Like Jimmy, Sasha could feel her worry. “Who’s Gary?” she felt forced to ask so she did.
Jimmy turned to her but kept his eyes on Rachel. “He’s a very messed up man.” His stare met Rachel’s eyes. “He’s the one that killed Collins.”
Sasha’s heart skipped a beat.
“You saw him?” he asked.
Rachel nodded. “He came to my hotel. He must have followed me there.” Her breathing returned to normal. Her heart refused to go along with it.
Jimmy looked from her to the floor, thinking. “Did he follow you here? Did he follow you to this place?” His mind raced. He left Rachel, passed Sasha, made his way to the bay window at the front of the living room, and looked out it, pressing the curtains aside and looked down both ends of the street. He saw nothing, with only the dust on the curtains roaming all around him as they fluttered in his hands.
“Why would he follow you here?” Sasha came in and asked.
Rachel looked to Jimmy, watching his back reach the window. In all of her haste to get there, she had completely neglected thinking about Gary following her there. Realizing that, all at once, her heart began to race again inside her. “Oh God Jimmy, I’m sorry.” Her mind began to gasp. How could I have led him straight to him? She shook her head. The very idea made her cringe and caused a chill to fly through her very soul.
Jimmy still didn’t see anything or anyone outside, so he came back to the archway and to the two of them. “I don’t think he’s out there.” He looked to Sasha. He felt the need to explain everything further. He owed her that much. “He tried to kill me back upstate. I got away. He must still be after me.” He now shook his head. “I don’t know why I hurt him so much.”
Sasha’s eyes met his. “Why? What did you do to him?” Her heart began to race as well. If this man was trying to kill Jimmy, then he might try to come after her as well. She couldn’t resist such a thought. How could she?
Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t know.” He looked to Rachel. “If he followed Rachel here, then he might be after all of us. He hates us. He hates what we are.”
“How does he know what we are? How could he?”
Jimmy bowed his head, and couldn’t look at her when he answered her. “He was at the place where Collins was. They all knew about him. He was one of them that kept him there.”
Rachel listened to the two of them, and now more than ever, hated what she did. Her efforts to help him just might have made everything worse.
Sasha looked into Jimmy’s brown eyes as she listened to him intently. The how’s and the why’s no longer seemed to matter. She saw his fear. She saw almost what he thought. Only one thing came to her. “If he knows you’re here, and what we are, he might know about me. He might know about the others.” The thought felt terrifying, with danger surrounding it. “I have to warn them.” She left Jimmy, passed Rachel and headed to the door.
He reached for her and stopped her with a firm enough grip. “Wait.” He held her tightly. “You don’t know if he knows about you.”
Sasha turned around and faced him. Her eyes looked wide, and her thoughts felt wild. “I can’t take that chance. You can’t let me take that chance.”
His eyes locked onto hers. He knew what she felt. The others had stood up for him. They took the chance. They believed in what he was, or used to be anyway, and if they did that, then he owed them the same thing, if not more than that. He nodded to her, showing her that he agreed with what she wanted to do. He wouldn’t stop her.
She looked deep into his eyes.
He released his grip. “I’m going with you.” He gave her a smile.
It felt like his attempt to join the fight. Sasha smiled. He had strength in his eyes. His loyalty still felt strongly there. It made her confident that he was with her. He was still with them.
“I’m going to,” Rachel came in, turning to the two of them.
Jimmy turned from Sasha and locked his eyes onto hers. “No, it’s too dangerous.” His head shook violently. He put the others in danger, and he couldn’t force himself to do the same thing to her.
Rachel gushed. “I brought him here, I can help. He’s not after me.”
Jimmy shook his head strongly. “No. It’s safer that you go back to the hotel and wait there. If he’s following you, he’ll find you there. You have to make sure of it, if he is.”
Sasha agreed, nodding emphatically with what he said.
Rachel did no such thing. “I can help. It’s my fault that he’s here.”
Jimmy took her into his hands and held her firmly out to him. “You are going to help. I want you to go back out the front door and make sure that if he is watching, he follows you. You can lead him out of here. It will give us the chance to get out without him seeing us.” He looked to Sasha. “This place has to have a back door, right?”
She nodded.
“Good. We’ll go out that way.” He turned back to Rachel. “You go back to the hotel and stay there until I contact you.”
Rachel sighed again. She wasn’t going to win the argument, she knew that much, even though she wanted to more than ever. In fact, she also knew that he was right about what he said. She would have to be the decoy in his plan. It made sense, even though she hated it, knowing it all too well.
He squeezed her arms a little more.
Rachel nodded.
He let go of her. “Which hotel are you staying at?” He gave her a smile.
She exhaled ruff and hard again. “The Davenport on Fourth Avenue.”
He nodded. “I’ll find you there later.”
Rachel nodded.
Sasha watched it all, and admired the sight. “We have to get going.”
He saw her and nodded. “Go.”
Rachel said nothing more; she just turned and went back outside the front door.
Jimmy watched her leave. When she was gone, he turned and followed Sasha to the back of the house.
They went through the kitchen, came to the back door, and found their way out back.
Rachel made it back to her car, trying to remain calm, trying to remain seen. She found it rather hard to do. It should have been simple but it wasn’t. She wasn’t used to this. She didn’t know how to move. She didn’t know how to act, so she moved slowly, deliberately making her way to the sidewalk and back to her car. She felt rigged, moving. She felt stiff, walking. She took her time as she climbed behind the wheel. After several seconds, she started the car and pulled away. She headed back to her hotel, trying to go as slow as she could go without looking too obvious about doing it. At least she hoped. She just couldn’t be all that sure.
When she pulled out onto Seventh Avenue, she found nothing more than what looked like normal traffic. She saw too many people. She saw too many cars. Was one of them Gary? She didn’t know. She just knew that she couldn’t think of anything else.
24
He watched Rachel leave the front door. He watched her walk back to her car. She seemed to be looking for something. She seemed to be looking for someone. It all told him that she knew that he was there. It seemed like the only explanation for what he saw. She knew that he was probably watching her. She acted too weird. She acted almost as if she wanted him to follow her. Watching her reactions told him that the freak must be close by. In fact, he felt that he might even be in the house. It all made sense.
He watched her climb into the driver’s side of her car. He wasn’t sure if he should follow her, or stay there and wait for the freak to show himself. He just knew that he couldn’t lose him again. He wouldn’t let that happen twice.
He watched her pull away from the curb and head down the street, heading in the opposite direction in which he was facing. Whatever he was going to do, he had to decide it and fast. He had to think. He had to ponder. In the end, he decided to stay right where he was. If the freak were there, he would come out soon enough. If he wasn’t, he knew where to find her in the end. It seemed like a good enough choice, so he waited and watched the house from
across the street.
25
Jimmy and Sasha made it back to the abandoned building in no time at all. They stayed quiet as they moved to the bright red colored door, and she opened it up to the both of them.
Jimmy looked at the door with an odd sense of wonder. “What’s with the red?” he had to ask. His thoughts jumbled some as normal.
What he said made her laugh out loud. “It’s the sign of our group. It’s our color. We mark everything with the color red to alert others that this is our territory.”
That made sense. He didn’t know why, but it did. “How many other groups are there?”
“Many more than I’ll ever know, just none in the city.”
That answer made him gasp. He couldn’t place his thoughts around it long enough to want to think about it any further, so he didn’t and just went through the door.
She went in after him and shut it behind her. She locked it before she left it to go into the room.
Seeing them come in through the door, Marie was the first to come to them. She felt completely worried. She felt almost paranoid. Everything was terribly wrong. Seeing them made her calm down some, but it was only a little. She felt too scared for anything more drastic than that. “Where have you been?” she asked. Her eyes blazed.
Sasha noticed what Marie felt without even trying to read her. “What’s wrong?” The looked on her face felt intense. The look of worry consumed her eyes. Whatever happened, it scared her to her very core.
“Harold is missing.” Markey came to the center of the room from standing at the far wall and joined them. His brown eyes sparkled. His brown hair looked wet with sweat. He searched for Harry for hours. He went everywhere. He felt more than just tired, he felt exhausted and he showed it.
Sasha turned to him, watching him come. Hearing him, her mind went sailing. “Missing?” She couldn’t believe what she heard. It answered her questions to what felt wrong. When one of them went missing, it concerned all of them. Everyone was important. Everyone was needed in the group. Everyone had to keep together.
“And Thomas is dead.” Susanna came forward, closing behind Markey. She felt safe by his side. She needed that safety, now more than ever. “They found him shot to death near the piers. We saw it on the news.” Her voice cracked. She was younger than Sasha was, in wolf years, and listening to her showed it.
Jimmy looked from all of them and turned his head to the floor. Hearing what he just did, made Gary flash in his thoughts. He found them. If he did, then we’re all in danger. He won’t stop at one. He can’t help himself.
Sasha turned towards him, and saw him look down. “He’s already found us, hasn‘t he?”
Jimmy couldn’t bring his eyes back up to hers. Guilt was there, and it only grew stronger with every thought he had. How could he have done what he did? How could he have gambled with all of their lives like this? How could he have brought a monster there for all of them to pay for the price of it?
Marie looked to the both of them. “Who’s found us? Who would have done this?” Her worry slipped away and it was replaced with fear all too quickly. They’ve all been hunted before, far too many times to count really, so this was nothing new to them, but it was a long time since it happened. If someone was now doing it again, then she needed to know all about it, and fast.
Sasha kept her eyes on Jimmy, and saw that he wasn’t going to answer her, so she decided to answer Marie for him. “The one that killed Collins is here. He’s hunting Kalima.”
“Hunting?” was all that Marie could ask. She felt terrified by just the concept alone.
“What do you mean hunting?” Markey came closer to the three of them and stopped right beside Marie. He too began to feel the fear explode through his chest. More was going on than he thought of before, and that alone scared him. Not knowing more than what he did, felt even worse.
“He knows of us. He followed Kalima here.” Sasha looked to Marie and to the others, each of them in turn. Their fear oozed out of their eyes almost like she could see it all as a fluid. She shared their feelings. She understood all of it.
“Who is he?” Marie asked, looking to Jimmy and back to Sasha again.
Jimmy raised his chin. “He was a security guard that watched Collins at the labs that he was taken to. He was brutal to him. He’s bitter. He hates me. He tried to kill me once.”
Marie’s eyes widened. “He tried to kill you? How?” She looked into his eyes. Before all of this began, when she found out about him, she hoped to see the same look in him that she found in Collins, but she was quickly coming away disappointed by the sight. He wasn’t the same. He lacked the spark. He lacked the energy, and the drive that he had. The two of them were as different as night is to the day.
Jimmy’s head flashed with a memory, standing there, looking at this beautiful woman in front of him, and it made him realize that he did know her before. He knew that much, but when the memory flashed, that recollection came back stronger than ever. He could see her beneath him, lying down on what looked like a lightly blue colored sheet or bedding. She smiled up to him with perfectly round and joyful eyes. Her face looked lit up by what looked like flames burning from somewhere around both of them. Her pale eyes sparkled in the orange glow of that light. Her long black hair was spread out over the light blue bedding beneath her. She looked so wonderful, lying there.
“Collins, I love you so much.” She whispered.
He saw himself bend in slightly and kiss her tightly on the lips. “I’m so happy that I found you Marie. It took long enough, but I’m so happy that I did.” He heard Collins’ voice just as plain as day. It almost seemed to echo around inside his own head.
“I’m so happy that you did.” He could see Marie reach up with both arms and he could almost feel them wrap around his neck.
He saw him kiss her. He felt the love. He felt her kiss. He blinked, and looked back to Marie, standing in front of him. I loved her. She loved me. Thinking it, he suddenly felt nervous. It made him feel awkward. He felt overly exposed. He looked at her with that same feeling for her. With the memory rushing through his mind, he didn’t hear what she asked him.
Marie noticed the look. “Jimmy, is it?” She reached out, took his chin and pulled his stare to hers.
He felt her grip and with the thought still bouncing around inside his mind, it only added to his feeling of being exposed. He responded to her touch by pulling away his face.
“Jimmy?” Sasha turned to him.
He had to blink again, as he stared into her eyes. “He loved you so much. I felt so happy to be with you. Why did it take you so long to find him?” He smiled.
With hearing his voice like this, it made Marie take a deep breath. Tears swelled up in both of her eyes. “You are him, aren’t you?” He sounded so much like Collins. They were his same words. She wallowed in the sounds and the feeling of his breath on her face.
He smiled. He suddenly forced his eyes back down. I’m not Collins. He loved her, not me. Rachel crossed his thoughts and now, he felt even more exposed than ever.
Marie watched his eyes go down. “You are. You have his memories. You have his soul.” She dropped her hand back to her side.
Jimmy nodded. “I have mine, too.” He forced another smile, but it looked even more hollow than how he actually felt.
The room sighed.
Markey stepped to their sides. “How did this hunter kill someone like Collins?”
Marie watched his head turn towards Markey. She could feel his heart racing. She could feel his excitement for seeing her again. It told her that he remembered who she was. He remembered in that instance, that she and Collins were lovers. How awkward that must be for him? How sudden all of this must seem for him to remember us that way?
Jimmy shook his head. “He shot me with a silver bullet.” He tried to swallow his words in reverse just to get them out for everyone else to hear him.
The others in the room gasped.
“He does know what we are then?
” Susanna looked to Markey, walked to him, to the others, and took his left arm into her chest.
Marie looked to Jimmy. “If he’s after you, and he has already killed Thomas, then he knows about all of us. He knows how to find us. He must know of this place too.”
“How do you know that?” Sasha’s face grew pale. It must have, just by the coldness of it flashing to her thoughts.
“Thomas must have been killed after he left us last night. That means that this man knows that we’re here.”
“You brought this on us.” Markey let go of Susanna, stepped forward, and grabbed Jimmy’s right forearm. Hearing everything so far, caused his fear to grow into anger with one giant leap. How dare he bring death to them like this? How dare he put them into this kind of danger?
Marie felt him come and turned to him with force and a flare. “We will have none of that Markey.” Her eyes burned yellow. Her voice lowered to a heavy rumbling growl.
Seeing them, and hearing her, Markey stepped one-step back. He swallowed his anger back down into his chest, and winced everything out with one horrible gasp.
Jimmy watched it all with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. I truly am.” He bowed his eyes. He felt ashamed, more than ever.
“There’s no need for that now.” Marie turned from Markey and looked back to Jimmy. “What is done is done.” She turned from him and walked to the center of the room, moving around Markey and stopped at his left. “We must stop this man before he strikes again. We have to find him.”
Jimmy listened, feeling thankful for what she said, but after hearing her talk about finding him, his thoughts turned to another direction entirely. “You can’t find him. He’s dangerous. He’ll hunt us all one at a time until he gets all of us.” He stepped forward, and moved to Marie and stopped right in front of her. He looked at her deep brown eyes as he said it.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Page 43
