephant tranquilizer?” questioned Rosa.
“Because I really needed him to stay unconscious, obviously,” Derrick huffed as if the entire line of questioning was beneath him. The answer was obvious, wasn’t it? Why else would anyone give someone elephant tranquilizer?
“Couldn’t you have done something less... intense?” Levi groaned.
“Levi, I smokebombed your hotel room. Are we really having this conversation?”
Levi paused, considering that. Then he gasped, followed by a long, meandering groan.
“What’s wrong?” Rosa asked.
“My deposit!” he complained. “I’m never going to get my deposit back for that room!”
Rosa and Derrick looked at him, seeming a touch disappointed in him.
“Really Levi?” Derrick asked.
“I work hard for my money!” Levi barked back.
“Yeah, and I get that, but is that...” Derrick trailed off for a moment, trying to think of what to say in response. “Is that really important right now?”
“Hey, that deposit was $200! That’s not chump change.”
Rosa shook her head. “Priorities.”
“Oh,” Levi challenged, “so you’ll pay me back for it?”
“Hell no!” Rosa crossed her arms.
“And why not? You were in the room too,” the man shot back, trying to shake the dust out of his fluffy hair.
“You jumped off a balcony with me, I think you owe me.”
“We can be even,” Levi harrumphed.
“Even,” she replied in a grumble.
Levi paused, looking at her. Her nose was all scrunched up, her lips in a pout, looking off to the side. He couldn’t help but smile. Definitely cute when she was mad.
Even if she had taken advantage of his compromised position to get information out of him he wasn’t quite ready to reveal.
Even if she was weighing him down now, keeping him in custody with just her presence
Dammit.
Levi let out a quiet shuddering sigh. “Can I get some water?” Levi asked, leaning against the chair he’d been in so that he could take his weight off of Derrick.
“Let’s go into the living room. We’ll need to discuss next steps anyways,” the man replied in his typical deep and brooding manner. Nope, definitely not Levi’s therapist. Whoever got stuck with that would probably charge extra or, more likely, have him committed. Was that still a thing?
Derrick ushered him to the living room of the cabin. The space was dusty and dim, lit by a single table lamp. It was an old lamp, the incandescent bulbs inside burning with a warm orange glow and casting curious shadows through the semi-translucent glass of its shade. The lampshade was actually rather beautiful, even through the layer of dust. Elk pranced across a verdant green field, with the sky an off-white eggshell color. There was something about the eyes on the glass, almost too real, that made it a really striking centerpiece. Or, at least, it would have been at one time. Now it was an antique, left here to rot in an abandoned cabin. It was a miracle the place even had power. Who was keeping the lights on?
He managed to settle into the couch, looking up at the ancient ceiling fan overhead. Some draft somewhere in the place had it spinning lazily, creaking every few moments as it made a rotation. Safety hazard.
Derrick set a water bottle down on the coffee table and Levi took it, taking small sips of the cool water inside. Not fridge-cold, but a relief all the same. He had to take it slow, drink sparingly, or he could puke while waiting for the wooziness to go away.
He licked at his cracked lips.
Rosa sat beside him.
Everything was so fucked up.
“So, next steps?” Levi asked quietly. There was something almost like hope in his voice when he asked. Maybe Derrick actually knew what to do, maybe he actually knew where to go.
Derrick sighed, running a hand through his pitch-black hair.
“This,” he noted with a sigh, “is a very difficult situation. The situation with the California packs has been precarious at best and outright hostile at worst. Since the Colorado incident, everyone is on edge. Missing persons reports, missing agents, bloodlines disrupted, destroyed, or otherwise in chaos,”
“You’re not helping,” Levi growled.
“But,” Derrick grunted, scowling at Levi, “we have options. First step, though, is to get you out of this county, away from the incident. Preferably south. From there, we need to move you, either to Tahoe Sanctuary, or... to where you belong.”
“I don’t belong there,” Levi said softly.
“You do now, Levi,” Derrick said, though not unkindly. “Third option, you work with the Bureau and, instead of relocation we take you on full time. But I don’t think that would be to your tastes.”
Rosa huffed, arms crossing. “What’s the Bureau? I still haven’t gotten a good explanation.”
Derrick looked at her and thought for a moment. Then he nodded. “I’ll circle back to that in a minute Miss Rosa.”
“You call her Miss Rosa?” Levi questioned. “Why don’t you call me Mister Levi?”
Derrick didn’t really reply to that in any form besides levelling a glare at him.
“We’re going to get you South, so we’re at least heading in the right direction. Only trouble is, I’m not sure how yet.”
“You’re not sure... how?” Rosa asked. “Why do we have to leave town anyways, I still don’t understand. I still don’t get what... what happened to Arthur has to do with anything?”
At least she had the decency to look away from Levi’s eyes when she said that.
“Arthur’s car might be fast enough to get us out without getting nabbed,” Levi said softly. “If we can get to the garage, anyways. I have the keys already, and they can only move so fast.”
Derrick nodded, moving past Rosa’s comment.
“Maybe… Hard to say how many vehicles they’ll have on the road. Even with Arthur’s car, it might be a tight-.”
Rosa slammed her hands down on the coffee table, making that beautiful glass-shaded lamp wobble. Then she adopted an expectant, almost petulant look, pouting at them. Derrick and Levi both looked at her, eyes wide, for a few moments. Then Derrick let out a long sigh.
“I’m sorry Miss Rosa, I’ve been keeping you in the dark. It’s very rude of me. Ma’am, I work for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Specifically, I work for the Bureau of Conservation and Investigation, which is a small internal sub-division.”
“Wha-”
Derrick cut her off.
“I am an agent of the Bureau, charged with the care of endangered species. Very, very endangered species. My specialization is in the management of the fragile ecosystem that supports one particular cryptozoological species. That being-”
There was a thump at the back door of the cabin. Derrick and Levi both stood, though Levi had to steady himself as nausea wracked him. He shook his head, trying to clear it away.
Both of them slid around the couch, stepping into the space between Rosa and the backdoor as another thud sounded against the wood. There was a soft splintering noise, the sound of groaning. Rosa scrambled back on the couch and got to her feet, peering at the doorway. It was through the old kitchen, past the island. An old, wooden door with a brass handle that had once gleamed in the light of the midafternoon sun. Now it was tarnished and dull, barely glimmering as the yellow-white light of the lamp reflected off of it.
A third thud and a crash as the door gave way and splintered to pieces.
And there, standing in the doorway, was a creature of nightmares, and terrors, of horror stories and folk tales, of fangs and claws and rage, and feral need to kill.
It stooped to slide under the doorway, movements slow and silken as it glided forward. Its eyes glowed red in the shadows, the top row of cabinets masking its face from the lamplight. Its face was inhumanly long and canine, dagger-sharp fangs protruding from salivating jowls, grey-brown fur stretched taut over supernaturally strong muscle. Its head tilted one way, then the other, tall triangular ears pivoting forward, then sliding back again. The fur on its neck bristled as it eyed them, and Levi’s head pounded.
It felt as if it had stepped right out of Levi’s head, manifesting itself in front of him. All his fears and his horrors, the laughing, yipping, howling nightmares.
Go.
Join.
Hunt.
Howl.
He saw the tracks, stretching on into the distance.
Go.
Join.
Hunt.
Howl.
He smelled blood, metallic and hot in his nostrils. He saw the light, shining there, as the train pounded down the tracks on wheels made of cruel cold steel.
He felt the beast, clawing away at his chest, ripping through him. Arthur’s soul soaked into his clothes and his skin, into his tongue.
“... Werewolves,” Derrick finished.