I let out a breath. That had happened when we’d been teenagers, still in high school. The fallout had been terrible.
For three months straight, I’d held him while he cried. Every night he’d climb into my window, and every night I’d make room for him in my bed, offering whatever comfort I could.
He’d gotten therapy after that, and I’d thought he’d come to terms with it. I guess he hadn’t. I closed my eyes, my mind in turmoil. What the hell kind of friend had I been, that I’d never seen his pain? Especially since I was sure that this confrontation was something he wanted.
He could have called me at any point and told me that he was okay and not to worry. Yet he hadn’t, and I had to think that this was why. He was hurt, angry, and tired of holding it all inside.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “You weren’t okay and I should have realized that. I… I don’t know what to say.”
My words bounced off him like a spring. “You didn’t want to see. No one did. My mother died in the gutter like a rat and not one skunk gave a damn. Including you.”
I shrunk back with a shudder. He might as well of had hit me with a sledgehammer, it would have hurt less. “Fuck you.” I could hear the tears in my voice and knew they matched the ones rolling down my face. “Fuck you.”
He seemed undaunted. “Back off the case, Rye. You don’t have enough to prove it’s me now, but if you keep going… Well, let’s just say I’m not willing to take that chance.”
I blanched. “You really think you’re making it out of this intact?”
He came to his full height. “I’m trying to offer you grace. I don’t want to hurt you unless I have to.”
I lunged for him, but he spun, landing a hard blow to the right side of my face. Jax leapt into action and the two fought head to head, toe to toe.
I rose from the ground and saw Tec and Drake try to make a move for Jax. I used my thiols to knock them back, then went for Cam, knocking Jax out of the way.
Cam cracked his neck, and we began a slow circling of one another. Thiols crackled between us, but since we were both of skunk descent, it was no different than breathing.
He could still catch these hands, though. This was going to be a straight up, no holds barred, bare-knuckled, street fight. I waited for an opening and then slammed my elbow straight into his face, followed by a quick uppercut. His lip split and he stumbled back with a grunt. I tried it again, but this time, he caught me with a left.
My jaw exploded, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I kicked at his head, and he grabbed me by the foot and spun me around. I went down hard on my side, pain ripping through my whole body. I stopped for a minute trying to breathe through it and check on Jax at the same time. He was doing just fine. He had Tec’s eyes in his hands and Drake on his knees in an invisible choke hold. Satisfied that he was okay, I turned back to my own fight.
I was on all fours now, and Cam grabbed me by the head and slammed it hard into the street. “Told you to let this go.” He grunted. “Why won’t you just fucking listen?”
I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision. My head felt like It had just been put through a blender, but I knew I had to push the pain down in order to stay in the game. I kicked his legs out from under him and then flipped it so that I was on top. I began to rain down relentless blows on his face and body. “How could you? How could you do it? You’re as much skunk as I am. How could you!”
I picked up a rock and smashed him with it. “Send your people to kill me. Did you really think it would be that easy to take me out?” I was shaking with anger and that’s all he needed to get the upper hand.
He elbowed me in my face, and I fell off him and hit the ground. He started to climb on top of me, but headlights appeared, stopping us both.
Drena and the rest of the backup team hopped out of their cars. She ran to Cam and myself and pulled us apart. She seemed more confused than anything. “Why are you fighting each other?” she demanded.
I pointed at Cam, trying to catch my breath. He didn’t wait around for me to find it. Instead, he snatched up Drake and headed for the trees that lined the side of the road. They went right past Tec, but he was dead anyway, so nothing they could do there.
“Get him,” I yelled, finally finding my voice. Too bad no one knew who I was talking about. As far as they were concerned, Cam was still an agent and we now had Drake in custody so everything was fine.
Jax knew better, though, and he made a mad dash to stop them. One of my crew intervened, grabbing Jax and throwing him to the ground.
“Get off him.” I ran to where they were. “We need to stop Cam. Drake works for him. They’re in this together.”
Drena’s eyes told me how unsure she was, and I turned to her in a rage. “I’m not joking! Why do you think we were fighting?” Cam had been an agent for years and had never shown the slightest sign that he was crooked, so I understood her reluctance, but I needed her to trust me on this.
Jax came to his feet, sparing a scowl for the agent who’d tackled him, before turning to us. “She’s not lying. He ran our car off the road.” He pointed to the smashed-up mess that was now minus a roof.
Drena’s eyes still held skepticism. “Are you sure?”
I closed my eyes and tried to have patience. “Drena, come on. This is Cam, I’d never lie on him.”
She nodded, as if that thought hadn’t crossed her mind, and then turned on her heels. “Spread out, but for now we’ll continue to approach agent Cam with honor and respect. Until proven otherwise, he’s still one of us.” It was the best I was going to get, and so I let it slide.
Jax walked with a limp. His face was bruised, right eye swollen, and knuckles raw. He was still standing, though, and that’s what mattered the most. “The last address?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I thought we agreed that was a trap?”
He seemed conflicted. “What if it’s not? Maybe he just saw that we were close and decided to head us off, get us before we got him.”
I turned to Drena. “We have to get there before they do.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You really think they’d go back there?”
I was almost sure of it. “It could be the base of their whole operation. They’re not going to just leave all that stuff for us to find.” I think that’s why he stopped us before we reached the last address. He had too much to lose if we found it.
“They’re on foot,” Drena said.
I gave her a frank look. “This is Cam. He’s probably got cars waiting on every corner.”
“Right.” She left half the agents in the field and the rest of us went by vehicles. We drove lights flashing, foot to the floor, disobeying all traffic signs, in an effort to make it there before Cam did.
A big metal warehouse sat at the end of a dead-end road. A few cars were in the parking lot, and we jumped out knowing we were in for a fight. A pile of metal dog chains lay discarded next to an old chain fence. I picked up two and wrapped them around each knuckle. I wanted to fuck him up and I was willing to use any means I had to do it.
I didn’t wait for the others. Running to the front of the building, I used my thiols to break the lock and then kicked the doors apart. A frenzy of activity was taking place inside. Dozens of people loaded up trunks, unplugged equipment, and rolled up mats. I caught sight of Cam over by a huge desk, hurriedly stuffing some papers into a manila envelope.
I ran straight for him. He turned when he saw me, but I slammed him in the face before he could react. His head snapped back, and blood flew from his mouth and nose.
I pounded him relentlessly, the metal chains on my fist making a clinking sound every time they hit. Someone grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head back. I flipped the person over, but the distraction had been enough for Cam to get his bearings.
He spat blood out of his mouth, then leaped toward me, arms raised. I didn’t move quickly enough and he snatched up a handful of my hair and forced me to the ground with it. He leaned over me
, face in a snarl, eyes hard and unforgiving. “You think you can beat me, little girl? Think I’m one of the men in your harem?”
He began to drag me by my hair. Panic rose in my throat as I clawed desperately at his hands and arms, trying to free myself.
“Didn’t want to hurt you.” He sneered. “Wanted to keep you out of it, but you just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? Just had to keep digging.” He paused and when he spoke again his voice had a little more steel in it. “So here we are. I guess I knew this day would always come.”
The air was thick with the smell of blood, sweat, and other bodily fluids. All around us the fight raged on, and I knew I would have to find some way to break his hold on me.
I dug my nails into his hands, but still he held on. “Gonna teach you a lesson,” he grunted. “Gonna drain you dry. You won’t be able to move for months.”
He dragged me to the back of the warehouse, away from the rest of the fight. An examination table sat by a workbench, full of medical supplies. This must be where they extracted the oil.
Something dark and disturbing weighed heavy on me, as I thought of all the helpless skunks that had no doubt been brought here against their will. Did he drain them all dry? Everything in me wanted that answer to be no. Draining a skunk completely, left us paralyzed for months, sometimes even years, depending on how long it took for us to build the fat back up.
He tossed me on the table. My back hit hard against the cold metal, but I refused to show pain on my face. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“You should feel lucky,” he said, holding me still on the table. “Anybody else do this to me.” He pointed to his battered face, “I’d kill ‘em.”
He picked up a small silver device. I didn’t recognize it, but I would bet that’s what they’d been using to drain the fat.
He turned it on, and the harsh mechanical sound was like a death sentence to my ears. Fuck that. I wasn’t going out without a fight. I used my thiols to knock the supply bench over. It clanged to the floor, and Cam jerked his head to see what the commotion was. That was all the opening I needed.
I wrapped my legs around his neck, got a good grip, and then flipped him over. He hit the floor hard, and I jumped on top of him and begin to pound his face. “You, selfish, sonofabitch. I would have done anything for you! Anything!” With each word, I hit him harder. “You would do this to your own people! They degrade us enough! How could you?” I grabbed him by the shirt. His eyes swam to the back of his head, and I knew he was seconds away from passing out. Disgusted, I let him go and stood. I removed the chains from my hand and used them to tie him to the table.
I turned back toward the fight, aiming to get back in, but noticed that Cam’s crew had been crushed. Many sat handcuffed and gagged on the floor, waiting for transport to the local holding cells.
Drena’s breath came hard as she surveyed the room, making sure there were no stragglers lurking about. Her hair was in disarray, but other than that, she seemed fine. One of the perks of having turtle DNA was the hard shell. When she chose to use it, nothing could touch her. “Backup is already on the way. From the amount of skunk oil here, we’re pretty sure this was his main base of operation. I’m going to check around.”
I scanned the crowd for Jax. I needed to know that he was all right. He must have seen me first, because by the time I caught sight of him, he was already headed my way. He still walked with a limp, his clothes were all but torn off him, and his right arm hung at his side. “You okay?” he asked, once we were in speaking distance.
I shook my head. “I should be asking you that.”
He ran a bruised hand through his hair, which was already doing a good impression of a distorted bird’s nest. “Come on. Let’s go secure the scene.”
We walked until we came to a set of steps that led down to a basement. The smell hit me halfway there. Urine, blood, vomit, and human feces stunk up the air and made me want to hurl. Jax’s eyes met mine, and I was sure we both feared what we were about to find.
Cages. At least forty of them covered the entirety of the floor. Each one had at least two people in them, most of skunk descent. Dirt covered their faces, their bodies rail thin.
Some lay on the floor of their cages, others just squatted. The hair on most of them hung loose and limp, and their eyes… Their eyes almost took my breath away, as most were lost, empty, hollow sockets, that said they never expected to be rescued, and had accepted the fact that this was their life now.
The ones who weren’t of skunk descent must have had unique abilities as well, in order for Cam to be interested in them.
Jax let out a breath and squeezed my hand. “I’ll go get help.”
“Thank you,” I croaked out, not sure I could say much more.
My whole body shook, and I had to lean against the banister to keep from falling over. What the fuck was wrong with Cam? Why would he do this? Was it self-hatred? Or did he just despise every other skunk in the world this much? I shook my head, wondering how had I’d been so blind?
Jax came back, Drena and a few other agents behind him. Drena stopped at the bottom, mouth opening and closing. “Oh, my… this is…” Her voice filled with horror, and she gaped at me as if begging me to tell her this wasn’t real.
I turned away, not able to meet her eyes or anyone else’s.
Jax came behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, engulfing me in his warmth. I let out a slow breath, and closed my eyes, grateful for the support. “They’ve been locked up long enough,” he whispered.
I nodded, and with our combined powers, we began busting the locks off the cages. Drena and the others joined, and soon all those imprisoned were freed. Drena pulled out her phone. “Medic was already on the way. I’m gonna tell them to send extra.”
Relieved that it was finally over, I collapsed against Jax. He caught me so that I didn’t hit the floor, and then lifted me into his arms. I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m not a damsel in distress,” I said, my breath coming hard, my chest rising and falling. “I don’t need you to save me.”
He wiped a few strands of hair out of my face. “Good. Then I’ll just put your ass back down. You’re heavy.”
My grip on him tightened, and suddenly I burst into tears. The last couple of days had been horrific, and now I felt like it was all hitting me at once. “Take me home,” I said, my face in the crook of his neck. “I can debrief later, for now, just take me home.”
He kissed my cheek. “Okay, Rye. I’ll take you home.” Drena threw him her keys, which was her way of saying we were free to go.
The parking lot was filled with agency cars and medic trucks. Everybody was abuzz because the infamous Drake had finally been taken down. I knew some were surprised to see Cam handcuffed and being loaded into the back of a medic truck. But that was a conversation for another day. For now, it was enough that we had them.
Jax put me in the car and closed the door. “Let’s get you home.”
He stayed with me that night and went home the next day. Some of the fallout had spilled over into his agency, so he needed to get back to work right away. We’d parted as friends, and promised to look each other up, whenever we got the chance.
Once the victims had been debriefed, we were able to find Cam’s last three spots and shut them down.
For Cam himself, he wasn’t talking, and neither was Drake. They were both recovering in the prison wing, Cam under police protection.
It had taken weeks to process, but finally, we were satisfied that we’d gotten everything we were going to get. The skunk oil had been logged in as evidence and then administered to those who’d been held against their wills, getting them back to health quicker than any stay in a hospital would have. It was their oil anyway, he’d stolen it from them, so it was only right.
5
Drena and I had been neck deep in paperwork for weeks, and tonight finally marked the end of it. I left the office feeling good that it was over, but not sure how to
move on from Cam’s betrayal. It would take a while, and so for now, I decided to just take it one day at a time.
Once home, I pulled a can of chicken noodle soup out of the cabinet and reached for a bowl. It had been a long night and that’s all I had the energy to fix.
My doorbell rang and I set the soup aside and peeked out the door, hoping it wasn’t Drew, or any of my other male “friends” for that matter.
Jax stood on my porch, a pizza in his hand, and a six-pack under his arm. I opened the door, smiling. “What are you doing here?”
He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and then stepped inside. “I wanted to see you.” He put the pizza and beer on the table. “You don’t have company, do you?” he asked, glancing around.
I got plates out of the cabinet.
He shook his head. “Who eats pizza off a plate? Put them back, we’re grubbing straight out of the box.”
I shrugged. “Fine with me.” I put the plates away.
He took out two beers and put the rest in the fridge. “If you try to get glasses I’m leaving. I’m just telling you that right now.”
“Drink beer out of a glass? I would never,” I said, pretending to be scandalized.
He pulled me onto his lap. “I hope it’s okay that I stopped by. I did try to call first.”
I looked at my phone over on the counter. I’d turned the power off at the office so that I could focus on getting some work done. I just hadn’t turned it back on yet. “I don’t know, depends what you got on this pizza. You did get the right type of beer, so there is that.”
He flipped the box open. “Oh, that wasn’t for you. It’s my favorite drink. I told you that.”
Hmm, the smell from the anchovies, double pepperoni, and triple cheese pizza made my mouth go dry. I licked my lips and then pinched off an anchovy. “Yeah, I guess you can stay.”
A Magical Reckoning: Magic and Mischief Book 1 Page 5
