bennett
cubs
little cubs
stop
hear me
listen
fight
you must fight this
you must stop
i will help you
i will save you
i
cried out as my shift was torn from me as I passed through a ward unlike anything else I’d ever felt. I hit the ground and rolled, a sharp rock cutting into my back. I felt it start to heal, though slower than normal.
I stood up in time to see Tony and Brodie disappear down a familiar road.
The sounds of battle came from behind me, but they seemed distant.
I took a step forward and—
A hand grabbed my arm, tugging me sharply.
I whirled around to see Kelly and Rico, looking scared. “What are you doing?” Kelly demanded.
“Tony. Brodie. They’re here. And I know where they’re going.”
Rico looked beyond me down the dirt road. “Where?”
“To my old house. The one I shared with Ezra. With Livingstone.” I jerked my arm out of Kelly’s grasp. “We have to help them.”
“Maybe we should—”
“We promised,” I snarled at Rico. “We told Shannon we would help them.”
“You’re going where he wants you to,” Kelly said quietly. “You have to know this. You have to know he’s waiting.”
I nodded. “I know. But we don’t have a choice. We can’t let him have them. We can’t let him win.”
“Shit,” Rico groaned. He turned his face toward the sky and inhaled deeply. “Well. We were fucking crazy to come here in the first place. What’s another bad decision or two?”
And then this man, this ridiculously wonderful human, howled at the sky, the cords in his neck standing out. It echoed in the forest around us, and there came the sound of answering howls from back in the compound.
“I’ve been practicing,” Rico said with a shrug as we stared at him. “Pretty good, right? And fuck me, you’re naked and we have guns and we’re going to go face an evil witch. Let’s do this thing.”
He took off down the road.
There was a pulse of something in my chest, something I couldn’t remember feeling before. A tug that almost seemed familiar.