Destination Reached
We got on the road shortly after, a couple of ping-pong balls bouncing off the walls in wild, nervous energy. In a way, it was helpful, because the alternative was to get back on the road and, for several hours, think only of what was waiting for us.?
After grabbing breakfast, we chatted, first to break down the tension between us, and then because we just... wanted to.
We talked about Marcus, Ivy’s brother, and how he died too soon. Always the protector, walking Ivy and I to the school bus, trying (and mostly failing) to keep her out of trouble. We talked about how Marcus had had so many hopes, so many dreams, the top of his class, the Valedictorian with so much potential. We talked about Ivy, lost at first, and then determined, one of the best Sheriffs Werewolf Hollow had had in a long, long time.
We talked about Brittani and her part in our lives. Growing up together, our friendship, and the shattering of that chapter when Ivy moved to town. We talked, too, about her part in Jade’s life, and how she’d once been so, so quiet. Now, she was wicked smart; sharp as a tack, yet soft, quietly waiting for just the right opportunity to strike.
We talked about Paul, who was basically the same person as he had been when I’d left eleven years prior. Man was solid as a rock, the perfect Beta, happy-go-lucky like a golden retriever. We wondered if he and Ivy had a chance together, with her roller coaster of experiences and his solid-as-a-rock stability.
We talked about the kids, of course. I shared my favorite stories, laughing and crying in turn; I mourned the loss of the lives they’d had before Collin had turned. I regretted my decision not to tell them the whole truth. I reminisced about Lucy’s shockingly easy birth, which Aegis seemed surprisingly interested in.
“Wish I could’ve been there,” he said wistfully. “Watched her be born.”
“I wish you could’ve been her dad,” I joked. “But that’d be a whole other life, wouldn’t it?”
He glanced at me. “I know everything between us is still very new… but I consider your kids all a part of the package that is you. I want to be there for them, as a father if they’d have me- if you’d have me- or a guardian, if they didn’t. They’re a part of you. I want all of it.”
A lump formed in my throat, and I had to work not to swoon right there in the passenger seat.
“I… appreciate that,” I said finally, because it didn’t feel like there were any other words to express it.
Aegis fell silent for a moment, and I recognized a difficult subject coming. “There is… something,” he said, finally. “Something about Collin.”
“I noticed the weird looks you and Luna Leanne have been giving him,” I said quietly. “I think I know what you’re going to say.”
“Do you?” Aegis glanced at me. “We know so very little about the virus that creates us and how it decides what to do with us. It’s almost this… intelligent, sentient thing. Each person infected takes to it differently, some like fish to water, some like a bird to a window.”
I nearly choked at his ridiculous analogy, but he continued on as if he hadn’t said anything funny at all.
“I think Collin has the Alpha gene,” he said, grim and serious. “I can’t say for sure. He’s so young, and he was completely unaware of the infection. He’s a singular case. Most werewolves with the Alpha gene have grown up knowing exactly who and what they are.”
“What does that entail?” I asked softly. “What will he have to do?”
“Whether he chooses to accept that role or not, he’ll need training. I did; the Alpha gene is easily triggered. Collin’s triggered it a few times without realizing. As he gets older, we’ll see how prevalent the gene is, and how much control he’ll need to exert.”
I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. “So much for normalcy.”
“Normal is overrated.”
“And Dylan?” I looked up, staring across the seat divider toward Aegis. “Is he a werewolf, too?”
Aegis took so long to reply that I already knew the answer.
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s entirely possible the virus could be completely dormant within his system and therefore be undetectable, but with his brother having changed and the amount of stress he’s put himself under, symptoms would have started to show by now.”
I groaned again. “Great. He’s going to hate the idea of his brother experiencing something he can’t.”
“And the attention,” Aegis said grimly. “I’ll have to be very careful not to pour too much of my time into Collin, if just for Lucy’s sake.” He winked at me. “Dad put his entire life into training me… to the detriment of Jade’s health and safety.”
“An Alpha,” I whispered, pinching the bridge of my nose. “God. I didn’t think coming here was going to be full of quite so many tests.”
“We’ll figure things out later,” Aegis promised. “For now, I have to warn you: we are nearly there.”
The landscape was long changed, by now. The fields had disappeared, having turned into an urban sprawl before evolving into the sardine-like packing of buildings. The relaxed feel of Werewolf Hollow was gone; that creeping feeling of the Hustle was beginning to claw its way back in, already.
“In a few minutes,” Aegis said, checking the map, “I’ll need to pull into a rest stop.”
“Feeling a little squashed?” I joked.
“About to get worse,” he said, grinning at me. “I need to shift.”
That surprised me. “What for?”
“The bite of the Executive Director of the FBI’s Department of Werewolf Control is a high profile incident. This, following your situation and the violent media surrounding that, has made for a very volatile landscape. In other words: there are a lot of very angry, very dangerous people gathered outside the hospital containing him and a few other victims, and I need to be at my most intimidating.”
I sobered up real fast. “I see.”
“There will be werewolves and anti-werewolf groups present. And... if the worse has happened and Rudy’s shifted before we got there, an Alpha needs to be on hand, fully shifted, to provide control.”
“Oh man,” I murmured, my anxiety creeping back in. “I knew this was going to be delicate, but...”
Aegis chuckled darkly. “It’s always a little delicate- werewolves are tricky on the best of days- but with how much coverage this whole situation has had, it’s better to be cautious.”
True to his word, when a rest stop appeared- a large, unmistakable werewolf symbol underneath marking it as a friendly zone- we pulled over. There were a few families present stretching their legs, out on their own journeys. They glanced up, their own lantern-like eyes marking Aegis, before returning back to their little pockets of life that we were intruding on.
“All right,” Aegis said, rolling his shoulders. I leaned against the car, watching him as he stripped off his jacket and kicked off his shoes. “Driving like this is going to suck.”
“I can drive the rest of the way.”
“It’ll suck even if I’m not driving,” he chuckled. “Besides, I want you to have some time to prepare.”
A shudder ran through his body; he rolled his shoulders again, the muscles bunching up. He closed his eyes, his lips pulling back, and then- CRACK!- as before, his body burst apart at the seams, doubling in size, his shirt- a flannel, I realized- just big enough to stretch with the sudden girth. He stretched his back up and now stood significantly taller than me, a full-blooded werewolf, Alpha incarnate. As before, the sheer awe of the power rolling off of him nearly made me back up a step, but I fought it.
Behind us, the families had stopped and turned to watch, eyes wide and nervous.
Aegis shook himself out again, canine ears flapping, and then looked at me. Despite the inhuman shape of his face, I could see anxiety in those amber eyes, so I smiled and stepped up, gently caressing his tufted cheek.
“You good?” I asked lightly.
He leaned into it, hummed, and rumbled, “Yes. We can continue on.”
We were thirty minutes out from our destination, and it became obvious very quickly that Aegis had been right. For one, we actually couldn’t get to the hospital parking lot, because the roads were closed.
People lined the streets with signs; on one side, large posters that read, “DANGER TO OUR CHILDREN”. On the other, “WE HAVE CHILDREN, TOO”.
“Oh, boy,” I murmured, anxiety tripling.
We found a small parking lot along a shopping strip. As Aegis popped out of the car, several nearby protesters shrieked and jumped back, terrified senseless.
“Stay close to me,” Aegis said, looking around with his eyes narrowed. His ears were at the alert, and I could see his muscles taugt in anxiety as his eyes flicked rapidly from side to side.
We moved through the crowds, sticking to the werewolf side, because they were less likely- probably- to do anything to us. On top of that, they automatically made space for Aegis to pass, some of them glancing at him with large eyes, ducking their heads in acknowledgment of his position.
It was strange to see, but at the same time, it meant no one’s eyes were on me, and I was glad for that.
The throng was significantly thicker as we neared the front entrance. FBI Agents had set up a blockade, and there were armed forces keeping people back.
“You might want to head up to them first,” Aegis called over his shoulder, pushing through the surging crowd of shouting protesters. “If they see me coming, it’ll make them tense.”
“Agreed,” I said, switching with him. I led the way, now, but Aegis still parted the crowd like it was the red sea.
“State your name and business, quick,” he said sharply, tensing. His gloved hand slid toward the very obvious gun strapped to him.
“Sylvia Lake,” I said quickly. “I’m here as… as Rudy Rodriguez’s next of kin.”
“I’m Alpha Black of the Black Lake pack,” Aegis growled out from behind me.
He immediately opened up a space in the wall of Agents, officers, and literal “red tape” to lead us in toward the hospital. Behind us, the sounds of an extremely irritated crowd rose up, the sight of two apparent nobodies being pulled into the hospital infuriating them. Just who were THEY that they get special treatment?
Except there was no special treatment.
Hospitals like these were now far more common than otherwise. The main building was there for all the mainstream stuff,of course, but it was the addition that was the main draw, here.
An enormous, heavy metal gating covered every entrance the hospital had been informed about, but ultimately, this building didn’t continue as high up as the game’s previous developers would be (hopefully) happy to absurd. It stretched downward- all the better to construct sprawling containment situations.
We walked from the main building straight into the more heavily fortified lower levels, and all the while, my anxiety rose, until at last we stood right outside a set of massive, enormous doors being guarded by grim, almost sad-faced agents. The weapons they bore were frighteningly large, their implications loud enough to fill a reservoir.
We stood there for a long time, the two of us, borrowing each other’s strength and trying to figure out the best next step… but it was no use.
We were out of time.
“Come on,” Aegis said, taking my hand. It dwarfed me completely. “Rudy is waiting.”