tilted his head a bit. “But, Taylor, how do you know for sure?”

Taylor shook his head. “He’s always at practice. He’s never late, he’s never missed. If he does, he tells me.” He paused. “I called for him but got not answer.”

Lera suddenly began to see the crisis at hand. She nodded and kept running. Please, Sam. Please, be okay.

The pup was far from okay. While the others had been going about their business, he had been walking alone, trying to get to the team to start practice. Passing a dark alley, he shuddered a bit, getting the feeling someone or something was watching him. The minute he neared the end of it, he heard a quiet snarling that seemed to get louder and louder. He flicked his head in that direction just when something lashed out at him. It was completely dark in this alley, safe from even the keenest of prying eyes.

A menacing voice whispered in his ear as the body it belonged too held him down by the chest and neck. “Hello Sam. Remember me?”

Sam’s eyes opened in shock as he recognized the voice. It belonged to the malamute he was so frightened of. “Steele?” He asked in horror.

“Of course, you fool! Who else?” He snarled.

Sam yelped at the angry voice, kicking his hind legs in a feeble attempt to get Balto’s rival off him. “Get off! Let me go! Please! Please!”

Steele grinned in the dark light. “Hm… let you go… Unfortunately, that’s not a part of my agenda, wolfdog.”

Sam whimpered pitifully.

Steele laughed quietly. “I need you to do something for me, pup.”

Sam didn’t know how to react. He simply said, “What?” His voice was trembling terribly. You could literally sense the fear in his voice. Whereas any of his other siblings, besides Lela, would have said “Forget it, I’m not doing anything for you”, Sam said this one word with so much fright he thought he would have passed out. This is why Steele chose him for the special job he needed Sam to fulfill.

“That’s more like it, wolfdog. Now… here’s what I need you to do.”

It had been nearly days since Taylor and Lela had gotten to Denali and Rika. The four siblings had been searching for Sam constantly, checking even the smallest of hiding places to find him.

“Where could he have gone?” Rika called, deeply frantic and worried.

Denali sniffed the ground again but got nothing. “I don’t know…” there was a sadness in his voice that would have moved even the grumpiest of souls.

Taylor hung his head low, feeling as if it were somewhat his fault. “I should have made sure he was with me when I went to practice. I should have protected him!”

Denali responded with a bit of an annoyed tone. “Taylor it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s.”

Taylor noticed his tone and tilted his head a bit, getting a bit heated at how he chose to respond. “Why so angry, Den?” He glared at his brother.

Denali sighed and replied a tad coarsely, “Because! I’m tired of us taking faults for things that weren’t any one dog’s place to begin with!”

Taylor didn’t reply. He couldn’t seem to find the meaning to his words.

Denali growled silently. “I’m tired of us arguing whose fault it is and blaming ourselves for something that wasn’t really our responsibility to start with. I think it’s my fault Steele came back, you think it’s your fault Sam is missing, Rika thinks it’s her fault the fight started in the first place, Lera thinks she’s at fault because she ran off, and vice versa! ENOUGH!” He puffed out a breath. The others looked utterly shocked. They had never known Den to show such anger before.

Taylor, obviously not wanting to get even further on Den’s now showing bad side, decided to respond a bit gentler than he had previously. “Den… I’m sorry. It’s no one’s fault Steele came back and no one’s fault that Sam went missing-“

“Taylor, shut up.” Denali was trying to concentrate on the words he had just spoken. Something in them was trying to give them an answer.

“But Den-“

“Taylor, please, shut it! I’m trying to think…”

Taylor suddenly got what he was saying and nodded. Denali’s eyes became as wide as the earth itself when he realized what might have happened to Sam. “Holy snow…” He said quietly, the revelation smacking him square in the face.

“What’s wrong, Den?” Taylor asked.

“Sam! He was taken by Steele!”

Rika shook her head. “Den, that’s crazy talk.”

Denali shook his head too. “No, it’s not! Think about what Taylor just said! ‘It’s no one’s fault Steele came back. It’s no one’s fault Sam went missing.’ ”

All three of them opened their eyes just as wide as Denali initially had. Rika’s voice was scared, now. “Steele… he… It fits. The rumors said Steele came into town. Not too long after that, Sam went missing…”

Denali nodded.

Taylor’s voice was as frantic as ever. “We have to go find him! We have to-“

Denali cut him short. “Hold it, big shot. We need to see what’s the best way to go about this.”

Taylor growled softly. “But if we don’t find him, Steele will kill him! Don’t you remember what he said??”

All of them suddenly remembered.

“One by one, I’ll make you fall. You’ll wish you had never tried to fight it. You’d rather be dead.”

Denali shuddered, but kept his cool for the most part. “I know, I know. That doesn’t change the fact, though, that we’re dealing with a dog that’s massive, angry, and could kill us all in one go.”

Rika tried to cut in, but Den stopped her too. “I know we were five against one at the start, but now that he has Sam he has an advantage over us. We need to think this through. If any of us make a move on him, Sam could become road kill.”

The shocking truth suddenly flooded to their skulls. Rika nodded, hanging her head about two inches lower than usual.

“Then what do we do?” Lera asked. All of the siblings should have been shocked that she spoke so suddenly, but due to the circumstances they didn’t really notice anything wrong with it.

Denali shook his head. “I don’t know, Lera. I don’t know…” he trailed off.

Just then, faint paw prints entered their ears. All of them turned to the alley ahead of them, and as Denali sniffed the air, he gasped lightly. Taylor noticed it too, as did Rika and Lera. “Sam?” Taylor called.

A growl invaded their hearing. There were no words, but the sound they could hear was sinister… sinister, but hesitant at the same time. Sam’s figure appeared out of the shadows. Steele kept his dark veil around, making sure no one could see him. As the coward he was, of course he wouldn’t show himself unless absolutely necessary.

“Sam? What’s wrong?” Lera asked confused.

Sam seemed to stop growling for a moment, his gaze a bit hesitant, but it turned hard nearly seconds later.  His growls turned to snarls and he leaped at Denali. He was the first that needed to go.

Steele’s words flooded his brain. “Take out Denali first. Since you’re his brother he’ll want to do nothing but protect you. He’ll be defenseless.”

The others were pretty much frozen as Sam raised his head, preparing to strike. Denali didn’t know what to do. For once, he wasn’t willing to protect against a threat to his family. Mainly because this time the threat was his family. Sam soon brought down his head and neck, biting Denali’s in one quick movement.

Denali was struggling to breathe. His legs started kicking wildly. “Sam… let go!” He managed.

Sam refused to loosen his grip. A tear shed from his eye as he slowly killed his brother. He really didn’t want to do this, but he had no choice.

“If you do this, you’ll kill them all quickly. They’ll go without pain. If you don’t? I’ll have to kill you all myself. Then no one will die quick. I’ll make sure it’s the most painful thing you’ve ever endured. You’ll all see each other die. And you’ll be the last to. That way you can watch all of your brothers and your sister fall dead right before your eyes. You’ll be broken in pieces by the time I get to you.” The menacing growls of Steele rang again.

Sam closed his eyes, praying his siblings would forgive him. But just as Steele’s voice left his head for a moment, Lera’s entered. She too was struggling. Not like Denali, who was trying his best to breathe, not like Sam, who was trying his best to get the job done, but she was fighting the instinct to run. I won’t do it again, she thought as she spoke to Sam. Never again. “Sam! Please stop! Please!”

Sam opened his eyes to her voice, searching for her form and seeing it. The tears were all over his face as he finally broke out of the trance and let go of his death grip. Denali gasped for air as Sam climbed off. “I…” he couldn’t speak well. His words were fragile and coming out in pieces. Rika looked shocked her brother could ever do such a thing, but didn’t let that get in front of what she really needed to say. “Sam, what did he