Something ominous was hanging in the air.
It was something that Rydell could feel but couldn’t explain, a heaviness that stuck to her like a thin sheen of sweat. Perhaps it was the animal instincts that lay down beneath the surface, the wolf prowling around inside echoing in her head that something was wrong; fight or flight of the inner canine rising up like bile. There was a darkness that threatened her senses, her mind.
Her mind hadn’t been the clearest of late. Alcohol filled most of her days and nights; the desire to ignore a connection she had never asked for with a person whom could never (would never) understand her making her anxious and uneasy. It would have been so easy to chalk it all up to that. But instincts told her otherwise. (So much of life in that town was based on instincts.)
It was those instincts that led her to the woods; the pounding of the wolf’s heart heavy in her head, feel moving automatically as though led by some unseen force. Be quiet, the wolf seemed to whisper. Quiet as the sunrise; quiet as the dead. Hush, hush, hush.
And so she was quiet; and so she was careful, moving through the trees like a shadow, feet moving instinctively until she could gaze upon a clearing, too far into the trees to see from the road; a hidden hideaway from the world. A place for secrets; a place where evil seemed to hang in the air and seep into the pores.
There stood two men, two locals. The faces were a haze of recognition without name, the type of locals that gave them all a bad name. Too low-class redneck; too bigoted for a town like theirs. Perhaps that was why her brain wouldn’t- or couldn’t- bring up their names but those faces? Oh those faces filled her with trepidation, the wolf growling deep within the depths of her soul.
And they were whispering- or perhaps they were muffled by the sound of her own heart, she couldn’t be sure. All she knew for sure was that the wolf had told her that something was wrong. And her wolf was rarely wrong.
Slowly the alpha began making her way towards them. Quiet, careful, calculated. Their voices still a dim sound while her heart seemed to be loud enough to summon the dead or frighten animals away. And it was when she was just feet away, still mostly hidden by the trees that she saw it, what her wolf had been sensing- a small black cat, azure eyes wide in one of the men’s arms- a buck knife in his other hand. “Your turn,” he almost dared his friend. “I can’t always do it.” The blade was held out; the rising sun reflected off of the sharp edge, an inverted pentagram carved deeply into the hilt.
The wolf growled again. Loud, feral.
“I have a better idea.” The animal growl made her almost unable to recognize the voice as her own even as her feet brought her out from around the trees. “How about you be the helpless animal this time?”
She didn’t even feel her hand shift, claws springing forth. Normally it hurt- or at least stung. This time it felt like nothing at all.
In the man’s hands the cat hissed, its own claws digging into the fleshy part of its captor’s hand. The unarmed man mumbled out an undignified ‘shit’ and took off running- or he tried, his fear making him clumsy, uncoordinated. His feet tangled up in one of the tree roots and sent him flying forward, head hitting against the trunk with a sickening cracking sound. But he was still breathing; but he would still live.
The other man glanced at his friend briefly, the cat all but forgotten as he released it to the ground. The feline took off, a streak of black dashing off into the underbrush. And the wolf pounced, faster than the man could turn back around.
Still mostly human Rydell tackled the man to the ground, the blade falling from his hand and slicing open his palm. Canine eyes looking down at him, head cocked to the side. “Don’t like when the animals can fight back?” She still couldn’t really recognize her own voice though she knew the words came from her, could feel them rolling off of her tongue.
A clawed hand reached out and snatched the blade back up before he could grab it once more; the tip ended up pressed against his abdomen. “How does it feel to be the helpless one?” The tip sliced open the skin; somewhere in the back of her mind she thought she heard him scream though the smell of blood was almost overwhelming her senses.
But then she heard it- the sound of someone else coming. Not the other man- his smell was still lingering. No, someone else entirely. Dropping the blade Rydell almost could have clucked her tongue in disappointment. “Guess it’s your lucky day.” A predatory smile; a gripping of his neck. It took one swift motion for her to slam the back of his head into the ground and knock him out like his friend.
And then she was up, running further into the woods, heart beat pounding in her ears because there was someone else in the woods. And the wolf wasn’t ready to encounter anyone else.
And so despite her hatred of hiding the woman ducked behind a patch of trees even as the animal in her decided to rest once more; even as she stripped off her bloody shirt and tossed it away.
She had never been intending to kill the men- at least she was almost completely sure of that.
Arizona always scheduled his shifting for the evenings since he preferred to sleep as a wolf anyway, it was just convenient and the cool night air did him good. Even shifted, he was scrawny and unassuming - the glint of his teeth and the sharpness of his claws the only thing that marked him as the dangerous predator he was.
It was easy for him to go unnoticed on his evening strolls in the woods, something he was grateful for as he often took the time to recharge from the day. As an introvert, being around people for too long pushed him to irritation and exhaustion, but embracing his wild side had all of that fizzling away.
He heard them before he saw them, loud footfalls and the low hum of voices standing out like a neon sign in the quiet of the forest. Stupid humans. He assumed it was a group of high schoolers up to general teenage mischief until he smelled the blood.
The voices became more frantic and the smell of fear overwhelmed everything but the blood, stopping the werewolf in his tracks and setting his hair on end. Arizona should’ve headed back, he usually would’ve, but there was something that drove him forward. Slinking through the shadows, he followed his nose, the scent of fear and pain getting stronger and stronger until it was the only thing he could recognize. It was overwhelming, so much so that he almost missed the smell of werewolf.
An alpha. One he recognized, too.
He couldn’t remember who, exactly, the scent belonged to, but he was certain he’d met them before. The same force that nudged him before pushed him forward still, his nose leading him closer and closer to the scene of the crime. What the hell had happened here?
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