Page 22 of Rocky Top

Too late.

The night was slick with rain, the scent of rust and rot coating the prison walls like paint. Concrete soaked in screams. My paws hit the ground soft, soundless, belly low as I slipped past the guards too busy smokin’ and bullshittin’ under the towers to notice the shadow crawlin’ through their kingdom.

This wasn’t my first time in a cage. Just my first time not wearin’ skin.

The wolf had slipped free hours ago. I didn’t want to let him out. Not like this. But Knox needed it done quiet. No bullets. No fingerprints. No bodies left for the lawyers to cry over.

Just a message.

He was waitin’ for me, leanin’ against the chain-link like he was some kinda king in a court of piss and concrete. He had a smirk on his face, one I’d seen before. Smug. Arrogant. The kind that begged to be wiped clean.

He didn’t know what wascomin’.

I crept closer, low and slow, every instinct buzzin’ electric under my fur. I could hear the thunder rollin’ across the hills, echoin’ the growl buildin’ in my chest.

He didn’t hear it. Too busy talkin’ shit to another inmate, laughin’ like he owned the night.

I was six feet away.

He turned just in time to see the yellow in my eyes.

His mouth opened, but no scream came.

I lunged.

The shift between silence and violence was instant. My teeth found his throat with practiced precision. A clean kill. I didn’t drag it out. Didn’t let the monster in me savor it.

This was business.

The crunch of cartilage. The wet gurgle of breath. The thud of his body hittin’ the ground. I didn’t blink. Didn’t pause.

One second he was breathin’. The next, he was a memory.

I stood over the corpse, pantin’ low, the taste of blood bitter and hot on my tongue. Not from rage. From duty. From vengeance.

I didn’t look back.

Alarms started to whine in the distance. Boots hit pavement.

Too slow.

I was already gone, slippin’ back through the shadows, back through the fence I’d come in through, the scent of death behind me and the clean pine air of the Tennessee hills ahead.

When I found the treeline, I stopped and looked back once.

Not for him.

For the life I’d left behind long ago, the one that believed in law, in justice, in clean endings.

That life was long dead.

I ran.

Chapter 5

Birdie

Downtown Knoxville was looking extra fine that night, like she knew she was being showed off and wasn’t mad about it.

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