“I never imagined something like this could happen here, horrible, so horrible I can barely talk about it,” he blurted out. Jack asked what had happened. “They didn't say much, they just said they were really hurt, a lot, no one could see much, thank goodness,” he recounted. Kurt asked what he was talking about. “The twelve of Lightning. Brian and his whole gang were killed,” he finished, walking away, leaving the boys completely upset about the situation.

“What did we do?” asked Jack, rhetorically.

“We didn't do anything, Jack,” Kurt said firmly. “Let's go see Cassie. She's over there,” and made his way toward her, still standing in the same position as before.

“Cassie, are you okay?”, Jack questioned, noticing the state the woman was in. Pale and frightened, something he had never seen before.

“Wolves,” she said, not making eye contact, still shaken by everything.

“What?” asked Jack, startled, wide-eyed.

“I saw wolves. I saw gray wolves,” she said, static. Now both boys were amazed, they looked at each other for a second and decided to get out of there. “And a black wolf…,” she finished, piquing the boys' interest. “He left the room first, then the others left. I remember everything I saw, I can't get that slaughter out of my mind,” she said. There was nothing more to find out about it; twelve boys were dead, and they were the killers.

“It must be the same wolf from that day,” Jack commented, already walking away.

“Was there anyone else there besides you guys?” his friend asked. Jack said there was only him and the twelve of them. “It's someone from the outside, I vaguely remember seeing him enter the room before he changed. If twelve are dead, this guy showed up later and changed first. We're killers.”

“We still don't know what happened, it doesn't make sense, we never had any incentive for it, very strange our wolves acted that way. Look, I just want to go home and not think about anything else, okay? I think I've had enough for today, I just need some time,” Jack ordered. There was no question about it, he was right, about everything.

DAYS BEFORE

“Feeling anything yet, Kurt?” asked Jack, behind the wheel, heading for the usual spot. Kurt said he was still fine, but already feeling some things. “If we don't gas up the car now, we'll have no way back. Do you think you can drive in time for us not to move?”. It was clear in Jack's voice that he was not comfortable, he was already going through some stages of the change. Kurt nodded and Jack turned toward a nearby gas station. Once they arrived, they switched places, Kurt took the wheel and Jack took care of the fueling, quick enough to just get in the car and lie down on the seat, while Kurt sped up to get back on track.

It was the longest 10 minutes of that week when Kurt finally parked the car in the usual spot and helped Jack down. As usual, they separated, changed, and met.

Everything happened as it always did, except for the fact that that night they smelled the odor of a wolf, not from the car, not from them. It was from another wolf, but the smell was not as strong. Fearful of what they would find, they followed their instinct and avoided approaching, but to no avail, in a moment the wolf appeared in front of them. They couldn't tell if it was just a wolf or if it was human like them.

The wolf did nothing, it didn't follow them or attack them, it just walked by watching them and followed wherever it was following. The boys couldn't risk anything that could reveal what they were, but each time they changed, they felt the fear of not being rational anymore and just acting like a wolf. Jack would black out for a few minutes and not seem to think, so it was something real. In their minds, it was only a matter of time before it was reality, and now that they were dealing with random transformations, they assumed that maybe it was closer than they would like. It was time to pursue the idea of finding out where it all came from, who they were, why they were, and if they could stop it, or at least control it. Someone had to have answers.

The next morning, Jack woke up staggering more than usual, as well as his vision was extremely blurred; he could swear he heard a voice say “you did it,” but it soon passed. Walking to the car, the trunk was open, literally open, rolled up. They never left the car vulnerable, least of all like that. There had been exactly six sets of clothes when they left, and at that moment they only had five. Someone had stolen a pair of clothes. Immediately the image of the black wolf came to mind, it was the only explanation for it, and surely it was a human too. Without wasting any time, he picked up one of the sets and ran to Kurt, waking him up. “We need to get out of here. Come on!” he exclaimed, pulling a half-awake Kurt up. “I'll explain everything to you in the car, but right now, we have to go.”

As they walked back down the avenue, Jack told about how he woke up disoriented and how he thought he heard something, he also told about the car, worried. “Whoever that wolf is, he knows I am one. It's my car, I'm sure he recognized it,” he drove worriedly.

“Calm down, Jack. We don't know anything right yet, and if he happens to have seen something, he can't say anything, it's the same secret we have,” Kurt tried to comfort him.

“Kurt, if they know it's me, they know it's you too. Everyone sees us together all the time,” Jack explained. Kurt stopped and thought for a moment, it made sense, he was as much in the crosshairs as Jack was.

PRESENT

That night, Jack could do nothing but stay locked in his room, trying to distract himself and thinking about the possibility that he was a murderer. No one could know about his involvement in the case, or about Kurt. He didn't have to deal with it, they were wolves after all. Werewolves didn't exist and all of humanity knew that, there was no way to find out anything. Unless one day he was captured as a wolf and magically woke up as a human, his life would end there. He tried not to rush. He got into his notebook and looked at some news already published by the company about what had happened. On the home page, a wall had been created, but it was anonymous. The whole company began to share their grief, lamenting the death of the boys.

Logged into his account, Jack tried to leave the most sincere comment he could, even though he hated them, but the guilt was too consuming for him to do anything about it. A few minutes later, he saw that Kurt had left a short text as well. Finally, after the exhaustion, he needed to relax and take a shower more calmly.

While he was in the shower he realized that the smell was in the air, the strong smell of wolf was there, and his breath gasped for a few seconds. Seconds were enough to terrify him. As the water ran down his body, Jack tried to calm himself down, he didn't even know why he needed to do this, but he knew he did. He counted to ten, slowly. “You're all right,” he repeated to himself. “You're all right,” he repeated. “You're okay,” and he kept going, until the fifth time he growled. Quickly, Jack stepped out of the shower, dried himself off, and paused for a moment. His breathing was still irregular. He tried to count to ten again, but he had barely reached five and the growling sound happened again.

His fear grew as he walked to the bed, trying to breathe, attempting to calm himself, but he could not. In a few seconds, he returned to the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face to improve the situation, but it had no effect. The smell of wolf began to fill the air more and more, and his breathing became even heavier. When he returned to his room, he was surprised by the ringing of his smartphone. It was Kurt, calling. Without a second thought, he answered the phone.

“Jack, something's going on, isn't it? I'm feeling a weird tingling,” Kurt asked, his breathing heavy as well. Jack said he couldn't breathe properly, his voice indicating the truthfulness of the information. “Try to calm down, try to think of something. I'm feeling something peculiar too, I've locked myself in the room,” Kurt told over the call. Jack, still struggling, told his partner that his teeth and claws had already grown in and that his body was twitching too fast. “What? No, Jack, you can't, not in the morning, please don't change, just try, I don't know, maybe, damn, I don't know, man,” his concern was clear, as was his gasping for breath. Jack set out to answer one more time, but couldn't.

Jack screamed and dropped the device and Kurt tried to contact, but Jack was already writhing on the floor, struggling against his new skin, unable to do anything. Kurt could hear everything, every scream, every growl, but it was still Kurt. For a moment, all sounds ceased. “Jack?” asked the voice on the other end of the line. All he heard back were growls, and he knew Jack was no longer there, the wolf was. He ended the call.

Jack spent the early morning hours as a wolf, trying not to break anything in the apartment or make any noise that would disturb the neighbors. He possessed a little conscience at that moment. He thought that Kurt had transformed too, but was surprised hours later.

First Kurt knocked on Jack's door, but there was no answer, so he decided to open it since he had a copy of the key. There was nothing strange in the environment, everything seemed normal. He didn't hear any strange sounds. He went a little further inside and found his smartphone turned off, which justified the missed calls. Suddenly, he heard a noise coming from the bathroom, someone vomited. He walked over and opened the door to find Jack sitting on the floor, human and almost naked, vomiting into the toilet bowl. “You're all right, thank God,” Kurt relieved himself. “I was anxious”. Jack said that he had turned back into a human a few minutes ago. Because he was more conscious than normal, he could feel the backlash of the change and claimed it hurt less, but it was unbearable just the same. Kurt helped him up from the floor. Kurt then told him that he had felt strong indications of transformation, but that he had not changed, while Jack told his version of the shower. “I'm sorry, man. I'm truly sorry,” Kurt said, slapping his friend lightly on the back.

Last year, Kurt barely knew who Jack was, and Jack barely knew who Kurt was. They were in the industry together but were limited only to work. All Kurt knew about Jack was that his family had a good reputation and that he suffered from some things he didn't like to talk about. He had no interest in him and no other people. He liked to be alone. Jack also liked to be alone, but whether he liked that or not, no one knew. At the time, the company was already prominent and the two of them were already part of the team.

It was on a night that Kurt transformed in the middle of nowhere that he met Jack for real. Jack was already transformed when he found Kurt too close to the street in the changing phase and pushed him into the woods, after the transformation was over, he approached him again and the two ran together, and hunted together. The next morning, Jack had put on his spare clothes and stood watching Kurt still unconscious, he thought that maybe it wouldn't be a problem if he knew he was a wolf too, and so he stood there, waiting for him to wake up. When he did, he just threw him some clothes and said, “I'll take you home”. After that, they started a friendship, they shared the same secret, the same mysteries, and they were no longer alone, they had to deal with it, and it was hard. When the new term started, and they were in separate rooms, they didn't think they could handle it, as they noticed a certain worsening in their condition. Now they were worried about her.

A short time later, Kurt left the apartment and Jack received a message from Cassie. It was unusual for her to text.

“I need to talk to someone” - Cassie

“I'm reasonably better, but for some reason, I need to talk to someone and I just randomly clicked on any company contact” - Cassie

“Hi Cassie, I don't know if I'm the best person for that” - Jack

“I'm trying to deal with it too, it's very heavy” - Jack

“It's just for now, to see if I can forget a little bit about things and how everything is. It's been a few days since my boyfriend broke up with me and everything seems to have come full circle now" - Cassie

“I'm sorry, Cassie. I hope you get better" - Jack.

“Thank you, Jack. It means a lot" - Cassie.

Then her chat icon warned “offline”. That relieved Jack, talking to her and having to read the grief of what happened would shake him more. Finally, he managed to text Kurt, wanting to know how he was doing. He answered almost as soon as Jack sent the message. For a few hours, they talked a little about what had happened, in an extremely discreet way, and it didn't lead to anything. Through codes, they agreed to meet just before 6 pm every day, to monitor their transformations. The company had declared a seven-day mourning period, with a total ban on the site until they returned.

With the day off, Jack finally found time to take care of the car. Kurt offered to help him but had to insist until Jack agreed. They went down to the parking lot and finally began the cleaning. They filled the car with sweet, strong smells so that it could stand out from the wolf smell.

“It's quite nice that we don't have company, just imagine her getting in this stinky car,” Kurt commented, scrubbing the car.

“At least it's mine. You'd have to borrow it, moreover”, Jack retorted, not too happy with his friend's comment. They both laughed seconds later. “I was thinking, Kurt. We're not the only ones in town,” his friend commented, making quick eye contact. “Before we met, I had transformed other times, and it still took a while to discover you, but now with this wolf in the area…”

Jack had first transformed when he was trying to stop his old group of gang members from making dogs fight each other. That day he realized how problematic everything that his colleagues, and even he, did was. His gang days were filled with a lot of drinking, whoring, and drugs. When he tried to stop the confrontation with the dogs, he was drastically lynched by his colleagues, who left him there, sore and extremely bruised. Suddenly, he was transformed, so it started happening more often. He never understood why.

Kurt, on the other hand, was having sex with a girl. He ended up noticing some strange sensations that he had never felt before, so he went into the bathroom. When he noticed his body aching a lot and noticed body changes, he decided to sneak out the window. When he finally got away from the house, he transformed, and then it started to become part of the routine. He also had no idea where it came from.

The seven days of mourning were over, and everyone was called back to work. During those seven days, the friends had changed four times.

At work, they held a minute's silence for the victims. Lightning was excited to work with NS, and the same was true for the other company. Everything looked like it would get better with the two joinings, so the whole job expanded to other floors of the building, which would make the work even closer to the apartments.

Cassie was fairly down when Jack finally approached her, with a cup of coffee. “Are you okay?” he asked, being responsive to her. Cassie turned around, showing her face, still apathetic about everything that had occurred.

“Thank you so much,” she said, taking the cup. “Very kind of you, Jack,” he thanked her, trying to smile, but failing. “I'm sorry, I'm still not quite right about everything that happened,” she said, sincerely. Jack asked if she wanted to talk about it, and she said maybe.

“If you want to talk, I'm willing to listen,” he said, almost having a heart attack with embarrassment, as he hadn't imagined that he would one day get to talk to her. To his surprise, she gave a slightly truer smile than before. “We can have lunch together today,” he suggested.

“Okay, Jack. Where are we going?” she asked. Jack stammered for a few seconds, as he hadn't been so used to going out to eat since his “outlaw” days. “There's a diner I like. It's about ten minutes from here too,” she smiled, looking at him directly. He felt his heart racing, then realized he could hear hers doing the same. For a few seconds, he stood looking at the area of her heart, concentrating on the beats. “Jack?” she asked, noticing the distraction he was in. He finally came to his senses and agreed to go to the cafeteria with her at lunchtime.