The Unlikely Friends
The cave was wet and quiet. The smell of the
burned car was still in the air. We were an
unlikely pair of friends. Jax, the human who
didn't like werewolves, listened carefully as I
told him what Lyra had figured out and what I
was afraid of. It was strange: a werewolf
trusting a human. Both of us were being
hunted by the secret government. We felt
worried about what to do next. Where could
we go? It was scary. Every little sound outside
the cave felt dangerous. The interesting thing
was that quick, strange movement I had seen
before, a tiny bit of hope in all the fear.
The quiet in the cave felt heavy
with our hidden fears and hard choices.
Jax moved uncomfortably on the hard rock.
He kept looking at the cave opening, his hand
going to where his gun should be. His gun
was gone, lost when we ran. He was out of his
world here, in my home, without his power
and tools. Seeing him weak made him seem
less scary and more like someone else in
danger.
"They… they did that to Finn?" he asked, his
voice still not believing it. "He was just…
cutting his grass last week." Thinking about
Finn doing normal things and how he was
now was very scary.
"They're doing it to all of us," I said quietly and
sadly. "The chips… they're not just watching
us. They're taking away who we are." I
remembered the happy young werewolves
who were now quiet and still. It hurt my heart.
Thinking about our wild spirits
being stopped made me feel very cold and
afraid.
Jax rubbed his messy hair. He usually looked
strong, but now he looked lost. "But… why?
Why would they do this?" His human mind
couldn't understand something so big and
wrong.
"I don't know why they really want to," I said.
The broken data only gave scary hints. "But
Lyra… she found words. 'Make the brain slow.'
They're not just controlling what we do, Jax.
They're stopping our minds."
He looked scared. "Like… like they're turning
you into… zombies?" The human word
sounded rough but showed the bad picture.
"Worse," I whispered. "Zombies are empty.
We… we're still inside. We know what's
happening. But we can't fight back." Thinking
about my own mind trapped, having to do
what they say, felt like I couldn't breathe.
The idea of being stuck in my
own head was the worst kind of pain.
Our biggest problem now was staying alive.
Bram and the controlled werewolves were
outside. They would wait and never give up.
They knew this land better than any human.
"We can't stay here," Jax said, looking
determined. "They'll trap us." His police skills
were starting to work. He wasn't the hunter
anymore; he was being hunted, and he
needed me to survive.
"Where can we go?" I asked. I felt so alone.
My own people were now dangerous. The
human world didn't like us. We were lost with
no friends.
Jax thought for a moment, his eyebrows
together. "There's… there's an old road where
they used to cut down trees. It goes to some
old houses, deep in the human woods. No one
goes there now. It's not a great plan, but it's
better than staying here."
Trusting him to take me into human land felt
like I was going against my feelings. But what
he said made sense. Our home was now
dangerous. We needed to hide where no one
would look for us.
Every step I took with Jax felt
like I was going further from everything I
knew and trusted.
Walking through the woods was scary. We
had to be quiet and careful. Every little sound
made us jump. Jax didn't know the woods
well, but he moved quietly, like a hunter. He
seemed to understand how bad things were
and that I was trusting him.
As we went deeper into the human woods, the
air smelled different. The good smell of trees
and dirt mixed with the bad smell of human
machines. It reminded me we were in a
strange place. My wolf feelings felt uneasy.
This wasn't our home.
We reached the old houses as the sun started
to go down. The shadows looked long and
scary. The houses were falling apart and
covered in plants, but they gave us some
shelter. While Jax moved broken things from
one of the least broken houses, I looked
around, trying to hear or smell anyone near.
The quiet of the old houses felt
safe but also like a trap.
Inside the house, it was cold and wet.
Moonlight came through the broken windows,
shining on dust in the air. We were safe for
now. But we didn't know what to do next.
"The data… the piece you have," Jax said,
breaking the quiet. "You said we need
someone who understands it."
"Yes," I said, taking the broken chip from my
pocket. "Someone who knows human
machines. But who would help us? A
werewolf and a… police officer who lost his
job?" My own dislike of humans came back.
Why would any human risk helping us?
Jax looked serious. "There are good people,
Elara. People who believe in what's right, even
for people they don't know." I was surprised to
see he really believed this. Maybe this strange
friendship was stronger than I thought.
The danger we were both in
started to break down the wall of not trusting
each other.
As we talked about people who might help us
– names from Jax's past, quiet stories about
humans who were kind – I heard a new
sound. A quiet, steady whirring, getting closer.
It wasn't the heavy steps of the armored
figures or the quiet steps of werewolves. It
sounded like a machine.
Jax heard it too, his eyes getting wide with
fear. "A drone," he whispered, his hand going
to where his gun wasn't.
We ran to the broken window, looking out into
the dark. A small, black drone with a blinking
red light floated quietly past the trees. It was
watching us.
But that wasn't the scariest thing. Under the
drone was a small thing making a quiet,
familiar sound, like static. The same strange
thing I had seen near Finn. As the drone
pointed its camera at our house, the static got
louder, and I felt dizzy, my head hurting. Jax
next to me held his head.
The drone, making the strange
static sound, started shining a weak blue light
at the house. Through the trees, I saw figures
moving – not the fast, quiet werewolves, but
the heavy, careful steps of the armored
government people. They had found us. And
they had brought the static with them.