by Callie Hart
“A wise move, my friend.” Harrison spits into the grass, grinning at me wildly like a mad man. “Live to fuck another day. It’s a good motto to have around here.”
“I’m sure you could give two shits if I live to fuck another day,” I mutter.
“Don’t be so sulky. I was just doing my job. I’m sure you can understand what that’s like.” When I don’t say anything, he continues. “You’re ex-military. You know what it’s like to take orders. You weren’t just fucking around in the desert, doing whatever the fuck you wanted there, either.”
“How do you know I’m ex-military?”
Harrison rocks back on his heels, peering into the darkness. “Come on. It’s obvious. Might as well be written all over you, asshole. You have that way of walking. Talking. Breathing. If you’re not ex-military, I’m the fucking Queen of Sheba.”
I grunt. “But not you. You just wish you were. You were probably out there as part of a private security company, right? The hired help who couldn’t make it into the Marines? Running around the hot zones, wearing night vision goggles and khakis from fucking J Crew.”
He laughs a sour laugh. “The pay was good. And J Crew khakis are really good quality.”
“I’m sure they are.” I’d normally take a few more shots at him; he’s the type of dude who’ll snap and explode if you rile him up enough, but then four guys emerge from the house, carrying a white shrouded object that can only be a body wrapped up in a sheet, and I’ve suddenly lost all interest in the man standing next to me.
“Is that…?”
“The guy you shot in the chest? Yeah.” Harrison leaves, walking off toward Fernando, and I make a decision: I follow after him, wondering what the hell is about to happen. Plato hisses my name, trying to get my attention, but I ignore him, trying to appear confident and curious as we approach Fernando. The older man wipes his forehead with a fresh, pure white handkerchief, then tucks it neatly into the breast pocket of his blazer. He nods when he sees Harrison, and then holds out his hand for me to shake. His grip is probably a little tighter than it needs to be.
“I see you’ve met Harrison,” he says stiffly. I hear what he really means to say in the frigid tone of his voice: I see Harrison busted down your door and had someone violate your asshole. Harrison shifts uncomfortably, looking off into the forest. He doesn’t tell his boss that I refused to spread my butt cheeks for him. I don’t feel like offering up the information either, and Fernando continues on non-the-wiser. “Your antics earlier have left us in an unfortunate position, Mr. Garrett. I have a body to dispose of, and only one way of doing that quickly and efficiently. In truth, I love feeding my dogs. But I try not to give them human flesh too often. It makes them bold. Inquisitive. They get a taste for it, and…well. They have taken people coming in and out of the house before. Unfortunate. Very unfortunate.”
I’m betting Fernando doesn’t get postal service up here, then. No mailman in his right mind would loiter on the front doorstep if he suspected he might be set upon by a pack of savage animals.
“I thought you might like to watch up here with me when the wolves arrive. Luckily they are already in the area,” Fernando says, throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Normally we must call them with an alarm, but not today. Some of my men are out in the forest, herding them in this direction as we speak.”
“I wouldn’t have thought wolves are native to an environment like this,” I say.
Fernando shakes his head from side to side. “There are many areas of Ecuador that are inhabited by wolves. Admittedly, the Inter-Andean valleys are more suited to them than here, perhaps. But understand, the wolves in my forests are not wild. I brought them here. I have trained them to survive in this place, and they have thrived. Now, there are over a hundred wild wolves living in these mountains. I like to think of myself as their guardian. Their shepherd, if you will. I’d like you to witness their beauty for yourself. You will see why I love them so much. Come.” Fernando heads off in the direction of the tree line. He doesn’t have a weapon with him. None of his riflemen follow after him, though they watch with sharp eyes. Harrison elbows me in the side.
“Careful he doesn’t slit your throat out there, man. His dogs love lapping up blood from the dirt.”
“Fuck you.”
“Whatever.” He shrugs. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I don’t have my gun now, either. I searched for it among my scattered possessions after Harrison and his men left, but it was nowhere to be found; he obviously took it with him when he left my room, and asking for it back seemed inappropriate. So I follow after Fernando with my hands in my pockets, my fingers closing around the handle of my small balisong knife. His men clearly left it for me because of its size. It’s tiny, but they have no idea what I can do with the smallest sliver of sharpened steel. It’ll definitely be enough to protect myself from a hungry wolf. I’m hoping that’s the case, anyway.
When I reach Fernando, he puts his arm around my shoulders again, and points into the trees. “All of Ecuador used to be forest and jungle for hundreds of years. Before the conquistadors arrived, the indigenous people of this country were farmers and hunters. Excellent hunters. The wolves were a spiritual animal to us. They are still spiritual to me. If I find out that someone has harmed a wolf here, I am not a happy man. I had a favorite wolf many years ago, Kechu. He was silver, with brilliant blue eyes. Very rare. He was brave. He was so courageous that he would come up here to the house and sit on the lawn, and he and I would watch each other for hours. It felt like we were communicating in some way.
“And then, one day, I came back home after visiting family for a few days, and I saw Kechu chained to a post out here by the trees. He was struggling to get free, whining and afraid, and I was filled with rage. I stormed into the house, demanding to know why my favorite wolf was being treated that way, and my father explained what had happened. Kechu had attacked my eight-year-old sister, and ripped out her throat. He had killed her.
“I was distraught. I loved Kechu, but I had loved my sister more. It felt as though he had betrayed me. I realized after a little while that I was wrong, though. Kechu had not betrayed me. He was following his natural instincts to kill, to eat, and my little sister had been easy prey for him. I took my father’s gun, and I shot Kechu here.” Fernando taps my face with his index finger, above my right eye. “He was my favorite wolf, Mr. Garrett, but he had done something I could not forgive. Even though it was his nature, and even though his actions were not a personal attack to me, they still could not go unpunished. I did what I had to do, even though it broke my heart.”
In the distance, a single, low howl splits the night air apart. Back by the house, the group of men and women gathered in white robes mutter and mumble to one another, panicking like sheep as they shift against one another, trying to move to the rear of the party, further away from the forest. The howl goes up again, and this time it’s joined by another, and then another.
“Their song is quite haunting,” Fernando says. “I’ve always loved it, though it seems to disturb some of my other guests.”
Yeah, no shit. I’m not surprised they find it disturbing, if you’ve been feeding their friends to your little pets. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but I manage to keep my thoughts to myself.
Fernando squeezes my shoulder, sighing. “What do you think of my story, Mr. Garrett? Do you think I did the right thing in killing Kechu?”
“I think once an animal turns against its master, there really isn’t anything else you can do.”
He seems pleased by this response. “Exactly. I am pleased you understand. You remind me of him, you know. In a strange way, I think of him every time I look at you, and it’s like I’m visiting with an old friend. I think I will call you Kechu, if it doesn’t bother you too much.” It’s not a request. He’s going to do it, regardless of if it does bother me or not. I’m not stupid enough to ask him not to, though. And I know what he’s doing: he’s giving me a warn
ing. He will accept me, we can become friends, but no matter how much he likes me, if I fuck up and do something to offend him, or hurt those he cares about, he will shoot me in the head without thinking twice.
“I don’t mind,” I tell him. “I don’t mind at all.” I should be giving him a warning of my own. If I find out my sister has been here, if Fernando has even laid eyes on her for one fucking second, I will do worse to him than shoot him in the head. I’ll be murdering him with my bare hands, and I will be taking my goddamn time with it.
The wolves arrive then. They appear like ghosts, forming out of the shadows, taking shape slowly, gradually. It feels like my eyes are playing tricks on me as they slink forward out of the darkness, as if they aren’t really there, only the suggestion of them as the prowl up toward the house. Their paws make no sound on the short grass. They make strange chittering, yipping noises to one another as they weave around each other’s bodies, eyeing the situation before them.
Are there ten of them? Fifteen? The way they move around one another, dipping in and out of the shadows, makes it impossible to count. Their coats are stunning—brindle, gray, black, tan and stone, all blending together as they shift and press cautiously forward.
The guy I shot, William, has been taken out of the sheet he was carried out in and has been laid out on the grass, arms spread out wide on either side of him, his eyes closed, his skin pale and ashy; the way they’ve arranged him makes him look like some sort of offering. A sacrifice. A worried rumble goes up from Fernando’s players. The men in black have all looked stoic and cool up until now. Some of them have even looked turned on by the whole situation, their eyes bright and shining, filled with anticipation, their hands rubbing at their cocks through their suit pants. Now they don’t look so excited. They look concerned as the wolves pad silently toward them, as if they are made out of the thick silence and the oppressive darkness of the night.
“I’m gonna fucking shoot that one if he comes any closer,” one of the guys hisses. “I don’t like the look of it.”
The wolf pack splits, warily hedging around William’s body. They smell the air as they investigate. They are trying to work out what level of danger this prone man lying in the grass poses to them. I see the moment they catch the scent of death on him. A ripple of excitement runs through the pack, and the largest of the animals, a huge male with a black streak through his gray ruff, darts forward, snapping his teeth at the body. He grows braver when William doesn’t defend himself.
Then, in a whirlwind of fur, flashing teeth and ripping claws, the wolves descend upon the body. It’s mayhem. I cringe as they make short work of William’s shirt, tearing it from his torso, and then it’s flesh they’re tearing from him and not fabric.
Blood spackles their muzzles. They eat in a frenzy, fighting over various different organs they yank from the body. It’s fascinating to watch the hierarchy of the pack in effect: the largest gray wolf is clearly the alpha. A smaller, black wolf must be his second, because he gets to remain at the body, eating, while others dart in and out like fish, grabbing a mouthful here and there where they can. If either the gray or the black wolf bares his teeth, snapping, the others hunker down, golden eyes on the floor, backing away.
“It’s a miracle, no?” Fernando asks, folding his arms across his chest.
“Something like that,” I reply.
The huge gray wolf tips his head back and howls so loudly, the sound echoes off the surrounding mountainside. His pack stops eating and interweaves their own cries and howls in with his, creating a beautiful yet terrifying chorus of ecstasy that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
They eat until there’s nothing left but bones.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A WORD TO THE WISE
I lock my bedroom door when I return to my room. A locked door isn’t going to do much good if Harrison or any of Fernando’s other men decide they want to come pay me another visit, but at least the sound of them kicking the damned door down will wake me up this time. I shower again, feeling dirty after watching the wolves gorge themselves, and then I climb into bed, staring at the ceiling. I already know I’m not going to be able to sleep for hours. I don’t intend on resting, anyway. I just need to wait here long enough to allow everyone else to go to sleep, and then I’m going on a hunt of my own. I need to find out if my sister’s here, and to do that I need to do some snooping.
I should have asked Plato where his room was. It’s likely that Fernando keeps all of his workers together, in the same area of the house. That’s how most of these sick fuckers keep the people they buy and sell like stocks and shares, anyway. I should have asked Plato a lot of things. That guy back in the party room said he’d been here for three years. If anyone knows anything about Laura, it’ll be him. The opportunity to quiz him didn’t arise earlier, when I was watching him fuck that huge blond guy in the ass, though. Nor when I was shooting someone in the chest, and he was dragging me out of that terrible fucking place. I also have no idea if he’s loyal to Fernando, even if his loyalty is only out of fear. There’s every chance he’ll go running to the old man and sound the alarm if I start blabbing about a missing blonde woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to me. I need to figure out whether his bravery today when he helped me was a flash in the pan, or if he actually does want to get the fuck out of here.
I lie in bed for three hours. When I get up and creep out into the hallway, I already know I’ve been seen. Not by any of Fernando’s guards, or by any of his guests. No, the house is deathly silent. Not a soul stirs anywhere in the building as far as I can tell, but that can’t be said for the small white lenses Fernando has mounted all over the walls. Technology never sleeps, after all. I’m positive I’ve already been captured on camera as I make my way down the hallway; it’ll only be a matter of Fernando’s security detail informing him that I was up and about in the night, and that will be it. He’ll know I was sticking my nose in places it doesn’t belong, and I had better have a good excuse when he confronts me or there will be hell to pay.
Good thing I have some time to think on that. As it stands I don’t have an excuse at all, let alone a good one.
Down hallways and down staircases I go, clutching my balisong in my hand, ready to plunge it deep into the chest of any man who might stand in my way. There are so many bedrooms, so many narrow corridors and so many fucking dark corners that I begin to doubt my plan. How the hell am I going to search this place without waking anyone up? It’s like hunting for a needle in a haystack.
I head downstairs, following my gut. If I were Fernando… Wow. That’s a horrifying thought. If I were Fernando, I hopefully wouldn’t be hosting such fucked up sex parties, and I hopefully wouldn’t be kidnapping men and women and forcing them to do unspeakable things to each other for other people’s entertainment. If I were, though, if I were the most deplorable kind of person imaginable, I suspect I’d be keeping my captives under the house, as opposed to in any of the luxurious, comfortable rooms on the top floor. The basement, if there is one in this giant, soulless building, won’t have any windows, which means less chance of escape. And basements are nearly always easy to soundproof, so no faint, desperate cries for help would be heard anywhere else in the house. Seems prudent to me.
I’m on the ground floor, when I hear a muffled scraping sound behind me. At first I think it’s my imagination, heightened by the stress of the situation, but then I hear the sound of quiet, even breathing and I know I’m being watched. Harrison? Maybe Ocho? God knows how many people Fernando has in his employ; it could be any one of those fuckers. I duck to the right, slipping into a shadowed doorway. I have no idea where the door leads, and I don’t find out. I press my back against the wall, opening and closing the door loudly enough that whoever is hanging back in the hallway will think I have walked through, and then I wait.
One, two, three, four, five…
A slender shadow stretches up along the other side of the doorframe, and then suddenly a figure is
standing there, dressed all in black, with a huge, menacing knife in their hand. Scratch that—it’s not a knife. It’s a motherfucking machete, and it’s about to come down on my head. I react, blocking the blow, sending the blade clattering from my attacker’s hand.
“Shit,” he swears under his breath. I grab hold of him by the throat, slamming him into the wall, lifting him a clear foot off the ground as I pin him to the wall.
“Shit’s right, motherfucker. You’re in it up to your neck now.” I pull back my arm, ready to hammer the point of my own flick knife into his throat, when I see freckles, a fuck load of them, and I squint a little closer into the darkness.
“Natalia?”
“Let me…go!” She kicks and scratches, using her fingernails, digging them into my skin. I barely feel a thing, but in the same vein I know she’s leaving a mark on me.
“Quit it,” I snap. “Damn it, Natalia. Be fucking quiet!” That’s a stupid thing to demand of her, I’m sure—she’s going to be yelling for her father the moment I set her down—but I demand it anyway. Then again…I’m not squeezing her throat hard enough to prevent her from screaming, and she hasn’t done it yet. What does that mean? Why isn’t she making more noise than she is right now? I clamp a hand over her mouth, pressing my body against hers so my chest is pinning her to the wall and not my hand wrapped around her throat.
I can feel her tits crushed up against my chest, and it’s almost enough to make my dick hard, especially since she’s still clawing and scratching at me like a hellcat. “Let me go, cabron! I need…I need to fucking talk to you.”
“About what?”
“My father.”
“So talk. You can do that just fine right here. Is he planning on killing me?”
“Yes. But then he’s planning on killing everyone here at some point or another, so…don’t take it personally.”
