Page 11 of The Red Moon

Dimitri grabs an axe off the wall and inspects it, dragging his thumb along the perfected edge. “And this?”

“I melted down the coin collection I’ve had since I was little one. Dipped it myself. A few thousand ruble seemed worthy tradeoff.”

“What do you say, Dimitri?” I ask, watching him study the armory walls. “Think we have a shot?”

Dimitri glances back at me and does something I haven’t seen in many years. Not since we would play as children on the property. Not since Ida. He grins. “Odds are looking better.”

“Oh!” Alexey says excitedly and filters through another stack of boxes. “I almost forgot. This is my favorite. Can only be used once but it packs one hell of a bang.”

We both watch him toss aside crate after crate until he finally hoists one up to the bench. Alexey pulls out a toy monster truck, sets it on the ground, and rummages through what’s left in the box until he finds a plastic controller with a long metal antenna. When he tilts the thumb stick forward, the truck darts across the ground, driving it straight into Dimitri’s shin.

“Yebat!” Dimitri curses, and I can’t help but grin. “Watch where you’re driving that fucking thing.”

Before Dimitri can kick it away, Alexey waves his hands frantically. “Stop! You could set it off.”

His face drains of color in an instant, foot stopping inches from the truck. “Wha—what do you mean set it off?”

“There’s enough C-4 on the undercarriage to blow through the gates of hell.”

“And you drove it into my fucking leg?” Dimitri shouts and takes a vicious stomp toward him, balling his large fists.

“Enough,” I say, and they both stop and turn toward me. “How does this help us, Alexey?”

His smirk returns and deepens, this time straining his small cheeks. “It is embedded with tiny silver bearings. Any werewolf within a twenty-yard radius will have a very painful day.”

The three of us sit at Alexey’s table, picking through the ready-to-eat meals he horded when the rest of the military packed up shop. The small factory lights above us cast an odd shadow across the room, hiding the different pieces of machinery time forgot. Lighting the ends of two cigarettes, Alexey hands one my way.

“Have you kept up your surveillance on the compound?” I ask after taking a drag.

Alexey lifts a brow. “Does werewolf shit in woods?”

Dimitri takes a bite of the food from its tan plastic bag and visibly contemplates, looking up at the ceiling. My expression is no different.

Alexey shrugs. “Figure of speech. When we were first assigned here, we only kept video feed on everything outside of compound. Breaching the gate was too much risk.”

I draw another inhale, igniting the chalky-white paper to ashes and await his response.

“Now, Uncle Alexey has become more technologically advanced.” He retrieves a small remote from his fatigues pocket, points it at the computer station, and clicks. Every monitor feed changes to another vantage point inside the compound, ranging from the front doors, the gate, and even a point high enough up to observe the entire property.

How? is the first question to pass through my mind. How did he do this and more importantly, how did he do this without tipping off the pack he was watching?

“You’re wondering how I did it,” Alexey says as if reading my mind. “It was easy. You werewolves have that keen hearing ability, sure. All I had to do was wait until an Antonov A330 jet passed over the Vostik property, send out my drones to where I needed them, and bam!” He slams his palm on the table, startling a forkful of food from reaching Dimitri’s lips. “You can’t even hear your own thoughts when that big bastard passes by. I can tell you everything. Patrol patterns. How often their shipments arrive. How many civilians are on board.” Alexey clicks another button and a recording takes over every monitor. A top-down view of the pack leading shackled humans to the front doors. “Where are they from anyways?”

I sigh, take another drag, and stare at the concrete beneath my feet. “Los Angeles.”

Alexey tilts his head, peering curiously. “Let me see if I can connect the dots. You were forced to hunt in LA. There you meet a girl. She gets all your werewolf motors running. Then, your crazy fucking brother finds out and throws her in one of your shipping containers?”

I snarl out of impulse. “That’s not exactly how it happened …”

The human isn’t far off, my wolf says unapologetically. Great. If it wasn’t bad enough before, now the part of me I struggle to block out is siding with the man he wanted to dismember a few hours ago.

I have no issue killing him, even if he is right.

“I underestimated my brother. It was a mistake I will not make again.” I want to believe this. Have to believe it, maybe. Our entire lives, Viktor never looked at me as his brother. As his sibling. I’ve always known it deep down but couldn’t bring myself to admit it. To him, I was just an obstacle. The one person standing between him and a legacy he felt he deserved even from an early age. The youngest werewolf to ever shift. A prodigy at harnessing the strength and ferocity of the Vostik bloodline. I can’t help but wonder what a few years with my mother might’ve changed for him.

Alexey turns off the monitors, saving me from another wave of guilt should Natalia show up on that camera feed. He flicks his cigarette on the ashtray, dispelling most of the ash on the pile while more than a few flakes flitter around the air between us. “We’ll need a plan. A diversion to draw their patrols to the opposite side of the compound so you can get in and out.”

“Why don’t you use your fucking toy?” Dimitri says with a scoff.