WOLF PACK
The Brother’s Creed
Book 3
JOSHUA C. CHADD
Copyright © 2018 Joshua C. Chadd
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by
Blade of Truth Publishing Company
Cover art by Stefan Celic
Illustrations by Bethany Juen
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Contact the author via email at: [email protected]
ISBN-13: 978-1-64248-001-6
ASIN: B078NNK2GG
Contents
Copyright
Colors of Heroes
Dedication
Part 1
1 Boxes
2 Together Till the End
3 A Choice
4 Preparation
5 A New Hope
6 Implications
7 Betrayal
8 The Cuckoo’s Nest
9 Skeleton in the Closet
10 Bryce’s Friend
11 Jackpot
12 The Wolfe
Part 2
13 The Best Laid Plans
14 Rescue
15 Escape
16 Missing
17 On the Road Again
18 Consequences
19 The Chase
20 Red Sky
21 No Matter the Cost
22 Guns Blazing
23 Lame Deer
24 A Warrior’s Funeral
25 Sweet Grass
26 The Fight Inside
27 First Occurrence
28 In the End
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
About the Author
A percentage of the profits from The Brother’s Creed series will be donated to Colors of Heroes®.
Freedom is never free!
Colors of Heroes is a 501c3 nonprofit foundation dedicated to rebuilding confidence for combat wounded veterans and gold star families through new relationships and outdoor adventures.
Learn more at: www.colorsofheroes.org
Oh man, what can I say?
There have been times when I’ve wanted to kill you, and when you have almost killed me. We’ve gone months without talking when life was busy, we’ve fought, gotten pissed at each other, drifted apart and then back together, liked the same girls, hated the same asshats, and endured the same horror story that was high school.
Through it all, we’ve not only stayed best friends but grown our friendship to the brotherhood it is today. You are my oldest friend and we’re going on a decade and a half. And this is just the beginning!
Caleb and I will always have your back and I know you have ours. We will always be the original Wolf Pack!
This one’s for you, Andy!
Part 1
1
Boxes
Post-outbreak day seven, morning
Exhausted, Ana leaned against the wooden pole as the cold ground sapped the warmth from her legs. She’d tried everything she could think of to free herself, but it’d proven useless. Even with all of Uncle Zeke’s training, she hadn’t been able to so much as loosen the shackles. These people knew how to properly keep captives. Her mind flashed back to situations in her life that were similar to this, but with her on the other side.
Remove that thought, said Uncle Zeke’s voice in her mind, an echo from one of their training sessions.
She’d always been good at controlling her thoughts, even before she’d started training with him. Her mind began to drift back to the first memory she’d locked away as a child. It was a cold January day in New York City. Her father, Vadim, had gone up to meet the Pakhan of a rival family, bringing her mother, Natta, and her with him. Little did she know the event would change the course of her life forever…
Ana looked around, disoriented. Was this some kind of barn she was in? Why was she chained up? Her current situation began to break through like fog burning away in the hot sun; she realized she’d had another incident. It tended to happen when she let herself think back to—
Remove that thought! said Uncle Zeke’s voice again in her mind.
She immediately closed her eyes and instinctively reached to rub the small golden locket around her neck, tucked under her gray, long-sleeved shirt, but the chains kept her hands from reaching it. Taking deep breaths, she emptied her mind, putting all her thoughts and emotions into neat boxes. She could visualize them—black, unmarked boxes of varying sizes.
Sometime later, she opened her eyes. All of her memories were back where they belonged. Feeling the shackles locked around her wrists, she searched for a chip or crack, any weakness she could exploit. The length of the chains made it impossible for her and the others to stand. It kept them all seated with their hands behind their backs—a technique that made it almost impossible to resist their captors. As she worked on the chains, another part of her mind worked on a way to get out of there. First, she’d have to free herself. Then she could wait by the door, take down a guard, steal a weapon, and fight her way out, killing everyone who got in her way.
She glanced at the other men and women being held captive in the barn. Would she take the time to help them or just get out? If she went alone, there was a good chance she would get away, but if she freed them all, there was no way they’d make it without a fight. After brief consideration, she decided she wouldn’t worry about these people. They’d gotten themselves into this position in the first place, they could get themselves out.
But what about Alexis? asked a voice in her mind.
Emmett and Alexis had rescued her from the mall and she owed them a debt that couldn’t go unpaid. That wasn’t the way things worked. She would help Alexis; the rest would be on their own.
Loyalty to your family, Zeke’s voice said.
Alexis and Emmett were family now. The brothers had helped her, too, so they were included, but not the rest. The rest were just a liability. Why had James insisted on helping the survivors from Burns? It made their entire group weaker.
Even though the five of them had only been together for a day, she could tell they made a great team. But this thought took her back to her two bodyguards who’d given their lives for her in the mall—Viktor and Hagen. They’d been like the brothers she’d never had. Her fingers tried to find their way to her locket again as her mind worked to put those memories back into their respective boxes. She released a pent-up breath, feeling exhausted. She hadn’t thought this much about the past since the beginning of the outbreak. With her mind focused on surviving for one more day, it had been easy to keep the past from coming back to haunt her. There was no telling what her mind would drift back to with all this time alone.
She attacked the chains with ferocity, needing to be free of these bonds or risk going insane. She had to get out of there, and quickly, before that psychopath came back. Just thinking about Jezz brought a shiver to her spine. Ana had seen her for what she was the moment Jezz had walked into the barn the night before—a killer. And not someone who killed for work or to survive. Not even like Father Ahaz, who never dirtied his own hands but let his pet zombies take care of it. No, this woman was a true killer,
someone who believed she was truly helping them, in some sick way, by killing them. Ana had known someone like this before, but she closed that box before the memory could resurface. She knew she was in extreme danger as long as she was trapped here.
A sound drew her attention to the door as it opened and daylight streamed into the barn. Was it morning already? The sun was still rising, so it was early. Two guards stood on the other side of the door, facing away. They weren’t worried about the prisoners at all.
The monster known as Jezz walked into the room, midnight black hair framing a pretty face, and closed the door behind her.
“Good morning, my dears,” Jezz said, smiling sweetly.
No one answered as she slithered by Alexis to stand a few feet in front of Ana in the middle of the barn. She began to spin in a slow circle, looking intently at all the captives. Her eyes shone with an intensity that discomfited Ana. It was like she was searching for the ripest apple to pluck from the tree and devour.
Ana shivered.
“Ah, now this one will do,” Jezz said.
She began to walk toward Ana, an animalistic hunger in her eyes. Ana’s mind worked in overtime. She had to get out of there or this woman was going to kill her. Struggling with her shackles, her skin started bleeding again where she’d rubbed her wrists raw. Jezz drew closer and Ana’s attempts to escape grew more frantic as tears threatened to leak from her eyes. This couldn’t be the end. She hated her show of weakness and tried to force the tears and terror back down.
Jezz walked past her, kneeling down next to a woman at the edge of the large barn. Ana let out a ragged breath, Jezz wasn’t coming for her after all. She knew it was only a matter of time until they were all dead, but this gave her more time to plan an escape—more time to live.
“What is your name, my dear?” Jezz asked, caressing the cheek of the brunette-haired woman. Ana closed her eyes, not wanting to see what Jezz was going to do next.
“Mmm… Mmm…” The woman’s voice was quivering so much that she couldn’t speak.
“Spit it out,” Jezz said harshly, her demeanor changing in an instant.
“Margaret,” the brunette woman finally said, her voice full of fear.
“Ah, what a nice name. Would you like to be our first guest, Margaret?”
“Guest? For what?”
“It’s a surprise, but I promise you will like it.”
“I… I…” Margaret began to cry—deep body-wracking sobs.
Ana could hear the fear and desperation in those sobs. She felt a little sorry for the woman but quickly stuffed that down. These people were just liabilities, nothing else. If she grew attached to them, it’d ruin her plan to escape. There was no way to save them all.
“Oh, dear. What is this? Did you soil yourself?” Jezz asked a hysterical Margaret. “That will not do; that will not do at all.”
Though she’d closed her eyes against the scene that had begun to play out, Ana heard Jezz get up and begin to walk back toward the middle of the barn. Ana didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t want to see that monster. Boots crunched softly on the gravel behind Ana as Jezz drew near.
She’s not coming for me, Ana thought desperately, she can’t be.
The room was suddenly silent.
“You, my dear, are perfect,” Jezz said from right in front of her.
Ana’s eyes shot open, her gaze immediately finding the black-haired woman looking down at her with hungry blue eyes.
2
Together Till the End
Post-outbreak day six, late evening
James stood in the back of the bus with the note clenched in a white-knuckled grip, Hank’s naked body staked to the back door in front of him. Rain continued to pound the roof and the noise reverberated throughout the bus. Connor stood a few feet behind James, facing the door. Even now, his brother was ready for anything and here he was with tears streaming down his cheeks. He’d failed them. He’d failed them all. He was the one who’d convinced them to leave the school in Burns and head north. He was the one who’d gotten them here. It was like some twisted nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. The guilt ate at him as he stood there, engrossed in his dark thoughts. They never should’ve tried to help these people. They would’ve been better off back at the school.
“Is not your fault, bro,” Connor said. “I know that’s what you’re thinkin’, but it’s not.”
“How the hell do you figure that?” James asked, turning to face his brother.
“Because you’re not responsible for these people,” Connor said. “They chose to follow you; you didn’t force them. You just told them what needed to be done and they listened. Just because they followed you doesn’t make you responsible. You have to get that through your thick skull.”
“Why are we even having this conversation again?”
“Because you just don’t seem to get it. People make their own choices in life and they have to live with those choices. They’d all be dead if it wasn’t for us—for you. They’re still out there, James—Olive, Emmett, Alexis, Ana, and the rest. You’ve got to hold it together long enough for us to find them. Don’t think about the ones we’ve lost; think about the ones we still have.”
He’s right, of course, James thought.
He couldn’t just stand there having a pity party. They had to rescue their friends or give themselves up in order to save the rest. Olive’s smiling face flashed through his mind and his protective instinct flared to life. Was she okay? If she was dead, he would never forgive himself. He would go to the ends of the earth to find her and make sure she was safe. He had to hold it together, at least until then.
“Okay,” James said, sighing.
“I need you, James,” Connor said, walking over to him. “You, me, and Tank—we’re the only family we have left. We have to stick together or none of us will make it.”
Connor embraced him. Reluctantly, James hugged him back. The tears began again, but he wasn’t ashamed of them. After a brief moment, they separated, looking each other in the eyes.
“I got your six,” James said. “I’m not giving up, not by a long shot.”
“Good, because we have some work ahead of us.”
Connor exited the bus, returning to the Hummer parked outside, and James glanced back at Hank’s body. He knew his brother was right—he couldn’t take the blame for this, but that didn’t stop the guilty thoughts from gnawing at him. He was at least partially responsible for this, but he would deal with that later. For now, he had to pull himself together. They had friends to rescue and people to kill.
James followed Connor out of the bus and climbed into the back seat of the Hummer. It wasn’t until he was in the warm interior that he realized how cold he was. All of his clothing was soaked, and he was chilled to the bone. His ear and side ached, and the water stung the small cuts on his face.
“So what’s the plan now?” Tank asked.
“We have to discuss it,” James said with a shiver. “We found a note from the Reclaimers in the bus. They have the rest of our group.”
“What does it say?” Chloe asked.
James unfolded the crumpled paper that was speckled with blood. “I have your friends,” he read. “I will kill one every twelve hours until you arrive. Come unarmed and in plain sight. If I even think you are planning a rescue, I will kill them all, starting with the little ones. You have to pay for what you have done, the lives you have taken. I am waiting, J.”
Everyone sat in silence for a few moments. The wind howled and rain still covered the landscape, but the lightning had moved on. They were past the heart of the storm.
“Well, hell,” Tank said. “Looks like this just got a whole lot worse.”
“Yeah,” James said, “but they’re our people, so I understand if you don’t wanna help us.”
“What the hell do ya mean?” Tank asked. “Wherever you guys go, I go. The Wolf Pack isn’t splitting up again. We’re in this thing together, ti
ll the end.”
“I couldn’t have said it any better myself,” James said. “Chloe?”
“It’s not like I’m gonna let you guys leave me out here somewhere,” Chloe said. “I’m just not any good with guns and I don’t know if I can kill anyone.”
“That’s okay,” James said. “We’ll leave you with the rig. You can be our getaway driver.”
“I can do that,” Chloe said.
“So what’s the play?” Tank asked.
“I really have no idea,” James said, “but I know we’ll figure it out. For now, we need to find somewhere safe where we can come up with a plan.”
“Good idea,” Tank said, “because I feel like a sittin’ chicken out here.”
“A sittin’ chicken?” Connor asked.
“Yeah, a sittin’ chicken,” Tank said. “I figured a chicken was a little more vulnerable than a duck. A duck can fly off whenever it wants, but a chicken, well, that thing’s just screwed when it’s out in the open.”
James couldn’t help but laugh. The situation was far from humorous, but he laughed anyway, and it felt good. Their friends were in grave danger—in fact, they were all in danger. Still, he needed to remember to live in each moment; otherwise, what kind of existence would that be? As the laughter quieted, James realized his brother was right—again. Everyone made their own choices. It was Tank’s choice to follow them, not his and not his brother’s. He couldn’t take that choice away from Tank and claim responsibility for his actions. That was up to him alone. Just like Peter and the group had decided to follow them. They’d made their choice, and even though it’d cost some their lives, it had been their choice to make. James still felt somewhat responsible. He always would, but it couldn’t all be on him. That kind of responsibility would break him. He had enough troubles to deal with as it was and he didn’t need to add to them.
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