The hot midday sun beat down mercilessly, causing the very air to shimmer above the parched earth. Thomas rested his palm gently on Ryan's shoulder, guiding him toward the warrior house. Both men instinctively looked up at the sound of rushing feet. Thomas's nostrils flared, instantly identifying the scent—they were not wolves.
A group of defectives surged out of the nearby forest. They carried backpacks and an assortment of miscellaneous items as they sprinted, their eyes darting, nervously scanning the area. As the large group noticed the two men, a few of them paused, specifically looking at Ryan. They nodded toward the forest, a silent invitation to join their flight.
When Ryan saw Jonathan among them, the final pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. This chaotic escape was Jonathan's doing. The man was like his own personal poison, able to slither into people's minds and twist their perceptions, breeding fear and doubt. As their eyes met across the short distance, Ryan did not miss the triumphant smirk that briefly crossed Jonathan's face before the group disappeared into the dense forest. Ryan could still hear their hurried footfalls fading into the trees. They had clearly chosen this route because, in times of crisis, the warrior house would be empty, its inhabitants assigned to various areas to secure vulnerable points.
"Thomas—" Ryan began, his voice tight.
"Don't worry," Thomas interrupted, his voice calm. "I understand what they are doing. The Pack is a bit unsettled right now. It only makes sense that some would decide to run, to hide. The Pack wants blood. I will leave them be."
Ryan felt a wave of nausea. Thomas was being so understanding, and Ryan knew that empathy was entirely misplaced. Jonathan Meyer was not escaping because he was worried in the midst of chaos; Jonathan was the puppet master of the chaos. He had made it happen.
"Fuck! No! I kind of forgot about this," Ryan blurted out, the stress finally breaking his composure. "Back around the time we first got here, Myers was recruiting me."
Thomas fully turned to face Ryan, his posture demanding an explanation. "Recruiting you for what?"
Ryan swallowed hard, his jaw ticking with stress, wondering how far Thomas's kindness would stretch. "He wanted to leave the Pack, to escape. He was looking for people to join. I didn't agree. I mean, I ended up here so quickly that I didn't have the time to—" He felt a desperate fluster rising, realizing he was defending himself instead of explaining what he understood. He just did not want Thomas to think he had played any part in this, that he was somehow planning to betray the wolves. Despite their flaws, he had come to like the wolves here; some of them were good people, and he understood the inherent divisions that existed.
"Just tell me what you know," Thomas said, his tone firm but patient.
"Okay, um—" Ryan gripped his hair, scratching his scalp as he desperately tried to piece his fragmented thoughts together. "He wasn't just targeting adults, you know? He would tell stories about his pack and what they did to their defectives. I'm not going to lie; I thought he was full of shit. But... some things you can't fake. Some things had to be true. He just has this way of getting in your head, making you believe exactly what he says, and everything feels like it's about to blow up right now. Thomas, he talked to the kids. The teenagers, some barely ten years old. He told them everything—how we were under attack, how we had to be prepared and fight back." Ryan wasn't sure if he was making any sense, but a wave of guilt washed over him for not having said anything sooner. It was difficult—they had been brought here as captives. Was it wrong that some wanted to go home? This was hardly the greatest place to be if you were not a wolf.
"The defective kid at the school. His name was George," Thomas shared, wondering if the name would be a significant detail to Ryan.
"Fuck, fuck! George is maybe fifteen," Ryan exclaimed, slapping his palm against his forehead. "I met him at the defective house. Jonathan had his hooks in him. So deep. I mean, I didn't stay long before I had to be here, but in that time—"
Thomas's eyes narrowed and shifted toward the forest as a terrible realization dawned on him. Jonathan Meyer had used those kids as cannon fodder for his plan. He had wound them up, essentially giving them the tools to create chaos so that on the day he chose to escape, he would face less resistance.
"I swear I didn't know that it would get like this," Ryan pleaded, stepping back, his hands held up defensively. "I haven't been around the defective house; I've been pretty isolated here. I just… you guys are wolves. I lived with wolves before I came here. My parents and my brother. I could never harm them. I just… I didn't think—"
Thomas raised a hand, gently covering his mouth. He didn't blame Ryan. He understood the naive idea that the wolves would ultimately be fine, a mindset everyone seemed to share: What could a defective do? Thomas knew better, having been wise and lucky enough to have formidable defectives in his class who had taught him that no one should ever be underestimated.
Ryan felt like his whole world was crumbling. He just stared at Thomas, waiting for him to say or do something. He wanted to be scolded, to be told he was stupid, to hear that he could have saved a pup if only he had spoken up sooner.
His spiraling thoughts were abruptly paused as his nostrils flared. Taking a sharp, deep breath, he smelled something extraordinary: it smelled like his parents, his house... his brother. Greyson?
Ryan's eyes widened as he saw Grayson, his brother's large wolf form, thickly coated in a layer of mud, rush from the tree line straight toward him. A wide, uncontrollable smile broke across Ryan's lips as he ran toward his brother. He dropped to his knees as they met, and without hesitation, he wrapped his hands around his brother's massive wolf head, pressing their foreheads together. He couldn't stop the tears that welled up in his eyes. He had thought he would never see him again. In the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, he had believed his brother might be dead, that the two droplets of blood he'd seen on the guard's feet that night were not just from a passing human, but one of them could have been his brother's.
Grayson shifted back to his human form with immense difficulty. He had spent so long in his wolf form that his human body felt foreign. The process was slow, his bones groaning in protest as they shifted back to the shape they had almost forgotten. His fur receded, exposing skin that was no longer its beautifully tanned complexion but was thickly coated in dirt and grime. His hair hung long, the strands stopping just below his chin, completely matted and dreaded.
"Brother!" Grayson gasped, pulling Ryan to his chest. He finally felt as if he could breathe properly. He had lost his parents, and the last thing he was willing to lose was his brother. He was supposed to keep him safe; they were supposed to stay together always. Just them. He had sworn to his parents he would never let anything happen to Ryan. This was the longest he had ever gone in his entire life without seeing his brother.
"Rogue!" Thomas growled lowly, his hands hovering over the straps holding the weapons at his sides. He was unsure if he should immediately shift into his wolf form, but as he saw the two men embrace and smile, he understood: this was the brother Ryan had spoken of, the one who had taught Trinity and the others to shoot, the one who had kept Jess safe.
"I'm going to get you out of here," Grayson muttered urgently.
Ryan nodded, but looked over his shoulder at Thomas, wondering what he would do.
Thomas slowly turned his back, pretending as if he could not see what was happening. "You won't have much time," he said, speaking as if to himself as he began to walk toward the warrior house. "I will have to alert the Pack of a rogue intruding on our territory. I will need to check on the students first." He completely ignored the brothers. The one thing this day lacked was compassion, and Thomas refused to be another cog fueling the chaos.
Grayson immediately grabbed Ryan and dragged him straight into the tree line. They moved quietly as he pulled his brother deeper and deeper into the forest, retracing his steps. He was actively avoiding the group of defectives he had passed on the way to his brother. He had also scented other warriors in the forest, dispatched after he had attacked the teenagers setting up the sensors. He needed to keep all the warriors directed toward a specific area so he would have a chance to get away with his brother.
"Wait! Trinity and Jess—" Ryan pleaded, pulling his arm from his brother's grip.
"They will be fine. Let's go! I came here for you!" Grayson did not even bother to process his brother's words. His sole objective was to secure his brother. He had risked madness living off wild bunnies in wolf form and existing like a vagrant just to get Ryan. This was not a camping trip. If they were caught, he would die. He was not bringing any extra baggage. And from what he could smell, his brother had shifted for the first time. It was the sensation he had felt earlier—a tugging at his soul that told him a new bond was forming, a link between family members being established. He would not risk it all for two girls who did not matter to him.
"Grayson, I can't leave again. I can't just leave them behind and not say anything,"
Ryan argued, desperation thick in his voice.
"You can't do that." He had to go back. He couldn't abandon them again, only to run into his friends five years later when they would certainly not be so forgiving.
"Just go. I'll find you. I can find you now," Ryan insisted.
Grayson did not have time to wrestle with his brother's morality and sentimentality. His patience was non-existent. Living in his wolf form had made him far more beast than human, and he was not willing to hear nonsense at this crucial moment.
With a deep sigh, a low growl bubbled in his chest. Turning on his brother, he gripped him by the throat before pulling him into his chest and locking him in a headlock. His immense pressure was a calculated risk as he kept moving, waiting for his brother to fall unconscious. Ryan's strained gasps did nothing to lessen his strides. He was getting out of this forest.
Ryan clawed at his brother's arm as the world around him began to spin—the green of the forest, the brown of the dirt, the blue of the sky—all swirling together until everything went black.
Grateful that Ryan was finally out, Grayson tossed his brother onto his shoulder before running at full speed. He needed to leave the Pack territories as quickly as possible before they managed to contain the chaos he had intentionally created in the forest. From the amount of blood he could smell, he hoped it would buy him enough time to get away.