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Jackson trailed behind his rescuer. "Wait!" he insisted.

But the man didn't stop—he didn't even spare him a glance. He continued up the hill and into the trees, and although the man was a lot faster than him, Jackson did well keeping up.

"I just wanna talk!" Jackson called.

Why was this guy walking away? Why save his life and then treat him like he didn't exist?

"Please!" he shouted, coming to a slow, defeated halt beside a pair of fallen logs. He flailed his arms into the air. "I don't know where to go! I've been chased, attacked, shot at—I killed a guy who tried to help me, and so far, you're the only person who hasn't swung any sort of weapon at me."

The man stopped walking.

Jackson's eyes widened a little as he swallowed his hopelessness. But when the guy looked over his shoulder at him, he tensed up again, his honey-brown eyes staring right into his soul. But Jackson couldn't give in to his nerves. "You said our kind—you're...do you...turn into a beast, too?"

A disgruntled frown stole the man's once expressionless appearance. However, as he turned to face Jackson, who remained a small distance away, he adorned another vacant stare.

"Can you help—"

"No more than I already have," he interjected coldly. "You're a rogue; I owe you nothing."

Confounded, Jackson shook his head. "W-wait—"

The man turned around and continued through the woods.

Jackson didn't falter in following. He'd got the guy to stop once; he was sure that he could do it again. And next time, he'd use whatever little time the man gave him to get answers, even if it was only to one of his questions.

"What's happening to me?" he called. "Why did I turn into that...that thing?"

The man didn't stop; he started walking even faster.

"Why did all those people wanna kill me?" He would keep asking until he said something that made him stop again. "Why did you save me if you're gonna abandon me?"

"I already answered that," he called back.

"Yeah, well, I don't know what a rogue is—I don't know anything."

"Not my problem."

"Well, what if I make it your problem? Huh?" he challenged confidently, but his smile ran away the moment the man swung around and shot a hostile glare at him. "I-I'm just kidding," he insisted, stepping away as the man started approaching him. "Really, I only want—"

The man snatched his shirt collar and pulled him into his face. "I'm going to give you one warning, rogue. Stop following me, go back to where you came from, and don't let me see your face again—"

"I can't go back!" he snapped. "W-what if I turn into a thing on the plane and kill everyone? I couldn't stop myself—"

"You'll be fine. The more you turn, the easier it becomes to control your wolf."

Wolf? Was that what he'd turned into? That made sense. His beastly hands had looked a lot like paws. But he shook his head. "S-so, what? You're gonna leave me out here with all those hunters and rotting wolf things until I can stop myself from eating people?"

The man's annoyed scowl faded. "Rotting wolf?"

Jackson stuttered, halting when he was about to explain how he had no idea where to start with controlling himself. "Uh...yeah. It—"

"What did it look like?" he demanded.

With a confused frown, Jackson looked down at the man's hand, which was still gripping his shirt collar. Then, he glanced at his face. "Well...rotten."

The man snarled impatiently.

"I-I don't know...it reeked like a decaying body, missing fur, red eyes."

"Where did you see it?"

Jackson looked around. "Well...I headed up the hill to a hut, and then I went through the forest to a frozen lake. I was trying to get to Greykin Mountain."

"Which lake?"

His frown thickened. "The...lake—"

"Which one?!" the man demanded.

"I don't know, man!" he insisted, trying to back off. To his surprise, the man let go of his shirt, which caused him to stumble and fall on his ass. As aggravated as that made him, he focused on the fact that this guy seemed very interested in the creature that had attacked him. "I-I can show you," he offered. "If we can find the hut, I can lead—"

The man scowled at him as if he was about to tell him to shut up, but he stifled whatever he was going to say and huffed irritably.

"I stabbed it," Jackson said, slowly standing up, keeping his eyes on the man. "Right in the neck."

"Did it die?"

"Not when I stabbed it, but it fell in the ice...and I didn't see it get out."

Dragging his hand down his face, the man looked in the direction he'd been walking, almost as if he had somewhere to be. Did he? Then, he sighed deeply and looked at Jackson. "You owe me for saving your life. Take me to the place where you saw this thing, then we're done."

Was now a good time to haggle? As much as he wanted to suggest that the man let him ask questions along the way, he didn't want to risk setting him off again. He evidently had a little bit of an anger problem, and Jackson didn't want to discover its full extent. But that didn't mean he'd remain mute the entire journey. He wanted his answers, and he was going to get them.

"All right," Jackson drawled, holding out his hand.

Ignoring his hand, the man turned around. "Which way?"

Jackson stuffed his hands into his pockets and rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm pretty sure we can't go back to the village...so we need to find the hermit hut. But I think that's where the wolf started following me." A wary frown claimed his face. What if there were more? Was this really a good idea? He'd only managed to survive his encounter with that rotting beast because he got lucky. The next time he came face to face with one, he feared that he might not be so fortunate.

But this guy seemed to know what he was doing. Although he was intimidating, Jackson felt safer with him than he did on his own.

Staring ahead, the man said, "You headed up the hill outside the village, right?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Then it's this way." He headed to the left.

"Wait," Jackson insisted, hurrying after him. "What if there's more of them?"

He ignored him.

Jackson cautiously looked to his left and right, catching up with the man. "Is it really a good idea to head this way right now? Shouldn't we head deeper into the woods just in case those people are looking for me?"

"They won't come out into the woods," the man mumbled.

"Why?"

"Because they're afraid. Stop talking."

Pouting, Jackson glared ahead. He'd stop talking...for now.

They continued through the woods in silence, and when they reached the hill, they followed it up, remaining within the tree line.

Jackson fought against the urge to ask the man more of his questions, but he had to wait a little longer. And when the hermit hut came into view, he felt that the time to talk was approaching.

"Where did you go from here?" the man asked, stopping beside a tree.

"West. About fifteen miles or so."

Wordlessly, the man headed the way Jackson had gone yesterday.

"Why are you looking for this rotten wolf?" Jackson asked, following behind him. "If you're looking for a particular one, I saw it up pretty close."

He didn't answer.

Jackson frowned irritably. "Can you just...give me something?" he pleaded.

The man side-eyed him for a moment and then looked ahead again. "You said you were getting on a plane."

"I'm from New Dawnward. I came here looking for missing people."

"Then that was your first mistake. Missing out here means dead."

The man's response made Jackson feel sick, but after everything he'd been through, and everything that he knew about Ethan, he felt convinced that his friend and the other journalists were out there somewhere. "They're not dead. I feel like what happened to me happened to them."

"And you're still going to try to find them?"

"I am."

"Why?"

Jackson scoffed and said, "That's my business." Good, this guy was curious. Now, maybe he could trade questions and answers with him. "What's happening to me?"

He side-eyed him again. "It's already happened. You're one of us."

"And what are we?"

"Why are you trying to find missing people?" the man asked, ignoring his question.

Jackson pouted. "They all came out here looking for the same thing and I wanna know why."

"What did they come looking for?"

"Wolf walkers."

The man scoffed a little. "There's the answer to your question."

Jackson frowned. "You're...a wolf walker?"

"And so are you."

"N-no...I'm—"

"You turned into something—a wolf walker."

For a moment, the man's answers unsettled him, but it all started to make sense. That was why those people tried to kill him. They'd all acted strangely when he'd mentioned wolf walkers the night he'd arrived; the bartender tried to steer him away from the mountains...but he hadn't put up much of a fight. "So...if those people knew wolf walkers were up here, if they knew I'd get attacked, why didn't they try to stop me?" he questioned.

"Evidently, you were going to be too much of an effort to convince."

Jackson scoffed—

"I've been living up here all my life and I haven't seen any people wandering around the mountains. You sure you came to the right place?"

"They all came to Greykin Mountain, Ascela. I'm pretty sure that's where I am," he said confidently. "Maybe something happened to them before you had the chance to come across them."

"Which part of Greykin Mountain?"

"There's...more than one Greykin Mountain?" Jackson asked with a confused frown.

"This is all Greykin Mountain, kid."

Jackson wished he'd known that sooner, but none of his sources had told him. Maybe they didn't know, either. Could he have been in the wrong place all along? He didn't know, but one upside was that he'd found out wolf walkers were real, and he wondered...had the people who'd come before him uncovered that truth, too? Had Ethan? This man had made it clear that he wasn't going to be able to help him much in his search, but he could still help him understand what had happened to him.

Now that they were talking, he thought it was time to try and get the man's name. "I, uh...I'm Jackson."

"Don't care."

Jackson scoffed. "Fine. I'll call you Grisly, then."

The man scowled at him, snarling quietly.

Despite how intimidated he felt, Jackson wasn't going to back down. "What do we do when we find the rotten wolf?"

Grisly didn't answer him. Instead, he started slowing down, focusing his eyes on something up ahead.

When the man stopped, Jackson did, too, and he stared in front of him, seeing that they'd reached the treeline. The river he'd crossed and the lake on the other side lay ahead, and as he stood there, an unnerving shiver ran down his spine. He'd almost died there yesterday, and he instinctually looked over his shoulder, searching the woods behind him for anything that might have followed.

But when he heard splashing water, he sharply turned his head to look ahead. Grisly was no longer beside him—he was walking through the flowing river, heading for the lake. The thought of being left behind in the woods terrified Jackson, so he scrambled out of the treeline and hurried after the man.

He dragged his feet through the water, and although the cold didn't scold him, the feeling of wet sock-boots did. Jackson grimaced, catching up to Grisly once again. "A storm hit, so I got turned around," he told him, searching for any signs of the place he'd been attacked. "I don't know which—"

Grisly turned right, his eyes seeming to have found something.

Jackson made sure to keep as close as he could, constantly checking every direction for danger. But when he stared ahead, he spotted what Grisly must have seen. The surface of the ice was covered in smears of blood, fur, and deep slashes that must have been made by the beast's claws. He watched grisly as he stopped and examined the scene...and as the man looked at Jackson, he slowly moved away from Grisly.

"This is human blood," the man said, pointing at the frozen smears. "Did you get bit?"

"Y-yeah, I—"

Anger smothered Grisly's face. "You got bit by a cadejo, and you didn't think to tell me?!" he exclaimed.

Jackson backed off a little more. "Y-you obviously already worked that part out!" He then frowned in dread; the look on Grisly's face made him fear that the bite he'd received was a whole lot worse than he'd originally thought. "W-why do you sound—"

A guttural growl cut through the quiet, silencing Jackson and snatching the aggravated glare from Grisly's face.

They both turned their heads, and when Jackson set his eyes on the same creature that had nearly killed him, he shuddered in fear.

The rotting, seething beast prowled out from the trees, growling as it moved closer. Grisly shoved Jackson aside, and when the six-foot-tall creature roared and pounced toward them, Grisly snarled and lunged forward.

Jackson stumbled back, struggling to keep his balance on the ice. He watched as Grisly's body morphed into a huge, white wolf, and when he collided with the rotting beast, a flurry of yelps, snarls, and whines accompanied their frantic battle.

He could only stand to watch for a few more seconds. Although Grisly was easily avoiding the corpse's bites, he was struggling to tear it apart. Jackson didn't want to hang around—he didn't want to wait for the corpse to kill Grisly and then come to finish him off.

So he ran.

He didn't look back; he didn't hesitate. As fast as his legs would carry him, he raced across the ice. Grisly had found what he wanted—he didn't need Jackson anymore. And he'd found enough evidence that there were other wolf walkers out here. Jackson could find one of them and get the rest of his answers.

But once he reached the treeline, the distant yelps and snarls sent not fear shivering down his spine...but hesitation. He turned to face the ice, watching the white wolf fight the living corpse. Grisly had saved him...the least he could do was return the favour—but what the hell was he going to do? He had to try...even if he could distract the thing for a few moments so that Grisly could snatch its neck.

Jackson forced aside as much of his fear as he could and raced out onto the ice. He watched as Grisly pinned the corpse, but it kicked its hind legs into his stomach and threw him off. Then, it pounced at Grisly and tried to sink its teeth into his leg, but Grisly managed to back away just as the creature's jaws snapped shut.

Without a weapon and no idea how to turn into the beast that now lived inside him, Jackson reached the fight as the corpse was about to jump at Grisly, who was struggling to his feet. Jackson threw himself at the corpse, his body colliding with it. They both hit the frozen surface, slid along it, and came to a halt not too far from one another. Jackson scrambled to his feet, but it was too late—the corpse was already jumping at him—

The white wolf collided with the rotting one, sinking its teeth into its mangled neck. Jackson stumbled, watching as Grisly pinned the corpse on its back and savagely tore at its throat. As Jackson had done to Daniel, Grisly slashed, chewed, and growled. He tore so much rotten flesh away from the corpse's throat that its head was hanging on by only bone, and as the creature gurgled and writhed around, still trying to fight, Grisly tore into its chest and ripped out its heart. But he didn't swallow it. He opened his jaws, letting the black, putrid organ fall to the ice...and when it splattered, the rotten beast went stiff.

Grisly set his eyes on Jackson.

Angst struck Jackson's heart. The look Grisly gave him was something predatory, and as he backed away, the white wolf prowled toward him.

Jackson's heart raced in his chest. Was Grisly going to kill him for abandoning him? He held out his hand in a feeble attempt to defend himself, but after a few more steps, the white wolf grumbled quietly and morphed back into the man Jackson had been following.

A very naked man.

A very naked, captivating man.

Jackson felt his cheeks redden in fluster as Grisly reappeared in front of him—his eyes didn't know where to look. Probably not at his body. But it was hard to look away. Grisly's muscular form was powerful and imposing, each sinew and contour of his body highlighted by the sunlight filtering through the trees. His skin was smooth, bronzed, and glistening slightly from the transformation, adding a certain raw allure.

Jackson turned his head, trying to focus on anything else. The dead, rotten creature nearby was as good a distraction as any. And then he slowly and reluctantly started taking his shirt off, his hands trembling slightly—he wasn't sure what the man might think when he saw his chest, but also...did it matter? Grisly was a stranger, and Jackson would appreciate the same gesture if it were him. "H-here," he uttered, holding the shirt out to the man, his voice wavering as he tried to steady his racing thoughts and pounding heart.

Grisly took it from him but didn't use it to hide his crotch. Instead, he just stared at Jackson.

Too nervous to look at him, Jackson frowned awkwardly—he felt like a dog trying to hide that it had done something bad. "W-what?" he muttered. Was he going to ask about his scars? His lack of chest hair? Muscle? In Grisly's eyes, he was probably just a scrawny little thing.

He thought he was going to get a thank you, but instead, Grisly asked, "Why didn't you shift?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you shift?" he repeated.

Jackson scoffed and glared at him, but his eyes wanted to glance down at his pecs. So he looked away again. "I literally told you like twice on the way here that I have no idea what I'm doing—"

"How long have you been a wolf?"

With a huff, Jackson glanced at Grisly again. The man's defined muscles glistened in the sunlight, each sharply cut and rippling with every breath he took. Jackson couldn't help but be momentarily captivated by the powerful sight before tearing his eyes away to respond. "A day."

Grisly made a sound...something that seemed confused and maybe even a little disbelieved. "A day? And this thing bit you?"

He nodded. "Twice, actually. My arm and my leg."

Finally, the man tore the shirt and wrapped it around his waist. "Come with me."

Jackson looked at him in surprise—and this time, his eyes didn't wander down to the man's muscles. "Huh?" he questioned.

"Let's go." Grisly started heading for the trees.

Confused but glad to finally be getting more than 'stop talking' and no answer at all, he followed behind Grisly.

"Where are we go—"

"Shut up."

There it was.

Jackson pouted and went to snap—he'd helped Grisly out. He at least deserved some answers. But as the wind raced through trees, carrying a ghoulish howl with it, he shuddered and caught up to the man. He didn't care where Grisly was taking him, as long as it was far away from here.

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