A/N: Keep it together, I don't own them. Thanks to Words without for the beta job!
I know others use the italics convention to note when one of the wolves is talking in wolf fom, but I never have and never will differentiate between speech in wolf form and speech in human form because the illusion doesn't affect their speech in the manga or the anime. Sometimes it may be slightly confusing, but there'll be in-story clues to figure out who's in what form if it's important. I trust you to figure it out.
Yeah, the line that inspired Chapter 47's title can be applied equally to Tsume, Toboe, Zali, and even Kiba and Blue to a certain extent, but the song title is "Fire Escape," and we're dealing with Moss, Ethan[e], and Wormwood, (with references to Cole, Gauss[ian flare], and [Salt]Pete[r],) on a platform that shares a call-sign with the Rolls Royce Mustang... (Yes, Warg is a geek.) Best see who escapes the conflagration, no?
"Where is he?" Moss snarled as he entered the clinic. "And don't tell me he's dead, because ghosts don't threaten our livelihood like that." The pack had managed to work the sled most of the way up the ramp before they heard a cry from the upper levels. After that, things had descended fairly quickly into chaos.
Hige had been the first to recognize the source, as well as the rifle that slid out to teeter on the edge of the catwalk. "Stay safe, Toboe," he'd instructed his younger companion, working his way around the sled and up the ramp. The boy hadn't listened, following right after him.
Moss had staggered as the pack absorbed the released weight, but so had Zali, and Wormwood was an expert at ridding himself of the harness, even under pressure. Moss followed suit, wishing that Gauss had been there to join them. And just what did Ethan think he was doing, tugging along as if he knew nothing about their plans, as if he really were just some old dog of Zali's?
Strays, the large, creamy-brown wolf thought dismissively. Once a wolf left its own family, there was nothing to assure any pack dumb enough to take it in that the vagabond wolf wouldn't just turn traitor to them, as well. Look at Zali. Look at Tsume. Ethan had seemed steadier, cooler of head in his advanced years, but he'd joined the pack even later than those two. All Moss could really count on were his siblings, and even they had their blind spots. Gauss's had been deadly, but Cole's was worse: Cole's was Zali.
Part of Moss wanted to remove that weakness where he stood, straining with his pack against the weight of the sled. It was tempting, watching the big dark gray struggle in that harness, condescending to do an honest day's work that might yet be his last, if Moss let his lower instincts get the better of him. How rarely Zali pulled with them, nose to tail in the harnesses! No, the scarred alpha was too good for that; he had to "deal with the humans!" There was no human managing them now. If Moss and Wormwood ripped out Zali's throat now, it would simply be a dogfight. At worst, the humans would complain that they'd have one less animal to pull, one more body to drag to the trash.
But it really would mean one less pulling, and one stoically pained expression on his little sister's face. Cole wouldn't cry in front of him; Moss knew her too well to fear that. But cry she would, and he'd be leaving her pups fatherless in this cruel old world. It might be better for them, but Moss respected the bonds of blood too much to do that… yet.
For now, it was enough to come flying up on Zali's flank, biting deeply into the gray wolf's side, knowing that Wormwood was providing distraction by harrying just as rabidly at Zali's right side. The tall gray tried to twist and snap at them, but only tangled himself further in the harness. "Forget what your pet traitor said. The humans will be answering to me from now on, and so will you." Moss warned him in an undertone, changing his grip to the long scar down the side of Zali's face. The rest of the pack yelped and whined as the charcoal colored wolf shook himself hard enough to yank the entire line of harnesses, but the alpha - former alpha, Moss corrected himself gleefully - still couldn't remove his challengers. Grudgingly, Zali stilled and sank into defeat.
The creamy brown wolf was hardly stupid enough to change form in front of the human dockworkers, but he didn't bother to pick up the pack's monetary reward for a job well done. Let Ethan retrieve it from the humans once the foreman arose from his quivering ball of fear, or let Zali do the one part of alpha work he'd been good at. Moss had won, and he was finished here. Before the humans could do more than yell at the "rouge dogs," Moss and Wormwood left for the clinic to share their news with Cole, and perhaps track down the other gray wanderer that needed to learn his place.
Moss would not hesitate to kill Tsume. That worthless little runt should have died years ago. Until his appearance today, Moss thought Tsume had. The traitor still bore the heavy scar from their alpha's bite; the chest wound that should have left his heart pouring quite literally out of his body after the damn young gray had led them into an ambush and then summarily abandoned them. Zali was supposed to have been leading that group, but he couldn't even control his runt, even then. Was it any wonder that Zali had brought the pack to this, once more with the help of the dark-skinned sliver-gray?
"I don't know what you're talking about," Cole said. So she wanted to deny his existence entirely? Fine; Moss could play that game.
"Well, wherever he is, he'd better keep running." As soon as he could be spared, Moss would send Wormwood after the troublemaking punk. There would be no more games here but Moss's own.
