Previous issue: Information dump. Hopefully I've reduced this. Please comment if this is still an issue and where in the chapter.

Isobel's POV
A loud growl, her growl, echoes around the dense trees of the forest, the sun's rays tentatively reaching down for the forest floor. Birds rise from the canopy in droves, frightened into flight, and she pounces on them hungrily, catching one in her jaws. Not even bothering to kill it first, she starts to eat it alive and I mentally shiver with disgust: what did I ever do to be trapped like this? To be trapped inside my own wolf, powerless to stop her horrific actions. The bird is not the first thing she's murdered; she executes anything we come across, be it deer, fox, or even werewolf like us. She kills them all.

After so much time contained inside of my wolf with full access to her emotions I have realised how intelligent, how human she is; cruel and merciless, but human nevertheless. I have my own name for her; Jack. Jack, like the mysterious killer that stalked Whitechapel's streets 120 years ago, killing prostitutes. For some sick reason, she loves the name; she wants a name that will make me fear her so she can wipe out my influence in our collective mind but I refuse, clinging onto the last dredges of life I have.
I cannot afford to lose. If I do, I'm gone forever, along with any shreds of humanity my wolf has left to stop her destroying the world for what it has done to us.

Barricaded in my own mind, I can only watch while Jack rips through countless birds just as she ripped apart our father. He hurt us, damaged me beyond repair.

As Jack chows down on the bird she caught, I can't help reminiscing over our first kill. It was a rabbit, my father chucked me out the house, only allowing me to return once I had eaten, as he called it, 'real' meat. I was forced to eat it raw and nearly suffered food poisoning consequently. I had to make a trap as I was banned from shifting; the issue now is my own wolf, the person who is supposed to be my constant support, denies me. Jack refuses to grant me control, regardless of the hours spent pleading with her.

The taste of bird is horrible, the feathers sticking in my throat, the bird still writhing in pain as she eats it, Jack refusing to put it out of its misery until it annoys her enough and she bites its head off, leaving it a tiny, gruesome little corpse. My heart goes out to the little guy; he deserved a kinder death than what she gave him. And I could have stopped it if I had just taken control. But I couldn't. And now the bird's gone.

I think Jack feels my bad mood as she opens up the mental communication link between us so I can talk to her. Despite my hatred of what she does, I do not hate her; in her mind it's justified. We need to survive, and must therefore do whatever is necessary: her reasoning, not mine. I have always maintained my beliefs in right and wrong, and I refuse to change them due to circumstance.

Why do you feel do guilty? It's food, not a long lost friend, Jack comments.

You could have killed it quicker. There was no need to make it suffer, I reply.

Why kill it immediately though? It should know fear of me before it dies.

It's a freaking bird! What do you expect it to do? Bow down and worship you?!

You're blowing this out of proportion. We've eaten creatures in this manner before numerous times.

I guess I -

Hunters, she growls, cutting me off.

She blocks me out again and lopes away, heading towards the scent of the hunters, her thoughts crystal clear to me: she's going to kill them. I just hope for the hunters' sakes they're human; it will be a quicker, less painful death for them.

Local werewolf packs have sent their own hunter-trackers after us regularly, only for Jack to brutally kill them. If they survive, they're often too injured to heal and she later finds them and finishes them off. I've tried to stop her so many times, but every time I fail. The hunters' scent are stronger; judging by smell alone, there are only three of them, all humans. Relief fills me; they won't suffer. Their deaths will be quick. We can hear their voices talking, laughing cheerfully and Jack's ears twitch in irritation at the foreign sound.

We have spent so long by ourselves in the woods, killing anything that talks, she now hates the noises of civilisation, something that prevents her from venturing into pack territory, discounting the very large amount of wolves that will attack us if we do. They will only see us as another rogue, and despite her love of killing, she is practical in knowing it would be suicide to try and fight them all.

Jack growls to make them raise their defences and sneaking up behind cover, she studies them carefully, analysing which one should be taken down first. The youngest one is too tense, visibly shaking, while the eldest one showing clear holes in his vague defensive strategy.

Pathetic.

She bounds out of the bush and, approaching from behind, takes out the eldest with a slash to the jugular. She then bowls over the other two with ease and snaps their necks, killing them instantly, and giving out a long howl of triumph.

Well that was easy.

You didn't have to kill them.

Yes I did. What if one of them reported our location or called for back up? What then? Try and take out 50 humans armed to the teeth?

You know that wouldn't happen. And they might not have even been looking for us. They could just have gone hunting for meat and unfortunately got too close to where we are.

I highly doubt that. Goodbye.

Jack -

She shuts me out, ignoring me, and she starts rifling through the hunters' belongings, searching for something. A sudden burning sensation hits our snout and Jack recoils, snarling; the hunters were carrying silver in their bags, a metal particularly toxic to werewolves.

Still think they were just out hunting?

I remain silent and she sighs, healing the wound from our burn. Now more wary of the potential presence of more silver, she finds their food stores and quickly snaps them up, the hunger in our stomach now fully extinguished. She also downs the water she finds and then trots away from the trio of bloody corpses, back towards our den.

The den is, in reality, less of a den, but rather a cave behind a small waterfall that she discovered while out hunting and has since then become our home. Returning to the same spot after hunting isn't the best idea but Jack doesn't care, rashly believing that she can beat any wolves that track our scent here. The floor is littered with leaves and the occasional patch of dried blood from when we took a hit but is otherwise empty and spotless, devoid of anything to show we live here.

Settling down in a corner, she shuts her eyes, preparing for sleep, yet neither of us feels tired so she just lies there, not doing anything. I feel sudden strength course through me that then fades away. Panic spreads through my mind, drowning me and I can't help noticing the ominous sense of foreboding looming over us. Jack opens her mind to me in response to my sudden tidal wave of emotion, unable to stop herself checking that I'm alright.

Something's wrong.

You don't think?

Something's different. I feel something is coming for us.

For once, I sense it too. We need to be prepared.

Something isn't right.

Agreed. You've already said that numerous times. I understood the first time. However, for us to be at our best to face it, we should make sure we are well rested to fight effectively and think straight.

She closes the link and a wave of exhaustion sweeps over me. Everything fades to black as she drifts off to sleep but I stay awake in her mind, pondering the conversation. What could possibly be out to get us? Other than the local packs of course. Yet this thing I sense is more dangerous than all of them combined. It is unsettling, different in a bad way. Jack snores softly and I try to take back control, attempting to use her moment of vulnerability against her.

I fail. Her mind is blocking me out, even in her dreams. She is so strong, so powerful compared to me, even at my strongest.  I barely member what it was like to see the world in normal colour vision, to not have blue tinges in the peripherals. To be able to walk on two feet. To open doors with my hands. To have my human body back, my human body with all its flaws, something that I placed too much emphasis on when I was younger. But with Jack in charge that's never going to happen.

Jack?

What? I'm trying to sleep.

Why won't you give me control?

You don't have what it takes to survive out here. I do. Maybe there'll come a time when you do. However, that time is not now so getting your hopes up is futile.

What circumstances would you allow me to have control?

Ignoring my question, she goes back to sleep, cutting communication between us, dozing off quickly; her tiredness seeps through to me and I too sleep, our conversation promptly forgotten.

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Hi!
What did you think of the first chapter? I have no idea what else to say so signing off.
WORxxx