The world around me was hazy and indistinct when I opened my eyes. My heart pounded frantically in my chest, but at the same time I was oddly calm.

I had no idea where I was. I barely had any idea who I was in those first moments.

The vehicle I was in was gently swaying beneath me, urging me to return to my silent black slumber, but something was very wrong.

Where was I?

I forced myself to look around me even though I had trouble getting my eyes to focus on anything in particular. I seemed to be in a passenger van.

I had trouble placing it. Very few people bothered owning anything but trucks and all terrain vehicles in the Trifecta lands. Our roads were rather unrefined and sparse.

"She woke up," a voice from in front of me announced. I sent my gaze over to the voice, but I could not quite make my eyes reach him. It took me a long moment to place the person in my mind. He was that one who had carried me when I was away from Serge.

Where was Serge? I felt organic panic for a long moment. I thought the curse was still there, but the curse felt weirdly disconnected. Had something happened to him? "S-S-Ser-Serge?" I stuttered out. It was so hard to speak. What was wrong with me?

"Just behave, kid," muttered another person in the seat to my right who I certainly did not know.

"Wh-where am...?"

"Don't worry yourself about that," said the one that I recognized.

I did not want to not worry about it, but the rocking of the vehicle stole my consciousness from me against my will.

The next time I woke, the fear I was so accustomed to was clawing at me savagely. I no longer wondered if the curse might have let me go. It had not and it felt very much as if it was trying to frighten me to death. It would never let me escape, it would kill me first if it could.

But even that it resisted, because the curse would not readily give me over to death.

I kept my eyes shut and tried to understand my circumstances. I could not stop my body from shaking. I could not feel anything but my fear at the lack of my master's presence near me.

A sudden shot of pain overcame my anxiety for a moment. I wanted to be with Matthias and the curse had nothing to do with it.

Where was I?

I tried to feel my surroundings. I was in a vehicle and I was on the driver's side because I was leaning against the window on my left. I was strapped into the seatbelt, but I was bound in no other way. My hands shook freely.

I could feel the sensation of the moving of the vehicle beneath me, but it was smooth and fluid compared to the rough gravel roads in the Trifecta.

I was somewhere in the south , clearly.

A memory of the Trans-Canada highway popped into my mind. Was that where I was? We had driven it to my mother's appointments in Winnipeg so many times. The feel of relatively even roads reminded me of pain and loss of the past and I could only assume the reason I was here now was no better.

The cold tremors that ran through me made it difficult to focus as I opened my eyes and peered out the window I was leaning against. I could see cars driving the opposite direction on two lanes on the other side of a wide, looping highway. Trees lined the roadway, but there were way more deciduous leafy ones than I was used to around home.

This confirmed more than anything to me that I was far from home.

I continued to watch for signs of where we might be, but again I was lulled by the swaying of the vehicle into insensibility.

* * * * * * * * *

The next time I woke I resolved to stay awake and properly get my bearings. I could remember the moments in Serge's truck before the attack and I remembered being carried through the shelter and out the back. I had tried to struggle, but then everything had gone black.

Perhaps I had been drugged. That might explain why I was having so much difficulty keeping myself alert.

That probably meant it had not been a spur of the moment decision. Someone had planned this. Had those last attacks been a part of the plan? Perhaps. Either they had caused or taken advantage of a bad situation to grab me.

But, why? Because I was a thrall? Because I was my father's daughter? There was little particularly special about me beyond that.

If it was because I was a thrall, was I now going to be turned into a lab rat somewhere? Maybe someone had found out about werewolves and wanted to study them and I was just easy pickings with the curse plaguing me. My heart pounded at the idea, but somehow the way I was being transported seemed to casual to be some shady government operation or corporate scheme.

More likely it was the eastern wolves and they had taken me as leverage, to use against my father and my pack leader. Maybe I was just a hostage now and the whole thrall thing was incidental. I would not do well without being near my leader for long, so it would give them a nice time pressure to hold against the Trifecta as an added bonus. My heart hit the edges of its enclosure all the harder.

We drove for a long time before any of the men with me realized I was awake since I made no sound besides the chattering of my teeth.

"She's awake again," the traitor informed the driver. He was in the seat across from me now and some unknown person was sitting beside the driver.

"You're going to be fine so long as you cooperate," the traitor said, apparently speaking to me.

I wanted to spit in his face, but I could do little in my miserable state. "Not without m-my l-leader."

I could feel the curse scratching at my nerves to get back to him. I was too far, far too far. I wanted to be back with him, where Matt could hold me in his arms and push away the curse. Everyone I missed was north, and the curse pushed me in that same direction. The need to be closer to be near the master of my curse clawed at the inside of my skull. The need to be with Matthias, clawed at my heart.

"You'll be fine," he assured me.

"You're k-killing me, traitor," I hissed. I swung my eyes away from the view outside the window and to the traitor's nervous face. His brows were screwed together in concerned concentration and his jaw clenched.

"I'm not—"

"You are," I insisted. "How could you?" I growled. I did not know him, but I knew what he was. It no longer felt difficult to address him, anymore than it would be difficult to talk to a chair. This traitor was a part of my pack no longer. It was like looking a meaningless inanimate object.

"I—"

"Stop talking, Mark," said the passenger in the front.

"Your voice is familiar, too. Which pack are you from, traitor?" I addressed the man who had spoken.

"Shut up."

"Are you Austin's or S-Serge's?" I continued. I would know him if he was my father's.

"You've got more pressing problems, girl."

I sighed and sagged back, having exhausted all my fight for the moment. The curse gnawed at me.

"If you'd get off my back, maybe I could find a way to get back to him," I hissed to the curse under my breath.

As always, it did not care about what made sense or what might be effective, only that I suffered for a million miniscule trivial infractions.

* * * * * * * * *

The trip continued throughout the day with occasional breaks to gas up the vehicle and switch drivers. Though terror was my constant companion, my mind stayed clear on the other side of it. I surreptitiously discovered that I did not have my bag or my satellite phone, which was a disappointment, although I supposed it was too much to hope that they would be stupid enough to leave me with a means of communication.

I was not allowed out of the vehicle except when I needed to use the facilities, and only with strict threats as to what sort of behaviour I was to maintain. I considered fighting them because what could they do in a gas station full of regular humans, but as the slightly familiar one explain to a gas station attendant, I apparently had a severe developmental disability, although he said it in a much more demeaning way.

I gritted my teeth and endured.

We continued driving into the night. I had long since figured out that we were in Ontario, driving south east and ever further from home. The one small mercy of the curse was that it did not seem to differentiate between one kilometer and ten thousand kilometers, so my paralyzing pain at the separation between my master and I had not become worse than it already was even as the distance between us increased.

And even that bone chilling fear seemed to be waning with exposure. I had no appetite and my heart was in a constant flurry that was surely more rapid than was good for my health, but I was getting used to the pain as I had gotten used to all the other stressful writhings of the curse.

In truth, I was barely worse than the curse had made me feel upon the moment of initiation.

It was like that moment when playing a horror title. The main character had been fighting and striving and finally is up against that largest horror that stalked them. I was still terrified, I was still shaking, I was still a shadow of my former self, but I could make myself function past all that. I could pick up whatever weapon was handy and make my stand, for good or for ill, against my nightmare antagonist. I could only hope that this game would have a happy ending, because I well knew that like real life, the horror genre did not always end happily.

"Wh-where are you taking me?" I asked the man beside me, this time the one who was completely unfamiliar. I had heard the other two call him James. I had no way of knowing if that was his real name or not, but he had become James in my mind nonetheless. I had not yet figured out the name of the other one I could not place who was certainly from the territory.

"You'll find out in time," James said.

I actually was pretty sure I had already figured it out, but I did not tell them that. I knew the direction we were heading and I was increasingly certain that this latest ordeal was related to all the troubles of the Trifecta. Would I meet the eastern king, that shadowy oppressor who had plagued my people for longer than my entire lifetime?

It was strange, but under all the constant fear rushing over and through me, under the binds of the curse, I was not afraid at all, at least not for myself. It was unlikely they had gone through so much difficulty to drag me by plane—I assumed and van for hours to simply kill me outright.

It was everyone else I was worried about. They were likely desperately searching and piecing together what had happened to me and I feared in their obsession they would not take the care necessary to make wise decisions.

I had to find a way to escape myself or at the very least find some way to contact my family and Matthias. It seemed unlikely considering my condition, but perhaps my obvious helplessness would make them let their guards down and then I could take advantage of that. They obviously did not consider me a threat at all, which was foolish considering that any human could be a threat in the right circumstances.

But I would not complain. I would endure the ravages of the curse and bide my time.