by Sadie Moss
Not that I minded one bit. The McFlurry was good, but so sweet and rich it made me crave something salty. And a few bites of the fries made me crave something sweet. I could see how this might become a vicious cycle.
“Aw, damn it. I wanted to see her destroy another pile of quarter pounders,” Jackson complained, craning his head from where he sat in the driver’s seat.
Rhys rolled his eyes. “Stop trying to watch her eat. She’s not a fucking freak show.”
“Hey, we’re all freak shows,” Jackson shot back good-naturedly.
I polished off my second burger quickly, listening to the guys banter back and forth. Even cranky-ass Rhys seemed to lighten up a little as they teased each other. And underneath their quick words and taunts, something else always lingered.
Love.
It was as clear as the sun in the sky to anybody who looked at them. These four men cared about each other with a bond that was almost beyond family. It was a connection born out of shared trauma and pain so deep it left permanent scars on a person’s psyche.
But in the broken spaces of those scars, love had formed.
My false mother’s face rose in my mind, so familiar, yet somehow alien. What had existed between us? Could any part of that be called love?
I’d thought I loved her as much as any daughter could love their mom. But now that I knew her entire presence in my life was an act, I didn’t know what to make of my own feelings. And even as I was drawn into the whirlwind lives of these four men who had rescued me, I could feel myself keeping a part of my soul separate, hidden behind a wall of distrust I wasn’t sure would ever crack.
How could it?
How could I ever truly trust anyone again?
But as I stretched out on the back seat of the large minivan, the men’s deep voices fading into a pleasant background hum, I wanted to.
I wanted to believe I could.
“Hey, Scrubs. Wake up.”
“Huh? What?” My eyes popped open, and I jerked awake.
Noah’s face hovered over mine, and he grimaced guiltily. “Sorry. I was trying to wake you up gently.”
My heart hammered in my chest. I’d been having another nightmare about the Strand complex, something I was sure would happen for a long time. I was starting to dread going to sleep, not wanting to face the horrors that waited for me in my subconscious.
“No, it’s fine. You… you did.”
I took his offered hand and allowed him to pull me up to a sitting position.
The car had stopped. Light streamed through the windows, and Jackson, Rhys, and West were already outside.
A yawn slipped out as I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Are we there?”
He grinned at me. “Yep.”
I wasn’t really sure where “there” was, except that the guys had said we needed to stop in Vegas. They had friends here who could help us somehow. How, and with what, I didn’t know.
And were these the same friends who had taught them how to hot wire cars and handle firearms?
Maybe I didn’t really want to meet these people.
Still, I followed Noah out of the van without protest, scrunching my brows as I swiveled my head around to take in our surroundings. We were outside what looked like an abandoned warehouse. There was nothing else around as far as I could see.
A sudden twinge of fear snaked through my stomach. Unconsciously, my gaze shot to the guys, searching for any signs of betrayal. They were all clustered around the front of the van, conferring about something in hushed voices. I’d been alone with them plenty already, but something about this location put me on edge. It was so intentionally remote. People only came to places like this to do things they didn’t want anyone to see.
Bad things.
My hands clenched into fists, and I backed slowly away, my heart rate picking up.
West glanced up, catching sight of me. He walked toward me, sending blood rushing through my ears.
Shit. Should I run? Should I—
“Yeah, you’ve got the right idea, Scrubs. I’m with you.” The tall man lifted one corner of his mouth in an easy smile and draped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me farther away from the van. “Fucking idiot thinks he’s gonna light the van on fire. Blow himself up, more likely. He’s gonna singe all his damn hair off and be the only bald wolf shifter in the world.”
He finally came to a stop and turned us around. My body was stiff as a board, and I was about to fling his arm off and make a run for it when my gaze settled on the van.
Oh.
Ohhh.
They hadn’t been planning to rape and murder me, as my runaway imagination had been whispering in my mind.
They were going to destroy the van, probably to make it harder for Strand to track us.
My eyes widened.
Oh. Shit.
No wonder West had steered me far away. This was so fucking dangerous.
Jackson didn’t seem the least bit concerned though. Noah and Rhys finally gave up the argument and threw up their hands, walking away from the van—although staying close enough to bail Jackson out if he needed help, I noticed.
The insane man stuck a piece of hose into the gas tank, sucking on the other end of it in a long pull before breaking away to spit out a mouthful of gasoline. He grimaced, wiping his mouth. Gas continued to flow out of the hose as he poured it liberally over the seats and floor then dragged it away from the car, leaving a messy wet trail on the ground.
“Where’d he get the hose?” I murmured.
“It was in the trunk.” West’s voice held a mixture of concern and amusement. “It’s what gave him the stupid idea in the first place. Like we’re not in enough trouble, he’s always gotta be thinking of new ways to die.”
“Will it actually help keep Nils from finding us?” I craned my neck to look up at West’s face. My arm slipped around his waist, more naturally this time than it had back at the hotel. Maybe because this time I wasn’t putting on a show.
He chuckled, his teeth bright against his dark skin. “Maybe a little. But it’s more about letting off steam. We’ve learned by now to just let Jackson do something crazy once in a while. If he doesn’t, it builds up inside him and he ends up doing something really stupid.”
“This doesn’t qualify as really stupid?” I asked, leaning closer to West as Jackson dropped the hose a few yards away from the van. Gas continued to spill from the end of it, pooling on the ground near his feet.
West’s chuckle rumbled in his chest. I could feel it in my own body, and the sensation sent warm tingles up and down my spine. Unconsciously, I gripped him a little tighter.
“Nah. For Jackson, this is pretty tame.”
I looked again at the brown-haired shifter, who was currently fishing a lighter out of his pocket. It was impossible not to notice the mischievous gleam that sparkled in his eyes almost all the time—but damn, I hadn’t known just how much of a thrill-seeker he was.
I kind of liked it.
But I also didn’t want to see him get hurt. The thought sent a pang of fear through me that surprised me with its intensity.
Shooting a devilish grin our way, Jackson opened the lighter with a flick of his fingers, sparking a flame at the same time. He held it aloft for a second, then dropped it on the rapidly spreading puddle of gasoline.
With a whoosh, the fumes ignited. The fire spread across the surface of the gasoline like lightning, and Jackson jumped backward. The hose itself was enveloped by flames as the fire raced toward the van. It followed the line of the hose up to the gas tank, and then—
Whoosh!
The tank went up in a giant fireball, which spread quickly to the rest of the van. West and I were at a respectable distance, but all three of the others ducked as the fireball flared.
“Woohoooo!” Jackson straightened, tilting his head back and howling. All the guys were laughing, and I realized with a start that I was too.
I felt like a kid, giddy and alive with a wild, unexplainable joy. As
The others joined Jackson as he howled, their wolves so close to the surface I could almost see them. I laughed and screamed wildly when Jackson ran toward me, pulling me from West’s arms to spin me in circles.
Finally, as the huge flames engulfing the van crackled and snapped behind us, the whoops and hollers died out. We stood watching the fire for a few moments in silence, before Rhys finally spoke.
“Great. Now can we go find Carl?”
Chapter Fifteen
As it turned out, Carl was the reason we were in Vegas.
The guys had done several jobs with him after they’d escaped from Strand. From the whispered information Noah shared with me in the cab ride through the city, I gathered there were some dangerously shady people the four wolf shifters had worked with over the years. Then there were people like Carl, who definitely lived outside the law but was basically a good guy.
At least, according to Noah.
The cab driver dropped us off on a dingy street lined with shops with metal grates over their windows. I crawled off Noah and Jackson’s laps—there hadn’t really been room for all of us in the car, but the driver didn’t seem to give a shit about seat belt laws—and stepped out onto the arid, sunlit street.
I raised a hand to shade my eyes, looking up at the faded facades of the old buildings. I’d seen plenty of movies set in Vegas, but this was not at all what the city had looked like in those.
We must be a long way off the strip.
“We are,” Jackson answered with a grin when I voiced my thoughts. “The glitz and glamor of Las Vegas? That’s just one side of it. This”—he gestured around the street with a proud sweep of his arms—“is the real Vegas.”
Huh. I wasn’t sure I preferred this to the pretty, sparkling version I’d seen on TV. But then again, I’d spent my whole life being deceived by the pretty facade of an ugly place. I never wanted to be fooled like that again.
Jackson and Noah led the way toward a pawn shop with faded red lettering on the front window. I stepped after them, but my movement was arrested by a firm grip on my elbow.
Rhys pulled me toward him, his larger body dwarfing mine. Standing behind me, he lowered his head to speak low in my ear, his voice hard.
“No one you’re about to meet knows shit about Strand. About shifters. About any of it. As far as they’re concerned, we’re just four normal guys. Don’t fucking blow our cover.”
I jerked my arm out of his grasp, stepping away from him. How could his touch make tingles of energy race across my skin at the same time his words made me want to throat punch him?
“Got it,” I said curtly, not looking back. If he wouldn’t do me the courtesy of having this conversation face-to-face, I wasn’t going to either.
He didn’t grab me again, but I could feel his overbearing presence behind me as we entered the shop after the others. Like he was afraid the first thing I’d do was open my mouth and start screaming about secret labs and wolf shifters.
Yeah, right. I just got out of the Strand complex. I had no desire to spend the rest of my life locked up in a loony bin.
A bell above the door jangled as it closed, and the occupants of the pawn shop looked up at us. Three men stood behind the counter, which seemed excessive to me, considering there were no customers in the place besides us.
Two were big. Not quite as hulking as Nils, but broad-shouldered and muscular. The third man was smaller—average height, with observant green eyes and a receding hairline that made his large forehead appear even bigger. What remained of his straight dark hair was slicked back, making him look a little like an old-school mobster. All three men were heavily tattooed.
“Hoooo-ly shit. If it isn’t the four fucking horsemen!” The smaller man’s brows shot up. He was probably in his thirties, older than his two hulking buddies. “What the fuck brings you four back here? I thought you were done with this shit for good.”
“What’d you always tell us, Carl?” Noah grinned, walking over to the counter and grasping the man’s hand in an elaborate sort of handshake. “You never get out, you just get sidetracked. Well, we were sidetracked. Now we’re back.”
“Fuck yeah.” Carl grinned. His pointed chin and sharp eyes gave him a cunning appearance.
The other three men with me each said their hellos, and when Carl dropped Rhys’s hand, his attention turned to me. “Well, well, well. And who’s this pretty desert flower?”
Immediately, the temperature in the room chilled. My escorts had seemed happy to be here, happy to see Carl. But as if all four of them shared a single brain, each of their expressions hardened. I wasn’t quite sure why. Carl wasn’t leering at me the same way the hotel clerk had. His attention didn’t make my skin crawl, although his perceptive eyes did seem to pick up too much.
Now his gaze darted from one of my companions to the next, assessing. Whatever he saw in their expressions made his eyebrow quirk and a slight smirk tilt his lips. Then he abandoned his question unanswered, moving smoothly to a new topic.
“What can I do for you guys? I know, I know—the first thing you wanted to do when you came back to Vegas was stop by and see your old friend Carl.” He chuckled, tapping his fingers on the glass case he stood behind. “But let’s get fucking real. You need something too.”
The chill in the room thawed as Jackson shot him a swoony grin, batting his eyelashes. “Aw, Carl. You know us so well.”
“The four horsemen? As predictable as the fucking weather.” Carl smirked, jerking his head toward a door leading to the back. “Let’s talk in my office.”
We left the two burly men in the shop and followed Carl into a small back office. Then he shoved aside a filing cabinet that sat along a side wall and tugged open a second door. The room he led us into was much larger than the office space, and much rougher. The floor was unfinished concrete, and metal shelving units lined the walls, weighed down with a mish-mash of paper, tools, and other junk. A tall table took up the center of the space. Two laptops rested side by side on its surface, and so much other crap sat on top of it I could barely see the wood beneath.
Carl sauntered in and plopped down on a stool by the table before turning in his seat to gaze at all of us. “So. What’s up?”
“We need new identities, Carl.” Rhys jerked his head in my direction. “And one for her too. And we need a car. Clean.”
The pawn shop owner’s dark brows shot up again. I had a feeling it was almost a permanent expression on him. “Damn. You guys really don’t do things by fucking halves, do you? You want fries with that order?”
“Can you do it or not?” Rhys didn’t even crack a smile.
I found it vaguely comforting that Rhys was as big of a dick to his supposed friends as he was to me. Maybe he didn’t hate me as much as I thought.
Or maybe he just hated everybody.
But Carl didn’t seem fazed by Rhys’s brusque response. He stroked his chin, twisting his mouth to one side. “Yeah, I can do it. It’ll cost you though. I mean, I’m not opposed to doing a favor for a friend from time to time. But that’d be five big favors, and those don’t come free.”
“That’s fine,” Noah said.
The blond-haired man stood next to me, his large body and West’s bookending me. They were so close their arms brushed against mine, and even though I didn’t get the impression they distrusted this Carl guy, I had the strangest feeling they were protecting me.
“Okee dokee, then. Looks like we’re in business.” Carl smiled. “You guys back for good, or just passing through?”
“Just passing through.”
Carl’s green eyes narrowed with understanding. He probably understood that “passing through” was a euphemism for “on the run.” He seemed like the type who would grasp the distinction.
“Well, I can get started on this right away and have you on your merry way in a few days. Come back tomorrow and I’ll take your pictures.” He turned to me, cocking his head. “Any requests for a new name, sweetheart?”
“Um…” I blinked.
He laughed and shook his head, slapping his hand on a stack of papers strewn across the table as he stood. “I’m kidding! You don’t really get to pick.” He cast his gaze around the room, eyeing the men. “Listen, I won’t ask where you picked up your mysterious fifth horseman, but I don’t have to worry that anything fucked up is going on here, do I? She’s all right, right?”
“She’s safer with us than she would be anywhere else,” Rhys said, his voice so serious that I instantly believed him.
Carl seemed convinced too, because he nodded, raising his hands placatingly. “I figured. I know you guys, but I had to ask. I may not live by the same code as every other fucking law-abiding citizen, but I do have a code. And that doesn’t include abducting women.”
My eyes almost bugged out of my head as I finally realized what he was getting at. He’d been making sure the guys hadn’t kidnapped me.
“They didn’t!” I blurted.
Well, technically, I guess they did. But it didn’t feel like that at all anymore. During the chaotic race out of the Strand compound, I remembered Noah using the word “rescue.” I hadn’t believed it then, but that was exactly what it was.
These men were my rescuers. My saviors.
Without them, I’d still be rotting away in the house of cards I’d lived in my whole life.
I pressed closer to the two men flanking me, feeling their warm bodies answer by moving closer to mine.
Carl’s keen gaze studied the three of us, taking in every detail of our interaction. “Ah. I see. Well, I’m glad to hear it, sweetheart. They really are good guys.”
“I know.”
A little voice in the back of my head reminded me that I’d thought the doctors at the Strand complex were good too. I’d thought my mother was good.
Don’t trust them, it whispered. Don’t let them into your heart.
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