“What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s the systematic molestation of underage girls for one thing. You only need to talk the girl I pulled out, Marissa, to confirm that.”
“Funny,” said Earl. “We got our man inside, Rusty, telling us if we talk to Marissa, that she’ll deny she’s ever been with Jimmy in that way. He says that the brides are called brides because they’re waiting to ‘marry’ him. Says they’re always of age when it happens.”
“That’s the standard story we’re told to tell outsiders,” said Cole. “Rusty’s banking on Marissa sticking to the script. But if you let me talk to her, I’ll make sure she knows it’s safe to tell the truth.”
“You want to talk to her? That’s why you called?”
“That’s not the only reason I called. There’s more about Jimmy. He coerces people. He’s got an entire farm full of people willing to kill for him, willing to die for him. Half of them are women that he’s been abusing since they were teenagers. The others are his own children. If you think that you’re going to convince him to cooperate just by sucking up to him, you’re plainly mistaken.”
Earl was quiet for a moment. “You might be right. But that still doesn’t explain why we’re having this conversation.”
“I can get Jimmy to come out.”
“You think so?”
“I know so. I’ve known that man my entire life. I grew up on that farm. I know how things work. I know how Jimmy works. I know how he thinks. Let me help you.”
Earl snorted. “I suppose you’re not offering this to me out of the goodness of your heart.”
“Not exactly,” said Cole. “I have terms.”
“Which are?”
“Basically, you let me out. I stay with you until the situation with Hunter’s Moon Farm is resolved. And then I get to go free.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Randall. We can’t do something like that. You’re a serial killer. What kind of bad PR would that bring out on the organization?”
“I’m not being ridiculous,” said Cole. “First of all, you don’t have to advertise the fact that I’m helping. And second of all, you know that the public never gives a shit about dead werewolves no matter how they got that way. Your organization is a public menace. Regular people don’t like the SF. They don’t like werewolves. And they don’t give a shit that I killed a few.”
“A few.” Earl chuckled. “You don’t have any remorse, do you?”
Damn it. Should he try to drum up some remorse now? Would he possibly be able to sell that?
No way would he be able to do it. He didn’t know how to conjure it, to make it seem genuine.
“That’s twice I’ve rendered you speechless,” said Earl.
“Things that I did were… regrettable,” Cole said carefully. “They haven’t been repeated, and they won’t be. If there’s one thing you can count on, Mr. Lowell, it’s that I’m not interested in rotting away in a cell for the rest of my life. I just need a second chance.”
“You’re a cold fish, Randall,” said Earl. “How do you propose to get Jimmy out of there?”
“I’m not going to give away my only leverage without something in return,” Cole said. “You let me out of here, and I’ll show you how I’m going to get Jimmy to leave the farm.”
“Right,” said Earl. “And what if you don’t? What if I let you out, and you skip town right away and leave me with a house full of crazy werewolves who won’t budge?”
“I won’t do that.”
“Why should I believe that?”
“For one thing, there’s Dana Gray.”
“Thought we were leaving her out of this.”
“Brooks wants me dead, but he trusted me to go in and get her off that farm. Which I did. And now that she and I have been… reunited, I’m not going to go far away from her. Not if I can help it.”
Earl didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he said, “I’ll think about it and get back to you. Who’d you steal this phone from?”
Was there any point in lying?
“Avery Brooks.”
“Interesting.”
Cole waited. Should he hang up now? Was the conversation over? He could still hear Earl breathing on the other end of the line.
“One more thing. How come your name’s Randall, not Hadley, if old Jimmy’s your papa?”
“Randall’s my middle name,” said Cole. “And when I was a kid, they registered us at school under fake last names because they thought it would look weird that there were a bunch of kids with the same last name. Jimmy lets the girls go to school up through eighth grade, but he cuts them off after that. Anyway, with all the girls there, it was a crowd of us. We were supposed to pretend to the outside world we were neighbors, not half-brothers and half-sisters. When I left the farm, I didn’t want anything to do with Jimmy, so I sure as fuck didn’t take his last name.”
“You’re not so fond of him are you?”
“Not at all.”
* * *
when Cole was seventeen…
Cole forgot about calling the SF. He was too distracted by what he’d seen Dana and Kyle doing. He was too confused by all of it.
It made him think of what Tasha had said to him in the barn, about how she had desires, but fulfilling them was always painful or humiliating.
And then he thought of Dana’s expression when she kissed Kyle’s dick.
And…
He was so caught up in it, he completely ignored Julia, who kept trying to engage him in conversation and ask where he’d been. He was kind of a mess from ejaculating all over himself and his clothes, but he didn’t care.
But when he got off the bus, he couldn’t stay lost in his thoughts anymore, because Jimmy was waiting for him.
He’d come out to meet the bus, his arms crossed over his chest. His father had big arms, honed by hours of work on the farm. Cole felt dwarfed by the man, because he was so strong and powerful.
“Where have you been?” said Jimmy.
The bus pulled away, vanishing around a curve.
Cole shrugged. “I went to a party on Friday. Then I just didn’t feel like coming home.”
Jimmy grabbed him by the arm and yanked him close. Then he recoiled, throwing Cole down onto the road. “You smell like semen, boy. What have you been doing?”
Cole’s face was in the dirt road, but he laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed.
Until Jimmy’s foot collided with his stomach.
Then he cried out in pain, doubling up.
Jimmy glared down at him. “You can’t stop defying me, boy, can you?”
Cole really couldn’t, it seemed. He wanted free of Jimmy, no matter what the cost.
They put him in one of the punishment rooms.
Cole hadn’t been down here in quite a while. Generally speaking, the punishment rooms were used for children. They were time-out rooms, dark and empty except for a sink and a toilet. When the kids on the farm disobeyed, then they’d be given an hour or two in a punishment room.
But after Cole stayed out and went to the party, Jimmy kept in the time-out room for three days, and he didn’t give him anything to eat or drink.
Except for a tincture at the beginning, something he forced Cole to drink.
It was a preparation of solanicia, an herb that werewolves were quite sensitive towards. In large doses, it was fatal. In small doses, it caused nausea and hallucinations. The adults in the Pack sometimes used it all together during Jimmy’s moon-spirit nights.
The dose they usually took was lower than the dose that Jimmy gave Cole.
It made Cole violently ill. He didn’t make it to the toilet several times, and the room soon stank of with the smell of his vomit.
Jimmy came to talk to him at one point. He tried to tell him that Cole needed to straighten up and follow the rules or worse things would happen to him.
But the whole time, Jimmy’s features twisted and swam in front of Cole’s eyes, and he couldn’t concentrate on what t
he man was saying.
Cole felt like the world had fallen into pieces and that it was all flying away from him, being sucked down into a whirlpool. He was left a husk of himself. Hungry. Sick. Confused. Frightened.
But later, the dose of the herb slowed down and its intensity was less.
That was when he started to see Tasha.
Not literally see her, of course, but when he closed his eyes, he would be able to imagine things with startling brightness and detail.
Tasha was in the barn, her hands tied behind her back, naked.
He went to her and unzipped his pants. She kissed the tip of his penis.
And then she wasn’t Tasha anymore. She was Dana Gray, and he’d shoved his cock all the way down her throat.
Dana was choking.
No. Dana was bleeding. He was ripping out her throat with his claws.
She was dying.
Just like Tasha. Both of them, naked and dying. Torn open and bleeding out.
Dana was kneeling in front of him, her throat nothing but ragged skin and glistening blood. She smiled up at him, her eyes hooded. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I like it.”
Eventually, Cole slept.
But his sleep was plagued with awful dreams. Naked, bleeding women chased him, screaming at him that it was his fault that they were dying. Jimmy stood over him, laughing and laughing, telling him that he was Cole’s alpha, and that he always would be.
When they finally let him out of the punishment room, Jimmy asked him if he’ d learned his lesson.
Cole could hardly stand up. He didn’t say anything. He only stared at his father with dull eyes.
Inside, he was thinking that if anyone deserved to die, it wasn’t a beautiful girl like Tasha. It was his own horrible father.
* * *
“You missing your phone?” said Earl.
Avery felt in his pockets. It wasn’t there. He furrowed his brow. “How’d you know?”
“Got a call from Cole Randall,” said Earl. “He used your phone.”
That shithead. Avery’s shoulders slumped. “He pickpocketed me.”
“So, you were in his cell. How come?”
“Just… needed to talk to him.” Inwardly, Avery groaned. What the hell had Randall said to Earl that he was now questioning him about it?
“Uh huh,” said Earl. “About what happened in headquarters? Those dead workers?”
“Something like that,” said Avery.
“Meade told me that you were going to explain to me why that happened. He said you promised to explain it to him, and that I should ask you about it, but that you assured him it was an isolated incident.”
Avery scratched the back of his head. “Right. Well, they didn’t do it. Jimmy made them do it.”
“Jimmy made them?”
“Yeah, he was their alpha. Alphas can force members of their pack to shift, and they can call members of the pack. So, apparently that’s what he did. Both things at the same time. And the two of them went nuts trying to get to him.”
“You said he was their alpha. He’s not anymore?”
“No, they broke the bond.”
“How’d they do that?”
“They mated.” Avery dragged his toe against the ground. He looked out into the darkness. He could see the lights of Hunter’s Moon Farm in the distance, glowing in the night.
“Like the way you told me about it before. Shifted into wolves and did it.”
Avery didn’t look at him. “Yeah.”
“How does that break the bond?”
“Well, when wolves mate—wild, regular wolves—they do it in order to start reproducing and forming a pack. And when werewolves mate in wolf form, it creates a bond between them. Same kind of thing. They’re mates, and they’ve formed their own pack.”
“So, then, if Randall tells me that he doesn’t want to be very far away from her, he’s telling me the truth?”
“Doesn’t matter if their mated or not. Randall’s obsessed with her.”
“Which pisses you off.”
Avery looked at him. “No disrespect, Lowell, but that’s not really your business.”
“Ooh, excuse me.” Lowell laughed. He reached into his pocket and fished out his cigarette pack. “So, putting the pissing contest between you and him aside—”
“That’s not what it is.”
Lowell tapped out a cigarette. “You know, Brooks, I wasn’t always a fat old man.”
“I never said—”
He popped the smoke into his mouth and lit it. “I’m only saying that I used to chase women around too, once upon a time. “ He patted him on the shoulder. “Word of advice, boy? The ones that make you crazy? They seem exciting at the time, but they’re never worth it. She’s crazy enough to bump uglies with somebody like Randall, she’s probably bad news.”
Avery started to speak.
“No, no, I know you said it wasn’t my business. I’m not judging you, believe me.” He sucked on the cigarette. “So, as I was saying, your personal issues with Randall aside, do you trust him?”
“No,” said Avery. “Of course not, why would you say that?”
“Well, you trusted him enough to send him in there after Gray.”
“That was different.”
“You trust him where Gray’s concerned?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you don’t think he’d hurt her, do you?”
Avery sighed. “Define hurt.”
Earl chuckled. “Fair enough.” He contemplated his cigarette. “This wolf mating business is a pretty big deal, though? You used the word bond at one point, I think.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity. That’s all.” Earl smacked him on the shoulder again. “You should get your phone back.”
* * *
Dana stood outside of the Adam White’s cell, wondering if she actually wanted to talk to him or not. She wasn’t sure if she needed to hear his side of things to confirm what she’d suspected. But maybe she wanted to talk to him, because if what she was thinking was true, well, then…
She didn’t like the implications.
She heard a jingling sound and looked up to see two guards coming down the hallway with a portly man. She was pretty sure his name was Lowell. Earl Lowell. From what she’d heard, he was the representative of the SF board.
Was he coming to talk to her?
They’d let her out of her apartment that morning. She wasn’t locked in anymore. Apparently, she’d been deemed safe.
Maybe Earl had decided to reverse that decision. Maybe he was going to lock her up down here.
She felt a nervous tug in the pit of her stomach at the thought.
Couldn’t be true. She wasn’t a criminal.
Well, she’d killed innocent people, that was true. But she hadn’t done it on purpose. She’d have given anything to take it back. She’d never wanted to hurt anyone.
Earl and the guards strode right past her, however.
The guards didn’t even give her more than a passing glance.
But Earl eyed her from head to toe, a funny little smile on his face.
She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, not really. He seemed to find her amusing and intriguing. And there was something else in his gaze, something that mocked her, that belittled her.
It was because he knew that she’d mated with Cole, she realized. What he must think of her.
She averted her eyes, not wanting to face any of it.
Mating with Cole had very probably been a huge mistake. She really hadn’t thought it through. Just like last time, she thought of him almost constantly, wondering where he was, wanting to be near him. And, of course, Avery wasn’t speaking to her anymore.
Avery hated her.
The jingling stopped.
Dana looked up to see that the guards and Earl had stopped in front of one of the cells—Cole’s cell.
Even though she was thinking about him constantly, she’d ref
used to go and see him. His cell was right there, and it called to her, but she wouldn’t give in to it.
But now they were opening his cell. Why would they do something like that?
She watched, confused.
The guard held the door open wide.
Cole ambled out of the room.
Why weren’t they bothering to chain him up? It was standard procedure to keep someone like Cole in shackles when he was being transported. Anyway, where could they possibly be transporting him?
Cole’s gaze raked the hallway, searching until he found hers. It was as if he’d sensed her presence, known she was nearby.
She felt a thrill go through her body.
God damn it.
She looked away. She wouldn’t gaze into his bottomless dark eyes. She wouldn’t let herself be sucked in by his spell. She’d fight it.
What had she done to herself?
“I’ll show you up to the apartment where you’ll be staying,” said Earl to Cole.
Cole turned to look at him. “You made the right decision, Mr. Lowell.”
Earl raised his eyebrows. “I hope I have.” He gestured. “This way.”
He and Cole began to walk down the hallway.
What was going on? What decision? Why was Cole staying in an apartment?
Earl smiled at her. “Gray, if you’d like to accompany us, you certainly can. I’m counting on you as integral part of keeping Randall here in line.”
“What?” said Dana. “What are you talking about?”
“Randall and I have a deal,” said Earl. “Don’t we?”
Cole grinned. “Definitely.”
* * *
“Tomorrow evening,” said Rusty. “I’m going to do it then. The kids usually get rounded up for story time after dinner. I’m going to get them all to run straight to the gate.”
Avery was glad enough of the distraction of Rusty’s call. He’d rather not think about everything that had gone down with Dana. Worrying about work made things easier.
“I don’t think Jimmy suspects,” said Rusty. “But he’s angry with me. He’s never been this angry with me. It’s like when I was a kid, like when he punished Cole.”
Avery didn’t give a shit about Cole. Hell, he wished that Jimmy would have killed Cole way back then. If Cole had never come into his life, he wouldn’t even be here. He and Dana would never have found out about genetic werewolves and packs. They never would have needed to investigate ways to keep her from being an alpha. This whole situation would never have materialized.
Bad Moon Rising (Cole and Dana) Page 23
