"There! We're in."

"Finally."

There were two voices. One was slightly higher than the other, but both had a deep, gruff quality, one that reverberated in every fiber of my body. Only wolf mouths could produce sound like that. Whoever they were, they were shifted.

"Now, let's see what Ol' Rodney's hiding down here," the lower voice said, followed by the clamor of shattering concrete. I bit my lip to hold back a scream, so hard I nearly bled.

Two heavy bodies slapped against the floor as they heaved themselves up from beneath. They were too close. I could smell their musk. 

"Sure is dark in here," the higher voice said.

"That's because you dug through the power line, genius." The second one's voice morphed as they spoke, reverting to a normal male human timbre.

A flashlight flicked on. Through the fuzzy cloud of concrete dust, I saw the intruders. The one in human form had bronze skin and wavy dark hair. He was wearing nothing but a messenger bag and a traditional werewolf warrior "outfit", a leather tasset that only covered the absolute basics. Even in human form, his back muscles made it clear he was a threat.

The shifted one just looked like a mountain of muscle and grey fur from my angle. The strained brown band of fabric wrapped around her barrel chest suggested she was female. Her sword-sharp claws, each as thick as my wrist, were so long that they scraped the floor even when she stood upright.

They both faced away from me. I scanned the room for an out, but I was in the emptiest spot, far from the door and stacks of rations. Nowhere to run, nothing to hide behind. I could only hold my breath and wait to be slaughtered.

The shewolf—could something with swollen mutant paws like that really be called a wolf?—sniffed the air. She sneezed, sniffed again.

She turned. Her toxic green eyes met mine.

I've never been one to pray. They say you only become connected to the celestial gods after your first shift, so I never tried. Now my lips were quivering in a silent, tangled plea to the celestials, that god humans worship, that old norse god they made superhero movies about, any deity I could think of who might have been listening. Get me out of here alive. Please, please get me out of here.

She approached. Her pointed ears brushed the ceiling even with her hunched back. She leaned in, so close I could taste her rancid breath. 

"Found something," she said. When she spoke I could see her teeth, tipped with a dark color I couldn't discern. Maybe it was dirt, but my mind jumped to blood.

I screamed. If the soundproofing was broken, maybe someone would hear me, rescue me. I wailed as loud as my lungs could manage, scrambling on my hands and knees along the wall away from her. Before I made it far, she blocked me with her massive paw, her claws like ivory prison bars.

"Quiet down," she hissed. 

My mouth snapped shut.

"Think this one is it?" she asked her companion.

The man kicked a can of peaches across the room and shrugged. "Not like there's much else in here." 

He paced behind the shewolf, out of my sight. When I could see him again he was holding the needle and bottle from my last injection. "This looks suspect."

"Great," she said. "Let's bring it back."

"The girl too."

I flinched in terror. They were going to take me and do god knows what to me. Before panic could consume me, a reluctant huff from the shewolf caught me by surprise.

"Do we have to?" she whined. "She's just a kid."

"A kid that Rodney decided is worth hiding down here," he said. "She's clearly not a guard."

"The poor thing's dead terrified. One more scare and she'll be wetting her pants."

He shook his head. "And if Alpha finds out you left her behind? You'll be doing a lot more than wetting you pants. You'll be stuck in the infirmary peeing into a tube."

Alpha. I'd heard the betas talking about the Cavedweller's alpha before, and nothing they said was good. He was a ruthless killer, bigger and stronger and more savage than his whole army of mutant freaks combined. 

The man crossed over to me, blocking my last path out that the shewolf wasn't covering with her body and claws. "Don't beat yourself up, it's not like we're going to really hurt her." He paused. "We're not." He cracked a crooked smile. "Can't make any promises about Alpha..."

A nightmarish vision of their merciless alpha loomed over me, ready to slide my head off my shoulders with his monstrous claws. I shrieked again, feet kicking and grinding against the ground, as if I could melt through the wall if I pushed hard enough.

"Come on, Dax!" the shewolf shouted over my screams. "Look what you've done now!"

The man—Dax—growled in frustration. I squeezed my eyes shut, throwing all my might into my bellowing. A piece of cloth was jammed into my open mouth. I writhed against it, but I wasn't strong enough to pry his arms off. He tied the gag then held my wrists together in a single hand. "There. Problem solved."

The shewolf moved her claws away from me and crossed her arms. "You've got a weird definition of solved, buddy."

My straining heart shuddered as I flailed as hard as I could. It wasn't enough. My tunnel vision landed on his face, but he didn't seemed bothered by my struggling at all. Mildly annoyed at best.

He pulled something out of his bag and held it in front of my face. It looked like a squat wooden salt shaker, but I had the feeling it wasn't salt in there. I craned my head back, desperate to escape it, but there was nowhere for me to go. Powder floated out of the shaker's holes, sucked through my nose by my rapid breathing.

Every breath made me feel heavier. Was it some kind of sedative? I didn't have long to ponder the possibility before my focus scattered. The world blurred. Every muscle in my body relaxed; my head bobbed, my legs flopped to the side. When he let go of my wrists, my hands dropped into my lap. I was too tired to run.

I watched from deep in my own head as they tied me up. It took a lot of rope and uncomfortable stretching, but Dax fastened me securely to the back of the shewolf. I think he said her name was Eve, but their conversation slurred into a barely comprehensible mess. I could have been wrong. 

When he was done with me, Dax shifted. His wolf form was dark brown, skinnier and smaller than Eve but still substantial. His hands were normal, somehow, but his feet were freaky. The toes of his hind paws stretched three times longer than average and were jointed in places toes shouldn't be jointed. He used them to grip the edge of the concrete when he climbed through the hole in the floor. His tail was long and flexible too, like a monkey's. Mesmerized, I watched it twitch as Eve followed him.

It was too dark in the tunnel beneath to see anything, and far too dark to be worth keeping my eyes open. As I relaxed into her bristly pelt, I heard her say something to me. Most of it flew by me, but I could parse one part of it. 

"Hang in their, kiddo. You'll be fine."

She broke into a sprint, and the rhythm of her stride rocked me to sleep. I spent my last waking moments doubting her.