76

When I turned on the news while feeding the boys, it had gone nuts. The stories were one after another.
Multiple banks had been hacked, raising fears that they wouldn’t be able to open after the Labor Day holiday.
Multiple blackouts had occurred as hackers sabotaged the electric grid, plunging several big cities into darkness.
An attack on the Utah data center storing the NSA archive looked like it was successful, even though the agency refused to comment on the damage. News footage showed the huge facility in flames as men and werewolves ran around and set more explosives.
At the NSA headquarters and multiple agencies in Washington, DC, all hell had broken loose just after I went to bed. When word got around that the Government was using ultraviolet light to identify werewolves, the wolves didn’t wait for the checks to come. Some shifted and attacked their coworkers, using the chaos that resulted to escape.
Others did what they could to protect their species; equipment was damaged, case files destroyed, computers destroyed, and leaders assassinated. At NSA headquarters, two werewolves in the computer room killed the other techs after locking down the entrances and disabling the overrides. As police and agents frantically tried to break in the impenetrable doors, they calmly destroyed every single tape, hard drive and electronic storage device before setting the whole place on fire.
Eighteen refineries across the country had shutdowns from what was later determined to be physical or computer sabotage. Most would take weeks to restart, leading some pundits to predict gas prices would double and we would see lines at the pump for the first time since the 70’s.
In police departments and military units across the country, werewolves were causing havoc. They attacked their former coworkers, interfered with ongoing operations and warned Packs of upcoming attacks.
Hundreds of false werewolf sightings and Pack locations were called in. This tactic, called SWATTING, resulted in innocent human families being targeted for no-knock raids or bombings. The sheer number of false attacks would put a damper on government operations for months to come.
I laughed a little as I watched the news anchors squirm, almost shocked that this was happening. What did they THINK would happen when they turned against us? Would we just give up, walking hand in hand to our deaths because they were afraid of us?
Hardly.
Wolves are predators, we are the hunters, not the hunted.
We will give our lives to protect our families and our Pack.
Above all, we will survive.
It was time humans learned this.
Marge and Mabel were laying out breakfast as I came down. Craig had already finished, he was in the living room watching the coverage with a few other Pack members. I handed the twins off to Melanie, she and Jacob were on the couch together. I could tell by the way she looked at them that she was looking forward to her first heat, and hopefully babies of her own.
Nadine and Natalie were already at the table, eating stacks of pancakes. I grabbed a plate and loaded it up, extra bacon and blueberries, and sat down with them.
The door opened and Olivia walked in with Mark. They were each carrying one of the twins, who had matching red eyes and tousled hair. Tom and Shelley followed behind. Mabel hurried out to meet them, assuring them we had plenty of food for them since they had showed up unannounced.
“Good morning Craig, Ella, everyone,” she said. “Sorry about dropping in like this, but we had a rough night. The twins wanted to see their Alphas.”
“That’s not a problem,” Craig said. He held his arms out and the two ran over to him as soon as they were set down. Even without their wolves, they felt a pull to him, an instinctual knowledge that he was there to protect them. They fell into his arms, both crying about their parents and how they missed them. Craig’s wolf was forward, his Pack members were hurting and needed his comfort. It didn’t matter that they were human, or that they had barely met yesterday.
Mabel ushered the adults to the table and set about getting food ready for them. She put her hand on Olivia’s shoulder as she set a plate in front of her. “How are you doing, dear?”
She looked up at her, tears welling in her eyes. “It’s hard,” she said. “Everything is different, muted, softer. I don’t have the speed or the strength I used to.” She looked at Ella. “I’m so sorry, Ella. I didn’t know until yesterday just how much we took from you that weekend.”
I got up and walked around to her, giving her a hug. “You didn’t take anything from me, Olivia, we’ve been through this. I’ve forgiven you for your part in it all, you need to let it go as well.” She nodded into my shoulder as she cried it out. “Now you need to eat.”
She started to cut up her pancakes as Mark looked over at me. “We were talking to each other about when I would make the change, Ella. I wanted to be bonded with her in that way, and now I don’t know what to do.”
I gave him a hug as well. “You don’t have to do anything right away, Mark. Right now it’s probably best you are human, it is safer for the both of you, and our Pack needs humans to help us survive. When you are ready, if you still want to, I’m sure Craig will do it for you.”
“What about us? We’re in the thick of this as well.” Tom held Shelley’s hand. “How can we help?”
“I think we need a Pack meeting this morning, I’ve got a few ideas. Marge, did you order those contacts?”
“Yep, a whole case of them. They are arriving tomorrow, should be here by ten by overnight air.” Luckily, only passenger aviation had been shut down, the cargo lines were still operating. “Craig, bring the twins in here so they can eat.”
He carried them in and set them in the booster seats, they squealed with delight at what was on their plates. Marge had made Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes, with blueberries for eyes and mouth and whipped cream. They murmured “Thank you” as they dug in. While they were cutting it up, she set another plate with an egg and bacon on it next to them, alone with some juice.
When everyone was done, we asked Natalie to take the boys to the theater room and I put Frozen on the big screen for them. The three cuddled up together in one of the theater chairs together and I left them, leaving the door open. I might not hear, but the werewolves would know if something was wrong.
Everyone was waiting in the living room for me to get back, except one. “Where’s Josh?”
John chuckled. “He’s sleeping, he was up all night. I don’t know everything he did, but I know he was working on a banking system. He was saying something about hitting the lottery when he finally went to sleep.”
I sat next to Craig as he opened the meeting up. “A lot has changed in the last day, so I wanted to talk out a few things with you all. The most concerning item is that the humans have figured out a way to identify us as werewolves while in human form, by using a black light to detect the wolf vision in our eyes. This makes it extremely dangerous to be out in public, and you know how they react to us.”
I picked it up. “We ran into the checkpoint on the highway yesterday; you all know what Olivia did to get us through. I don’t want anyone else to have to give up what she did. There was a car ahead of us, the guy was caught and tried to escape but they cut him down. He never had a chance.” I wiped a tear away. “There is no mercy, no due process. They are killing us like rabid animals.”
Jacob nodded. “I’ve been looking at their tactics; they’ve had to shift a little because of the sheer number of false reports. Now what they do is surround the house, then send a squad in to do eye checks. If they find werewolves, even one, they level the place. I’m worried that your name or your parent’s name is out there somewhere, Ella, and it leads them to us.”
“How can we stop them? I know Josh and his hackers are doing some things, but they can’t catch it all.” The whole situation made me nervous as hell.