Throwing Mountains
The petite pink plastic teacup would have been hard enough to handle as a human, but it was almost lost in Sammy's paw, and quite a bit of the mint tea had soaked into his fur. And adding sugar? Forget about it.
But Jenny had insisted Sammy be wolfside for their tea party and dressed in a fancy sash that was literally just a long strip of red ribbon pinned at the bottom, slotting him right in between her two favorite stuffed animals.
"Hwhat news of my kingdom, Duke Wolfington?" she asked, affecting the best British accent a five-year-old American could manage.
Feeling a streak of mischief, Sammy set his cup down for dramatic effect and threw Princess Jenny a curveball. "Your Highness, there's been a drought. The farmers are worried they won't be able to grow enough food for everybody."
"Then you and your wolves will just have to hunt more," Princess Jenny declared, not missing a beat. "A duck in every pot!"
Sammy bowed his head. "Very good, Your Highness."
Sammy heard the front door open and shot to his feet, pulling the ribbon off. "Sorry Jenny, playtime's over."
"Aww!" She folded her arms and pouted, but Sammy was already halfway out of the room.
"It would be stupid to go out there, Nick!" Hatchet snarled as the two men stomped inside. "Crowds of people and lots of noisy distractions are the perfect recipe for an ambush, especially from lunatics who don't care if our secret's blown!"
Sammy wasn't sure why he did it, but he immediately ducked down and stepped back to be out of line of sight of anybody downstairs.
"And what would you have me do?" Odysseus snapped. "Spend the rest of my days hiding at home like a scared pup? I am the alpha of the oldest pack in America, and a former Order agent! I will not cower in fear, especially not when there's a blue ribbon on the line!"
"It's the former agent part that's the problem. That's who they're targeting."
"Need I remind you, that includes yourself. You personally arrested one of them."
"Sure, but I've got... a reputation. They're more likely to target you than me."
Odysseus squared his shoulders and raised his chin. "Hobard Whelan did not cower from his enemies, and neither will I."
Hatchet rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air. "Damn it, Nick. I know whenever you say that name there's no reasoning with you." He turned around and stalked towards the front door. "But now's not the time for fairytale heroes."
Odysseus just tapped his feet til the door closed behind Hatchet, then cast his gaze upwards. "Eavesdropping, Phoenix?" he called out.
Busted. Sammy gulped, but he knew better than to try slinking away. "How could you tell?" he asked, leaning over the banister.
"Well, Hatchet and I weren't exactly being quiet," Odysseus said as he ascended the stairs briskly. "And talk of Order affairs will pique any werewolf's curiosity, naturally. Also, I could hear your claws click-clacking on the hardwood floor."
Sammy looked down at his feet. While Night Sky tolerated being wolfside upstairs, she still wasn't happy about it and made it clear that everyone was expected to vacuum up their own sheddings. Downstairs was completely off-limits to wolf forms. He took a deep breath and willed himself humanside again. Odysseus politely stood around waiting for him to change. Thankfully, it only took about a minute.
He swallowed down the extra saliva that had nowhere else to go now that he had a much smaller mouth, then returned his attention to Odysseus. "Can I ask what's going on?"
"You may," Odysseus answered.
Sammy stared at his alpha, awaiting an explanation. Odysseus stared back.
"Well?" the alpha finally broke the silence.
Confusion made Sammy's heart skip a beat. What had he done wrong? He reviewed their last exchange in his head, but he couldn't figure out what Odysseus was waiting for. "Wwwwwwell...?"
"You asked for permission to ask what's going on. I granted it."
Oh! Oh. With a sigh, Sammy said, "What's going on? Sir?"
Nonchalantly, Odysseus leaned against the railing. "Eleven days ago, three werewolves somehow escaped out of an Order rehabilitation center. And somehow they've tracked down and killed two former agents."
"Rehab as in drugs?" Sammy asked.
"The other kind. It's a euphemism for a prison. There are werewolves who have gone rogue, but their crimes have been deemed not so bad as to deserve corporal punishment. Though arguably, for a werewolf a lifetime of confinement might be a fate worse than death."
"I know it is," Sammy mumbled. He shuddered, momentarily seeing the gray walls of his BioPharm cell. He forced his eyes open and noticed his knuckles were turning white.
"Who was Hobard Whelan?" he asked suddenly, desperate for something else to think about.
"One of my ancestors," Odysseus declared. "He was a Chosen, as a matter of fact. No one's quite sure when he was born, but he rose to prominence in England in the 1800s. A gentleman adventurer, for King and Country."
Sammy inched a bit closer. "Sounds like you really admire him."
"Oh, I grew up on his stories. His wife, Charlotte Wareham, was an American werewolf who tracked him down to help find the man who either shot her father or shot her hand. They never found the shooter, but they fell in love and traveled the world having grand adventures."
"What kind of adventures?"
"Well..." Odysseus shuffled his foot. "Whelan claimed he and Charlotte were the ones who put a stop to Jack the Ripper. He also claimed to have fought a woman from another planet who rode around on a pterodactyl terrorizing the natives of Bolivia."
"Wait, what? You're kidding."
"Well, that's what he claimed when he finally sat down and wrote his memoirs, though how much was intentional exaggeration and how much was the result of the heroin addiction he picked up after Charlotte passed is anyone's guess."
"Heroin addiction? And you look up to this man?"
"Well, I'm sure some of it was rooted in truth, there's a few Order records from those days to back up some of his accomplishments. As for the rest, well, it at least makes for entertaining stories."
"I suppose," Sammy said. "It must be pretty cool, y'know, knowing your ancestors."
He must not have hidden the wistfulness in his voice as well as he thought, because Odysseus looked at him for a moment before responding. "I may take pride in where I came from, but their accomplishments aren't my own. I have to stand on my own virtues, same as anybody. Same as you."
Sammy felt Odsysseus' arm enclose him. This close, he could smell the sweat and cattle saturating Odysseus' clothing and skin, but it was a comforting scent. Sammy realized it had come to be the scent of home for him. "Are you sure you're not in any danger?" he asked quietly.
"Nothing's certain, Phoenix. But to quote Hobard Whelan, challenges are what make a man."
***
Compared to the state fair, their county fair was a modest affair, but not for lack of effort. Cedar City and Pine Grove, continuing the endless rivalry, alternated years hosting the fair, and always tried to one-up each other (within the annual budget, of course). It was a favorite time of year for many pack members. Maddy was vibrating with excitement to try the new rides. Nothing was too daring for her. She could be twisted, turned, flipped upside-down, and spun around and it only left her begging for more. Sammy suspected if there was a ride that could flip her inside-out somehow, she would be the first in line. Nicholas had been hard at work preparing for the rodeo and the livestock show, and yesterday morning he and Hatchet had delivered their biggest bull in the hopes of bringing it back with a blue ribbon. And for the whole last month, Sammy had been looking forward to whatever new foods someone dared to deep fry. Last year, the s'mores had been a particular favorite. There had been rumors going around of deep fried sushi, a concept which Sammy found intriguing.. And then there would be the chili cook-off, for which he and Night Sky had spent the evening before preparing one of her award-winning "Creole-spiced" batches.
But then, of course, something had to go wrong. Sammy had thought he'd just been overdoing it when he went to bed with a dull ache in his back. But the next morning, as his alarm went off, Sammy opened his eyes in a dark room and his backside in stiff agony.
"Oh no," he groaned. He got up and lurched for the window between his and Liam's beds, parting the curtains to confirm his fears. The gray sky hung moodily over a landscape seized with the dull gloss of frost.
"Cold snap?" Liam's voice was muffled under his thick pile of blankets.
"Cold snap," Sammy confirmed, followed by, "Shit."
"Oof, must be bad if you're swearing," Liam said, throwing off his blankets and sitting up. His face screwed up as the cold air hit it. "Shit," he agreed.
Sammy grit his teeth as he stretched his back, trying to force some flexibility into it, but that only increased the throbbing. He marched for the closet and pulled his bathrobe out from the far corner of the hanger. The weather had been warming steadily. Just a few days ago they'd begun pulling bins of summer clothes out of the basement. The weather forecasts hadn't predicted this, either. It wasn't an unheard-of freak of nature, but it was certainly an unwelcome one.
"Your back hurting?" Liam asked.
"What do you think?" Sammy snapped as he awkwardly maneuvered himself into the robe. "I'm twenty-one and I'm sensitive to weather changes like an old man. It's just not fair."
Liam graciously brushed past the sarcasm. "It sucks man, I'm sorry."
Sammy was in no mood to apologize nor accept pity, so he just grunted and made his way downstairs for some coffee. He didn't know what made him angrier; that he'd had such high hopes for the day and now he was probably going to be too achy to have any fun, or the reminder that his quality of life would forever be diminished thanks to the inhuman abuse of the BioPharm "scientists." His body would always be marked by their handiwork, and not just the surface-level scars. They had permanently damaged him.
Granted, it could have been worse. And granted, he had been so much worse off Argo had taken him in. His ability to heal had been handicapped for months, and it had taken him even longer to be able to sprout a full, healthy coat when he went wolfside. He could have been permanently crippled by the surgeries--or worse, if Odysseus and Hatchet hadn't gotten him out of there. But, still, he shouldn't have gone through all that at all.
Odysseus was in the kitchen, pouring mugs of coffee from the ceramic-coated percolator that looked as old as he was. They liked their brew strong around here. Clara on the other side of the island counter, listening raptly to one of Odysseus's tales from his youth in Europe. She loved his stories. But his story came to an abrupt halt when Sammy entered the kitchen.
"Back hurts?" he asked without turning around. He didn't need to. If the particular sound of Sammy's shuffling footsteps didn't give him away, his scent certainly did.
Sammy moaned an answer and sat down beside Clara. She squeezed his hand before passing the bottle of hazelnut syrup. Despite his foul mood, his heart fluttered as she remembered what he lied. Odysseus set the mug before him and he flipped the syrup bottle over. Today, he needed it extra sweet.
"Well then you can cook breakfast, we'll handle your chores."
He opened his mouth, his reflexive response to insist that he could, and wanted to, pull his weight around here. He had been a charity case long enough, and wanted those days to be behind him.
"This is not open for debate," Odysseus cut him off. "We're pack, helping each other in times of need is what a pack is all about. Isn't that right, Clara?"
"Sure," she said.
Sammy's face flushed, but he nodded in obedience and sipped his coffee... then added a bit more syrup to it.
"I feel so helpless on days like these," he admitted.
"You're not," Odysseus stated, and then left the kitchen with another mug for his wife. No comforting speech like Night Sky might give. But the simple, matter-of-fact way he dismissed Sammy's fears... oddly, that could be just as inspiring.
"I could use more practice milking cows, anyway," Clara said, before downing her mug and then hopping off the stool to get to work.
The throbbing in his back had waned slightly thanks to the coffee warming his core. Carefully, Sammy stood up and walked to the fridge to pull out eggs and hamsteaks. Breakfast wouldn't be fancy, but it would be filling for the day ahead. He was proficient in the kitchen, Night Sky had seen to that.
***
It was past 11 by the time Sammy made it out to the fairgrounds. Clara, still new to farm life, hadn't finished his share of the chores as quickly as hoped and would have to join them later.Madison had fidgeted in the passenger's seat the whole way, unhappy to be arriving later than promised. By that time, the sun had melted the frost, but that just made the ground go from cold and slippery to cold and soggy. The dirt parking lot was now a field of mud already cleaved with the tire marks of the trucks of the people who had beat Sammy here. The mud would try and harden by mid-afternoon, probably, except for underneath any vehicle that parked this early and shaded the ground from the sun's rays. Sammy imagined he could feel his truck sinking into the mud as he found himself a parking spot, even if the layer of mud wasn't that deep.
"Let's goooo!" Madison whined as she unbuckled herself and launched herself out of the truck to "claim a space in line." Sammy stiffly rotated in his seat and climbed down. The tiger balm Night Sky had applied to key spots on his back had helped, but the stuff was losing its effectiveness. He grimaced at the squelch his boots made in the mud. He set his gaze on the front entrance. There was, of course, no line. Just Madison, bouncing on her heels. Fortunately, she couldn't get inside without him to buy her ticket. Sammy was under strict instructions to keep Madison in his sights at all times, no matter how hard she was going to make that job.
He had just about caught up with her when his phone rang. She groaned. He checked the caller ID and answered it.
"Hey, Rox."
"Hey, Sammy. Are you at the fairgrounds?" Her voice sounded hopeful.
"Just got here, why?"
"Well, I've got a favor to ask you..."
"You need me to pick something up for you?" he asked, hoping that was all it was. But he had a suspicion that it wasn't.
"No. Er. Fenton woke up this morning with a man-flu, and he promised Jenny he'd take her to the fair today. I can't do it, I have too much work to catch up on. But I thought, since you're already watching Madison..."
Sammy stifled a moan. He could barely keep up with Madison right now. Watching two little girls...
"I'll give you enough cash to cover her expenses, plus some extra to buy yourself a few greasy treats," Roxanne promised.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, as he glanced down at Madison pacing back and forth, a wicked notion settled into his mind.
"How long will it take you to get here?"
"About... twenty minutes?"
"All right. We'll wait outside the front gate for you."
"WHAT?" Madison growled.
"Great!" Roxanne exclaimed. "Thank you so much, Sammy. You've saved the day. Again."
Yeah. He was a regular freaking superhero. The Incredible Plank.
***
"I wanna ride the teacups!"
"That's a baby ride! Let's go on the roller-coaster!"
"I'm not a baby! I'm just too short for the roller coaster!"
Nothing but exclamation points all morning. In past years Sammy had been just as enchanted by the melange of greasy smells and motor oil lubricating the well-used carnival rides, the mix of fresh hay and... digested hay from the livestock, the thrum of generators and high-pitched recorded music, the ringing of bells in game stalls where no one ever won. And while the girls' enthusiasm had not been quelched--Madison had already gotten mud splatters all over her bright-pink cowboy shirt and blue jeans; the only thing clean on her was the equally-pink cowboy hat--Sammy was left wondering what had happened to his own sense of revelry. Even munching on a caramel apple hadn't improved his mood. Was this what adulthood was like, walking around wondering what had happened to your inner child?
"Girls!" he finally interjected. "Whichever one of those rides we get to first, that girl will get on. Then we'll go and let the other girl have a turn, sound fair?"
"But you can see the roller coaster from here!" Jenny said, pointing at the obvious landmark. "We don't know where the teacups are."
"Fine, then we'll ride the ferris wheel first thing, so we can see where everything is."
The look on both girls' faces suggested this was not a reasonable compromise.
"The ferris wheel's only cool at night when you can see all the lights from the park," Madison said, crossing her arms.
Sammy couldn't help himself. He smacked his palm against his forehead hard enough to make an audible smack.
"We got all day, girls." God help him. "Let's just pick a direction and walk."
By some blessed coincidence, said direction led them towards Hatchet and Roy. Roy had his uniform on so he was on duty. But Hatchet, perhaps, could be persuaded to take Madison just long enough for a roller coaster ride. If he was in a good mood.
"How did you get this news before me?"
"They're trying to elude the Order. They probably aren't concerned so much with regular law enforcement."
"Hatch- Robert!" Sammy called out as he lead his charges towards their packmates. "Would you mind-"
Roy reeled on him so fast that his hat went cocked on his head. "The adults. Are talking. Sam," he said through grit teeth.
Sammy froze in his tracks. Even though his back was still scrunched up tight, his stomach did a flip. Had he done something wrong? Overstepped a line that could not be crossed?
"Calm down, Roy," Hatchet said. "What is it, Sam?"
"Well, I just... it's nothing important-"
Before anyone could say anything else, a wail cut through the air. All heads turned to see Jenny lying on her back ten feet away. Madison loomed over her, looking terrified.
The three adults rushed in.
"What happened?" Roy demanded.
"Jenny spotted the teacups and took off for them! I followed her to bring her back, but she slipped in the mud."
Sammy dropped to his knees, back be damned. "Jenny, are you hurt?" he asked.
She answered him with another wail. The mud was soft and her heavy jacket would have further padded the landing. The chance of injury from a fall that short was next to impossible. Her crying proved that she hadn't had the breath knocked out of her. So she was mostly just startled-
"You were supposed to be watching these kids, you idiot!" Roy snarled, smacking Sammy across the chest.
"Hey!" Hatchet snarled, turning on Roy. Lighting-fast, his hand whipped out and struck, backhanding the sheriff. "You've been told to lay off Sam."
All human eyes focused on the two men. They knew nothing of pack politics. They only knew that their friendly neighborhood sheriff had just been slapped like a bitch. And his face burned red not just from the blow. Even Jenny stopped crying, now in shock from such an unexpected display of violence.
"Goddamnit, Hackett," he said. "You know I gotta run you in now for assaulting an officer."
Hatchet folded his arms and jutted his chin out defiantly. "Oh, cut the shit, Roy. This isn't about you being an officer and you know it. This is personal. You've always been hard on Sam. You've downright bullied him wherever you think Nick and Ruth aren't looking. And now you wanna hide behind that badge?"
Roy rubbed his face and scowled. "And what do you expect me to do? Just walk away and let you get away with it? While everyone's watching?"
Lightning-fast, Hatchet had his hand around the back of Roy's neck and pulled him in to whisper in his ear. "Of course. I know the rumor mill about me around here has all kinds of crazy theories. But they already know I'm no one to fuck around with. So let this be one more story for the rumor mill. I'm sure everyone's already wondering what I could possibly be whispering to you. Walk. Away."
Hatchet let him go and Roy slumped. He was cornered. Beaten, but not defeated. He cast his fiery gaze back to Sammy. "Jenny's got cold mud all over her. You get her back to her mama. You hear me?"
"I hear you," he mumbled.
He scooped Jenny up into his arms, wavering as his back threatened to lock up unless he changed the angle of his ascent. "I'm sorry, girls. We'll try again tomorrow."
Jenny started crying again, but more quietly this time. Madison moped as she followed. Hatchet brought up the rear.
"Uhm, thanks, I think," Sammy muttered to the old man.
"Don't mention it," he said. "By the way, I told Nick to drive my van home, so I could use a ride."
***
Sammy felt like an absolute cad dropping Madison off back home. That was the only word for it in his head. Cad. He'd made a promise and utterly failed to keep it. Roxanne's eye-withering glare of disappointment as he met her at the door carrying a filthy, sobbing child hadn't exactly been comforting either. She probably wouldn't ever trust him to babysit ever again. And no doubt she had already called Night Sky to complain about him, which meant the Alphas would reevaluate him and realize just how useless he actually was. They might even start listening to Roy's arguments against him. It was only a matter of time before he'd be asked to leave, especially now that he was an adult, and he had no idea where to go from here. He couldn't be a lone wolf, not again. And he couldn't simply move to a new pack and start over, he had no idea how. It was a fluke that he'd wound up in Argo in the first place. They hadn't even been looking for him. He was a charity case then, and he was about to become a charity case again...
"Sam! Eyes on the road!"
Tires screeched as Sammy swerved to keep from driving straight off a bend in the road. The truck lurched, and for one terrifying heartbeat Sammy thought he was about to defy physics and probabilities and flip his truck over. As the world leveled off and the road was once again in front of them, Sammy and Hatchet both breathed a sigh of relief.
"You're beating yourself up over letting those kids down," Hatchet said. There was no anger in his voice for nearly getting them in a car wreck. Just matter-of-fact analysis. "I know you're a hardwired overthinker, so try overthinking about the road so we don't get killed."
A quiet "Sorry," was all Sammy could muster to respond with. He glanced in the rearview mirror at the black car behind them. Surprisingly, it hadn't taken the opportunity to pass them after the near-accident. They probably didn't want to risk colliding with a maniac driver.
"Cub, what happened today wasn't your fault, it's not gonna be the end of the world," Hatchet said way too confidently. It wasn't his entire life on the chopping block.
Sammy slowed down and edged the side of the road to let the car behind them pass. He'd inconvenienced enough people today. "Easy for you to say, you probably have no idea what it's like to be a screwup."
Hatchet snorted and folded his arms. "If that was true I wouldn't have a daughter who hates my guts for reasons I can't really say she's wrong for."
Sammy opened his mouth to reply but instead a shockwave sent his head lurching forward. And then the airbags went off and lurched him back the other way. Now, werewolves could physically heal from drastic injuries, but they were not immune to shock. Sammy was vaguely aware of a bag covering his head and someone dragging him out of the car. He tried to struggle, but a needle stabbed him in the arm, and he didn't have a chance...
***
The first thing that registered when Sammy came to was that his arms and legs were bound, and that snapped him from groggy to panic with no in-between. Part of his brain denied that this could be happening again. BioPharm was back, they had tracked him down and they were going to finish the job! There was a sack over his head! They hadn't done that last time. But it just made everything worse! He could feel movement, they were in a van, they were driving somewhere! A warm presence was pressed up against him. Oh, God, they got Hatchet too! If the man who got him out of there was trapped with him, what hope could there ever be?
He tried to change. He called on the wolf. He didn't care that transforming while bound would just break his bones if the restraints were tight enough. He had to fight, he had to get out of here, he didn't want to go through all that all over again! But nothing was happening except his heart rate pounding, pounding, POUNDING against his ribcage. He felt weak. Sapped. The Order had drugs that did this, drugs that could inhibit the change. Even BioPharm hadn't been able to figure that out. They hadn't wanted to, they'd wanted to watch him change and heal so they could study him.
Hatchet wriggled behind him, pressing himself against Sammy's back in a huddle. "Phoenix," he snapped. "Keep it together, kid. It's me they want, not you."
Him they wanted? Why? Sammy knew that Hatchet had enemies. Well, he had figured that a man who lived a long and violent life probably had enemies, assuming any were left alive. But it wasn't the old man's words that calmed him down so much as it was his mere presence. Sammy wasn't alone this time. Whatever he was about to go through, Hatchet would be there right beside him. And... there would be people back home who would come looking for him.
He didn't know why that made a difference, but it did. Sammy had faced death back in the BioPharm labs. Prayed for it, even. But the hardest part... the hardest part was believing he would die in anonymity. When they would finally cut him open one too many times, no one would know, no one would care.
This time, he could die thinking about his loved ones. Missing them, and knowing they would miss him. For a little while, at least.
Even though they were bound on the floor of a van and the driver was obviously taking no care for their comfort or safety, the two managed to stay pressed together for most of the ride. Sammy didn't know if it was strictly for his benefit or if Hatchet needed the physical contact too, nor did he really care. The familiar warm touch, the smell of his packmate--muffled as it was through the sack on his head--did calm Sammy down, or at least dim the fear from pounding panic to steady terror. Time became a dull haze. There was no point timing the ride, anyway. There was no telling how long they'd been unconscious for the start of the ride, though it couldn't have been for long. Long enough to throw off any calculations. Plus Sammy had no idea how fast they were going--the driver was clearly in a rush to reach their destination, but not speeding so fast as to risk getting pulled over. It wasn't like in the movies where the action hero calculated their position even blindfolded. There were too many variables. Anyway, Sammy was no hero.
But Hatchet... Hatchet was. Maybe he would get them out of this. Then again, maybe he wouldn't.
The truck eventually ground to a halt on a gravel driveway. The back doors opened and they were pulled out by their ankles, allowed to fall onto the gravel. Sammy grunted as he impacted the rough ground. His clothing barely provided any protection at all.
Their captors took no chances with them. Instead of cutting their legs free and making them walk, they were dragged over the gravel, up three steps, and onto a wooden floor. Sammy heard a thud and Hatchet's grunt, followed by several swears from an unfamiliar voice and the sound of a boot hitting ribs. Then the dragging resumed, though a doorframe and into a warm house. Sammy got an acrid whiff of dying pine embers--presumably someone hadn't properly put out the fireplace before they'd left to come attack them. And something else... a smell of wrongness in the house. Dried blood. Someone else had been murdered in the living room. Maybe the homeowners.
He heard another door open, and someone kick Hatchet again, before his own dragger left him lying on the floor. He heard more grunting and struggling, sounds which took a strange resonance and then diminished. They were carrying Hatchet down to a basement, his best guess. But the thought of a cold, dark, subterranean chamber broke the cold sweats out.
The sound of footsteps returned, and three pairs of hands grabbed him by his clothes and his ropes. His turn. His tailbone and back hit the stairs a couple times on the way down, sending fresh shockwaves of pain along his spine. Damn, damn. Bad enough to be kidnapped, but to still be dealing with his arthritis on top of everything else!
He offered no resistance as his arms were hoisted up and hooked onto something. It was then that the hood came off, revealing... three men he had never seen before, one of them looking just about the same age as him, the other two much older.
Hatchet dangled beside him, dried blood on his nose and fresh blood soaked into his shirt.
Of course, he was a much more reassuring sight than the trio standing in front of them. On the far left was a white man with one side of his face striated with scars that had obviously been claw marks from some vicious battle. Only half the top of his head had some fuzz on it, like he normally kept it shaved for symmetry with the scarred half but hadn't had the chance to do so recently. And he didn't bother using an eye patch to cover the gaping hole where his eyeball had once been. Werewolves were used to carnage, but Sammy quickly averted his gaze to the other end of the lineup, an African man dressed like a mannequin in the mall. Even with multiple layers of shirts, a hoodie, and a jacket bulking out his figure, he was probably scrawny underneath all that. And between them, looking completely out of place, was a sandy-blonde young man who would be handsome if his face wasn't distorted by hate.
"Phoenix, it's my pleasure to introduce you to Les Verner, Lincoln Moses and Abdi Samatar," Hatchet said. "Escapees from the Farm."
"Th' Farm?"
"A 'rehabilitation center' for werewolves." The way Hatchet said "rehabilitation" clearly indicated his opinion on the viability of that idea.
"A cozy euphemism for a prison," the bald man, Les, said as he folded his arms. "Really, it's just a shithole the Order throws people into to forget about."
Hatchet scoffed. "Forget about? You get three meals a day and teams of psychologists trying to 'fix' you. But we all know there's no fixing the likes of a poacher, or a loser who had his daddy start a turf war just to get laid, or someone who ran a protection racket."
Lincoln Moses surged forward and punched Hatchet in the face. "Shut up!" he screamed.
Hatchet took the blow and just laughed. "That's it? Looks like someone wasn't lifting his weights in prison."
"We killed two of your friends already!" interjected Samatar with a heavy African accent.
"You ambushed one in his sleep. The other was a retiree with one leg."
"We got you too, old man," Moses said.
"Yeah, and I'm still breathing. Which shows how dumb you are."
What
the
hell
was Hatchet doing?
"You think I want you to just die?" Moses squeaked. He grabbed a long, thick rod off the nearby table. Sammy knew a cattle prod when he saw one. "You killed my dad and put me through years of hell. You're not getting off that easy."
He gasped when Moses rammed it into Hatchet's abdomen, causing the man to spasm where he hung--but not scream. His teeth bared, but not a sound came out. This wasn't anything like in the movies. No sparks jumped out. No lights flickered or dimmed. No horn music blasted to manipulate an audience's emotions. Just a quiet buzz, a writhing body, and a punk's sadistic laugh. It was real and it was horrifying. Moses pulled the prod away and then jabbed it into his chest where his heart was. Then in the crotch. Each zap felt like an eternity to Sammy, and that had to feel even longer to the man actually suffering the torture. By the fifth jab, tears were streaming from Sammy's eyes. And still Hatchet wouldn't scream.
He had, however, wet himself. The room filled with the smell of cooked flesh--and urine.
"Now who isn't housebroken?" Moses said, with a voice so smug that even Sammy wanted to kill him. He glanced around the room. "Where's his axes?"
"His what?" Samatar asked.
Moses reeled on his companion. "His battle axes! I told you to grab them when we yanked them out of the truck!"
"Why do you think they call him 'Hatchet'?" Verner snarked.
"I didn't see no axes!" Samatar said.
"They must be back there. He doesn't go anywhere without them."
"So?" Samatar asked. "There's an axe in the back yard for chopping wood. Use that."
"No! I'm going to use the same weapon he killed my father and make him watch me bury it in his packmate's head." He began stomping up the stairway, then paused halfway up. "Well? You guys coming?"
"What, and risk getting caught?" Verner said. "Someone's gotta have found the truck and called the cops by now. I'm not heading back to the scene of the crime."
"So we'll go as wolves and kill anyone who sees us."
"Too risky," Samatar said. "We should just kill these two now and get out of here."
"Look. I helped you get revenge on your guys. Now it's my turn, and we're doing this my way." He began tearing off his shirt and changing. "Stay here if you want. Guard the prisoners. But they don't die til I'm back with the axes."
Moses slammed the door. Verner and Samatar stood there awkwardly. They occasionally cast glances at Sammy and Hatchet and Sammy's stomach lurched every time they did so, wondering if they would ignore Moses' order and just off them. Finally one mumbled something about dinner. And then they headed upstairs, shutting off the light behind them.
Finally, they were alone. Just Sammy and Hatchet, chained up in a basement. No light to see with. Just the sound of ragged, irregular breathing. And the smell of piss and body odor, stinging the nostrils even more than the crusted-over nosebleed. At least his arms no longer burned--they had gone numb.
"So... this is how it's gonna end," Sammy said bitterly. "I got out of one torture chamber, only to die in another. Dunno if that's coming full circle, or if I was just living on borrowed time, or what."
"I'm sorry, Sam. You're only in this mess because of me."
"Oh? You think so? I think God has a say in it too."
"And you're okay with that, kid?" Hatchet said. "Personally, two World Wars beat the faith out of me."
Sammy raised his head skyward... but there was no light above. Just more darkness. He wanted to rage at the heavens above... but couldn't bring himself to. The story of Job had always been his favorite, for obvious reasons. Maybe those Silver Cross fanatics were right, and werewolves were forsaken abominations. But if God had turned His back on him, and today was the day it all ended... he'd go out following Job's example.
"N-no... of course not," Sammy said. "But I guess... I guess... life's all about being tested. And I always thought about my death, how I'd go out. This wasn't what I expected, but at this point..."
He sighed. "Whatever."
The chains above Hatchet rattled. "Really? That's something you thought about?"
"Well, yeah," Sammy said. "Look at everything I been through. I've had lotsa brushes with death, and none of them would have been dignified ways to go."
"Huh. And I thought I was the grim one. All right, now I'm curious... how does Samson Phoenix want to die?"
Sammy let his head drop. "Hardly matters what I want, does it?"
"I think it does," Hatchet said. "You don't die when your body stops working. You die the moment you accept your death and stop fighting to live."
"Then I guess I'm already dead, huh? I can't see a way out of this."
"Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean there isn't one. What happened to that faith of yours?"
Sammy frowned, though he knew Hatchet couldn't see it. "I thought you said you didn't have any faith."
"I don't, but you do. Now come on, Samson. We may be chained up in a cellar, but we're chained up in a cellar of idiots. If they were smart, they would have killed us right away. And you know what idiots do? They make mistakes."
"What, like forget to lock the chains?" Sammy looked up. He couldn't make out much detail, but the cuffs around his wrists were simple handcuffs, the other cuff of each pair affixed to chains that trailed up into the darkness of the ceiling. An obvious rush job, but effective enough. He tried to shake his arms, but only managed a weak jerk. "Nope, they didn't forget that."
"I'd tell you to watch that smart mouth, but that's just what I want to hear. A spark of defiance. That's good. Hold on to that. They think they have control, which will make them overconfident."
At that point, Sammy shut up. He couldn't think of a response that wasn't just more snark, which felt like playing into Hatchet's hand.
"I remember the day we brought you home," Hatchet went on. "I remember finding you in that lab. You may feel ashamed about what you did to your captors, but I saw was a boy who had been through an unimaginable hell and still had the will to live. Hell, that was the same day I went to arrest Moses and his father. A spoiled rich kid who had his dad killing people all because a girl rejected him. Couldn't fucking stand the sight of him, not after looking at you."
Hatchet's voice dropped into a whisper. "And idiots like him make mistakes like not chaining up our feet too. Sooner or later, one of them will get too close to one of us. You haven't been skipping leg days, have you boy?"
Sammy could barely make out his words, but that was the point. With their keen hearing, someone up stairs might be listening in. "No, sir," Sammy whispered back.
"Good boy. Remember some of those fancy moves I taught you, and you just might be able to kill the next guy who comes in."
"Kill them?"
"Well, yeah. You didn't think we were gonna reason our way out of this?"
"No, but... kill?" Sammy hissed.
"What's the problem?" Even in whisper, Hatchet sounded baffled. "You've killed before."
Sammy's voice shot up. "That was different! That was to protect Clara!"
"Shh!" Hatchet reminded him, and just as quietly, added, "Now you gotta protect yourself."
"I... I can't do that!" It was one thing to protect others. But trading someone else's life for his own? Even a scummy murderer? Sammy had enough blood on his hands. He couldn't tolerate any more.
"Oh, for God's sake," Hatchet muttered. "Sam Phoenix. Think about the day you lost your parents. Think about the day you lost Elizabeth."
Sammy was taken aback, but that loss, that pain, sprung easily to the forefront of his conscious mind. It didn't have far to go. Even after all this time, it was lurking at the fringes, always there, sometimes buried but never deep. The hollow spots that had once been filled with love, now aching reminders of what he would never have again.
"Now think of Jenny. You think losing your temper once makes her love you even less? And of course there's her parents. Then there's your 'little sister' Madison. Nick and Ruth, who've already lost one child. Even your girlfriend. I don't give a shit how worthless you think you are. You wanna put them through the pain of losing you?
"Fine, don't save yourself for yourself. Do it for the people who love you." Now Hatchet forgot to whisper, and in loud urgency, he pleaded, "For fuck's sake, Cub, do it for me!"
"I... I can't make any promises," Sammy said. "You said it yourself, there's just a chance."
"Yeah, well, you see that chance, I expect you to take it!"
Sammy stared up at the area of darkness where he was pretty sure the door lay. "Yessir."
The two reverted to silence. They had said all there was to say... and then some. Exhaustion must have finally overwhelmed the pain because the next thing Sammy knew, light stabbed hot red through his closed eyelids and the sound of footfalls registered to his mind, but only as a distant fact before he woke up and remembered what was happening.
It was Samatar, stinking of alcohol. Apparently "dinner" had been a few beers--which shouldn't be enough to inebriate a werewolf, unless they hadn't eaten anything else and were seriously underweight. Then it might be effective long enough for a lapse of judgment or two. A lapse such as deciding to finish Moses' job himself with the kitchen knife in his hand.
The small overdressed man was so close that Sammy could smell his fetid breath on him. The metal knife glinted in the cold light of the fluorescent bulbs above. Underground. Sharp metal. Biopharm. Fear. Adrenaline. Rage.
This man had been arrested for conning people. He was not a fighter. But--thanks to Hatchet--Sammy was. He twisted his wrists and grabbed hold of the chains above his shackles. He shot his leg up between Samatar's and kneed him in the balls. The knife clattered to the ground. As Samatar doubled over, Sammy lifted himself up and got his legs around his enemy's body. He had no plan. No fancy moves. Just held on to Samatar with his thighs and, with strength build through thousands of pull-ups, tried to lift the man off the ground. The metal shackles cut into his skin but Sammy ignored the pain. The chains had been hastily affixed to the ceiling. Between their combined weight and frantic thrashing, Sammy hoped--
Something above them broke and they tumbled to the ground. By now though, Sammy's arms had grown numb. He still had his legs wrapped around Samatar, whose voice had ruptured into panicked growling. The man was trying to shape-shift mid-fight!
"You do know never to transform in the middle of a fight, don't you?" Hatchet had said years ago, at their very first training session. "You stick to whatever form you're in."
And Sammy could remember his own stuttering response. "Uh, no sir. Whuh-why not?"
"There's that 'sir' again. And it's because your skull's at its most fragile while it's reshaping itself. Any blow to the head could cause serious brain trauma, if not kill you outright. I've seen it happen."
Sammy could feel his own wolfside bubbling to the surface. His adrenaline must have burned up the last of the suppressant drugs. But he couldn't indulge it, not yet. If only out of a desire not to be as stupid as his would-be murderer, Sammy resisted the fire tingling under his skin. Still, though, the inner predatory thoughts screamed for blood. It would be so easy.
Primal instincts of self-preservation instantly erased any past acceptance of death. Sammy balled his fists and slammed them down into Samatar's head. Bone made a noise like the cracking of an egg and the body between Sammy's legs instantly became dead weight.
Sammy's stomach lurched as he realized what he had done.
He couldn't hold back his inner predator any more. His wolf-side came exploding out. Nails and teeth virtually popped into sharper shapes, fur burgeoned forth. His head and feet creaked and re-shaped, but unlike Samatar, he at least had a few minutes of grace to do so safely. Still, the urgency of the shift caused waves of nausea and pain, and between that and his anguish, Sammy's mouth parted and a scream came out.
"YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" Hatchet roared.
Sammy tore his eyes upward and looked at him in shock. Was that directed at him? Hadn't Hatchet said he'd need to kill? Why was he angry with him?
"YOU KILLED MY PACKMATE! I SWEAR I'LL GUT YOU!"
Was... was this man Hatchet's packmate? Someone from his past. But then Hatchet spun his hands around in a gesture and it clicked. If the other guy was listening upstairs, he could have easily confused Sammy's own scream with a death knell. If the scream brought him running, at least he would think his ally had the upper hand, and might not come down prepped for a prisoner escape.
"KILL YOU AND TEAR YOU AND MAKE YOU FEEL HIS DEATH TEN TIMES OVER! HE WAS JUST A KID!" As Hatchet continued his tirade, he gestured at his own shackles. He wanted out.
But there was no time. If the other guy was coming Sammy didn't have time to go searching for keys and fiddling with locks. Sammy still had a length of chain running between his arms but it was so long it wouldn't hinder his movement in a fight. Their enemies needed to be dealt with. He shot upstairs and ignored Hatchet's "Wait wait no stop!" He wasn't sure if Hatchet was still acting or if he was begging Sammy to stop and at this point he didn't care.
He burst through the door and saw his other enemy standing in the open kitchen. Unlike the last enemy this man was a poacher who probably knew how to fight. Two predators stared at each other... and then the enemy bolted for the knife block. Sammy hurled himself across the living room and into the kitchen area. The chains tripped him up and brought his tackle short so his blow grazed the enemy instead of knocking him to the floor. The enemy staggered but reached a knife. Sammy rose back to his feet and spun in time to see the knife swinging down in a clumsy arc. He shot his arms up to block the attack and the chains went swinging--not hard enough to hurt but it gave him an idea.
Sammy was in full bloodlust mode but he wasn't so far gone that he hadn't forgotten Hatchet's lessons--if anything, he was drawing on them with more determination than ever. He spun to gain some distance between them but also to get the chains some centrifugal force. They jangled a sick melody through the air as he used his binds as a whip. The enemy was still adjusting the knife in his grip when chains smashed into his face. He staggered back and Sammy launched himself again this time aiming for the arm holding the knife. The chains dragged through the air behind him. He grabbed the enemy's arm in both hands and kept going until they hit a wall. He felt a fist hit his back but the blow was weak and clumsy. He held the arm in his right hand and slashed his claws through the wrist. He cut an artery and blood gushed out. The flesh would knit shut before the blood loss became lethal but it would weaken his enemy. The knife clattered to the floor.
He was weakened but not defeated. Sammy could not let up. He kicked the knife away. It was longer than a werewolf's claws but four of them could still gore more flesh than a single deep slash. A fact Sammy was about to prove. He locked eyes with the enemy. His own widened in realization. His struggling grew more frantic. Sammy ripped down his fabric shirt. The enemy attempted a kick but Sammy grabbed his head, lifted him up, and threw him onto the floor. He was now on top of the enemy. He let go of his arm. The enemy tried to bring his arms up but he wasn't fast enough. Sammy brought both hands down onto the enemy's soft belly.
And he started digging. Right claw, left claw, right claw, left claw--
To a werewolf's claws skin might as well be wrapping paper. The pulp and blood quickly revealed intestines. Sammy grabbed hold of pulsing, writhing internals and pulled. And pulled. And pulled. Soon he found the stomach, and that came out too. Then the liver. Everything stayed attached, but Sammy turned him inside-out.
Sammy pushed himself away and staggered back to his feet. The enemy just lay there, gurgling, frantically trying to tuck his entrails back into himself before he passed out. He would survive--probably. But it would take all his energy to heal. He would be too spent to be a threat. Sammy knew all too well what a werewolf's limits were.
Biopharm had taught him that.
"Sam!" he heard Hatchet's voice through the floorboards. "For god's sake what's happening up there?"
Sammy staggered a few steps aimlessly, as if drunken. It was harder when wolfside to care about more than five minutes into the future, but the release of pure brutality had sated something. What next? He was hyperventilating. He took a single gulp of air and then forced his breathing to slow down. He needed to free Hatchet. Then they could call in the Order to clean up this mess. But there was one more enemy out there. An enemy who was, by all rights, Hatchet's to deal with.
But he could picture that soft, round face in his mind. A face would have been angelic if it hadn't been darkened by hatred and... and an undeserved arrogance. Sammy flexed his claws, still dripping with blood. Sticky. He wanted to finish this himself. Wanted to claw that horrible, hateful sneer off that boy's face.
Only...
That wasn't who Sammy was. He couldn't deny the existence of a dark animal inside him. Pastor Kwan had once said in a sermon that every human was a battleground between the God-given spirit and the fallen flesh. The way he described it, that animalistic nature was shared by all humans. It wasn't unique to werewolves--just exaggerated. The burden of those darker lusts didn't make him evil or irredeemable--so long as he fought to rise above them.
He took a few steps towards the basement door when he heard a truck pulling up. The engine was the same as the truck they'd been thrown into. The crunch of gravel under tires slowed down. Lincoln was back. There was no time to run downstairs, find keys, and unlock Hatchet. As soon as the boy stepped inside, he'd see his gored-out partner and run. Sammy didn't have a choice now.
One more time.
Sammy ran to the front door and stood behind it as it swung open. Lincoln stepped inside, holding Hatchet's sheathed tactical axes at length like they were radioactive. Neither one was the weapon Hatchet had executed his father with, though the boy probably assumed they were. Silver tarnished and dented more easily than steel. Even though he was no longer an active agent, Hatchet had replaced his axes with a new pair a few years back.
Lincoln stepped inside and froze when he saw the tracks of blood on the floor, but it was too late. Sammy shot an arm out and shut the door behind Lincoln.
"So you were gonna kill me, huh?"
Lincoln spun around, face meeting Sammy's heaving, blood-splattered pecs. He lifted his face and stepped back at the same time. They both stared. Sizing each other up. The boy Hatchet had rescued and the boy Hatchet had arrested on the same day.
And Sammy realized something.
"Y'know... we both got adequacy issues. I don't have enough... and you have too much."
Sammy stepped forward... and Lincoln stepped further back.
"Hey. What makes you think you're above the rules of civilization? Or are you so broken you're just an animal incapable of thinking about anyone or anything but yourself?"
"I..." Lincoln stuttered. Sammy watched him closely, looking for any hint of remorse, any sign that his question had sparked introspection. He genuinely wanted to know what made a mind like his tick. Instead, he saw the light dim, the gaze harden. The veneer of arrogance returned, like a scab over a wound. Moses wouldn't, couldn't accept the reality about himself.
"I don't have to answer to some backwoods hick like you!"
He swung the axe, but in its leather sheath it was just a blunt instrument. Sammy deflected the blow with his arm and swatted his mentor's weapon to the floor.
"This 'hick' actually has a girlfriend. And I didn't even hafta kill anybody to get one. Didn't need to force myself on her. I make the lives of the people around me better, not worse. What value do you have?"
This time Lincoln didn't even think. He lunged for Sammy with a scream that turned into a roar. Sammy didn't even have to think. He used Lincoln's momentum against him and flung him into the wall.
"Shut your thumb hole!" Sammy shouted as Lincoln scrambled to his feet. "Surrender and you'll get to walk out of here alive. This is your only chance."
But Sammy wasn't sure if Lincoln heard him. His face was twisting, contorting. Muddy-blonde fur began to sprout along his body, and his nails cracked and darkened into claws. He twisted his mouth open in a growl, saliva dripping out. A clear message of defiance.
And a foolish one. Sammy strode forward, balled his fist, and brought it down over Lincoln's skull. Not with the same amount of frantic force as he had done with Samatar. More of a "pop" on the head. Lincoln dropped to the floor and his eyes went glassy as the transformation continued, though the top of his head took shape with a concave dent.
***
An Order helicopter had landed in the back yard within minutes of Hatchet making a call, a and a fleet of SUVs and a commandeered ambulance showed up not long after. Apparently someone in the pack had found the wreckage of Sammy's pickup and called it in. It didn't take a genius to figure out the three most wanted werewolves were in the area, so the manhunt had already begun.
"So," Hatchet said as he sat down beside Sammy. "You didn't answer my question back there. How does Samson Phoenix want to die?"
Hunched over in the back of an Order SUV with his legs hanging over the rear bumper, Sammy pulled the blanket tighter around his body. Not just for warmth, but for comfort. His back was aching again, but it hardly seemed important this time. Agents loaded Verner up into the ambulance and a shackled, blank-faced Lincoln was stuffed into the back of another black SUV. He'd been stripped of his pants and hosed off; he had defecated himself at some point. Hell of a question to ask while they watched. But that was Hatchet for you. A fatalist in the best of times, and an optimist in the worst.
Sammy knew he had to answer. He sighed and mulled it over. "My own bed. Surrounded by a mate and our many children and grandchildren. And listenin' to music, somethin' like Beethoven's 'Ode t'Joy' playin' softly as I just drift away, my last emotions being the love my family has for me."
Hatchet grunted. "We're all gonna die one way or another. I guess that's the best way to do it."
He jutted his chin at the captured prisoners. "It'll be a better way to go than those two. Once you escape the Farm, you can't go back. They murdered people, too. Verner will be put down. And Moses... they said you gave him brain trauma. He'll likely be a vegetable the rest of his life, so they might take him back now that he's no escape threat. But maybe death would have been a better deal for him."
"No," Sammy said darkly. Even though he had returned to humanside, a growl rose in his throat. "He's always been a useless lump. If he's still in there somewhere, I want him to live trapped with the truth of what he is."
"Damn." Hatchet sounded taken aback. "I wonder what the therapist is gonna say about that."
Sammy grunted. The Order had a small staff of therapists and psychiatrists, but they were overworked. He'd been given a few mandated sessions after his rescue from BioPharm, but the therapist had been a little too hasty to sign off on him so she could move on to the next case.
The agent who had been barking orders in a basso voice at all the rest approached. He was a thick wall of a black man with a shaved head. "They call me Boss," he said, sticking a hand out to Sammy. "I just want to say I'm impressed, Phoenix of Argo. You just took down three murderers."
Sammy shrugged. "They were idiots. I'm not sure if I got lucky, or if theirs just ran out."
"I've read the file we have on you. I just want to say it's a shame you never saw fit to join the Order. You'd have made one hell of an agent."
Sammy took the man's hand but kept his gaze just below eye level. "With all due respect, sir, I don't think that would be good for me."
"No. No, perhaps not," he mused, then let his hand go and turned to Hatchet. "You must have seen something in him to make him your protegee. He probably saved your life today."
Hatchet patted him on the leg. "Well, he's not gonna get a big head about it, are you, Cub?"
"Nossir. You saved me plenty of times."
"See? He's a good kid."
Boss nodded. "I'd like to bring you both in to HQ for your statements. I can arrange to have Agent Fortune take them, if you'd feel more comfortable talking to a packmate."
Fortune? Oh no, not her-
"Boss, how many favors do you owe me?" Hatchet asked.
"Er, too many to count, sir."
"Then I'm calling one in now. Take us home. Let my cub get some rest, and we'll video-call in for the paperwork."
Boss grunted. "That's against protocol."
"Never had much use for the stuff."
"Fine, if you think that's what's best." He merely waved two fingers in the air and an agent came running up. "Take these two home," he instructed, then turned around and let them be.
Sammy hopped back onto his feet. "I guess that's one more I owe you," he said to Hatchet.
***
The House looked different as it came into view. Even though the Order van's windows were tinted, the two story mansion looked brighter and more welcoming than ever. Sammy had spent so many years terrified of being thrown out of there. And for the first time ever, today he knew he was here to stay. This House was his home.
Odysseus, Night Sky, Liam, Clara, and half the pack were already outside waiting to give Hatchet and Phoenix a hero's welcome home. Roxanne held Jenny in her arms, who was sobbing tears of joy that her Duke was safe from the bad guys.
Night Sky, of course, led the charge and threw her arms around him, squeezing him fiercely. "Thank you. Thank you for coming back to me," she said. "Don't ever let me lose you too."
He shivered. Of course she knew what had gone through his head. Night Sky had always been able to read him like an open book.
Clara approached and clasped her hands around his forearm. He watched her gray eyes scan up and down his figure. "We heard you took down three fugitives," she said. "That's... kinda hot."
He shivered even harder.
Odysseus's hand clapped down on his shoulder. "You've made us proud," he said. "Samson Phoenix, some day you might just write a memoir as colorful as Hobard Whelan's."
Sammy moaned and cast his eyes upward. "I certainly hope not. Just a boring life from here on out... that's all I ask."
