Confrontation
I caught it by total and complete surprise, and that was the only thing I had going for me.
I knocked it totally off balance, and it released Annie's leg at once.
"Get them out of here!" I screamed to no one in particular. As the werewolf snarled- that sound would've made a bear piss itself- I scrambled up and around in the dirt, snatching up a branch and twisting around in the literal nick of time.
The weight of a truck bore down on me, and an enormous set of jaws smashed down on the branch, snarling and twisting; pieces were already breaking off, flying in every direction. The branch had literal seconds.
A shot rang out in the air, and the werewolf lurched off of me, howling and snarling as it twisted around, scrabbling at its back. I looked up to see Brittani pulling the kids out one by one at the house, Collin holding up parts of the broken paneling; Ivy had her pistol out, the air steaming around her, but it was a different gun she was now pointing to the sky.
With a sort of muted pop, a flare shot off into the air. Ivy dropped the flare gun and immediately aimed her pistol again. Unless she was packing silver bullets- doubtful- it would do very little, other than pissing off the beast. The bullet wound she'd inflicted was already probably healing up.
"Ivy!" I screamed, just as the beast dropped on all fours, snarling in her direction, fur bristling. "Ivy, run!"
She didn't move, sighting down the barrel. The werewolf crashed across the glade toward her, and my whole stomach lurched; I scrambled around in the dirt for anything, anything, but nothing came readily to my fingers. Another crack! shot out, but the werewolf was driven by bloodlust now. I saw it raise a claw just as I snatched up a rock, watched it bring it down as I rocked my arm back, and watched Ivy go flying half across the field as I threw it. It hit its mark, smashing into the werewolf's back, powered by sheer adrenaline; nearby, Brittani was herding the kids toward the edge of the glade, and I could hear Lucy screaming my name from her arms.
The werewolf spun around and howled, a real, spine-tingling sound. It threw its head back and put its entire body into it; that sound could've reached all the way to Los Angeles. When it looked back to me, I felt this sort of silence in my body.
That thing was going to kill me.
I dove for the building as the werewolf took off at a full gallop across the field, intimidating in a beast of that size and bizarre shape. I wouldn't make it; the human mind is capable of taking in so much data in microseconds, of organizing that data and sorting it, creating outcomes and trajectories... I knew I wouldn't make it to the building.
In those same microseconds of time between each step, I heard the sounds of something crashing clumsily through the glade behind us. There was a roar, and for a crazy second, I thought that Aegis had reached us in time. I turned to see a massive shape smash directly into the crazed werewolf, but my brain didn't see a familiar figure.
A slightly smaller, leaner werewolf of pepper-black fur was now a snarling, whirling tornado of teeth and claws on the rogue. Its clothes were torn, shredded from a shift. It fought almost as crazily and haphazardly as the rogue-
And then it hit me.
Rudy.
"Rudy!" I screamed, terrified.
Rudy tore into the werewolf, teeth bared in a long lupine snout. He barely reacted to me, and I almost couldn't tell them apart, so closely were they fighting, so violently were they moving.
I turned instead to Ivy, sprinting across the field to try to drag her back toward the crumbling building; anything to get her out of harm's way. If Rudy wasn't the victor- Don't think that- then I had to be ready for round two from this monstrosity.
Ivy was reeling, and there was an enormous slash across her face; blood was pouring from her cheek, which had been ripped clean open.
"Mom!"
I nearly jumped half out of my skin. Collin skidded to a halt in the dirt beside me, fur bristling, eyes wide. He was staring at Ivy in terror.
"Help me stem the bleeding," I commanded, ripping off Ivy's jacket. We couldn't move her; she was losing a lot of blood.
"Th-that's a r-really bad cut," Collin whispered, his voice cracking. His ears were flat against his head; he wordlessly sliced the jacket into fabric pieces as I held them up.
"Push your hands against her cheek," I said, and Collin immediately moved to her side. I braced one side of her head, and he applied pressure to her face where we laid the strips; her expression, tense and in pain, tightened, and she moaned. Sweat was pouring down her skin.
"Hang on, Ivy," I said desperately. "Just hang on. You have to hang on, so I can scream at you!"
Behind us, the two werewolves were fighting viciously. I looked over my shoulder to watch, and there was now blood matting the fur of both; I couldn't even tell who was winning at this point. Brittani and the kids were nowhere to be seen, and I couldn't hear them anymore. For once in my life, I was thankful that Brittani Choi existed.
"Mom," Collin whispered, and I turned to see him staring at me with large eyes. "What do we do?"
"We wait for backup," I said. "Ivy shot off a flare. Someone will have seen it. They'll be coming."
"Will they know-"
"No werewolf would shoot off a flare," I said grimly. "They'll know it's us."
"Mom..." Collin's eyes were past me now. "That... that werewolf... It smells like..."
"Rudy," I said, looking back. "I'm almost positive that's Rudy."
"But I thought- wasn't he supposed to be transported in like, some crazy carrier?"
"He must've broken out."
My mind was a whirlwind. How the hell had Rudy broken out? How had he found us? What had triggered the shift? He'd have to have been sitting in that trailer for hours now with no answers, no information; only a total moron would have sat there without figuring out something had gone terribly wrong.
A sudden vicious snarl and an agonized yelp reached our ears, and I twisted around in renewed terror. Behind us, a werewolf was standing over the body of another; whether it was dead or not, I couldn't tell.
I stood up, heart racing, watching the rising and falling of the victor's shoulders. It stood there, totally matted and covered in blood: its own, and its opponent's. There was now so much of it, and the loser so mangled, I could no longer tell which was now standing in the glade... though frankly, we weren't exactly better off with Rudy. He was still a freshly turned werewolf himself, one step short of a rogue in his own right.
There was no telling what he'd do if he were the victor.
Slowly, the werewolf turned toward us, and I saw a smattering of that pepper color around his snout.
"Rudy," I whispered, and I quickly moved to get between him and Ivy.
The massive werewolf lurched toward me, ears flat against his head. His lips were pulled back, a warning growl emanating from his chest; he staggered slightly, blood pouring down one arm.
"Rudy," I said again, holding up my hands. "Rudy. It's me. It's Sylvia. Come on, Rudy. I know you're in there."
He shook his enormous head, scrabbling at one side with one claw, like a dog trying to bat away a hoard of flies. He crouched, whined, looked at me, and pulled his lips back. My heart sank; the beast was winning.
"Rudy," I tried again. "Come on, Rudy."
"Stand down."
Both Rudy and I turned to see Collin next to me. His own ears were flat against his head, eyes wide, but he had one hand up toward Rudy.
There was crashing in the trees around us; panic flooded me. If the wrong people got here at the wrong time, they'd shoot first and ask questions later, never realizing that the werewolf they'd attacked was Rudy.
"Wait!" I screamed out, turning. I didn't know who it was that was coming upon us. "Wait! Everyone wait, please!"
"Stand down!" Collin shouted, and I turned to see Rudy crouching. Rage was winning out in the battle of confusion in his features, but he flinched from Collin's voice, before snarling again.
From out of the trees came Aegis, Lawrence, and Paul, all three in full werewolf form. Just seconds behind them, a menagerie of werewolves from the three Werewolf Hollow packs, all ringing the edges of the glade.
"WAIT!" I screamed, even as Aegis lowered on his haunches, teeth bared. "It's RUDY!"
Aegis's head snapped up, eyes wide, and he threw up a clawed hand. Paul alone continued moving, darting straight to Ivy's side. A low, anguished whine escaped him.
"Get her out of here," Aegis commanded, and Paul needed no other orders; he lifted Ivy up into his arms and took off without another word into the trees. Wordlessly, Lawrence turned and followed after him. He was, after all, the town Doctor.
I turned back to see Collin advancing toward Rudy, one hand up. If he was aware of the werewolves ringing the glade, I couldn't tell.
"Stand down, Rudy," he said, his young voice echoing in the near deathly silence of the wood. "Stand down."
Rudy flinched again, but he snarled, crouching low and narrowing his eyes at Collin. He's going to pounce, I thought in total terror.
"I said stand down!" Collin shouted, and this time, Rudy wasn't the only one who flinched. Several werewolves ringing the glade reared back a little, and I felt that familiar aura wash over me, flickering against my skin. Power.
Rudy's ears flattened, and he whined once more, anguish covering his features. He put his one good claw over his face and curled up on the ground.
Aegis stepped in then, striding toward him. He was stiff, and I realized guiltily that he was angry- probably with me. "Come on, old man," he said, gripping Rudy's good shoulder. He was turning to address the other werewolves gathered, all of them just starting to relax, when I saw something that made my tired body jerk back into overdrive.
The rogue werewolf wasn’t done. Whether Collin’s command or Aegis’s presence had woken him up, it didn’t matter; the world turned to molasses as I watched it spring to its feet, murderous gaze pinned not on the Alpha or the cowering werewolf literally right next to it… but to my son.
I was already moving, even as the rogue sprang. I slammed into Collin, sending him flying, and threw up my arm just as the werewolf hit me. A feeling like a thousand knives slicing into me errupted all across my forearm, and a disconnected part of my brain commented idly on the fact that I had been bitten, the massive jaw crunching down and through the bone. Shock and adrenaline alone delayed the pain.
Enraged eyes stared at me in victory for a split second, before lifting me off the ground and throwing me God only knew how far. I hit the ground hard, a roaring sound ehoing in my ears, and a searing, shattering pain exploded all through my body.
The world went blissfully, blessedly dark.