❝ Sheep abide by the herd complex; safety in numbers. When all are the same, no one can be singled out.
A fox among sheep is able to infiltrate the herd only a handful of ways: under the veil of dusk, or by clothing itself as the prey, shedding i...
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DAZED, VICTOR STAGGERED down the stairs, watching the monster's claw-tipped fingers twitch while the rest of its body lay unmoving. With every limp, the nerves in his leg protested, secreting a trail of blood trickling down the steps as a sacrificial waterfall in a display of the violence that had taken place.
A red, bottomless hole had been carved into the wolf-man's forehead, bone, and tissue encasing Victor's shot within. He'd extinguished the ever-burning fire in its eyes, having been diminished to a flat orange as they stared up unblinkingly at the ceiling. Victor watched the creature's hand cease its spasming and its chest stiffen; the battle for life came to an end. Blood— his blood— still swam on the tongue of the beast's open mouth, exiting through the crevices in its teeth. However sacrilegious the sight may be, it wasn't what Victor was begging not to be true.
With empty nail-beds, throbbing fingers picked up the blood-splattered note which had been resting on the doormat; he screwed it up into a ball.
The whirlwind of betrayal and fury causing Victor's internal capsize were indecipherable from the other. Like twin tornados, they destroyed every foundation of trust and kinship ever built towards the boy, leaving behind nothing but the rubble and debris of fermented memories.
Émile knew. All this time, he knew.
Victor looked back at the behemoth's body, its eyes specifically, because the truth was starting to take shape. He's seen those eyes before— he knew them. Despite being worn on the face of a monster, he knew exactly whom they belonged to; the Lefevre brothers.
As to which one, Victor was unsure, but it was either one of them, no doubt. Loup-garous; they were the plague of Gévaudan. He'd only ever heard stories of them, the most recent dating back a century ago; the werewolf trials. There was a time when men were accused of being shapeshifting beasts, cursed to roam the wilds when they'd transform on a full moon. And if found guilty, their punishment was to burn at the stake. Though, these stories have been overshadowed by the ones of witches, that not long ago, ended up taking Europe by storm, leaving the tales of werewolves to be forgotten by history. How wrong they all were, history should never be forgotten— immortalised— so the worst of it can never be repeated.
Victor pressed his weight against a wall, slowly sliding to the floor, at a loss to where he should go from now.
He wasn't a fool. This was far from over; the events of tonight were only the beginning. Whatever the Lefevres had in stall for him didn't go as they hoped, meaning the surviving brother would come after him, hungry for vengeance.
However, it was unlikely that vengeance would find him this evening, so for now, Victor could breathe— while he still can, at least. Regardless of how much the satanic turn in the tide petrified him, he agreed to foresee the extinction of the beast, no matter what. Victor vowed to follow through with his word, to bring justice to Pierre and all the others who had fallen before him.
