By the time the three of them arrived in Daphne, true night had fallen. The interstate they had taken, heading northwest, skirted above most of the intervening cities. Stars glittered above in the black sky, more stars than Moody remembered ever having seen at once. The moon seemed pregnant with its own light, hanging so low over the highway that all a person had to do was reach up and grab it for themselves. Thick stands of cloying, swampy trees pushed up against the road, though somewhere in the last third of the journey the overgrown vegetation broke apart into stretches of field and meadow.

Daphne was easy to see even from a distance, aglow with neon. The closer they got, the more Moody felt as if he had seen all of this before. It wasn’t until they were actually in city limits that he realized what he was feeling.

Daphne was a scaled-down version of Pensacola, with fewer beaches, attractions, and a milder nightlife. Despite all those differences, it was still quite clear that Daphne was a beach town and tourist destination. The only difference was that Daphne touched against a bay rather than an ocean, and was therefore lacking in the right conditions to truly prosper.

And he liked it.

He surprised himself by relaxing, sinking into the feel of the city. The streets he rode through with Isaac, following behind the vibrant red of Arlo’s Ferrari, were calm and quiet and somehow peaceful. There was definitely traffic, and roaming bands of tourists young and old prowled the sidewalk wherever there was light to be found. Yet, somehow, that just didn’t really matter. No one was trying too hard to pretend they were having a good time when they weren’t. They just genuinely were.

The city was. It existed as it was, not trying to impress anyone by being something it wasn’t. It was a bayside city, comfortable, unassuming, and friendly.

Moody glanced over at Isaac, wondering what the alpha was feeling right now. He wasn’t surprised to discover that Isaac was smiling, or that there were tears on his cheeks.

How does it feel to come home, after being away for so long?

More importantly, how did it feel to come home, knowing it was no longer yours?

Not much longer after he had the thought, Arlo put his blinker on and moved over into the left turning lane at the upcoming streetlight. The light was green, with an arrow. Arlo turned, and Moody followed.

Isaac idled a bit longer at the light. Moody stopped where he was, since there were no cars coming either way for the moment, and looked back over his shoulder. “Isaac,” he called. “What are you doing?”

The alpha shook his head, then got moving again. The roar of his powerful engine was somewhat muted though, as if he wasn’t giving it as much push as before.

Something was wrong.

Cars were coming now, headlights sweeping up the road. Moody swiveled back around in his seat and faced forward, following along behind Isaac.

As soon as they were on the next street, Moody saw the reason for Isaac’s strange behavior. Long, parallel lines of business buildings stood on either side of the road. Banks, real estate buildings, and other assorted office structures.

The fifth building down on the right side of the street was not a building at all. It was only a husk, black and molding and ruined. Most of the framework and supports were still intact, though there was no longer a roof. All the windows had been blown out, presumably from the heat of the fire that claimed the building. The main front entrance had been a door once upon a time, but was now a gaping hole which resembled more the mouth of a cave. Strands of yellow tape were strung across the entire front of the building, where it faced the street, though most of these were torn and dangling, flapping in the faint breeze.

Arlo stopped his car in front of the building, then opened his door and got out.

Isaac parked just behind him, dismounting his motorcycle and staggering while he did so. Most of the offices here along the street had been abandoned for the night, so the only source of light came from the streetlamps. With one at his back, Isaac’s face was completely in shadow. What expression he might have worn, looking at this burned husk of an office building, there was no telling.

Moody didn’t need to see, however. He was not a human, bound to his strongest sense. All of his senses were equal in strength, all of them vital to his existence. Even if he couldn’t see the look on Isaac’s face, he could taste his sadness, smell his regret mixing with the lingering odor of smoke. He could hear Isaac’s rapid breathing. And he could feel Isaac tremble as he came to stand beside the alpha.

He wanted to wrap his arm around Isaac, and the only thing preventing him from doing so was his uncertainty that it would be right to interfere.

This must have been the firm where Isaac had worked, completely destroyed now. The blaze had happened a long time ago, long enough for the elements and volunteers to have done their work, but the smell of smoke lingered anyway, as it will. It was a charred, unnatural, chemical reek, like the stench that sticks around on items that were bought from the home of a smoker.

Arlo folded his hands in front of himself, twitching and shifting from what could only be nervousness. “The police investigations are still open, you know. It all kind of died down until recently, when this all started happening again.”

“I know,” Isaac growled. His voice was very, very husky. “I still get calls about it. Not recently, though.”

Isaac walked up to the front of the building, placing his hand against the burned surface. Charred curls of material flaked away from underneath his touch. “This police tape is new, isn’t it?”

“Well, the police are trying to figure out who’s doing this, so they’re taping up all the old places. Doing more patrols. I guess someone came along and slashed all the tape here.”

Moody walked up to the building himself, reaching out to grab the trailing end of a piece of police tape. The end was ragged, looking more bitten than cut. Maybe whatever punk did this was in a hurry or used a dull knife. “Why did you bring us here?” he asked. Anger churned in his stomach, though it was a low-grade sort of aggravation rather than anything fiercely burning. He was very tired for some reason, even though the hour wasn’t all that late. It must have just been because of all the stress he’d gone through lately.

Or, maybe, he was picking up on Isaac’s emotions and exhaustion.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

His mistrust for this wiry omega only strengthened because of this short interaction. Arlo still spoke in the same squeaking, uncertain voice, but the cadence of his words had changed. He was no longer stuttering or interjecting filler words into his sentences, as if he had rehearsed what he was going to say prior to this.

Maybe he had. Moody often practiced his order while waiting in line for fast food, or imagined future conversations that would never happen. He couldn’t really hold it against Arlo for doing the same.

Still.

“There’s nothing here,” Moody said, snapping out the words. “It’s a burned building full of nothing but bad memories. Why bring us here instead of to where your pack is? You said you told them you were coming.”

“I did,” Arlo confirmed. “The thing is, we don’t really have a meeting place or anything. And it’s late. We aren’t a motorcycle club, either. Most of our members are sleeping right now, so I just called a few.” He craned his head around, peering over Isaac’s shoulder. “Here they come now. What took you so long?”

Moody spun around, then heard a sound coming from behind him and knew he had been tricked. Strong hands clamped around his shoulders, then moved down to his wrists and stayed there. “Hey!” he snarled, trying to wrench around. Whoever held him just moved with him, jerking them together in a circle before coming to a stop at more or less their original position.

His heart hammered in his chest. He panted, going still with fear, then started struggling again. Whoever was holding onto him didn’t move again, didn’t shift, didn’t give any sign at all that they were exerting effort. They were clearly an alpha wolf, in strength and endurance and scent.

“What the fuck is going on?”

No one answered him. All Moody could do was watch helplessly as several more wolves emerged from various places around the street.

Isaac dropped down to the ground, shifting as he went so he hit the pavement on four massive paws. Like a silver comet hurtling through space, Isaac sprang right for the nearest man. His jaws were open, a spray of saliva trailing from between his lips. With his ears folded back flat against his skull, his eyes squinted with rage, Isaac no longer looked as if he had any humanity left inside him. This was his chance to fight back against the people who had done him wrong, and he was taking it with no hesitation.

Yes! Moody cried in his thoughts. What happened was too quick for the words to reach his lips.

The other two men, who were not being attacked, brought out slim devices which Moody couldn’t clearly make out. A snapping, crackling sound reverberated through the air.

As one, the two men dove in just as Isaac made contact with their comrade. Blue arcs of electricity jumped from their devices to Isaac’s body, sending him into jerking spasms. His entire body tensed, loosened, flashed back into human form, tensed again, and then finally went limp once more. Collapsing to the ground, Isaac didn’t move.

No!

They Tasered him. They had come prepared for this, and they Tasered Isaac, the sneaky bastards.

The man who had nearly had his throat torn out by Isaac went down on one knee, and pressed his own Taser against him. Electricity snapped sharply through the air. Isaac seized again, cried out wordlessly, and then lay on the ground where he had fallen, shivering and panting.

His valiant attempt to fight for his right, his innocence, had been robbed from him by these cheaters. Everything he had been waiting for, stolen from him.

Moody’s vision flashed with sickening red, his body filling with a hate so fierce he had no words for it. Now he couldn’t even fight back, because he would just be Tasered, too. It wasn’t fair!

Arlo clasped his hands together again, still fidgeting around where he stood. “I’m sorry, Isaac,” he said. “We have to be careful. You’re a threat to us. But if you just cooperate, things will turn out better for you and your companion.”

I knew we shouldn’t trust him. I knew it. I fucking knew it!

The low throbs of fury inside Moody’s stomach suddenly burst into an explosive flame, like a bomb had gone off inside him. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, that this would only get him hurt, he shifted. Fur sprouted rapidly across his arms and to every other part of his body from there. His bones adjusted themselves in his body, his skeletal structure rearranging.

The grip of the alpha holding onto him slipped. Moody jerked around, opening his mouth wide. He was fully wolf now, in possession of all of his fangs.

He hardly saw the fist flying at him from the side, though the wolf inside him jerked away faster than he could register. All the same, it was no use. The fist landed, a dark comet.

At first, there was no pain. Only a sensation like being tossed through the air, yet without having moved at all. Then, the pain caught up with him and he tried to cry out, though he couldn’t tell if the yell ever left his lungs. Human lungs, as he had involuntarily shifted back. Streaks of color ran across his vision like dripped paint, too bright. He could only close his eyes.

Through the ringing in his head, he heard something. Isaac’s voice, twisted into a grunt by pain. The sheer effort it must have taken for him to talk, after being shocked three times in rapid succession, was beyond impressive. Even knocked down, out for the count, he continued to fight.

“…you hit him? Arlo, where’s Lance? Ugh, fuck…What’s going on?”

“Lance is, uh, dead.” Arlo replied, stammering now, sounding much more like himself. Moody wondered distantly if that was because something in his plan had gone wrong.

Opening his eyes, Moody tried to see. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such pain, so fierce it didn’t seem quite real, like it had become something more. Isaac was on the ground, held down now by all of his former pack members because he was beginning to struggle. Moody was alone. Clearly, they considered him down for the count.

He couldn’t see well enough through the pain, through the darkness and the orange street lights. He couldn’t see the expression that crossed Isaac’s face.

But, he did feel Isaac’s soul crying out, the wolf inside him lamenting the news. A pack leader was a special person, and now Isaac had been denied the chance to meet his again. He had come home, but he could never really come home.

“How did he die?” Isaac asked. His voice was almost back to normal at the start of the question, escalating into a howl of agony as he was Tased again. The white pulses of electricity left afterimages behind Moody’s eyelids when he blinked.

Arlo shook his head. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I need to get the two of you to, um, a better place. You’ll stay there until morning. I mean, I know, that’s a long time, but I need everyone to be available for what’s going to happen.”

Arlo went over to his Ferrari, the Ferrari that formerly belonged to the now deceased pack leader, and pulled open the door. There was the distinctive zinging sound of a zipper being undone, which told Moody he was digging in his suitcase. He tried to turn his head to see better; crippling pain surged outward from the place where he’d been hit, curling around his jaw, seeping down the back of his skull. Moving, then, was not really an option.

After a few moments, Arlo came back in sight. His gaze was solemn. In each hand, he held a roll of duct tape. He tossed one in the general direction of the wolves restraining Isaac, then took the other over to Moody.

With each step that Arlo advanced, Moody felt his hate deepen. He realized now that he had never actually hated anyone before. He strongly disliked many members of his pack. He resented his father with a passion. He had been bitter and angry and hurt over Isaac leaving him.

None of those were hate.

This was. A deep, throbbing sense of loathing, cold in his chest. Everything about Arlo had gone from being awkward and potentially endearing to downright abhorrent, from his drifting, ponderous walk, to the way the corners of his mouth quivered when he smiled.

Fuck you, Moody thought, as Arlo knelt down beside him and started to tape his wrists together. He hadn’t ever realized how calm hate could be, how systematic. Anger came and went in flashes, but hate was there to stay, a dark and unfathomable thing like the deepest trenches of the ocean.

“I’m sorry I have to do this,” Arlo whispered. The duct tape made those piercing sounds that only tape can make when stretched. Pressure wreathed around Moody’s wrists, tangled his fingers up in odd, immobile positions. The pressure crawled a good distance up his arm, almost to his elbow, before stopping. “You really, really weren’t supposed to be part of this. You should’ve just stayed behind.”

“Fuck you,” Moody said, this time out loud. He slid his eyes in the direction of his arms. All wrapped up, like a fly in a spider’s web.

Twitching a little, Arlo walked awkwardly on his knees a foot or two to the side. The tape stretched again, the sound jabbing like needles into Moody’s eardrums, and then he felt his legs being given the same treatment as his arms.

“It, um, it’s just the way it has to be. Okay? I didn’t mean for this to happen. It got out of control. So this is just damage control. I have to get everything back into proper shape.”

“And what happens after this?” Moody growled.

The tape went stretch, and Moody’s mouth was covered. Then, his eyes.

His heart lurched in his chest, skipping beats. Dizziness wavered through him, a twisting sensation mostly located in his stomach. His breath came faster and faster, explosive, gusty pants through his nose. Too much leaving, not enough entering.

This couldn’t be happening now, goddammit. There was too much at stake to give in to his fear, even though this was a moment when it was probably acceptable to do so.

Arlo hadn’t covered his ears. Moody strained to listen beyond the terrified rebellion of his own body.

More tape, presumably being wound around Isaac. On and on and on, stretch, silence, stretch, silence, repeat. They were taking no chances with him.

That’s a little bit insulting.

If he could have laughed, if he was capable of doing so, he would have. As it was, a little snort emerged from his nose. The break in his rapid breathing caused his lungs to ache, his heart to skip. Then, incredibly, his heartbeat slowed. Not by much, but to a noticeable degree, at least.

How strange, the way hate wrapped around all experiences, giving them a smooth surface and pointed edge. Hate sliced through the fear, offered reflection in a way no other emotion really could.

At last, the taping sounds stopped. Not more than a minute could have passed, though each second felt more like a minute in and of itself to Moody.

“We’re all out.” The speaker was unfamiliar, their voice a smoker’s rasp. “You got anymore in your car?”

Ponderous, bouncing steps, as Arlo went over to investigate the handiwork done on Isaac. “No. I, uh, I think he’s good. No way he’s breaking out of that.”

Which meant Isaac probably looked like a mummy.

“So, what now?” Another stranger’s voice, one of Arlo’s wolves. There was a sort of deference in the alpha’s voice, as if he was being deliberately submissive to the omega.

Arlo responded firmly, presumably having worked his way back around to a part of this plan that he’d had a chance to rehearse. “We take them to the spot. You know where. Don’t say it out loud. Load them up in the back of the car. Do it fast. We’re lucky no one has come by already, and we don’t want to push it.”

Several voices gave assent. Then there was a series of groans and grunts, effortful gasps, mingled with a periodic scraping noise. Then, a thump. A sound like a little car—a Ferrari, perhaps—groaning as a weight was tossed inside. A door slammed.

“Car’s too small, boss,” one of Arlo’s wolves said, sounding apologetic. “The little one isn’t going to fit unless we pile them on top of each other.”

Little one, Moody mused. How insulting.

There was a brief silence while Arlo weighed the pros and cons of this plan. Finally, he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, unless you want the little guy up in the passenger seat…”

“Put him in the trunk. He’ll be fine until we can get to the place.”

A single set of footsteps approached Moody. One pair of arms wrapped around his immobile body, lifting him like he was a sack of potatoes. He wriggled, found that this assailant was even less bothered by his struggles than the last one, and gave up.

Someone popped the trunk, and Moody felt himself become weightless for a fraction of an instant as he was dropped inside. Then, he hit the bottom of the trunk and pain shot through his head, a monster wrapping grimy claws around his skull and squeezing. He breathed faster, but only because it was the only thing he could do. He couldn’t sit up or hold his head or do anything else, so he just breathed.

“Maybe be a little more gentle next time?” Arlo suggested.

“Won’t matter soon anyway,” an alpha grunted from nearby. Then he added, “Sorry, boss.”

“I guess you’re right. Anyway. Shut him in and follow me to the place.”

The trunk slammed shut with a distinctive latching sound that Moody knew well, though it had never been so loud in his ears before. Everything was magnified in this tiny space. The sound of the engine roaring, firing up. His breathing, rapid and pained. The thump of his heartbeat.

The Ferrari started moving, a low sense of motion that gave no hint as to direction or destination. Turns were made, not that he could accurately guess when or why. He was lost, adrift in darkness, knowing nothing.

Was this what it was like to be an unborn child, aware of sensation and not understanding what any of it meant?

The one thing he did know was that it was growing rapidly humid here in the trunk, as he took up oxygen and replaced it with carbon dioxide. Would he run out of air? But trunks weren’t airtight, were they?

He supposed that he would just have to find out.

While he waited, being taken to some unknown destination, an unknown fate, he wiggled. He worked his arms, up and down, together and apart. He squirmed his legs, repeating the same process with them. He tried to open and close his mouth, working his jaw from side to side.

The tape didn’t seem to be loosening.

He did it anyway.

He tried shifting at one point, but the tape refused to give even when his body was rearranging itself. His skin was compressed, his joints twisted so harshly into odd positions that he felt as if he would literally dislocate something if he kept trying. Even when he strained, struggling to burst out, the tape held fast.

In the end, there was nothing to do but wait.

And wiggle.