The runners closed in tighter on Coach Quinn as he showed them a map outlining the route they’d be running. Basically, they would be following the perimeter of Grenville and Davis Park, a public greenspace that backed onto the eastern edge of the school grounds. From where they were now, they’d run along the edge of the school parking lot, then over a large hill, down into a glen. Then it was up another hill, along a tree-lined ridge, down into a slight valley, through a mature forest, across another ridge, and then across the football field, back to where they started from.

“The route’s about five kilometers long—a little longer than the distances you’ll be running in competition and just long enough to make you competitive when we start racing. Any questions?”

Silence.

“Right. Is everyone ready? Go!”

Argus was caught off guard by the quick start and found himself about ten runners back before he’d taken twenty strides. To make up for it, he sprinted for a while, passing five runners before slowing to a comfortable jog next to the runner just four spots behind the lead.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Argus asked.

The runner beside him was Noel Nagleson, whose father worked as a clerk at the Big R department store in town. Noel didn’t answer. Instead, he just kept running, breathing at a pace that matched the rhythm of his strides.

Argus shrugged, figuring that Noel, having trouble keeping pace, was pouring all of his concentration into his running. He decided to take it easy on the boy and match Noel’s stride and breathing, step for step and breath for breath. But Argus had used up a large amount of energy sprinting from the back of the pack, and now he found that his lungs couldn’t match Noel’s regularly timed breaths. Instead Argus was panting like a dog, his mouth wide open as he gasped the way he always did on runs in his wolfen form, in-and-out, in-and-out. As a human on two legs, panting didn’t seem to be working at all.

Slowly, a few inches at a time, Noel Nagleson pulled away from Argus, striding along like some thoroughbred horse—his breathing getting stronger, in-and-out, in-and-out, in-and-out, and his body showing no signs of tiring.

For the first time, Argus thought that he might not win this race. The idea nearly stopped him cold. It was unthinkable. He was Argus, the strongest and fastest werewolf in all of the forests around Redstone, probably in all of British Columbia. He would finish second to no one, let alone some teenage human boy.