The girl glared at the men holding guns trained upon her head. She threw back her head and laughed. "I regret nothing! I hope this rebellion ends...and Silver Rim rises!"
She shouted deliriously. Her bronze locks flew around her head and stuck to her sweat soaked face. "Kill me and you'll find a martyr instead of a wolf."
Her insanity filtered from her expression. Her eyes were black in the moonlight. "I've said my bit. Shoot me like you do to all of your problems. Silver Rim!"
She closed her eyes tightly, almost like she was wishing herself to sleep.
The person directly in front of her, clad in a black jumpsuit with a mask over the eyes pulled the hammer back on his pistol. "In the order of King Arthur, ruler of this country of Tejas, I give this criminal, guilty of treason, murder, attempted assassination, and instigation of a rebellion, the ultimate penalty."
The slack on the trigger lessened. "She was known as the Lone Warrior, a prowling wolf. She was simply another traitor. I, General Wesly E. Griffin, in the name of King Arthur, shall execute Breileigh Hazelthorn."
The trigger became taut.
A loud bang and a bright flash occurred in that next second. When the gun smoke cleared, two bodies lied upon the ground.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SIX YEARS EARLIER
Breileigh gulped. She knew it was coming. She would have to fight. All the children from her Sector did. Sector 5, just like the other four, had Panem every year. Bread and circuses. Breileigh shuddered. She have to fight things. Terrible things. No children were allowed to watch Panem. No one talked about it. All Breileigh knew was that she would have to fight. The winner got to live. The loser was mercilessly executed. Painfully.
Panem always had 15 year olds. Always. Breileigh found herself in the holding cell, along with several other teens. The trainers would come soon. Each trainer took on four teens. At the end of Panem, two would have survived, if not less. Breileigh knew she had about a week. That was the standard preparation period.
The white walls of the cell made Breileigh uncomfortable. One wall was entirely glass. None of the teens dared to touch it. Rumors, like little weeds, stated that it was electrified. No one wanted to find out.
Breileigh Hazelthorn could not remember when she began to live with the wolves. She remembered back, far back, but her memory abruptly snapped away, like a solid wall of stones had been placed there. She remembered being but one year old, still a squirming infant, and being found by the wolves. She remembered the Wolfspeak, as clear as her own thoughts, and she remembered replying. Breileigh thus became Nameless Windsong. The wolves took her in, raised her in the savage ways of wolf, taught her honor, nobility, and cunning. And then the Raid had destroyed her life.
Breileigh remembered the Raid like she knew the Wolfspeak, with a natural understanding and clarity not found in the nature she was raised in. Breileigh remembered her shining hair become fur, she remembered the muscles cording along her body. She had lost Breileigh then, she was but Nameless Windsong, brassy furred, viciously large, and soft as down. Nameless Windsong had snarled, a snarl full of rage, of fury, of warning...and of weakness. The Tsar of the other pack, whom insisted upon being called Tsar, Breileigh reflected, had leapt upon Nameless Windsong's body, his claws tearing her soft and thin skin like her own fingernails ripped apart leaves. Nameless Windsong had collapsed, the world becoming darker, darker, darker...
The glass wall fell away. Three graying people with slumped shoulders and haggard faces shone the black spotlight of their hollow eyes into the cell. The first one, a woman so sallow her bones practically poked through her skin, and scrapes adorned every joint. A strange blue fluid leaked from the visible orifices on her body. What this a Trainer? She looked like a Feddie, Breileigh mentally gagged.
The Feddie grabbed the wrists of four frightened teens, and they disappeared out of the wall, each cringing as they passed through the once-barrier.
Breileigh had heard the rumors. If one lost the fights of Panem while the people of the Castle watched and ate, the teen would be taken before a jury, found guilty of weakness, and put to death. No one but the people from the Castle knew what horrific tortures awaited the felon beyond the court. Some said the losing side was fed to ravenous wolves. Others said they were left in a dark room to go crazy. Some said the losers were forced to become part of the Castle itself, as a lowly servant, and that was the best the losing side would ever do. Of course, rumor had it. And Breileigh had never trusted rumors.
The final Feddie grabbed Breileigh's wrist. She cried out in a whimper she had not uttered since her days in the wolf den, when the fox had attacked. Breileigh's pack brother, Lone Warrior, had been taken. The whole pack had known he was dead, but did not mourn. That was not the way of wolf. That was not how Breileigh grew up. Lone Warrior was only ever seen by his pack on one separate occasion: the Raid.
The Feddie led Breileigh and three other teens down a hallway. As each opened doorway yawned past, Breileigh got more and more nervous. her teeth cut her lip. Breileigh could not, would not, be capable of becoming Nameless Windsong here. there was no water, no sweet forest air. Nameless Windsong would go upon a rage that she could not win. Not here.
Nameless Windsong defied the laws of wolf teachings. She was soft, she mourned, and she did not fight. Breileigh knew that, for Nameless Windsong's ears and tail, Nameless Windsong was not wolf. Nameless Windsong was human. Humans did not belong in the forest. Humans belonged in the caves. In the Panem. In the Sectors. In the Castle. Breileigh did not belong here, there, anywhere. Breileigh was a wolf, howling to the stars, begging them to come out, to hide the moon and it's destruction. Breileigh was the savage growl man scurried from. Breileigh was wolf. Breileigh was wild. Breileigh was the bearer of Wolfspeak. Breileigh was the wolf.
The light in the hallway waned to barely a thing, hazing the lines the quickly ramshackling hall bore. The Feddie brought Breileigh deeper and deeper into the building, while the air choked and squeezed its way back, speaking to Breileigh in a language older than the forests Breileigh yearned to flow through, ears back and tail flying, no longer human but wolf. Danger, run away, the rushing breeze whispered, deep in Breileigh's ears. The warning became more and more frantic, crescendoing to a feral, terrified howl carried by the wind of a pup without a mother. WhoooOOOoooOoooo...
Suddenly, the hall opened into a large, brightly lit cavern. The sudden light hacked into Breileigh's eyes with a hiss. She growled, her voice reverberating throughout the cavern like the wolf she knew yearned to break free. The Feddie released its death grip on Breileigh's wrist. Blood rushed into her hand, bringing forth a whimper to cut off the growl. She looked at the other three teens.
"Fight." The Feddie's voice scratched through the rock. "Fight."
