Instinct

42. We All Fall Down

The screen flickers for a moment. Ghostly images shudder across the high definition take of an anchor-man laying out the headlines for the evening. The woman watching frowns and reaches over the granite kitchen island to tap the TV. It seems to right itself, and then the picture blinks out completely.

"Are you kidding me?" she sighs and pushes away her bowl of pasta to get up and confront the monitor.

Checking the leads snaking out from behind the TV, she finds nothing out of place. By the time she sits back down the picture on the screen is back, except it's kind of fuzzy and the colour is off – like the black and white of footage from a horror movie.

It's definitely not the evening news anymore.

"Hey," she calls. "Is your TV working?"

"I don't know what just happened to it," a man says, coming round the corner. "I was just coming down to ask you about it."

The woman shrugs. As she reaches for the remote to change channels or just turn the damned thing off, the image comes into focus. She peers into the monitor to find herself looking at a room of five – no, six – people. There's no sound attached, but there is a timestamp. It's taken from over a year ago.

"What is this?" she asks.

"Wait," the guy interjects, looking suddenly spooked. "Holy shit, is that Stephanie Armstrong?"

And sure enough, when they look closer at the surprisingly clear footage, Stephanie Armstrong is sitting with her back pressed up against the wall. The woman takes another look at the timestamp and smacks his chest with the back of her hand.

"Look at that date! This is from that freaking facility."

He rubs at his chest with a withering glare shot her way. She takes no notice.

"They're exposing it for real?" he breathes.

Neither of them can tear their eyes away. They're just one couple in a crappy apartment in New York City. They don't really know Laura or Stephanie or Liam, but they feel like they do. They share a unique kind of kinship with them. As far as werewolves go, the two of them have been pretty lucky, but that doesn't lessen the losses they've had to weather. For them, the Armstrongs and the Halls – their stories mean everything; their prominent presence means the world. That they have someone to speak on their behalf is one of the few things that keep their hope alive.

And though they hate to think of what the eldest Armstrong daughter had gone through in that awful place, they have hope that it will shape the future. This video, they truly believe, will be the beginning of the end. Once wrongs are forced into the light, wounds re-opened... only then could things get better.

There's no context as a thin, bedraggled girl enters the frame, staring intently at Stephanie. The woman can see another tall, dark lady just at the edge of the screen. Her mouth is moving, but there's no way to make out her words. All the focus is on Stephanie, and this anonymous girl standing over her.

The woman finds herself white-knuckling the edge of the counter, waiting with bated breath. What did this have to do with anything?

"She looks scared," the man whispers.

"Stephanie? No she doesn't, she looks –"

"Not Stephanie," he interrupts. "The girl, the young girl."

And she does, her eyes are shining and she's shuddering inside her own skin. Every so often she licks her lips, a clear indication of her anxiety bleeding through from her wolf side. Her body language is guarded, timid.

For her part, Stephanie looks far too defensive. Her minute movements are jerky, bordering on aggressive. Then, unexpectedly, she bares her neck in deference to the terrified werewolf standing in front of her. The skinny girl relaxes, her eyes shifting over to the other side of the room. She makes a small movement toward Stephanie, and suddenly both girls are warping, lunging at each other.

The woman gasps, grabbing at the man's sleeve.

"What is this?" she whispers.

"She doesn't stand a chance," he replied.

They both know who he's talking about, and it is not Stephanie Armstrong.

The fight ends abruptly. It ends when Stephanie Armstrong, one of their limited sources of hope, clamps her strong jaws around a young girl's throat and shakes the life out of her. When the body falls to the ground, the video loops back to the beginning.

There are tears of shock in the woman's throat.

"What the hell was that?" she asks.

The man shakes his head and pushes away from the table. He runs his hands through his hair and paces.

"What the hell was that?" she repeats hysterically.

"That," he growled. "Was murder."

"It can't be her. It can't be."

He suddenly felt sick. No matter the context, no matter what had happened to make that happen, it was the murder of a young, defenceless girl. A werewolf killing another werewolf.

"We're all dead," he breathed. "Jesus, it's all over."

"What do you mean?" she cried.

"They're going to kill her. They're going to kill her and then we're all damned."

She doesn't know what to say, she can't feel anything past the shock suffocating her. He tugs the woman to her feet and pulls her to the window over the sink. With frenzied movements he opens it, letting warm night air in. It isn't the awful stickiness of the air, however, that makes her skin crawl.

It's the sound that surpasses traffic all over the city. It's the sound of hundreds of angered werewolves calling into the night sky. Sharp, grieving howls that twist and contort over each other. A collective call for blood.

"They're going to kill her," she says. "And then..."

He's ghost white, and his words are shaky, with a sing-song quality that strikes her as distinctly unnerving.

"Ashes, ashes – we all fall down."

---

Well, then. Who knew this was going to be just about as dark as Survival? *raises hand* I tried. In any case, sorry for how long this took, whenever I get toward the ending of a story my brain sabotages me to try to avoid finishing it. Fear not, I am fighting back (or fear it, and get ready for this ending, because I think it's gonna be pretty intense).

Thanks as always for reading (and for helping me reach 700 followers!), I love you all. Don't forget to let me know what you think! Any ideas for where this is going?