Unwilling - 10. Rope of sand

~*Jared*~

"Again!"

The wooden floor looked very inviting from mere inches away. Jared didn't want to get up, knowing he'd get thrown down again, anyway, but there was yet a glint of pride in him that hadn't been throttled into submission. It wasn't for a lack of trying on Hector's part, who looked outrageously unblemished.

"Come on, get up! You didn't even get a punch in," Hector taunted, looking amused with Jared's inability to counter his attacks.

They had been sparring for two hours, one of which Hector had used to beat Jared up to the point of near-unconsciousness to 'test his abilities', as the lithe man had put it. Jared suspected that Hector had also tested his self-restraint again, with the small difference that the gloves had come off this time.

"I don't get how you do that," he griped and slowly collected himself off the floor. Everything hurt at this point, and he didn't bother hiding it anymore. "It's like you see my punches coming before I even decide to do them."

Hector grinned boyishly. "That's because I do. Your aura, for lack of a better word, tells me what you're planning to do, right before you act."

Jared threw him a befuddled glance. "Say what?"

"It's hard to describe if you haven't felt an aura before," Hector admitted, "but I'll try. It's like your aura stretches to where you plan to go before you make the move, and I can feel it. I don't know what exactly you're going to do, but I know I shouldn't be at that specific place when you do it. And I've been doing this kind of training for so long, I've learned to anticipate what kind of attack you most probably will try at this point."

Blinking, Jared tried to digest that information. He had never been one for the esoteric stuff, but on the other hand, Hector also didn't look like an incense sniffing crystal junkie, so maybe there was something to it. "So you know where a part of my body will be, I'll accept that. But it won't work with, say, bullets, right?"

"No, it won't," Hector agreed and easily dodged a punch Jared tried to sneak in. "Won't help with assassination attempts either, since you need to concentrate on it." He then proceeded to sidestep and hook Jared's leg with his own, then he moved forward and shoved him against the chest, once more bringing him down to the ground. "You can't concentrate on what you don't notice. If someone were to sneak up on you and stab you from behind, there would not be enough of a warning even with aura reading."

Once again lying on the ground, Jared rolled away and rubbed the spot Hector had hit. Another bruise in a sea of bruises Darwin would have to kiss better tonight. It was the one good thing about this failure of a day that came to his mind.

He grinned. "So, you're tossing me around to help me learn this aura thing, or is it a hobby of yours?"

This time, Hector leaned forward to help Jared up. "No," he said as he pulled him to his feet, patting his shoulder, "I tossed you around, as you call it, so you can see for yourself I'm better than you."

With those words, Hector turned around and walked across the small gym hall they were using for their sparring. Jared watched with a puzzled expression on his face as his self-proclaimed teacher picked up a long piece of black cloth.

"That's a self-glorifying thing to say," he finally commented, still staring suspiciously at Hector's hands and the piece of cloth as he walked closer again.

Hector stopped in front of Jared, bending back his head to look up at the taller man. He was much shorter, thinner, more lithe, and still didn't look threatening in any way. He should have sat in a Starbucks cafe instead of slapping big, hunky werewolves around, as far as his looks were concerned.

"It's the truth. If I hadn't shown you I could easily beat you in a fair setting, anything I would have done after blindfolding you with this," he held up the cloth, "would have meant nothing to you. You would have denied I'm simply better than you, and I understand. It's a hard thing to swallow, getting beaten up by a wimp."

Hector's grin reminded Jared of a hyena, but he kept his thoughts to himself. One thing was true about Hector; he could beat Jared with his pinky finger, one hand tied behind his back. And Jared would have never believed it without the two-hour-demonstration Hector had staged for him.

Sighing deeply, he leaned forward until his head was in Hector's reach. As the man blindfolded him, he continued with his explanation. "We could do this without a blindfold, but it takes much longer and you don't have that kind of time. The longer your pack stays around, the more agitated we all get. It would be easier if you'd just agree to send them away another twenty or thirty more miles, but I guess you're still dead-set on them staying close?"

The idea itself made Jared growl anxiously, and Hector sighed in reply.

"Fine, but don't come whining to me when you start to feel the pressure. I warned you, and you didn't listen."

In the total darkness the blindfold provided, Jared could hear Hector step away and then stop. His voice sounded so much clearer, now that Jared couldn't focus his eyes on him. It sent nervous shivers down his back.

"Now we can start for real. For today, it's enough if you manage to touch me by instinct alone. Don't bother trying to hear me, just... feel."

It sounded easy enough, but it didn't take Jared long to discover just how little experience with feeling he actually had, and how hard it was to do the simplest tasks when 'blind'. A feeling quite close to paranoia set in after just a few heartbeats of fruitlessly fumbling through the air in front of him. Hector actually swore he wasn't moving away when Jared was close to him, but he somehow still ended up a few inches short whenever he tried to grab him.

Jared couldn't tell how long the session went on like this, but when Hector finally tapped his shoulder and announced that this would be enough for a day, the sun sat quite low on the horizon.

The gym hall stank of sweat and frustration, especially his own; it was something Jared hadn't been able to smell before, so that was a little victory. Exhaustion and tiredness flooded him, both having nothing to do with physical exertion; it was his mind, his conscious, that had expended all energy and was now howling for sleep. And all of this for nothing to show. He threw a puzzled glance at Hector.

"Am I especially untalented? I didn't manage to touch you once," he asked, trying not to sound too insecure. He felt like a failure.

Hector shrugged, and walked over to the entrance door to switch off the lights. Instantly, the gym hall was shrouded in gray-ish twilight. "No, that's okay. You did good, and I told you before: I'm trying to rush you through this as fast as I can. You're bound to feel the pressure, but you're progressing neither too slow nor especially fast. Don't worry."

Jared followed him out grudgingly. Easier said than done.

At least he'd have a few more weeks to get the hang of it.

~*George*~

Having another person around twenty-four--seven was both nice and necessary, but some days George would have gladly strangled Mary. This was one of those days, and had he not been wheelchair-bound and susceptible to falls, he would have fled the house the minute his housekeeper brought up Darwin.

"You know, Carl is furious," Mary commented, and the oatmeal turned to ashes in George's mouth. They were sitting in the sun room, or breakfast-nook, whatever architects called the niche George had paid a fortune for to make his late wife happy, and outside birds were chirping in the cool morning air as the sun streamed through the ceiling-high windows. George had heard all about how Darwin and his boyfriend had gotten away, but he still felt a constant thread of dread whenever he thought too hard about his son.

Those few words were enough to quicken his pulse. "Is he, now?" he mumbled half-heartedly, trying his best to hide his emotions. His hunger was gone, but if he didn't eat, Mary would try to shove something much worse down his throat just to keep him ticking. A healthy, balanced diet was key to his prolonged life, the doctors had said so on many occasions, and Mary usually was having none of his theatrics when it came to nourishment.

"Now that you mention it, I can't remember the last time Carl was in a good mood, but that may be because he excluded me from any and all pack business. I wouldn't know what mood he's been in the last few days."

Mary clicked her tongue chidingly. "Don't whine at me, George, we are all but married in the flesh, but I'm not your mother. You already endangered Carmen by having her snoop around for you, that's enough suspense to have me worried about my niece and your health. She'll be coming by tomorrow afternoon, that's got to be soon enough."

Throwing her a moody glance, George poked around in his oatmeal. He hated having to use Carmen to do his fact-search just as much as Mary did and would much rather have gone himself, but his body prevented that very effectively. There were other reasons adding to his mood, though, and Mary was one of them.

George raised his gaze from his breakfast and stared at her. "Why didn't you tell me Darwin had problems with Carl before... this?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and only barely succeeding.

"Why didn't you notice it yourself?" Mary shot back angrily, but her eyes flinched. "I haven't known him for long, I thought he always acted strange after pack meetings, and you didn't react to it. How was I supposed to know?"

Yes, why hadn't he noticed? George slumped as much as he could in his wheelchair and let go of the spoon. It clattered over the brim of the bowl and onto the table, loud enough to make both of them jump a little, but for a few moments, the ensuing silence stretched on. He should have noticed, because now that he looked back, it had all been too obvious not to. One day a few years ago, Darwin had started hiding after pack meetings and he often had stayed long after George and the other pack members had been sent home. Carl had started asking a lot of questions about Darwin's behavior, about signs for dominance or submission, about his friends, about everything, but George had taken it as a sign of caring from his Alpha. Then after he had gotten sick and missed months of pack meetings, things had taken an even more puzzling turn. Darwin had gotten into a lot of fights, which wasn't unusual for a young dominant trying to find his place, but nobody could tell George with whom Darwin had fought so hard that he left blood stains on his bed sheets and missed a few days of school here and there. Darwin hadn't wanted to give away names, telling George it would leave a bad impression if his wheelchair-bound father interfered on his behalf, and as soon as Darwin had started going to college, the fighting had stopped, at least almost.

"You know," George mumbled as realization hit him, "now that I think of it, if Darwin has always been a submissive, like they are claiming now, who did he fight with all through high school? Submissives don't fight for ranks, but there he was, week after week, bloody and beat up, and he never told me who did it. And he always was nervous before pack meetings, and hid for hours after he came home. After those long talks with Carl, he always kept to himself, saying he had gotten into some kind of disagreement with another dominant."

Mary stopped eating and simply stared at him wide eyed for a few moments, her own food forgotten. She blinked a few times, then she shook her head adamantly. "No. No, you don't think that Carl-- No, he wouldn't do such a thing. I mean, why should Carl of all people beat on a submissive--"

Mary paused and blanched at her own words. "You don't think that all those disappeared submissives might..."

Pulse in his tongue, George swallowed and tried to think around the fluttering pangs in his chest. "Darwin knew how much I think-- thought-- of Carl, and you know how he is. Puts everyone's best interests ahead of his own, and then he stops as soon as everyone else is taken care of."

They stared at each other, too horrified by their own words to move, afraid of looking away and breaking the fragile balance between uncertainty and panic. George felt as pale and shivery as Mary looked, but his heart was still beating, his breath still flowing in and out and nothing hurt. Maybe he had to spell it out aloud to feel the full impact?

"So Carl made dozens of people, all the submissives of our pack, flee or disappear, and Darwin was only safe as long as Carl thought he was dominant," George said with a voice void of feeling. "He finally found someone who loves him, and at the same time he was forced to reveal the one secret that might endanger him." The admission left his lips numb.

"Oh my god," Mary suddenly gasped, clenching the collar of her blouse tighly as she stared wide-eyed at the table, "George, what about those other incidents? Your mother, Giselle, Carl's wife, do you think..."

She didn't finish. George made a wailing sound, too soft to be a scream, too loud to be a whisper, and wiped his bowl of oatmeal off the table with enough force to have it clatter against the wall and roll a few feet until the dish settled. Thick clumps of oatmeal stuck to the wall and the floor, leaving a trail similar to blood splatter.

Mary was off her seat before the bowl came to a stop, but George's fist slamming down on the table stopped her before she finished reaching out to him. He had never felt so furious in his life, and although he hadn't been able to shift shape for years, he felt the familiar, burning tingle crawl over his back.

"I will not have this man ruin my family anymore!" he shouted, eyes bloodshot with his speeding pulse. "I do not care anymore, I have nothing to lose left if my boy dies, but I'll be damned if I sit by and watch, not knowing what really is going on in this pack!"

Amidst his impotent outbreak, the phone rang.

~*Darwin*~

The sign next to the road was big, hand-painted and old enough to have lichen grow on its back. 'Renton Welcomes You!' it read, a loopy, pastel hued font sitting amidst trees and something that probably was meant to resemble a pond. Darwin sat behind the wheel of Jared's car, staring at the sign, the road side ditch and the battered phone booth a little off to the side. The more he scanned that small patch of earth, the more his head canted to the side. His yaw already hurt from the steady tension in his facial muscles, but he realized he must have started squinting, too, because now there were black spots dancing in his vision.

The sun was still up, if already low on the horizon and the road went straight for miles, but he just couldn't get himself to get out of the car, as if someone or something might jump him as soon as his toes touched the asphalt. At first, he had tried to convince himself that all this tension was just because of that local werewolf that had tried to kidnap him three days ago, but in those next thirty minutes of weighing his options with the phone booth, he had realized that he was just too chicken to call his father.

After all, that was the reason why he had come here instead of watching Jared sleep, uh-gain, wasn't it?

It wasn't. Well, it was one of the very good reasons he had found to leave the cabin hurriedly, but not the only one.

Two nights had come and gone since that day at the shopping center, and everything had fallen into a daily routine. Jared left the cabin at sunrise to head for Canada and train with that Hector guy he always talked about. Harry and Darwin took turns cooking breakfast and Rayne came back from his patrol, staying just long enough to scarf down some food and then fall into bed. Darla spent her day glaring at Darwin and following him around like a stalker whenever she had a moment of respite, but at least for the six hours between breakfast and lunch, she had to patrol the perimeter of their impromptu pack district. Darwin was sure she slacked off most of the time, because he somehow always found her watching him and 'accidentally' showing up wherever he went, but he couldn't-- wouldn't-- say anything about it, not even to Jared. Harry spent his days pining for Rayne, cooking or cleaning obsessively and giving Darwin the silent treatment, and when Jared finally came home either late in the afternoon or sometimes late at night, he'd just have enough energy to gulp down some food, and then fall into bed fully clothed.

There were so many unspoken accusations hanging around that cabin, so many unclear feelings and so much baggage, Darwin felt like choking on all of it. And to top it off, he had nobody to talk to about any of it. He had wronged every single one of them, and each of them had their reasons for hating him or at least staying away. He simply couldn't talk to Harry about Darla or Rayne, and Jared hadn't managed a single sentence since last morning.

When he had told Darla-- who had been on watch-- what he planned to do, she hadn't even shrugged. Darwin knew that Rayne would be furious with her for letting him go out all by himself, but right now he was relieved that she hadn't tried to stop him, or tried to come with him. She probably would have killed him and left him in a ditch, anyway.

Oh, yes, there were so many reasons for the tension in his jaw and shoulders, and for the increasingly tight knot in his stomach. And there were very good reasons why Darwin had decided to call his father, even though he knew he wouldn't be able to tell the whole truth. If he could just bring himself to leave the car--

Someone knocked at the window right next to his face. Darwin twitched and turned his head, trying to breathe through his suddenly tight throat and the metallic taste in his mouth as he stared at Darla's expressionless face. What was she doing here? Had she followed him? Oh god, is she finally going to murder me?

"Are you gonna keep staring, or are you getting out and stop being a wimp?" she huffed and the corners of her mouth pulled down into a derisive sneer. Then she stepped away from the car and turned around, keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings.

Darwin sighed and rubbed his neck, then he pulled the keys out of the ignition. In reality, Darla could punch through the door if she wanted to hurt him, so there really was no use in hiding in the car.

Ignoring how weak his knees felt, he slid out of the car, closed the driver-side door behind him and leaned against it. Darla kept her back to him, but he could see her rub her arms against the cold, or whatever emotions she felt with him standing behind her.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, because he honestly didn't know what else to say. He already knew she hated him, and with good reason, but hate was nothing but a feeling. Some people could hate and still act civil, other people didn't even reach that level of disdain before they exploded. With Darla, he just wasn't sure. She was just too hard to read.

Darla didn't turn around, but she moved her weight from one foot to the other, stood straighter.

"Did you really tell no-one but me where you were going?" She sounded suspicious, but there was curiosity in her posture.

"Just you," Darwin replied, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. "Is there something wrong with that?"

This time, she turned around and threw him a heated glare beneath furrowed brows. Darwin could see the tendons at her neck tighten until they protruded through the skin, but she didn't move from her spot, just stared at him with dripping hate.

"I could kill you, right here, right now, and nobody would know it was me," she snarled, and there was a rough, grinding tone of delight in her voice. "And then, just when I think it'll be finally enough, that I'll finally be able, willing, ready to rid myself of you, you turn around and do something like this! Why? Why do this to me?"

Darwin felt his heart pound against his ribs, his fingers tingling with the strength of his harsh pulse. His eyes flitted over her face, the way she held her hands and arms, the slightly forward stance, but he couldn't find a clue as to what she was talking about. "What did I do?" he asked through the tightness in his throat, swallowing dryly.

Darla didn't answer. She shook her head and gestured to the phone booth, grumbling, "go make your call. I won't walk back on foot, now that you've made me run through the woods all the way down here. And make it quick, before the others realize we're both gone."

With that, she turned around again, watching the bushes growing behind the ditch.

Darwin kept his eyes on her for a few seconds, but when she didn't add anything, he sighed and turned towards the public phone. Though he didn't want to admit it, he felt safer with her around, hatred or no hatred. Maybe one day they would be able to clear the air between them, but until then he would take what he got.

~*~

"Hello?" George said gruffly, his voice sounding metallic and muted through the unfamiliar phone line.

Darwin's heart jumped in his chest, then started a feisty gallop against his ribs. He hadn't taken into account his father might pick up and was on a loss for words momentarily. Hearing George's voice brought home how much he missed his father, his home, his friends and the peace he had known as a kid.

What should he say?

"Dad," he said softly, unable to mutter more than that one word, for fear his home sickness might become audible in his voice. His throat closed up for a moment.

A sharp intake on the other side of the line caught his attention. "Darwin? Is that you?" George asked, sounding tentatively hopeful. The anxiety in his father's voice made Darwin look around to make sure nobody was listening in, but of course there was only Darla.

Darwin took a deep breath and concentrated on the task at hand. "Yes, dad, it's me. I don't have much time, the others are waiting for me. I wanted to check in and tell you I'm alright." And he had questions he wanted to ask, but not wanting to stress George made it a hard thing to do. Darwin was still trying to work out how to ask about Carl, when George surprised him.

"You're not alright. You haven't been for a long time, have you?"

Darwin held the phone away from his head and stared at it incredulously, then he quickly pressed it back against his ear. "I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered, leaning his forehead against the metal chassis of the phone.

"Yes you do, but I guess it's a hard thing to speak out loud," George hesitantly replied. Then he seemed to think better of it, and added, "I know there's something bad going on with Carl, something really bad. And I know you have been keeping quiet for years, for my sake. I just want you to know that I'm sorry."

It was getting hard to breathe through the rush of adrenaline. Darwin pressed his hand against the glass side of the booth, leaning his back against the other side to keep himself from crumbling to the ground. Darla appeared on the outside right in front of him, so he closed his eyes. He didn't want to see the pity and disgust on her face in that moment.

George seemed to take his silence as an invitation to continue. "I know you meant well, but this has to stop. You're a kid, my kid, and I need to take care of you, not the other way 'round. Now tell me. Tell me everything."

The world stood still for a few seconds as the constant fear and panic, the need to protect his father, fought a war against the exhaustion and the need to finally come clean, have it done with. His heart beat fast and faster, and then it stopped for just a breath,... and finally, Darwin broke and told it all.

It took a long time and a lot of coins, but he got through it with a lot of silences and pauses and quite a few outbursts of either tears or anger. In the end he told his father everything, from the beginning to the end.

When he was finally done and the phone silent, he found himself sitting on the floor, his face wet with tears he hadn't noticed, surrounded by darkness. Blinking, he tried to get up, only to find himself too weak and tired to do so. He scrambled for a grip, finally relenting to grabbing on to the phone and pulling himself upright, but there was no way he'd be able to drive, shaken up like this.

And suddenly, Darla was there again, standing right outside the phone booth like an evil spirit. Her face was unreadable, or maybe Darwin was just too exhausted to bother having a good look, but she probably had heard everything. All those gut-wrenching details he hadn't even told Jared yet, and probably never would. He'd be a happier person if he could forget everything Carl had done and made him do and Jared constantly pitying him would make that impossible. At least he didn't run that risk with Darla. She'd never feel bad for him, not after what he had done to her.

Slowly, unsteadily, he stepped out of the phone booth and fumbled for the car keys. "I can't drive right now," he husked, trying for a weak smile and only partly succeeding.

Surprisingly, Darla didn't say a word. She just grabbed the keys, threw him a dirty look and started walking, making Darwin stumble after her in a haste not to get left behind.

They drove in uncomfortable silence, but it helped Darwin sort his thoughts. Darla had to have heard what he had told his father, and Darwin knew that none of the others would have told her anything about his past, so it had to be news to her. On the other hand, she probably had gotten bits and pieces of information over the last few days, so maybe the whole matter finally started to make sense to her.

If it did, though, she didn't show it. Her hands were gripping the steering wheel tight enough to turn the skin around her knuckles white, and her lips were frozen in a perpetual unhappy sneer. She looked just as cheerless and angry with him as she always did, so maybe hearing that Darwin's life had been quite fucked up in the last few years didn't make much of a difference to her.

And it shouldn't, Darwin decided. Whatever he had gone through, his actions had pulled Darla down into the same dirty, dark hole he'd been sitting in all this time. They would never become friends, and this was how it should be, how he deserved it. But maybe, just maybe, they could find a way to act civilized around each other. It was all he could hope for.

Trees were rushing by and the road got bumpier, the higher they drove. Stars blinked between shreds of clouds, drifting across the sky with increasing speed as the wind surged. There was a bit of moonlight, but not enough to improve Darwin's night vision, which was bleary at best after all the crying and the stress he'd had in the phone booth. Darla didn't seem to have any problems navigating, but as soon as the road leveled out again and the hut came into view, she stopped the car.

They sat in silence for a few moments, as Darwin's heart tried to leap out of his neck.

"You are one pitiful little fucker, you know that?" she finally growled with a voice void of heat and full of artificial anger. "If I didn't know I followed you on my own, I would accuse you of staging that phone call shit just to win me over. Either way, you didn't succeed. I still hate you."

"That's okay. You should hate me. I hate myself for what I did to you," Darwin replied softly and smiled just a little.

That silenced her for a moment. He could feel her stare at his profile, but he didn't add anything. He had said all that he'd needed to, it was up to her to decide how to proceed.

A dismissive sniff echoed through the car, then she put it back into gear and drove the last few yards. "I won't tell the others," she finally grumbled, sounding unhappy with her own decision, "but I'll leave the pack as soon as this is over."

As Darwin sucked in air to voice his protest, she already had put the car in park and jumped out, leaving him to sit there and stare at the empty driver seat open-mouthed.

Well, that didn't go well.

~*Carl*~

Anger had a very unique aroma, especially when it had been brewed slowly and left to simmer for a long time.

Werewolves always had an extraordinary sense of smell in both of their physical forms, but as a human, it usually was a bit weaker. The only really good thing about the human form was the sheer strength a werewolf still possessed and, of course, opposable thumbs combined with a keen talent for target throwing.

The office chair creaked in its own rhythm beneath Carl's ever-shifting weight. He liked the lulling sound and had never bothered to oil it and make it stop, but now it just egged him on to shift around faster, and he couldn't have that. Oddly enough, he time and time again resumed shifting and twitching, no matter how hard he tried to sit still.

The article about anthropological studies concerning the question of why humans had been so successful, evolutionarily speaking, also just wouldn't stop ringing through his head. Humans ruled the earth because they could throw really well, the article said, and it wasn't right. Not right, because god had shaped the earth and ruled that humans would be on top of all the other little creatures, hadn't he? He sure had and there was no place for opposable thumbs or ball-throwing in creation. Humans were god's children, and had always been meant to be the dominant species. But then, where in the bible would the apostles have put werewolves?

The computer screen in front of him flickered to black as the monitor switched to idle, but that was alright. He didn't have to stare at the small black console window to have his tracing program run its course, and his mind was too preoccupied with too many things to stay alert anyway.

Humans were god's creatures, but that thing about their success gave Carl strange thoughts. Humans were better than chimps at using tools, throwing and handling objects, and this had made them so dominant. A werewolf was both human and wolf, and now that he thought about it, they had gotten the best of both species. Opposable thumbs, good spatial awareness, intellect and intelligence, keen instincts, a perfect sense of smell, sight and hearing, and unprecedented strength.

Following those arguments, the only logical conclusion was that werewolves would one day rule the world, wasn't it?

And it would put us in the hands of the devil for overturning god's plan.

Carl didn't like that, not at all. He had always been as god-fearing as he could manage with all the craziness his pack poured on him, but this... thought, this terrible, horrible idea, it was too much. His legs started to bounce once more, slowly at first, but steadily speeding up until his heels made a clack-clack-clack-clack sound on the wooden floor from the sheer force with which his leg muscles twitched.

At first, his prime motivation had been his thirst for power, he wasn't going to deny that. The subs, the submissives, had held him back, lulled him, calmed him, and he hadn't needed calm. He had needed anger, strength, cold-bloodedness, to keep everything from falling apart. He had taken them out of the equation, each and every one of them, except Darwin. Now, he saw a greater picture in his quest, and with every minute ticking by, it became clearer and clearer. Maybe he had started all of this killing in a grab for power, but it was god's work now, god's hand guiding the devil's weapon against him.

If Carl controlled all the werewolves, first in his own pack, then in the neighboring cities and at some point in all of the US, he would be able to stop them from becoming the dominant life form on earth. He would be able to stop them from eradicating humanity. Maybe the devil had spawned them to kill god's creation, but he still had a will of his own, still had a choice!

Carl, sitting there in the darkness, chose god and evil.

Still, there was Darwin. Darwin was a hitch in Carl's plan that could ruin everything. He had seen too much, he knew too much, and with this knowledge he could warn others, incite them against his mission, and this was something Carl couldn't have. Darwin would have had to die either way, but now, god was involved. It wasn't Carl's pride and his fight for power anymore, he now had a bigger plan.

The tracer program gave a blip, alerting Carl to phone activity in George's house. His old friend was the one and only link Carl still had to Darwin. Poor George really didn't know what was best for him anymore, and this, too, was Darwin's fault as far as Carl was concerned. Submissives were the thorns in Carl's flesh, and this one, Darwin, had slowly but surely driven a wedge between Carl and his best friend from the moment he had entered their life.

Darwin was the culprit behind George's health problems and Carl had proof, too. Since that boy's disappearance, his pack members were reporting unusual activity at George's house. The old dog had found his fire again, or so he had heard. Not a lot, but enough to give Carl hope. Hope that maybe George would get healthy again, once Darwin was dead. Unfortunately, George was heading down a dangerous path: the wrong one, the one towards Darwin and away from his pack. And this, again, put Carl on the spot. He missed his best friend more than anyone, but now that he had a mission from god, he couldn't risk George stopping him.

The screen came to life with a blinding flash of conservative white. Carl stared at the data streaming through the small console window, furrowing his brow at the numbers. It wasn't much, just a bunch of relay stations and the number calling, but it was enough information. Whoever was making the phone call to George's home, did so from out of state and wasn't using a mobile phone. The tracer program wasn't as sophisticated as the software police were using, so it couldn't follow the caller all the way, but it would have been enough for a regional call by mobile phone.

To Carl's surprise, this wasn't a mobile phone, but a land line. With a regional code. He didn't need to see what relay stations it used, he could simply follow the number to its position.

Carl grinned harshly. God was with him, there was no doubt about it.

Well, this took longer than expected!
I had to publish this as a measure of motivation for myself, but to do this I had to forego my usual means of quality check. I hope it didn't turn out too bad   At least, I now have an idea how to complete this story.
Thank you for sticking with me!