Jungkook ran as if it depended on his life or death. His pulse pounded in his temple and he gasped for breath as his legs moved as fast as they could carry him. Right now he didn't care if branches whipped him in the head, or mud stank his pants all the way to. He just needed to find the older hunter. His brain was blank for parallel thoughts about what might happen if he told Hoseok that, but he saw no other options. Alicia had run away and he was so eager to find her again. He did not want anything to happen to her.

The youngest hunter was sure it would not help anything to run after Alicia the second she ran off. She was simply too fast for Jungkook to ever be able to keep up. After all, she was also half wolf. The new information had shocked the young hunter, but still it didn't scare him away. It further explained her different behavior and made an eye-opener to the boy. To be honest, Jungkook had almost not sensed the wolf-behavior. He had in his case only been trained to be able to find them out among other people. But ... he had obviously failed as a hunter, and somehow it annoyed him.

The boy rushed around the house, which had appeared in the small clearing, and stormed in by the front door. He did not have time to throw away his boots and dragged mud and soil all the way up the stairs. Hoseok had heard the door open with such a loud noise and was already himself on his way out of his office to take a look at the riots.

"HOSEOK !!" Jungkook shouted and almost knocked the startled elderly man to the floor. The youngest splashed around on the floor with his muddy boots.

Desperate, he knocked one arm into the wall and stood up.

"Jungkook, what's going on ?!" Hoseok asked, grabbing the poor boy.

"Breathe boy, before you faint."

Jungkook squeezed his hand frantically around the fabric over his heart. It felt like it was about to jump out of his chest. And then he looked up at the older one. His eyes were filled with excruciating tears.

"H-hyung-" said the youngest between his rapid breathing, "Alicia is-is".

Hoseok gently grabbed the younger boy's other arm, looking him deep into his adrenaline-pumped eyes, "Alicia is what?"

Jungkook gulped, "Alicia is a werewolf!" he spat out, almost waiting for the elder to put an arm around him and say 'it was okay'. But it never happened.

Hoseok let go of his grab around Jungkook and looked with a deep steel hard gaze at the younger one as he froze, "What?" he said bitterly.

Jungkook just looked nervously up at the older one. The second his gaze met the otherwise nice brown eyes, it dawned on him what he had just done. Fuck. He took a shaky step back. He suddenly felt wildly small next to Hoseok. He felt almost like the rabbit Hoseok had always told him he was.

"Okay then," Hoseok said almost like a whisper.

Jungkook saw the fear in his eyes as the elder pushed hard at him and continued quickly past him. Too fast. Jungkook was frozen to the spot. What had he just done?

"Hoseok wait!" Jungkook shouted, "Don't do something to her!!"

But the oldest hunter heard nothing and was already out the front door. When it dawned on Jungkook, he ran after him in panic, pretty sure where he was going.

_____

Hoseok was furious. The blood bubbled around in his blood vessels as he ran with the bow swung over his shoulder and an arrow tightly held around his hand. It all also made sense to him now, all the strange things he had caught her in doing were because of it. That she was half a wolf. Hoseok was extremely disgusted with the small detail, and let the thought swallow him so that he had no control over his actions. These were actions in outdated attitudes that he so fiercely clung to. All underworlders must be exterminated, no matter who it is. The sky above him was as dark and uninviting as his rage. He leaped down towards the girl's house. In the distance behind him, he could faintly sense Jungkook's pleading cries. But he ignored them and instead purposefully slammed the door open in Alicia's house.

"Get out from your hiding your beast! Show your true self!! " roared Hoseok and threateningly strained the bow and arrow out in front of him.

A clinking sound rumbled around deeper inside the house, and the oldest hunter set off running after it. The adrenaline raced in him and he was catching up with her almost too fast.

The girl was flying through the kitchen when she heard her door slam open and the first thing she did was smash a window and jump into the open air. She heard his cries and they went deep into her heart. Only his voice hurt to hear. Her desperate shining eyes were on the large meadow some distance from her house. She saw only one way out and that was to run the hunter tired. The wolf in her had partially taken over, and it could easily run for several hours, without falling from fatigue. It put all its strength into Alicia so she had a chance to get away.

She jumped into the large meadow and sprinted straight out into the open country. The grass stood high up to her knees and Alicia struggled through it as fast as she could. With her extra sensitive senses, she sensed how the air trembled with anxiety and anger. It jumped in her head and she tried to shy away from it and then it was there all of a sudden. The river. The wolf braked hard, trying to save herself from falling in. Her feet slipped in the loose soil that lay along the edge, and she fell on all fours. Alicia looked up, the river was several feet wide and deep, and she would never be able to make it in one leap. She turned her head in the direction of the furious hunter, and she closed her eyes in pure horror as she only a few seconds before saw what was flying towards her. The wolf had no chance of moving, and the arrow drilled deep into her chest. The shock knocked her over and she fell screaming in pain to the ground. Alicia began to panic meanwhile, she felt the pain spread like threads all over her body. Blood flowed out and stained the ground red, and it flickered before her eyes. She could feel the weakening fluid that had been on the arrow starting to work and she felt herself getting heavier and heavier. She could not move a muscle and no longer escape. They quickly rolled down the cheeks of the wolf, the tears they had been waiting for.

"Now you can no longer run, huh?" the voice came from the hunter. He smiled crookedly.

Alicia did not respond and her body began to shake.

Hoseok squatted down next to her and grabbed for a small lock of her black hair as he ran around his finger, "Aw, what a shame, huh? You were such a skilled hunter. But look," he pointed with her other hand at her glowing eyes. The remaining contact lens had long since fallen out.

"There's not much hunter left in you, is there?" the eldest hunter laughed. But the laughter was forced, and it resounded with disgust. Alicia looked away as she clenched her jaws tightly and growled at him.

He let go of her hair and stood up, "Oh, I hope you like water."

Hard and precise, he pushed with his boot to the wounded girl, and she fell down the slope and landed with a splash in the cold water. The girl gasped loudly as she collided with the wet cold, and even more, panic went into her. Her body was as completely anesthetized and she could not possibly stay above the surface.

"Ho-Hoseok!"

But the hunter just smirked at her, "Good trip to hell".

Hoseok turned around and left the drowning wolf. But not long after, he stumbled into another.

"Where is she?!! Tell me!" Jungkook's teary eyes looked big and praying at the older hunter while he had a cramped grip around his shoulders.

"Where she belongs," Hoseok replied stiffly, annoyingly removing the younger man's grip on him.

The youngest hunter slowly shook his head, "You lied. You lied all the time!" Jungkook's voice cracked, and he even took a step away from Hoseok.

The elder's facial expression quickly went to a confused one. He didn't understand what Jungkook meant, and before he even got the words over his tongue, the youngest had already run off.

Hoseok stood back with his eyes on the heartbroken younger one who slowly disappeared from his eyesight. His thoughts were strangely very sticky and he wondered whether his action was right. Was it really the right thing to do? He stepped back to where he had pushed the girl over the edge of the river and looked down. His eyes followed every little part of the river he could see. But Alicia was gone.

She was

Gone

Drowned.

🔥