I knew it. I damn well knew it, Zeke thought bitterly as he paced the solid little cell. Kenneth and Jacob had overwhelmed them, knocked them out and brought them...somewhere. Zeke had awakened when they unceremoniously dumped him into a sort of cellar, fifteen feet tall with a trap door in the ceiling. He had spent the last hour searching for a weak spot in the wall, but there wasn’t one. Micah lay in the center of the floor, still unconscious, his breathing rapid and light. He was going to die, Zeke thought. The ones he loved always did.

The cell was so insulated and cut off that he couldn’t hear or smell anything from the outside. He didn’t know where he was, what time it was, or who else had been captured. The endless unknowns haunted him, setting his nerves on edge, exacerbating his already furious mood. It wasn’t entirely rational to blame Micah for this, but it was easy. Micah had pushed him. Had pressed him to open up, had forced him to examine his feelings. He hadn’t verbalized them, but that didn’t matter. The mere internal acknowledgment of his feelings for Micah led to this, he insisted to himself.

The cold wash of dawn shivered over his body even though he couldn’t see it. Calming himself through sheer force of will, Zeke let the beast form melt away, leaving him naked and cold in the cellar. This did nothing to improve his disposition. The shift roused Micah from his unconsciousness, a fact which Zeke noted with a particularly nasty pleasure. How much easier it was to fight when one could use words.

“Mm...where are we?” Micah muttered, rubbing his sore head.

“Death row, I’m assuming,” Zeke snapped.

Micah blinked and squinted at him in the low light. His memory slowly returned, and his eyes grew wide. “Kenneth! Did the others get away?”

“Probably,” Zeke said bitterly. “You’re the one the universe wants.”

“What does that mean?”

“What do you think it means? Jesus, Micah, I told you this! But you wouldn’t let it go, you pushed and you pushed and now you’re going to die. Congratulations, was it worth it?”

Micah rubbed his face then stared dumbly, his foggy brain working overtime to unravel what he was hearing. After a long moment, he shook his head.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he groaned. “Make sense, please.”

“I’m making perfect sense,” Zeke snapped. “I told you that everybody I love dies. But you wouldn’t stop. You kept at it and at it and now....” Zeke gestured to the earthen walls around them. “And now you’re going to die.”

To Zeke’s extreme annoyance, a bright grin lit Micah’s face. “Is that your clumsy way of telling me that you love me?” He asked.

“Sure! Why the hell not! The ship’s already sailed, might as well put everything out there in our last hours. Oh, here’s another thing. That collectible Lego set you thought your cat broke? That was me. Full disclosure, everything on the table. Oh, and that time I was supposed to go with you to prom? I was spun on ecstasy, banging Izzy in the bathroom the whole time. So. There. That’s who loves you. Hope you’re happy.”

“You thought I didn’t know?” Micah laughed. “Zeke, you can’t lie to me. You can bullshit everybody else, but you have never been able to lie to me. I love you too.”

“Stop it!” Zeke roared. “Just stop saying it!”

“No, I don’t think so,” Micah said defiantly, rising to his feet. “I think I’m going to say whatever I damn well please.”

“And bring the wrath of the universe down on your idiot head,” Zeke hissed through clenched teeth.

Micah rolled his eyes. “Look, it’s a screwed up situation, but come on. There’s nothing supernatural about this...well, apart from the entire werewolf thing...and seriously, Zeke, this superstition of yours is getting irritating.”

“So be irritated,” Zeke snapped. “It’s obviously true, whether you want to see it or not.”

“All I want to see is you without your defenses, just one time,” Micah shot back, his own voice tight and irritable. “One goddamn time. Drop the defensive bullshit and just talk to me!”

“I talk to you all the time, you just don’t want to believe what I’m saying,” Zeke growled.

“Because it isn’t believable! There is no universal conspiracy to keep you miserable, you’re doing it to yourself!”

“Really?! Then why are we here?” Zeke demanded, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

“Because Kenneth is off his rocker and decided to kidnap a bunch of kids and we foiled his plans because we’re decent people,” Micah shrugged. “Nothing mysterious about that.”

“Nothing? Really. The one day I actually let the thought cross my mind, the one day that I actually think the words, and now we’re here. God damn it, Micah, why did you have to keep pushing me?”

“I didn’t push shit,” Micah said. “All I did was tell you how I felt and let you talk while I listened. Pretty sure those aren’t crimes.”

Zeke glared at him, trembling with fury and terror. How was Micah still not getting this? Their lives were over. Even if Zeke didn’t die, he would never recover from losing Micah. He would be better off dead. And he knew, in the deepest parts of his soul, that he would lose Micah. It was inevitable.

He opened his mouth to express this, but then the trap door above them opened. Squinting against the bright light, Zeke could only barely make out Kenneth’s outline.

“Rise and shine, pups!” Kenneth shouted. “We’re going to have a long talk about respecting your grand-sire.”

A rope ladder unrolled, skittering down the wall. Micah shot Zeke a question from his eyes, and Zeke ignored him. If Micah was so smart, he could figure out what to do for himself. As for Zeke, he was itching to get physical. He climbed the ladder. Micah followed.

The second Zeke crested the edge, he threw a punch. It landed with a solid thud in Kenneth’s gut, but Kenneth didn’t even waver. He smiled benignly and gestured toward a shabby sofa which matched the rest of the small, dingy shed.

“Have a seat,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

Scowling at his failed attack, Zeke crossed his arms and kept his feet firmly planted where they were. Micah stood beside him, assessing Kenneth with quick, intelligent eyes. Kenneth was dressed once more in his dirt-caked coveralls and a flannel shirt with heavy work boots on his feet. His grey hair and beard were uncombed, sticking out in all directions, a hint of the madman he had appeared to be the night before. They stood in silence for a moment, then Kenneth moved to the chair which sat across from the couch and pulled a gun out of his pocket.

“Sit,” he invited cordially while he waved the gun at them.

They sat.

“That’s better, isn’t it?” Kenneth asked with a grin. “Now, let me start by saying that I don’t make a habit of killing sirelings on my own family line. Fortunately, I’ve rarely had reason to. After our first encounter, I assumed that you two would be...sympathetic to my cause.” He waved his gun around as he spoke, setting Zeke’s teeth on edge.

“What cause would that be?” Zeke demanded.

Kenneth gave him a serious look. “Werewolves are an endangered species, my boy. After the last round of government interference, we were nearly eradicated. I saw what was happening, and I knew I had to stop it. I will not allow our bloodline to be wiped off the planet.”

“You talk about us as if we’re a different race or species,” Micah said exasperatedly. “We aren’t, Kenneth. We’re just sick humans.”

“Sick! That’s what those government apes said,” Kenneth said furiously, tightening his grip on the pistol. “You don’t understand. We aren’t sick. We were born to this world before humans ever crawled from their caves. Granted, turning humans through bites is a bit...barbaric. A necessary evolutionary quirk.” He waved the shame of it off with a flick of his fingers. “But that’s neither here nor there. The fact is that werewolves are a species older and more noble than humans. Humans should be our pets!”

“So why aren’t they?” Zeke asked, earning himself a surprised look from Micah.

“Because those feral creatures refuse to be anywhere but the top of the food chain,” Kenneth growled. “And they will kill everybody...men, women, children, they don’t care...as long as they maintain their dominance.”

“Ah. So your plan is...?”

“To fight fire with fire!” Kenneth said, waving the gun emphatically. “Breed them out! It took decades for my plan to reach this level. You ruined everything, now I have to wait another month.”

“One month hardly sounds inconvenient after decades of planning,” Micah said wryly.

“It’s the difference between life and death,” Kenneth insisted. “The longer we wait to pull the children into the fold, the more of them will die. The more they die, the more the human government is going to notice. Once they figure out what’s going on, it’s all over. I’ll be lucky if that baby doesn’t blow it all up.”

“Aster’s baby?” Micah asked, paling.

“That little bastard,” Kenneth grumbled, shaking his head. “Someone is going to notice, and soon. No family no problem, but someone will realize that the child is unregistered and motherless. The barest investigation and it all goes to shit. You two have started avalanches that you aren’t even aware of. Which is why,” he turned his beady eyes to them, “I am offering you a deal.”

Zeke and Micah exchanged a look, then Zeke raised a brow at Kenneth, silently inviting him to continue.

“In spite of your meddling, I am willing to offer you a chance to save your lives. You will help me collect the children and bring them here. All of the children, including those of your parents’ generation. Every werewolf in the county. Do this, and I’ll let you live and may even allow you to play a part in the revolution. If you don’t, well....” He pulled the hammer back on the gun, pointing it at Zeke. “Pow.”

“What do you want the kids for?” Micah asked.

“To train them,” Kenneth said with a shrug. “To prepare them for the revolution. Teach them how to be effective werewolves. You two could use that information yourselves, I wager, so I suggest you do as I ask.”

“And this revolution,” Zeke said slowly. “How do you see that playing out?”

“Ah,” Kenneth said with a dreamy grin. “We begin with the schools. The children did wonderfully on their first assignment, but we need more. Every college kid who escaped the change in middle school. Every high schooler who hasn’t been turned yet. Every elementary school kid, every middle school kid, all of them. Then we wait. They will turn their siblings, parents, whoever is nearest during their first full moon.”

He spun the pistol around his finger now, and Zeke wondered if he could bat it out of his hand before he had a chance to pull the trigger. As if reading his mind, Kenneth tightened his grip once more and put the gun in his lap, pointing it at Micah.

“It will spread from there,” Kenneth continued. “If not naturally, then I’ll push it along. These kids will get missions to fulfill, and shortly we will see werewolves spreading down the coast, up to Canada, across the whole of the west and beyond. We will quietly become the dominant species, a victory won at the hands of the children. And I will be the grand-sire for the entire continent.” Kenneth’s eyes shone glassily as he whispered his plan with rapture.

“You’re a creep,” Zeke stated blandly.

Kenneth shook his dreamy expression away and frowned at Zeke. “It’s nature, boy. Survival of the fittest. Which brings me back to my point....” He leveled the gun at Zeke. “The bullet or the mission?”