Lynn had no idea where she was going. She'd never been away this far from the den since the one day she and One-eye had first found this territory. She had no clue where to go. She only knew that she had to get away from these dogs.

Some loud barks behind her told her that the leader of the dogs wasn't far away from her. "Come here, brat!" he barked loudly.

Where do I go? Where do I go? Lynn thought. She just kept running, trying to avoid random rocks, bushes, and trees. But she'd hardly ever ran before, and therefore her stamina was low. Very low for a wolf, at least.

Suddenly, she heard more barks, followed by a snarl. The other dogs are after me as well... and... Dad? She turned around to see if One-eye was really running with or after the dogs. But she shouldn't have done that, for suddenly the leader attacked. He tried to bite her leg, but Lynn, who was much smaller than most wolves he'd hunted, made a quick movement, which caused the hound to bite her somewhere else.

Lynn let out an enormous cry of pain as Wilson gouged out her right eye.

***

"Lynn! NO!" One-eye stopped running. He'd tried to keep up with the dogs to keep them away from Lynn, but he wasn't fast enough. From where he was, he couldn't see what Wilson was doing to her, but what he did see was that her yelping suddenly stopped and that she lay down, still.

"Nononononono! Lynn!" One-eye howled as he suddenly bolted past the dogs and knocked over the leader.

He looked at her. She was shivering, paws covering her face, tail between her hind legs. Not dead, he thought gladly.

He pushed the approaching dogs away from her, but then, suddenly, he smelled that sharp scent again. Humans.

The old wolf looked around. He noticed that the dogs weren't attacking him anymore, only standing still and snarling in a semicircle around him. They looked and once in a while barked as if they wanted to tear him apart more than anything, but something kept them from doing so. He heard a voice coming out of the bushes.

"Halt!"

One-eye looked up, away from the dogs. Two humans, both tall and wearing green and brownish clothes, stepped out of the bushes.

The dogs looked at their owners, ears perked up and eyes big, as if the people had them under some sort of control. The mere thought of that made One-eye shiver.

The humans stood still for what seemed like an eternity, and so did the wolf and the dogs, until one of the persons grabbed a Pang from his shoulder and pointed it right at One-eye, who slowly started to back down with his tail between his hind legs. As much as he hated humans, he knew better than to let his anger overtake him in such a situation.

The other person said something and made a gesture, and the dogs stayed still, except Wilson, who slowly backed away from Lynn and walked towards One-eye, stopping in between the wolf and his adopted daughter.

He's going to keep me away from Lynn! One-eye realized with shock. He wanted to do nothing more than throw himself at Wilson and take out his artery, but the Pang that was pointed right at him kept him from doing so. Shit!

"Der Welpe sieht gut aus!" the person who didn't hold his gun was pointing out.

The other made an agreeing noise. "Das stimmt. Sie wird echt viel wert sein...wenn Wilson sie am Leben erhälten würde," he said bitterly, not taking his gaze away from One-eye.

Then he slowly went back to a more relaxed pose and lowered the Pang for a bit.

One-eye felt the hair on the back of his neck and hump raise. What is he doing?

Out of nowhere, he shouted a command. Wilson, who had realized that his gums were his weak spot, grabbed One-eye's muzzle between his strong jaws and dragged him away from the pup.

One-eye yelped, still not over the pain in his crooked tooth, of which the leader dog took advantage. He let go off of the old wolf for a moment, and signaled one of his followers with his tail. The other dog gave One-eye's head a strong headbutt and the wolf was bashed to the same rock with his head and teeth, this time on the left side. He let out a painful yelp in the process. His cyborg eye fell off as soon as he hit the boulder and fell into a thick bush.

One-eye tried to think straight, to keep himself together, but he just couldn't. His head had hit the rock pretty hard, and just staying conscious was already so hard. He kept seeing black blurs in front of his eyes and lost his ability to see clearly. Nothing but pain. Whu...What is...happe-- He couldn't even finish his own thoughts.

Wilson approached the old wolf, who was now nothing more but a bleeding and whimpering creature, too much in pain and too paralyzed to respond. He barked and the two men walked up to One-eye, one pointing the Pang at him again.

The old wolf shook his head to remain conscious, and suddenly looked into the strange shiny end of a Pang, but he was too dazzled to make out what it really was for a few seconds. Then, the blurs behind the metal thing finally took the shapes of humans.

HUMANS? FUCK! Gotta get out of her--OUCH. His head was aching so much, and so was his mouth and the rest of his body. Plus, he was exhausted.

He just looked at the Pang and the people. If you really have to finish it... be done with it then... He finally submitted, and he lay his head down on the ground and closed his eye, preparing for the end. I'm so sorry I failed at protecting you, Lynn...

But the shot never came. It just stayed still. After half-a-minute One-eye dared to open his eye again. He looked for Lynn behind the humans, but they were in his way, still examining him. The Pang was no longer pointed at him. They know I'm too weak to hurt them, he realized.

He looked at the humans, and they looked at him. Yes, I look hideous, I'm a hunchback, I have only one eye. We--OW--get it.

"Sieht sehr ungewöhnlich aus," finally one of them said, scratching his chin.

The other shook his head. "Aber was können wir mit ihm machen? Diese Narben kan man nicht verschwinden lassen, nicht mal wenn man ihn ausstopfen würde, ganz zu schweigen von dem Fakt dass niemand für so eine Abnormität bezahlen würde!"

"Ich dachte sie würden gerade deswegen sehr viel bezahlen...," the other objected.

"Lass es sein," said the other, and that seemed to be a definite decision, though One-eye had no idea on what. He noticed that they got up from their crouch, and the one that wasn't holding his Pang in his hand patted Wilson over his head. "Gut gemacht, Junge," he praised.

The other crouched over Lynn. One-eye suddenly was well-awake. "No, not her!" he barked, instantly yelping after his sentence because of the pain.

"Nicht gut gelungen, du meinst er ist auf ihr Auge losgegangen anstatt sie einfach festzuhalten!" he said angrily.

The man petting Wilson walked up to Lynn and started to spark a loud conversation with the one sitting beside Lynn, who still didn't move.

"Dang you! All of you! How can you--OUCH, MY EVERYTHING!" One-eye shouted, head raised high, fur bristling, at Wilson and the surviving hounds. They kept still, looking at him. Wilson had a slight frown upon his face.

"You're of no use anymore, old man," the hound simply said, as he turned around to his owners, who were now both crouched near Lynn, arguing in their strange human language.

"What--ow--what are they going to do to her?" One-eye whispered to the nearest dog, a brown animal. The dog walked away, following Wilson. "No..."

One-eye slowly lowered his painful head back to his front legs and lay it down. It was all too late, and even if it wasn't, what could he do? He'd never felt as physically weak as now. Everything hurt, mentally and physically, and he still had trouble not losing his conscience.

The dogs stood near the humans, but the more-aggressive man that had been pointing the Pang shoved them away. "Hau ab! Wilson hat diesem Welpen schon genug Schaden zugefügt. Wir wollen nicht, dass du es noch schlimmer machst! Wer wird überhaupt irgendwelches Geld bezahlen, für einen einäugigen Wolf mit einer Narbe, die so schlimm ist, wie diese?"

The second man scratched his chin. "Also...he....Ich meine sie ist immerhin ein Rotwolf und noch ein Welpe, wir werden definitiv etwas Geld mit ihr machen."

The Pang-human made a "tssk" sound with his tongue to his teeth and then grabbed Lynn off of the ground.

One-eye startled. "NO! You idiots!" he howled.

The old wolf tried to get up, but as soon as he even stretched out his legs to put them on the ground properly, another burst of pain and exhaustion overtook him, and he dropped to the ground.

"Komm, lass uns gehen!," one of the men said, as he turned around. It was the one carrying Lynn, who lay still in his arms. Then, even if it was just for a millisecond, One-eye was sure he saw her ear twitch. Just a bit. But it twitched.

She can't be... He still couldn't see what Wilson had done to her from his spot in the grass, but she was showing a sign of life. He knew he couldn't be imagining this, he had to be seeing it for real.

One-eye tried to wrestle himself to his feet once more, but it didn't work. Instead he took the pose of a hunched sit, and stretched out his deformed paw. "No...please..." he begged, hardly even understanding himself.

Then he lost the final strength in the front paw keeping him up in his sitting position and fell down to the grass again with his head.

Still trying not to faint, One-eye furiously kept his only eye open. Stay conscious, don't faint, don't you faint, you idiot! He saw how the men and their dogs walked away, leaving behind the bodies of the dead hounds with some arguing, after which they finally started to vanish into the thick woods.

One-eye fought, but the leaving silhouettes got blurrier and blurrier, until he finally passed out and everything went black.