Disclaimer- Do not own Young Justice or any of it's characters.
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Chapter Length: 3,699 words
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They blindfolded him and bound his hands behind his back with a zip tie. The hard plastic cut into his wrists, and the jarring trip that ensued made it worse. He was tossed out onto the fire escape; he could tell by the loud groaning and shaking as they all piled up on the rickety metal. Cracking bones and growls of pain reached his ears, and the next thing he knew he was being tossed over a wide, furry shoulder.
The muggy air of Gotham surrounded the redhead, making him feel suffocated and alone, cut off from everyone and everything by an invisible mask of heat. He tried to keep himself calm as he was flipped upside down over the shoulder, all the blood rushing to his face as the three wolves traversed up the brick wall as Artemis had done so many nights ago.
"Where are you taking me?" Wally demanded. He had no sense of time, but judging by the fact it had been late evening when he talked to his mom, he figured it must be getting dark. It would be foolish for the werewolves to be taking him away in any amount of daylight.
In response to his question, he felt something wrap around one of his ankles. He yelled in shock when he was pulled away from the solid mass of fur that had been his only anchor to the world around him. Blind and with nothing to ground him aside from the thing gripping his ankle, he flailed his arms and grasped nothing but air. He struggled, heart pounding while his free leg swung around to try and get a hold on something, anything. He could hear cars and a few people on the streets in front of the buildings, completely oblivious to the terror he was facing.
Einstein, these guys are crazy!
"Look, red, the way I sees it, you got two choices," came Tommy's deep, irritated voice. "You can shut yer mouth while we take you some place real nice, or I can drop you off right now an' you can rot in that alley. What'll it be?"
In the hands of these three delinquents, Wally couldn't help but seriously entertain, if just for a moment, the thought of taking the alley route out. But then he remembered that this might be his only chance at finding Artemis, and he clamped down on the impulse.
"Alright, alright, just put me back on your back, Tiny!" he relented, flailing his leg some more.
He heard the other two snicker as he was pulled back to safety; the force with which he was swung back over Tommy's shoulder was enough to knock the air from his lungs. He coughed and gasped for oxygen as the trio started moving again, fast.
Wally knew they were traveling just as Artemis had, using the rooftops as stepping stones, leaping across them so they wouldn't be seen by any prying human eyes. He wondered if they were taking him into the forest he and Artemis had been caught in; maybe they would execute him there. He hadn't even considered that.
The thought made him sick
For an immeasurable amount of time they traveled, until at last Wally felt his body jerk downward, signaling to him that they had descended.
"Through the parkin' garage, he wants us down in the basement," Tuppy reminded her pack mates.
A parking garage? Well, there was a slip of the tongue. At least now he had a vague notion of where he was being taken. A parking garage, but where in Gotham he couldn't be positive. Considering the direction they'd gone in after climbing up the east side of the apartment building, and taking into account the deadly news stories of mauled victims in the slums, Wally made an educated guess that's where he was.
But how far in? What building? It just wasn't enough to be useful, even if he could somehow manage to get out or contact someone to help him.
The sounds of dull claws tapping on concrete floor echoed all around the redhead, signaling him that they'd entered the garage. They padded at a normal pace now, no longer running; that meant they were close to where they needed to be.
A door was flung open, the sound bouncing off distant walls. They descended several flights of stairs, and Wally was only certain of it because his body was jarred violently on purpose. Tommy chuckled nastily as he let each of his steps land harder than necessary.
The air at the bottom was even more stifling than the outside air of Gotham City. Beads of sweat dripped down Wally's face, tickling his forehead, his nose, his cheeks. He licked a droplet off his upper lip, realizing then how thirsty he was. His tongue was dry as a gourd, sticking to the roof of his mouth as he was tossed without any kind of warning onto hard flooring that made his knees ache.
Buzzing silence.
The sound of an elevator door sliding open, then of boots across the floor.
"Well?" a husky voice asked, carrying across the room. Wally's brows furrowed. "Is this the human?"
"I prefer the term homo sapien," Wally whispered to his captors, earning himself a smack to the back of the head.
"Shut yer mouth," Tuppy hissed.
"Yessir!" Tommy said out loud from somewhere behind Wally's back. "We brought 'im back here like you asked."
"We also found somethin' we thought might be of interest to you, Alpha," Tuppy said.
Alpha. Oooh shit… that maybe complicated things a little. Wally hadn't counted on being hauled straight to the head honcho, the big cheese. Artemis's dad. He decided it would probably be best to reign himself in until he could get some inkling as to whether or not Artemis was being held here, or if the big jerk had already-God forbid- done something to her.
"We found out he had some kind of lab in his house," Cam said, while the noise from crinkling paper reached Wally's ears. He could assess that one of them had presented the boss man with the notes stolen from the lab. His throat constricted as he swallowed; he could only hope the alpha would find them to be of no interest.
Fat chance.
"We're thinkin' they was workin' on somethin' to use against werewolves, Alpha," Tommy provided.
"No!" Wally yelled out before he could stop himself. "You've got it all wrong, we were- Oof!" A quick blow to the stomach had the scientist doubled over in pain, and he choked on the rest of his words. He couldn't act on the instinct to clutch at the area as pain spiraled through his belly and made him retch harshly. Saliva dribbled from his bottom lip as he struggled for air.
"Take his blindfold off," came that husky, masculine voice again after an interval of silence that pressed down on Wally.
The cloth was untied and removed. Wally opened his eyes to find himself in a dimly lit underground storage room filled with boxes of supplies he couldn't even fathom. The ceiling was low, the lights miniscule and flickering, and there was moisture pooling on the concrete in some places.
There was a man standing in front of him. He was huge; tall, and wide, with muscles that made Wally feel incredibly uncomfortable. He was the owner of the steel-toed boot that had crashed into Wally's stomach, and he wore the haggard, stern face of a tyrant that ruled his pack with a level of authority that never went challenged. His blond hair was short cropped, and his gray eyes piercing.
Wally was disturbed by how much the man's looks reminded him of Artemis.
"So, you're the human that my daughter revealed herself to? You're the human she broke our rules for?" Lawrence sneered in contempt, his voice echoing intimidatingly in the basement. And with that one statement, everything that Artemis had ever told him about Lawrence Crock was proven true; Wally could see the manipulative nature beneath that cold gray gaze, could so easily imagine him subjecting his young daughter to cruelty while he looked on in icy disappointment.
Wally felt disgust for the man rise up in him like a tidal wave.
"You're her dad? No wonder she hates you, " he snapped right back without thought, his teeth baring. Lawrence's eyes sparked with something Wally couldn't guess, his lips pulling wide in an amused grin.
"You don't know the half of it, whelp," he chuckled deeply; the sound was more frightening than anything. He leaned close to Wally's face then, a hair's breadth between them; the scientist could smell the rancid stench of raw meat coming off his breath, far too strong to have not been recent. His stomach turned unpleasantly, but he kept his expression defiant. "I suppose you know all about that, don't you? Her whole life's history. That little bitch told you everything, didn't she? About how terrible I am, and how I'm leading a pack of murderers and liars? She always loved spinning it into a pity story for herself."
"Artemis is-" Wally began hotly.
"Painting a pretty picture for you," Lawrence grunted, standing up to his full height once more. He looked down at the redhead as if he were something unpleasant on his shoe. "It's easy to blame everything on me. But it's funny, how she forgets to mention the parts where humans have hunted our kind remorselessly for centuries. Burning us, hanging us, force-feeding us wolfsbane! Humans are the bottom feeders in this world, though," the alpha eked out with contempt. Wally could hear the growls of agreement emanating from his three captors behind him, and felt the hairs standing up on the nape of his neck. "They're little more than ants beneath our paws. As far as I'm concerned, a thousand of them should die for every werewolf life they've taken, until we take our rightful place at the top."
Tuppy, Tommy, and Cam all howled. The sound of it was eerie and piercing in the strange acoustics created by the spacious area.
"You're insane," Wally rasped, his throat dry and his stomach aching from the earlier blow it had received.
"I'm right," Lawrence snarled, leaning close once more. He blinked, and his dark eyes were replaced with bright gold, the striking kind one saw in images of wolves. When he next opened his mouth to speak, Wally swore the canines in his mouth were much larger, barely fitting behind his lips anymore. "I'll kill every last one of your pathetic kind until me and my pack are all that's left, and we'll take our place at the top of the food chain where we belong. And Gotham will start it all."
Wally swallowed. "Your pack? You can't be the only werewolves in the world, and Artemis is proof they don't all think like you!"
"If they sympathize with humans, then they can die with them," Lawrence said simply. As if they were discussing the weather.
"So, what? Are you just going to murder your own daughter?" Wally's revulsion for Lawrence had steadily risen with each sentence he uttered, until he was left with the bitter taste of bile in the back of his throat. It occurred to him, with a jolt of terror, that he wasn't even certain the alpha hadn't already killed Artemis. The thought almost broke his resolve, but he clamped down on it and reminded himself that she was alive until it had been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. "What a stand-up dad you are. Father of the year."
Lawrence chuckled, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "No, boy, Artemis is mine, you see. She'll come around to my side, one way or another."
She's alive! a voice in his mind sang out raggedly. He could have sagged over in relief, if not for his current predicament.
It was Wally's turn to laugh, albeit the sound was strained to his ears.
"You're delusional. You think everyone and everything will just bend to your will when it best suits you? Artemis has never been anything more than a soldier to you, and that's where you've made a big mistake. You assume she has the capacity to be as deluded as you are, but Artemis is-"
Wally never got to finish his tirade. The alpha's large, beefy fist collided with his cheek, and the force of the blow snapped his head to the side, causing his neck to catch painfully. Blood exploded from his freshly busted lip, spattering to the floor in a gruesome spectacle; he could taste the metallic substance as some of it oozed across his tongue. In a daze from the attack, blood dribbling down his chin, Wally could only blink at Lawrence has he grabbed the front of his shirt and brought his face close.
"You've made the mistake, human," he menaced in a disturbingly calm voice. "You'll learn that soon enough. But first I guess I should commend you for trying to wipe us out. That's what you were doing in that labs of yours, right? A weapon? A cure? Either way, it wouldn't have worked."
"We… it was… to help," Wally managed, bloody saliva dripping out of his mouth and onto the floor in a thin strand. "To…"
"To help what?" Lawrence asked, bending his face closer to Wally's, his gray eyes hard and amused. "To help Artemis? To help free Gotham from our claws?"
Wally tried to speak, but his mouth hurt too much. He pressed his bloody lips together, just staring at the werewolf with scathing eyes. The blond smirked, lifting back up.
"I had a good feeling she was doing more than playing around with humans all these months," Lawrence said smugly. "Well, whatever it was, I hope it was worth your life."
Wally gathered up all the blood and saliva in his mouth and spat it onto the floor inches from Lawrence's boot, clearing his mouth out.
"Yeah. I think it was," he said with conviction, then grinned, and hoped the sight of his bloody teeth was unnerving. "I know it was! Man, am I glad the apple fell far from the tree, Cujo. You're a real piece of work."
Knuckles smashed against his nose. He heard a faint crunching sound, gritting his teeth through the onslaught of pain and blood that was now clogging his every sense. His nose throbbed horribly and he was sure it was broken.
"You think this is funny, boy? You should hate Artemis, she made all the wrong decisions and dragged you down with her, and now she's going to be the one to tear you apart," Lawrence spat at him in his throaty voice, his face contorted in anger. He turned back to the others, barking out orders that echoed painfully in the cavernous room. "Throw him in the cell with her, you mutts! You know exactly what to do," he growled. Then he smiled disengagingly at Wally, tucking his hands away behind his back. "Don't have too much fun in there, kid."
Wally was yanked to his feet and steered in the opposite direction. He turned his head to watch Lawrence step back into the elevator he'd arrived on, the doors sliding shut in front of his square face.
Wally wanted to kill him.
o.o.o.o
Artemis Crock was losing her mind.
The thick walled room she had been locked in did not possess a clock or calendar, causing all sense of time to fade fast. There was no sunlight filtering in, no light switch to flood the damp, musky area with radiance. Only a pressing sense of isolation and darkness that made the walls feel like they were creeping in around her when she was awake.
And she wasn't awake often anymore. She spent most of her time sleeping in the corner, because that was the only time the hunger pangs in her hollow stomach didn't drive her wild. She had long given up wasting her energy on being a human, it was so much easier to let the wolf take over, to let the hunger bring out that side of her in full force. The only thing keeping her alive was the instinctual need for survival, for food. The steady flow of water that rolled down the north wall, courtesy of a rusted, broken pipe, was her only source of hydration; she had taken to licking the wet bricks when her throat got too dry to bear.
No one visited her. Not to feed her, not to let her drink, not to attack her or speak ill of her and the things she had done. Not even to kill her, which she had started to pine for.
She was all alone, and it was getting harder to remember what it was like to be human. What it was like to want for anything besides food.
Food.
Fenrir, she wanted food. Something hot and bloody between her teeth, or something cool and pink and tender, with red liquid squeezing out of every upward press of her sharp canines. The meat would fill her belly and the blood would sate her thirst, and she might be able to remember something about herself other than the fact she was starving.
Her limbs trembled and quaked in her malnourishment, muscles burning under the attack of her own ravenous metabolism. The matter was made worse by the presence of the full moon; she didn't need a calendar or visual to sense it. It affected her in spite of her predicament, overriding the fatigue and starvation to make her antsy and fidgety. She paced the concrete cell, pupils blown wide and senses primed to hunt, trying to pick out the smell of something tasty, something she could devour.
She'd imagined eating a human. It had crossed unbidden into her mind, and frightened her like nothing else. Artemis had never in her life had such a vile thought, but then again she'd never been so hungry, or so out of her own control. Being at the mercy of the beast inside of her was a new experience, one she didn't like, but there was little she could do about it. The hungrier she got, the more feral she became, until finally she started not to care about what she imagined eating.
Sinking her claws into anything that consisted of meat and flesh and bones was all she could think about. There was nothing else.
Except Wally. And her mother.
They flitted through her thoughts, through her dreams when she was sleeping. She missed them… and their food. She salivated all over herself when she wondered vaguely if she'd ever see Wally's kitchen again, that wondrous fridge filled with every kind of food she could ever hope for. He would feed her… Wally would take care of her...
Wally…
He was made of meat-
No, no! Fenrir, no.
Artemis screwed her eyes shut tight, breathing heavily. She crossed her arms over her chest like a vice and clutched at the fur on her biceps, biting hard into her lip all the while.
That was no place for her mind to go. No place at all.
You're not yourself.
The urge to retch at the very idea of eating Wally welled up in her, and she gave a shuddering dry heave that made her eyes water. Once that passed, Artemis growled to herself, her flighty mind switching gears back to her pent up energy and rumbling belly. She released herself from her own shackling grip and resumed her frantic pacing from wall to wall, much faster than before, more agitated. She had to find an outlet for that energy, it was like a second beast inside of her, trying to claw its way out.
She swept silver eyes across the tiny width of the room and the camera in the upper corner of the high ceiling caught her attention. She had noticed it before, had snarled and cursed and made rude gestures at it when she had first been manhandled into the cell. Now, as her pace grew into a full on run, she felt hot rage frothing in her stomach at the object's slow, meticulous pan back and forth. She hated that camera, she knew her dad was on the other side of it, watching her waste away. Uncaring.
Lawrence had all the food. He was fucking food if he showed his face to her ever again.
The blonde snapped her teeth together in anger, taking one wild, reckless leap on her next lap around. She sprang into the air with all the power her emaciated leg muscles could muster, soaring through the air and latching onto the dirty gray bricks inches underneath it. She took a vicious swipe at it, her long claws clipping the underside of it's metal shell. Artemis slid back down the wall, scraping deep grooves into the concrete.
She made a game out of it.
Over and over again she tried to reach it, barking more savagely with each miss. The movement soothed her aching, moon lust gripped body, and the burning need to smash it into a million pieces fueled her.
And that's what she was doing when the cell door opened.
Her ears swiveled back before her head did. By the time Artemis whirled her head around to look as she was sliding down the wall again, it was too late to make a move. She saw a brief sliver of light, saw another body thrust into the room unceremoniously. She roared out in a crazed frenzy, leveraging herself off the wall, and reached the door right as it was slammed shut in her face.
"NO!" Artemis snarled with her teeth bared, lips drawn back. She slammed her fists into the metal, but it didn't budge, not even the slightest rattle for her efforts.
She attacked it with everything she had, even knowing it was fruitless; clawing it, ramming it with her shoulder, howling in rage because for a second she'd caught the smell of a warm body, of chemicals and laundry detergent and-
"Artemis?"