Unnatural Enemies: Part 3 (Ending)

“I think he’s ready for another go,” the smaller human says. “He’s had all day to heal.”

I wait for the werewolf to snap back, to plead, to beg, something. But he doesn’t and the silence is harder to hear. He has completely given up. Gone past the point of trying to stop this. This is his life now. A dancing bear for these scum of the human race to cheer and jeer at. Werewolves may be my enemy but they are majestic in their savagery. Their pack mentality made them proud. Proud of belonging. Something vampires sincerely lack. Because we do not belong anywhere. I definitely do not belong down here.

“There’s a big crowd tonight. I think we should set him up against the vamp.”

The witch’s eyes shine at me like two huge opals.

I wince in response and tuck my knees against my chest.

“Good idea, we’ll be rolling in it! Who’d you put your money on?” asks the larger one with the deeper voice.

“This guy hands down. You’ve seen him fight vamps before. He annihilates them.”

They both laugh their dry cackles and their footsteps head my way. When they see me, they smile showing dirty teeth.

“Better say your goodbyes, fangy, because it’s the end of the road for you. Unless you’re tougher than you look.” The small one nudges his friend. “Look at his arms, bro, bloody noodles. You even hit puberty?”

“Looks mean nothing when it comes to vamps, dipshit. He could be thousands a years old. How old are ya?”

I just look at them dead in the eyes, my mouth a thin line, trying my best to look stoic. Which isn’t incredibly difficult for a vampire, we have little emotions left anyway.

“Uh, I hope you’re more fun in the ring.”

“Lets get him up there now,” says Big.

My eyebrow quirks up. Are they going to come into my cell and get me? Right now? While the sun is down and I am at my strongest?

The smaller one grins at me like he knows what I’m thinking and reaches behind into the waistband of his holey jeans. Then he’s pointing a gun at me and my cold heart quivers a little.

I get to my feet and the hand holding the gun trembles ever so slightly. So slightly that his partner probably didn’t notice, but I did. He’s scared. Under all that slimy bravado, he knows what I am and knows what I could do if I ever got my hands on him. So I lung from the back of the cell to the front and grab the gun from his hand before he even has chance to blink. My plan is to turn it on him and kill my very first human but before I do, in the corner of my eye I see Big is also armed. The sound of the gunshot bursts in my ears as the bullet pierces into my brain.

Then everything goes black.

Blacker than ever.

Like I’m back buried under the earth where I was safe.

The floor is different. Its smoother and dryer. Not rock. Cement.

My eyes roll open but then I cringe and shut them again at the stabbing pain in my temple. I’m lay on my stomach. My arm brushes across the cement and I bring my fingers to the side of my head. My fingertips become wet with blood. My blood. I bite down on my tongue as I grip the bullet and rip it out of my skull. A heavy grunt escapes me and I open my eyes again to see the bloody silver bullet cradled in my palm.

I must have been here – wherever I am now – for at least an hour. That’s how long it would have taken the bullet to work its way back out and for my brain tissue to knit back together.

Now that the pain has gone, I can hear the ruckus outside my little dark room. Hollering, shouting and laughing. A big crowd indeed.

I push myself up with my forearms and drop my back against the wall. With my legs stretched out before me, I fill almost the entirety of the little room I have found myself in.

The door in front of me is wooden but has been reinforced with metal. Judging by the hinges, I could quite easily knock the door down, but the sounds outside tell me I’m safer in here.

“Ladies and gentleman!” shouts a man through what I assume is a megaphone to be heard over the unruly crowd. Said crowd cheer enthusiastically. “The fight will be starting in under ten minutes! If you haven’t placed your bets yet, do it now! Who’s it gonna be, the werewolf or the vampire?!”

Ten minutes. I’ve got ten minutes before I die. And for good this time.

All I can think about is my little brother. How I won’t even be reunited with him in death. Because he’ll be in Heaven and I’m heading straight into the fiery pit of Hell.

I think of the witch and how I didn’t even ask for her name. How I opened up my heart to her like I hadn’t with anyone else. How she didn’t look at me like I was a monster, but as someone who needed a distraction. A confidant. A friend.

I think about my lonely existence and how I don’t want it to end. Not now. Not like this.

Not by a werewolf. Not in front of a crowd.

I had pictured my death being on my own terms when I felt like the time was right. Maybe after finding out the truth of what happened that night in the woods I would have had the courage to hold a stake over my heart and finish things myself.

A quick, easy death.

Not death by mutilation.

The ten minutes went by far too quickly. Before I knew it, they were counting down the last thirty seconds.

I stand, my head only an inch from touching the ceiling. There is light coming from the cracks in the door. The cracks caused by the constant scratching of sharpened claws. I start to itch, feeling phantom claws scratching into my arms, legs and chest.

“Three… Two… One… FIGHT!”

The door swings open and I’m blinded by a burst of light. I throw my hands over my eyes but I don’t move. After blinking rapidly several times, my eyes adjust and I realise it isn’t so bright after all. Bulbs are hanging from the high ceiling, making shadows dance across the large expanse of cement before me.

“C’mon, fangy! Get out and fight!” someone jeers above me.

The wall at my back presses against me. I turn, confused, and notice its moving. The wall was not a wall at all and is now pushing me out into the ring. I push back, palms against it but it’s no use.

I’m forced out into the open and the crowd cheers. I squint up at them, at all the grimy faces and greasy hair. They all look like Big and Small. There must be over a hundred of them. All in dirty wife beaters or plaid. They surround me on a higher platform, separated by a metal net dome.

Directly in front of me, at the opposite side of the ring, is a door similar to the one I had just been birthed from. That one is also open and out staggers the Beast.

He has already half transformed. An inhuman amount of hair covers his bare arms and pokes through the slices in his t-shirt. His nails are long, curled and yellow. He snarls, his head slightly bent so I can’t see his eyes. Can’t see the colour. Are they red? If they’re red, I might as well give up right now. Alpha’s have red eyes. Beta’s have yellow, Omega’s have blue.

The snarl is low and rumbles across the room, silencing the crowd for a moment.

The Beast’s hair is dry now and curls up at his shoulders. His sideburns have grown at the same pace as his arm hair.

He turns his head, sniffing the crowd. And then he looks at me.

Yellow eyes burning into the pit where my soul should reside.

A Beta.

I could have a chance.

His face is no longer human. The nose has become more of a snout, wrinkled and slightly unturned.

But he can’t turn full wolf. It’s not a full moon.

Fangs against fangs.

Claws against… well, I do not have claws. But I have speed.

I’m still as far away as I could possibly be from my opponent and this riles up a hillbilly behind me and in her anger, pours her beer over my head. I flinch at the lukewarm liquid dripping down my white dress shirt and stagger forwards slightly.

A growl erupts and I look up in time to see the Beast barrelling towards me, claws out to tear me in half. Instinctively, I jump. Thankfully I can jump quite high and I manage to latch myself onto the metal net above us. I hook the toes of my shoes through the holes and curl my fingers, gripping tight as the werewolf gnashing its fangs beneath me.

His yellow eyes look like two suns staring up at me. I miss the sun, but these cruel, supernatural mockeries of it fill me with great fear.

“Fight him you fangy bastard!” hollers a man with a gravelly voice.

I look to my left when the net starts to bounce and see the cattle prodder as it connects to the metal. The bolt of electricity runs straight through my body, paralyzing me – suspended above the werewolf. When the surge ends, my fingers unfurl and I’m falling. Falling onto the Beast.

He catches me, his claws piercing my ribs, and he throws me down onto the cement floor. I hear my bones crunch at the impact, feel my blood pulsing out of the punctures in my sides.

The werewolf has me pinned down. I’m looking right up at him. His breath is foul. I’d be choking on it if I had the need to breathe. Blood quickly climbs up my throat and fills my mouth.

He’s snarling down at me, fangs blackened around the gums with stringy bits of meat hanging between them.

I stare up into his eyes, immobilised by his grip on me. The seconds stretch out. I can’t help looking at his face. I’ve never been this close to a werewolf before.

And then I see it. If I still had a heartbeat, it would have thudded.

Under his left eye. There’s a mark half hidden by his newly sprouted wolf hair.

A birthmark.

The Beast is my brother.

I open my mouth to say his name but he roars and slices his claws across my throat, silencing me before I have the chance. Shocked by the pain, my hands instinctively cover the wound. They’re slick with my blood in an instant. It pours through my fingers.

The Beast – my brother – backs away as if inspecting his work.

I roll onto my front and push myself up, leaving smudged red handprints on the cement. My stability is affected by my injuries and I stumble, my vision whirling.

The blurry shape of the werewolf is heaving, clearly filled with adrenaline. His shoulders bunch as he readies himself to change and I throw my hands up.

“Please!” I try to shout but it comes wet and sloppy as bloody pours from my open lips.

He sniffs my bloody hands and growls deep in his throat.

I feel tears pressing against the backs of my eyes. Not because of the pain. I barely notice that now as I look at him. My long lost little brother. Now I know its him, I see him more in his half-transformed state.

He grew up big and strong, just like I thought he would.

“Danny,” I garble and I bite down on my tongue at the strange lurching sensation inside me. It’s the first time I have said his name out loud in so long.

He cocks his head and steps away from me, confused.

“Danny, it’s me,” I cough up blood but wipe it away like its nothing. “It’s me, Tom. Your brother.”

The yellow of his eyes seems to flicker, undulating like waves.

He studies me then as if seeing me for the first time. He stares down at his own hands, the blood on his claws, and then shakes his head as if to erase the image. When he looks at me again, the yellow in his eyes fades and is replaced with a much more natural green.

His green eyes.

Our green eyes.

The extra thick hair on his arms, chest and cheeks starts to recede back into his body and in a matter of seconds, there is no longer a werewolf standing before me.

“T-Tom?” His voice is almost as fragile as my own.

My tears try to escape. I let them. “Danny.”

I have so many questions.

So much to tell him.

So much to hear from him.

Two lives together again after so long apart.

“What the hell is going on?!” shouts a man and I recognise the voice. I turn and see Big in the crowd holding a megaphone. “Finish him off!”

My brother’s bloody hands turn to fists by his side. “I refuse to fight! He is my brother!”

Big blinks, perplexed. “What?!”

“It’s true,” I reply.

He pulls a face. “So, you’re not gonna fight?”

I shake my head and wince, remembering the gouges in my neck. My blood is pumping out of me at such a rate I’m starting to feel a little light headed.

“Screw this, he’s wasting our time!”

I hear the gun fire and I know it is not aimed at my head this time.

The bullet pierces my heart and I fall. My brother is over me in an instant, this time with comforting arms enveloping me.

His eyes are so big and sad and shining.

A silver bullet to the heart, we both know what that means. It’s a death sentence for both our kinds.

“Brother,” he says, his voice wet with tears. “I never thought I’d see you again.”

I brush his cheek with my fingertips, forgetting that they are covered in my blood. He doesn’t seem to care.

“I found you.” I bite down on my tongue, suddenly furious at the turn of events.

My brother was taken that night and bitten. He is a beta so that must mean he had been accepted into a pack. He could have lived a happy life, to which I am awfully glad. But to end up here… in this ring… a toy for these disgusting, heartless human’s amusement. No, this can’t be it. This can’t be how we are reunited. It just can’t be.

“Save yourself,” I plead, knotting my sticky fingers into his t-shirt. “Promise me that. Get out of here.”

He nods vigorously.

My vision starts to pulsate, blackening around the edges.

It’s my time. This is the end.

“This can’t be it,” I sob, but my voice sounds so far away in my own ears. “It just can’t.”