Journey Home

Chapter 13 - Alpha

I was locked in the room again with Tee and it was sweltering. Why was it so hot? Something was wrong. I tried to stand but I could not even lift my arm.

"Tee!", I said.

I saw Tee sitting in a chair and called out to him, but he was not answering me.

"Tee?", I thought.

The temperature was increasing, and I could see waves of heat rippling in the air. Was that smoke? It was smoke. With growing horror, I wondered if the building was on fire. Dying trapped in this room during a fire was one of my greatest fears. Wolves were not meant to die indoors, in captivity. We were meant to die under the open sky so Luna could find us and shepherd our souls to Lycos. I couldn't die here, in this prison. We had to get out of here.

"Tee!"

What's wrong with him?

"TEE!"

I could hear creaking and groaning outside the room, followed by a crash, and a woosh as something caught fire. The blaze was so close now, I could hear it crackling as it consumed everything in its wake.

A movement in my peripheral vision diverted my attention away from our impending doom. I struggled to turn my head. It was Tee. There was something wrong with him. His eyes were too big for his face and his scalp had been cut open. A piece of his brain was missing.

"Oh, Luna!", I said. 

Before I could get over my shock Tee turned his body toward me and stood up. His movements seemed jerky and when he spoke his voice was monotone and hollow. Like he was a meat puppet controlled by invisible strings.

"Isn't this what you wanted, to die?", asked Tee.

Somehow, I knew he was referring to the event that led to our freedom.

"No, I didn't want to die Tee. I wanted you to live! I did it so you could live.", I said.

Ignoring me, Tee sang a melody our mother used to sing to us, but his voice was thin and reedy, and the words were all wrong.

"They cut it out."

"Pieces of you."

"The part of my heart that I gave to you."

"To stop the pain,"

"I was willing."

"The part of my brain,"

"that had pictures of you."

I blinked and Tee was standing in front of an open door. One I had never seen before. Through the opening, I could see trees and a piece of blue sky. Without a glance at me, he stepped across the threshold to freedom. He left without me, alone in this inferno to burn to death. Desperate, I tried to follow him, but I could not move.

Then the door disappeared and so did my one chance of freedom. How could he leave me? Is this how he felt when I tried to take my own life? Was this his revenge?

I regretted not telling him what had happened that day. He never asked and I never brought it up, but I knew Tee was resentful. I could tell. I should have brought it up and explained. But how could I tell him that a buyer had named a price for a werewolf's heart? A price high enough to make it worth harvesting one of our hearts and reducing their income-generating organ machines by half.

Werewolves could not regenerate their hearts. Alice and Brad knew this and still had no qualms about killing one of us for the cash.

It was horrifying listening to how excited they were about murdering a child. But I guess in their eyes we were not children but beasts, magical beasts.