Werewolf's Humanity

Elizabeth, Part 3

Her door was locked the next morning. She had never locked him out. By noon, Sammy was starting to worry. And something smelled... wrong. Very wrong. When a stench, oily and wrong, started oozing through the door, Sammy's knocks turned into pounding.

"Elizabeth? Please let me in!" he begged, not for the first time.

Suddenly a hand was on his chest, gently pushing him aside. Odysseus, and Night Sky had materialized out of nowhere. He felt Night Sky's hand on his arm, subtly holding him back as Odysseus broke the door in with his shoulder. Once, twice, it did not give. Why didn't he just order her to let them in?

Sammy's heart was pounding. He knew there was a problem, but the Alpha's urgency sparked a flame of panic in his gut. On the third shove, something cracked, and the door swung open. A waft of that stink assaulted his nose, and curiosity and a need to make sure his sister was safe propelled him into the room, tearing away from Night Sky's grasp.

It was dark. Only some light filtered through the curtains, but the puddle of drying blood on the bathroom floor would forever glow vivid red whenever Sammy revisited this moment. Fear overcoming his sense of protocol, Sammy pushed past his Alpha, venturing towards the bathroom. In the middle of the puddle, surrounded by brown dried blood, was a silver blade. Sammy screamed.

And in the tub lay Elizabeth's body.

And screamed.

Her naked, lifeless body.

"No..." Night Sky said, quietly.

"Hatchet!" Odysseus bellowed, voice crackling like static electricity. "Help me get her down! Ruth, get him out of here."

"No, no no no... Elizabeth...!"

Firm arms wrapped around him and started dragging him from the room. He resisted, wanting his Sister, not fully registering that she was gone. But his strength left him, and Ruth got him past the door and into the hall before he collapsed, dragging her down with him. He burst into tears, and felt Night Sky crumple up beside him, wracked with sobs of her own.

***

Sammy sat at the dining table and stared off into a void. His eyes were open, but he didn't care what he saw. The adults talking right outside the kitchen might as well have been distant mumbles for all his brain registered. He didn't even flinch when Hatchet walked in, piercing his solitude, and pulled out a coke from the fridge, two glasses from the pantry, and a bottle of rum.

He sat down next to Sammy, poured one of the glasses halfway with the soda, and topped it off with rum. His own glass had no soda.

Sammy stared at the drink pushed in front of him. "I'm not 21."

"Neither was I, the first time I saw a dead friend's body," Hatchet said. "If I was gonna try to get you drunk, I'd give you some of my moonshine. This'll just get you buzzed for minute or two."

Sammy continued staring at the drink, then glanced to the man at his left. The day he and Odysseus had led the raid on the laboratory that had been torturing him had been a pivotal moment in Sammy's life, but in the biography of Hatchet's life, if one was ever written, it probably wouldn't even make a footnote. He remembered his first months in Argo, completely intimidated by the living legend, and that was before he even understood the scope of Hatchet's accomplishments. There had been more times than Sammy cared to think about when he and Hatchet had encountered non-pack werewolves who looked at Hatchet with awe and terror. But there had been other times--usually bolder, cockier wolves--had bought Hatchet drinks, out of respect or even a desire to meet their hero. And here he sat by Sammy's side, attempting to comfort his grieving in his own Hatchet-y way. He lifted the glass to his lips and chugged half of it down, ignoring the fizzle in the roof of his mouth and the subsequent punch of heat that shot up his core.

"Thassaboy," Hatchet said, topping him off. "Now, I don't want you thinking drinking will solve your problems. But I've been in your shoes. You saw things you shouldn't have seen. You've got a mountain of grief on your shoulders. This will at least push some of it in the back of your mind, so you can process some of it now and the rest later."

Sammy found he had to focus to process Hatchet's words. He had never had booze before, at least not outside of Night Sky's medicinal applications. "I just... keep thinking about how I'll never get to h-hu-hu..." He was reeling, losing his breath. He shut his eyes and focused, wanting to at least finish the sentence before the message of it overwhelmed him again. "H-hug her again."

His palms shot up to his eyes as his body wracked with a new set of sobs, silent this time. No more hugs, no more runs, no more breakfasts together...

"Elizabeth and I weren't close," Hatchet suddenly said. "We didn't have anything in common, we just cohabitated. But she was pack. And a good nurse, and I respected the hell out of her."

Hatchet took another swig and said nothing else, even as Sammy stared, expecting more. He didn't pat Sammy on the back or offer him any words of wisdom. He was from an older generation that didn't believe in those things. He just drank with him. This was how the old soldier grieved, and Sammy realized that out of all the members of the pack, Hatchet had chosen to grieve with him.

"To the family we've lost," he said, lifting his glass.

Sammy managed to mumble out the same, and the two drank on.