by Evelyn Glass
“Why prolong the inevitable?” Dawn demanded. “What were you getting out of—?”
“Like I have to tell you!”
Atticus’ voice sounded strangely strong, and Dawn started to fall back to her heels when Cade was right there, his hands on her shoulders as he glared at the wounded Panther.
“Think you do, kid,” Cade hissed. “Dawn is only here because—”
“Because her boss or whatever wants to make a name for himself in this fucking one horse town.”
The room went completely still, and Dawn just felt Cade’s slipping away when she lunged forward. Paying no mind to the Panther’s injuries, she dug her nails into his cheeks, wanting him to hurt as she struggled to keep her voice clear and steady.
“You better not be bringing Michael into this,” Dawn said. “He’s a newsman. Not a thug. Why would he—?”
“Because…because he could like smell the trouble in the water,” Atticus said. “Knew it would make for…for good copy. Norm was happy to set the scene. Cops don’t care about the Alphas. And you… as for you…”
Dawn’s head reeled with too many thoughts at once, and she could hardly believe that Michael would work behind the scenes to set all this in motion, let alone place her on the front lines without the full facts when a hard hand pulled her to her feet.
“So you in on it, too?” George bellowed. “That why you’re here? Don’t want your fucking cover blown?”
No chance of helping that now, and his fist moved perilously close to her injured face when Cade swung into action and folded her body behind his back.
“I said don’t touch her!” Cade screamed.
“Even now?” George shot back as he started to draw his gun. “Dude, she played you? Unless… unless you’re in on it, too?”
Wanting anything but his demise, Dawn frantically waved her hands in the air, ready to spill what she knew of the story when Atticus’ body, wracked with fresh sobs, shook violently in the chair.
“Girl didn’t know!” he screamed. “Norm asked what would happen if she got caught in the crossfire. Guy said it would make for a better story. Talked posthumous honors or some shit.”
Dawn’s heart softened as she turned her eyes back to the Panther’s bruised face. He hadn’t stepped up to the plate for her before, but he was making the move now. And she almost smiled when Cade abandoned her side.
“Set up and we didn’t even see it coming,” he said as he stood toe to toe with Reese. “You want your own thing? We move now. Finish this one off before we start riding.”
Reese nodded as he reached for his gun, and Dawn charged forward, placing her body between the impending bullet and Atticus.
“Don’t burn a source,” he said. “He might still come in handy. And… and God knows I want to know what else I was set up for.”
Curling his finger around the trigger, Reese still looked ready to fire when he looked to Cade for instruction.
“What do we do here?” Reese asked. “Are you buying this?”
No reason that he should, and if Dawn wanted to see Michael now. She felt as if she could strangle him with her bare hands for putting her in harm’s way. And for giving Cade cause to doubt her when she had him so close. Dawn felt more pain than the metal digging into her body until Cade gathered her into his arms. A shocked sob passed through her lips when his arms melted around her, in front of his boys, and Cade gently lifted her chin so she met his eyes.
“I believe her,” he said. “No way she would have set herself up for what went down. Just another pawn. And I’m tired of all of us being played for fools.”
Wanting to fall into his chest and revel at the sound of his beating heart, Dawn squared her shoulders back and tried looked to Atticus.
“He’s the only one that can keep talking,” she said. “Makes sense to let him live. And—”
Her hand suddenly flew to her mouth, and Dawn backed away on trembling legs as Cade tried to bring her back.
“Dawn?” he asked. “What is it? What are you—?”
“Oh God, Cade. My notes. My notes are back at my place. If Michael doesn’t have them by now. I have… I have to…”
“Dawn, just—”
“No! I wrote it all down by hand,” she continued. “He’ll…he won’t hand them over to the cops.”
“Why not?” George asked. “If he’s out for blood, then—”
“Then he’ll use them in some other way!” Dawn wailed. “Set another crew on your tail over and over again until he finally gets the story that he wants most.”
Dawn pictured the Alphas continuing to flee, danger lurking behind every corner until Michael got the cover that he wanted most. A bloodied mass of Alpha bodies with open, unseeing eyes gazing skyward with no hope of ever blinking again. Thoughts of Cade and Nicole and the others looking like that made her sick. And the idea that she was expendable enough to go down with others coiled her hands into tight fists against her shaking sides.
“I have to go back,” Dawn said. “Get the notes or none of you will ever be free.”
Turing on her heel, she heard Cade order the Alphas to clean Atticus up, and she pictured all of them riding off into the distance, hoping for enough time to get the deed done when Cade was on her again.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “You need to get going with—”
“Right. Like I’m just going to hang back and let you face this all alone?”
“Cade, it’s…it’s partly my fault,” she said. “I wanted the story. It sounded exciting. And when I…but once I was with you…”
She fell into him and kissed his lips hard, thinking that it would be the last time. Their bodies began to move as one to the earth, and she nuzzled her head against his chest, soaking in his scent before starting to pull back again.
“I don’t regret any of it,” she said. “But you have to let me make it right.”
“Sure enough,” he said, as he helped her back to her feet. “But you do it with me.”
“Cade, you can’t. If you show your face in town…if Michael knows that you’re onto him he—”
“Probably the same thing he would do to you,” Cade countered. “And I don’t even know the guy. Dawn?”
She was limp, as he walked her back to his bike, the sound of the clubhouse in chaos moving swiftly behind their backs. As soon as they reached his chopper, Cade kissed her brow and breathed into her eyes.
“I’m doing this with you,” he said. “And somehow we’re getting out to the other side.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Plainfield started to poke into view. The little town was just coming to life, and Dawn saw a woman walking a terrier mix as the gate went up on Harper’s Bakery. The scent of bagels and Danish drifted to her nose. A different time in the same place and she would have whispered for Cade to stop so that they could grab a bite to eat. The thought of feeding him and feeling his fingers doing the same brought a smile to her lips. However, for right now, they had to keep moving, and Dawn tightened her grip around his waist as she moaned into his neck.
“You remember the way to my place?” she asked.
“I remember everything about you, Dawn,” he assured her. “Still hope that we can get in and out before time.”
“I know,” she muttered. “Sorry I got you mixed up in this.”
“Not on you,” he said. “Soon enough it’ll all be in the past.”
Wanting to believe that, she held her breath as he pushed his bike into park. He helped her to ground, his fingers just touching her bandaged cheek.
“And when this heals, no more,” he said. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to cut you again.”
“Think I want it to happen again?” she tried to tease. “We’re on the same page with that.”
“Sure you’ll find a way to spin it.”
Dawn pursed her lips, and she started to tug at his collar when his fingers enveloped her hand. He brought his kiss to her wrist, and Dawn sighed into him as she managed a small laug
h.
“At least where no one else can find it, right?” he asked.
The Alpha arched his eyebrow, and she started to tell him that there was still their story to tell when her mind moved back to the task at hand. Find the notes. Get back to base and keep moving forward.
“Let’s do this.”
Holding his hand, Dawn’s soul curdled in her chest when she found the door already unlocked. They exchanged a quick glance, and Cade pushed her behind his back as he drew his knife and slowly stepped into her apartment.
“Oh no!” Dawn gasped. “Shit!”
The place was in shambles, every piece of furniture overturned and papers littering the floor. Even in the state of complete disarray, Dawn knew what she was after, what she needed to find most, and she fell to her knees, crawling through the refuse when she reached the drawer overturned from her desk. A few things here and there. Junk mail that she had never bothered to open. Her last few paper bills that would be righted come the next payday. But beyond that, nothing. Especially not the thing that she… that they wanted and needed most, and Dawn pounded a furious fist into the floor.
“We’re too late,” she said. “He already has them.” Tears started to fill her eyes, and she struggled to her feet, her pain back in full force when Cade took her into his arms and turned her around to face him.
“And what?” he asked. “That it?”
“Cade, he has the leverage now,” Dawn said. “So we should go back and run and—”
“Are you really saying that?” he asked. “Since when did you go down without a fight?”
Dawn’s chin drooped to her chest, and Cade made her look at him, sighing as he smiled.
“This was you’re thing,” he reminded her. “Looks to me like to me that this is recent.”
“How do you—?”
“Room doesn’t feel cold enough,” he said. “And that window there is wide open.”
Dawn stepped into the breeze, and she brought the glass down to the sill as she smoothed her hands down the sides of the sweatpants and slowly nodded her head.
“Maybe you should be the reporter,” Dawn said. “You’re highly observant.”
“But only you know all the facts,” Cade said. “Now where do we go?”
Sure she knew the facts. Dawn wrapped her arms around her chest.
“Hey?” he crooned. “Come on now.”
Cade took her into his arms, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Michael did this,” she said. “Hurt me. Let them do what they did to me. And I don’t know what…”
Cade held her closer and let her cry for a few long moments. She grew calmer in his arms, and Dawn offered no resistance when he made her meet his eyes as he fondled her face.
“Sure you do,” he said. “Lead the way, and we can still take him down.”
Dawn wiped her eyes and sniffled, as she felt the room growing warmer
“How fast can you ride?” she asked.
“As fast as you need me to,” he said. “Don’t you know that by now?”
“Cade, I…”
She wound her arms around her waist, as he trailed his kiss into her hair, and Dawn only looked up as he touched her bandage.
“There might be a scar,” he said.
“I don’t want that.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “But you earned the mark. So let’s see what you can do with it.”
Cade said nothing else as he ushered her out of her wrecked apartment, and they were nearly back at his bike when she paused before him and just held his hand.
“I think I know where he is,” Dawn said. “Don’t know if I can take him down.”
“Then I will,” he said as he flashed his knife. “You do the talking, and I’ll be your muscle.”
“You’re much more than that.”
Cade helped her onto the bike. Pushing the pedal and revving up his motor, more and more of Plainfield came to life. She smelled flowers hitting the sidewalks and saw yellow busses starting their rounds to take the little ones to school. They had to make this right before the kids were kicking to the sky on their swings, and she whispered for Cade to move faster when he spun into the turn.
Cade leapt away from the sloped seat and gathered her into his arms as they moved to the main door.
“Sure he’s here?” Cade asked as she punched in the code on the keypad, dragging Cade behind her as she felt stronger with each step.
“Only place he would be,” Dawn said. “Especially if he thinks he has a scoop.”
Her office rivalled her apartment. Drawers overturned. A variety of pages everywhere. So he had to have started there, and then he kept moving forward to get the goods. Dawn knew that he had her notes in his hands, and she stomped towards his office and kicked the door open to find him smirking against the space of his fax machine when he made contact with her eyes.
“Dawn,” he said, trying to play her presence off like it was nothing but expected. He let the pages, the notes that Dawn saw clearly down near the fax, as his brow furrowed into what he had to hope would look like total concern.
“You’re hurt,” he continued. “Should really get that looked at.”
He tried to touch her when she batted him back, and Cade hung closer to her back as he curled his fingers around her arm.
“She’s been seen,” Cade seethed. “But you wanted the damage to be far more permanent, right?”
Michael stepped back, laughing through a smirk as he tapped his hand to his hair. He had told her that the best stories were always written in blood, but she had never thought that her crimson was bound to be his preferred brand of ink, and she held Cade back as she took a step closer.
“Listening to the grease monkey now, Dawn?” Michael said. “I…I mean I know that you’ve been off on a lost weekend or whatever. But this is not how you tell the—”
“Then give me back my notes,” Dawn challenged. “It’s my story. I’ll tell it best.”
Michael laughed in her face, and Cade started to charge forward when Dawn held her hand up and pressed him back.
“Your story that you sent me to snatch and grab,” Dawn said.
“You came out okay,” Michael said. “Bet there won’t even be a mark.”
“So sure, Michael?”
Ripping the gauze from her cheek, wincing as she tore the tape from her skin, Dawn flung the bloodied bandage aside and let her wound fill the room as she stared him down. Michael winced as her skin dripped and narrowed her eyes.
“Should I lower my pants?” she asked. “Because I have other marks that will never go away.”
Michael gulped, and he tried to take her hand when Dawn drew her fingers back and felt stronger as she stared him down.
“Dawn, I told them not to touch you like that,” he said. “Never wanted you raped or—”
“They did it to me without one dick!” Dawn said. “But I’m still going to pay for it.”
Michael sniffled as her words hit his ears, and she saw him trying to wrap his mind around what had been done to her.
“I…I’m sorry, Dawn,” he said. “But…but the story still needs to be…”
He rushed away, and Dawn’s heart caught in her throat. Who was he trying to send her notes to? What would they do with the story? Probably worse than anything that Michael might have in mind, and Dawn charged to his side. Tearing the pages out of his hands, she held him to the floor and slapped his face.
“Your story!” she hissed. “Boys might have worked it all out if you hadn’t set me in their sights.”
“Because I believed in you!” Michael cried. “Thought that you could get to—”
“And I did!” Dawn screamed. “Why do you think that I’m still here now?”
Michael had no words, and Cade was at her side. He stayed a few inches back as he touched her arms, and Dawn shot a quick glance into his eyes before moving her gaze back to Michael’s trembling face.
“It’s because of him,” Dawn said. “He saved me. And
he said I should I come and hunt you down.”
Dawn felt strong until Michael wriggled to the other side of the room. He lifted his fists to his face, and she felt that he was crying as Cade helped her back to his feet.
“Dawn?”
She rested her head to his chest and savored the feel of his arms surrounding her body.
“I don’t want this for you,” he whispered. Stunned, she looked up into this eyes and started to shake her head when he kissed her wound and started to fold her deeper into his arms. “Get the notes. Let’s just go,” he said. “The others will be waiting.”
