The smell of pine drifted throughout the lodge. It was a three floor monstrosity that one could hardly call a cabin and it was the one thing that Whisper insisted upon. Leaving the doom and gloom of the White House to spend Christmas together alone in the Adirondack Mountains. It was their time, when the three of them could be alone. Her brother and father placated her because the last thing they wanted was an angry reality manipulator, but their house had not felt like a home since the death of Mani. This was simply a time of frivolity that they allowed her.

It seemed that this year was not going to be their year, however. Ten minutes ago, the hairs on the back of her neck had stood on edge, that feeling of foreboding that she got from time to time when things were about to go wrong. It took only two minutes for her to call in to her source in the resistance. They were sending in a specialized team in an attempt to take out Lord's Angel, Heat and Whisper in an attempt to end this once and for all.

As she marched through the house, her silk nightgown billowing around her legs, Olivia caught sight of her brother. He was on top of a woman in the open den, pressing her body against the supple leather couch as he fervently made out with her. "I have no idea how she got here, Nathan, but I swear to god if you burn this one up I'm not cleaning up your mess." The woman whimpered a mix between fear and pleasure before she dove right back into Heat. "Gross."

The seventeen year old Whisper was already a hardened warrior, having dealt her fair share of death and cleaned up more than few of her brother's messes. There was still one person that could always put fear into her heart though, and that was their father. She was doted upon and loved, but at the same time every bit a soldier. It was with trepidation that she entered his private study. "Daddy, there's a problem." He sat behind his enormous mahogany desk, cleaning the sword that had dealt death to the King of Kings himself.

"Handle it, Whisper." He barely looked at her, too engrossed in his own thoughts and machinations. So much for Christmas.

It took her ten minutes to gear up. Full body black leather suit that afforded her protection from bullets, knives and the cold environment and a ceremonial black and red cape clipped on at the shoulders. Across the back was the insignia of the Wolf Pack inlaid over a stylized pair of wings. She was the only person in the world authorized to wear this symbol - anybody else caught sporting it was punished by death.

The cold night air bit the exposed skin of her face, bringing a pink tint to her cheeks almost reminiscent of sunburn. It didn't bother her, simply reminded her that she was alive. "Show me where they are." The words were mouthed, an audible noise barely escaping her lips, but it was enough. In her mind were the locations of the specialized team. Armed to the teeth, specialized training and all here to get the job done. There were fifteen of them and they thought for some reason that they'd be able to approach without anybody knowing and kill them in their sleep. They truly were getting desperate.

Standing on the edge of a canyon leading down to a river, Whisper looked across the thin gap, knowing that they were all making their way through the heavy snow while attempting to mask their trail. Her blood red hair whipped in the wind across her face as she showed no emotion. They were coming for her family in the dead of the night like cowards and on Christmas Eve. There would be no mercy here and certainly no remorse.

Reaching up, she undid the clips attaching the cape to her suit and then unceremoniously shucked off her clothing, leaving them secured in the hollow of a tree. "Wolf." The word left her rosy lips and as soon as it reached the nighttime air, the transformation process had begun. In Olivia Anderson's place stood a small, lithe wolf with rust colored fur and vivid teal eyes, a mirror to her human forms. Using the advanced olfactory senses and nearly unparalleled hunting skills of the wolf, it was a short time before she had tracked down the exact locations of those who were hunting her and her family.

A haunting howl trickled from her jowls as she overheard them. These men had personal gripes against her family. There was going to be no unemotional hit and quick death. They were planning slow, brutal, torturous murders and something even worse for her. Any thought of a quick and painless death for them went out the window in that second and Whisper surrendered herself to the instincts of the wolf. Hunt. Kill. Protect.

Using her laurels to launch her out of the snow, Whisper took down the first man with a quick and brutal bite to the neck, preventing him from screaming and alerting the others to her arrival. His blood spewed from his neck and steamed as it hit the ice cold snow. One down, fourteen more to go. She hunted, maimed and brutalized until there was one more left. The leader. The one who had talked of using her body. She was going to use him as her personal play toy. She'd ripped his weapons from him and now hunted him through the snowy woods.

They played a game of cat and mouse for upwards of two hours, until his stamina was all but gone. He was on his knees, hands planted in the snow and that's when Whisper finally showed herself. The breath exhaling her snout left a trail on the wind. A small, short wolfish yelp drifted out on the night air and within seconds in place of the wolf stood Whisper, buck naked and sheened in sweat.

The eyes of the soldier widened as he looked up at her, fear apparent in his face. “You came for me, you came for my family. You came on Christmas Eve. Did you think there would be no repercussions? Did you think you would escape unscathed? You did, didn’t you? You thought that you and your team were going to be big shots when you got back to base. The heroes who finally stopped the oppression, the saviors who took out the Andersons. That’s not how this works.”

She circled him several times; sizing him up like a predator would its prey. Reaching forward towards him, he winced and she pulled a knife from his boot. “Stay still. You’re not going to move.” With those words spoken, he was as still as a corpse. Whisper pushed him down into the snow and straddled him, having no care at all for propriety. Running the flat of the blade against his face, she leaned down and whispered in his ear. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to give you some Christmas presents and then I’m going to send you back with a message, or at least a message other than yourself. Next person who comes after me or my family doesn’t make it back in one piece like you, mister luck. No, the next person who comes after us will be shipped to various bases of yours in boxes.”

The cuts were small and shallow, but there were plenty of them. Many would scar. He would forever be a walking reminder of what happens when you try and take out the Anderson family. It took twenty minutes of cutting, slicing and threatening before Whisper was satisfied with the outcome. With a single word, she sent him back to whence he came, never to be seen by her again.

Stepping through the front door of their not so humble abode, the first thing that Whisper noticed was the lack of human flesh burning. That was a good thing, one less mess for her to clean up. The black leather/Kevlar mesh of her bodysuit clung to her skin, the dried blood causing it to stick to her in uncomfortable places.

Once again, she entered her father’s study, this time there was something different about her, something colder, as well as the spray of blood that had stained her face. “It’s done. They’re gone and they won’t be returning.”

Lord’s Angel looked at her with remorse, with sadness, the first of either emotion he’d shown in ages. His daughter was no longer a soft, innocent little girl. She was a cold, hardened killer who’d been dealing with burdens not her own for her entire life. Was this the point of no return for her? Only time would tell. “I’ll see you in the morning, Daddy. Merry Christmas.”