Horror, terror, and desperation ensnared Jesse tightly as he stared into the man's eyes. His heart raced, and his body trembled; each breath through his nose grew more difficult than the last, and the longer he remained pinned, the harder it became to think. He didn't know what to do other than stand there, stare, and do exactly as he was told. What was his other option? Death.

The man held him against the door, and it looked like he was concentrating—probably on the rushing footsteps outside. As each second passed, Jesse's fear intensified, but when the man took his soulless gaze off him to look up at the ceiling in response to heavy footsteps above, Jesse was able to shift his eyes...and he looked his captor up and down. Naked and covered in blood; the skin on his ankles was sore and burned, and his black hair was knotted and fell down to his jaw.

It was him. The man in front of him was the same man Jesse saw in that cell, the same man he hadn't been able to take his eyes off. Despite his trepidation, Jesse felt his wolf shiver excitedly, and just like the first time, he couldn't take his eyes off him.

When the man's dark gaze met Jesse's, angst and uncertainty spiralled down his spine; part of him wanted to look away—the cowardly part of him did—but his wolf urged him to stare, and he couldn't fight what his wolf wanted.

"If I take my hand off your mouth, you're not going to scream, are you?" the man asked, keeping his voice hushed and barely audible over the blaring siren.

Jesse's very first instinct was to scream—at least he thought it was; why wouldn't it be in this situation? There was a criminal in his room, a man who was quite possibly a murderer, a cannibal, or both. But instead of squirming, he shook his head in response.

The man seemed hesitant at first, but after a few more moments, he pulled his hand away from Jesse's mouth but didn't step back and take his other hand off his chest, keeping him pinned against the wall likely in case Jesse did attempt to call for help.

However, calling for help was the last thing Jesse's wolf had on its mind. It urged him to ask the things he wasn't quite sure he wanted to know. "W-who are y—"

"Shh!" the man snapped, holding his finger up to Jesse's face and glaring into his eyes.

Jesse did as he was told; the same strange sense of obedience that struck him when he first met this man hit him again, and he stood there without uttering another word, waiting for permission to speak.

Footsteps raced past behind him, and when they faded down the hall, the man lowered his finger.

"Who are you?" Jesse immediately questioned, his heart racing as his wolf's eagerness clashed with his fear. "W-what are you doing in my room?"

The man didn't answer right away. Keeping his hand on Jesse's chest, he looked him up and down, and when he moved his face closer to his neck, Jesse tensed up, horrified that he was about to take a chunk out of him to decide whether he wanted him as his next meal. But he didn't bite...he inhaled deeply. He sniffed, and it made Jesse's terrified, tense body shiver with confusing anticipation.

Why did he feel so...strange? He should be panicking. This man was a killer, sentenced to death; he was probably deciding what part of Jesse to chew off first. Rather than attempting to escape, though, he stood there at the mercy of his captor's undetermined decision. He let the man move his face so close to his neck that he was pretty much nuzzling it, and as he felt his warm skin drag along his own, his body started trembling not out of fear but desperation. The space between his legs started heating up, intensifying with every passing second, and the confusion grew heavier, too.

But then the man pulled away, taking his hand off Jesse's chest. "Ross," he said, and the prior hostility was no longer present in his voice; he sounded...vacant, emotionless.

Disorientated by his conflicting feelings, Jesse gawped at him and eventually managed to frown. "W-what?"

"Ross," he said again.

It took him a moment, but Jesse realized that must be his name. However, it didn't ring any bells. That Vârcolac guard said that this man was someone on the Nosferatu's wanted list, and Jesse saw and heard hundreds of names fly around the packhouse but never Ross. Maybe he just wasn't important enough to need discussing.

Knowing his name didn't make him feel any less afraid, though. His wolf might be curious and urging him to dismiss his caution, but he wouldn't let it win this time. He wasn't going to risk finding a dagger in his back or a fork in his leg. "I-I...are you...did you kill people?" he nervously asked.

"The guard by my cell and another on the way up here," he answered tonelessly.

Jesse wasn't sure what just shot through him. Horror? Disgust? Maybe it was both. He shakily replied, "I-is that...why you were locked up? Or...are you a cannibal?"

Ross raised an eyebrow. "I've eaten humans before."

Now he felt nauseous; his thoughts were becoming less frantic, and he was starting to make connections. Ross was a wolf walker, and wolf walkers weren't called murderers for killing humans—there was a different name for that. He was a murderer because he'd killed other wolf walkers, and that was likely the reason he was on the Nosferatu's wanted list.

His fear quickly outweighed whatever his wolf was trying to tell him. "Y-you've killed wolf walkers."

"That's why I'm headed to my execution," he said plainly.

Jesse trembled, stifling a whimper. "P-please don't kill me," he pleaded weakly.

"Redwood," Ross said with a contemplating tone.

He never told this man his name. How did he know he was a Redwood?

"What are you doing on this ship?" Ross questioned.

Jesse felt compelled to answer, but his fear kept him frozen and silent. He felt his wolf urging him to speak, and it didn't take very long for it to force him to find his voice. "I-I...I'm going to the Grey Moon Ceremony i-in...DeiganLupus."

Ross adorned an amused smirk and chuckled cruelly.

That was when Jesse scowled. He knew the sound of mocking, and this guy thought it was funny that he was a failure, didn't he? He wanted to be snarky, he wanted to snap, but he held his tongue. If he said the wrong thing, he'd end up on the list of however many wolves Ross had killed.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

How many wolf walkers had he murdered?

Jesse didn't want to know. The answer would only make him feel sicker no matter what it was. Instead, he asked him, "H-how do you know my name?"

"I know your scent," he corrected. "You Redwoods all smell the same."

Once again, Jesse had to hold back his comment—but this time, it wasn't just because he was afraid of what Ross might do in response.

Footsteps were coming up the hallway.

Ross' vacant stare faded, and a concerned frown flickered across his dark face. He wordlessly slinked into the bathroom and closed the door.

Jesse stood there, stricken with terror, confliction, and confusion. When several loud knocks came at the room door, he flinched and stumbled back as he turned around to face it. The knocks came again, and his racing heart sped up.

"Open the door," came a stern voice.

He didn't move. His sights shifted to the bathroom; Ross would burst out and stop him if he attempted to escape, wouldn't he? If he tried to let in whoever was outside—likely one of the Vârcolac guards currently searching the ship for him.

But they knocked again. "Open the door or I'll force my way in."

Jesse didn't want that. He was already in trouble with the Vârcolac; once they were done searching for Ross, he was certain that the man who'd caught him coming up from the brig would come looking for him to punish him for his crime, and obstructing a search would add to that punishment. So he edged forward, reached for the door handle...and slowly pulled the door open.

His terrified gaze met the glare of a Vârcolac guard, but to his relief, it wasn't the same one who'd interrogated him.

"You alone in here, sir?" the man questioned, looking past Jesse and into the room.

"Uh...y-yes, sir," he answered with a stiff nod.

The man raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"

Jesse hesitated for a moment. If he gave Ross up, surely that would exonerate him, right? He'd make up for trespassing. But what if Ross got out again? He'd come for him...and he'd kill him. He dismissed any thoughts of escape or avoidance and nodded again. "Y-yeah, I'm just a little shaken by what's going on."

"I'm gonna need to search your room," the guard said.

"W-what? Why?"

"A prisoner has escaped and could be hiding anywhere. Please step aside."

Jesse quivered but had no choice. If he tried to refuse, that would arouse suspicion. And Ross knew what he was doing, right? He'd somehow escaped and got into his room, so he'd find someplace to hide in the bathroom.

As he stepped aside to let the guard in, Jesse frowned. Why did it feel as if he was almost hoping that Ross would avoid detection? That man was a murderer, and he was threatening to kill him, too. He should be hoping that the guard found him, shouldn't he?

The man checked the closet, under the bed, and behind the cabinet.

And then he headed towards the bathroom.

Jesse watched the guard's every move, and when he opened the bathroom door, he expected Ross to lunge out and grab the man...but he didn't. The guard stepped inside; Jesse heard him move the shower curtain and open the cupboard, and then the man sighed deeply.

Was he done?

He listened to the guard's footsteps come closer, but then he stopped and turned around. Jesse panicked that he'd noticed something and stepped forward, peeking into the room. He saw the guard reaching up towards one of the ceiling tiles with his rifle, and the moment the barrel touched the tile, Jesse was struck with the mortifying realization of what was about to happen.

A savage snarl sliced through the sound of the screaming siren. The bathroom ceiling collapsed as a massive, black-furred wolf burst through the tile and collided with the guard, who didn't have a chance to fire his weapon. Jesse flinched in horror and stumbled back, watching as the guard attempted to use his arm to hold back the wolf's jaws, but the beast chomped down, biting the guard's arm clean off. He attempted to yell, but the wolf mercilessly clamped its jaws around the man's head and crushed his skull with a loud crunch.

Jesse gagged and held both his hands to his mouth, watching as blood and brain matter oozed through the wolf's teeth when it lifted its face to look at him. There was nothing left of the guard's head, only a bloody mess, and his remaining arm and legs were still twitching.

With another gag, Jesse looked away. The guard's rifle lay at his feet. His eyes locked with it, and for a moment, he considered trying to grab it, but he knew that he wouldn't be quick enough.

"Shut the door," came Ross' voice.

Jesse set his eyes on the black wolf—he knew it was Ross. It had his same deep, dark, soulless eyes. And like the meek little coward he was, Jesse did as he was told and closed the bedroom door.

Once he was done, he shakily turned to face Ross. He watched as he shifted back into his human form; his dark skin was caked in blood—more than before—and as he left the bathroom and headed over to the bed, he left bloody footprints on the floor.

Jesse stared at the body. He'd just seen a man mutilated right before his eyes, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to throw up or scream. His breaths were stifled again, and his legs felt so numb that he slowly sunk down to the floor and sat there, utterly, entirely petrified.

"Y-you killed him," Jesse breathed, grasping a fistful of hair on each side of his head.

Ross ripped the duvet off the bed and placed it on the floor beside the bathroom. "Help me with this," he said.

Jesse didn't move. He trembled, gawping at the corpse.

"Fucking hell, it's just a body!" Ross exclaimed. "Don't act like you've never seen one before."

He hadn't. Not like this. Nothing like this.

Ross grunted as he tried pulling the corpse onto the duvet, but the blanket kept dragging along the floor. With an irritated snarl, he sharply turned his head and glared at Jesse. Instead of snapping at him, though, he frowned and scoffed. "You seriously haven't seen a body before?"

Jesse frantically shook his head.

Sighing deeply, Ross shook his head and complained, "You would be a fucking wimp, wouldn't you?"

Despite his fear and disgust, Jesse scowled and snapped back, "I'm not a fucking wimp!"

Ross sharply turned his head to glare at him.

Jesse tensed up, sure that he was about to end up like the guard.

But Ross scoffed amusedly and shifted his attention back to the body. He began trying to pull it onto the duvet again.

Now that he'd seen how Ross reacted, Jesse felt a little more confident to speak his mind. "W-why the hell did you kill him?!"

"Because he was about to find me."

"Y-you could've just...just—"

"Just what? Let him find me? Go back to my cage?" He scoffed again and tugged on the body. "People like you have no idea what it's like for us," he muttered and finally heaved the corpse onto the blanket without it slipping along the floor.

"You deserve to be in that cage, though," Jesse said warily as he lowered his hands from his head. "Y-you've killed people...and other wolves."

Ross stood up and wiped his bloody hands on his bare thighs. "And I'll let Fenrisúlfr judge me for that. Not you or any other Redwood, not the Vârcolac, and certainly not the Nosferatu. Now are you going to shut up and help me deal with this body or are you going to keep crying in the corner?"

Jesse's scowl thickened. "I'm not getting involved," he denied, shaking his head.

"You're already involved," Ross grumbled, wrapping the body in the duvet.

"What? No, I'm not! You were the one who came in here and threatened to kill me if I said anything!" he exclaimed.

"You could've told the Vârcolac where I was; you could've picked up the rifle and tried to defend yourself, but you didn't do any of those things."

"Because I was scared!" he insisted, rising to his feet. "You're an escaped prisoner!"

"All the more reason to try and defend yourself," he said with a shrug. "They're gonna keep searching the rooms over and over until they find me, and if they come in here and see all this blood and their dead buddy, we're both fucked."

"Why don't you just eat him?" Jesse muttered. "Wouldn't be the first time, right?"

"I'm not hungry."

Jesse grimaced and looked away. He couldn't stand to look at him anymore.

"They probably won't come around for a few hours; we'll wait until the patrols thin, and we'll chuck the body overboard."

"We?" Jesse questioned, glaring at him. "I-I'm not helping you do anything!"

"Do I really have to say it again?" he said with an irritated huff, setting a hostile gaze on him. "You don't have a choice; you're in too deep already. What do you think the Vârcolac will say if you tell them that you watched me kill one of their guys and did nothing about it? What are you gonna tell them when they ask why you took so long to report it?"

As much as he hated to admit it, Ross was right. What would he tell the Vârcolac? That he found the escaped criminal in his room but didn't try to escape? That he let the escaped prisoner hide in his bathroom? That he watched him kill one of their guards and had the opportunity to grab a rifle and shoot him but didn't? That he had the perfect opening to escape but closed the door instead? And that he was just standing there right now instead of attempting to run? He couldn't lie to the Vârcolac, either; they were demons, and they could tell when someone was lying.

Ross was right. He was fucked either way.