“Hello?” said Earl.
“Hi there,” said Rusty.
“Who am I speaking with?” said Earl.
“I’m Rusty Hadley. I’m Jimmy’s son. He’s agreed to speak to the SF, but before I put him on with you, there are a few things you have to understand.”
“Now, wait a second,” said Earl, looking up at Avery. “This guy is going to try to dictate stuff to us?”
“We’re negotiating, Lowell,” said Avery, feeling frustrated. “We need to give a little to get a little.”
Earl made a face, but he nodded. “All right, what are these things?”
“Jimmy doesn’t respond well to threats,” said Rusty. “If you want the conversation to go smoothly, then I don’t think you should back him into a corner. Now, I’ve talked to him, and he understands the situation. He knows that you guys want all of us to come out and to submit to the SF training. What he wants to do is try to work out a little bit of a compromise. But I promised him that I would let him communicate that to you. One other thing is that he has been wounded, and I’d like it if we didn’t get him overly excited, because it might cause more damage.”
Earl snorted. “Overly excited, huh?”
Avery glared at him.
“Finally,” said Rusty, “I know that you needed to bring in your superior, Mr. Brooks, and I’ve got no problem with him listening in to the conversation, but Jimmy is pretty adamant that he only wants to talk to one person, not a whole group of people. He wants one representative to communicate with, and he’s under the impression that man is Mr. Brooks. If he gets some other kind of idea, he might terminate the entire thing. So, if I could ask you, Mr. Lowell, to wait to say anything until I tell you it’s okay?”
Earl didn’t look as if he liked that either. “These are a lot of rules, Mr. Hadley.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Rusty. “The thing is, most of the people here on the farm are basically terrified and grieving, and, uh, there aren’t a lot of cool heads. Both Mr. Brooks and I agreed that we’d like to avoid further bloodshed, and I would hope you feel the same way?”
“If we can get out of this clean, sure,” said Earl.
“Good. Then I really appreciate your cooperation, sir,” said Rusty.
Avery smiled. He found himself really starting to like Rusty. He was kind of an odd duck. He seemed to be okay with being a bit dishonest with his father, allowing Earl to listen in on a conversation, even though Jimmy didn’t really know that, but he still seemed to respect Jimmy.
Earl lit a cigarette. “Let’s get this over with.”
“All right,” said Rusty. “Hold on a moment.”
There were muffled sounds on Rusty’s end.
Earl blew out smoke, looking bored and annoyed.
That worried Avery. He wasn’t sure that a guy like Earl wouldn’t decide to blow the entire farm sky high, even if Dana was inside. They needed to get Jimmy talking to them, to get things moving forward. It was the best way to resolve the situation.
“Hi there,” said Rusty again. “You’re on speaker phone here, Mr. Brooks. Say hello.”
“Hello,” said Avery.
“And Father, you can go ahead and say something.”
“Do I need to lean forward?” said Jimmy’s voice. “Do I gotta talk into that thing?”
“No, it’ll pick you up from there. You’re fine.”
“You’ll have to excuse me,” said Jimmy. “I’m not up with these newfangled gadgets. We live a very simple life here on the farm.”
Avery was struck by how similar Jimmy’s voice was to Cole’s. There was a difference in accent, of course. Jimmy had a very pronounced southern drawl. Rusty had one as well, but it was less obvious. “I’m picking you up just fine, Mr. Hadley.”
“Call me Jimmy. It’s what everyone calls me.”
“All right, Jimmy.”
“And I’ll call you Avery. That is your name, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” He wasn’t sure how he felt about the familiarity, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
“You’re Dana’s partner, that right?”
“It is.”
“You’re worried about her.”
“I’m concerned for her safety.”
“Well, she was safe as houses,” said Jimmy. “Then my oldest boy showed up. From what I understand, you sent him in here?”
Earl furrowed his brow.
Avery grimaced. So he’d forgotten to explain to Earl about Cole Randall. Apparently, Ursula hadn’t briefed them on it either. She was probably embarrassed. “I allowed him access, yes. At the time, it seemed like a good call. He said he had inside knowledge of the place, and he assured me that he could free my partner.”
“And you believed him? You believed that my Cole would save your Dana, when he’d attempted to kill her before?”
“Uh, I was desperate.”
Jimmy chuckled. “You’re really concerned for her then?”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. I’m keeping her away from Cole, which I think is better for both of them. Whatever’s between those two, it’s a little disturbing, don’t you think?”
Earl nearly choked on his cigarette smoke at the mention of Cole’s name.
Avery cleared his throat. “Mr. Hadley, I had hoped we could talk about—”
“It’s Jimmy, I told you that. And I guess I got under your skin, didn’t I? You don’t like talking about Dana and Cole together, do you?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” said Avery. “They were accidentally mated for a brief period of time, but now there’s nothing connecting them.”
“Which was why you let him in, then? Because they had no connection? I guess that’s why he showed up in the first place?”
“I’m sorry, Jimmy, but I fail to see how this really has any bearing—”
“Well, Rusty says that you want me to let her go. That right?”
“That’s part of what we want, yes.”
“He also says that letting her go won’t be enough. That you want all of us to come out and let you take us in.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, you know why we don’t want to do that, don’t you?”
“I do know.” Avery decided to spell it out for Earl’s benefit. “If you go through our training, it breaks the bonds of your pack, which means that your family ties are destroyed.”
“Exactly,” said Jimmy. “And we really don’t want to go through the training. We aren’t dangerous wolves. We’ve never caused any issues on a full moon. We’ve never hurt anyone until you came onto our property and attacked us.”
“As far as I know that’s true.”
“So, I wonder,” said Jimmy, “if it would be possible for you to guarantee we don’t have to go through that training. As long as my alpha bonds hold, then there’s no reason for it, because I control my pack’s shifting.”
Avery swallowed. “Let me get this straight, Jimmy. What you’re saying is that if I can get a guarantee that there won’t be any training, you and all of your pack will come out of there?”
“We’ll come out, and we’ll let you ask questions and do whatever you want. But we don’t want to go through the training.”
“And you’ll come out right away, not several weeks from now? If I can get that promise from you from my superiors, then you’ll all come out?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“And Dana?”
“Well Dana’s part of the pack, now, isn’t she? So of course she’d come out as well.”
“Okay.” Avery took a deep breath. “Well, to me, Jimmy, it sounds like a reasonable offer. However, I can’t guarantee anything until I talk to some other people. So, uh, if we could set up another time, maybe tomorrow morning, to talk about this?”
“Rusty can do that,” said Jimmy.
The phone was handed off and there was some dead air for a few minutes.
Then Rusty came back on. “All right. I’ve left
Jimmy now, so if you wanted to say something, Mr. Lowell, it would be fine.”
Earl leaned forward, rubbing a hand over his chin. “Honestly, Rusty, I don’t have anything to say right now.”
“You can’t confirm that you can work with Jimmy’s offer?” asked Rusty. “I thought you were the man in charge.”
“Well, I’m the highest up,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I make all the decisions. You know what, you guys call back tomorrow morning around nine o’clock. We’ll talk more then.”
* * *
Cole looked up as his brother Rusty entered his room. “Hey there.”
Rusty leaned up against the door frame. He looked tired. “You enjoy seeing Dana today?”
Cole chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
Rusty raised his eyebrows. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Cole shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Because I can make it so you can’t see her, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s not what I want. Of course I want to see her.”
Rusty nodded. “All right, then. Look, Cole, it’s because of me that you’re out and about, moving through this place. If it were up to Jimmy, you’d be confined to this room. I need you to understand that. I need you to realize I’m sticking my neck out for you.”
Cole lay back on his bed. “I get it, little brother. I appreciate it. Is this the way the farm works now? Jimmy hides someplace, gives you orders, and you only follow the ones you feel like following?”
Rusty stalked over to the bed. He glared down at Cole. “That’s not the way things are going right now, let alone normally.”
Cole grinned up at him. “Kind of seems like that’s how they’re going.”
“Jimmy is wounded. He can hardly get out of bed. He’s not thinking clearly,” said Rusty. “Everything I’m doing is for the good of the Pack.”
“Right.” Cole sat up. “Why can’t you admit that Jimmy isn’t good for the Pack?”
“Jimmy is the Pack.”
Cole got to his feet, looking his brother in the eye. “Tell me that, deep down, you don’t believe you’d do a better job than Jimmy does.”
Rusty looked away.
“That’s what I thought,” said Cole. “Listen, Rusty, you don’t have to let him control you anymore. You don’t have to let him control anyone on the farm. Turn him over to the SF, and—”
“Even if I’d consider betraying him like that, which I wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be enough for the SF. They want all of us to come out and allow ourselves to be taken to their headquarters.”
“All of you?” said Cole.
Rusty nodded. “We’re trying to convince them not to put us through the training, and if they say yes, Jimmy’s agreed that we’ll go to them.”
Cole laughed—a hard, short burst. “What? He’s fucking with them. He’s fucking with you. Jimmy’s not going to leave. He’s just trying to buy some time.”
“You don’t know what he said. You didn’t talk to him.”
“This is the man who forced me to mate with Tasha, then made me choose between killing her or watching him kill my mother. Trust me, he’s not going to give in to the SF after a couple days.”
“You really don’t know anything,” said Rusty. “You’re so hung up on that thing with Tasha.”
“Well, it was kind of a big deal,” said Cole. “The kind of thing you remember. You ever ripped out someone’s throat, Rusty?”
“You and Tasha betrayed—”
“She kissed me once,” said Cole. “That’s betrayal? He had a building full of teenage girls. He couldn’t spare one?”
“You know that no one besides Jimmy can handle the burden of romantic or erotic interaction with the opposite sex,” said Rusty. “It’s too much for us. Look what it’s done to you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Kissing Tasha was the first step,” said Rusty. “But then it became about Dana. I remember, Cole. I shared your room back then. You’d call out her name in your sleep. When the thing happened at the high school and the two of you were the only survivors, I knew that wasn’t an accident.”
It was Cole’s turn to look away.
“I thought it was good,” Rusty said. “You had what you wanted. You and her went off together. I thought maybe you would be happy, because I knew you weren’t happy here. But it doesn’t seem like she made you happy.”
Cole’s jaw twitched. It was time for a subject change. He looked back up at Rusty. “You ever going to give that phone back?”
“Not yet,” said Rusty. “I need it. Why?”
“Fine, keep it.”
“Did something I said upset you?”
Cole glared at him. “You know, if you’re so good at figuring out what’s best for the pack, even if it goes against Jimmy’s wishes, why don’t you release Dana now, as a gesture of good faith to the SF. Maybe they go easier on us if she’s free, huh?”
“Nice try,” said Rusty. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Jimmy’s got the key to her chains on his bedside table. Won’t let anybody near it.”
* * *
when Cole was seventeen…
Cole didn’t leave his bed for a week after Tasha died. He allowed Jimmy to perform the ritual to make him part of the pack again. He didn’t struggle. He didn’t do anything. He submitted. Jimmy had broken him.
He had a hard time sleeping afterward.
He thought a lot about it.
About Tasha’s face when he did it. The way that she stared at him, screaming and pleading. The way she stopped, like a switch had been flipped off. The way the light went out in her eyes.
It had been genius to make him do it, Cole thought. If Jimmy had simply killed Tasha on his own, Cole would have hated him.
But now, Cole hated himself. He hated Jimmy too, but he hated himself worse. And he felt helpless because he didn’t have control over himself.
It was genius.
His father was good at this.
Like Tasha said, he did have “something.”
His mother refused to speak about that night. She seemed to be in denial about the fact that Jimmy had nearly killed her.
And she didn’t seem the least bit grateful that Cole had saved her life.
In fact, she seemed disgusted by him. She wouldn’t let him stay in the trailer with her anymore. She said that Cole was grown up now, and that he should find his own place.
So Cole found an empty bed in the main house. He shared a room with his younger brother, Rusty. Even Rusty gave him a wide berth. The kid seemed afraid of him.
Rusty certainly didn’t make any attempt to try to get Cole out of bed, that was for sure.
Julia brought him meals every day, always with a triumphant look on her face.
He hated Julia too. If only she’d kept her big mouth shut.
Of course, he refused the meals. He didn’t have an appetite anymore.
He lay on the bed. He couldn’t sleep very often. When he did, he had bad dreams about Tasha and his mother. About mating with Tasha. About Tasha’s naked skin.
Sometimes he dreamed about Julia too. About tearing her throat out the same way that he’d torn out Tasha’s.
He wanted Julia to die.
He might have stayed in bed forever, but after a week of it, he found he couldn’t bear being on the farm anymore. The only place he’d ever been able to go to escape the insanity of the farm was school. So, one day, he got up, cleaned up, got dressed, and met the bus.
Julia was there. She still looked triumphant.
He ignored her.
One day at school, and it all became clear to him.
He figured it out in chemistry class, while the teacher droned on about acids and bases.
What he figured out was that it wasn’t actually his fault that Tasha had died. Sure, he’d been the one who did it, but he hadn’t had a choice. It was exactly like Jimmy had said. Jimmy had taken away Cole’s choice. And now Cole was tied to Jimmy
again. Jimmy was his alpha, just like he’d always been.
But now things had changed, because Cole knew what it was like to be an alpha on his own. He’d only been free of Jimmy for a few minutes, but he knew it was preferable to be free. He wanted to be free constantly.
Right around then, Chase Klebold poked him in the back of the neck.
Cole turned around. Chase was sort of his friend. Cole sat with him and Adam White at lunch most of the time.
“You got a pencil?” said Chase.
Cole shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“Shit,” said Chase.
It took Cole a minute to realize that the teacher had just given the class an assignment of some kind. It was written on the board, the numbers of the questions they were to answer and the page numbers they were on. To Cole, it all looked like a bunch of squiggles. He shut his eyes and opened them again, trying to make sense of it.
“Hey,” said Chase. “I heard about a party we could crash this weekend.”
“Whatever.”
Chase rolled his eyes. “Dude, you never do anything outside of school. You need to live a little.”
“By going to a party where we aren’t invited and aren’t wanted?”
Chase grinned. “Yes. Exactly. So, we can annoy the fuck out of the preps.”
Cole found the cliques completely uninteresting, but Chase was obsessed with the fact he wasn’t high school royalty.
“I guess you’re just afraid of your parents, though, huh?”
That was the excuse that Cole usually gave. And it was true. He couldn’t ever get off the farm. Jimmy didn’t approve of Cole’s doing social activities with outsiders.
Hmm… Jimmy wouldn’t want him to go to a party, would he?
If he were free, he could go. Cole wanted to be free. “You know what? Maybe that party thing could be cool.”
“Yeah? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
* * *
“Cole Randall?” Earl Lowell was aghast. “You let Cole Randall in there?”
Avery hung his head.
“What were you thinking?”
Avery massaged his temples. “You know, like Jimmy was saying, Randall and Gray have a history, and—”
Bad Moon Rising (Cole and Dana) Page 16
