“They need to get a full group, Viv,” I rationed. “We can’t leave camp unprotected, and the shifters who were out with us all morning need to rest. We’re pulling our guys back from helping Sal. Half will stay here to bolster patrol and half will go with you on another search.”
She groaned, pushing her fingers into her short blonde hair and yanking on it from the roots so hard I thought she may actually rip it all out, but I stopped her. Stepping it to place my hands on her arms and gently tug her arms back down. “They’ll be back any minute,” I promised. “Just be patient. I can’t have you going out after her alone.”
“I’ll go with her,” Seth offered from where he was lying on the couch with Layla kneeling on the floor near his head. “My ankle is almost fully healed already. I can run on it.”
Vivian’s upper lip curled and her hands clenched at her side. Just the sound of his voice was setting her off. “If you had been watching her back like you were supposed to, this wouldn’t be fucking happening!”
“Viv!” Layla snapped harshly, her bright eyes darkening at her best friend. “That’s not fair, and you know it.”
“It’s okay, La La,” Seth tried to interrupt, but Layla wasn’t having it. She stood in a huff, her face pinching. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to see that she was having a difficult time walking the thin line between wanting to be there for her best friend and wanting to stand up for her boyfriend. In the end, though, Layla would always side with whatever she deemed to be the ‘right’ thing. She was good like that.
“No, it’s not,” she told Seth before turning her attention back to a still-fuming Vivian. “There were eight of them, Viv. Eight against two. Are you telling me you would’ve held up any better than Seth?”
Her jaw ground in response, and I winced, thinking she was going to crack a tooth.
“I hate that this happened. I hate that she’s gone, too, but don’t put this all on him, Viv. It isn’t fucking fair, and you know it.”
She inhaled sharply and seemed to make a decision. “I’ll go with you for the next search.” She spun to glare at Seth. “And you will go back to your cabin and take a goddamned nap so you can heal properly.”
Seth opened his mouth like he meant to argue the point, but Layla’s brows rose in challenge, and he shut his mouth before uttering a word.
Layla could be scary like that. I didn’t blame him for not wanting to cross her. She gave a cold shoulder like no other.
Vivian’s lower lip trembled and Layla’s rigid facade crumbled as she sighed and closed the gap between them, pulling Vivian into a violent hug that she didn’t return at first. But as her tears began to fall, her arms lifted to wrap around Layla and her fists clenched into the dark fabric of her long black dress. “It’s okay,” Layla cooed, rubbing her palm up and down Viv’s back. I went to join them and Layla pulled me in so I had an arm around her and one around Viv.
We held Vivian until her sobs quieted, and I had to choke back tears of my own at my friend’s anguish.
Layla sniffled as she pulled away just as the guys entered the cabin. They froze in the entryway, clearly wondering if they should turn around and go back the way they came to give us some more privacy. I shook my head to tell them it was okay to come in, and Jared cleared his throat.
Their bare chests glistened with sweat from the run to get the guys back from Sal’s, and Clay wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, tipping it into a loud crack. With all the running they’d done already today, I wouldn’t doubt they would both be sore as shit by morning.
“They’re packing up,” Jared told us. “Should be back in the next twenty or so.”
Vivian stiffened. “Twenty minutes?”
She didn’t seem fucking happy, scrubbing a hand over her face.
Sam entered behind the guys a second later, her dark hair slicked back from her face in a severe ponytail that made her face look even more gaunt than it had when she’d arrived.
“Where have you been?” I blurted, unable to help myself. The suspicion clear in the inflection of my voice. I couldn’t remember seeing her this morning when all that shit went down. Or last night for that matter.
Her face screwed up into a scowl at my tone, and she glanced at Clay as though he might stick up for her, but he only stepped away from his sister. Not even bothering to look her way.
“I was in my cabin,” she said with a shrug. “I was out late for a run last night and slept through the commotion this morning. I came to see if I could help.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to shuck off my animalistic urge to jump down her throat. I needed to be smart. If she actually had anything at all to do with this and we let on that we suspected something, we could spook her. She would take off before we could get the intel we needed to get our missing pack mates back.
Be smart, Allie.
“No,” I ground out. “We’re good here. Maybe see if Hazel needs a hand in the garden, though. Our meat order was destroyed in the attack. It’ll be fucking potato pie again tonight.”
“Right,” she said with a gulp. “Sure.”
She left a moment later and Vivian fell hard into the armchair opposite Seth, who was sitting up, testing his weight on his injured ankle.
“I can’t just sit here,” Vivian lamented, dropping her head into her hands. “I have to keep looking. Every minute we waste, she could be getting further away. She could be getting hurt.” Her voice broke on the last word, and I realized something I should’ve from the start.
Vivian wasn’t going to quit. She never had at anything in her entire life, and she wasn’t about to with this, either. Especially not this.
She was going to go off alone if no one would go with her or if there was a lull between search parties. She was going to get herself taken or killed. She was going to run herself into an early grave.
I could hardly blame her, but I couldn’t let that happen, not when I had the power to ensure it didn’t.
“Viv,” I said, stepping over to the armchair and bending into a crouch. I set my hands on her knees, and she dropped hers from her face to look at me.
Her dead stare pierced my soul, and I hardened myself against the ugly emotions wreaking havoc in my core. “I need you to promise me you won’t go looking for Destiny alone.”
I held her stare, even as it soured against me. “I can’t promise you that, Allie.”
I sighed, closing my eyes against what needed to be done as I drew on that well of authority deep in the chasm of my soul. The power of the alpha flashed through my eyes as I opened them again, fused to the sound of my voice. “If they took her for ransom, they’ll be sending someone with the terms of her release. We need to be smart about this, Viv. We’ll keep searching, but it might take some time—”
“I won’t stop looking for her. You can’t ask me to do that.”
“I’m not,” I argued. “I’m asking you to be fucking smart about it.”
Her gaze hardened, and I knew that it didn’t matter what I said. If she felt like she needed to, she wouldn’t hesitate before going out after Des alone. She was leaving me no choice...
“You will not go after her alone,” I commanded, releasing my physical hold on her in favor of one much deeper. Using all the alpha energy I’d drawn on, I let it flow through the pack bond and bind her to my will.
“Allie.” Vivian growled, and I could feel her fighting it, like a mental game of tug-o-war she was destined to lose.
“I’m sorry, Viv. I won’t lose you, too.”
She got up and stormed past me, pushing into my shoulder as she went with a bruising force. She cursed under her breath as she shoved through Jared and Clay at the door and shifted less than a second after she was through it, sending up a howl at the afternoon sun.
“Was that necessary?” Layla asked gently and guilt piled onto my shoulders, weighing down my already heavy as fuck soul.
“You know it was,” I replied and Layla gave a sad nod, brushing her long black ha
ir back to tuck it behind one ear.
“I’ll go see if I can try to get her to eat something before the next search party goes out.”
I stalked to the kitchen and pulled out the last bag from my jerky stash in the back of the top cupboard. I’d gone through the whole damned pile over the last few weeks, passing it out to members of the pack on patrol who needed it most. “Here,” I said, tossing it to Layla, who caught it with ease before giving me a tight-lipped smile and leaving.
I sank onto a barstool at the counter and resisted the sudden desire to smash my forehead into the marble surface at the impossibility of it all. I groaned loudly and Seth, perhaps sensing that it was time for him to scram, stood on his good leg and hopped to the door.
“You need help getting back to your cabin, man?” Jared asked, opening the door for him.
“Nah. I’m good,” he said as he went outside and was immediately bombarded with one of Layla’s trademark screeches for walking on his own.
Clay shut the heavier wooden door behind him before both my mates came to join me in the kitchen.
Jared rubbed my back while Clay leaned over the counter opposite me, his face a stormy mask that made me wonder what was going on behind those sharp as glass eyes.
“I should probably go check on things at the Quarry,” Jared said, breaking the silence. “Call all the guys back to camp for now. There’s no sense in them being there while there’s no power to work.”
“What, so that whoever took out the power can do worse while it’s unguarded?” Clay asked, incredulous, and I had to admit, he was right.
Jared chewed his lower lip, realizing his mistake. He was usually the thinker of the three of us, but I couldn’t blame him for not thinking straight right now. None of us were. It was a good thing we had each other to fill in the gaps where needed.
“Clay’s right. You should go check on things there but leave the crew and tell them to be on high alert and to stick together. We can’t risk the Quarry, the pub isn’t enough on its own to keep us all afloat.”
“Speaking of,” Clay grunted. “With Destiny...gone...I’ll need to train up another bartender. And we should probably double security there, too.”
I nodded, agreeing, and then shivering as my blood chilled at the realization that Clay was talking as though Destiny wouldn’t be back anytime soon. I couldn’t believe that, even if all the signs pointed that way. I wouldn’t.
“Before either of you leave, there’s something we need to talk about.”
They waited for me to go on, and I saw the flicker in Clay’s gaze that told me he knew what I would say and he was bracing himself against it.
“Clay and I caught Sam’s scent out near Glenwood,” I said before I could change my mind. “It was on the air. We tracked it to the old bus depot there.”
“What was she doing out there?”
“Maybe nothing,” I admitted, keeping a wary eye on Clay as I explained things to Jared. “Maybe something. I’m not sure, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think it was a bit suspicious.”
“You think she’s been taking a bus out of town?”
I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know. But it would allow her to leave our territory unnoticed. Her scent would die near the bus depot inside of our third ring, and if she traveled back and forth through the same spot then…”
“Then it would seem like she never left.”
“But if she was going to meet with a foreign pack, we’d know,” Clay said, not so much argument as a statement of fact. “We’d scent them on her.”
“Not if she were careful. If she’s half as good of a tracker as you, she would know how to cover their scent.”
“Not well enough that I wouldn’t catch the stink,” he bit back.
Jared stood quietly for a moment, and I could sense his unease ramping up within him, quickly morphing into hot, savage sort of hatred, fueled by a feeling of betrayal he knew far too well.
“What do we do?” Jared asked in a dangerous timbre, licking his lips like he wished he could taste Sam’s blood on them.
Clay pushed off from the counter and stood, towering over us as he rolled his shoulders back and set his jaw. “I’ll camp out near the depot in case she goes back there. She’s here most of the day so she has to be going there at night. I’ll cover my tracks and stay far enough away and downwind so she won’t scent me.”
That could work.
“I’ll go with you,” I decided. “I’m not going to fucking sleep anytime soon, anyway.”
“I could—”
“No.” I stopped Jared before he could finish. “I need you here. I need her and everyone else to think I’m asleep upstairs with you. I can mask my scent with Clay’s to go into town, and we can take the Chevelle to Glenwood and go on foot from there.” The pan began to take shape in my mind, accounting for any possibility of error. “She won’t scent us as easily in our human forms.”
“You should stay,” Clay argued. “I can do this myself. It might not be safe.”
“Which is exactly why I won’t let you go alone. And also why it needs to be me. I’m the strongest. Besides, we don’t even know what we’ll find, if anything. If I send someone else with you then the whole camp will be talking. They already don’t trust her, imagine if they knew we suspected she had something to do with this, too?”
He paled.
They’d fucking eat her alive.
“Why not just confront her?” Jared asked, a crease forming between his brows.
I explained to him how she could get spooked and take off and how we couldn’t risk that—not with Destiny and the others on the line.
“If she has anything to do with this, then we need whatever information she has. It might be the only way we can get them all back.”
“I can think of other ways to get information…” Jared argued and I saw malice flash in his amber eyes like flames and an image of Gregory, bloody and cold at my feet sprang into my head, making me cringe.
Surprisingly, Clay didn’t say a word against the idea, though I could feel his stress like an elastic band pulled taut to the point of snapping.
“No,” I shook my head. “That’s off the table.”
This was Clay’s sister we were talking about. His flesh and blood. We had to give her the benefit of the doubt, at least for now. Until we had some form of proof of her intentions. If we got it, though, all bets were off. That bitch was going down.
14
By the time we made it to the top of the hill looking down over the quiet bus depot in the distance, it was full dark. Just like we’d planned it. We settled into the shadows beneath the bottom branches of a tall pine tree, nestling in against the trunk to wait.
I pulled my small pack from my back and set it on my lap, drawing out a bottle of water for a drink after the hike out here. We’d been very careful to carve a path keeping downwind of the bus depot, and we’d driven in as closely as we could to reduce our trail just in case.
There was still the possibility that Sam would scent us, even with all the precautions, but we had to stay optimistic. This was the only possible lead we had so far, and I didn’t want it to pan out almost as much as I did want it to.
I had Jared keeping a wary eye on Archer and Callum, and the entire pack now knew to be on the lookout for witches, and we’d found nothing suspicious with either. That left Sam. And if she weren’t to blame for any of this, then we had to start from ground zero and pray one of the search parties picked up the scent of the foreign pack again.
Vivian was pushing them to go further each time, and I let her, for the most part, knowing we would need to widen our net if we were going to find anything. But it didn’t make me any less uneasy to think that the search parties were too far away for us to be able to get to them if something were to happen. At least not before it would inevitably be too late.
Clay sniffed in my direction, distracted momentarily by the scent leaking out through my pack. “What’d you bring? Is that...do
nuts?”
I grinned, peeling back the zipper to reveal a pack of the powdery white donut holes he loved, a thermos of coffee, and binoculars. “What’s a stakeout without donuts, right?”
He smirked despite the pent up tension that’d been building inside of him since this morning. Since long before that if we were being honest.
“You think we’re downwind enough?” I asked as I popped open the plastic packaging and passed him a donut.
He turned it in his fingers, as though he wasn’t really sure he wanted it. But in the end, hunger won out. The potato pies that we’d had for dinner might have temporarily filled the void in our stomachs, but they did little to sate our hunger.
These would help get us through the night.
I took a big bite of one myself, and Clay followed, shoving the entire thing in his mouth in one bite, leaving a smear of white powder just below his lower lip.
Without thinking, I leaned over and brushed it away, kissing the spot where it’d been and tasting the sugary sweetness on my lips.
He dropped his head, his brows pinching.
“She might just like running out this way,” I attempted to reassure him, but the sentiment fell flat. He knew how I felt just like I knew how he felt. Clay knew I didn’t trust his sister. Hadn’t since the moment she’d arrived. But he also knew I was trying my best to. “We might feel like total idiots when this night is over.”
He swallowed hard, swiping the back of his hand over his mouth and reaching for the thermos. “Yeah,” he said solemnly. “Maybe.”
We settled into a tense silence as we watched the sleepy little bus depot down below, listening for sounds of approach. Waiting to see a flash of dark fur passing beneath a streetlamp.
“When did you say the last bus is?” Clay asked after two buses came and went without picking up a single passenger, though each dropped one off.
“Midnight. There’s a red-eye that goes from here to Portland.”
Shifted Scars: A Wolves of Forest Grove Novel Page 12
