Chapter 1

Block. Duck. Grab, twist and throw the leg.

Aiden gained the upper hand on his opponent, knocking them to the ground and then following them, twisting them until they lay on their stomach with his clawed hand clutching their throat from above. Aiden remained in that position for another second and then rose, helping the other wolf up. Unfortunately, his opponent was the only wolf in their pack that he could overcome one-on-one.

"Good job, Ethan." His Alpha called from the boulder a couple feet away. "Maybe next time you'll actually beat Alice, instead of just picking on Kyle all the time." Aiden grumbled as he walked to the edge of the clearing, allowing Alice and Chase to face off. Both of them had kicked Aiden's trash when he was required to fight either of them. Whenever he and Ethan fought together, however, none of the others could stop them single-handedly. They had yet to try their luck against more than one opponent while fighting together.

Aiden always thought that they could take anyone else in their pack if they worked together. Ethan, however, was more wary of their abilities. Too much cockiness would get them beaten up by the others, just to knock them down a peg or two. Their pack wasn't the nicest group of people. Everyone vied for the coveted position of second-best, if only because none of them were good enough to take top. Tyrell, their Alpha, was very secure in his position as top dog; others had tried to take his place in the past, but that was why there were only five Betas in the pack now.

Aiden was walking home to meet up with Ethan, who had failed to show up to training, much to his brother's dismay. Tyrell seemed to have no opinion on the matter, however. That alone made Aiden somewhat wary. Normally a missed practice session resulted in cussing and threats to one's life. The fact that Tyrell was calm about Ethan's absence made Aiden think that the Alpha knew what was going on. That alone would not normally bode ill for Ethan, but the fact that Aiden didn't know what was going on made him worry. Ethan never did not know when something unusual was happening to his twin.

Arriving home, he failed to catch a recent sample of his brother's scent; Ethan had not been home since they both left for school. That made two reasons for him to start worrying. He pulled out his cell phone and pressed speed dial one, waiting for his brother to answer.

"Hey…Aiden." Something was wrong.

"Ethan? What's wrong? Where are you?"

"I'm…" a slight moan reached Aiden's ears from the other side of the phone, and not the good kind of moan. "Somewhere. In the woods. Just…track me from school." Ethan was definitely in pain. The two brothers were no strangers to pain, but if Ethan had missed training and was somewhere in the woods, then he was too hurt to move much. Reason number three to worry.

"Don't worry, I'll be right there. Just…make sure you don't die." Aiden hung up his phone and sprinted to pull his motorcycle from the garage, pushing and starting it as he got on to make a quick getaway. He made it to the school in record time, parking next to his brother's motorcycle – which really shouldn't still be there – barely managing to put up the kickstand and take off his helmet in his hurried state.

Inhaling a large lungful of air, Aiden identified his brothers scent and took off in a dead sprint along its trail into the woods. Claws and teeth extended when he recognized that there was a second, very familiar scent mixed in with his brother's trail. His Alpha and brother trekking deep into the woods alone could not be anything but bad. Especially given Aiden's three reasons to worry. Careful to not lose his brother's trail, Aiden made sure that he was running as fast as his werewolf-enhanced muscles would allow.

After minutes that seemed like hours, Aiden finally found Ethan hiding among some bushes curled up in a ball around his stomach. The area reeked of blood. "Ethan! I'm here. What's wrong?" Aiden slid to a stop next to his clearly-wounded twin, careful not to jostle him. His shirt was shredded, barely clinging to Ethan's frame, and soaked with blood. His pants were in a better state, but they too had numerous blood stains and would not be publicly wearable again.

"Aiden…What happened to you?" Aiden carefully helped his brother uncurl, straightening his limbs while being careful to not let the wounds on his back directly touch the ground. Deep claw marks raked along Ethan's chest and gouges cut through his stomach. The wounds were still wide open, potentially threatening the young werewolf's life with their severity. "Did Tyrell do this?" His brother only nodded weakly. That explained why they still looked so bad.

"Come on, bro, we've got to get you home."

"I can't walk. He cut…my left hamstring." Aiden's eyes grew wide and he sighed in frustration.

"Alright. We'll handle this together, Ethan."

"No, Aiden, don't. Just help me up and then you can carry me home. We don't need-"

"I can't carry you home looking like this." Aiden interrupted. "It would take far too long anyways. You need to be in less mortal danger." Ethan tried to pose another objection, but his brother merely grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. Ethan sighed as his pain began to recede, flinching at Aiden's repressed groans.

Aiden struggled to remain silent as slashes began to open up in his stomach and back, and fought not to cry as he felt the back of his thigh open up. Ethan's wounds had clearly been even worse than he had thought if this was only half of what was plaguing his brother. Ethan sighed and then sat up slowly. The twins then helped each other up to their feet and began to make their way back to the school.

"You didn't have to do that, Aiden."

"Yes I did." The twins remained silent for a short time as they got their rhythm of walking down. Aiden would step with his right leg while Ethan stepped forward with his left, the brothers working in an alternating rhythm so that neither one had to put their full weight on their left leg.

"Now, why did Tyrell attack you?" Aiden was very close to going ballistic on their Alpha. He had always been more impulsive twin. Ethan was the one more likely to think through a course of action before acting. They would need to think about the good and the bad of doing anything to retaliate against their Alpha. Before they even contemplated that, however, they needed to make it home.

"Because I told him that I was going to be late to training. Jeram asked me for help in Math, and so we both stayed after school a bit so that I could help him get caught up. Tyrell didn't think that helping my boyfriend do well in school was a good enough reason. Called me outside about fifteen minutes after we had started, dragged me out to the woods, and did this. Then you showed up an hour later."

"Dammit, Ethan, you were dying for an hour?!" his brother hollered in rage. It's a good thing they were werewolves, or those wounds would have killed him! As it was, his twin probably wouldn't have made it much longer. Aiden was ever-grateful for whatever being gave him and his twin added abilities when they dealt with each other. The best ability at the present was their ability to share wounds. It changed Ethan's mortal wounds into deeply painful-but-not-deadly wounds and then gave Aiden the same wounds. That ability had saved both twins on occasion, and made both of them able to fight longer because they could even each other out, and therefore fight harder and longer. Unless they were both badly wounded; then they were in trouble.

"I know. I couldn't call though. He turned my phone off, and I was initially in too much pain to twist enough to get it out of my pocket. Plus, passed out shortly after he left and didn't wake up until you called." Ethan sighed, using the hand that wasn't around Aiden's shoulder to pinch the bridge of his nose. Ethan once again thought that fourteen-year-old boys shouldn't be dealing with this crap.

When the twins arrived home they were relieved beyond belief that their parents were both still at work. They were free to retreat to their shared room and fix each other up without worrying about interruptions. Their matching stomach and chest wounds were bad enough that they put in some stitches, both gritting their teeth as the other twin worked on them. Alpha wounds wouldn't heal as quickly as normal wounds, making the stitches necessary for a day or two. Gauze and medical tape was good enough for their back scratches. Ethan could feel a cracked rib as well, so they wrapped each other up tightly in bandage to help that heal. Neither twin wanted to stitch up their hamstrings, so they settled for super glue. It wasn't ideal, but they just needed the wound closed long enough for their muscle to heal and the skin knit back together. They tightly wrapped up their legs and then got redressed, calling it good.

Neither twin spoke again until they were sitting at the table, a large portion of vegetable-based stir-fry with chicken on top of ramen sitting in front of them. Normally their mom would cook, but the twins had grown proficient at providing for themselves when their parents were late at work. "Ethan," Aiden started, "We need to do something about Tyrell." Ethan had just taken a bite of food so he allowed the silence to reign as he chewed and thought about how to respond.

"I know." He said after he swallowed. "I know we do, Aiden. He's always been volatile…but this is going too far." A punch from their Alpha every once in a while was common. A sound thrashing was not abnormal either, if less common. What Tyrell had done to his brother, however, had not happened before. Aiden was not okay with it.

"Okay." Aiden nodded mid-chew. "We'll wait until we're all healed up, then we'll take Tyrell out. If we fight together, we should be able to overpower him. Especially if we take him by-"

"We're not just going to straight up attack him, Aiden." Ethan shook his head in exasperation and took another bite. "We need to be smart about this."

"Well, if we're not just going to kill him, how on earth are we going to stop him from doing this again? Or worse?"

"I never said we weren't going to kill him. I just said that we can't attack him head-on. We might fight much better together than alone, but I still doubt our ability against our Alpha." Aiden remained quiet, taking another bite, while Ethan thought and chewed. Swallowing, Ethan went on. "We need to be…sneaky. He's stronger than us. He's faster and more skilled than us. We need…"

"Let's just use Wolf's Bane." Aiden's callous comment caused his brother's eyebrows to raise and his mouth to open in immediate refusal. However, Ethan held his voice and gave the comment some thought. The chemistry lab at their high school had some stuff that Ethan knew he could make explode. He could separate…Yes. That could work.

"Why is Wolf's Bane so easy to get ahold of in this town?" Ethan wondered aloud, smiling at his brother's waiting expression.

Mr. Alexander was more than happy to help his student get to the nurse, walking Aiden all the way to the other end of the school and leaving his classroom – and lab – unattended. Ethan snuck in as soon as they had left, happier than ever that their school was too cheap for video cameras in more than the entry hall and the office.

He quickly located their teacher's keys and stole into the supply closet. Looking around him, Ethan found the supplies he was looking for; vials, beakers, a canter of hydrochloric acid and a bottle of potassium metal. He made sure they were the most concentrated samples in the closet and then quickly deposited both large bottles into his book bag, along with the beakers and vials. Very carefully, Ethan left and locked the supply closet and then made his way carefully back to his locker. Werewolf agility made it easy enough to make it the whole way without being jostled or bumped by the roving students.

After depositing his bag into his locker, Ethan made his way back to the last class of the day, waiting with bated breath until he could retrieve his twin from the nurse and they could leave school. World History was easy enough, so Ethan made good use of his time drawing out his plans and calculating measurements.

Finally the end of the day drew around and as the final bell tolled, Ethan was up and out of the room with almost inhuman speed. He grabbed his backpack and waited on his bike for Aiden to show up. Five minutes later and he sighed in relief as his brother exited the school. "You got all the stuff?"

"Except the gun powder, but we can grab that after we drop this stuff off at home. I don't want to walk into Walmart to buy bullets with a bag full of obviously stolen, highly volatile chemicals." Aiden smiled and donned his helmet, Ethan immediately following suit.

"That's quite a lot of ammo you two are buying." Ethan smiled at the cashier at the hidden accusation. He continued to ring up the epoxy-clay and thirty boxes of .223 ammunition. Ethan was very glad that he had spent all of last summer mowing lawns, taking care of pools and gardens and all other sort of intensive work that could be done. He had earned more than twenty-thousand dollars in one summer, merely working all day for the rich neighborhood a mere thirty minutes away from his house.

"My brother and I like to practice. We go shooting every couple weeks, and we like to stock up so we don't have to go out every time we want to go shooting." The man nodded and continued ringing up the ammo. Finally the boxes were all packed into bags, the total showing up on the small screen. Ethan nodded, having expected the large sum. He pulled out several hundred-dollar bills that he had gotten from exchanging numerous smaller bills at the bank. Handing the man the money, he waited for the change and then the two boys took their bags and left.

"I can't believe he didn't ask for our IDs! I totally thought he was going to card us!" Aiden sighed in relief as they got into their mom's borrowed car. "So mom doesn't expect us back until dinner, right?" Ethan nodded as he began to drive south. They were headed toward a construction site that had run out of money midway, so the building was abandoned. Bare concrete and cement were the only things that remained at the site, making it the perfect testing ground for their 'project.'

Ethan removed his bag and the shoe box of dried Wolf's Bane while Aiden grabbed all of the bullets and epoxy. After walking half a mile to the site and hopping a fence, the boys made their way inside of the abandoned building so as not to be interrupted.

Ethan instructed his brother to grind the wolf's bane into a powder using the rubber gloves he had thrown into his bag. While Aiden did that, Ethan began pour acid and pieces of metal into separate vials, happy that the vials appeared quite fragile. He then placed the vials into one of the beakers, smiling when both fit snuggly inside without sticking out of the top or needing to be forced. Ethan then began unscrewing the bullets with the pliers he had jacked from his father's tool box, emptying the black powder into the beaker around the vials. Aiden finished grinding all of the wolf's bane and began helping his brother unscrew all six-hundred bullets.

After two hours, the boys had several beakers filled with black powder. "Mix some of the wolf's bane into the nearly-complete beaker." Ethan gestured to the beaker with the vials and powder in it. Aiden mixed the wolf's bane into the black powder carefully while Ethan began to work a stick of the epoxy puddy. Once the puddy was well-mixed and hot, Ethan managed to flatten it out and lay it across the top of the beaker, packing the sides down so it would stick to the glass. He waited another two minutes and smiled when the puddy stayed and remained hard. "Are you ready to test this?" Ethan smiled at his brother, earning a smile in response.

The two boys stood and retreated to a more open part of the abandoned building. Ethan was once again grateful that the builders had not started on the wood-work yet. Aiden thought that where they now stood would have been part of the parking garage, due to the shape of the walls and how spread apart they were. Ethan smiled and adopted a pitcher's stance.

"Three."

"Two." Aiden continued.

"One." Both boy chorused.

Ethan hurled the beaker filled with the volatile substances as hard as he could and as far as he could. The beaker smashed into the far wall and, faster than the boys could see even with their enhanced sight, shattered the vials, mixing their substances and causing the HCl and Potassium to explode, which then ignited the black powder as well, causing an explosion that made both boys smile.

I don't claim that the recipe for a bomb will actually work. Never done it, never intend to try it. to my limited knowledge of chemistry, it makes sense, so don't try this at home, kids. Just in case my imagination is correct!