The Carpenter's Destiny_Family Secrets

by Noah Harris

  Apollo’s shock would have been comical if it wasn’t for the situation. “I’m not… angry.”

  “I’ve suffered loss too Apollo. I lost my whole family within the same year. I remember being so angry at my parents after they died. It was so stupid, dying on a perfectly safe road, even if it was during a storm. My mom was driving, and she could be so… reckless sometimes. I was so mad at them for so long, for not being smarter, for not being safer. If they had been, they would still be alive, and I wouldn’t have had to go through my grandfather dying alone, or through everything else that happened in my life alone. And it’s okay, you know? It’s okay to be angry at them for leaving you.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Dean snorted. “You really think that if it had been the other way around, she wouldn’t be at your grave, cussing you out daily?”

  “We burn our dead, and spread them at the cairn.”

  He hadn’t known that, “Fine, you telling me she wouldn’t be out at the cairn, yelling at each rock, telling you how stupid you were?”

  That earned him a smile from Apollo; it was a heartbroken smile, but a smile, “She would.”

  “Try it when we get back. Just march out there by yourself and tell her off. Get it off your chest, out of your system. Then, maybe you can move on like she would want us too.”

  Apollo looked away, nodding as he gazed out the windshield with a thoughtful expression. Dean looked away too, trying to give Apollo privacy with his own thoughts. Maybe they had both been waiting for the other to say something, and now that it had been put there, the air seemed less thick and cloying to Dean. There would still be pain, and there would be guilt, but at least Apollo had been brave enough to bring it out into the open.

  The truck rocked slightly as Apollo shifted, grabbing the bag and slipping out the driver’s door. Dean, startled by the sudden movement, hurried to follow suit. It felt like a cliché movie as he followed after Apollo, both of them dressed head to toe in pitch-black clothing. Apollo made no sound that Dean could hear as he followed, crouched low in mimicry of Apollo.

  Stopping at a low wall, Apollo motioned for him to wait as he peered around the corner. Dean couldn’t see, but he knew from their earlier examination during the day, that there was a camera positioned over the security door leading into the back of the building. Apollo kept himself concealed as he watched, motioning for Dean to keep still before disappearing suddenly around the corner, leaving Dean to shift anxiously in the shadows as he waited.

  A few moments later, a low whistle came from around the corner. Dean peered out slowly, seeing Apollo pulling the strange card machine out of the bag as he motioned to Dean. Obliging, he darted across the lit area, eyeing the camera as Apollo went to work on the door. The casing on the camera was open, exposing some of the wires. Among the dark cords was a brightly colored cable, with an unusual plastic square in the middle of it. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was, but he figured he could safely assume it was to fix the camera in some way to make the camera unable to see them, or maybe loop it.

  The beep of the security door was loud in the quiet, making Dean jump. Apollo smirked at him as he shoved the device back in the bag, closing it and throwing it over his shoulder as he opened the door. After a moment of checking, he motioned to Dean to follow him and they moved into the dimly lit corridors of the building.

  “Security room,” Apollo whispered softly to him as they moved quietly down the hall.

  Dean had no idea how Apollo knew where the security room would even be, but he didn’t dare ask at a moment like this. The overhead lights were off, and instead, dim lights near the base of the walls were lit every couple of feet. It was enough to walk safely, but it did nothing to ease Dean’s tension, and instead only heightened it. He was expecting someone to come along any second and find them.

  Apollo stopped, raising a finger to one of the doors before they passed it, the sign reading ‘Security’ on a small plaque. With a gesture for quiet, and for Dean to stay still, Apollo opened the door carefully. Dean could see into the room past him as he opened the door. There were a handful of TV displays showing the feeds from the different cameras, yet there was no one in the room to watch them, which struck Dean as strange.

  The frown on Apollo’s face told Dean that he was thinking the same thing, “Maybe they went to the bathroom?”

  Apollo shrugged, moving to the keyboard that sat before the bank of screens. Dean watched as Apollo inserted a flash drive into the computer tower sitting on the floor beneath the desk. He opened some program from the files on it, and it began to do… something.

  “What, were you and Artemis thieves and spies?”

  Apollo shrugged, keeping his voice low, “She made the equipment, and we knew how to get things like this program. It will loop the security feeds for the next 15 minutes before it erases itself.”

  “Jesus, did you make that?”

  “No, we have… friends.”

  “Does Samuel know?”

  “Yes, we’re the only two in the pack who have these sorts of things, which is why he sends us out all the time. It’s how we have some of the funds we have, and how we get some of the machines we have. We get anything we can get ahold of if he sends us after it.”

  “Thought he tried to stay out of the modern human world?”

  Apollo only shrugged, going quiet once more as the program began to wrap up. When it came to his alpha, Apollo could be notoriously close-lipped. Dean thought Apollo had plenty to say on the subject, but wasn’t really the type to express himself that often. Dean also thought that Samuel wanted to keep most of the modern world away from the pack, while also being practical enough to know what keeping an eye on things could bring them. Keep a couple of well-trained werewolves with the right connections on a leash, and he could have what he wanted without it slipping into the rest of the pack.

  Rolling his eyes, Dean glanced around until he found a computerized scanning tool sitting on a nearby shelf. Reaching into the pocket of his black pants, he pulled out the sheet of paper with Talon’s and his handwriting on it. Talon’s was for the names of what they would need, Dean’s scrawl next to it was the different identification numbers he had found on each item when he had searched for the nearest supply office. If there was one thing he had learned while working insurance, it was that businesses liked efficiency and recordkeeping. With the handheld device, he would be able to determine exactly where everything was.

  By the time Apollo pulled the flash drive out and pushed away from the desk, Dean had written down the locations of each item from the list on another piece of paper. Apollo looked down at the list. Half was written near the top of the page, the rest at the bottom. Dean tore the page in half and handed one half to him, before stuffing the other into his back pocket.

  “The machine parts are closer to the loading bay area I’m guessing, which is the list you have Mr. Werewolf Strength. The components, tubes, and everything else is going to be somewhere else in the building. I can find those. It’ll go quicker if we split up. You should be able to load everything onto a cart or something that we can push out of here.”

  “We shouldn’t split up.”

  Dean took a shaky breath, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “Look, we don’t know how many guards there are, but we know there’s only 15 minutes before that feed starts up again. We need to move quickly, and with two of us we can do it quicker this way. I’m at least smart enough to hide if I hear someone.”

  Apollo paused long enough to think it over before nodding. “If you’re caught, yell, loudly.”

  “And alert the whole place?”

  “I can deal with a few guards if I have to.”

  “Uh, I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

  Apollo snorted as he checked the hallway once more. “I’m not going to kill an innocent human being just for doing their job. I’m not afraid to knock them out though.”

  That at least, did make Dean feel better. He still wa
sn’t sold on the idea that Samuel didn’t have enough respect for the law to not have a couple of his own trained to break in and steal stuff from secure places. It was one thing to do it in a moment of desperation like they had now, it was another thing that they actually had someone on hand to do it, and had been doing it for years. He could sense another argument between the two of them on the horizon.

  At the first intersection of the hallway, Dean looked at the small plastic sign on the corner. Squinting in the dim light, he pointed toward himself and then down the adjacent hallway with a pat on the pocket where his list sat. Apollo nodded, looking at the sign and pointed down the hallway they were in. They split up from there, Apollo shooting him one last meaningful look before Dean followed the hallway that would lead him to his assigned room.

  Not having Apollo with him made him feel oddly more relaxed. Only able to hear the soft sounds he himself made, he never had to double check each sound he heard to see if it was one of them. It was more nerve-wracking to check each doorway he came across though. He didn’t have the wolf hearing that Apollo did and he knew that he could be walked up on at any time.

  By the time he reached the room that was marked with the listed numbers he was looking for, his mind was going wild. Not once had he heard another person, not even the scuff of distant shoes on the linoleum floors. The part-office, part-warehouse wasn’t all that large, but large enough that there should have been a few watchmen; enough for him to have at least caught some hint of their presence. Yet there was nothing, and he seriously hoped that they were all on break somewhere, slacking, and would stay that way for the next 20 minutes, or however long it took them to load up and get out.

  The door to the unit squeaked gently as he opened it, making him wince as he pulled out the penlight in his packet. Cupping the light, he scanned the storage containers lined up along the wall, lifting his bookbag from around his shoulder and beginning to pull out what he needed. The bag was large enough that he simply grabbed handfuls of tubes and parts with his gloved hands to push into the bag hurriedly. Apollo had said that the camera feeds would be looped for about 15 minutes, and it had taken at least five for him to find this room. He wanted to be out of here and at the back of the building to help Apollo with the rest in the next five.

  Checking his watch, he cursed under his breath and stuffed the last of the things into the bag, struggling to close it. Praying that he had enough of everything, he checked the door leading out to the hallway, again seeing nothing. Frowning, he slipped out, closing the door softly behind him and making for the loading dock at the back of the building.

  A noise from behind him, further down the hallway drew him up. Chest clenching, he turned, gazing down the dim hallway and seeing nothing but the empty corridor. He stood, unmoving, listening for the sound again, even hoping he would hear it again so he could dismiss it. Nothing happened so hearing and seeing no one, he turned to continue on down the hallway, when his foot slipped on the floor, sending him to the ground with a stifled grunt of pain.

  Resisting the urge to curse under his breath, Dean shifted to check himself over, and then the floor to see what he had slipped on. A dark line of fluid seeped under the door beside which he was sitting, his shoe having stepped directly into it as he had turned around. Looking up, he could barely read the sign on the door, ‘Lounge.’

  His eyes moved to the fluid, and then to his hand, which sat in the thick substance. Pulling his hand to his face as he stood, he sniffed, recoiling at the strong scent of iron. Eyes wide, he fished the penlight out with his other hand, flicking it on and shining it on his glove. Dark blood stained his hand and sleeve. It was smeared where he had slipped, but it was untouched where it had reached beneath the crack of the door.

  Fighting to keep his breathing steady, Dean stuck the penlight in his mouth and reached with his clean gloved hand to open the door. It creaked more than the last door had, opening up into a room that was lit only by the faint glow of the drinks machine on the far wall. The light was enough however, for him to see the half a dozen bodies sprawled across different parts of the room. The penlight circle danced as Dean felt the air rush out of him, creating a moving spotlight effect on the corpses.

  Hurriedly, he slammed the door shut, closing the room from view. He had seen enough though. Enough to know that every man in that room had died horribly. Throats ripped out, bodies savaged, they looked like they had been attacked by an animal. Not one of them had a proper weapon on them; they wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  Slumping against the wall, he yanked the bloody glove from his hand, tossing it away from him with a small gasp for air. Breathing deep, he tried to calm himself, rather than letting out the moan, or perhaps a cry, of disgust and fear that welled up within him. It couldn’t have been Apollo that had done this. Not only did he believe him when he said that he wasn’t one for just killing humans, there hadn’t been enough time to do this while they were separated. Those men had been dead for far longer than the two of them had been in the building. He or Apollo would have certainly heard the sound of six men fighting for their lives against the brutality of this attack.

  They weren’t alone.

  Apollo.

  Adrenaline spiked through him and he shoved away from the wall. No longer caring about being heard, he turned down the hallway to shout. A towering figure stood before him, blocking his path toward the back of the building, toward Apollo. Dean’s cry died in his throat as he heard the deep, throaty chuckle from the man in front of him. Hell, he hadn’t heard or seen him approach.

  “Hello there, handsome.”

  Dean didn’t even bother to reply, taking a step back to whirl away and run. He had barely begun to move when something hit the side of his head, sending him stumbling into the wall. The backpack slipped from his shoulder as he slumped, the dark hallway receding as his vision dimmed. His vision swam as the darkness grew, and the last thing he registered was the sound of a pleased humming as his face hit the cold linoleum before it took over completely.

  He had no idea how much time had passed. Dimly he could recall snippets as he was moved about, tossed and shoved like he was a sack of potatoes rather than a person. He remembered the inside of what appeared to be a van, and then he remembered waking up strapped to what he was sure had been an ATV. Other than those images, all he could remember were voices, but not the words, the smell of gasoline and once, the sound of low singing.

  Now he awoke to the smell of old dirt, and of burning wood. Remembering that he wasn’t here of his own choice, he willed himself to remain still and let himself come to consciousness slowly. Something bound his ankles together, and his wrists together behind his back. He could hear a fire crackling not far from him, and the sound of at least a couple of people moving about nearby. Stone lay beneath him, cold and rough, a jagged part of the floor cutting into his cheek.

  “We know you’re awake.”

  The familiar voice jolted him fully awake, twisting through him with a flash of anger as he found Damian crouched near the fire. Damian’s almost-black eyes caught the firelight as he studied Dean, leering at him, and looking as smug and sure of himself as Dean remembered him being. A few others stood behind Damian, impassively watching the interaction.

  A cave; they were in a cave. That at least explained the frigid, uneven ground.

  “Lovely to see you again Dean.”

  “That makes one of us,” Dean spat back, the flare of anger in him growing hotter. This bastard had attacked his pack, ambushing it in the middle of the night and almost burning it down. He had been the one to bring Nox to The Grove, Nox who had killed Artemis right in front of him like it was nothing, like she was nothing. He wanted nothing more than for his hands to be free so he could at least try to throttle the arrogant bastard who had started all of this.

  “Well now, is that anyway to greet an old acquaintance?”

  “Oh I’m sorry, should I bow politely? Bit hard to do, since you’ve got me trussed up like you’re abou
t to tie me to some nearby railroad tracks. Though, I might still fall over, since apparently I had to be hit over the head to be kidnapped.”

  Damian chuckled, “I see you still have that sharp tongue of yours. Can’t say I’ve missed that too much.”

  Dean watched Damian stand and move over to crouch before him. “Funny how being clubbed over the head and dragged off to who-knows-where has a way of putting someone in an ugly mood. Don’t know about you, but I was raised to think that kidnapping and murder were bad things.”

  “Murder, whoever did I murder?”

  “Oh I don’t know, maybe the security guards at the warehouse?”

  “You’re going to try to claim the deaths of a few worthless humans as being murder? Please.”

  Dean grit his teeth at the dismissive way that Damian spoke of the men. Those men hadn’t deserved their deaths, but Damian simply didn’t care. It didn’t matter that each of them probably had a family, perhaps a spouse, some kids. All that mattered was that they had been there, had been in his way. What were a few humans to the likes of someone like Damian?

  “Fine,” he growled through his teeth, “Then what about the people in my pack that you killed in your little attack?”

  “Your pack, eh? You think that little bite on you makes you a part of their pack? I know Samuel better than you, Dean. Even if you are what they say you are, he would no sooner let some outsider human join his pack than he would invite me to join it. And it isn’t my fault that Samuel doesn’t know how to bow to the inevitable. I was bound to win this one way or another. Luck spared him that loss the first time, it won’t save him again.”

  Dean’s eyes moved to the men at the back of the cave. “Guess these are some of yours then? Otherwise you’d be lying through your teeth like you’ve been doing all along to convince everyone to listen to your cowardly ass.”

  Damian’s face darkened, and Dean could see the werewolves behind him shift uncomfortably. “Yeah, that’s right. My mate, the heir to the pack, had your alpha on the ropes until he ran. He couldn’t fight us head-on so he ambushed us. Then when that didn’t work, he ran like a coward, leaving the rest of his men to die.”