by Lori Drake
“Get over yourself,” Joey said, rolling her eyes. “They’re wolves, not your personal army, and the way you’ve been acting, it’s a wonder they’ve put up with you this long.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eric said. “They’re my people. I take care of them. They owe me.”
Joey huffed. “We’ll see about that.”
Once Eric’s feet were free, Jessica helped him stand. His angry eyes shifted from one person to the next, never lingering long. He turned to present his wrists to Jessica, but she stepped back without releasing them. Growling, he turned back and stepped over the edge of the tub.
Joey stepped in front of him and put a hand on his chest. “Whoa there. Jessica needs to talk to you, and you’re gonna listen. Got it?”
A change came over Eric as he collected himself. Somehow, he managed to salvage some semblance of dignity as he stood there in front of the tub with his wrists bound behind his back. Ignoring Joey, he turned his focus to Jessica.
“I’m listening,” he said, and in that moment, he actually appeared genuinely patient and interested. Chris didn’t doubt it was a front, but he decided to watch and wait.
“It’s the Butcher, Eric,” Jessica said. “He’s back, and he wants revenge. I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. He’s possessing people, making them do things. Hurt each other. Hurt themselves.”
“Did something else happen?”
“Yes.” She didn’t know the whole story, though. Her eyes flicked to Joey.
“He threatened me, made Adam slit his wrist, then jump out the window,” she said.
Eric frowned. “Is Adam…”
“Dead? No. I caught him, and we made it back inside. Ben’s tending to his wound, but it’s only a matter of time before—“
Jessica said, “It’s only a matter of time before someone else dies. Eric, we need to find a way to stop him, and we can’t do it if you’re fighting us. Please help us.”
Eric glanced between the three of them, but his eyes settled on Jessica again. “How do you know that’s what happened?”
“Because I was there,” Joey said testily. “I saw it happen, and I’m telling you that’s what happened. Look, I know it’s hard to believe, but we’ve got some experience with this kind of thing. It’s real. It can happen.”
Chris held his tongue, not wanting to say too much or reveal his own role in all this. He studied Eric while the other man considered what had been set in front of him.
“Fine,” Eric said eventually. “If you’re the experts, what do we do?”
“Well, that’s the thing. I’m not entirely sure,” Joey admitted.
Eric smirked and arched a brow. “Huh. I thought you knew everything,” he said, the words dripping with sarcasm.
Joey snorted, fixing him with a level glare. “How’d you like to spend the rest of the night in the tub?”
The Alpha’s lips twitched in a smile. “I thought you’d never ask.” He caught Chris’s eyes briefly, but Chris merely smirked. He felt no need to rise to that particular bait, not now that he knew the truth of things. It wasn’t even a blip on his radar.
Joey, on the other hand, was clearly annoyed. Her left eye twitched as she eyed Eric, as sure a sign as there ever was. “Are you on board or not? Because as little problem as I have leaving you here to fend for yourself if Bob the Butcher shows up, the rest of your people are another matter.”
Eric laughed. “Bob the Butcher?”
Joey stepped forward and punched him in the stomach, stealing him of the breath he needed to keep laughing. Jessica lunged for her and grabbed her arm, but Joey threw her off, sending her careening into the wall. “Don’t touch me.”
Doubled over, Eric wheezed a reedy laugh and sank onto the edge of the tub like he’d meant to do that all along. “Sorry, I just can’t help but picture him with a tool belt full of cleavers or something. But yeah, I’m on board. As much as I can be, when we don’t have a plan or any idea what to do.”
Jessica looked to Chris, a question in her eyes. He nodded to her, and she moved to unfasten the belt cinched around Eric’s wrists. Once he was free, he rubbed his wrists and stood again. “So, about that lack of plan…”
“Dean said we should try to find out what he wants—other than revenge killing—and see if we can get it to him. Bob said something about a wife and child, so maybe that’s the key. There was a Plan B, but I didn’t get all of it. I need to go find my phone and call him again.”
“Dean?” Eric asked.
“My spiritual advisor. He’s a medium.”
Eric snorted a laugh, but let it go. “What happened to your phone?”
“It fell out the attic window when Bob tried to shove me out it.”
Eric smiled, but the expression was at odds with his words. “A man after my own heart.”
Chris really didn’t like this guy. “We should get back to the others,” he suggested.
Joey nodded. “Agreed.”
“Do you know where he’s buried?” Jessica asked, looking to Eric.
Eric nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“Because Plan B starts with digging him up, so that’s going to become an important piece of information,” Joey said. Turning, she caught Chris’s eyes and lifted her brows. He shrugged and walked with her to the door, but froze when the sound of flesh smacking flesh echoed through the small room.
They turned as one to see Jessica turn her head back to center, recovering from a backhanded blow.
“Son of a bitch!” Seeing red, Chris surged forward and grabbed Eric by the front of the shirt. “What the fuck was that? Don’t you dare lay another hand on her. On any of them. Do you hear me?” The depths of his rage surprised even him. He wanted to smash the asshole’s face in, and the fact that Eric merely smirked just made that impulse stronger.
“It’s okay,” Jessica said. He felt the weight of her hand on his arm. “I’m fine.”
Chris growled. It wasn’t okay. Nothing about it was okay. He glared at Eric, willing him to speak. When he didn’t, Chris shook him by the shirt. “Do you hear me?”
“Sure, I hear you. I just don’t give a fuck. You have no authority over me, unless you want to make a challenge.” There was a dark, dangerous glint in his eyes. That, combined with Itsuo’s earlier warning, gave Chris pause.
“I don’t have to make a challenge to kick your ass, you arrogant, self-righteous bully.”
“I’d love to see you try.”
Chris’s fists tightened on Eric’s T-shirt. He wanted to bash the man’s skull against the tiled wall until it ran red with blood. The only thing that stopped him was a hand on his other arm. Joey’s hand.
“Chris,” she said, pulling gently. “Let him go.”
She was like a lifeline pulling him back from the place where he was drowning in rage. He’d never felt so angry in his life. It was like he was back on the astral plane. Out of control. That thought finally made him release Eric, though he shoved him hard enough that Eric stumbled back, encountered the edge of the tub, and fell into it, arms and legs akimbo.
Chris looked down at him, contempt seeping in around the edges of the rage. He let Joey draw him away, out of the bathroom and into Eric’s opulent man cave. Jessica followed them. It was okay, she’d said, but apparently not okay enough that she wanted to be left alone with Eric.
“Hey, are you okay?” Joey reached up to take his face between her hands.
He pulled away, shaking his head, then squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and took a deep breath. “Just give me a minute.”
She did, but she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him while she did it. After a few seconds passed in silence, he curled his arms around her and held her against his chest, burying his nose in her hair.
“Tell me he never did that to you,” he whispered.
“He never did that to me,” Joey said. The steel in her tone said that it wasn’t merely an appeasement. She wouldn’t have stood for it, acting or no.
“You two want the room? Come on, Jess. I’m sure it won’t be more than five minutes.”
Chris lifted his head, met Eric’s eyes over the top of Joey’s head, and gave him the finger. Eric smirked and sauntered for the door with Jessica in tow. Sighing, Chris held on to Joey for a little while longer, breathing in her familiar scent. It soothed him like a balm for the soul.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that angry.” Her whispered words drifted up to him after a few quiet seconds.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been that angry.”
She tipped her head back to look up at him, understanding in her eyes. “He’s an asshole, I know. But there’s only so much we can do about it, and Jess… she can take care of herself. I’d be more upset if it’d been Lucy.”
Chris didn’t even want to think about that. His eyes slid toward the open door, but she caught his attention with a finger beneath his chin. He looked down at her again, brow furrowing. “We can’t leave things like this. We have to help them.”
“We are helping them.”
“Not just with Bob. This whole pack dynamic, it’s… toxic.”
“It’s none of our business,” she said, though there was regret in her tone.
“I know, but at the same time, I don’t care.”
“Let’s just get through tonight, okay? Let’s just deal with this whole ghost situation and see what’s left on the other side.”
Chris smirked and glanced at the door again. “Maybe Bob will save us some trouble and take him out.”
He expected her to chastise him for such a dark thought, but she only murmured, “Maybe.”
Lowering his eyes, he studied her face. There was so much he wanted to talk to her about, so many things on his mind. Where they stood. Why she’d run away from him. If she was finished running. His conflicted feelings about this house, the pack, and how it was all tied into his past—not to mention his present. But now wasn’t the time, for a variety of reasons that began and ended with not wanting Eric to get downstairs much before they did. So instead of starting what could be a very lengthy conversation, he released her and stepped back.
Side by side, they headed for the door. She caught his hand on the way, fingers lacing with his. He squeezed her hand, and for the moment it was enough to quell the questions chasing each other through his mind.
It had to be.
The atmosphere in the living room was tense. Joey stood with Chris near the fireplace, enjoying the extra warmth from the fire. Colt sat on the floor near the hearth, staring morosely into the flames. Poor guy. She leaned over to give his shoulder a squeeze, but he didn’t even look up at her.
The other Granite Falls wolves—minus Eric—were lined up on the floor at the foot of the couch where Jenny lay, bookended by Itsuo and Jessica. Although Itsuo’s expression was as unreadable as usual, the rest eyed Eric with varying degrees of wariness and anxiety. The only one who appeared at ease was Eric himself, sprawled in the oversized armchair kitty-corner to the couch. He had one leg thrown over the arm of it, master of his domain, by all appearances.
Chris squeezed Joey’s hand, and she glanced in his direction. He gave her a small but encouraging smile and motioned toward the others with his head.
Joey nodded and cleared her throat. “Okay, now that we’re all together, let’s talk about what’s going on.” She launched into an explanation of everything she knew about the situation, minus the details about Chris’s astral walking. That was extraneous information. All they needed to know was that they’d killed a man and he was back for revenge. She also told them about her call to Dean, and what he’d told her.
“I got a chance to talk to, uh, ‘Bob’ briefly. He said something about a wife and child, so maybe they’re tied in to what he wants. If we can get him to talk some more, maybe we can find out. But that raises the question: do we have a name for this guy? Or, for that matter, any other information about him?”
An awkward silence followed, broken only by the crackle of a log in the fireplace.
“He was a hunter,” Brandon eventually said. The others nodded, as if this were all they needed to know.
“Anything else?” Joey asked. On the one hand, was that enough to kill someone? On the other hand, why wouldn’t it be?
“His nickname was the Butcher,” Chris offered. “He’s been active in the northwest for the last five years. His methods were… particularly brutal, and he killed someone named Micah last year.”
There was a collective nod of agreement from those assembled, but Eric studied his pack with a frown. Wondering who the stool pigeon was, perhaps.
“Wait,” Joey said. “Last year? When last year?” She addressed the question to Eric, rather than put anyone on the spot.
“April,” he replied. “Why?”
“Because Jenny’s only been here since, what, July?”
“It took us a while to track the slippery son of a bitch down,” Eric explained. “We put him down a few weeks ago.”
Joey frowned. A few weeks ago. While she was in town. They’d killed a hunter right under her nose. How? Her mind rolled back. A few weeks ago. That would have been right around the full moon. She, Sam, and Ben had spent it on their own, because Eric had blown off her overtures to run with his pack that night. Now she understood why. She also felt she was gaining some measure of understanding of what exactly bound these wolves together so tightly. They’d been through some shit. Been hunted. Survived to hunt the hunter. No wonder Eric commanded their loyalty.
Shaking off the thought for the moment, Joey turned her attention once more to the task at hand. “Okay, so he’s only been dead a few weeks. You hunted him for months, so… what do you know about him?”
The others mostly looked between themselves. Jessica stared at the floor. Eric just sat there looking smug, but, after letting the question hang in the air for a few moments, deigned to answer. “His name was Roger. Roger Eaton.”
Joey swallowed her annoyance. Mostly. “Okay. Roger Eaton. That’s a start. What else do you know about him? How’d you track him?”
“This is pointless,” Eric said. “It’s obvious what he wants. Revenge, plain and simple.”
“Dean says—“
“Fuck Dean.”
“Come on, Eric. This is serious,” Jessica said.
“I’m being serious. We can’t reason with this fuck. That’s the same reason we killed him to start with.” Eric stood, surveying his audience. “He was a hunter, he hated us, and no amount of polite asking was going to make him stop. So we made him stop.”
“We have to try,” Joey said. “Whatever it was Dean said we could do, it’s apparently awful for the spirit.”
“Awful. Good. What he did to Micah was pretty awful. What he did to Jenny, to Kate and Colt and Adam, that was pretty fucking awful.”
Heads nodded slowly in agreement. Joey glanced at Chris, but he wasn’t nodding. He merely studied Eric with a frown.
Eric continued, “So I say let him burn. Let’s make with the exorcism or whatever.”
Joey looked to the others. “Do you agree?” she asked.
Colt answered, “Yes. What he did to Kate… Fuck him. He deserves what’s coming to him. Whatever that is. I’m in.”
That seemed to decide it for the others, though Lucy chewed her lower lip and didn’t commit one way or another.
“Well, not that this is a fucking democracy or anything, but I’m glad we’re in agreement,” Eric said, smirking.
It didn’t sit well with Joey. Sure, they had a point, but they were talking about someone’s soul, here. A bad soul, in this case, but a soul nonetheless. Or whatever it was. His spirit, his essence. There was so much she didn’t know about spirits—part of her wished she’d stayed in San Diego long enough to ask Dean more questions. When all this was over, maybe she’d have to pay him a visit, but tonight was about survival. Kill or be killed.
“What do you think?” she said, turning toward Chris.
His
shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t like it, but we don’t have a lot of options. It’s him or us.”
Joey nodded but sighed, resigning herself to what seemed inevitable. “Okay, then here’s what I propose: we break up into three groups. One stays here to protect Jenny, one goes with me to look for my phone and call Dean. The third goes grave-digging with Eric.”
“I’ll remain with Jenny,” Itsuo said, predictably.
Joey nodded. “Ben should also stay here, in case she wakes up and needs medical attention.”
“Lucy and Adam will stay too,” Eric said. “Jessica and Brandon with me. Colt, you go with Joey and Chris.”
The Granite Falls wolves started moving to comply, but Chris held up a hand. “Wait. I think it’d be a good idea if Joey and I split up.”
Joey blinked and turned to regard him in confusion. “What? Why?”
“Because Bob—er, Roger—isn’t interested in killing Grants. He can tell the difference, apparently. We should split up, put one person in each group that he isn’t going to go out of his way to mess with.”
“Does it really matter?” Joey asked. “Either way, it’s two on one.”
“The odds are better,” Chris insisted, though she could tell he wasn’t happy about it from the tightness of his jaw, especially as he added, “I’ll go with Jessica and Eric.”
“No.” This time it was Jessica that spoke up. All eyes swiveled in her direction. “I’ll go with Joey. Brandon, go with Eric and Chris.”
Joey’s head was spinning a bit from all the reorganizing of groups, but she had no immediate objection to the revised plan—other than that it put her and Chris on different teams. That didn’t sit right with her at all.
“Maybe we should all go together to look for the phone, then go dig up the body…” she murmured, but the others were already in motion. Eric, Brandon, Colt, and Jessica headed for the front door.
Chris approached and slipped an arm around her shoulders, walking with her in their wake. “I’m sorry,” he said, giving her a squeeze. “You know I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think it was our best chance.” He paused once the others stepped outside, and turned toward her, curling his arms around her and bending to put his lips near her ear. His breath was warm and moist against her skin as he whispered, “I didn’t want to leave Eric unsupervised. Be careful, okay?”
