Cry wolf! (Sequel of 7 mates for 7 brothers)

Why now?

The rest of the morning Tyler spent putting together everything he knew about rabid wolves.  He had started on a single page, but soon decided to grab hold of some of the A1 sized sheets and marker pens his dad kept around for when he was training the newer wolves.  He was busy in their conference room when Rudi came to look him up.

At first Rudi just stood in the doorway observing Tyler.  He spent a good five minutes looking at the young man move up and down, constantly adding something on one of the sheets of paper.  While Tyler waited for him to speak he started reading some of the bits and pieces he had jotted down.  On some pages he saw small alphabetical references that he could not figure out.

“What’s up with the ‘A3ii’ annotation?”

Tyler frowned at him as he stood up from his half crouch where he was writing.  “What?”

Rudi pointed at the side note he was wondering about.

“Oh, that.  That is a reference to the notes in group A, row three, page ii.”

“Group A?”

Looking up at his mornings work, Tyler realized that none of it would make much sense.  He came to stand next to Rudi as he quickly explained, using his hand to indicate.  “This is group A, B and C.  They all have rows, one two three and so on.  Then the rows all have their separate pages, i, ii, iii, iv and so on.”

It was silent as Tyler carried on writing on the wall as Rudi continued looking at him; not really paying much attention to what was being written; he paid closer attention to Tyler; and when Tyler stood back to glance at something he had written, he spoke.

“Why now?”

For a brief moment Tyler thought about playing dumb, but as soon as he considered it, he rejected that thought.  If Rudi was perceptive enough to realize what he thought he suspected, he would be smart enough to know if he was evading Rudi’s question.  Tyler turned to stare at Rudi, and their eyes remained locked for a long time before Tyler said anything.

“Have you ever looked up at the sky at night?”

Rudi thought carefully before answering, and even though he took his time, he could not come up with any reason for why Tyler would ask that.  “Yes; I used to do that quite often with Dinah when we were younger.”

Tyler nodded as he sent a token of a smile at Rudi.  “I don’t think my mate’s father would approve if I kept his daughter up late at nights.”

Rudi scowled at him playfully.  “Not just yet if you don’t mind.”

The silence stretched a while before Tyler started explaining to Rudi.  “The way I ‘hear’ the other wolves out there, the ones that do not belong to our pack; their … ‘alive’ sounds are like the stars in my mind.  Only, they are floating in water.  So try to imagine a bunch of stars in a huge fish tank.  Most of the times the stars are happy and content, and they burn brightly.  When something bad happens, it is like a drop of ink that clouds out their bright lights.  The bad thing about this is that it isn’t just one or two stars that are affected; it is a whole cluster of stars.”  Tyler sighed unhappily as he shoved his hair out of his face.  “Do you have any idea what it is like to suddenly have your beautiful fish tank full of ink spots?  Full of the saddest and scariest ‘alive’ sounds?”

Tyler’s one hand touched one of the sheets stuck on the wall as he talked as if he was talking to himself.  “I sometimes imagine that it must be what hell would sound like; only worse I suppose.”

Rudi listened to Tyler speak and he couldn’t stop a shiver running down his spine; and when Tyler turned to face him, he shivered again at the haunted look in Tyler’s eyes.