Chapter 43: A Pain Like No Other
+25 Bonus
Finding out that Alex is a werewolf makes sense in hindsight. Of course, I wouldn’t have thought of it. I never knew werewolves were real.
But they are. And when they fight, it’s vicious.
It’s all claws and teeth, taking advantage of their weight and power. If it was against a human, I know for a fact they’d be reduced to a splatter in seconds.
The stranger yelps again as Alex slams him into a row of lockers. I wince, curled up as I am,
but I don’t make a sound.
J
Alex grabs the other’s head and turns before driving it into the ground. I see blood dribble
into the small new crater in the floor.
But the other werewolf isn’t out yet. He reaches up and swipes with his claws before twisting his way out of Alex’s hold. He snaps his jaws at Alex’s chin, but Alex turns his head
away.
Back and forth, the shove and struggle. The stranger even pins Alex, but he kicks him off, quickly returning the favor.
His mark doesn’t miss, clamping down on the stranger’s shoulder. Alex’s right hand grabs and clamps down on the other’s snout, forcing his mouth to stay closed. With a shove, they’re on the ground again.
Alex doesn’t let go, biting harder as the coppery smell gets stronger. The stranger’s attempts to cry out get blocked by the hand, but I can hear them pitching higher with pain.
Then, there’s a snapping sound, and Alex’s head shifts.
At the same time, the stranger tries to let out a yowl.
Alex’s bite changes places, teeth clamping onto his neck.
But a strike of fear shoots through me, strong enough to give strength to my voice.
116
+25 Bonus
“Alexsss!!”
He jolts, stopping.
Then, his ears, elongated at the sides of his head, twitch. He suddenly lets go, jumping back just in time for him to miss the stranger swing at him with something in his hand. I don’t quite see what it is, but it looks like a syringe.
The stranger’s right arm swings limply as he scrambles to his feet. Without another cry, he bolts, running away.
Alex growls, lowering on all fours. He’s going to run after him. But-
“Wait! Wait!!”
Strength returns to my limbs as I, against all reason, run at him. I grab at his clothes, clinging to him before he can leave.
Despite him being able to shrug me off or run off with me still holding on, he stiffens
instead.
His arms seem to shake, straining. Then, I hear him breathe in deeply before slowly breathing out. The trembles continue twitching under his shirt, but they lessen.
“…What,” he growls out.
His voice is gravelly, but breathy as he lightened his tone to a whisper.
“The camerasss. If you rrr–run off now, we can’t…”
We remain still for a few moments, simply breathing. The smell of sulfur and clotted blood starts to fade just slightly without the source of the smell present. It gives me time to take in the environment.
There’s cracks in the floor from how hard they beat each other up, though Alex avoided most of the assault. Lockers are crumpled like paper, though it looks like most of them were empty. The stranger’s spilled blood streaks on the ground.
#Chapter 43 A Pain Like No Other
All in sight of the school cameras.
+25 Bonus
I’d honestly just thrown out the idea because I didn’t want Alex to leave me behind. But now that I’m calming down, I realize that’s a genuine concern. I don’t see us being able to fix everything that’s wrecked, so at least we can avoid leaving behind too much evidence of what happened.
“You…”
I look over at his face.
He’s still mostly turned away from me, but he’s glancing back, eyes a vibrant gold.
“You’rrrre not…frrrreaked out?”
Eh?
Ah… Huh.
“…I guess I’m not? You’re ssst–still you, aren’t you?”
He turns his head more toward me, his gaze searching mine.
Eventually, he sighs, eyes closing, and I start to hear the crackling noises again.
I watch as the hair–fur, actually–doesn’t fall off, but instead recedes into his skin. His
bones pop and retract, making him look smaller and shifting his weight to the right places. The fur retracts from around his curly hair.
Then, he’s here in his human glory, his clothes still fitting perfectly. When he opens his eyes, they’re still gold. But now, with his human face back, I finally see just how distraught
he seems to look.
I’ve never seen sadness on his face like this.
“…I can’t ask you to forget this happened, huh?”
“I don’t think I could forrrget if I tried,” I admit, still clinging to his shirt. “Ssso…does
316
#Chapter 43 A Pointe No Other
thisss have sss–ugh.” I pause, getting my words together. “…Werewolf. Disappear?”
+25 Bonus
He seems to get what I mean, asking if he disappeared because of something werewolf related. And, slowly, he nods.
“…Brrrother know?”
He winces, his face contorting with grief.
Oh no…did he kill him?
But, that wouldn’t make sense. Alex was perfectly himself, even in the werewolf form, though definitely more bitey. But maybe the first transformation is different somehow?
Wait, did he just now start shifting into a werewolf, or was he always able to? It definitely wouldn’t make sense if he could already transform. Even in the play, he wouldn’t act like
werewolves were wild and vicious after transforming.
“…He and a group of our pack were attacked by rouges. I found out from a…mind link. Kinda like telepathy, I guess.” As he speaks, his shoulders droop, heavy and despaired. “Made it look like a phone call to the team, but I had to go. It happened while I was…playing
hockey.”
The national’s game. The night he truly disappeared.
He spits “playing hockey” out like the very idea of it offends him.
“They…tore him up. They tore him up bad. Left him to die. But Rita, she survived. She was there. She was the one who sent me the link. Desperate, Calling out to anyone she could reach. Carried him back to the pack while she bitten up, too.”
I feel his trembling under my fingers, and a dull shock goes through me as tears start to well in his eyes. I don’t think…yeah. I’ve never seen him cry before.
“I could barely…I could barely recognize him at first. He was just so… They fucked him up. Killed almost everyone else. And I just…I couldn’t act like I didn’t know that happened. There’s no way I could. And I wanted to find them. They left their smells, underneath all
4/6
#Chapter 43 A Pain Like No Other
the-”
+25 Bonus
He cuts himself off as his teeth clench. I let go of his clothes and just sit on the ground with him. He pushes the heel of his fist against his eye as he tries to force the tears back, but they start to fall anyway.
“He’s not healing. No one knows why. He should be okay by now… But he’s not. And they wouldn’t let me stay to find out why. Kept me under wraps for a while. Then packed me up and sent me back here. They won’t let me help. So, I’m just supposed to be back here and act like my brother’s not dying-”
I wrap my arms around his neck. He stiffens, but I keep going, pulling him into a hug. After
a moment, his arms wrap around my waist as he pulls me in, pressing his face against my
shoulder and hair.
His clenched hands shake against my back as he fights off the urge to sob.
It had hurt when he’d left me at the venue for our date. Hurt when he didn’t reply to my
messages.
But now, I realize he was hurting even more, in ways I can’t understand as an only child.
Of course, the hockey he loved would become a poison for him, at least for now. Of course, he would drop everything to look after his brother. And I’m not sure he could tell me.
He’s a werewolf, after all. And, judging from everything happening now, his brother…
maybe his whole family is.
While the pain of being left behind still thrums in my heart, I’m not so selfish that I can’t forgive him.
Moreover, he needs comfort more than forgiveness, like he’s comforted me so many times before.
It’s the least I could do.
So, I hold onto him. I let him hide how much he wants to cry in the curls of my hair, even as
5/8
#Chapter 43: A Pain Like No Other
+25 Bonus
my shoulder becomes drenched with tears. And he sags into me, holding me like a lifeline.
2
Comments
11
Support
616
