Chapter 2

After she’d settled herself onto the leather seat, and she’d gotten comfortable, the rather agonizing task of infiltrating a mutt’s mind was the next task. It we be difficult because she didn’t really know this kid, sure he’d been here a couple of hours before, well before that whole mess with commandos and evil chaotic doctors with large knifes.
The though of Wayne drew Kirsty’s hand to her still rather sore and still healing shoulder. The next though was of it not healing properly and the shook her a little more. She tried to clear her mind and had a great difficulty on doing so, the amount of emotions that she’d managed to let lose by thinking of the compound. First came guilt for not being with the pack, then pain with the knowledge of her shoulder always and forever being this weak, then the anger of Trey doing what he did. She growled and opened her eyes once more, focusing on a spot on the wall opposite her. Maybe if she focused on something neutral for a second she could concentrate?
A few minutes turned into a full 20 minutes of staring at a dark patch on the yellow-ish wall paper. Within that 20 minutes Kirsty had decided what she wanted to have for dinner, what colour she wanted to re-decorate the study and what annoying nicknames she was going to give all of her pack mates. Finally her mind began to clear as she heard another in a series of annoyed coughs and grunts coming from below her.
She re-closed her eyes and started her concentrating again. She found the two alphas minds, Luce’s thinking about sleeping for a good while and Treys, well treys was pushing her away. And she knew not to probe at that moment. Maybe later, she though as she pushed her mind out further, Luce’s mind joining hers and adding to the power. Slowly Treys joined as well, but rather reluctantly. They hit the barriers that where held up around Nathaniel’s mind and slowly pushed through. They all caught flashes of his min, memories and feelings. As they went deeper, deeper into his memories, looking for that image that would make him innocent or guilty.
They found no image that at all linked him to the compound. He was innocent. The distorted images that flashed passed in stead where those that could only be described as a happy family, then blood and turmoil. Kirsty pulled away from his mind as quickly as possible. They had looked for what they need and having not found it they, being Alpha’s, technically had no rights to probe around the young wolf’s mind with out permission.
There was commotion outside the door and it opened with a mass amount of force, Amy stood in the door way, her shoulders ridged and strong, not letting the other werewolf in. Leon grunted and growled in protestation then forced his first forward, a thumb extended. Kirsty looked up as he struck, the pressure point below arm pit and above ribs was hit and he struggled past Amy, standing, rather tall to Kirsty’s sitting, before the leather arm chair,
‘I want to know what’s happening to us! Me and Kaze that is, I don’t want to be thrown into some cage like that boy down there. I don’t care what he did, if he did anything, I just want to know what’s happening to us,’ Kirsty stood up slowly, feeling the aura of the new wolf surround her. He was powerful that was obvious and it seemed he had some knowledge of fighting techniques.
‘We need to talk to you. Nathaniel, the boy in the cage, has done nothing wrong. It was a precaution we were taking to know whether he would be a threat, we – erm maybe we best talk about this as a pack,’

15 minutes or so later what was now an over large pack mainly filled with Mutts who had no idea what was going to happen to them where seated or standing around the dinning room. Kirsty had been in the shower for the past 10 minutes and was now drying her hair with a small blue-ish towel, stood near the door through to the kitchen. Trey and Luce where stood closer to the other wolves and mutts. Amy and Hawk where seated with each other, it had taken most of the 15 minutes to find hawk and get him off the roof of the large house, near them sat the auburn haired girl Kirsty only knew as Nikki, Nathaniel was stood behind he lent against the all, his eyes down cast onto the floor. He hadn’t looked at anyone since they’d gotten him out of the cage. Kaze, Leon and Ludi where seated along the other side of the table, and Adam, the guy with the leather jacket that Amy said she’d been in contact with, lent against the wall opposite Nathaniel. Kaze was rapping his fingers across the wood and Leon had his gaze fixed completely on Kirsty. She frowned at him as she dropped the towel onto a back of a chair and tossed her head to the side, a wave of red hair falling down her back. It was reasonably long now, reaching past her waist. She did wonder sometimes whether to get it cut or not, but Trey had always liked it long, as had she always. But circumstances change.
She stepped forward, gripping the back of the chair where her towel was now folded,
‘As most of you know, well all of you really I suppose, is that we, myself, Ludi and Luce, where taken prisoner, captive, what ever by psychotic men and then messed around with. While we where there we met Leon and Kaze –‘she waved her hand towards the two males who looked up briefly, ‘- and I guess you, erm Nikki, and Adam is it? Are wanting to join the pack as well –‘
‘Does that mean I’m a pack member?’ Nathaniel piped up, finally turning his brown and purple eyes to her,
‘Suppose, can I finish?
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, slipping down the wall and sitting in a corner, his eyes once more on his bare feet. She wondered then where the hell his shoes where.
‘Right okay where was I?’
‘You were asking them if they wanted to join the pack,’ Trey muttered from her left, one of his hands wrapping around her waist. She looked at him briefly and then ran her eyes down his thick strong arms to the hand that rested on the waist line of her black jeans. She frowned, but never pushed it off. Turning back to her wolves she took in a breath and continued to speak,
‘I’m going to ask you your stories I guess that would be a good start, and then give me a while with Luce and trey. Meanwhile you can chow in the kitchen if you want? Amy can you give them rooms if they haven’t got them,’ Kirsty smiled briefly at her beta wolf sister then turned, walking into the kitchen and tugging open the fridge door,
‘You’ve already decided who stays and goes haven’t you?’ Leon was lent against the door frame, his eyes narrowed down as he watched the Alpha female tug a block of cheese, some lettuce and other such things to make a mountain between two slices of bread. She turned from him, thinking hard before she answered the question. Placing the bread on the chopping board, she started to make the meal, placing slices of cheese and such things onto the bread,
‘What’s your story then Leon? How did you end up in that place?’ she heard the fridge door close and looked to see Leon pulling the pin on a can of Treys coke, the male took a swig and lent back against the closed white fridge. He took in a deep breath and began to speck,
‘My father is...no...when I was growing up I idolized my father he gave me everything I wanted and everything I needed,’ he cleared his throat a little and the door next to the fridge opened and closed as Trey stepped in, the large man slipped onto a chair around the newly replaced round kitchen table. Kirsty frowned then, looking to trey, when did that get replaced? Actually when did most of the house get re-done? I step out of the world for what, a week or so and everything changes!
Trey gave her a questioning look, and then nodded to Leon who was stood patiently against the fridge still sipping the coke. Obviously he’d guessed there was some silent conversation going on here,
‘You can go on,’ Kirsty said lightly, turning back to her gradually growing sandwich.
‘When I was approaching puberty and my secondary werewolf powers kicked in he changed...’ Kirsty watched the mutt smile a little,
’...pun not intended. At that time I was finishing secondary school and going onto college and I had a girlfriend...’ he paused to sigh, as if it caused him pain or sorrow to say the next name,
’...Carla, we'd been going out for two years, been to the prom together, picnics in the park...even though we were kids back then we made each other feel like adults. My father didn't like Carla he made that clear from the first time I mentioned her name anyhow when I began to change my father was no longer the loving idol that he had been before, now I was expected to become some hardcore warrior in his own image...’ Kirsty watched as he stopped for a moment, taking in another deep breath, a large swig of sugary goodness then pull his hand across just under his eye. She saw the slightly glimmer of tears as he dropped his hand to his side, tucking it into his trouser pocket,
’...That was the first time I ever went against him, I kept seeing Carla in secret but I was such a fool I didn't even realize he'd smell her scent upon me when he asked me I denied it, he seemed calm but I didn't know what he was secretly planning...’ he looked briefly up to Trey who was looking in the complete opposite direction, he was either listening with only his right ear or was just thinking of something different. Leon looked to his right, were Kirsty was now looking at him with her hybrid two coloured eyes, chewing what had been part of her sandwich,
’...My training took a back seat to my college work until after a while he just stopped teaching me, we no longer drove from our suburban house to the countryside to change I had to do it myself; I became an urban wolf, learning new skill of survival not needed in the country and as this went on I began to forget my training, forgot natural scents but memorized hundreds of new urban ones. The night before my final exam is when he made my move, I returned home, there was a corpse in the entryway. I stopped sniffing the air, my instant assumption being that someone had attacked father and he'd defended himself...from people like you, oh I knew my place as a 'mutt' it was one of his fundamental lessons, it was a bloody kill the chest had been torn open and the lungs themselves torn out. I proceeded further into my home I took off my shoes and keeping my body low as I walked up the stairs I head a scream then was covered in a shower of blood...it was still warm, less then two inches in front of me another women had been thrown full force into the wall...over seventy percent of her body crushed instantly…’ somewhere in the process of his monologue Leon had closed his eyes, he opened them then, as he paused for another gulp of the coke and breathed in slowly. Kirsty had watched as a several tears had rolled down his face during the speech. This man, his father, sounded like a monster, she wondered then if he was still around. And Kirsty added it to her list of things to ask Luce and or Amy to do on the laptop.
‘Leon?’ Kirsty muttered, using his name as a question,
‘...Father held Carla by the throat, yelling how I'd betrayed him all the while I begged for him to spare Carla's life but he was having none of it, I remember clutching my fist so hard that it hurt but the pain helped made me feel there; in that room...’ it looked like he’d ignored her initially, like he just wanted to get the story off his chest, ‘..He killed her; I held her body in my arms sobbing over the death of my best friend and the women I loved...’ he crushed the can in his hand and Kirsty swallowed what was left of her feast. Trey looked to him then, as the tears rolled down his cheeks slowly, dripping onto the white dress shirt he was wearing. For a man who had been captive for how ever long, he’d managed to salvage some neat clothing, ‘...he called the police, a journalist friend and a pack member, framing me for the murders. Ever since then I've avoided the police and tried to clear my name, I made it into university by some miracle and tried rebuilding my life following up on any leads I could find on my dear daddy but he always eluded me.’
‘How did you end up in the compound?’ Trey asked, standing slowly and grabbing the fridge handle near Leon’s right elbow. The smaller male moved out of way and took Trey’s seat instead; Trey tugged a can of beer from the six pack plastic holder and pulled the pin. It hissed lightly and he took a long swig as Leon spoke again,
‘I was following my father’s trail, it lead me right to that motel we stopped out. I found three dead bodies around that place, two in town one actually at the motel. I don’t know what happened from then, well its kind of a blur. I had my sword, a trinket id picked up in travels –‘he explained as Trey and Kirsty exchanged looks, ‘and then they appeared. Obviously he, being my father, had tipped off local authorities and then they had gone to those psychopaths who took me to that compound. I’d been there two months when you guys came in. does my story check out? Or are you gonna put me into a cage and interrogate me?’