Fifty Six. Escape from Werewolf Alcatraz

It took me an entire three hours to break out of these heinous chains. I’ve never had to do that before. Mom always comes at dawn to unlock these things right after the full moon has set. She can see on the camera display that I am fully human right now and not in need of any restraints. She could see it if she were home now anyway, but I'm suspecting quite definitively that something stopped her from getting back last night.

Lucky for me though, I’ve got that super wolf strength going on even without the crazy, so with persistence and the proper leverage I manage to rip these chains right out of the wall, just like Felix and my father have done on occasion when raging out in mutated wolf form. Now I’ve just got a bunch of heavy, clattering chains trailing after me though, since I still can’t get this insulting ass collar unfastened from around my throat, or undo the clasps on these manacles.

Mom keeps a spare key up in her bedroom. She doesn’t think we know the hiding place, but when I was younger I would snoop through every corner of this house for stuff like that, even before my first change lock-down. I checked that key’s position again during the weeks she had Cassi under house arrest, and sure enough, it’s still there. I just need to make my way upstairs.

I make no attempts to open the door to my bedroom. Touching that handle would sear my hand, and this reinforced barrier is so thick that I doubt I could kick it down without one hell of an adrenaline rage-rush to give me a boost. I don’t want to risk putting myself in such a dangerous state of mind today, so I charge straight at the wall instead. Drywall is a much weaker barrier than silver-plated metal, and even the wooden supports snap and give way by my third attempt of hurling my full body weight against that barrier.

I tumble through into the next room in a spray of dust and jerk quickly back from the snapping wolfman thrashing against his chains in an effort to reach me. I guess all my commotion of repeated thuds against his bedroom wall must have riled him up, because he’s full on foaming at the mouth.

I shrink back against the wall, studying him in sickened dismay. This isn’t dad. It’s Felix. With Dad, I knew he would be back to that deformed nightmare shape of swollen muscles, half wolf and half human, but stronger and bigger than both. That’s why I went this way, because I figured breaking through the wall into Felix’s room, sure, he may not be in his right mind, but it would just be a regular presenting person I was faced with, big as he is.

Something’s happened to rapidly accelerate the curse today though, and Felix is down on all fours, covered in bristling hair and full on red-eyed.

“Can you even understand me?”

His only response is a slavering bark and further thrashing against his chains. I really do not want to set this thing free in our house. Still, his chains seem to be holding for now, since he can’t use tools and apply the same calculated leverage to their weak points like I did. I’m gonna have to create another hole if I want to get out of here myself, so I take the risk. I edge along the far wall, keeping carefully away from my maddened brother. I have to move much closer to him though to start kicking out the drywall and get out into the hallway. He’s chained to the bricks making up the exterior wall of our house, right beside where I need to be working.

I bust a big enough hole in the drywall and start to crawl through. Felix lunges after me, and the chain holding his right wrist snaps, giving his claws enough reach to stab down right through my hamstring. I cry out, and he starts to drag me back in there toward him, so I snap off a piece of plywood and drive it right into his arm.

He howls, and so do I, a storm of curses, as I tear free of his cruel hold and drag myself out into the hallway. The blood flow from this gushing wound is already starting to slow. I know it will heal up just fine in a matter of minutes, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. It doesn’t give me any comfort, as I hear other ominous creakings and snapping sounds. I count them off – two, three and four. That means his hands and feet are fully freed now, and he’s probably only seconds from tearing off that collar.

I lurch to my feet and haul ass out of there as fast as I can manage with the muscles ripped out of one calf and fifty pounds of metal still hanging off of me, dragging me down.

Felix busts through the wall and barrels after me, catching up with me right as I pass through the kitchen. I don’t like my chances of bare-knuckle boxing a fully changed werewolf, so I grab the cast iron frying pan off the stove-top instead, whip around and slam it down right ontop his cranium – once, twice, three... Nope four. It takes four heavy blows, and then he finally stops attacking.

He got his claws right through the top of my foot, but he’s out cold for now, at least until that skull fracture mends itself.

I push through the pain and limp on to the garage to arm myself with some knock-out darts. I give Felix another dose of industrial grade tranquilizers and drag him back inside his bedroom. I still can’t open those freaking silver-handled doors, but I can drag the bookcase over in front of that hole. And who knows? Mindless as this thing is, maybe he’ll forget there’s even an exit here by the time he wakes up, five or six hours from now.

I’ve no time to keep worrying about him anyhow. I need to check on Grace, make sure she’s alright. I should maybe stop by the surveillance room first though, and make sure she hasn’t gone rabid. I believe in that vaccine I gave to her, I do. But mom was so skeptical, so sure Grace could turn on the full moon, and with how far gone Felix and dad are today…

It is a depressing sight up on that wall of monitors. Grace seems like herself; fully clothed, not in chains, and just pacing the floor of the attic. Liam and Aiden on the other hand… They’re just as bad as Felix. My dad and all of his sons other than me have lost every last scrap of their humanity today, and Ravenna wasn’t even gracious enough to give them the dignity of their natural wolf shapes. She’s turned them all into misshapen beasts.

I should have let mom shoot her when she had the chance.

But no. Grace is fine. That is a major sign of hope, because it means that Carson’s vaccine works. It might work to cure even later stages than that initial bite…

I need to go back to the lab, and if Carson refuses to share that formula and hand over his supply, then I am going to bloody well beat him down and take it.