Arlis had moved to the door of his cell, the black wolf staring at me with beastly eyes. He was growling at me, baring his teeth. I was at peace with it, the thought of the wolf tearing into Konrad was a beautiful thought in my mind. However, the growling was quite annoying.

"Oh shut up, mutt." I murmured, chuckling to myself. "All great and powerful Alpha Arlis Barron. Chain—" I turned my head at him. "How did you shift? Werewolves can't shift if they're chained down."

He didn't even recognize that I had spoken to him. Why would he? He was Rogue, Atrax. Or, as I was supposed to say... No Soul. His ears didn't twitch, his vacant and soulless eyes just stared at me. It's like he was blaming me for something. As if it was my fault that we were in this.

Perhaps in a way... it was. I was careless. I should've been more on top of things instead of on top of someone.

I wonder if that was Colin's plan all along. Trick me. Get me to show my neck to him, fool me into believing I could trust him.

"I guess I'm the weak mutt between us." I said to him.

Again, he didn't respond.

But someone else did. Someone I really wish hadn't.

"You're not weak and you're not a mutt."

I laughed. "Weakness means death, and I'm obviously laying in my own coffin. I might as well be a mutt, it's how I'm being treated." I stood up, my bones aching. My skin was disgusting, smeared with red that may or may not have been my blood. Dirt covered it, making me feel and probably look homeless. Rips and tears scattered my flesh like canyons.

I found the irony in my family motto. Fear means weakness and weakness meant death. I  was going backwards. I was dying, and so I was weak, and so I was scared.

Everything in my life went backwards for me. The MOMENT Colin appeared in my life, forward was wrong and right became left.

Colin came closer to the bars, resting his hands on the metal. "You're not dying."

I took a step towards him. When Konrad wasn't around, I found that my chains gave some... slack. They didn't loosen in strength but they did seem to almost grow if I wanted to walk. Not that that detail would help me escape.

But it did let me get closer to Colin, to smell his scent. That strange wash of mint and metal.

"And who says?" I questioned, stopping a foot or two away from the bars. I didn't want to get too close to him. I couldn't.

"Me." His eyes softened as he looked me up and down.

"Your word means about as much to me as any other plain fucking Hunted." And on that note, I reached my hands through the bar and smashed his face against the bars. "You want to put me in a cell that's fine. I'll treat you like any Hunter would treat any Hunted." I spit on his form that had slid to the ground, blood gushing from his nose and head.

He looked up at me with the familiar dark brown eyes and although my world was crumbling, I kept on going. Let my world burn, I'd just walk on through singing a happy little song.

"Eve..." The way he said my name reminded me that he meant everything. That he was my everything. We didn't need a rose to tell us that, we didn't think we'd ever be here. But here we were, on different sides of the war.

"Don't "Eve" me. That's not my name to you." A name shouldn't have had that much power over me and yet... all I could do was feel weaker as every letter fell off his lips.

"You don't understand." He sighed. "Or maybe you do... I don't know!" He didn't give context but he didn't have to. The questions he asked right before the betrayal answered my own questions. He was doing this for Sophia.

"She's fine!" I screamed back, my limbs shaking. Everything was shaky, from my eyesight to my voice. "You act like she's being mauled over here. She's not my little brother or my sister. She's safe, unlike them!." And I hated to drag the subject to myself but I found a way.

He didn't need to betray the only people who wanted to help him to help someone who didn't really need it. I would fight for her back the right way. I didn't betray everyone to get Zach back then, even though I had the option too. And look... eventually he came back. It wasn't by my doing. But we had rescued Sophia once, we could do it again.

I knew sacrifice, I did. I gambled my sister's life for the sake of the world. But Colin? Colin can't let his sister be pampered for a bit while we do something to save her and everyone else. Sure I was a little hypocritical, but when it boiled down... I was willing to lose more than him. I had lost more than him. My dad, my uncle. Possibly my mom. Possibly my sister. I lost my species in a way, to Konrad.

But you know... he did have one thing on me. At least he was planning. At least he had an idea on what to do. Sure it wasn't a great idea.

"Your family is safe." He assured. But could he really assure that? If he's scared that his own sister wasn't safe, how could he say mine was? Konrad loves his granddaughter. He hates my family.

"Fiona? She's safe?" I scoffed.

"Konrad won't kill her." He argued, his eyes narrowing. "She's fine. Right!? Because he won't kill her she must be fine. Fiona is being pampered." He was referring to the fact that I thought that because his sister wouldn't be killed, she was fine.

"Is your sister facing something close or quite literally rape? I don't know the extents of Konrad but I wouldn't put rape above him." I pulled myself away from the bars. "Your sister is fine. We were gunna get her back. She even seemed fine staying here."

He threw his hands up and let them drop down to his sides. "Salem's Wiches damn it, EVE! You aren't... comprehending what you're saying! She's practically being brainwashed. Sophia can and probably will die from how much power Konrad is sucking off her." His voice broke. "You can't just... assume everyone else is better off than you. The picture isn't always black and white." He stood up and looked at Arlis's cage with pity. "Kate gave us the journal, Arlis."

I widened my eyes, my stomach sinking to the floor. "No. Tell me she didn't. You're lying."

Colin looked at me with defiant eyes, almost proud. He took a bit of glee in knowing I failed, I could tell. "Tell me why everyone else isn't okay with death, with sacrificing everything. But you're okay with it. There's a detail you share with Konrad. You'll lose everything if it means—"

"He benefits from his losing. I don't." I cried out.

"Kate brought us the journal. She had to in order to save herself and Arlis. In a way you did benefit from not giving it to us. Because your troubles are over, they went to someone else." Colin cupped his mouth. "Why did you lie to me, Eve?"

I furrowed my brows. "About what?" I had done a lot of things, but I wouldn't and didn't lie to Colin. I couldn't lie to him, ever. Not about anything.

"You killed my mom." He whispered.

I recoiled in shock and anger. "No, I didn't. Colin you have to know I didn't. When? How?" My hands came together, my knuckles popping. Why would he say that?

He bit his lip nervously. "When Becker came and "killed" Konrad in front of you. My mom was there and both Beck and Konrad say you killed her."

Becker? My blood boiled. That was it. This was it. I couldn't treat Colin like this and not hate Becker the same. Both of them, all of them. Nobody in this God forsaken world except Alpha Arlis and my immediate family could be trusted. And even then.... I still had to throw up guards. I could only truly trust Zach and Dallas and Fiona at this point.

Becker and Colin needed to buddy up. Traitors. Liars. Cheats. The both of em.

"I never killed your mom." I didnt want to sound as small as I did. I could say he didn't matter, that neither him nor Becker did. But I was lying to myself. They were both a part of my life and it hurts like a knife cutting my heart that I want them out of it.

His brown eyes shed tears that seemed to weigh the same as concrete. They held so much power to them. "Konrad showed me."

Oh did he now? "It was a lie."

Colin closed his eyes and shook his head. "I don't think so." He whispered and turned around, leaving me no time to make my case.

He didn't let me defend myself. Argue. He just... left. Just like that.

He was gone.

Gone.

***

Arlis screamed like no man had ever screamed before. I didn't cover my ears, screaming didn't bother me anymore. Konrad was dealing with Safina a couple cells over. She had been screaming for an hour.

I was sitting against a wall, slowly falling asleep. If I closed the world off enough I could cancel out the screaming. I could... forget.

I looked at my wrist, where a bracelet sat. The charm on it was yin and yang, a symbol to represent Colin and I. Oh how right he was. We were two polar opposites, circling each other.

I took the bracelet off and threw it at the ground. It slid away from me, far enough that I couldn't reach it but close enough that I still had to look at it.

I hated him. I hated everything he lied about. He knew I didn't kill his mom. I don't understand how Konrad tricked him that easily. I would never kill his mother.

I rolled my head towards Arlis's cell. He was shifting back to a human, slowly. Agonizingly. He crumpled himself onto the ground, curled into a ball.

He crawled to a blanket that was in there, laying on the ground. At least he got that. I didn't get anything. Not a bed, not food or water, and certainly not a blanket.

He tied it around his waist and stood up, his eyes fearfully looking from side to side. His body was pale and his hair was grey. His skin was wrinkled and showing his age. And he was old.

He rolled his shoulders back. "You're leaving." He whispered, only enough for me to hear.

I tilted my head. "Why me?" Why not him? "Why not both of us?" He had Kate and a family to go back too. A pack to run. A species to run to be more specific.

"I need to be here to kill Konrad. You don't need to be here at all." He wasn't chained considering... he was a thoughtless beast just moments ago who didn't require chains.

Arlis took a step to the cage and fell, but managed to catch himself. He growled inhumanly as he pulled the bars, the growl covering the sound of the metal bars bending. Alongside this, it covered the strange silence that would cause anyone to be suspicious.

He softly stepped over to my cell. "I owe this to Kasparov. He saved my life in here once, I'll save his nieces's."

That thing about sacrificing meant a little more now. I was risking everything by not doing what Konrad wanted but Arlis and Kate and Becker and Colin were risking everything by doing what Konrad wanted. They were risking trust and people.

Arlis pulled my bars aside, creating a hole for me to pop through. However, I was still chained. Did he have a plan B? "He's not done with her yet." As if on cue, Safina released a high pitched scream. "You can leave. Nobody in here is going to stop you."

I closed my eyes. "Colin. Clay. Becker." A list of  possibilities that could end me. All people who once claimed to care.

"Don't ever think anything bad about Becker." Arlis begged. "Or Colin. That boy was right. Not everyone can watch their loved ones die like you. That's not a good thing to be able to do, Everly. Hunter or not."

"But the world—"

"Will always go on. Always. With or without a person. Don't stop the monster by becoming one." He crawled into my cell and looked at my chains. "I hope this works." He muttered and grabbed the chains, pulling and screaming.

The chains snapped.

"How did you—"

"I'm the fourth— third," he corrected, "most powerful being on this planet. I'm the only being that can't die from Lotus. I can break some chains." He explained.

"But the ones on you? Can't you break those?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Can't when they're on me because my strength is depleted." He looked to the bent hole in the bars. "Now you need to go."

"But you—"

"Come back of course." It could've been said light heartedly, but he all but begged it from me.

"He'll kill you." I argued.

Arlis looked back to the screaming. "I still have a couple months left of pure torture before he decides to take my life. By then you'll have come back." He backtracked to his cell and climbed inside, taking a deep breathe.

ANYWAYS! Because I'm curious—
Vote below. Comment next to the name you think deserves to kill Konrad the most . I also want to see if this answer changes depending on what book (whether this one or The Wolf And The Natural) you've read. Or both. Idk. Some of these characters are from TWATN so you might not know them but...

Everly

Fiona

Constance

Arlis

Becker

Colin

Dalia (TWATN)

Kate (TWATN)

Melloni/Jonah (TWATN)

Other (specify)