by Lori Drake
Jack spat at her. “Fuck you, abomination. Your days are numbered.”
“Can’t say I didn’t try.” Abby shrugged and reached up to put the noose over Jack’s head. Ben grabbed both of his arms to hold him still.
Jack seemed to realize this was his last chance to resist. He squirmed his head left and right, evading Abby’s noose, then mule-kicked and connected with Ben’s shin. Ben grunted but held on, and Joey hurried over to help him restrain Jack so the big man wouldn’t escape. Abby got the noose over him and snugged it against his neck, but he didn’t stop fighting, not until she yanked the other end of the rope and brought him up on his tiptoes.
Joey and Ben released him and stepped back. Jack’s lone eye grew frantic as he lifted his bound hands and tried to pry the rope from his windpipe, all the while teetering on the toes of his combat boots.
“Let’s get this over with,” Joey said, stuffing her hands in her jeans pockets. “Jack, I’d like to say it’s been nice knowing you. Sorry about your face. I got a bit carried away. I know it wasn’t the best way to convince you we aren’t the monsters you think we are, but you know how it goes. Heat of the moment and all. I know you may not believe it, but… I believe every life is precious, and I hate to waste yours. Then again, I guess that isn’t quite right. You wasted yours, on this baseless quest to kill our kind. I still don’t understand why, and I probably never will. But I hope the afterlife is all you hoped it’d be.” She had a brief flash of worry about vengeful ghosts, but reminded herself that Jack wasn’t really about to die.
“You done flapping your jaws yet, girl?” Abby said, giving Jack a little breathing room before tightening the rope again.
“Yeah,” Joey answered.
Chris touched her back in silent support, and she looked up at him briefly before turning her eyes back to the supposed execution.
Abby leaned over and put her mouth close to Jack’s ear while he continued to struggle for breath. Though she lowered her voice, Joey’s keen ears picked up her words nonetheless. “This is for Cassie, Angela, Wren, Magda, Julie, Audrey, Hannah, and Gina.”
Abby loosened the rope enough to let Jack get one more gusty breath. He opened his mouth like he might reply, but Abby didn’t give him a chance. She pulled on the rope, lifting him off the ground slowly until his kicking feet were a good foot off the ground. Then she tied off the rope and walked away without looking back. She nodded slightly to Joey in passing, and Joey gave the hanged man a lingering look before turning to follow with Chris and Ben accompanying her.
They’d walked less than a minute when they heard the crack of the breaking branch and the thud of Jack’s body hitting the ground. They kept going, walking briskly until they reached the car, got in, and drove away.
“It’s done,” Chris said into the walkie-talkie. They’d picked up the damn things in Nevada for Operation Rescue Chris and Adelaide, but they’d come in remarkably handy since then. “Is he on the move yet, Adam?”
“Yup. Tracker is online and functional. There’s just one problem,” Adam said.
“What’s that?” Chris asked.
“He’s not going in the right direction. He’s going to end up at the Donnelly place.”
Joey groaned and massaged her forehead. They’d taken a gamble that he’d follow them out of the woods, but apparently his self-preservation instinct had sent him in the opposite direction.
21
Chris and Ben shucked their clothes in the car and shifted into wolf form on the way down the road. Joey let them out, and they sprinted across the shoulder and up the Donnellys’ front drive. Chris heard the car pull away, but knew they’d only be backtracking to his driveway to wait for him and Ben to catch back up to them.
Even though this was hardly a pleasure run, Chris’s wolf was exuberant, eager for what he saw as a game of hide and seek. By unspoken agreement, Chris and Ben split up to find spots to keep watch. Chris found a spot under Mrs. Donnelly’s rose bushes to crouch. The air was crisp and clear. The earlier rain had left everything damp, but the clouds had broken up and the waning crescent moon was high in the sky. Chris put his muzzle on his paws and waited, watching and listening.
A soft yip from Ben brought Chris’s head up again, and he peered into the darkness, finally glimpsing movement on the far side of the driveway. The injured hunter stumbled out of the tree line, hands still bound and favoring one leg. Maybe he’d landed on it funny or tripped over a tree root on his flight through the darkness. He watched the house as he made a bee line for the Donnellys’ old truck. The porch light was on, and there were a few lights on downstairs, so it seemed like the elderly couple were still awake.
The intruder found the truck’s door unlocked and opened it. He used the corner of the door to work the ropes around his wrists loose before climbing inside. Chris scooted forward for a better view, watching while Jack searched the interior for keys. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like the Donnellys kept them behind the visor, but they did have something of interest to the hunter. Jack grabbed the rifle from the rack bolted to the rear of the cab. Chris shrank back, crawling deeper under the bush, ignoring the prick of sharp thorns along his back.
Jack climbed back out of the truck, leaving the door open, and limped across the driveway and up the front path. He passed right by Chris without seeing him in the shadows under the bush and mounted the steps to ring the doorbell. Chris waited, tense, while his neighbor answered the door and found his own rifle pointed at him.
“What the…” Old Man Donnelly said.
“Hands up. Don’t make any sudden moves, and no one gets hurt,” Jack said. His voice was gravelly, probably on account of his windpipe having been recently constricted.
Chris caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye as Ben crept into view, keeping to the shadows but finding a better position to watch.
“If it’s money you want, I only have about a hundred dollars in the house,” Donnelly said. “But you’re welcome to it, son.”
“I don’t want your money,” Jack growled. “All I want is your truck. Give me the keys, and I’ll go.”
“Okay, okay.” Metal scraped against metal, then the keys jingled as Jack adjusted his hold on the rifle to swipe them from the air.
“Thanks,” Jack said, backing away from the door with the rifle still raised. “I’ll take care of her.”
The door slammed shut, and Chris’s ears swiveled, picking up a faint “Mildred, get my gun! Some damn fool’s trying to make off with my truck!”
Jack turned once the door was shut, hurried back to the truck as fast as his gimpy leg would allow, and tossed the rifle in ahead of him before climbing into the cab. The engine roared to life seconds later, and the headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the front of the house in harsh light.
As the truck backed down the driveway, the front door flew open again and a shotgun-toting Old Man Donnelly stepped out in a flannel robe, undershirt, and boxers. He rushed across the porch and down the steps, lifting the weapon as he went. He fired at the retreating vehicle, and two things became immediately clear. First, the shotgun was loaded with slugs rather than shot, and second… Donnelly was a damn good shot. A hole appeared in the windshield right beside Jack’s head, and Chris bolted out from under the rosebush and threw himself at the backs of Donnelly’s legs while he was taking aim for a second shot. Donnelly cried out and went down, and Chris darted back into the shadows, hoping Jack hadn’t seen him.
By the time Donnelly scrambled to his feet and lifted his weapon again, the truck was out of range and pulling onto the darkened two-lane road at the base of the driveway. He fired again, though it had to be mostly on principle.
“Damnit!” Donnelly said, lowering the weapon and looking around in search of the big dog that’d come from out of nowhere. Frowning, he approached the bushes and pumped the shotgun, putting another round in the chamber. “Where’d you go, damn beastie?”
Chris retreated further, not daring to close his
eyes but worried that Donnelly would see their reflection in the darkness. He didn’t have anywhere to go if Donnelly started firing at him. Fortunately, Ben took that moment to make his own presence known. He barked, and Donnelly whirled to find him standing at the corner of the house. The old man raised the gun, but Ben quickly darted around the corner of the house, and all Donnelly’s shot did was take off a chunk of siding.
“Thomas!” Mrs. Donnelly cried from the front porch. “What’s going on?”
Mr. Donnelly grumbled and stomped toward the steps. “He’s gone, and one of Martin’s dogs got loose again. I swear I’m gonna shoot the next one I see on my property. Neighbor or no.” He slammed the door behind him, and Chris crept out from under the bushes.
Ben came back around the corner of the house to join him, and together they took off into the wooded area between the Donnelly house and his. It was the fastest route back to the car, and he didn’t want his prey to escape. While they ran through the woods, Chris let the joy of running fill him, eclipsing his other worries, no matter how briefly. It only took them a few minutes to emerge on the other side, and they shifted back to human form before climbing into the car.
“Everything okay?” Joey asked as she turned the car around and headed back down the driveway. “Adam says Jack must’ve found a car, because he’s moving too quickly to be on foot now.”
“Yeah,” Chris said, struggling to dress himself without elbowing or kneeing his brother. Two grown men trying to get dressed in the back seat of a moving car was a comedy of errors. “He took Old Man Donnelly’s truck. We’re gonna have to be careful to stay on our side of the property line for a while.”
“Why?” He explained the encounter to her, and she laughed despite the gravity of the situation. “Poor guy. We’ll make it up to him somehow. If nothing else, we can make sure the police find his truck.”
They followed the hunter from a careful distance for about an hour before Adam announced that he’d reached his destination—or at least stopped moving. By then, they were in an industrial area on the outskirts of Seattle. Joey parked in an empty lot a few blocks from the hunter’s signal while Chris checked out a map of the area on his phone. Ben leaned across the back seat to look while he brought it up.
“You got an address, Adam?” Chris asked over the walkie-talkie.
“Yeah, give me a minute,” Adam said, but he rattled off an address a few seconds later.
Chris plugged the address in and zoomed in on the spot. “Hmm. Looks like an old warehouse. No associated business or anything.”
“Think they’re squatting?” Joey twisted in her seat to look back at them.
“Probably,” Abby said. “I mean, they haven’t been in town long enough for much else.”
Chris nodded and said into the walkie-talkie, “Team three, stay put and keep an eye on the target. Team two, approach from the north. We’ll come from the south. Partner up, one human and one wolf. No one goes alone.”
“Roger,” Sam said. He was the leader of team two, which consisted of him, Justin, Ash, and Raven.
“Guess that makes me a human half,” Joey grumbled, turning to face forward.
“I’d like to stay human too,” Ben said, dragging his medical bag into his lap and settling the strap across his shoulders.
“Abby, you up for a shift?” Chris asked.
Abby answered by peeling the bandages off her neck and beginning to undress.
Chris passed the radio to Joey and struggled out of his clothes again, and they all bailed out of the car. The cracked asphalt felt strange under his paws, and the smells of the city piqued his wolf’s curiosity. Chris hadn’t had many occasions to shift forms in the city. It was too dangerous. But this time, the risk was worth it. Once everyone was ready, Joey led the way. Chris followed closely on her heels. The buildings were mucking with his sense of direction, and his wolf couldn’t comprehend things like street addresses. He loped along quietly, ears swiveling every time he heard a sound. Cities were full of noises, even areas like this that were largely dormant at night. The wolf wanted to explore, find something to hunt, but Chris reined that instinct in. They were hunting, just not in the way his wolf preferred.
They found Donnelly’s truck abandoned a block away. Ben cupped his hands and peered in the passenger window. “Rifle’s still there.”
“Good,” Joey said. “Let’s keep moving.”
Their team reached the warehouse before Sam’s. They split up, Ben and Abby scouting around the building in one direction while Joey and Chris went in the other. Chris picked up the hunter’s scent and followed it without difficulty to a rear entrance. He huffed softly and put a paw on the door, careful not to scratch the metal surface with his claws.
Joey caught on and tried the door. “Locked,” she whispered. “Let’s keep looking.”
For a vacant warehouse, the damn thing was locked down like Fort Knox. Fortunately, Ben and Abby had better luck. When they met up again on the far side of the warehouse, Ben led them to the front door, which was slightly ajar.
“It’s not locked,” Ben said. “But there’s something heavy behind it.” He leaned against it, putting his shoulder into it, and carefully eased the door open enough that they could slip inside.
Joey put a hand on Ben’s arm. “We should wait for Sam.”
Chris put his nose into the gap and sniffed. Confused, he sniffed again and stiffened, his tail straight out behind him.
“What is it, Chris?” Joey put a hand on his back.
Chris couldn’t answer, not without shifting forms again. His pulse accelerated, fueling a rising sense of urgency. There was an all-too-familiar scent inside the building.
Wolf.
Alpha instinct overcame reason. He squeezed through the gap and into the darkness beyond.
“Chris!” Joey said in a quiet but urgent whisper as Chris slid out from under her hand and vanished through the partially open door. She couldn’t let him go in alone. Why the hell had he gone in alone? Wasn’t she supposed to be the impulsive one? Growling, Joey pressed the radio into Ben’s hand. “Stay here and wait for Sam.” She caught his eyes, putting a little power behind her words for good measure. She didn’t have time to argue.
Ben nodded, no doubt momentarily rooted to the spot. He’d probably make her regret throwing her wolf’s weight around later, but in the moment, Joey couldn’t bring herself to care. All she cared about was following Chris, but before she did, she drew the pistol from her belt holster and made sure there was a round in the chamber. Sure, the idea was to take the hunters alive… but she wasn’t foolish enough to walk in unarmed. As the only one on the strike teams who couldn’t shift for self-defense, she’d gotten custody of Sam’s gun.
Joey slipped through the gap and pressed herself against the wall beside the door. The darkness closed in around her, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Chris hadn’t had that problem, and as she scanned the darkness ahead of her, she caught no glimpse of him. Though she strained to listen, she heard nothing but the occasional scuttle of a rodent.
“So help me, if you’re chasing a rat…” she muttered. Once she could see well enough not to trip over anything, she started forward with her weapon pointed at the floor in a two-handed grip, the way Sam had taught her. Other than the big stack of boxes that’d been blocking the door, there weren’t any immediate obstacles to be wary of. Her eyes swept the room as she moved.
She found herself in an entryway about six feet wide, with walls to her left and right and an open area ahead. Angling to the right, she hugged the wall until she reached an open doorway and glanced into the room beyond. It was an office space, complete with furniture and a computer atop the desk. There was a layer of dust over everything, but rather than wonder why the warehouse’s previous tenant had left all their shit behind, she darted across the entryway to check the door on the other side. It was an office like the first, though a filing cabinet against one wall had been knocked over at some point. One of the drawers w
as open, and file folders littered the floor around it.
Joey crossed the doorway and paused at the corner to look left and right. Her eyes had adjusted by now, but it helped that the high windows, however grimy, let some light in from outside. The warehouse floor was huge, bisected by a conveyor belt that ran from the western wall down the center of the room, then turned south to empty out by the loading dock. There were still stacks of boxes and pallets of goods all over the place. She used that to her advantage, darting across the open space to crouch beside one such stack.
“Chris!” she whispered, still trying to get eyes on him. There. A glimpse of movement in the distance resolved into a large furry shape winding through the boxes, tail high, sniffing the air. “Chris!” She snapped her fingers for good measure, and that finally got his attention. He froze, ears swiveling, and turned to look right at her. She motioned frantically with her hand. “C’mere!”
He trotted over, and the tension in Joey’s shoulders eased a little more with every step he took toward her. As her worry bled away, annoyance rose in its place. “You’re lucky I don’t have a rolled-up newspaper,” she whispered, glaring at him as he reached her.
The air around Chris shimmered, and the wolf vanished, leaving a very human Chris crouching there instead. “Sorry. I smelled a wolf.”
Joey blinked. “A wolf? One of ours?”
“No.” His nostrils flared, and then he paused, looking like he might sneeze. Joey’s eyes widened, and she clamped her hand over his mouth, pinching his nose shut in the process. His body spasmed, and though the sound was quiet, Joey hoped they hadn’t been detected. She held her hand in place, listening, until he dragged her hand down so he could breathe. “Stupid dust,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Anyway, it’s not pack. I don’t recognize it. It might be a captive.”
“We have to tell the others.”
