Wayward Son by Heath Stallcup

well.” Apollo pulled a toothpick from behind his ear and stuck it in his mouth.
    “He…he what ?” Sheridan paused and stared at the man as if he had grown a second head. “How could he have found that out?”
    “Because I fucking told him.” Apollo turned a defensive stare to the man. “They got the drop on me, had me dead to rights, and instead of killing me, he took me prisoner.”
    “And you had to spill your guts!” Sheridan shook with rage as he took to his feet again. “You realize that you’ve just signed my death warrant? Not just mine, but every man that used to work with me. They’ll all be hunted down and…”
    “You wanted a war!” Apollo was on his feet and closing the distance between the two. “Well now you got it, sweetheart. Jack knows everything. Well…not everything. He don’t know who’s financing this little army of yours.”
    “Why in the hell did you tell him that—”
    Apollo interrupted him again, “And I hope the son of a bitch goes running to the squads and rats me out. Rats YOU out. That way, instead of gunning for them, they’ll come hunting for us. We can set traps, we can prepare. Rather than trying to attack them in their fucking strongholds , they can come after us on our terms.”
    “You’re an imbecile.” Sheridan shook his head as he stared at the man. “Our anonymity is the only thing that was keeping us alive.”
    Apollo waved him off. “Fuck anonymous. I want them to know.” He stared out the window at the handful of wolves packing their gear for their trips home. “You need to call your boss and order us some new soldiers.” He turned on Sheridan and glared. “This time have him send some REAL soldiers. Not just knuckle-dragging grunts that can shift. We need people who are trained how to fight. Between the two of us, we sacrificed over a hundred men, and for what? To ring their fucking doorbell and announce that we wanted to punch them in the nose?” He threw the stool across the room and let it clatter to the floor. “Fuck that. We need men who can fight. If he can’t do that, then he ain’t serious about his revenge.”
    Sheridan watched the mountain of a man stomp out of the office and grinned wickedly as he picked up the satellite phone. He knew that Mr. Simmons wouldn’t be happy, but with a force like Apollo on their side and angry? He’d be a fool not to take advantage of that weapon.
     
    *****
     
    John helped where he could, but the technicians were thorough and needed little help in repairing or replacing the equipment damaged or destroyed in the attack. He felt like a third wheel as people all around him scurried about, performing their duties as he simply stood and watched.
    Finally he found a group of men bagging up the dead wolves that were slowly shifting back to their human form. “Can I give you a hand with that?”
    The men in the HAZMAT suits shrugged and offered him a pair of rubber gloves. “You may already have the virus, but a lot of them are still messy as hell.”
    John pulled the gloves on and went to work bagging and tagging the bodies. They were quickly stacked on a push cart so that they could be fingerprinted before cremation. As John was tossing the last of the bodies onto the cart Dave Marshall trotted back into the hangar. “Little John! Give me a hand out here.” He waved the large man over toward the door.
    “What’s up, Dave?” John stripped the gloves and dropped them in the garbage on his way.
    “We’re trying to get the dishes back up and operational. We have the smaller ones back up, but we need someone big to help push the larger one up and help hold it in place while Hammer anchors it.”
    The duo trotted to the rear of the hangar and lifted and pushed the large dish up while Hammer ran stabilizing cables out to anchor the larger mesh dish. Marshall lifted along one side while John lifted the other and kept the dish upright. Dave finally caught John’s attention. “Hey, I heard you were in the