Predators and Prey

         Callie stumbled, her hand splayed outward as she fell. It connected with the wet mud beneath her. At first, Callie Mclaughlin had been thankful for the rain, the cloud cover made it hard to see, but she was fairly used to navigating her way in the dark. The mud and water also masked her scent from her pursuers. It was part of why she chose this night to strike at the werewolf clan that hid in the woods outside of the city, because she knew she would be able to get close enough to them to get a good shot off. Her scent would be masked by the downpour, and even with their superior sense of smell they could not fight mother nature in all her forms.
         What she had not accounted for, was the only monster among them she actually considered to be human, stepping right in front of her target as she let her arrow fly. She had shifted her shot at the last possible second and still managed to lodge her arrow in the shoulder of her primary target, but that didn't much matter now. The moment the wolves realized she was there, her number had been up. She had scrambled away, but a sixty yard head start didn't feel like much when the things she ran from went from two legs to four in the blink of an eye.
         She knew the odds, but her mind would not focus on them, not now, when she ran for her survival. Callie recovered from the stumble and continued onward, pushing as hard as her short legs would allow her to go. She could hear the sound of howling behind her, echoing and spreading as the wolves no doubt moved to flank her on either side.
         Much like their normal counterparts, werewolves were excellent hunters that worked together to bring down large prey. Unlike them though, these creatures did not kill only to survive. Callie could remember the lessons her father taught her when she was barely more than a child, about the blood lust that each wolf inherited on their first turn under the moonlight.
         "It's best to kill 'em in the cradle, if you ask me." Jon Mclaughlin had told her. "Letting them live with that sort of disgusting hunger, to become a monster like that...Well that's just inhumane, darlin'."
         His words echoed in her head now as she ran. He had also told her never to hunt alone, but she had gone against that cardinal rule tonight.
         Jon had died years ago, and ever since his passing she felt like she needed to claim her stake among the other hunters. Most of them were burly, battered looking men who knew their way around rifles and knives. Callie was barely 5'3", blonde and petite. She stood out like a sore thumb, and they rarely let her forget it.
         Killing the pack Alpha would have changed all that though, especially since Malcolm Kramer was more of a lone wolf and less of an actual leader. One of the hunters from her group had taken out his wife years before, and most packs operated under a mated male and female Alpha pair. Rather than stepping aside when his wife Madelyn died, Malcolm became more aggressive and more of a dictator over the wolves in his care. It was why he had made the perfect target.
         Killing him would cause the pack to disjoint and possibly disband, ending the series of brutal murders the town had suffered in the last decade since Madelyn's death. The sheriff always chalked them up to animal attacks, but Callie and the others knew better.
         Callie stumbled again, but this time she was not able to recover before she found herself pinned beneath a weight of fur and heat. He had her on her stomach, but she could feel his breath against her ear as he growled. The low grumble of a wolf shifted into a full and almost melodic laugh of a man. Callie felt the weight lift off her slightly as he used his hands to turn her over, but he straddled her waist and kept her pinned at the wrists beneath him.
         "Well, well, well, what do we have here? Daddy's little huntress decided to come out to play, did she? Where are all your friends, sweetheart?" Ty Kramer asked.
         Ty was the only son of Malcolm and Madelyn, and where his father's rage had become ruthless and brutal at their loss, Tyler had become savage in a different way. He was the sort that liked to play with is food, just the thought of his reputation made Callie's stomach turn. His normally hazel eyes glowed yellow as his gaze lingered over her body, before settling back on her face.
         In another life and if he was slightly less psychotic, Callie might have found Ty attractive. He was all lean muscle and sinewed shape. His normally sandy blond hair looked darker, both due to the lack of light and the mud that had gotten caught in it.
         He offered her a predatory grin as he leaned in close enough that the steam from their breath mingled in the air together.
         "Even covered in mud, you look good enough to eat." He licked his lips and then stuck his tongue outward to graze her dirtied cheek.
         "Don't do it Ty. Even you know you can't kill her without your dad's say so." A voice said from behind Ty.
         Callie immediately recognized the man's voice. It was Kurtis Cole, the man who had caused her to miss the shot right into Malcolm's heart. Cole somehow seemed less an animal then the rest of them, at least in her encounters with him. Even now, his large, deep brown eyes seemed to offer her sympathy as she caught sight of him over Ty's shoulder.
He was the man they sent into town when they needed supplies or something they couldn't steal or get off the land. He was soft spoken and had always been kind in his interactions with the townsfolk. It was the only reason he survived the trips into town, so maybe that was the real reason for his polite and gentle demeanor. It was another survival tactic that perhaps she had misinterpreted. That mistake was likely about to get her killed. Even if he had stalled Ty, it was only a matter of time. It was how they operated. Deep down, even Kurtis was a monster. Even he had that hunger to rip human flesh to shreds.
He was just the most moral of the monsters.
         Ty leaned back and pouted out his bottom lip at her, his eyes filled with fire and lust.
         "Always the guy to spoil the party, Cole, aren't you? Pops couldn't shift with that arrow in his shoulder, and it'll be a hot minute before the others get here, maybe she fought me. Maybe she tried to kill me too. Maybe I had to put her down. I can make it quick." Ty said.
         "He'll be here soon enough." Cole answered, effectively ending the debate.
         The next few moments were spent in tense silence, as Ty kept her pinned and waiting for whatever sentence his father would deal out to her. His eyes were never far from her, her face, her body, and she could almost feel a physical and violating weight as he looked at her. Callie did her best to ignore it though. She would use this time to plan, to find her way out.
         She went over the gear she had in her head. Her crossbow had been discarded, but there were still bolts on her hip quiver. She had a stun grenade in the pouch secured against the small of her back, but she wasn't sure she could reach it while Ty continued to loom over her. Even if he was a normal man of his size and stature, he would have had the upper hand when it came to strength, but he was a werewolf, and with that came a strength that would seem impossible to most.
         Her planning came to an abrupt halt when she heard footsteps sloshing through the mud near them.
         Malcolm Kramer hummed a vaguely familiar tune as he came toward her, some classic rock song that her father might have listened to in the seventies. Where it should have given her feelings of nostalgia, it only instilled feelings of dread.
         "You know, girl, I find it funny that you didn't just take the shot. I mean, I've seen you in action before. You could have hit poor Mister Cole here and reloaded, then taken me out as well. You're fast enough with that bow of yours to do such a thing." Malcolm said as he ambled toward her.
He looked a lot like his son, his hair had thinned years ago and his build was wider, a bit broader in the shoulders than Ty. He and Ty looked more like brothers than father and son though, since the werewolves didn't age quite as quickly as their human counterparts.
She could see something in Malcolm that she recognized in herself too, pain at the loss of someone, the sort of need for revenge against those that had trespassed against him. Even when anger haunted his features, she could still see the pain behind it, the sorrow.
         He held a big, crumpled piece of fabric against the wound on his shoulder. She guessed that the arrow head had already been pulled out, and now it was just a matter of letting his accelerated healing do the work. He'd be good as new in a day or two, like nothing ever happened.
         "This is why all those big fellas you hang around with think you're weak, girl..." He said as he crouched beside her.
         Malcolm peered at her a moment, his eyes narrowing as if he was considering something.
         "Maybe they're right, maybe you are. But I think this sort of behavior is an act of foolish bravery, not weakness. You thought you'd show all of 'em. Show them that you're just like your daddy. Strong and ready to make the sacrifice." He chuckled to himself.
         "Hell, even if I kill you now, all it's gonna do is make them gun for my head on a platter. You'd have fashioned yourself into a martyr, little lady. So I got a question for you, are you the hunter or are you the prey?" Malcolm asked.
          Callie had been ready to snake out a crossbow bolt and lodge into Ty Kramer's thigh, hoping the wound would send him reeling back to give her an opening. The question, however, caused her to pause.
         She was caught in a situation she wasn't likely to get out of, but she still had to try. For now, she decided to play along. Callie wanted know where he planned to go with all this.
         "I've killed enough of your kind to know I'm a hunter." She said with a defiant lift of her chin.
         Malcolm again chuckled.
         "No, darlin', you're the prey. All that's standin' between you and the afterlife, is what I say, and that's what makes me the hunter." He clarified. "Then I guess it comes down to one last question, you gonna die like a rabbit in a trap in the woods, or are you gonna make the choice to survive?"
         Callie blanked, suddenly worried she had telegraphed her plan to stab Ty and make a run for it again. Had Malcolm seen her fingers move toward the quiver? Had her expression given something away?
         She stayed there, frozen beneath Ty. Even if the hulking man wasn't doing his best to keep her pinned to the ground, she still would not have moved in that moment. Malcolm must have read that as her being afraid to speak because he again repeated his question.
         "I'm offering you an option here, girl. I know what your friends told ya, what your daddy told ya about the big bad wolves in the woods, but you think they're any different? They kill and murder just like they claim we do, but you have a choice in things. Die as prey, or survive, and and be a real hunter." Malcolm said.
         Callie didn't hesitate then, she pulled the bolt free, gripped it tightly in her hand and stuck in hard into Ty's leg. She hoped she at least nicked the femoral artery, because at least then they would be more worried about him bleeding out than tracking her down immediately. They would come for her eventually, but she just had to survive long enough to get a running start. Then she could figure the rest out.
         Ty shrieked in pain and barreled over toward his father, colliding with the older man, which caused Malcolm to lose his balance in the mud. Callie dug against it beneath her and got to her feet. She started to run before even giving a second thought to the grenade in the pouch at her back. She did not forget about it though. Even though Cole was the most decent of these animals, that did not mean he would let her escape. She ran several yards and stopped behind a tree, where she pulled the grenade free and just as quickly pulled the pin free of the stun grenade, throwing it in the direction that Cole would come from.
         If she had something stronger, she might not have spared him. Callie wondered if a real hunter would go for the kill, take him out despite her reluctance. Slowing Cole down was going to have to be enough for now. Maybe she wasn't ready to be the kind of predator that Malcolm was, but she thought she might get there, someday. Someday, soon.
         She shook those thoughts from her head for now and ran with every ounce of energy she could muster. For the first mile or so, she could hear the howls of the wolves behind her, although they sounded markedly more pained than as determined as they had seemed before. She ran until she reached one of the main streets of the small town she had grown up in and she only stopped when a car screeched to a halt in order not to hit her.
         The man behind the wheel got out of the car and rushed over to her side. By the look on his face, Callie was fairly certain she looked as if she had been put through the ringer, her clothes and face covered in mud, bits of it caked in her hair.
         "Callie? What in hell's name are you doing out now?" The man asked.
         Callie could not help but laugh, because she knew the man very well. Burt was like an uncle to her and one of the first to tell her she wasn't cut out for the work of a hunter.
         "I tried to kill Malcolm Kramer." She stated as if she was telling him the weather, like it was a simple fact.
         He stared at her moment in disbelief, before grabbing her by the arm and ushering her toward the car.
         "You foolish girl. You can't kill a monster like him by yourself." He scolded her as he opened the car door.
         "True." She agreed. "But I'm pretty sure I killed his son." Callie said as she slammed the door shut.
         Burt brought the engine to life and she watched out the window as they sped away. Her thoughts went back to the question that Malcolm Kramer had posed to her, about being a real hunter. She wondered if he still thought her to be prey, or if her actions had proved otherwise to him.
Either way, the next time she got that sort of shot, she would take it.
He would know who the real hunter was then.