Caged Wolf

Song of the Chapter: Paint It, Black by Clara

I’m running behind as my pager flashes a continuous blue against my hip. I run through the tunnels zipping up my white hoody and blinking my blurry-freshly white-contacted eyes against a sting of solution. Hurrying around the last corner I swipe a keycard allowing me to slip into the main loading dock where Penny signals a lone truck backwards out of the mountain rain and into the facility. Penny, our new leader, glances at me with her green-contact covered eyes and I’m reminded of a similar moment from three years ago.

…

I’m late for this shipment of Wolves and our second in command, Penny, is not happy about it. Her dyed-black hair whips about in the mountain wind as the truck backing into the facility fails to block the brutal wind. Penny wears green contacts to hide her true eye colour, she is the only one allowed that colour as the second in command. Her brother Jack, and our leader, wear red contacts to signal he is a leader and their two minions, Allister and Draco, wear blue ones. Other than that every other worker beneath Penny and Jack wears white-contacts, like myself and my best friend Joey. The colour of our contacts symbolizes our ranks, white is the lowest rank, we are simply hired grunts meant to be medical and clean up help. Ment, being the keyword here as what I’m doing is a special assignment I was placed on by Jack because I slipped up once. I take my place across from Penny as the bay door closes behind the truck cutting out the wind. We call this place a facility but even I know it is a jail for the Wolves, it is a place to hold them until they can be cleansed from the world after being studied. As violent-natured creatures, they deserve to be here. This truck is the last installment of Wolves being imported worldwide, they are the Fallsview pack though I don’t think the term pack suited them due to the division of major pack to the pack of legends that was thought to be a myth until this very moment. I still don’t quite believe it isn’t a myth as Jack took the supposed Hellhound for his own purposes leaving us with her pack so we don’t even know if she truly exists, it wouldn’t be the first false claim Jack has made that he has found the Hellhound. The first gurney is wheeled in by a white-eye like myself, on it lay an adult with long claw marks scarring her eyebrows and eyelids. I close my eyes and breath as I take her limp hand in my own. Her power flows through me as it clots the air and I reach for a number three tag to place on the collar that the leader snaps closed around her neck. Snippets of her life flash behind my eyes and I try to push them away, I don’t want to do this again, I don’t want to see their lives because it will make me forget that they are simply monsters. They wheel her away and replace her with the next one just as I see Wolves attacking her taking her sight with spite and hatred. Overall there are six number three tags and four beta tags before they wheel in the last two. I note how small the pack of legends is, surely it can’t really be them if they have so few Wolves. Suddenly power clots the air overwhelming me, I fall to my knees gasping for breath as this power commands me. I close my eyes trying to compose myself as I have never felt such strength before, I feel as though perhaps I really am going to be faced with the Hellhound after-all. The little I know about the Hellhound is that it is a heartless, soulless creature meant to bring order through any means necessary.

“Hayley?” Penny’s rough voice questions me as I pull myself back to my feet.

A boy is wheeled in no older than myself and Joey. I note that he has brown hair dark enough to be mistaken as black and a wild look about his sleeping features. I tremble not wanting to touch him as I try to quickly clip a number one onto the collar they place on him. I can’t help it as his life flashes behind my eyes and I see a girl with night-black hair and green-eyes smiling at him, I see kisses and touches, I see love. My stomach clenches violently as I try not to let his life swamp me and push it away but his memories are strong, he is strong. This isn’t the Hellhound but whoever he is, he is truly the strongest Wolf I have ever felt, he is stronger than the Reaper. My hand’s spasm as they wheel the boy away from us and Penny turns to talk to someone behind her briefly. The last gurney is brought in and I approach it hesitantly. A beautiful boy lays asleep, his snow-white hair a clear sign he is a powerless Wolf. His features are angular and narrow but not thin. I want to run my fingers along his jawline and touch his cheekbones. His body resembles that of all the others, he is built and muscular but he is not broad-shouldered like many Wolves tend to be. All Wolves are muscular due to their over-powered metabolisms. This Wolf is not peaceful-looking in his sleep, he looks troubled. I take his limp hand in mine curious of his life and I can feel everything as I’m flooded. Unlike with many others, I’m not flooded with his life, I can’t see anything but I can feel everything he is feeling, I can sense it. He should be a beta but his rank is clouded by his judgment and emotions. He did something terrible, something so horrible that he struggles to forgive himself for even though the most important person in his life forgave him already. This act scars him making him feel that he deserves nothing but death and pain. He thinks he belongs among the omegas to be picked off and punished. My heart twinges a little for him as I can understand his internal struggle. I hate myself for a secret I keep, it’s why I’m here to try and right what I couldn’t all those years ago. I place my hand against his cheek as something inside me clicks and I feel an undeniable drawing to him.

“They look human like this, don’t they?” Penny’s voice reaches my ears and I turn to find her watching me curiously.

“It’s hard to believe such a harmless looking being could contain so much violence,” I reply simply trying to push away memories this boy’s emotions threaten to dredge up.

“He may look harmless now but he is anything but. Draco informs me this one was used by the white Wolves to kill his own family so they could have complete control over all Wolves. It is this boy who changed the only chance humans and Wolves had at living together peacefull.” Penny explains to me her words burning into me but they aren’t the truth.

“No, Wolves are too violent in nature. We never had a chance at peace. The human race can only be safe when all Wolves are dead!” I explain passionately, my words seem to shock Penny but she doesn’t push me on the matter.

A bitterness enters me as I tag him with a number four and leave him, I want to hate him for making me feel things I had buried long ago. Leaving him behind makes me feel unnaturally hollow but I ignore it because I can’t lose my focus, lose my purposes for being here. I am here for two reasons and those reasons only. I need to help exterminate the Wolves for Joey and then I am going to kill myself, only then can this world be right.

…

The squeaking of the wheels of the gurney pull me from the memory, but not the emotions I felt. I haven’t been near that boy in three years no matter how badly I’ve wanted to seek him out and this, this moment has brought up just how badly I want to see him again.

“Penny, good to see you, I wish it were under better circumstances,” Allister speaks before pulling Penny into a quick hug.

I want to speak, move or do something but suddenly I’m embolized. I can’t move as pure power swamps the room burning its way down my throat and causing me to let out a ragged gasp. Draco wheels the gurney our way and I physically tremble, the closer the gurney gets the worse I tremble. Draco stops moving and all I can do is stare down at the girl on the gurney. This girl has night-black hair and pale-winter skin where it isn’t stained red with blood. A flash of memory comes over me as I see the boy’s memories I saw and I know if she opened her eyes she would have vibrant green eyes, she and he are mates. I blink and suddenly the room is dripping with red blood, it runs down every crevasse as Penny, Allister, and Draco’s bodies lay wrecked around the empty gurney.

“Jack made me like this, Jack made me into this monster.” The she-Wolf’s deep-throaty voice growls from behind me and I whip around to come face to face with her, her green eyes digging into my own.

Terror runs through my veins freezing me as I open my mouth to scream but nothing comes out because the Wolf’s hand has shot out to squeeze my throat as she lifts me from the ground where I stand. Like with the boy I can’t see her life, I can’t see her memories but I can feel her emotions clearly. All I can feel is pain, a feral angry pain. This pain could end the world if she lets it continue to consume her. A squeaky scream finds it’s way out of my lips and her claws bury themselves into my abdomen twisting my insides into agony.

“I could have been better, I wanted to be better. Now I’m this monster and it’s all I know how to be. It’s all I want to be. I’m a killer Hayley, I’m a killer just like you.” The she-Wolf smiles at me with razor-sharp teeth.

I scream now, a raw throaty scream before her teeth close around my neck, pain laces through me roughly before everything goes black. Suddenly my eyes clear and the room is back to normal, no dripping blood coating everything, no dead bodies, no pain. My back is pressed into the far wall as my chest heaves and I raise my hands up to my throat not believing what I experienced wasn’t real. Allister and Draco eye me from beside the gurney, they look at me like I’m insane, maybe I am.

“Hayley, are you okay?” Penny asks gently from where she is crouched beside me, her eyes meet mine as my head begins to throb.

I shake my head as my mind begins to comprehend what just happened. This she-Wolf used my own ability against me, she used my own sight against me. She made me see what she wanted me to see and it’s something I’ve never experienced before. It felt so real.

“That Wolf is the Hellhound, that Wolf is the end of us all!” I spit out as I pull myself onto shaky feet before shoving past Penny and taking off running.

As soon as I’m into the tunnels and away from prying eyes I collapse into a ball on the floor and let the sobs I’ve been holding back overtake me.