4

It's not that you aren't curious, not necessarily. You've just never been one to resort to blunt force solutions, preferring to stick to the periphery, to blend with the shadows and divine answers through snippets of guarded conversation and observed patterns of behavior.

Werewolves, like humans, always reveal more than they think they do. Subtle body language and words left unspoken light the path to whole tomes of secret intrigues if you only have the patience to open your senses and truly listen.

You're panting, leg muscles burning with exertion by the time you reach the base of the bridge. From here, the old concrete pillars rise, elevating the asphalt surface of the road in an elegant arc, eventually leveling out as it crosses to the other side.

Once there was a lower bridge that spanned the length of water, but it was lost during the Purge before you were born. Humans call the span The Q, and though none of the wolves in the pack know where the strange moniker comes from, it stuck, and The Q is the de facto endpoint to the pack's domain.

Arriving at the base of the bridge first, Lapu pauses and sniffs the air, a low whine rumbling in his throat.

A great wall was built in front of the bridge sometime after Haven fell, and access to and from the pack's home is limited to a small walkway, barely wide enough for two wolves to pass abreast. A pair of great black monoliths stand at either side of the pathway, and they emit a subtle hum barely audible even to your superior hearing as electricity flows through them.

"They weren't on when we came in!" Lapu groans as he paces back and forth, looking for another way onto the bridge.

"Maybe we should just run through?" Dena says, staring up at the dual standing stones, neck craned back to take in all twenty feet of their bleak uniformity.

Tiva sniffs and digs a furrow in the loose asphalt with her hind-paws. "I heard my pa talking about these one night when he thought I was asleep. The pillars ID each wolf as they come through. It lets the humans know who's moving through the checkpoint. If we just run through, they'll know we were here for sure."

Before you can decide how to get around the obstruction and onto the bridge, you hear the sound of shuffling feet approaching from a nearby cross street. Tiva hears it, too, and her ears flatten along the back of her skull.

"We've got company coming," she says, nervously clicking her claws together. "We're running out of time."