You Fight For All The Wrong Reasons

I had kept myself from falling apart on my fourth attempt to tell Cam about last night’s encounter.

He didn’t say anything for a while. He just hugged me, a tight, passionate hug that said I’m so glad you’re alive!

He pushed my hair back from my face. “We’ve got to stop him,” he whispered.

“But what does he want?” I had asked. “Why is he doing this?”

Cam’s eyes wandered. His midnight hair shadowed his face. “It’s not a question of what he wants, but who he wants. He absolutely hates werewolves. And he’s going to extinguish them one by one. Every werewolf he gets his hands on, if he can’t turn them into a vampire, he’ll kill them some other way. I don’t know who he wants, but I can tell you what kind of person he’s looking for. He wants someone who is young and strong, with many abilities. He wants someone that when he turns them into a vampire, or what ever he does with them, that will help him to great extents.”

Cam’s eyes grew dark. “But most of all, he wants someone that when whoever he chooses to become a vampire, or kills them, it will hurt the rest of the pack. Someone important, that meant a lot to them. This makes them weaker in his eyes. When one’s gone, it tears up the spirit of the rest of the pack.”

That was this morning. Now night had fallen and I was still replaying his words over and over again in my head as I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Finally, I took some action. I grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper off of my desk.

Usually, in a case, you had to seek out the criminal. In this situation, I was in search of the victim.

Finding the Victim

That’s what I scribbled at the top. Then, I listed all of the members of our pack that were under the age of 25.

Alicia
Ashley
Audrey
Christina
Eric
Griffin
Jess
Julia
Lance
Lily
Lindsey
Mark
Mitch
Ray
Ryan
Silvia
Trey
Zach

I crossed off all the obvious ones first. Alicia, me, Christina, Jess, and Julia were obviously not Eli’s first victim.

Lily was young for a werewolf, only 12 years old. She wasn’t very strong, but she was the pack’s baby. I crossed her off.

Mark had a knack for being badly injured at every single mission. Definetly not him.

Zach was kind of strange. He was always in his own little world and couldn’t stay focused.

So that left me with…

Ashley
Eric
Griffin
Lance
Lindsey
Mitch
Ray
Ryan
Silvia
Trey

I went down the shortened list one werewolf at a time, trying find everyone’s weaknesses. I hoped I could find flaws in all of them.

Ashley is a guy. Yes, if you didn’t know already, Ashley is also a boy’s name. An Australia native, he wandered over to the U.S. when outbreaks started breaking out in Australian werewolf packs. He’s very clever, and extremely useful to have in a do-or-die situation. He’s a bit of a reckless soul, but would Eli like that?

Ashley sounded suitable. Unfortuanatly.

Eric was very smart, but not very quick on his feet. I crossed him off.

Griffin was basically the oppostite of Eric. He was absolutely crazy. Honestly, I don’t know where that kid got so much energy from. He’s extremley strong, but he never looks before he leaps. Griffin was safe.

Lance was exactly 25. He was a good leader, a deep thinker, and wasn’t bad physically either. Nothing extrodinary about him, but I hesitated crossing him off. He was still an option.

Lindsey had her strong and weak points. She was very good at one thing, but awful at the next. I crossed her off.

Mitch. It was hard to sum him up in just a couple sentences. He knew when to get serious. When he put on his game face, I could see him as Alpha one day. But he wasn’t like that all of the time. He was funny and sarcastic and witty and playful. Playful and vampire didn’t really go together. But he was an outrageously good fighter. I have never seen anyone fight harder than Mitch.

Mitch didn’t seem a likely candidate, but I kept him up there.

Ray. My heart ached at his name. I missed him. Cunning, fierce Ray. Head over heart kind of guy. Always knew a shortcut. Absolutley ferocious when it came to fighting. He didn’t just fight hard, he fought smart.

Ray seemed perfect. A silent sob racked my chest. No matter what he thought of me, Ray was still considered one of my best mates.

Ryan was wonderfully clever, but he got distracted easily. Not him.

Silvia. She was so strong and coragous, always taking risks. Eli would love to have her on his side.

And Trey. 19 and our Alpha.

I bit my lip. Eli would go after our Alpha for sure. That would demolish the rest of us. We would be confused and lost without a leader, and the pack would be in total chaos, wolves opting for Alpha who shouldn’t be.

Ashley
Lance
Mitch
Ray
Silvia
Trey

That hadn’t helped me at all.

I sighed and crumpled up the paper. This was getting me nowhere. I couldn’t know for sure who Eli was going to choose, or when, or how.

I was going to have to wait for someone to die.