Young Writers Society

~Andrew~

I sat back in the chair; a lot more comfortable now that nothing was goig to eat me. Damien's fate didn't bother me since birds of prey always made me nervous and I just didn't like any of them, anyways.

One person had looked vaugly familiar though and her face was etched on my mind. Where had I seen that face before?


~Damian~

I dove a hundred yards in front of the car and shifed back to my human form. The group was giving me icy glares and I turned my eyes away. They were right; I should have fought harder. There was no excuse for my betrayl; however forced it was.

"Do you have a death wish?" One of them growled. I merely shook my head.

Words, words! Say something! This is no time for

"Sh-Shade." His mouth fumbled, and he took in a deep breath, "I can bring you to Shade."

Heather-

I glared hard at Damien.

"It's probably another trick by the hyenas," Trent growled. It probably was and Damien deserved every bit of what was coming.

Something cawed behind us. I turned around and saw Ballow twisting, his eyes halfway open.

"Ballow what's wrong?" I asked.

"He must be nervous because Damien's here," Jason said.

"No!" Damien shouted but then withdrew again. "I-I don't expect you to trust me, but you have to."

"How are we supposed to after what you did to Ballow?" I demanded.

"I rammed him accidentally, but I tried to help him-"

"He's telling the truth," said Ian.

"What?" we practically yelled in unison.

"It's just what the Order does. Presses innocent shifters into joining them through shock collars," said Jackson.

I looked at Damien and saw the collar tightly clung around his neck. Ian and Jackson stepped forward.

"You'll take us the the Order." Damien nodded.

"I will."

Trent:

Trent growled, "Won't they know we're coming, fi they use that collar?" He demanded.

"Maybe, maybe not, we might be able to get it off." Ian replied.

"I'm not sure I'd like to follow one of their pets, sorry Damien but at the moment you are if they have that control, to their lair."

"It's the only chance Shade has." Pippa said stepping forward. "I don't know him, and really d on't know y'all, but I have a feeling if we don't get to him soon we won't get to him in time. We just have to be on our toes." Trent growled a little, what did she know, she was a human. She crossed her arms and her eyes challenged him to disagree, he barely knew the girl, but she seemed to know him.



***I just thought of something, maybe Pippa can be like Trent's sister real sister. I dont know how, but ya.***

*Ballow's still unconscious somewhere, right? CCan someone have him waking up and doing soemthing so I know where he is . . . ^^"*

Shade-

Shade stifled a groan as he came to, his head was pounding. Memory flashed through him, and not by the flicker of an eyelash or the change of a breath did he give himself away. As far as the evil trio was concerned he was still sleeping.

He stiffened when he heard Liz say he was an Alpha. That wasn't possible, his dad would have told him if he was an Alpha. He couldn't be an Alpha, could he? Shoving that dilemna to the back of his mind, Shade focused on his surroundings. His ears told him that they were on a plane, the engine loud to his sensitive ears, and there was a harsh metallic scent to the air, confirming the theory.

The cuffs were made of metal that felt disconcertingly soft, Shade opened his eyes a crack, and stifled another groan. The cuffs were the new Pulse type, designed with special electricity, when they shocked a shifter, they didn't just immobilize him, but made so he couldn't hold a form for more then a few seconds.

Out of options, Shade pressed his shoulder against the seat, activating the tracking device embedded under his flesh. Then Shade did the one thing he had promised his father never to do, he opened the cage in his mind, and let the Cat go free.

The Cat opened his eyes and glanced up at his captors. He cocked his head to the side watching as the hyena boy stiffened and half turned to lock gazes with him. The Man had called him Peter, the Cat watched the Peter boy's face turn white. As the last trace of blue bled from the Cat's eyes, until they were completely golden, the pupils narrowed to pinpricks.

He bared his fangs in a hunters grin, the Peter boy knew what had happened, he had Feral Rage too. He knew what the Man had done, he could sense it. The Peter boy knew he wasn't looking at a man anymore but a Jaguar on two legs, a beast, with all the knowledge and intelligence of it's human half.

Detached, the Cat watched as the Peter boy turned to his sister. The one the Man called Liz, the Cat knew her of old, had fought with her several times, the Cat remembered well the bite of her fangs.

The Peter boy spoke, his voice low and urgent. "Liz, we might have a problem. Shade just let his animal free completely. Not even I'm crazy enough to do that."

Liz glared, irritated, as she spoke with her brother, her scent was exitement, tinged with nervousness. "What are you talking about Peter?"

Baffled, the Peter boy looked at her. "You mean Harper never told you? Shade has Feral Rage, the same as me."

"Wait a minute." That voice came from the other one, Andrew, the one that smelled of prey, he glanced nervously towards the Cat. "Are you telling me we're stuck in an airplane with a rabid panther?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying." The Peter boy growled.

The Man would have felt sorry for them. The Cat had no such compunctions, after all, compassion was a human emotion.

*I thought it would be interesting if Shade didn't know he was an Alpha, hell of a way to find out, don't you think. Also so long as the Cat is the one in control, Shade's posts will be in bold, so everyone can tell the difference.*

**Ballows already partly awake. TN, I think that would be cool if Trent and Pippa were long lost siblings. Kind of like Heather and Andrew being long lost cousins. Sylverdawn, how are the bad guys going to escape if they're flying in a plane and Shade is a rabbid jaguar? Questions for thought**

Heather-

I gave a look at Damien and watched as Ian and Jackson were trying to get Damien's collar off. Part of myself did feel sorry for him and remembered his testimony about helping Ballow... but there was still doubt, and not just from me but from all of us: Trent, Jason, and Carmen.

I looked away and back at Ballow. He was still stirring and looked as though he was trying to shift.

"Ssh, you should take it easy," I said softly. Trent stood over me and Carmen was on the other side of Ballow.

"Is he going to be alright?" Carmen asked.

"Only time will tell."

*He's still chained, I just wanted to throw a wrench into the whole kidnapping thing.*

~Damian~

They still didn't trust me; I could see it in their eyes. I was trembling again. Being surrounded by people-people that didn't like me-was nerve racking. Claustrophobia was starting to take me and I backed away after several attempts to get the collar off.

The rage in their eyes was making me afraid; this fear made me want to fly. Oh, how I wanted to fly.

[i]Maybe, if I fly far enough away, it would fall off!

Peter and Liz

"So what do we do then, brother?" Liz asked, "Surely he can't break those chains."

Peter shook his head, "No, he can't. They'll do exactly as Harper designed them to. His Rage makes no difference to whether he can break free. Harper made sure of that. But...moving him may be a problem."

She shrugged, ever the pragmatist, "Then I suppose you'd be ready to switch on your own animal if worst comes to worst. Lord knows you're more or less half-hyena anyway."

The plane's tires squealed a little as they touched down on the tarmac of Lab Twenty-Four. Almost immediately, Liz's phone rang, and she flipped it open, "Sir?"

"You're all here then. I can't say I'm entirely happy that you were unable to bring them all in, Miss Morgan, but I suppose there was something you couldn't plan for."

"Gunplay." She replied.

Harper sighed on the other end of the phone, "Well, at least you managed to bring in Shade. He will prove most useful to the Alpha project. You may bring him in now."

"Due respect, sir, I would have appreciated you telling me he shared my brother's condition."

"It wasn't a relevant detail-" Harper began, only to have Liz cut him off.

"Sir, he'd activated it. You might want to send a pair of rhinos or crocodiles out if you want to see him brought in safe and sound."

He sighed, and she could picture him shaking his head, "Very well." He barked some orders on the other end of the phone, "You just sit pretty for the time being, Miss Morgan."

Heather-

The collar was still on Damien. Ian and Jackson said that they would need more advanced technology to get it off of him.

Damien was sitting in the back with us and giving directions to the Order's hideout. Suddenly he started convulsing and screamed.

"What's wrong with him," Pippa demanded. Jackson looked back.

"They're calling him."

Damien's body eased up and he was panting hard. "Are you okay?" I asked, frightened and shocked at how they could be so cruel, just to call him.

Damien nodded and sighed. "I'll have to fly ahead and lead you to their headquarters."

Jackson nodded and we made a little room for Damien so that he could shift. He shifted and flew out of the open window. That's when I really felt bad for him.

~Damian~

I flapped my wings, rising quickly. My body was still tingling from that last shock. That shock added with my severe claustrophobia made me extremely glad to be out of that vehicle. I hated cars; they took things away from people. Things you care about.

I rose on a thermal, gliding effortlessly, toward the place I least wanted to be.


~Andrew~

I held the gun on the rabid cat-man.

"Lower your weapon." Liz said, sighing in annoyance.

"What if it trys to eat me?"

"We'll all be rid of you. Put the gun down." Peter echoed.

Heather-

We continued riding, Jackson looking intently overhead, watching Damien and giving Ian directions on which way the falcon was flying.

As the car drove on, the scenery slowly changed from that of a Southern rural land to a more dark tree covered area. The elevation was steadily rising.

"Are we going through mountains?" I asked.

"Good eye. Yeah, the Appalachians," Ian answered.

"Figures the Order would hide here. Plenty of caves for cover and interference from normal frequencies," Jackson muttered.

"Huh?" Carmen asked.

"He means that unless you're part of the Order, no one can find them," Ian explained.

"You guys are lucky to have family," I said softly, suddenly realising how alone the world seemed. I had no blood relatives anymore, or at least none that I knew about.

"Don't sell them short," Jackson said and pointed at all of us in the back seat. "I have never seen a closer, more caring family besides the Pride."

There was something about those words that were uplifting and they reignited the urge to save Shade from the Order. He was family too.