Predator and Prey

Chapter XI

Hey everyone! Sorry about the longish wait, but life got hectic. Here's the next chapter, though--I hope you guys enjoy, and please, please, please comment, vote, and follow, it means the world to me!!!

Also, there may or may not be a second update in the near future.... :)

{Jack}

HERE'S THE THING about predators--even if they're high up on the food chain, that doesn't mean they don't have their own, separate hierarchies. Wolves are no exception, and neither are Weres. The problem comes in with humans.

They like to pretend the world is black and white, but live in shades of gray. That makes them variables--dangerous. Now, when you cross wolves and humans, you get Werewolves--who live in packs and see the world as it is. Weres who were Turned are the grey areas of the Were world, which is part of why everyone's always so paranoid and terrified of them.

Turned Weres are the humans of the Were world--they are unpredictable, uncontrollable. They have something the rest of us only ever briefly taste: potential. They have choices, because they weren't born into the system. They can be great, if they choose to be. The rest of us don't have that.

Funnily enough, before meeting Alex, there was one other important detail I had somehow overlooked about Turned Weres--they were all victims. Maybe they had choices, maybe they weren't born in the system, but after all they had suffered along the way, they deserved that chance to be great in a way the rest of us didn't.

My anger was more than a storm--it was a fucking hurricane, a tornado, and the apocalypse all rolled into one. It was all encompassing, and for a few moments straight, all I could thinkfeelseetaste was rage, pure and unbridled. Rage that someone had dared to touch my mate like that, that Alex has been hurt. I was mad at Mr. O'Connor for what he had done, and the world for its utter unfairness, at myself for my oblivious actions...

And then that moment passed, and I could see Alex standing there, looking so hurt and broken and lost, staring down at a book, ripped in half, with the eyes of a guilty child.

"What happened that night, Alex? Or do I not get to know?" I asked, bitterness tinging my voice. I wasn't even sure who it was directed at, but we both flinched at the sound.

"I just... I need to pack."

"Alex, don't change the subject. I need to know--you know I need to."

They weren't just words, either; my wolf was howling so loudly in my mind that I couldn't even hear my own thoughts. It was hard to process everything when I was trying to lock down my own emotions, much less reigning in my wolf.

"Toothpaste. Did I pack toothpaste already?"

She moved across the room, backing away from me, never quite meeting my eyes. The fear was still there--in the tension in her shoulders, in the careful, near-silent steps. She was fighting the urge to flee, and she was loosing.

"Alex," I said again, this time more gently, "Please look at me."

Slowly, she turned towards me. She stood the same way she always had--shoulders back, chin up, daring the world to push her--but her hands, quivering and flitting nervously, gave away her anxiety.

"Please sit down for a moment. Just think about what you're doing."

"I--I can't."

"You can't think?"

"No," she said, a fleeting echo of amusement crossing her face, "I can't sit. He's in the building somewhere... I need to leave."

"Where are we going to go?"

"I don't know. I was thinking maybe Tahiti, but if you'd prefer someplace less sunshine-y, Russia also sounds nice."

I blinked, startled. To be honest, it hadn't crossed my mind that she meant going as far as leaving the country. This was going to be even harder than I thought.

"Alex, I know you want to leave now, but can you at least explain to me what happened? You owe me that."

She took a deep breath, then let out a shaky sigh. "It was my sixteenth birthday. My friends dared me to sneak out and ask for a beer at this local dive. On my way out, I got pulled into a dark alley. Mr. O'Connor was there. He... he hurt me. I don't think he meant to Turn me--I don't think I was even supposed to survive--but I did. And now I'm here, and that's all there is to it, so can we please leave now?"

"Wait," I said, the beginnings of a plan trickling into my mind. "What if there was a safe place you could go--a place nearby?"

She blinked. "There isn't."

"Okay, but what if there was?" I asked, doing my best to hold back a facepalm.

"Do you know something I don't?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

"No," I said, hesitating. "But I have an idea. And you're not going to like it."