by Sky Winters
Denim Vest considered this further. Atticus simply waited, knowing that an opportunity would soon arise.
“Yeah,” said Beady Eyes. “And when he said ‘don’t use until the job’s done,’ he was, uh, speaking, you know, metaphorically.”
“Right!” said Patchy Hair. “He was saying, like, don’t get fucked up until the job is done, like, don’t go overboard until the bear fucker gives up the goods.”
“There’s no way he would’ve expected us to not use,” said Beady Eyes. “I bet he’d probably even think it was weird that we didn’t!”
“He’d probably get mad at us, actually,” said Patchy Hair. “He’d think we fucked up by not keeping steady.”
Denim Vest’s eyes lit up with understanding, this seemed to be just the justification he needed to hear to give in to the temptation that had been dogging him.
“Fine!” he said. “But just enough to keep us on the level.”
“Yeah, yeah! Sure!” said Patchy Hair and Beady Eyes as they eagerly pulled out their paraphernalia.
A small smile crossed Atticus’s lips as he watched the junkies go to work. And that smile spread even further when he saw a long rustling along the tree line, the outside now completely black with evening dark. Yellow eyes emerged from the woods, and Atticus knew then that his pack was back. He smiled with pride, knowing that they managed to get through whatever trap Lucas’s men had set for them.
Looking down at the zip ties that kept him restrained, he shook his head at how careless the junkies had been. Atticus watched the bears emerge from the woods as he flexed his muscles, the zip ties snapping like rubber bands stretched too taut.
His eyes on the junkies as they huddled over their supply, Atticus rose from the couch, preparing to shift. He glanced at the pistols loaded with silver-tipped bullets- he was sure he’d be able to get to them before they could aim them, let alone crack off a shot, but he also knew that junkies could be unpredictable. A stray round in his leg would mean he’d be out of commission for a week while he recovered, and that was time he didn’t have.
“Guys,” said Atticus, standing mid-shift, his muscles large and fur-covered.
The junkies snapped around, their eye wild and fearful as they stared at Atticus.
“I hope you brought enough for the rest of the family,” he said, gesturing to the pack of bears that were currently crawling through the tree line, their faces painted with rage as they drew closer.
“Shit, shit!” cried Beady Eyes, fumbling for his gun.
But none of the three were quick enough. Atticus retained his mid-shift form, not wanting to become the larger target that fully shifting into his bear form would result in. With blinding speed, he rushed at the three, striking Denim Vest with his razor-sharp claws, cutting through his skin and sending him flying backward against the wall. Patchy Hair and Beady Eyes, both going for their weapons, were next. Atticus grabbed Patchy Hair and threw him against the wall on the other side of the room, his body connecting with a sickening thud-crack.
Then, Beady Eyes managed to raise his gun and fire a round, the pop from the shot cutting through the air, the bullet going wild and hitting wide. Atticus shook his head and drove his claws into Beady Eyes, plunging them deep into his stomach, the junkie grabbing Atticus’s wrist feebly before dropping to his knees.
Atticus backed off, sighing as he surveyed the mess made of his home. But before he could think for too long, Ian, Roland, and Clyde appeared in the door frame.
“Wow,” said Ian, looking over the wreckage. “What’d we miss?”
CHAPTER 19
“What the hell happened?” demanded Atticus, looking over the pack as they stood on the grounds of the compound.
“They surprised us,” said Clyde, his voice weighed with shame.
“They lured us into a damn trap,” said Ian, slamming his fist into his open palm.
“How?” demanded Atticus, noting that his men all looked ragged and tired. They were barely able to stand at attention as the cool evening wind whipped across their bodies.
But he noted they were fewer in number- three of the men from the tribe were missing. Atticus’s stomach tightened when he realized what had likely happened.
“They must’ve known that we’d been on the lookout for meth labs and other signs of their presence,” said Roland, crossing his arms over his chest. “They left evidence strategically placed in the woods.”
“Like a trail of breadcrumbs,” said Ian.
“I should’ve known better,” said Clyde, shaking his head sadly.
“By the time we realized that what we were finding was too good to be true, it was too late,” said Roland. “They all came out of the woods, dozens of them.”
“Richard, Tyler, and Martin sacrificed themselves,” said Ian, looking over the men as they nodded at the sound of the names of those who gave their lives. “They created a distraction that allowed us to break through the circle that Lucas’s men formed around us and turn the tide.”
Atticus repeated the names of the men aloud, making sure that everyone heard them.
“Remember those names,” he said to the men, who all nodded in understanding.
“And what about Tessa?” asked Clyde.
Atticus clenched and unclenched his fists.
“Lucas was here and he took her,” he said. “The gang knows about us- they know everything. We’re the only thing keeping them from taking over this town and turning it into anarchy.”
“Then they won’t stop until they’ve rid us from the region,” said Roland, nodding his head in understanding.
“And what’s more,” said Atticus, his voice lined with anger as he thought of Tessa’s face, wet with tears as they took her, “They want our money.”
“Fuckers,” said Ian. “It’s not enough they want us dead, they want our resources to fund their operation.”
“We have less than 48 hours before they kill Tessa,” said Atticus, the last two words paining him to speak. “We’re going to have to make a full-on assault on the farmhouse where the gang operations are centered.”
“That’s the plan?” asked Ian, incredulous. “To just smash in through the front gate?”
“No,” said Atticus. “There are too many of them for that. But one way or another, we have to destroy that house and the facilities inside. If we don’t, Lucas’s gang will just get more and more powerful until we won’t be strong enough to beat them. They’ll take over this whole region and turn it into a meth-addicted hellhole.”
He turned to the men.
“You all get some rest if you need to and if anyone has any bright ideas, let me know. But just remember, not only is the fate of Tessa on the line, but everyone in this town. Dismissed.”
And with that, he turned away from the men, moving towards the main house with determined strides, thoughts of saving his love the only ones on his mind.
CHAPTER 20
Tessa stared at Lucas with murderous eyes as the luxury car bumped along the unpaved road leading to the gang’s farmhouse. She thought of Atticus and how angered he looked as Lucas took her from him. She sat on the cool leather seat across from Lucas, her hands bound behind her back. All she wanted was to lunge across at him and wrap her hands around his neck, draining the life from him.
But instead, she sat helplessly, two gang members flanking her, her former love sitting across from her in the cab of the car with a silver gun in one hand and a drink in the other.
“I can’t believe that you’ve done all of this,” she said, her voice a hiss.
“You can’t believe that I’ve done what, exactly?” asked Lucas through a grim smile. “That I was able to go from a starving artist to a drug kingpin?”
“Among other things,” said Tessa. “How you could live a double-life and still look me in the eyes would be another.”
“It was easy. You and I had been growing apart for years,” he said, the car making a slow turn on the road towards the property that she had visited where s
he learned that Lucas was cheating on her. “But you didn’t even seem to notice it until it became blindingly obvious.”
“What’re you talking about?” asked Tessa, her eyes flicking towards the ramshackle settlements that had cropped up along the road since the last time she’d been there.
“I’d been getting more and more into this world for the last year, why do you think I’d been abandoning my art? I started by hanging out with these guys after drinks at the bar. It just kinda grew from there. Turns out I’ve got something of a knack for this business.”
“A ‘knack?’” asked Tessa, feeling as though she were talking to someone she’d never met before.
“Yep. Making connections, distributing, supervision, production- all that. These guys were small-timers until they found me. I was able to do for their business in the last few months what they’d been unable to do in the last two years. They just needed someone with a little imagination.”
“You must be very proud of all this,” said Tessa, gesturing towards the road that led to the compound, the fields on both sides strewn with vagrants and junkies eking out meager existences for the sole purpose of being near the meth lab.
“Cost of doing business,” he said, seemingly immune to the sight of the human misery around him. “This town was on the brink of collapse anyway, it just needed a little push to finish the process.”
“But why?” asked Tessa.
Lucas’s eyes narrowed.
“Because I was tired of our boring life, nothing happening day in and day out. I wanted excitement, while you wanted nothing but the same things every day.”
“So, you thought this was the way out.”
“It was the way out.”
The farmhouse grew closer, another party raging out front, just like the one that Tessa ventured into the night she found Lucas.
“I did this for us, by the way,” said Lucas, looking out the window at the party on the lawn. “You have no idea how much money I’ve been able to make so quickly. I was going to buy the life that we’d always wanted.”
“Is that why you cheated on me?” asked Tessa, not buying his altruistic explanations.
“Hey, when you’re the head of a meth empire you end up getting a lot of attention. You say ‘no’ 49 times, on the 50th, you’re gonna crack.”
Tessa glared at Lucas.
“Besides, that’s all over now. Once we, well, I’ll tell you about the rest of the plan later, but now that you’re here back by my side where you belong, away from those bear freaks, we can get back it just being you and me.”
“’Bear freaks’?” demanded Tessa. “You don’t know the first thing about them.”
“I know that they’re standing in the way of me expanding my market. Do you have any idea how many labs this crew has lost to them over the last few years? Too many, that’s for damn sure.”
The car attracted a crowd as it pulled through the party towards the stretch of land behind the large farmhouse. The crowd was comprised of everyone from junkie hangers-on to teenage groupies to tough-looking gang members, all recognizing the car as Lucas’s, all wanting to discuss business with him…business of one form or another.
“And these yokels here in Branlen all figured they were forest spirits or some crazy shit like that. They needed someone with half a brain to realize that there was something weird going on with that compound that the Swift boys owned, something probably connected to what was going on in the woods. Needless to say, one of my first orders of business was to wipe them off the map. And when I found out that they were loaded, well, so much the better.”
“You’re a monster,” said Tessa, her eyes narrowed.
“No,” said Lucas as the car pulled into what appeared to be a recently installed garage. “The monsters are those…animals out there.”
He pointed towards the general direction of the compound.
“They’re beasts, they kill because they can’t help it. It’s part of their nature. And I don’t know what Atticus or the rest of them told you, but they’ll kill you in time.”
“You’re wrong.”
Lucas shrugged.
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, my plan seems to be going off without a hitch. The pack should be wiped out by now, with the exception of Atticus, who’ll be helpfully depositing his millions into the designated account any minute now.”
The car came to a stop and the driver killed the engine.
“And you’ll be right where you should be, at my side. With the money and power I’ve earned for us, we can do anything. We can even start that family you’ve always wanted.”
Thoughts of a wanting a family flooded back into Tessa’s mind. It was true, starting a family was a journey that she’d always imagined going on with Lucas. But as the years went on, the idea grew more and more distant, until it was only a shadow of a thought. She’d felt that they’d grown so accustomed to their lives as they were that there was simply no room for a baby. But now that Lucas spoke the words aloud, she realized that the love that she had felt for Lucas had simply faded over time, and with it, the desire to start a family with him. And as she grew older, on some level she felt that family was just something that was never going to happen for her.
But now that things were the way they were now, the idea of carrying Lucas’s child brought a feeling of sickness to Tessa’s stomach.
“I’ll never start a family with you,” said Tessa, her eyes narrow, her glare as sharp as blades.
But Lucas only smiled in response, a sly, knowing smile.
“We’ll see about that.”
The driver, a reedy man in a button-up shirt of blue silk and a pair of jeans embellished with rhinestones opened the doors and led the two out of the car, the pair of gang members following close behind. That familiar thumping bass, the same one that she’d heard that night weeks ago, filled her ears. Tessa wanted nothing more than to leave, to never see this horrible place or its hundreds of wasted, junkie inhabitants ever again. But as Lucas took her arm in his grip, she knew that this wasn’t possible.
“Come with me, Tess,” he said, flashing a toothy smiled as he gazed at her with narrowed eyes.
The driver opened the door from the garage, leading to a small, dark, hallway. The volume of the party increased as they reached the end, and once they did, the driver, flashing a smile of his own, opened the door. Beyond was a crowd of parties, dancing to the music, their bodies filling all available space of the farmhouse. But once Lucas entered with Tessa at his side, all eyes nearby fell upon them.
The crowd held still for a moment, as if confirming what they were seeing, before bursting into wild cheering. To Tessa, they seemed to be celebrating Lucas’s return, and she surmised that he must’ve told them that when he came back his business with the Swifts would be long-finished.
Lucas held up a hand, a smile on his face. The crowd continued cheering and Tessa’s gaze swept upon the jubilant masses, noting that each face seemed to be stricken by the effects of meth abuse in its own way. Some were pock-marked, some were red-eyed, some were prematurely-aged. But all looked terrible.
“They’re celebrating us,” said Lucas, yelling to Tessa over the crowd. “I told them that when I returned with you at my side, it would mean that we’d won.”
Horror crept through the Tessa as she looked over the crowd.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked, yelling louder. “These are your people, I’m their king. And you’re my queen.”
Tessa felt as though she wanted to drop to her knees and scream. It was hell that Lucas promised her, a horrible reign over a court of the damned.
CHAPTER 21
“What’s the plan, big brother?” asked Clyde to Atticus, who was looking out through the living room wall at the darkened woods beyond the compound.
“We go get her, it’s as simple as that.”
“That much is obvious,” said Ian, entering the room, his feet crunching on the broken glass that lay strewn across the floor. “But what a
re you proposing, exactly?”
Atticus was still figuring out just how he wanted to approach the plan of rescuing Tessa and destroying the meth operation. But he had some ideas. And all of them ended with him poised over Lucas, preparing to rip him into shreds with deadly swipes of his claws.
“Let the men get a few hour’s rest,” said Atticus, not turning away from the window. “And that goes for you all, if you need it.”
He could sense that Roland was there in the room with them. Turning around, his instinct was confirmed: his three brothers stood side-by-side, awaiting orders.
“No need for rest here,” said Roland. “I’m ready to do what needs to be done.”
“Yeah,” added Ian. “I’m still riding a high from the fight in the woods.”
“I just want to get Tessa back,” said Clyde. “Every moment she’s with Lucas is another moment she has to suffer.”
Atticus nodded, pleased that his brothers were as loyal as ever. He considered just how he might reward them for their loyalty when this business was taken care of.
After a moment of thought, he had just the idea.
But for now, he needed to figure out how to both take advantage of the element of surprise and to overcome the numerical advantage that the gang had.
“How many junkies did the pack take out in the woods?” asked Lucas.
“Hmm,” thought aloud Roland. “Had to have been at least 30.”
“30?” asked Atticus, surprised. “Then that means we can take them at three-to-one odds. Maybe more if we surprise them.”
Then, a thought occurred to Atticus.
“Ian, do you still have the satellite map of the region? The one that showed all of the infrastructure?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I think I just might have an idea.”
* * *
It was hours later, and the pack was ready to take the fight to the gang. But as they followed Atticus through the woods, still in their human forms, running through the still evening air, each man was gripped with the question of what Atticus had in mind, exactly. He had them bring no weapons, all dressed in outfits of their “worst” clothes- what Atticus told them to wear.
