"Can I spend the night?" Max pleaded.
"What's wrong with your house?" Gage wondered as he closed the door behind them. Max stared around the single person apartment, taking in the smallness.
"Bad energy…I can't be there right now," As he said it, Max felt a shiver travel up his spine.
"Ani and Slade?" Gage grabbed a blanket and pillow from a small closet and handed them to him. Max nodded thanks and sat down heavily on the futon, feeling it sink under his weight.
Gage's bleach blond hair caught in the florescent lighting of the apartment, which mirrored onto the dark hardwood floor. His aqua blue eyes narrowed with disquiet as he sat beside Max. They'd always been close, but had drifted apart once the werewolf curse had struck Gage.
"What do you wanna do?" Max watched Gage's face as his eyebrows narrowed with concern.
"Can I just crash? I'm…I'm still not right." Max admitted.
"Sure man, you have my number, call me." Gage waved as he headed out the door, probably to go inform the rest of the pack.
Max sighed profoundly and slipped his shirt off over his head, then stretched the blanket out, and then he punched the pillow into a more comfortable shape and, at a snail's pace, drifted off to sleep.

As the moon slowly peaked, Max felt his limbs ache. He coughed as he tried to catch a breath that never came. He struggled to keep himself from twisting into painful shapes as his body was racked with pain. Pain so unimaginable that only one thing could end it…
"KILL ME! OH GOD, KILL ME!" He screamed as his muscles tensed and collapsed, his chest rose and fell with deliberate slowness. He cried and struggled but couldn't get a grip on his own physical being.
"PLEASE! SOMEONE KILL ME!" He begged the empty air. He felt his arms extend into feet, his back legs grew a few inches, his whole being became distorted, grotesque.
Soon he found himself curled on the floor, curled in a ball of pain and moaning, whining like a dog. His deep breathing was bestial; the air around him was heavy with scents, he extended his arm and found wolfish claws, paws and fur. Dark brown fur, the same color as his hair…he felt a tail flick from the end of his spine. His ears buzzed with unknown sounds, the cockroaches in the floorboards, the mice in the pipes out side the house, the wind in the trees that never seemed to go away.
"No," He moaned. His human voice was raspy. He tried to balance on his paws, but he could barely support his own weight. He fell with a miserable thud and lay there, feeling the cool floor through his fur.
He didn't know anything about wolves. All he knew was what he feared, they killed, and they were killers.
He wasn't a killer. What he had done had been self-defense. Couldn't this stupid curse figure that out?  Couldn't this stupid curse just go away and leave him to die human? All he ever wanted to do was kill himself; he wanted to die that night when Tyrone almost killed him…that's why he was there on that rocky out look. He was about to jump before that son of a bitch came out and pointed a gun and yelled bang!
Now look at me, Max thought bitterly, I'm a wolf. I'm a fucking WOLF! I kill, I want to be killed! Why don't I just go jump in front of a car? Oh that's right, because I can't FUCKING MOVE!
Max stayed there on the cold floor until the early hours before dawn, when he felt himself transition painlessly back into a human being. He heard the apartment door rattle and didn't bother to move or even speak as Gage, followed by Gio, Ronnie, and Slade burst through the door.
As they helped him up he just stood there like a ton of dead weight; unfeeling. He wanted to be left alone. He didn't understand why they cared about a screw up so much. That's all I am right? A screw up…
After a thousand "I'm fine's," and "No, Just tired's," They finally let him rest on the futon again, this time keeping someone, Slade of all people, in the apartment with him while the rest went to have an emergency pack meeting.
"What? Are you gonna call me a screw up now? You haven't for about two hours, must be a world record…" Max rolled over on the futon so that he couldn't see Slade's expression. He knew what his brother's temper was like, but he felt like provoking him anyway.
"I spent the last two hours looking for you!" Slade's voice was level, but Max could definitely catch the rise on 'you'.
"You had all day to look for me, what were you doing other than humping your girlfriend?" Max's bitterness seeped into every word.
"Don't you talk about Anisa like that!" Slade's voice held a hint of malice.
"Why can't I? It's not like she's my sister. I can say whatever I want…I plead the fifth…" Max crossed his arms and turned over to stare his brother directly in the face.
"Why did you leave? Ani was worried sick!" Slade's eyes flashed as he waited for Max's reply.
"…because I'm not…" Max paused, catching his words. "…because I'm…I'm weak! Okay? I'm weak! I'm the weakest of this whole pack! I can't even stand when I'm in wolf form how the hell am I supposed to run and kill, if I can't even stand?" Max breathed deeply and turned away, quickly brushing the first tears from his golden eyes.
Slade was silent for so long that Max thought he'd dropped dead. When he finally turned around he noticed Slade's hands were trembling, his gaze fixed on Max's arms, as if he could see through the long sleeved shirt to the scars buried beneath.