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He runs as quickly as his legs will carry him, but he still feels like the entire forest stretches endlessly out in front of him. They keep closing in on alternating sides, trying to cut him off on his right flank, and then his left, driving him deeper into the vegetation. The moon was cutting through the branches, like spotlights, and he sees the flash of a golden eye in the dark when he looks behind him.
One of the werewolves like to slip in when he's distracted and rip at his clothes to remind him of who, or what, he's running from - Little Red. The words send shivers down the spine of every hunter in the state, and the legend grows across the nation as smart hunters warn their friends. Stay away, they grunt over two fingers of Jim Beam in shitty dive bars. Little Red's insane. He'll beat the fuck out of you, and then unleash his dogs on you.
The story changes depending on who you meet - some say Little Red's just insane. He likes the smell of blood on the air. That's why he wears a red hoodie. It's stained with the blood of all the men he's killed. Some say that hunters killed his family on accident, thinking they were werewolves, and they were just humans who got in the way.
There's one story no one tells, though, of a boy in love with his best friend, and the hunters who left him in pieces in their front yard. They don't talk about how he dug his lover's grave by hand and laced the ground with wolfsbane, just as he had been taught by the previous alpha. No one ever talks about the truth, because anyone who knows the truth ends up on the wrong end of Little Red's bat.
He hears the whiz of another body beside him and feels the prick of a claw into his side. He stumbles a little, blood seeping through his shirt, and catches himself against a tree trunk. It's just long enough for the pack to surround him, eyes gleaming in the dark. "Come out, you little motherfucker," he spits on the ground, and he feels his feet get swept out from under him. "I'm not scared of your little pack of pups. You want to kill me? Do it yourself."
The circle steps in closer, and the air gets thicker around him. He thinks about his friends, his fellow hunters that were somewhere on the other side of the forest following the dead trail they'd planted just for this purpose. One of the females of the pack lets her mouth fall open with a click and her fangs shine in the moonbeam. The hand holding his side is tacky and stiff and he pulls it away to be met with a gush of fresh, red blood. The wolves breathe in, almost perfectly together like they'd received a cue from their conductor, and he winces. Collasping completely to the floor, he sticks his hand into his pocket and wraps his fingers around the hilt of his switchblade. It's not much, but he's sure as hell going to take one or two of these fuckers out with him.
"Ah, ah, ah," a voice says, and it's one of the male werewolves, come up behind him to lock his arms behind him. The female from before takes the knife from him and spins it in the air, letting the silver reflect like a diamond, before she chucks it at a tree and buries it in the trunk.
"Fuck you," he struggles against the hold. He thinks they're going to play with him a little, before they kill him, but the pack suddenly takes a step back, creating a perfect circle around him. A figure steps forward, hood shading his eyes, and a wooden baseball bat swinging jauntily at his side. He walks like an alpha, with all the calm assurance of perfect obedience. The last thing the hunter notes is the pleased smirk on his face. "So, you're Little Red." He sneers. "They got the little part right. You don't look so fucking scary."
Little Red pushes his hood back, and his eyes are a dark, unexpressive brown, blending into the night's shadows to make him look even more menacing. The hunter tries to struggle to his feet, but with a slight twitch of his head, the same two werewolves come out and force him back to his knees. "What? You can't talk? Cat got your tongue?" he lashes out with his last weapon, his words, but Little Red's eyes stay as cold as ever, and the male werewolf to his right chuckles.
"No, he talks," he says, like it's a great joke. "He's just got nothing to say to you." The female smiles, and she's even more frightening than the male.
He steadies himself, jerking against their hold again, and, when they release him, he looks right up at Little Red. "Last request. I want to know: why are you doing this?" Little Red just lifts the bat to his shoulder and grins, looking right into his eyes like he's going to suck the life out of him just by the force of his will.
The female speaks again, softly and pleased as punch with everything, and all that the hunter catches is, "you don't kill a man's mate, if you want to live."
Little Red spreads his legs into position, both hands wrapped around the grip of the bat, and swings.