by Angela Foxxe
Heather’s eyes were full of tears now. She had tried to hold on to her emotions as long as she could, but as John said those last words, the best of the emotions began to get to her. She was trying to fight the tears so hard. John knew she was a tough girl, and she hated for anyone to really see her cry, but he wanted her to know that it was okay to just let it all out and tell him how she felt. He rubbed her hand gently, hoping that she would just let the words come out of her beautiful mouth.
“I feel the same way,” Heather sobbed. “I don’t know what went wrong before when we let each other go. I guess that is the curse of being young and stupid; you never know what you have until it’s gone, and sometimes you don’t know what you have until you lose it and it comes back to you. That is what happened this time. I just want you to know that I love you, and I want to be with you always.”
John wrapped Heather in his arms and held her tightly as she began to cry hard. He rubbed the back of her head softly, comforting and consoling her.
“Well, that is the prettiest damn speech I ever did hear.”
The voice came from the doorway. John was on his feet in an instant. He caught sight of a group of men all wearing dark black suits. Their leader was a smarmy-looking guy with a cowboy hat on and a neon pair of sunglasses. He looked like some sort of two-bit hood who wanted to be tough but just wasn’t pulling it off. But John was realizing very quickly that Tony Janks didn’t need to be tough. He had a gang of brutes to do it for him.
Before John could even react to the group of men standing in the kitchen (how the hell did they get in?), two guys hit him in the face with the butts of their shotguns. The pain lasted only a second as John felt the wolf rising up within him. He was going to change, and he was going to silence these men, once and for all. Just thinking about the fact that they’d tried to kill Heather and now they were here again was enough to make his blood boil. How dare they?
Suddenly, John felt a pain inside his side that he never had before. It was like he’d just been opened up and hot lava was being poured inside of him. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t stand. His legs gave out. and he fell to the floor clutching at his side.
Above him, the men began to laugh as Janks himself held up a bloody dagger. John could tell instantly that it was silver. He might really be in trouble. Did Janks know? Did he know that John was a werewolf and that silver was needed to do him in? How the hell did he know? Maybe he had recognized him from the videos online after all. John almost had to laugh at the absurdity that this stupid hoodlum was going to take him out because of something he had probably seen while he was Facebook stalking someone.
“Well, that is one experiment down,” Janks said. “Let’s try for two.”
Janks pulled another dagger out of his pocket and stabbed John in the thigh with it. The blade penetrated for a second, and the wound instantly closed around the blade, pushing it out and healing in front of all of them.
Janks’ smile wiped from his face for a second as he stared in disbelief. He even took a step back, and John saw something he considered beautiful in Janks’ eyes right then—fear. Good, old-fashioned fear. The man was not expecting this to be real, and now that he had seen it with his own eyes, he was scared. But he quickly wiped the fear from his face. He had to keep up the appearance of how tough he was in front of his crew and in front of his victims.
“Wow, that was impressive,” Janks said. “I guess some things on the internet are true.”
The men laughed.
“Leave him alone!” Heather yelled.
“Oh, we intend to, but right now, we’re going to have some fun with him. Is that okay with you, darling? Then we can get to the matter of business between us.”
“No! Leave him alone. It’s me you want,” Heather said.
John tried to tell her to quit trying to protect him, but he still had no voice. The silver was burning through his body, and he could feel it getting worse. What in the hell was he going to do? If he died before he took care of these men, then Heather was going to die, too. That was a given.
Janks ignored Heather. “Yeah, we saw your cute little video on the internet and decided that you looked familiar. After doing a little bit of digging, come to find out, you are from here, and you have been seen by some of the townies hanging out with this little Manx. I see everything, cowboy. I’m a visionary. You thought you were too fast for me, but you weren’t. Not by a long shot.”
“How did you find us?” John asked, surprised that his voice was coming back some. He knew he wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he did feel better. Perhaps the exposure to the silver had to remain in the blood in high quantities. A blade was a mild reaction, unless it stayed there and the silver mingled with the blood a bit.
“Oh, I can find anyone I want. You wouldn’t believe how far my reach can extend. You have no idea who you are messing with, Mr. Wild.”
“Oh, I know your type,” John grunted. He could feel his strength returning, and the desire to rip this man limb from limb was leading the resurgence. He just had to keep it under control long enough so that he could plan his move accordingly. He was banking on the idea that Janks might not know he was not as injured as he was pretending. He was going to surprise the bastard.
Janks laughed. “Yeah, a lot of people have thought they had me figured out in the past and…well, they’re no longer with us.”
“I can get you the money, plus interest,” Heather said.
Janks’ eyes lit up. “Funny you should mention that. That is precisely the only reason either one of you are still alive. You see, after I figured out that we have a football star in our midst, I realized that the money I am owed is within my grasp. I knew that you would never be able to pay me that amount of money back, girl. And after you refused to become a part of my stable and work for me, even after much coercion, I had to make an example out of you. That’s why I tried to kill you earlier. But now, you actually have a friend who I am sure would be willing to give me the payment that I’m required.”
“He said he would,” Heather replied. Her voice was desperate and full of fear. John hated to hear that from her. It made him cringe and exacerbated his anger to epic levels. He just had to wait until his strength was full again. And even still, he had to wait for the right move. If he fouled this up, then Janks would stab him through the heart with the dagger and most likely kill him.
“Good. I figured as much. So let’s talk about how I am going to get paid, Mr. Wild.”
One of Janks’ men produced a laptop and sat it on the table. The man sat down at the table and waited for instructions.
“Ricky will take care of this. Mr. Wild, please give Ricky your login information, and I will set up the transfer of funds to my bank.”
John grunted. He didn’t want to give this man any satisfaction, but he really didn’t have a choice here. He had to play along, at least for now, until he and Heather were safely out of harm’s way.
John gave the man the information he required, adding extra strains and grunts to his voice to make it seem like he was indeed dying. Heather’s face was grimacing, twisted and contorted as she watched him writhing in pain. He hated to put her through this, but it had to be believable, and it had to be real. She was smart, though; something told John she might know he was faking. It was tough to pull anything over on her, that was for sure. She was a strong woman, and he admired her strength and character a great deal.
Within a few moments, the transaction was done. Janks said he was taking $200,000 for all of the aggravation. John didn’t trust even that number. He was probably wiping his account out clean. It was no mind. It was just money, and he had more pouring in all the time, even in the off-season through endorsement deals, and Keith had mentioned a few commercial appearances.
“Well, I’m glad all of that is settled.”
“Good, now get out of here!” Heather yelled. She was getting angrier by the second. John had to admit, she was sexy as hell when angry.
“Kill
them both,” Janks said as he and Ricky started to walk out.
“What? We gave you what you wanted!”
“But I still have to make an example out of you. Besides, killing an NFL football player will do great things for my reputation and my business. In this business, to be feared is to be respected. It’s nothing personal, girl.”
John didn’t wait another second. The time was now.
He roared to life, transforming almost instantly, just enough that he was still able to retain who he was, and took a huge swipe upside Ricky’s head. The man’s body flew against the wall with a sickening thud and slumped to the floor.
Janks quickly lunged out of the way as John came at the other men who were trying to fixate their guns on him. But they were too slow. John grabbed their heads and smacked their skulls together with a loud crack that echoed through the room.
The men were out, and now all that was left was poor little Janks. The man once again looked scared, but he wasn’t one to go down without a fight. He held the dagger up high as he reached for his gun. John wondered if he’d had the foresight to put silver bullets in the gun. He wasn’t about to test the theory.
John lowered his shoulder and lunged himself at the man. Janks took a swipe with the dagger, but John was able to catch it with his claw and twist Janks’ arm, breaking it.
Janks screamed in pain, but his scream was cut off as John punched him in the face, knocking him unconscious. He hit the floor, hard.
John looked left and right, expecting more men to be coming at him, but there were no more. This small crew was all that Janks had brought with him. The man’s arrogance was his downfall, for sure. He was going to jail. It didn’t matter how many connections he had with the cops; John was going to find a way to put him behind bars forever. He’d wanted to kill these men; they deserved it. But John didn’t really have it in him to kill someone. The idea terrified him. He didn’t want to develop a taste for blood. That was a line he never wanted to cross.
John felt the change residing, and within minutes, he was himself again. His mind was already clearer, and the rage that was welling up in him was receding. He took several deep breaths. The feeling after the change was similar to the way one felt after a fever broke and finally started to cool down and feel better, but you had to deal with an afterward of lethargy.
“Are you okay?” John asked as he went to Heather.
She wrapped her arms around him and let out all of the pain and the anger that she had been holding in. The relief that she must have felt could not be measured. She was so strong, but every person has a breaking point, and she was getting close to hers.
“It’s okay. It’s over now,” John said.
“I can’t believe it. They were really going to kill us. I can’t believe that I can finally close my eyes in peace.”
John didn’t know what else to say right then that would help Heather feel better. He knew that he just had to be there for her and console her as she grieved through this. He understood it was a bit different for her. When he really broke it down and thought about how he’d felt in that situation, he realized that he had never truly thought his own life was in danger. That was a part of the wolf curse. There were very few things in this world that could harm you, let alone kill you. Even though Janks had the means to kill him in his hand, John hadn’t believed that Janks could get the drop on him. And he was right. John had been able to overpower them all.
But for Heather, her life had been threatened for so long, and then it had almost been taken from her. And she didn’t know the full extent of John’s abilities so she had felt his life was in very real danger as well. And it was also possible that he might have been a bit arrogant in his own abilities; maybe that was another reason they worked together so well.
He knew that he loved this woman, and he didn’t want her to ever feel an ounce of pain. He made it his mission in life to make sure that this did not happen again.
The clap at the door cut through the silent air and the aftermath of the carnage that had just occurred.
John turned from Heather, ready to fight. His adrenaline was once again on fire, and he felt himself on the verge of the shift.
Keith was standing in the doorway.
He was clapping slowly, as if giving them a standing ovation with a stupid grin on his face.
John wanted to smack him, but he couldn’t help breaking out into a laugh.
“Keith!” John said as he shook his friend’s hand.
Heather seemed genuinely confused for a moment until she realized who Keith was. The name seemed to escape her at first.
“Looks like I arrived just after the festivities,” Keith said, glancing around at the unconscious bodies on the floor.
“Yeah, you were late to the party, so we had to start without you,” John said with a smile.
“I guess I’ll get it next time,” Keith remarked. “Are the two of you okay?”
“Yeah, about as good as can be expected,” John said. “This is Heather.”
Keith took her hand gingerly and smiled with a nod. “Very nice to see you. I’ve heard an awful lot about you.”
“Thanks for being here,” Heather replied. Even after all she’d just been through, it struck John as amazing that she was able to be social at all with the tears still streaming down her face.
Keith handed her a handkerchief out of his pocket, and she dabbed her eyes with it. The man was always prepared, it seemed.
“Well, I guess you won’t be needing my help with this particular issue after all,” Keith said.
“I’m not so sure you could say that. Tony Janks has the police on his payroll. Getting a case against him and his guys isn’t going to be easy.”
“No, but it won’t be impossible. I just need to call in a different favor.”
John shook his head. “You have friends in every low place imaginable, don’t you?”
“It pays,” Keith said.
He walked over to the fridge and grabbed a beer. He took a long drink and smiled admiringly at the bottle. “I love Yuengling beer. One of the things I miss about being in this area.”
John nodded approvingly, but he had other things on his mind besides beer. He had no idea how Keith could stay so calm about everything, but that was him. He couldn’t remember a time that he’d ever seen Keith really flustered or aggravated. He was the epitome of cool, no matter what was happening. John liked to think of himself as being pretty level-headed, but he did have a temper if he was pushed. Keith was much more difficult to read.
“So, we need to tie these guys up before they wake up,” John said. “Do you have any rope or handcuffs around here?”
Keith finished his beer in another long gulp and tossed the bottle in the trash can in the corner. “Sure do. It would be down in the basement. Want to go grab that, and I’ll keep an eye on them? They look like they won’t cause any problems for anybody for quite a while, but you can never be too careful.”
“Sure,” John said.
He walked down the hall, opened the door to the basement, and jogged down the steps. This was the first time he’d actually been in the basement. It was larger than he thought it might be, and unlike most basements that were cold and somewhat damp, this one looked more like another living room. It had a large pool table, a sectional couch, and a big screen television. It was pretty sweet. He wished he’d discovered it sooner, but he’d had no reason to be down here until then.
On the far wall was a large shelf area stocked with tools over the top of a big workbench. John wasn’t sure where the rope would be. So he checked several drawers until he found it in the big bottom drawer. There were several rolls of heavy duty rope and duct tape. He grabbed them both and headed back upstairs.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he saw when he walked back into the kitchen.
Heather was tied to a chair with a gag in her mouth. Keith was standing beside her with a large knife to her throat and a big smile on his face.
Joh
n thought this had to be a messed-up joke.
“What the hell are you doing?” John asked.
Keith laughed. It was a different kind of laughter than the giggle he normally had that John had gotten used to over the years. This laughter was full of malice and full of anger disguised as good cheer.
“I’m collecting what is mine,” Keith said.
His face was now full of hate.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
“What the hell are you talking about?” John said as he stepped forward. The rage was building within him again.
“Don’t take another step or I’ll slice her throat,” Keith said.
Heather moaned in fear and pain.
“Oh, what was that dear? It’s not polite to talk with your mouth full,” Keith joked.
“Keith, what is going on? Is this some sick joke? What are you doing, man?” John asked.
“Oh, you are such a fool,” Keith said. “You see, me and Heather here go back a ways. We are meant to be together. You have no business being anywhere near her.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No, true love is only crazy to those who have never really been in love. You don’t deserve this angel. She’s mine.”
“Let her go. Now.”
“Oh she is going—with me. You’re going to jail for the murder of Michelle Patton. Hell, they might even throw the murders of these nitwits in with it.”
Keith pulled a gun from behind his back and proceeded to put a single bullet in the head of each and every man on the floor. It took four seconds at most. John could not believe what he was seeing. His best friend in the world had just killed four men in cold blood without so much as flinching. Who the hell was Keith?
