Chương 6: Hunters

Crimson bursts through the front door, slamming it behind him with a thunderous crack, heart pounding as he lunges into his pitch-black bedroom and twists the lock. Drenched in sweat, he sprints to the bathroom, wrenching the shower knob to full cold. Ice-cold water drenches him, sharp, shocking, until his gaze snags on his hands. His fingernails are splitting, peeling away as jagged, bone-white claws tear through the tips. Panic surges as he stumbles back, fumbling for the mirror, wiping steam aside, and freezes.

Fangs snake from his gums, sharpening by the second and those eyes, two blazing, unnatural yellow orbs, stare back, unblinking. Boom. Boom. Boom. Someone hammers at his bedroom door.

"Go away!" he snarls, voice raw.

"Crimson, it's me!" That plea, fear laced in every syllable, jolts him upright. He drags himself forward, unlocks the door just enough to crack it open an inch, keeping his face buried in shadow.

"Let me in, man. I can help..."

"No. Listen, find Willow." His voice guttural now, eyes searing gold in the dark. Churro, presses close, desperate to see.

"She's okay! I saw her leave. She got a ride. She's safe." But Crimson isn't listening. Not really.

"Churro… I know who did this."

"Just open up. We'll figure it out together."

"It's Autzee. Autzee Tales. He's the werewolf. He bit me. He killed that girl in the woods." Silence. Then, realization hits like a lightning strike.

"... Autzee," Churro breathes.

"The one who drove Willow from the party." The truth crashes down. Crimson doesn't hesitate, he slams the door shut, throws the lock hard.

"Crimson! Wait, wait!" With a burst through the open bedroom window, Crimson hurls himself from the second floor into the night. Behind him, the swollen full moon glares like a silent witness, until his hands crash onto the slick pavement, shattering the illusion: it was all a reflection, rippling in a rain-soaked puddle. Now rising slowly from the crouch, he no longer fights what's taking over, he's surrendered to it.

And what emerges isn't some lumbering brute, but a creature honed by instinct: sleek, coiled with raw power, dangerously alluring. His eyes blaze gold, fangs glint beneath snarling lips, ears sharpen to points above a mane of untamed hair, fingers tipped with claws like shattered glass. The boy is gone. In his place, a werewolf, alive and electric. He surges down the driveway, then launches upward, bounding from tree to tree in a blur of motion, vanishing into the shadowed woods.

One mission burning in his mind: find Willow, before the danger finds her first.

Twisting through shadow-drenched backroads, under fractured moonlight, a blur tears across the landscape, too swift, too unnatural. At the edge of the Lantern City Preserve, where trees coil like sentinels around the entrance, Autzee's black Dodge Challenger rests silently in the lot. In one fluid motion, he drops from the darkness, landing squarely on the car's roof. A quick scan through the windshield confirms it: empty. No hesitation. He's gone in a flash.

Meanwhile, Churro's jeep screeches to a stop outside Willow's dimly lit home. Tires bite into gravel. Seconds later, he's sprinting up the steps, hammering at the doorbell like his life depends on it. Elsewhere, Crimson crashes out of the night, landing hard on a fallen tree bathed in silver light. Claws dig into rotting bark as ragged breaths plume in the cold air. Crouched low, his silhouette tenses, nose twitching, senses straining, hunting for a trace, a whisper, anything on the wind.

Back at the house, Churro pounds again, then freezes. Lights flicker on inside. The door clicks open. Mrs. Ash peers out, dazed and wary.

"Hey, I'm Willow's friend," Churro stammers, urgency cracking his voice.

"And this is gonna sound insane. Actually, no, scratch that. Insane doesn't cover it..." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Willow! It's for you!" Mrs. Ash calls over her shoulder. He opens his mouth to explain, but chokes on the words. Because there she is. Willow, descending the stairs, calm and real.

"What's up?" she asks. Then, cutting through the silence, a distant howl rips through the night. Churro whips toward the sound. His eyes widen. Pieces snap together.

"It was never about Willow," he mutters, heart pounding.

"Auztee's target… is Crimson."

Bursting into the clearing, Crimson skids to a halt, eyes snapping upward at a sight that stops his heart: a jacket. Willow's jacket. The one she wore to the party. Now dangling like a trap, bait meant to draw him in. Then, movement. A flicker in the dark. He spins, launching into the air, but Autzee erupts from the shadows, slamming him down hard. They crash through leaves and brush, a tangle of snarling force, more beast than man, slamming into the forest floor like two wolves locked in battle.

Autzee pins him, fingers clamped around Crimson's throat. Moonlight floods his face, unchanged, except for those eyes. Glowing with an eerie blue hue.

"Where is she?" Crimson growls, only his voice isn't his own. It's deeper. Darker. Almost inhuman.

"She's safe," Autzee hisses.

"Safe from you."

"What did you..."

"Quiet." The word slices through Crimson's skull like a blade. Autzee's head jerks up, scanning the trees. Listening. Tense.

"It's too late. They're already here. Run." His yellow eyes dart through the woods, tracking something unseen. In a flash, Autzee is gone, vanishing so fast he blurs. Crimson barely has time to blink before an arrow whistles from the dark, thunking into a tree beside him, and exploding in a blinding white flare. Crimson staggers back, vision shattered, eyes burning. When his sight returns, Autzee's vanished. In his place, three figures step from the shadows. Silent. Deadly. Hunters.

One grips a Remington shotgun, another racks a Glock 21. But the leader? He holds a crossbow, cocked, loaded, steel bolt gleaming under the moon. Blinded and reeling, Crimson squints, just as the leader raises the weapon again, face cold with resolve. He tries to flee, but the arrow flies. Rips through the night. Slams into his forearm, pinning him to the tree. He screams. The leader lowers his weapon, just a ghost of a smirk playing on his lips.

"Take him." The first hunter steps forward, then something slams into him from behind. A monstrous shape. Clawed hands seize the man, hurling him like trash into his partner. The leader doesn't flinch, calmly re-cocking his crossbow as Autzee explodes from the dark, lunges at Crimson, and in one brutal motion, snaps the arrow shaft and yanks him free.

"Go!" They sprint, tearing back into the woods as buckshot whines overhead, bullets tearing bark from trees.

"Faster!" But then, Autzee stumbles. Slows. Under soaked hair, his face shifts, softens. Human again. He collapses against a trunk, gasping. Crimson turns, just as Autzee emerges from the dark. Calm. Unshaken. Not even breathing hard.

"Who were they?" Crimson demands.

"Hunters," Autzee says, voice low.

"The kind that've been chasing our kind for centuries."

"Our kind? You mean yours. You did this to me!"

"Is it really so terrible?" Autzee challenges.

"To see sharper? Hear farther? Move faster than any human ever could? You've been handed power people would die for. That bite? It's not a curse. It's a gift."

"I don't want it."

"You will," Autzee says, stepping closer.

"And you'll need me to survive it. You and me, Crimson, we're brothers now."

Sunlight slashes through the trees, painting stripes across a silent, deserted road. Crimson trudges forward, drenched in exhaustion, barely registering the growl of an engine until Churro's jeep rolls up beside him like a lifeline.

"Crimson? Man, are you even alive? I've been tearing the city apart looking for you," he blurts, relief edged with frustration. Slowly, like every movement costs him, Crimson turns. His voice is raw, stripped bare.

"You were right. Every damn word." Now wrapped in a borrowed jacket, he rides shotgun as Churro hits the gas. The wind howls between them before Churro breaks the silence.

"Okay, real talk, what scares you most right now?"

"If you say Willow, I swear I'll knock you into next week."

"She probably despises me," Crimson mutters, panic flickering beneath his calm.

"I don't buy it. But yeah, you're gonna need more than flowers. Maybe just drop the truth like a bomb: Hey, I turn into a werewolf once a month. …Actually, scratch that. Bad pitch. We'll figure it out. Worst case? I'll lock you down myself during the full moon. Feed you rodents. I once kept a python. This? I can handle." Finally, a ghost of a smile cracks through Crimson's storm. Later, waiting on a bench outside school, he springs up the second Willow emerges from the double doors.

"Where the hell were you last night? You vanished, left me hanging at that party!"

"I know. And I'm sorry. Truly. Just… trust me, I had a reason. A real one." He searches her face, but her eyes stay guarded.

"You sick or something?"

"Let's say I had a serious… episode."

"And I'm not getting details?" A beat. Then, quietly: "For now… can you just believe me without them?" Her gaze narrows.

"Am I going to regret this?"

"Almost definitely." He steps closer, voice dropping, hopeful.

"So… does that mean yes? Second chance?"

"Definitely yes." The air shifts, charged, close, just as a sharp horn blast shatters the moment. An SUV screeches to a stop.

"That's my dad. Gotta go," Willow says, turning away. Crimson nods, starts to walk off, but freezes. A breath catches in his throat. His head lifts. A scent cuts through the breeze, familiar, dangerous. He glances back. There standing by the car, that face, the crossbow, the cold eyes, the hunter who led the pack last night. Smiling. Friendly. Oblivious. Willow's father. The truth crashes over him like ice: the man he loves and the man sworn to destroy him are one and the same. Darkness floods his vision.

The school looms behind him. A new day begins, and with it, a war he never saw coming.