Up in the stands, Aleissi laughs. “I told you it won’t be a walk in the park!”
Monty shrugs off his weak assault. “I was just getting warmed up,” he shouts back, and the crowd cheers. He pulls a set of brass knuckles out of his pocket and puts his whole weight behind a punch.
I drop to one knee and spit out a tooth. Pain is an old acquaintance. It doesn’t last long. I shake it off, flex my jaw back into alignment and, as my tooth grows in again, launch at Monty. I beat him down to the ground before they pull me away from him. He takes his time getting up. His brow’s split, pouring blood into his eye, and his hand shakes when he wipes it away. He grins for show, but I can smell fear.
The chains are not loosened when Monty counter-attacks. I can’t do anything to defend myself while the volley of punches rains down on me, but he has to take a breath some time… When he does, I strike—drop down, kick his feet out from under him, and he’s on the ground. My ribs scream as they knit back together, and I raise a foot high to stomp down. The bastard rolls away and makes it back to his feet, but he’s unsteady. I stalk him, and the chains are loosened to allow me closer as he backs away. I strike faster than my handlers can move. I grab Monty by the throat, lift him off his feet, and watch him dangle. His eyes bulge as he struggles to breathe. I savor the taste of victory. I won’t hold back this time; will not be denied the feel of his throat crushing beneath my hand. It won’t be long now.
“Stop!”
I snarl.
“Put him down!”
Never!
A female cries out and draws my eye. Aleissi has Gabby on her knees in front of him, a knife to her throat. Her eyes are red from crying, her lips dry and cracked. She’s so thin and small, shivering in a ragged shirt and nothing else. Rage simmers too close to the surface, and my fingers tighten even more. Monty makes a choking sound.
Aleissi presses the knife into Gabby’s skin, then leans down to lick a drop of blood from her throat. “Put him down,” he cajoles. There’s no need for an “or else.”
Gabby’s eyes plead with me. She’s terrified.
Somehow, I force myself to lower the human to his feet. I don’t let go.
“Now release him.”
I growl; a vicious, wordless curse the sick bastard will never understand.
“We want entertainment,” he says, then shouts to the silenced crowds, “Am I right?”
The crowd claps.
“Am I right!”
They cheer with renewed enthusiasm.
“So entertain us. Or my darling Gabby here will have to do it for you.” He steps up where everyone can see him better and tugs Gabby around to face him. With the blade to her neck, he unzips his pants.
I roar and toss my opponent across the arena, but before I can charge Aleissi, my chains are pulled tight again. I don’t see Monty struggle to his feet; I’m too busy fighting my chains. My face shatters with pain as I shift. I grow bigger, so big, the shackles cut off the circulation to my hands. My claws stretch longer, stronger, and sharper. My senses go into overdrive as adrenaline floods my system. I give a hard yank, and the three holding the chains to my right arm fall forward. Another three run to help them, pulling harder to keep me under control. Gabby’s crying. I scent her tears through the sick stench of arousal and sweat.
I don’t hear Monty approach. I don’t see him get a running start.
But I feel the blow—harder and sharper than anything he’s delivered so far. For a dazed moment, I watch blood drip onto the ground while my face burns with searing agony.
Aleissi screams. I scent his blood, and from the corner of my eye, see him hunch over.
Then Gabby’s screaming, and I look up to see her throat open onto a crimson spray. My eyes widen as her small body falls limp. Aleissi kicks her off the stand to the ground below, and red hazes my vision. I hear a sound so terrible, filled with such fury, I shudder. My right arm pops free of its chains. The left follows.
And then nothing exists except blood and death.
~
“Bryce, you okay?”
Bryce flinched to hear Aiden’s voice. His brother spoke in those same low, soothing tones he’d used back then and instead of bringing him out of the haze, it plunged him even deeper…
He saw himself standing in front of a cage, roaring in impotent fury as he tried with all his might to break the bars open, to get at the creature behind them.
Those outside were dead, pieces of them strewn all around the compound, the ground sloshing with their blood. But there were still others. He could scent them, hear them shouting at him, goading him. They screamed in horror, in fear, and the sounds drove him deeper into madness.
Denied another kill, Bryce took his rage out on the bars, biting and clawing, slamming his body full force into them, but he was weakened by all of the gunshot wounds and blood loss. He roared as he dropped to his knees, clutching the bars and banging his head against them. His flesh burned as his body knitted itself back together. The bullets remained, lodged in muscle and bone, sending starbursts of pain throughout his body with every breath he took.
He was defeated. And he hated that the creature on the other side could see it, too. It moved closer, but never close enough. It tempered its voice, spoke words he used to know, in a familiar rhythm that lulled the worst of his rage.
“Jesus, brother, what have they done to you?”
Bryce’s ear twitched at the words, remembering what that emotion behind them was. Pity. Shame filled him, dulling the pain of transformation as his body shrank, and bone-deep lethargy weighed him down…
The bowl dropped from Bryce’s grip; a metallic snap that twitched him back to the present. He blinked at the little spoon in his hand.
“You okay, B?”
Bryce looked at Aiden sitting next to him. They were in the woods, a small fire crackling happily, and a pretty female with matted brown hair braided back sat across from them, picking at a steel bowl.
He was breathing too hard, his heart beating way too fast. Bryce squeezed his eyes shut. Pull it back. It’s over and done with. You’re among friends, and you have someone to protect.
“Go take a walk, man,” Aiden said carefully. Get ahold of yourself was the unspoken message, though he wouldn’t say it in front of the female. She was scared enough already. “See if there’s any water nearby. I’ll keep watch here.”
Bryce shoved to his feet and went, managing to keep his pace steady until he got out of sight. Then he broke into a sprint, pushing his body as far as he could, heedless of where he might be headed as long as it was away from here. Walk it off. Run it out.
He ran until his lungs burned, and when he stopped, he raised his head and realized he couldn’t scent the fire or his companions anymore. Swearing, Bryce struck out at a tree, cracking the trunk down the middle with one punch. Years gone, long after he’d torn them all apart, those humans still had power over him, and he hated them for it so damned much it was eating him alive.
Bryce rubbed at his face, felt the smooth scars, and growled, digging his claws into the tree bark. He could never get rid of them; not the scars, nor the memories. They were a constant reminder that he was broken and might never be right again. His head was too fucked up.
Bryce wasn’t an idiot. He knew the only reason the pack hadn’t put him down yet was because of Aiden. Sometimes Bryce wished one of them would just grow a pair and put a fucking end to him already. He was tired of being the monster in their midst.
But Aiden wouldn’t allow it. He still held out hope that Bryce would get himself together again. That was why he kept organizing these scavenging missions. He thought if only Bryce had some quiet time out here, away from the pack and the den, something would change. Right. As if all it took to erase a lifetime of trauma was a fucking nature walk.
Bryce rubbed his brow, sighed, and started back toward the camp. He didn’t like leaving Sinna and Aiden alone. His brother could handle converts and animals, but if any humans happened by, he’d
need Bryce for backup.
Tracking his own path was a lot easier than it should have been; he’d torn through the foliage like a Sherman tank. Still not right in the head. He might as well have left bright pink neon signs to point the way.
As he neared the camp, Bryce picked up on Aiden’s voice, and he slowed to listen in.
“Don’t think you wanna hear this story, little bit. It’s not exactly a fairy tale. Although, come to think of it, the original fairy tales weren’t a walk in the park either.”
Bryce rolled his eyes. Aiden used to have a verbal filter. Since Bryce’s meltdown, it was like Aiden was trying to make up for Bryce’s silence by talking too much.
Sinna’s reply was too soft to make out. He liked her voice; it was feminine and sweet, but cautious. She spoke with an innate awareness of knowing how to listen, a gift Aiden sadly did not possess.
“It’s complicated. Animals aren’t the only ones with claws anymore, you know that.” The wind shifted, and Aiden drew out his last word, no doubt having caught Bryce’s scent. But instead of telling Sinna or calling out to him, Aiden loudly proclaimed, “Maybe we do need a campfire story.”
Bryce scowled.
“Once upon a time, in a far away land called Montana… No, that doesn’t sound right. Okay, for once, I’m gonna keep it short and simple.” Thank God. “You know that saying, ‘power corrupts’?”
Sinna replied in a hushed voice.
“Exactly. Well, that’s pretty much what happened.” Aiden’s voice lowered an octave, quieted. Bryce was forced to get closer to hear. “The people who created us got drunk on their own power. They toyed with us, hurt us, some more than others. You know how we told you Wolfen are pack animals? We are born feeling that connection with each other. If one of us is hurt, we all feel it on some level.”
Bryce crouched behind a raspberry bush and peeked out. Part of him wanted to march out there and shut Aiden up, but rational thought won over instinct. Forewarned was forearmed. They still had a long way to go to reach Montana and anything might happen along the way. Sinna needed to hear this, to be aware of the danger, so she’d know to run like hell if Bryce ever snapped.
“One day, they pushed too far. Hurt one of us too much, poked at our instincts too hard. Something clicked the wrong way and blew up in their faces.”
“They hurt Bryce.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah, little bit,” Aiden said softly. “They hurt him.”
“Did he kill them?” Sinna asked gravely, hugging herself.
Aiden made a face. “Kill isn’t the right word. Slaughter, I think, might be more appropriate. If it moved, he ripped its head off. Didn’t matter what species they were; humans, cats, dogs, even some goats and chickens. And he would have wiped out the Wolfen too, if it hadn’t been for the cages.”
Sinna made a small sound of distress that made Bryce shrink farther into shadow. She’d be scared of him now.
“Hey,” Aiden said. “Look at me.” He waited until Sinna raised her head. “What happened was bad, but trust me when I tell you it didn’t happen out of the blue, and it sure as shit wasn’t for no reason.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“It should,” Aiden said in earnest. “We’re no more than what they made us. We were meant to be their guardians, protectors against converts, and if they’d treated us with even the smallest hint of their vaunted humanity, we would have done it gladly. Instead, they treated us like monsters. So, monsters we became. Is it in us? Absolutely. Every single one of us, even you. But it’s not who we are. It’s not who Bryce is.”
Sinna was silent while Aiden stoked the fire, tossed more wood onto it. She stared into the flames for so long, Bryce got fidgety in his hiding place, but he stayed, waiting to hear what she would say. Her words surprised him.
“So, what happened?”
Aiden shrugged. “All that killing took a lot out of him. He collapsed in front of my cell, and by the time he woke up, he’d calmed down some. Took one look at me, at the blood on his hands, and just sort of…checked out for a while. Gabby, the girl he thought they’d killed, woke up at some point and saw it happen. She managed to drag herself to a crate and hide until she healed. Then she came out, found keys, and released everyone. We got Bryce to the infirmary and waited for his face to start healing, but it didn’t.
“Since I couldn’t leave him on his own, I sent someone to check out the arena. They came back with a severed hand wearing the scariest fucking version of brass knuckles I’ve ever seen. They had wicked curved claws on them, like fish hooks. One glancing punch, and the claws had gouged his face wide open. The tips had been coated with an anticoagulant to make the wounds bleed longer. It took a hell of a lot of stitches to get them closed and, as you already know, it definitely left its mark.”
Yeah, good times.
Bryce had lain there without moving a muscle, wishing for death as they’d dug the bullets out and stitched up his face. He’d been awake, halfway lucid the whole time—for hours—until Aiden finally bashed him over the head and turned out his lights.
That should have been the end of it. But Bryce had woken up again, body in one piece. “Don’t you ever—ever—look at me like that again,” Aiden had snarled. Bryce had never seen his brother so furious.
Now, Aiden frowned at the campfire. “I wasn’t there,” he said. “That’s what kills me. They kept taking him away and bringing him back, half-dead, and he wouldn’t talk to me. I had to question the others to find out what really happened to him.”
Bryce shifted to his feet and leaned against the tree. Wouldn’t have made a difference, big brother. Still doesn’t. You should have let me die. It would have been easier for all of them. He didn’t hold it against Aiden, though. In his place, Bryce would have done exactly the same thing. They weren’t just pack; they were family. And you didn’t give up on family. Not ever.
Bryce pushed away from the tree, ready for another run, when Aiden’s joints popped as he stretched, and Bryce heard him say, “But it’s all in the past now, so who cares? Right, B?”
Bryce cringed. “Right,” he growled over his shoulder. He stalked back to the camp, studiously avoiding meeting anyone’s gaze. “I didn’t find any water.”
“Bummer,” Aiden said. “Well, we should probably get going. Sinna, why don’t you and Bryce clean up the mess inside the mule some? I don’t think we’ll be needing a lookout for a while. I’ll take care of the camp.”
Bryce grunted and turned to the mule, happy to have something to do. After the hard driving they’d done, he needed to make sure the truck was still in one piece, anyway. He cracked his knuckles and got to work.
The mule was a genius piece of post-apocalyptic engineering. The more mechanically inclined among their pack had taken the chassis of an old military Humvee and built the next generation of personal transportation. It was big-boned, but sleek; all muscle and function, with a smooth-lined body for aerodynamics, an electric motor, and a heavy frame lined with batteries to store solar power. Every square inch of its surface was coated in photovoltaic paint. When fully charged, the mule shone bright white. As the power cells depleted, the color dulled and faded to black, a nifty feature that allowed it charge much faster when it was needed most.
The back had been built like a heavy duty truck, with an open bed and trunks around its edges for storage. Half of them were now filled with electronics and supplies. The other half had ammo. Bryce checked all of them to make sure nothing had gotten damaged and the watertight seal was still intact. The skies weren’t very bright with cloud cover gathering overhead, so he wiped the dust off of all top surfaces with a rag to optimize solar collection.
He came around to the side opposite Sinna and leaned in to check on their supplies. The cabin had been designed for utility more than comfort; the front seats were standard military issue, no seat belts, or any of the high-end luxuries of the twenty-first century, for that matter. The dashboard was a storage compa
rtment on top of more batteries, and there were only two gauges: one for battery usage, the other a speedometer added purely for Aiden’s enjoyment. Their GPS consisted of old laminated state maps, and their radio was whatever Aiden felt like belting out when the world got too quiet.
The back seat was a little more comfortable, hinged to adjust down into a bed. Neither he nor Aiden were small enough to comfortably sleep on it, but it’d be perfect for Sinna. Underneath the seat were built-in crates with supplies. Bryce scooped everything up off the floor and pulled the crates out, while Sinna folded clothes and neatly stored them back in the bag. They had four gallons of water and a dozen cans of food left. Bryce drummed his fingers, doing some rapid recalculations of consumption. Any which way he looked at it, they didn’t have enough to last the three of them until Montana.
“I didn’t find anything edible in the store,” Sinna said.
He looked up, and she blushed and dropped her gaze. It wasn’t a gesture of submission by any means. The way she pulled back toward the seat edge was more unease and insecurity. Bryce didn’t like that. Earlier, when she’d been setting out food, she seemed to have grown more comfortable around them. Now, whatever progress they’d made was gone, and he didn’t know how to fix it. All he knew was, he didn’t want her flinching away from him like that.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly, the only thing he could think of to salvage the fragile trust she’d displayed by talking to him directly. “We’ll find something along the way.” They might be able to hunt or fish. This wasn’t the route he and Aiden had taken coming west, so they might not encounter the same conditions going this way. But at the moment, it didn’t worry him too much.
Bryce pulled out an assortment of items from the small bag Sinna had stocked. All sensible choices, as far as he could see. He stashed the tools and utensils in one compartment, the rest in the other.
Aiden had doused the fire and was just about ready to go. “How much weight have you two pack rats added on?” he asked.
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