Out There

Chapter 11: The Pack

"Are you sure we're going the right way? I feel like we've seen that tree before," Lianna says skeptically.

"No, we're definitely going the right...oh," Jake says as he flips the map back the right way up.

"Jake, we better not have been going the wrong way this whole time," I tell him.

"Not necessarily the wrong way..." he replies.

I groan in frustration as I sit down on a boulder. We had been traveling for a couple weeks now. It had been going well for a while, but we ran into a couple slow downs. First it was a grizzly bear that almost got Jake, then some poison ivy, and then I lost all my clothes so we had to get more... It's been rough.

"Sorry..." Jake says guiltily.

"It's fine. As long as we aren't too off course," I tell him.

I get off the boulder and look at them and ask Jake, "how far until the next town? We're running low on food."

"Not too far. But we have to be careful, it's on the border of a pack and if we stray too far we could get captured by them. They're not forgiving," Jake informs us.

I nod as we start on our way into the town. Within the next thirty minutes we had to stop again.

"Do you guys hear something?" Lianna asked us.

I turned to look at her "no. What do you hear?" I asked quietly, in case it was a someone instead of a something.

We all tensed, worried to move or make a sound. I made eye contact with Jake and we both slowly lowered our packs to the ground and got into a fighting circle.

A twig snapped under my foot and I looked down in time to see a net close in on us. It lifted up into the air with two of the three of us inside.

I looked up into the air at Jake and Lianna as I started hearing more movement in the bushes.

Jake was calling out, wondering what was going on, while Lianna stayed mostly calm. I started looking around for a way to get them down.

Then, two wolves came out of the bushes, with their eyes on me and their teeth bared. I looked at them uneasily. I knew what was going on. We had gotten of track and ended up inside some other pack's land.

"Easy now, let's just hold on a minute. This is just a misunderstanding, we didn't mean to trespass. If you let me get my friends down, we will leave without complaint," I tried saying to the wolves.

Another one stepped out, this time in human form. I looked at him uneasily. Now more wolves were arriving, and surrounding us while they were at it.

"You don't make the rules here, boy," said the man. He was about six foot tall, but lanky. He was probably only a few years older than me, if at all.

"Cut them down," said the one who must've been a beta or the next alpha.

A wolf walked over and snapped at a rope that immediately dropped Jake and Lianna. I looked at them as they stood up and brushed off the leaves and dirt from their clothes.

"Bind them," he orders next. A few wolves approached in their human forms. One of them roughly grabbed Lianna, causing Jake to growl in her defense.

"Jake, no," I said to him, causing him to immediately stop. It was obvious we were outnumbered and a fight might just end up with us dead.

"Ah, an alpha. Though by the lack of authority, I'd say not quite yet. You definitely look like you could be an alpha's son, what with the arrogance," the other alpha wolf said as he sized me up.

I didn't respond as two more wolves grabbed Jake and I, then they started binding our wrists with more rope. I could tell Lianna had been bound as well. Once the man was satisfied that we were restrained enough, he approached us.

"So, you clearly aren't from around here. I can smell that much from you. Perhaps from the Washington area? I know the wolves down there aren't tough at all," he says, still sizing us up.

Meanwhile some wolves were digging through our belongings and scattering them across the small clearing.

"Should we take him to Archos?" One of the wolves asked their leader.

"Might as well. Maybe he would have fun with them," he replies.

As soon as I heard the name I knew this wouldn't be good. This was the pack Jake had been talking about. The ones that weren't forgiving for us being on their lands.

The pack started leading us down the path that they had taken to find us. I could smell the scent of some other wolves who didn't have the same scent as the pack. It made me wonder if they had gotten away, or if we would too.

Do you have a plan? Lianna asked into my head.

I'm working on it. Just do what they say for now. If we try picking a fight now they'll just kill us. I replied into both her's and Jake's minds.

We walked for twenty minutes like good little hostages. We came into a small clearing. I could tell this pack was very different from our own. The children weren't playing, but instead training. The lower ranking wolves were being treated like slaves. They were being forced to dig pits and build houses under the supervision of higher up wolves.

We walk through the clearing to the only building that didn't look like a run down shack. Outside was a wolf chained to a post. Except this one wasn't a werewolf like us, just a normal Arctic wolf.

A man stepped out of the house, most likely notified of our arrival by link. The Arctic wolf looked at him and nervously sank to its belly. It looked down at the ground, not even making eye contact with the man. This was the alpha of this terrible place.

"Sir, we found these three on the edge of our borders," the lanky guy said.

"Very good Decimus," the Archos replied. As he passed Decimus, Decimus bowed his head.

Archos approached us and examined us. He circled Jake first, then Lianna, sizing them up. Then he approached me. He was a bit taller than me and stockier built.

He smirks and grabs my chin in a hard grip. I didn't give him the satisfaction of making a sound. He tilts my head to see my neck before smirking again and letting go.

"What are your names?" He asks.

I didn't say anything, and Jake Lianna understood my silence and revealed nothing as well.

"Silence? Tsk tsk, it's rude to not reply," he says. Then to Decimus he says, "take them to the cells. Maybe a few days in there without food or water will make them feel like talking. But not the girl. Take her inside."

"No! Leave her alone. If you so much as look at her wrong I'll-" Jake starts, but gets cut off by a punch to the gut from one of his guards.

Lianna and I strain to reach him but our guards hold us back. Archos rolls his eyes and turns away, not even bothering with Jake. He instead approached Lianna and stares at her face with another smirk. Lianna glares back at him. That was the last thing Jake and I saw before we were knocked unconscious to be led away by Decimus and his guards.