Jasper glanced at Leroy, and then went over to Ryder. He nudged his brother awake. Ryder seemed happy to see him, rubbing his head against his brother’s knees.
Jasper pushed him away, annoyed. “For God’s sake, Ryder, you’re not a fucking wolf.” He surveyed him. “You’re a mess.” He pointed at Calla. “You. There’s got to be melted ice in the cooler. Can you use some napkins to clean him up?”
Calla’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t clean up… blood.
Jasper rolled his eyes. “You know what, I’ll do it myself.” He pointed at Leroy. “Watch him, okay?”
Calla chewed on her lip, keeping a wary eye on Leroy, who was leering at her bare legs.
“He’s lost it, hasn’t he?” Leroy said. “What happened to him?”
Jasper finished cleaning the blood off of Ryder and stalked back over to Leroy. “My brother is none of your business.”
“Your brother is the reason I’m here,” said Leroy. “I’ve come to collect. We made a deal with him, years ago, and it’s time to pay up.”
“What?” Jasper had a worried look on his face.
“He pledged himself to the cause in return for a loan,” said Leroy. “We helped him get away from his father and that carnival. Now, it’s time to give back. We need him. For the cause.”
“What cause?”
“Enoch Borden’s cause,” said Leroy.
Jasper’s mouth twitched.
“You know who that is, don’t you?” Leroy’s laughter was jeering.
Jasper looked back at his brother, who was sniffing at the fast food bags. “What the hell, little brother? What have you gotten yourself into?”
“I’m the least of your problems,” said Leroy. “Enoch will have his due. Ryder either pays it back with service or with money. Doesn’t look like he’s much for service anymore.”
Jasper ran a hand through his hair. “What would Enoch use this money for? He still on a crusade to try to get rid of all the bitten werewolves?”
“Enoch’s business is his own.”
“Right.” Jasper kicked the ground, sending loose rocks skittering. “Motherfucker.”
“He got stuck in wolf form, didn’t he?” said Leroy. “Got stuck and forgot how to be human.”
Jasper didn’t answer.
“But how did he get back in human form without his human mind?”
“He got wounded,” Jasper muttered. “He nearly died. You’re right, there’s nothing left of him. He’s… gone.”
“I heard him yell for me the other night, though,” said Leroy. “He was talking then.”
Jasper looked at Calla sharply.
She lifted her chin. See, she hadn’t been lying after all.
“Why was he talking last night?”
“He doesn’t talk,” said Jasper flatly. “How much money are we talking here?”
Leroy smiled. “With interest, we’re talking ten thousand.”
Jasper let out a disbelieving laugh. “There’s no way. He doesn’t have that money. I don’t have it either.”
“We’d take your service instead,” said Leroy. “One night of work, and the slate would be wiped clean.”
“And what would I have to do? Kill children?”
“We’re not monsters.”
“The hell you’re not.” Jasper rubbed his forehead. Then he turned and started for his car. “I’ll be back tonight. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Calla ran after him. “You can’t leave.”
He kept walking. “I’ll try to figure something out, okay?”
“No, you can’t leave me here. I can’t be here, not with that man, not with Ryder. I don’t even understand what’s going on.”
Jasper turned around and put a finger in her face. “Get Ryder to talk, you understand? If he was talking before, you get him to talk again.”
“I don’t know why he talks. It starts and stops. It has nothing to do with me.”
“It must have something to do with you. He couldn’t do it before you got here.”
She was fighting tears. “Please. Please don’t make me stay here.”
“I’m sorry, lady, but this is the best I can do. I saw you had his gun. You hang onto that, okay? You’ll be all right.”
“No, I won’t. I won’t.”
Jasper swung into the car and sat down. “Oh, I’ve got these.” He reached into the backseat and came up with a pair of overalls. “They’ll be big, but it’s better than running around with no pants.”
Calla took them, sputtering. “Do not leave me here.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“We need to do something about that man. He’s clearly dangerous.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Well, maybe the police.”
“The police? Get real, lady, he’s a werewolf.”
“Fine, then the SF.”
“The SF can’t be trusted. If they found me, they’d take me and my brother away and strip away all our pack bonds. They break up families. They ruin lives.”
“They save people. They deal with werewolves who are out of control.”
“You don’t understand anything.” Jasper slammed the door shut and sped away, leaving her in his literal dust.
She threw the overalls to the ground and screamed.
Behind her, she could hear Leroy laughing.
* * *
The overalls were far too big, but she managed to roll the legs up far enough that she could walk in them. Then she was hungry, so she dug out breakfast and ate it before it got cold. She felt that vaguely hysterical feeling that sometimes happened when she hadn’t had enough sleep, but this situation was so much worse than anything she’d ever been in.
“I need to take a leak,” said Leroy.
“Too bad,” she said.
“Come on,” said Leroy. “The least you could do is unzip me and take out my dick.”
“I wouldn’t touch you if you paid me.” She turned her back to him and continued to eat her sandwich. It was cold, and it was disgusting because all the grease had congealed. If she hadn’t been so hungry, she wouldn’t have finished it. But as far as she could tell, this was all the food she was going to get for today. Jasper hadn’t brought anything else for the cooler—or if he had, he’d been too distracted by Leroy to remember it.
“So, what are you doing out here, button?” asked Leroy. “I can smell that you’re no wolf. From the way that Ryder attacked me, I would have said that you’re his woman. But a man like that can’t have a woman, can he?”
She was going to ignore him. She wasn’t going to respond to a single thing he said.
“You’re not exactly a tiny thing, button, but there’s something about you. Maybe when I take Ryder and his brother to Enoch, I’ll take you along. We have things that a woman like you could be useful for.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about, and she didn’t think she wanted to know. Leroy might not be the red-eyed monster from her imagination, but he was awful. She could feel it radiating off of him. She wanted nothing to do with this man, and the fact that she was stuck here with him was appalling.
“On second thought, maybe I’d keep you for myself. Maybe I wouldn’t want to share you.”
Well, that was a bit clearer. She wished that it wasn’t clear. She felt a shiver travel through her thinking about that man touching her.
“Maybe at least for a while,” said Leroy. “I could have a good bit of fun with you before you were used up. You look like the kind of woman who could handle a lot of… fun.”
She shoved the rest of the sandwich into her mouth, chewed it, and swallowed. She wasn’t going to sit here and listen to any more of this. Leroy was only saying these things to upset her, and hell if it wasn’t working. She got up from her chair and looked around the campsite. It wasn’t as if there was anywhere else to go. She stalked off in the direction she was facing. Any direction was better than sitting here.
But Leroy’s voice followed her. “Oh come on,
button, I know you’d like that. Or maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe you really are sweet on Ryder. After all, I did see you come out of that tent half-dressed last night.”
She shut her eyes. She wanted to plug her ears so that she couldn’t hear him anymore, but that seemed very juvenile. Instead she clenched her hands into fists.
“So maybe while I’m breaking you in, I’ll just keep Ryder around to watch. You think Ryder would like that?” Leroy laughed.
What was she going to do? She could run off into the forest. The last time she tried to leave the campsite, Ryder had come with her. And after what Ryder had done last night, she didn’t want to be alone with him. Furthermore, running away from Leroy wasn’t the answer. Right now, he was tied up and hopefully he would stay that way, but she wouldn’t be sure that he was still tied up if she ran off. Besides, there was nowhere to go. She had proved that to herself. She and Ryder had walked and walked and walked. There was nothing out there.
“That poor bastard can’t understand a word I’m saying, can he?” Leroy was still laughing. “Hey there, Ryder, you big dumb lug.”
Calla had to turn around at that. She could see that Ryder was on all fours staring down with Leroy from the opposite side of the fire pit. He looked leery, distrustful, but not angry, the way he would’ve been if he’d understood Leroy’s words. At least, she thought that was how a human Ryder might have reacted. She didn’t really know. Certainly, there been that whole tangle between them in the tent last night. But that didn’t mean that he actually cared about her. He had beaten up her attacker. He did seem loyal to her. But it was all so confusing. What part of Ryder was human? What part of him was a wolf? She didn’t know.
At any rate, she wanted Leroy to shut up. So she went back to the campsite. She took everything out of one of the fast food bags, which consisted of a sandwich for Ryder and some hash browns, and she balled up the bag. Then she approached Leroy.
He leered at her. “Oh couldn’t stay away could you, button? Come over here and give us a kiss.”
Calla stuffed the bag of trash into his mouth.
Leroy coughed, making sputtering sounds.
“Don’t choke on that now,” said Calla. Right at that moment, she’d never hated anyone more in her life. Maybe it was horrible to be violent to someone, but if anyone deserved it, it might very well be Leroy. She was finding it harder and harder to be very angry with Ryder for doing what he’d done last night.
There. Now he was quiet. Calla stepped back, folding her arms over her chest and surveying her handiwork. Not bad.
She turned her back on Leroy to see to Ryder. She spread Ryder’s sandwich out on the ground on the wrapper, breaking it into pieces for him so that it would be easier for him to eat it since he refused to use his hands. She whispered to him. “Where are you? Are you in there?”
But instead of going after his food, Ryder went after her. He put his hands on her, one hand cupping her breast and one hand caressing her waist. He tried to kiss her.
She pushed him away. “Stop that.” She couldn’t understand. He was a wolf, wasn’t he? Right now he was acting like an animal, so why was he trying to make out with her? It didn’t make any sense.
Ryder tried again.
She kicked at him. “I mean it.”
Leroy was laughing again, laughing around the ball of paper in his mouth. And then, to her horror, he spit it out. Damn it. What she wouldn’t give for some tape.
“Now I’m going to have to take you with me, button. Do you have any idea what Enoch will do when he finds out the way you treated me? He’ll make sure that you serve the cause.”
Calla stalked over to him. She put her hands on her hips. “What the hell is this ‘cause’ you keep going on about?”
“Oh, Ryder knows all about it. Or at least he did before he turned into a wolf trapped in a man’s body. He wanted to devote himself to the cause.”
She rolled her eyes. She really ought to just ignore Leroy. She knew that. She was making him worse by interacting with him.
He leaned forward. “You see, the SF has destroyed the natural order of things. Wolves need to be free to do what comes naturally. There are too many humans on earth, and they’re using up all the resources and polluting the planet. Humans are a disease. Werewolves are the cure.”
Calla drew back in horror. “You can’t be serious.”
Leroy snickered. “Save the earth. Kill the humans.”
That was it. She was finding some way to keep a gag in his mouth. What could she use? Maybe if she tied something around his head. Too bad she didn’t have any more pieces of her leggings. Was there something else she could use?
“The Sullivan Foundation is stopping the wolves from killing, and so we’re going to stop the SF,” said Leroy. “We’re going to attack all the branches of the SF and wipe those suckers out. Then the wolves will be free to—”
“Shut up!” She was so angry that she was shaking. “You’re horrible.”
Leroy shrugged. “You’re just not really that important to me, little human girl. Werewolves are obviously the next stage of evolution. We don’t behave the way you humans do. We don’t have to tame nature. We can work within it. We’re superior to you. We deserve to survive, that’s why nature created us to hunt you down.”
She hit him. She hauled back and punched him right in the nose.
Leroy grunted.
Tears started to stream down her face. “Fuck you.” After what had happened to her that day all those years ago, after the things she’d seen… Well, hearing him say the things he was saying was too much for her. She needed to get away. She turned her back on him and started for the freight container. She’d go there and lock herself in, away from Leroy, away from Ryder. Away from both of them. She couldn’t handle it.
She stumbled on her way, her vision blurred from the tears that she shed.
Behind her, Leroy was laughing again.
* * *
It was hot inside the freight container, but it was better than being out there with Leroy. She hadn’t slept much the night before, so after being inside, shut away from them both in the darkness, she began to feel drowsy. She curled up in a ball and let sleep take her.
When she woke up, there was noise from outside.
Male voices yelling. The sounds of scuffling.
She got up as quickly as she could, pulling up the door.
Leroy had gotten free.
Well, sort of. His legs were free from the chair, but his hands were still tied tightly to it. He was standing over Ryder, bringing the chair down over and over on the other man’s head.
Calla screamed, fumbling to find the gun. She pointed it into the air and squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
Both Leroy and Ryder turned to look at her.
She leveled the gun at Leroy. She was going to pull the trigger again. She was going to shoot Leroy dead.
Leroy sneered at her. And then he started beating Ryder with the chair again.
“Stop!” said Calla. She was going to shoot him. She was. Except for the fact that she didn’t know. Killing someone, even someone like Leroy—one second he’d be breathing and the next…
Oh, besides, her aim wasn’t very good, and what if she hit Ryder instead?
“Stop!” she said again. “I’ll shoot.”
Leroy laughed. He clubbed Ryder over the head with the chair again, and Ryder went still. He stopped moving completely.
Calla shrieked.
Leroy took off into the woods, holding the chair above his head as he crashed into the underbrush.
Calla fired after him, but she didn’t hit anything.
She pulled the trigger again.
And again.
Bang! Bang!
Leroy was getting away. He was inside the leaves, covered over by foliage, and she couldn’t see him anymore.
She pulled the trigger again.
Click.
Oh. No more bullets. She flung it down on the ground and ran for Ry
der.
“Ryder.” She skidded down next to him, landing on her knees. She shook him. “Ryder.”
He wasn’t moving. His eyes were closed. He was unconscious.
CHAPTER NINE
Ryder was dreaming about being a wolf. He was running and jumping through the woods, chasing after something tiny—a raccoon that was skittering ahead of him. He wasn’t starving, but he thought that the raccoon would make a nice snack. He was enjoying the hunt.
But something made him stop.
He had a funny memory, a feeling that was nagging at him.
He wasn’t really a wolf. He was a man. And when he looked down at his body, he realized that it wasn’t the body of a wolf after all, but instead the weak and hairless body of a human. He put his hands in front of his face and stared at them in horror.
He didn’t belong in this skin.
He gazed longingly at the raccoon, which was getting away from him, ducking under the foliage and disappearing into the distance.
No snack for him.
“Ryder,” said a voice.
He turned.
It was his father. “Wolves are not superior, boy. Wolves are just wolves. There’s no reason that we’ve been made this way. We just are, like that raccoon just is. I won’t hear any more of this nonsense.”
Ryder glared at him.
His head hurt. He swam close to consciousness for a second. He heard a woman calling his name. She sounded worried.
But then that faded, and he was watching his father walk away, glaring at the back of the man’s head.
“Don’t worry about him.”
Ryder whirled.
Enoch was standing there, grinning at him. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and Ryder could see his big tattoo on his shoulder—a wolf tackling a deer with antlers. “You don’t need your father to agree with you.”
“But I wanted to bring them in to the cause.”
“In time, Ryder,” said Enoch. “For now, let’s run.” He unzipped his pants and the change flowed over him. He was a wolf in one second, bounding off into the forest.
Ryder tried to do it too, to shift into a wolf. He used to know how, but now he… he couldn’t.
“Be the wolf,” whispered another voice, this one silky and urgent, right at his ear. “Surrender to the wolf. It is your true nature. Let it happen, Ryder.”
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