Haken: A Capacity for Violence Part 2

This story features forge master Haken and takes place between the events of 'Werewolves: Haven Rising' and 'Werewolves 3: Evolution's End.' 

[If you haven't read part 1, click on the Collections tab and select 'Werewolves' to find the previous installment of this story.]

A wave of icy cold enveloped Haken's body. Strange. He'd always expected to be greeted by warmth in the afterlife, a reminder of summers in Yellowstone where he'd found true peace. And why the pain? Surely his spirit would be free of such worldly concerns. 

He couldn't help it—he tried to breathe—and in rushed a torrent of freezing water, filling his lungs as he began to drown. So he wasn't dead yet; his spirit remained tethered to his body and while he was alive he couldn't simply give up. 

He thrashed about, cupping his hands and swimming for the surface. Just like the ocean back in Haven, he thought. Except without the biting salt water. With all the bullet wounds in his back, that was probably for the best. He burst free of the water, drawing in deep, greedy breaths of humid air as the pressure in his ears abated, replaced by the sound of gunfire and soldiers calling out to each other in a panic. It was dark and he was neck-deep in a stream, maybe a small river—it wouldn't be long until the men chasing him pinpointed his location. He scoured the area for signs of the two other wolves and his eyes were drawn toward a sandy shoreline, blissfully close. Williams was impossible to miss as he pulled himself free of the murky water's cloying grip, fur matted and caked with mud.

"There!" someone shouted. "In the river!" Gunfire sounded from above, peppering both Haken and the water around him. He could hear the bullets' sharp whining, humming with deadly energy as several near-misses nearly sent him into a frenzy.  

"Damn it," he muttered, drawing in one last deep breath before diving under the surface, the cold taking him in its deathly embrace once again. He swam in what he hoped was the direction he'd seen Williams escape on the other side of the river. How strange, he thought. When the freezing cold takes you, it's almost indistinguishable from heat. The burning in his air-starved lungs felt like the weight of a giant bearing down on him, but he dared not surface until he knew he was out of the soldiers' range. Just when he felt his resolve wavering, his questing hands struck ground and his feet scraped the sucking mud of the shoreline. He pulled himself up and collapsed on the shore, his chest contracting as he heaved up what felt like gallons of water as he gasped and retched. Haken, the drowned rat.

He wasn't sure how long he ran after that—it could have been hours or only minutes—but when he finally collapsed, he knew there would be no getting back up again. Not without a miracle. 

******

The scent of roasting meat lured Haken's restless spirit back to his body. He opened his eyes and a bright orange blur licked at his senses, slowly sharpening into the flame of a campfire. He was in human form again and his wounds had been bandaged. He looked down at himself, surprised to find that he was wearing a fresh set of clothes. This couldn't be the work of Williams—some other charitable soul must have found his half-dead body and nursed him back to health. 

"You're awake," a familiar voice said from just beyond the light of the fire. Haken couldn't quite place it. Everything was muffled—maybe there was still water lodged deep in his ears. Dual flames reflected in the watchful eyes of his host. "I wasn't sure if you'd make it."

"Takes more than a swim to kill me," Haken grunted. He knew he wasn't fooling anyone, but there were appearances to maintain, after all. "You're the one who found me?"

"Yeah," his mysterious benefactor said. Now Haken was sure of it—he knew that voice. His unlikely savior continued on, undeterred. "You're lucky I got there when I did. Another few minutes and the soldiers would have found you and put a few more bullets in your back."

"I'm half-thinking that's exactly what they did," Haken said. "We're just ghosts looking back on our mistakes before passing on to the afterlife."

"Afraid you're very much alive," the voice said. Haken could see him now, and his suspicions were confirmed. "You changed back when you fell. It wouldn't have taken much to finish you off." 

The wolf who had rescued him—and he knew it was a wolf, now—slowly stood up and arched his back, groaning as knotted muscles audibly popped into place. He stepped out of the darkness toward the fire and reached for a skewer of meat, the orange glow revealing his youthful features and curly blond hair. He handed the food to Haken. "I know you're hungry," he said. "Don't worry about me; eat your fill."

"I don't understand," Haken said between swallows. His face and chin were slathered in hot, dripping grease. He licked his lips—he was well past concerns like modesty or cleanliness, all he cared about was filling the rumbling void in his belly. "I told you to run. I said I'd kill you if I ever saw you again. Not only didn't you run, but somehow you're here, saving my life. Why?" The burning question finally asked, he dove back into his meal. His gnawing and tearing at crisp, tender flesh was the only sound for several seconds before Lapu replied.

"The pack all thought you killed me," he said, staring down at the ground. "Maybe I deserved that. So I ran like you told me."

"And yet here you are," Haken said, reaching for a second meat skewer. "Why?"

"Ungrateful much?" Lapu snarked. Haken started to growl and the young wolf held his hands up in mock surrender. "Woah there. Sorry. I just thought we'd be square. You saved my ass and I saved yours. It evens out, right?"

Haken sniffed. "You sold your pack out to Williams. A thousand good deeds wouldn't make us…square." He'd nearly had enough of this rat. Lapu might be the reason for his survival, but he still didn't know why. Trust would be hard to come by.

"All I wanted was to save Tiva from what they were doing to the adults," Lapu said. "Williams said that if I helped, we'd all get out of Haven—all I had to do was make sure the pack was more cooperative. He went too far when he captured Ahote and I tried to get out and warn the others. But he blackmailed me—I didn't have a choice."

"We all have a choice," Haken said, watching the youth carefully. "We live and die by them. Many good wolves died because of yours."

"I know," Lapu said, staring into the fire. "But that's why I have to make it up to everyone! Before everything went to hell in Haven, I wanted to die. I almost took my own life."

"Might have been the smart choice," Haken said, tossing the stripped skewer aside. "Got any more of those?" 

Lapu shook his head. 

"Fine. So where are we going with this pity-party? You never answered my question. Why are you here? Why did you save me?"

Lapu sighed. "When I escaped Haven, I got picked up by a bunch of civilians. They seemed friendly at first, but that was before they sold me off to a lab. Seems like there were researchers willing to pay a lot of money for a live werewolf to study."

"Sometimes I forget you were born in captivity." Haken snorted. "Yeah; humans have always been like that. Greedy enough to sell their own mothers if it gets them ahead." He couldn't help it, he was interested in where this was all going. It's not like he had anything else to do until he recovered enough to set out on his own. "So what happened? How'd you get free? You kill 'em?"

"Not really, no," Lapu said. "I was as worn down as everyone else after the fighting. I just got lucky who they sold me to."

"Not General Rivera?" Haken asked. "Did you escape, too? Hard to imagine."

"No. I didn't even know who she was until two nights ago when I was sent here. She's a werewolf, right? Rivera? That makes two wolves willing to imprison their own people. The only difference between her and Williams is that Williams is completely nuts." Lapu poked at the fire with a stick, sending glowing sparks blowing upward, eventually winking out before reaching the dense canopy of evergreen branches. "We all saw what happened to him, but Rivera doesn't have that excuse. She's military. She could be helping us, but instead she's keeping the pack locked up. That's a monster on another level."

"Wait," Haken said. "Back up." He stared at the boy. "You said you were sent here?"

"Um…" Lapu scratched his arm nervously. "Yeah."

"Who sent you?"

"You know how I said I was lucky who I got sold to? The buyer's a werewolf, herself. She's been working the system from the inside. Technically she works for Rivera, but she's branching out on her own, freeing wolves the government's holding in captivity."

"What wolves?" Haken asked. "I thought the Haven pack was all that's left? At least in the States."

Lapu shook his head. "There's an entire werewolf prison deep underground up north. They call it the Nail. The government kept the different packs isolated from each other to make us feel like it's hopeless—so we'd think that we'll eventually just die out. You heard what they said back in Haven. They thought none of the captives would breed, but we did."

"That's a hard instinct to bottle up," Haken said with a smirk. "Even when you're living through an extinction event." He paused. "Especially when you're living through an extinction event." 

"That's what she told me, too," Lapu said. "She was counting on it."

"For the last time, pup," Haken growled. He was about two seconds away from lunging at the boy and doing what he should have done back in Haven when Lapu's treachery was discovered. "Who is this 'she' you keep talking about? Who sent you here?"

"She calls herself Maker," Lapu said. "Don't ask if it's her real name, that's all I've ever heard anyone call her."

"Maker?" Haken grunted. "Stupid fucking name."

Lapu laughed. "Try saying that to her face."

"I might do that…" Haken said. He slowly got to his feet. "...if you don't bore me to death before we get there." He was already feeling better after the meal. It wasn't much, but it was more than enough to kick-start his body back into fighting shape. "Put out the fire and let's go."

"But it's the middle of the night!" the boy whined. "You need your sleep after what happened to you."

"I've already spent enough time in a cage, waiting for something to happen," Haken said. "I'm not gonna sit here and wait for them to catch up with me." He took the initiative and heaped dirt on the fire, smothering it before Lapu could put up more than a token protest.

"Let's go."