"Why is that?"
Jeffery shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. I'm not a biologist. The point is, when we encounter these male-female relationships, it's our job to bring the mother and child home. She usually doesn't want to leave, and he usually doesn't want to turn. Things get violent. The child is frequently left orphaned; a ward of the colony."
Jeffery sighed heavily again, struggling with the admissions.
"I used to petition the council every quarter to extend our protection to the human parent. I cited decreased loss of life; decreased visibility; everything I could think of. They shot me down every time on the basis of shifter safety and privacy. Then Alex and I got close, and I tried to go through him. I don't know, looking back on it, if he even talked to anyone about it. He said he would, but I never heard anything afterward. The last time I asked, he snapped at me, told me that these things take time and I needed to learn some patience. So I stopped asking and went back to doing what I was told, when I was told."
Jeffery chewed his lip for a while. Jordan didn't know what to say. He didn't feel like Jeffery's story was finished.
"I still think we do a lot of good. A lot of good," Jeffery said, adamantly. "We help people get what they need to live how they want to live, as long as how they want to live lies within certain parameters. It isn't ideal, but it was working. Well... working as well as any bureaucracy can work. People slipped through the cracks. People died on the run. But up until last week we had avoided wide exposure and we had a handful of human allies working with us to keep everyone safe. Between our failures and Montague's successes, the whole landscape has changed. I wish I knew Montague's end game."
"I have his number," Jordan said, only half joking. "We could call him and ask."
Jeffery shook his head with a small smile.
"Good idea," Jeffery said. "Hey, Montague, quick question. Are you trying to take over the entire world, or just... oh, hold on. Are we being pulled over?"
"Looks that way," Jordan said, turning his wheel.
The little box on the state border which was usually occupied by a single, sleepy attendant was currently surrounded by police officers. They waved Jordan to the shoulder and he complied. The officers drew their guns as the sheriff approached.
"License and registration," the sheriff ordered.
"It's in the glove box," Jordan told him, slowly moving toward it. "Here."
He handed the paperwork to the sheriff, who merely glanced at his name and nodded.
"Mr. Hacker, I'm afraid you and your friend here will need to come with me."
"Am I being arrested?"
"You are being detained on suspicion of child abuse and endangerment."
"Child abuse?" Jordan asked. "Whose child?"
"Yours."
"She's in the back," Jordan said, nodding his head at his daughter, who waved happily. "She hasn't been abused."
"That's for us to decide," the sheriff said. "We also have you on property damage, shoplifting, reckless driving and conspiracy charges."
None of which fall under his jurisdiction, Jordan realized with a start. He peered at the sheriff's badge. Colm Malloy, Colombia County Sheriff. He glanced up at the Sheriff's eyes in the dwindling light, and they glowed yellow. In a sudden rush of panicked clarity, he flipped on his headlights and shone his brights at the line of officers. Each pair of eyes reflected back at him, like a uniform-clad band of coyotes. The Sheriff glanced over his shoulder at his officers, then leaned in the window with a leering smirk.
"Maybe this'll teach you to keep your phone on," he said, his voice grating like a dial-up tone. "You've missed some real important calls the last few days, Hacker."
"Jordan," Jeffery murmured. "Gun it."
"Darla..."
"Gun. It."
"What was that you said? Outreach scum."
The sheriff turned and spat. At that same moment, Jordan slammed on the gas, ripping through every instinct which told him to sit tight and behave. He barreled directly toward the line of cops, and they began to fire. His windshield turned to squares of glass confetti before his eyes, and fire blazed through his shoulder. He turned his truck at the last second, ripping through the gate which separated Oregon from Washington and speeding away as the accelerator heated up beneath his foot. He heard the Sheriff bellow at his officers to hold their fire, and thanked God for small miracles.
"Jeffery, you good?"
"I'm fine," Jeffery said, his voice high and panicked.
Jordan glanced over and cursed at the scarlet stream flowing from Jeffery's chest. He looked over his shoulder to check on Darla. She was gripping her seat tightly in her chubby little fists, wide-eyed and silent. He couldn't see blood, but that didn't mean there wasn't any.
"Darla! You good?"
"Scared!"
"Are you hurt?"
"I scared Daddy! Too windy!"
"Are! You! Hurt!"
"Daddy! Close the window!"
"I can't!" He muttered a string of curses under his breath, then turned his attention back to Jeffery.
Jeffery was gasping for breath and his face was pale. The gushing stream had slowed to a trickle, but Jordan noticed that Jeffery's finger was wedged in the bullet hole.
"I... gotta... shift," Jeffery gasped.
"Do it!"
"Daylight... traffic..."
"God damn it, Jeffery, shift! You die in front of my daughter I swear to God I will beat the shit out of you."
Jeffery offered a weak grin, then closed his eyes. Jordan panicked for a moment, thinking he'd died, and nearly ran them off the road. Red and blue flashed across the surfaces of the world around him as he sped through it. He wondered why they weren't trying to clip his bumper, but then he glanced back at Darla. They wanted the princess. Everyone and their goddamn father wanted his princess. He wouldn't let them take her. She was covering her face with her hands, trying to stay out of the wind. The sharp scent of urine filled his nostrils, and he watched the wet spot spread across her leggings. His baby was terrified.
The cracking seat beside him brought his attention sharply back to Jeffery. He was shifting, pressing against the constraints of his seat, which broke downward as the roof bulged upward, and Jordan was suddenly dealing with a hairy elbow in his vision. He ducked beneath it to watch the road, then turned to check Darla's position. In the center seat, she was directly in the wind, but out of danger of being squashed by Jeffery's transformation.
A police cruiser pulled up beside them.
"Pull over!" A man's voice crackled through the air. "Pull over right now!"
"Go fuck yourself!" Jordan shouted. He gunned the accelerator and pulled ahead for a moment, but the police cars were faster and they were out of magic juice for the tank. They stayed level with him, boxing him in. It was going to take some serious action hero shit to get out of this, and that would be a hell of a lot easier if shaggy the beast wasn't unbalancing the truck.
"Daddy! Bad word!"
"Sorry, Darla! Hang on!"
The ditch at the side of the highway had flattened out, and what the truck lacked in speed it made up for in off-road ability. Jordan braked suddenly, letting the cruisers whiz past, then turned the truck hard to the right, disappearing into a field of high, golden wheat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jeffery instinctively shielded Darla from the pins and needles of flying wheat stalks as Jordan drove half-blind through the field. He'd turned the headlights off and took few turns, as turning the truck with Jeffery's excessive bulk on one side led to heart-wrenching side-to-side swaying. The last thing they needed was to roll the truck right now. Lights shone on three sides over the stalks in the deepening twilight, and Jeffery was relieved that Jordan chose to push away from them, into the darkness. They were going to need an extraction.
Jeffery waited until they had burst out the other side of the field into an apple orchard, then shifted back into his human form as straw fell away from him in a golden cascade. The bullet which had been lod
ged deep in his chest had risen to the surface, an irritating pressure, but not life-threatening any longer. He glanced down at the wound, and could see the metal glinting in the low light. He should have stayed in his half form a little longer, but there wasn't time for that now. He yanked his satchel open and pawed around for his phone, then dialed Bates's direct line.
"Bates," an irritated voice answered.
"Bates, we need an extraction ASAP," Jeffery bellowed. "Montague has over a thousand shifters, and we have a pack on our ass right now."
"Where are you?"
"Just north of the Oregon Washington border. I'll text you the coordinates. Get us the hell out of here."
"Right. Code word... shit. This line isn't secure. Hey, remember what I called you that day you lost three shifters?"
Jeffery winced. Of course he remembered.
"Yep."
"That's the code word. If the extraction team doesn't open with that word, get the hell out."
"Yes, sir."
"How many?"
"Three. Two adults and a child."
"Send the coordinates, the team is on their way."
Jeffery hung up and turned his GPS back on. He stared at it in disbelief for a long moment, then cursed.
"What's the problem?" Jordan asked.
"This piece of..." He glanced back at Darla, who was staring wide-eyed out the window. "...technology is trying to tell me we're driving through Salt Lake!"
"What?" Jordan said, whipping his head around. "Oh... crud. I screwed up."
"What do you mean? When did you get into my phone?"
"I didn't," Jordan snapped. "I got into Montague's tracer and... it's hard to explain, point is, whatever satellite we're hitting is confused as hell. I can fix it but it's going to take me a minute, and it's going to leave us vulnerable to Montague tracking us again."
Jeffery thought about it for a second, holding on for dear life as they bounced through the orchard.
"Can you turn it off just long enough to get our location, then turn it on again?"
"I can, but you're going to have to be quick."
"Yeah, no problem. Stop the truck."
Jordan stopped and immediately grabbed his laptop out from under the seat between Jeffery's legs. It booted up quickly, and his fingers flew like wildfire over the keys.
"Get ready," he said.
Jeffery stared at his phone, pen and paper at the ready. Jordan hit a button.
"Now," he said.
The map immediately righted itself, showing them exactly where they should be. Jeffery wrote down their exact coordinates at lightning speed.
"Okay, go!"
The map flipped again, showing them in Salt Lake once more.
"How long was that?" Jeffery asked.
"Twenty seconds."
"Long enough for them to track us?"
"Yeah."
"Then I'll send these, and tell him we're heading... shit, which way?"
"Watch your mouth," Jordan said, absently. "This shows us heading east, which means we're actually driving north. Huh. That's convenient."
"Too convenient. He'll be expecting us to head north."
"Then we'll drive east until the extraction team meets us."
Jordan turned the wheel and drove in the appropriate direction as Jeffery relayed the information to Bates. Their headlights were still off, and the sun had set fully, so they crept through the unfamiliar terrain in the dark. Jeffery crossed his fingers, hoping they wouldn't drive headlong into a gully. Jordan must have been thinking the same thing, because he flipped the lights on for a fraction of a second, then flipped them off again. They were nearly out of the orchard. Jordan pointed the truck at the dirt road he'd noticed just to their right, then slammed on his brakes. There, in the light of the newly-risen moon, stood a wolf.
"What are you doing? Drive!"
"What if it's one of yours?"
"It's not, it would have said the code word. Damn it, Jordan, run it over!"
"Puppy!" Darla squealed, suddenly noticing the creature.
"Well, I can't do it now," Jordan growled. He put the truck in reverse and began rolling backward. The wolf followed. It was joined moments later by wolves on their left and right, and Jordan slammed on the brakes when he heard a wolf howl directly behind them. They were surrounded and, as the wolves began to circle them, more joined the group. They walked as one around the truck, like some kind of terrifying carousel. Jeffery began to sweat. Their only chance was to hit the gas and run them over, but Darla... that's an image that would live on in Darla's mind forever. Nobody knew that better than he did.
"What are they waiting for?" Jordan asked.
Jeffery shook his head and opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a voice that sent chills down his spine and bile into his throat before he had the chance.
"Hacker! My man! I thought you and I had an agreement."
Jordan flipped the headlights on to reveal Montague standing just behind the circle of wolves, wearing a fur cape and looking decidedly more savage than he had the first time Jordan had met him.
"You take the camper... and I call you when I need a favor. How you gonna hold up your end of the deal if your phone's never on?"
"What do you want?" Jordan asked.
"A favor. The favor you owe me."
"Right. Care to specify?"
"Well, you see it seems that you have something I want. Something I need, really. You hold the key to my salvation, Hacker! See, if you hand her over, I can promise her a good life. A perfect life. You and she will live together for as long as you like, until she's ready to be my queen. What do you know about your little girl's entitlement, Hacker?"
"Not a damn thing," Jordan said.
"Yeah, yeah. Problem is, I don't believe you. See, I was very clear about keeping that girl of yours away from the Outreach... and now I see you've been riding with one. Now why would that be?"
"Well, see, when one of your guys tried to kill me and kidnap my daughter, it seemed like the thing to do."
"One of mine?" Montague laughed, boisterously. "I know you don't know much about shifters, brother, but you see... the Outreach has these code names. What name did the man give you?"
Jordan ground his teeth.
"The same name that he gave April when he gutted her," Jeffery interjected. "The same name he gave the M.E. when he locked him in his own freezer. The same name he's been giving to each and every ally that has turned up dead over the last year."
"Sounds like your organization has some problems with rebels," Montague said, with a toothy grin. "Can't say as I blame them."
"No," Jeffery snapped. "What our organization has a problem with is rogue alphas like you thinking they can just start their own empire from scratch."
"Bites are more efficient than scratch," Montague shrugged. "But yes, that's the gist of it."
"Why?" Jordan asked.
Montague pulled himself up to his full height, his eyes flashing like fire in the headlights.
"Because," he said, "the Outreach spouts high-minded ideology about freedom. About developing symbiotic relationships with the humans. About blending in. Keep your head down. Work your forty. Have a beer. They strip everything that makes us unique in the name of peace. It isn't peace. It's goddamned genocide. Our people are dwindling in both number and power, and what does the Outreach do?"
Montague's eyes grew dark and angry, and he stepped through the circle of wolves to put his hands on the hood of the truck.
"They kill everyone who doesn't comply. We're already dying like dogs, and the Outreach sees fit to kill their own? Jordan, brother, you're in with the wrong pack. You take your little girl to Steel, you ain't ever gonna see her again. God forbid she falls in love with a human. They'll drag her, kicking and screaming from her home, baby cryin' in some asshole's cold arms, and they'll shoot her in the head. Bye-bye little girl! And you'll have to live with that. You will have to live with the fact that you contributed to your own daughter's
death by buying into their bullshit message of peace."
"So what's your alternative?" Jordan asked, gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.
"What is the alternative to false peace? Honest war! You, me, my people, your daughter... we can't rely on the bureaucrats to watch our backs, not anymore. We watch our own! Real freedom is the freedom to turn humans without filling out papers in triplicate! It's the ability to hunt what we like, where we like, because the humans couldn't stop us if they wanted to! Real freedom is the freedom to keep your family by your side no matter who they fall in love with. It's the freedom to grow old and die before you have to bury your own seed." Montague's voice slowly lost its power as he spoke, and he was trembling by the time he'd finished his speech.
"I agree," Jeffery said, firmly. "With that last bit anyway. I agree. Killing our own people was the worst decision the council ever made. I, and others like me, have been petitioning..."
"Petitioning! Fighting bureaucracy with bureaucracy? That's insane! You won't get anywhere that way! There is only one way to change the tide, and you and I both know what that is."
Jeffery chewed on his thumbnail. If the extraction team took the helicopters, they should be here within the hour. If he could just keep Montague talking until then, they could end all of this in one fell swoop.
"I don't know," he said. "Why don't you enlighten me?"
"How do you kill a snake?" Montague asked, throwing his hands in the air. He began pacing back and forth, weaving through the circle of wolves. "How do you topple an empire? You take the head!"
"I don't understand," Jeffery said.
Jordan shot him a curious look, and Jeffery made a talking motion with his hand, out of Montague's sight.
"What? How can you not understand? The head of the organization. The king of everything."
"Who is that?" Jordan asked. "Like you said, I'm new to this whole shifting thing."
"You listen, brother, and you listen good. There is exactly one thing you need to do to keep your daughter safe forever."
Raising Wolves Page 16
