They spotted the stakeout immediately. A non-descript sedan was parked across the street and two doors down. The lower speed limit on these residential streets made it easy to check the car out. Coffee cups and balled up paper wrappers on the dashboard confirmed it, though the two men inside didn’t give the SUV a second glance.
“Later,” Bogie said and Bull agreed.
He parked another two doors down and he and Bogie walked up the short drive like they owned the place. A small dog yipped and the kitchen light went on, but that only added authenticity to their ruse and they were over the fence before the owner peeked out the door.
They found another watcher at the back, brazenly sitting in a lawn chair in the rear neighbor’s yard, pouring coffee from a vacuum flask. A cigarette dangled from his mouth and he looked bored.
Bogie tugged on Bull’s sleeve, grinned and flashed to wolf.
“Shit,” Bull hissed and hissed it again when Bogie started to bark like a dog and growl loudly.
The flask flew one way, the mug another, and the cigarette showered sparks down the watcher’s shirtfront as he jumped to his feet. With any luck, he’d think the light was from a flashlight and the curse because it no longer worked.
“What are you doing out there?” Bull called menacingly. “Get out of here before I call the cops.”
The startled man fled without saying a word.
Bogie flashed back to man.
“Next time, could you at least give me a head’s up?”
“Did.” Bogie said. He hopped the fence into Tommie’s yard and walked up one side of the house, then back and across the back of the house almost to the narrow driveway. There he stopped, tapped a small black box attached to the siding and grinned.
“Cheap.”
In less than two minutes, the alarm was disabled and the backdoor was opened.
Bogie signaled that he would go check the place out. He soundlessly disappeared through the door to the rest of the house.
Bull took in the kitchen. The place was a shambles. Dirty dishes filled the sink. Empty bottles and bags lined the counters. This wasn’t Tommie’s mess. It was all too new. Too late, he realized that the house was occupied. He hurried through the door after Bogie to tell him they had to get the hell out. He was too late.
There was a crash and Bogie flew from the stairs leading upward, to land on his back on the dining table. He was followed by a mountain of a man, roaring profanity and dressed in Gantnor Clinic grey. The table groaned beneath their combined weight.
Bull grabbed mountain man by the shoulders, spun him and let his fist fly. The man staggered back, shook his head, and charged at Bull. It was Moses, the patient from Ward B. As before, the giant grabbed a chair and charged. As before, Bull grabbed the chair in a tug-of-war over his head. Unlike before, Moses let go of the chair and grabbed Bull in a bear hug powerful enough to crack ribs.
Wolvers were stronger than most humans, but Bull had doubts about this guy’s heritage. He didn’t even flinch when Bull crashed his flat hands against the man’s ears, a resounding blow that should have caused enough pain to the man’s eardrums to force him to relax his grip.
A cord appeared around Moses’ neck and Bogie climbed up the man’s back like a monkey climbing a tree. Using the giant’s back for leverage, the small man pulled and twisted the cord. Moses’ eyes bugged, his face turned purple, and he began to thrash from side to side, an angry bear trying to dislodge the annoyance on his back. He loosened his grip on Bull, but Bull hung on to give Bogie a chance to finish the job.
Moses faltered. His tongue came out and his eyes rolled back. Bogie was torn away. Moses had a friend.
Bull had no time to warn Bogie there was another friend somewhere in the house. He finished the job the little wolver had begun. Bogie looked like he was holding his own, dodging and darting to avoid his attacker’s blows. The third Gantnor inmate came for Bull.
He was as big as Moses, but not nearly so adept at fighting hand to hand. Bull pounded on him, pounded and pounded, to the face, the abdomen, to the solar plexus. The man grunted with each blow, but wouldn’t go down. When Bull heard cheekbones crunch beneath his fist and the man showed no pain, he wondered if drugs were at play. If he raised his hands in surrender, he didn’t think this guy would stop. Like Moses, he was overtaken by rage. Bull had no intention of surrendering or getting killed. He finally managed to maneuver around his opponent and much like Bogie, practically climbed the inmate’s back to get the proper hold.
He wrapped his left arm around the man’s thick neck. It was a stretch to bring his left hand to his right biceps and fighting against the inmate’s thrashing and spinning to dislodge him, Bull wrapped his legs around the guy’s middle. Bull’s right hand went to the back of the neck, elbow forward and squeezed, bringing pressure to both sides of the neck. He’d used a blood choke often enough to take down a feral. This one took longer than most.
Blood loss to the brain brought his attacker down. A swift twist to the vertebrae killed him.
He turned to help Bogie, but the slightly built wolver needed none. What at first looked like simple dodging to avoid attack, was really moving to a position where the wolver could attack. One second he was standing on his feet, the next he was standing on his hands and driving his heavy boots into the man’s chest. Bull had practiced the move, but never tried it. Supposedly, the force of the blow stopped the heart. Bogie’s victim’s eyes went wide and the man dropped like a stone. Apparently it worked. Bogie, however, wasn’t taking any chances. He followed the move with a crushing blow to the throat.
The smaller wolver grinned and Bull grinned back, but had no time for praise. He motioned to the door.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Bogie yelled, “Duck!”
Bull did, but too late. A sharp pain pierced is back below the shoulder blade. He felt the drug seeping into his body. It didn’t make sense. Human drugs had little effect on wolvers. He vaguely remembered Tommie saying Gantnor had drugged her, too.
He tried to yell, “Go!” to Bogie, but he wasn’t sure if he said it aloud. His vision was clouding and the room began to spin. He closed his eyes and melted into blackness.
Chapter 30
“Where are they?” Tommie worried. “Why aren’t they back?”
After talking with Macey, she’d gone to the tent and straightened things as best she could. She brought his pillow to the fire not to warm, but to dry, then put it back in place with her last chocolate bar on top. It was the only peace offering she had.
She waited and waited for him to return. Hours passed and there was no sign of Bull or Bogie.
The others were worried, too. Stretch and Shorty had shifted and gone off to see what they could find. Samuel insisted he accompany the women on their nightly trip to the bathrooms.
“I’ll go with them, sir,” Travis volunteered.
Samuel was suspicious, but Cora told him to hush. “If it’s the Alpha’s men come looking for him, we’re all dead anyway. Travis has as much at stake as the rest of us seeing he’s still alive. Wake the cubs up and get them into the trees. At least they can give a whistle and let us know when to start running.”
Boris, who was far from recovered but insisted on checking his supplies, complained that a cooler of meat was missing.
“We ate it while you were napping,” Helen snapped at him. “Who the hell cares what happened to your meat. We ate good while you were out. Nobody slapping our hands when we looked for a second helping.” It was an unfair accusation and Tommie wasn’t sure if it was Helen’s grouchy nature or a result of taut nerves. With Helen, it was hard to tell.
Stretch and Shorty came back with nothing to report except that Bull’s truck was where they’d left it. Travis and the women came back with more.
“One of the SUVs is gone,” Travis reported.
Louise was smiling. “And Bogie peed on the tires.”
All except Tommie looked relieved.
“Okay, e
xplain to me why you’re all smiling because Bogie, um, urinated on tires.” She shivered a little at the thought. When Tinkles had used her tire, Tommie had run her car through the carwash twice.
“Bogie’s a little more talented than the rest of us,” Samuel explained. “The jobs they send him on are, how can I put it...”
“You can put it where the sun don’t shine, you old goat. Tommie knows what we are,” Cora snapped. To Tommie she said, “Bogie does B and E, breaking and entering,” she clarified. “He’s small and he’s got nimble fingers. He can get in and out quick and he don’t make noise. Some say he does a little more, but like I said, he doesn’t say it himself.” She looked at Louise, but the woman only shrugged.
“A couple of times when things looked like they were going bad,” Bogie’s mate took over, “his handlers left him and he had to find his own way back to camp. One time it was twenty miles. Later, he found out they’d gone to a club instead of looking out for him. After that, he peed on the tires so he could follow the scent. When they came out of the club, he’d be in the car waiting. It got to be a habit. He never gets in a car without peeing on the tires.”
“The Alpha’s men aren’t likely to have given him time to pee before they took him,” Stretch added.
“The Alpha’s men ain’t likely to take him, neither,” Helen pointed out. “They’d have killed him where he stood.”
Travis winced, but bravely added his two cents. “They definitely wouldn’t have left the other vehicle behind.”
“So,” Samuel drew out the word with a little warning glare at the others, “That must mean he and Bull took it.”
“But where? Where would they be going at this time of night and why wouldn’t they tell someone.”
No one knew.
It was another two hours before they found out. The cubs whistled an all clear and a few minutes later, Bogie as wolf, literally skid on his chin into camp. The moon set and Bogie transformed there on the ground.
Chest heaving, he gasped out, “They got Bull.”
The men were going to find Bull. They would start their search at Tommie’s house and follow wherever it led them. It was the best they could do. Even Boris insisted on riding along. Their plan was simple. Find Bull. Piling into the truck, they called goodbye with promises not to return until they had Bull or information about his whereabouts.
Tommie was too numb to cry. She’d insisted on taking the pack to her house and he had gone to make sure it was safe. Now he would be in the hands of a monster and it was all her fault. All she could see was the fear in his eyes when he’d crawled in that cage to get her.
“I don’t like it,” Cora said.
“Me neither,” Molly agreed. “We started this together. We fought off the Alpha together. Bull’s part of us now. He wouldn’t sit here twiddling his thumbs if it was one of us got taken.”
Tommie agreed, but for different reasons. If she could talk to Gantnor... The silence around her made her look up.
“Don’t know what you’re thinking, but I can feel what you’re feeling and it ain’t good,” Cora spoke and the rest of them nodded.
“Don’t go getting ideas,” Helen said. “I ain’t going to go risk my life, only to lose it when Bull finds out we let you do something stupid. I ain’t felt so much hope since I was a pup. I’m not letting you screw it up.” She shook her fist at Tommie. “We need you both. Bull for strength and smarts, and you for, well, I don’t know what. Dreamin’ I guess. All I know is that if we go, you’d better behave, ‘cause I’ve got no problem walloping you if you don’t.”
Cora elbowed Tommie in the ribs. “Don’t mind Helen. That’s her way of saying she likes you. And if she don’t wallop you, I will.” She turned to the tent where Macey slept. “Macey! Come on out here. I know you’ve been listening.”
Macey crawled out of the tent and came to Cora, head bowed and hands folded in front of her as a good omega should. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Don’t ma’am me. I ain’t the queen. You’re in charge of the camp until we get back. You set those cubs one at a time to watch and you make sure they do it. You keep watch over those pups and if we don’t show by breakfast, you see that they’re fed and watered. We’re trusting you on this.”
“Yes ma’am. I promise I’ll take good care of them. All of them.” Macey sniffed back her tears.
“Now don’t go getting all teary eyed. It’s not like I’m crowning you Queen of the May.” Cora turned to Tommie. “You still have that phone number?”
Tommie ran and got the paper from her tent. When she handed it to Macey she whispered, “I told you they’d come around. You know what to do with this?”
Macey nodded. “You can count on me.”
Cora dusted off her hands. “That’s it then. Everybody on the bus.”
“Um, Cora?” the quiet Sarah interrupted. “The men have guns.”
“Good thinking. Ladies, find a weapon. Teeth and fists aren’t going to win this fight.”
Armed with Boris’ precious carving knives, a small hatchet, along with various frying pans and stout sticks, the women boarded the school bus.
“We’re off to save Tommie’s man and our, well, whatever he is, he’s ours,” Helen shouted, raising her fry pan in the air.
This was lunacy. Six wolver women in a forty year old school bus, armed with kitchen utensils, riding to the rescue of an alpha male, was ludicrous. They didn’t know where they were going or if they had enough gas to get there, but they were going anyway. They were all crazy.
Tommie had never been so proud or loved any five women more. Then again, she had been crazy for most of her life.
They never made it to Tommie’s house. About ten miles out of town, they saw the old pickup truck at a cross roads. Stretch was on the outside standing on the running board and hanging onto Shorty’s window.
“They must have taken the SUV,” Louise shouted excitedly. “Stretch has the best nose. He’s got the scent.”
As the truck came to a stop, Stretch jumped down and began to run along the road, body bent, head turning from side to side.
Samuel stormed over to the bus. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, woman?” he shouted at Cora’s open window.
“I’m following the man I love into the battle,” she replied. “I told you at the beginning, I won’t take a back seat and I’m not starting now. I fought by your side against the Alpha’s men. I’m fighting by your side now. You were the one that said we’re in this together, you old buzzard. Wither thou goest and all that crap. Now get back in the truck or get on the bus. We’re wasting time. Stretch is pointing the way and Bull is waiting on us to come and get him.”
“I love you, too, you old witch,” Samuel yelled at her, “Still trying to figure out why.” He stomped back to the truck with his hands in the air.
“He always was a romantic,” she cackled and closed the window.
At each crossroad, Stretch leapt down and checked the pavement. When they turned left, Tommie jumped from her seat.
“I know where we are. I know where we are,” she shouted. “There’s a farm up ahead with a big red well out in front of the house. I used to beg my parents to stop and let me make a wish. It had a roof over it and a bucket hanging from a rope, just like in the picture books.” She was talking a mile-a-minute, rambling about nonsense, but she knew where she was. She’d been down this road dozens of times. But knowing where they were wasn’t enough. They needed to know where they were going. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
“I know where he is. Cora, catch up to the truck. Tell them to follow us. I know where Bull is!”
Uncle Ray called it the farm and it was where he spent his weekends. She loved to visit him there when she was a child. It wasn’t a farm. It was a small gated estate, but Tommie didn’t know that then. There weren’t any chickens, but he had peacocks. Their cry’s would sometimes awaken and frighten her.
What she remembered most, though, were the rabbits. Gantnor would
release one and urge her to chase it. She thought it was fun until the day she caught one and he urged her to kill it. That was the day she stopped asking to visit the farm. She still went, but she spent her time walking over the grounds and refused to go near the rabbit hutch. As a teenager, she finally refused to go at all.
The wishing well was gone and the landscape had changed with the passage of time, but Tommie’s conviction never wavered. She was a wolver. She never got lost. She’d been there before, she could find it again.
The property was surrounded by a wall shrouded by a thick hedgerow of brambles and briars and coniferous trees. The inner side of the wall was the same. The iron gates, she was sure, would be closed and locked.
Tommie leaned around the driver’s seat to speak more privately with Cora. “Around the next curve, you’ll see the gates straight ahead. We need to stop, Cora. We need a plan. We need to figure out how we’re going to get in.”
“The hell we do,” the old woman said as she rounded the curve.
She was going too fast and Tommie would have sworn the old bus tilted up on two wheels. It bounced when it righted. Cora shifted and they picked up more speed.
“Hang on!” she shouted when the gates came into view.
“Slow down, Cora. There’s another curve,” Tommie warned.
Cora wasn’t listening. Tommie sat back in her seat and hung on.
One of the women screamed as bus barreled through the gates.
~*~
Bull opened his eyes to find metal bars, about six inches from his nose. They were vertically spaced about six inches apart. The cement was cold beneath his body. The bright lights of the room almost blinded him. He tasted the scent of his own blood, but felt no pain. He was naked and bleeding and caged; a nightmare come true.
Fear seized him and he closed his eyes. He slowed his breathing and tried to steady the pounding beat of his heart. His mind, still foggy from whatever drug they’d used, wasn’t strong enough to block the images of those other cages from his past. There were six, but he only cared about one.
Wolver's Rescue Page 25
