by A. D. Ryan
The air marshal wasn’t convinced. “Friend?” he demanded skeptically.
“Yes,” I replied firmly. “We’re friends—family. There was nothing unseemly going on in there.”
Looking around us, the air marshal exhaled a disbelieving grunt, inviting me to turn around and take notice of the dented wall where I’d kicked only minutes ago.
“I’ll, uh…” I stammered, heat rising in my cheeks. “I’ll pay for the damages. I become violently ill when I fly. I’m so sorry.”
We stood there for a few minutes as the air marshal continued to assess the situation, and I could feel the eyes of all the other passengers on us the entire time. The awkwardness only thickened when he started to lecture us on proper conduct. It wasn’t until I explained that I was a detective in Scottsdale, and I knew the repercussions for public indecency that his expression softened.
“Look,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’d be lying if I said you didn’t look like you were suffering from a little air sickness. But”—his eyes moved between Jackson and I—“rules are rules. One person in the washroom at a time.”
“Understood,” Jackson said, reaching for me and placing a hand on my back, urging me back toward our seats.
People continued to stare as we passed, and my face flamed hot with embarrassment as I sat in my seat. Roxanne was awake and staring at both of us as we joined her again.
“You okay?” she inquired carefully, eyes drifting past me at Jackson.
“Fine,” I replied softly. “Had a little issue is all.”
She looked at me, and I could tell she knew exactly what had happened in there; chances were she could smell it the way Jackson had. Instead of pressing the issue, she merely laid a hand over mine and gave it a squeeze.
“It happens to the best of us,” she said under her breath to keep our conversation private. “In my first year with the Pack, I was sent on a mission where I had to track a stray through the fairgrounds at the stampede…” Roxanne shook her head and sighed as she remembered the events before she recounted them aloud. “There were so many people—and I’d always been a little uneasy around big crowds. Anxiety attacks were not uncommon for me on the best of days—they still aren’t. I lost the stray I was hunting, and the heat and frustration, mixed in with how busy the grounds were…I started to lose it. People stopped to see if I was okay, and it was all I could do to keep myself from attacking them and letting the wolf win.” She offered me a friendly and empathetic smile. “So I know exactly how it feels. But you can’t keep that from us. Nick would kill us if we let anything happen to you.”
“Well,” Jackson interjected with a cocky tone. “He’d try.”
The three of us laughed, and for the first time since we left Calgary, I felt at ease. I wasn’t focused on my parents, and my nerves were calm. Talking with Jackson and Roxy this way helped pass the time, and before I knew it, my ears were popping as the plane made its slow descent.
Roxanne slid her window shade open, and I leaned across her to look outside, noticing the dry terrain of the Arizona desert below. I could already feel the dry heat on my skin, and we were still on the air-conditioned plane.
Within thirty minutes, the plane was landing and taxiing toward the gate. The reality of what we were here to do settled in around me like a dense fog. The only thing that pulled me from it was Jackson taking my hand and giving it a supportive squeeze as if to remind me they were here to help me through this.
We stepped off the plane with our bags and headed up the narrow hall and into the airport. Since we didn’t check any bags back in Calgary, we didn’t have anything to claim. Before we boarded our flight, I’d tried to make arrangements to meet O’Malley and Keaton at the precinct, but they were having none of it; they insisted on picking me up at the airport. Because they weren’t backing down, I had to tell them that I was flying in with a couple of friends. This seemed to surprise them, but they told me that wasn’t a problem.
We stepped through the doors to find a sea of people waiting to greet their friends and loved ones after a long flight. As we waded through the masses, we were subjected to stares and whispers about the “excitement” on the flight. Roxanne tried to contain her snickering, but she failed miserably. Even Jackson was smirking.
“You’re both going to hell,” I chastised, shaking my head and picking up the pace.
“Come on,” Jackson said from a few steps behind me. “You don’t even find it a little funny now?”
“I’ve been stripped of my ability to shift later,” I reminded him. “Granted, it was the best solution at the time, but I can still feel the tension in every inch of my body.”
“On the plus side,” Roxanne interjected, “the fact that you can feel the wolf’s tension is a sign that the silver is going to metabolize pretty quickly. You might be able to shift within the next twenty-four hours.”
I was just about to argue with Roxanne, tell her that she couldn’t possibly understand what it felt like to essentially be castrated, when I caught the scent of both Keaton and O’Malley. I hadn’t even seen them before O’Malley wrapped his arms around me.
“Hey, Brooke,” he greeted, squeezing me tighter. “How the hell have you been?”
He released me so Keaton could hug me next, and the smile on my face grew so wide it hurt a little. “Good, actually,” I replied. “Given the circumstances.”
“Understandable,” Keaton acknowledged. His eyes drifted up past me for a moment. “You, uh, want to head to your place and drop your things?”
I inhaled deeply, trying not to let the sudden urge to vomit come to fruition. I wasn’t sure I was ready to go back to my house just yet. It brought back so many memories of the night David died.
“Actually, I’d like to go to the station and maybe get started on finding my parents. I’d like to go to their house as well. See if anything unusual turns up.”
Keaton took my bag for me, and I noticed Jackson’s eyebrow quirk up suspiciously at the meaning behind the gesture. Once we were outside, O’Malley turned to me. “Should we drop your”—he looked at Jackson and then Roxanne, letting his eyes linger on her a little longer than what would be discreet—“companions off at their hotel first?”
“We go where Brooke goes,” Jackson stated a little too firmly. I wasn’t ready to explain why Jackson and Roxanne would be tagging along over the next few days, so thankfully O’Malley and Keaton didn’t ask…though, I could tell they were both dying to.
“Sorry,” I said, apologizing for Jackson’s aggressiveness and having not introduced them to my old partners. “This is Jackson and Roxanne. They just want to help.”
Keaton led the way to where they parked the car, opening the trunk for our bags. He and O’Malley slid into the front seats while Jackson, Roxy, and I hopped into the back. Oddly, it wasn’t the first time I’d been in the backseat of a cop car—not that this was a standard-issue cruiser; there were no decals on it identifying it as such, and there was no divider between the front and back seats.
I sat between Roxanne and Jackson, and while we were sitting flush against one another, the three of us fit somewhat comfortably in the backseat. We drove in silence for a little bit before O’Malley tried to break the ice.
“So,” he began, looking in the rearview mirror at me. “How do the three of you know each other?”
Jackson smiled. “We’re friends of Nick.”
Confused, O’Malley’s eyebrows furrowed. “Nick?” He paused. “As in your ex-boyfriend?”
I could feel the warmth creeping into my face. “Yup. That’s the one.”
“Your dad said something about you moving in with him.”
I opened my mouth to protest, because that’s not exactly how I explained it to my parents originally, but then I decided against it. The assumption wasn’t wrong, actually, no matter what spin I tried to put on it.
“I suppose,” I said instead. “I guess after everything that happened, I just needed some space. Nick could offer me t
hat.”
Keaton turned around and smiled at me. “You don’t have to explain yourself, Leighton. We’re just happy to see you doing relatively well. Whatever you’ve got going on up there, it seems to be working for you.”
I blushed again, averting my gaze as Jackson nudged me with his elbow. “Even they can recognize that this life is good for you,” he said low enough for only Roxanne and I to hear.
“That’s probably just because I’m now capable of avenging the wrongs that have been done to my family.”
“Or,” Roxanne interjected just as quietly, not taking her eyes away from the window, “you were simply destined for it.”
While I was finally content with my new life, I wasn’t sure that “destiny” was what brought me into this world… Or was it? All of this started with Bobby’s death. Nick left. I became a detective and my first homicide investigation led me full circle and back to Nick. Was that destiny? Maybe Roxanne was right.
While O’Malley navigated the streets of Scottsdale on route to my parents’ house, he filled me in on what they’d uncovered so far—which wasn’t much.
“It’s unlike him to just not show up for work—hell, it’s rare for him to actually stay away for an entire vacation. He’s usually back to work a day or two early.” O’Malley wasn’t wrong; it was unlike my dad to even take a vacation for the most part.
“Has the airport been helpful?” I asked.
“They cooperated as much as possible by giving us the surveillance footage. We’ll show you the tapes when we get to the precinct,” Keaton explained. “We never expected you’d fly out here.”
“I’m glad I came,” I told them. “There could be something that was missed. I was the last one to see them both. Maybe something will trigger a memory of something they said and we’ll be able to figure out what happened to them.”
When we finally pulled to a stop outside my parents’ house, I could sense just how empty it was before I even got out of the car. The plants were all unkempt—something my mother would never normally let happen—and the mailbox was overflowing with flyers and envelopes. I took the lead as we all walked up the pathway to the front door, and I slid my key into the lock and pushed the door open, inhaling the slightly musty air as I entered.
Subtle notes of my mom and dad hung in the air, faint given they hadn’t been home in weeks, but still there, lingering on the fabric of the furniture and clinging to the walls. Slowly, I made my way through the main floor of the house, turning on lights and leafing through their personal effects. Nothing seemed out of place as I looked around, finally making my way upstairs. Again, everything seemed fine…so why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end?
I had to be missing something, but my gut told me it wasn’t on the second floor. I descended again to find Roxanne and Jackson standing in the living room, looks of deep concentration on their faces as their nostrils flared subtly. They were trying to pick up something Keaton and O’Malley wouldn’t be able to. They sensed this was a situation only we were adept to deal with as much as I did.
I stood at the foot of the stairs and looked around. Trying to see if something was out of place…something only I would notice. If this was some kind of message from the coven, they wouldn’t do something that just anyone would notice. The clue they’d leave would be just for me. Bobby would make sure of it…
That was when I noticed that one of the photo albums was pulled out a half inch and flipped upside down. My mother was ridiculously OCD about that sort of thing and it would drive her nuts. There was no way this was an oversight on her or my father’s parts.
O’Malley and Keaton watched on with confusion and intrigue as I raced across the room and pulled the album out. The smell of rot and decay hit me so hard I almost fell over, but I tried my hardest to maintain composure as I flipped through the pages, stopping when a loose photo fluttered to the floor, landing face down.
I picked the photo up, knowing in my gut that this was the break I was looking for. Nervous, I swallowed thickly and turned the photo over. I had to really focus to not alert Keaton and O’Malley that it was a huge deal given the sensitive nature of the photo. Not only was it a picture of my parents sleeping—it took me an extra second to realize they were in the bed at the hotel in Calgary that we’d all stayed in—but in the bottom corner was Bobby. His smile was so wide his sharp canines gleamed in the light of the almost-full moon that shone through the window that night.
All the while, my parents slept soundly, completely unaware that their long-lost son stood less than five feet from them.
Chapter25 | taken
Unable to stomach the idea of going to my house for fear of unleashing a torrent of bad memories, Jackson and Roxanne took me back to the Pack’s Arizona home. While it had been months since I’d last been here, it felt as though no time had passed at all. Our scents still lingered in the air—albeit faint and woven with dust motes—but it offered me a little bit of comfort. It was like being back home.
Back at my parent’s house, I didn’t let on to O’Malley and Keaton that I’d found anything. I couldn’t. It was bad enough the cops up in Canada were getting involved with Marcus and Miranda’s deaths, putting us all at risk of exposure; I couldn’t chance anyone else getting suspicious about us.
“Now that we’re alone,” Jackson said after closing the door and watching as O’Malley drove away. “What did you find?”
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the photo. He took it from me, and Roxanne sidled up next to him to have a look.
“Those are your parents,” she stated.
I nodded. “Yup. And the sadistic freak that’s wearing my brother’s face is in their hotel room—the room that was right next to mine and Nick’s the night of the attack at Vince and Layla’s.”
“And you didn’t sense him?”
Exhaling heavily, I flopped down on the couch. “I was so damn worn out from hunting them that night, and Nick had been injured, my parents put in danger… I wasn’t really focusing on them. I’d thought we’d destroyed the coven that night. We thought Bobby was dead.”
The shrill ring of my cell phone interrupted us. I pulled it from my pocket and saw that it was Nick, so I answered it, happy and filled with relief at the prospect of talking to him. The Pack was never far from my thoughts since we’d left, and I worried about Cordelia as the hours ticked by.
“Hey,” I greeted warmly. “How’s everything going?”
When Nick breathed into the phone, it was like I could feel his own relief at hearing my voice. Any worry he’d had just melted away. “Everything’s…fine. How was the flight?”
I caught Jackson’s eyes the minute Nick asked the question, and I knew he’d heard. “The flight was good.”
“Brooke, if you don’t tell him…” Jackson warned in a low voice.
“There was…” I paused, cringing when I remembered how close I’d come to losing control. “I had a moment.”
“A moment?”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. Feeling uncomfortable talking in front of Roxanne and Jackson, I excused myself and headed to Nick’s room. His natural scent hit me hard, almost as though he was still in the room, but it was just his bedding.
“Brooke?”
I closed the door and sat on the end of his bed, inhaling Nick’s woodsy scent and finding it was still mingled with mine from when I’d slept here after David’s death. “I let my anxiety get the best of me. You were right, I should have gone for a quick run before we left the city.”
I heard Nick chuckle. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You were right,” I repeated, knowing that was what he was referring to. “Don’t get used to hearing that, though.”
Nick laughed this time. “Once is all I need to check it off my bucket list.” We shared a laugh together before he inquired about the episode on the plane.
“I’m sorry I didn’t take you more seriously,” I offered. “I was stupid to think I could handle
it. I should have known my history with flying might trigger a loss of control.”
“It’s fine.” His tone was genuine and soothing, comforting me. “I’m glad Jackson was able to calm you down.”
“Not without a price.”
“You’ll be able to shift by tomorrow,” Nick assured me before falling silent. Even though we were thousands of miles apart, I could sense that something was wrong.
“Nick? What’s going on?” Another beat of silence only added to my increasing concern. “Nick. Spit it out,” I demanded. Then the gnarled fingers of fear clawed at me, threatening to strangle me. “Is it Cordelia? Did you find her?”
“No,” Nick finally answered. “We haven’t found her yet.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or still panicking. Both. I was experiencing an equal combination of both emotions.
“The cops are relentless,” he finally confessed. “It’s becoming a problem, and making it impossible for us to shift in order to keep searching for her. There’s a reason we don’t involve them in Pack affairs.”
Of course, I understood this; I was having the same difficulties knowing that O’Malley and Keaton were going to be with us every step of the way while we located my parents. I wouldn’t be able to successfully hunt my twisted twin brother if they were around—especially now that I suspected he was behind their abduction.
“He has them,” I blurted out before clarifying further. “My parents. Bobby has them too.”
“What do you mean he has them?”
Mentally and physically drained, I flopped down onto the bed and stared up at the white stucco ceiling. “I went to their house earlier. I looked around and couldn’t find anything at first. Upon sweeping the living room again, I noticed one of the photo albums was upside down.”
