The Lone Wolf

14, Haunted

It was two weeks before Halloween. Rishima had tasked Fox with a rather lengthy job, sweeping the gutters of all the streets in town free of trash and debris. He'd been at it for hours, and he had quickly put up an invisible mental barrier between him and the pack wolves he had to work around. He'd been so focused on his job that he almost didn't notice how close to the border he'd been getting.

But his attention abruptly snapped into focus when he laid eyes on a van. Fox froze in place, his breath seizing in his lungs. For a moment he thought it was a van he'd seen before, with bars in the windows and a fake company logo painted on the sides. But it was just a regular white van, no adjustments made.

He took a deep breath and steadied himself, calming his pounding heart. The van was parallel parked on the side of the road just outside the pack's border. Fox watched the casual traffic on the road with a bitter envy. How close he was to leaving, how close he'd been to never having gotten caught to begin with.

His gaze snagged on Evander and Rishima, who were speaking with a small group of people, right on the borderline not far from the van. Fox watched as they spoke to each other, shaking hands and shifting their stances, heads nodding, hands gesturing. Fox wondered who these people might be, but with Rishima right there, he didn't want to get caught staring and not working, so he resumed his task and put his curiosity to the back of his mind.

As he continued to sweep his way down the side of the road, picking up trash and throwing it in the bag he carried with him, the group began to migrate from the border further into town within the territory. They walked up close to him, and Fox straightened and stepped out of their way.

"Right here is one of our captive lone wolves," Rishima said, holding a hand out towards Fox. The group of werewolves who walked with the Alphas gave him a thorough look-over. The way their gazes flitted down Fox's body with interest made his skin crawl. He watched them, cautious, as he didn't see them make any disgusted or wary expressions, like so many other werewolves would have done.

"He's our most obedient one, so you'll probably see him around quite a bit. The others work under close supervision in the labor-focused sectors," Evander said. Fox normally didn't like looking directly at pack wolves unless he needed to, but something told him he needed to take in these newcomers' appearance. He studied them.

Four were men, three were women. There were no distinct features that hinted that any one of them might be Omegas, Betas, or Alphas. Despite this, though, Fox could still feel a little hook in his mind that tugged at him the wrong way. He noticed that these werewolves smelled a little off, and something about the way they stood and the way they watched the werewolves around them set his nerves on edge. All of these warnings were subtle, though, just small inklings of caution. Fox didn't know whether he should chalk it up to his lone wolf nature of being overly cautious by default. It seemed like these werewolves were potential new pack members, and they were just being observant. Their smell probably had to do with being temporarily packless, their old pack scent fading, but still clinging to them.

"How interesting," one of the men remarked. "Most packs don't do this."

"We're well aware, but it's a safety tactic we've learned to use. Helps keep trespassers from coming back with more firepower at their disposal. When we keep them as prisoners, we can manage them better and we don't have to worry about them coming back and posing a bigger threat," Rishima explained.

"If you're worried about your safety, I can assure you that they're kept under strict watch, and there's very low tolerance for violence," Evander said. "If one of them steps out of line, I punish them myself."

Fox glanced at him and averted his eyes to his feet. The little hook in his mind tugged again, though, and Fox felt an urge to return his gaze to the group of newcomers.