The Taint of Wolves

Threats

Unedited

Chapter Two: Threats

There was nothing like the threat of being ripped alive and devoured by cannibals to get one moving.

Footsteps pattered behind me as they followed me through a dark side door that screeched too loudly for my liking when opened. This hallways stretched out with wide arched windows on either side that were barred heavily and then covered over, locking us away from the world beyond hell.

It had been so long since I felt true wind on my skin or felt the bite of a winter's morning. It had been so long since I heard the patter of the twins' feet on the cold wooden floors of the morning or felt the piano keys under my fingertips and listened to my mother singing along to my playing. It had been years since I felt anything akin to love or since I felt sane.

This place, these doctors had sucked me dry. I was in limbo, desperate to escape and desperate to keep the monster that I had become away from other people.

A man howled in rage behind us after discovering that his easy meal had already fled. The girl let out a shaky breath as I paused in the hallway, eyeing the opening of a large vent system above us. I had used these plenty of times to pass unseen or to keep an eye on something from a better vantage point. I gripped one of the hospital beds and heaved it over under the vent. The male Lycan moved to steady the bed wordlessly as I jumped up onto it and peered inside, checking for hiding patients.

When I found none, I jumped back down and motioned wordlessly for the two baby faced Lycans to climb up onto the bed.

"What are you doing?" The girl with the hair like sunlight asked me quietly. I blinked at her for a moment – at that golden hair. I could imagine the smell of freshly cut grass and heat.

Outside.

My throat tightening, I motioned to the bed again.

"Get up." My gaze flickered to what lay behind them. "If you see any rotting bodies further on, just push them out of the way."

Her nose wrinkled in disgust, but her brother was already moving, leaping up onto the bed. "I'll go first, Sunny. Everything will be okay."

Sunny and her golden hair. Summer. Warmth. I shivered in the cold cells, before curling my lip in disgust as the girl shrouded in sunlight sagged in relief.

"You promise?" She whispered.

A hiss slipped from my teeth. "Unless you want to be torn apart, I suggest you move."

Dar...or whatever his name was, glanced back at me sharply but he had no problem with heaving himself up into the grate. I could hear them coming closer, following the scent of the girl's fear. Another warning growl rasped in my chest, making my throat feel like it was being shredded by sharp stones. The first surgery to make me more Lycan had nearly torn my vocal chords.

I didn't have the depth in my vocal chords to mirror the sounds of a wolf, but Doc-Mai wouldn't dare have her most promising patient becoming a mute. Admittedly, Sunny was strong too and didn't need her brother's help to get up into the vent. At least she had that.

The sound of their knees and hands against the grating told me that they had made space for me. I pulled myself up into the enclosed space and wrinkled my nose at the permeating smell of rotten flesh. Ahead of me, Sunny gagged and heaved at the putrid smell. Metal brushed against my shoulders and my breath caught, a rare and fleeting panic overtaking me.

'You have been in smaller spaces than this,' I repeated, but my mind could not be convinced. Even an engineered beast could feel fear.

When we reached the end of the chute, there was a dead body waiting for us. The man's body was marred with wounds and it looked like he had crawled up here to escape a monster below and had just stayed here, happier to starve to death then face what lay below. They jumped down and I followed them, prowling the perimeter of the dark room. It was heavy with the scent of dust and mice faeces, but the lingering scent of people was nearly gone.