She was curled into a ball, knees against her chest, hands tied behind her back, blindfolded and gagged. She looked just as vulnerable as she had before, and Cole’s groin twitched. He took a deep breath.
Geoffrey looked up at Cole. “Well, you brought her, all right.” He turned back to the other guys. “Go ahead, fellas.”
Cole was confused. Go ahead?
But then he saw they were armed with tranq guns, and before he could react, they were shooting.
Two tranqs embedded themselves in his chest. He reached up to pull them out, but his arms didn’t work.
He was already falling, losing his balance.
“Knock the girl out too,” said Geoffrey.
It was the last thing that Cole heard.
CHAPTER NINE
Dana woke up with a start to the tape being ripped off of her face. She sputtered, spitting out the gag, and opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was a man’s neck. The man was bent over her.
Dana realized that she was lying on a cold, concrete floor.
The man moved, and she saw his face. She’d never seen him before in her life. There was a snipping sound.
She looked down at her body. The man was using a pair of scissors to cut off her clothes. She had a quick flash of Cole doing the same thing when she was chained in his basement.
And here she was on concrete.
She lashed out all at once, her limbs flailing—
Only to find that her hands wouldn’t move. They were handcuffed in front of her.
“Now, now,” said the man. “Hold still, or you’ll get stuck with these.” He wriggled the scissors in her face.
Horror washed through Dana, like ice water filling her veins. She craned her neck back, trying to get a better idea of her surroundings. It was a basement of some kind. They were definitely underground. The light was scant and the walls were made of concrete blocks. There was a cluster of junk against the wall, rusty bicycles tangled up with a brass headboard.
And then she caught sight of skin—someone else—someone human.
Another woman. No, three other women. They were naked, and they were sitting on the concrete floor. There was a pole running horizontal against the wall, and they were all handcuffed to it. They all huddled, trying to hide themselves behind limbs and hair—matted, dirty hair.
Dana let out a little scream.
And the man snipped the last of her clothing away. “There,” he said. “That’s better.”
Dana scooted backwards, using her legs to try to get away from him. She needed to run.
He caught her and wrenched her to her feet. His voice was soft and soothing, as if he was talking to a small child. “Listen, sweetie, it’s going to be a lot easier if you don’t fight. You’ll only end up tiring yourself out or hurting yourself, because I’ll catch you again.”
“Where am I?” she said.
“That’s not important.” He began dragging her across the basement.
Dana didn’t want to walk, but he was strong, and she didn’t want to be dragged either. “What are you going to do with me?”
The man briskly released one of her hands from the handcuffs. “Anything we want.” And then he secured the other handcuff to the pole.
Now, she was just like the other women here, naked and chained up. What the hell was going on? “Cole,” she said.
The man raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, Randall brought you in here. Enoch’s been telling him he should have killed you when he had the chance, but I can’t say we’re sad to have you.”
Okay, then. So, this man worked for Enoch. Then… then she was still pretending to have been captured by Cole. She needed to stick with the plan, even though Cole had never indicated to her something like this would happen.
Could he have known and kept it from her? Maybe Cole wanted her naked and chained in a basement. Maybe that was all Cole had ever wanted from her.
She was already afraid, but now she was even more afraid. What had she gotten herself into? She’d agreed to this scheme to help the SF, but she’d also agreed because she wanted to be alone with Cole, because she wanted to have an adventure.
Not this kind of adventure, she thought to herself.
Cole wouldn’t hurt her. She trusted him.
But maybe she was crazy to do that. Cole wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy man on earth, after all. And she still remembered the way he’d kissed her and touched her earlier, even though he knew it was hurting her.
Maybe he wasn’t as concerned about her well-being as she might have liked.
* * *
Cole fought to find consciousness. He knew that he was lying down someplace… someplace soft. Was he in bed? Had he been sleeping?
No. He sat straight up, opening his eyes. He remembered everything. The tranqs. Dana.
He was inside an RV, lying on one of the beds. That made sense. Enoch had always liked to move around. They were a transient group after all.
Cole stood up. He wasn’t tied up or otherwise harmed. He moved through the RV to the door, expecting it to be locked. But it opened under his hand, and he stepped outside.
Okay, if he wasn’t being held prisoner, why the tranqs?
“Morning, sunshine,” said an amused voice.
Cole whirled, and there he was. Enoch Borden. Enoch was wearing a white tank-top that showed off the tattoo on his shoulder. The tattoo was a picture of a wolf snapping the neck of an antlered buck.
“Enoch.”
“Cole.” Enoch was grinning. “How the hell are you?”
“Uh… a little groggy. There a reason that you tranqed me?”
“Just being cautious, brother. I had to take your cell phone too, of course. Sorry about that. We left ‘em back with your car. I’ll get you another one.”
So, the SF wouldn’t be able to find them by tracking the phones, then. Great. Enoch was smarter than Cole had given him credit for.
Enoch held out his arms. “Well? I haven’t seen you in years. Come here.”
Cole forced himself to smile, stepping forward.
Enoch pulled him into a bear hug. “So fucking good to have you back.”
Cole hugged back. Enoch was always too touchy-feely for his taste. Cole wasn’t much for hugs. But Enoch was all about the brotherhood of wolves and other nonsense, so Cole went with it.
Enoch pulled away, resting a meaty hand on each of Cole’s shoulders. “So, you had a change of heart after you saw what we did in California?”
“I did,” said Cole. “It’s amazing, really. I couldn’t believe how well you managed it. You killed them all. And no one even suspects wolves.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” said Enoch. “And we’re not done. We’re going to level those pigs at the SF, just wait. Well… you’ll be part of it.”
“Absolutely,” Cole said.
Enoch let go of him. “You want something? A beer maybe?”
“Sure,” said Cole.
Enoch swung open the door to the RV. “I don’t know where the hell Angela is right now. I’ll just run in and grab it for you, okay?”
“Um…” How to put this without raising suspicion? “Dana Gray?”
Enoch swung back around, rolling his eyes. “Oh, fuck, man. There you go again. You’re like a broken record.”
“No, it’s not like that,” said Cole. “I’m just curious. I went to quite a bit of trouble kidnapping her in the first place. I’m just wondering what happened to her.”
“We put her in with the other SF whores.” Enoch jumped up into the RV. His voice was muffled as it filtered out from inside. “Looks like all we got is Schlitz. That a problem?”
“No, that’s fine.”
Enoch reappeared with two cans of beer. He tossed one to Cole.
Cole caught it. Great. Now, the thing was going to be shaken up, and it was going to explode all over him the minute he opened it up. And on top of that, Enoch had sidestepped the whole issue of Dana, which meant that Cole was going to have t
o bring it up again, and that was probably going to make him look even more desperate. Damn it.
Enoch clapped him on the back. “Have a seat, brother.” He pointed at a table, which was set up under and awning that jutted out from the RV.
Cole allowed himself to be led over. He sat down and set the beer on the table.
“I’m going to go see if I can hunt down that sister of yours,” said Enoch, grinning. “Make yourself comfortable.” He turned and walked off.
Great. Now Enoch was gone. Where the hell was Dana?
Cole surveyed his surroundings. It looked pretty typical of one of Enoch’s camps. There were five or six RVs set up in an arc. Enoch and his men were all transitory, never really setting down roots. Cole used to travel with them, after he’d escaped from the SF the first time.
A few hundred feet away, there was a crumbling farmhouse. It looked like half of the thing had been burned away in a fire or something. That probably meant that they were camping on somebody’s land. Someone who was either part of Enoch’s inner circle or who worked with him occasionally.
Enoch knew better than to trespass just anywhere. Most of his camps were carefully planned out. They looked pretty settled into this one. There were tables set up, fire pits surrounded by chairs, and a few tents out beyond the RVs. Near the tents, a makeshift kitchen had been set up, full of camp stoves and dishes. A few coolers sat nearby. The people without RVs, who slept in the tents, probably used the kitchen.
Ruefully, Cole opened his beer.
White foam bubbled up over the lip of the can.
Cole sucked it away.
He didn’t see Dana anywhere, and he didn’t see any sign of her or any “SF whores,” whatever the hell that meant. He’d hoped—for a few minutes anyway—that maybe Enoch had just left her back there in the trunk of the car. Seemed like something Enoch would do, figuring that if Cole really didn’t care about Dana anymore, it wouldn’t matter if she were abandoned.
But after Enoch’s comment about the SF, Cole had a different idea, and it seized him with frozen terror.
Enoch didn’t like the SF, and he’d killed an entire headquarters worth of SF employees. What if Dana was dead?
The thought of it made Cole cold and shaky. He’d started this business to save her, to keep her from getting hurt, and if he’d actually gotten her killed, he wasn’t going to be able to live with himself.
Enoch returned with Angela in tow.
When she saw him, Angela’s features broke into a huge grin. She ran for him.
Cole stood up.
She threw herself in his arms. “Hey there, Cole.”
He hugged her back. “Hey.”
She pulled back. “You look good.”
“You too.” He couldn’t help but smile at her as well. Angela was his half-sister. She and their other half-sister Donna, who went by Deedee, were the only children of their father Jimmy who’d left Hunter’s Moon Farm before the crazy bloodbath two years ago. He’d met Enoch through Angela and Deedee.
“Glad you came to your senses, and you’re back with us,” said Angela.
Cole shrugged. “Yeah, well… here I am.”
Angela sat down at the table, and Enoch did too.
Cole took a long draught of his beer and followed suit. “Where’s Deedee?”
Angela and Enoch exchanged a glance.
“What? Is she okay?” said Cole.
“She left about a year ago,” said Enoch.
“She decided she didn’t like sharing,” said Angela, shrugging.
Angela and Deedee had been attached at the hip after they left the farm when they were teenagers. Since they’d been raised in a community where all the women were married to Jimmy, they hadn’t seen much reason not to both get attached to the same guy, at least that was the way Cole had always figured it. Anyway, Angela and Deedee had both been Enoch’s girlfriends.
“Good for her,” said Cole.
Angela glared at him. “God, you’re so conventional.”
Cole arched an eyebrow at her. “Really? Me?”
“She keeps in touch,” said Enoch. “She helps us out with some things now and then. I wish her the best.”
“Me too,” said Angela. “We miss her, though. Enoch misses her. He feels deprived to only have one pussy at his beck and call.”
“Eew,” said Cole. “Can you not talk about your… in front of me?”
Angela giggled. “It’s so easy to make you uncomfortable, Cole.”
“No, he’s right,” said Enoch. “We should shut up about ourselves. Everything’s same as always with us. What have you been up to, Cole?”
“Nothing,” said Cole. He was wracking his brain for some way to bring the conversation back to Dana and the “SF whores.” So help him, if Dana was dead, he was going to—
“You’ve got to have been up to something,” said Enoch. “I know you, brother, and you’re not exactly the type to just settle down somewhere.”
Cole drank more beer. “I’ve been out in the sticks. Staying off the radar. Getting in touch with nature. Nothing exciting.”
“It’s just good to have you back,” said Enoch. He turned to Angela. “Didn’t I tell you he wouldn’t be able to stay away? Didn’t I say it?”
“You did, babe.” She beamed at him.
They both grinned at him.
Cole took another drink of his beer. Fuck it, he was just going to have to do it. “So, Enoch, uh, I just gotta ask. What do you mean by SF whores?”
Enoch clutched his chest. “You will not let this shit go, will you? You’re still wondering where she is.”
“I’m curious,” said Cole.
“Man, you’re not over that bitch at all.”
“I’m as over her as I’m going to get.” Cole glared at him. “What’d you do with her?”
Enoch sighed. “Look, some of the guys were getting antsy, and I let them take a few of the bitches from the SF. Keeps ‘em, you know, calm.”
“You mean you captured women from the branch out in California?”
“Yeah,” said Enoch. “So, they’re the SF whores, and they’re around here somewhere. She’s with them.”
Shit. What the hell was happening to Dana? Cole gripped the beer can tighter. The metal dented. “You’re okay with this, Angela?”
“Well, we were going to kill them,” she said. “The way I see it, they’re lucky.”
“I figured,” said Enoch, “that if you captured her, you were probably planning on, you know, having your way with her, if you haven’t done so already, so I figured that was the best place for her.”
“Yeah,” said Cole slowly. “But I wasn’t planning on… sharing her. Guess Deedee and I have that in common.”
Enoch rolled his eyes. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Cole.”
Cole forced himself to stay calm. “Seriously, Enoch. I don’t want your guys thinking she’s open season, if you know what I mean. I’m a little possessive about her.”
“Sure, you are.”
“Well, do they know that?” said Cole.
Enoch sighed. “I’ll make a call, okay?” He dug his phone out of his pocket. “No one will touch your precious Dana.”
“Thank you.” Cole upended the beer into his mouth and swallowed the rest of it.
* * *
“What’s your name?” whispered one of the other naked women to Dana.
“Dana. Yours?” She was huddled against the wall, her knees against her chest. The handcuff that held one of her wrists didn’t afford her a lot of movement, but she could still wrap both her hands around her knees.
“Kirsten.” The woman scooted forward. Her face was dirty, and she looked frightened, but her eyes were bright. “Where did you come from? Do you work for the SF?”
“I do,” said Dana. “Do you?”
Kirsten nodded. “We all worked at the west coast branch. But I don’t know you. You don’t work there.”
“No, I work in Pennsylvania.”
“Oh.” Kirsten bit her
lip. “Did they strike there too?”
“Not yet,” said Dana. “I’m here to try to stop them, but… well, I’m not sure my plan is going very well.”
“Then they know about this group? They know what they’re doing? They’re working to stop them?”
“Yeah,” said Dana.
“Does the SF know you’re here?”
“Well…” Dana looked around. “We went on this mission to get Enoch’s location. If…” What should she call Cole? “If my, um, partner still has his phone, then they’ll be tracking it. They could be here soon.”
Kirsten breathed out an audible sigh. “Really?” She turned to the other women. “Did you hear that? They’re going to get us out. We’re going to be rescued.”
The other women looked up, but none of them looked particularly excited by the news. They all had wary, beaten looks on their faces. Dana couldn’t handle looking at them for too long. She rested her forehead against her knees. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why these women were here and what had been done to them. She wanted to reassure them that they would be rescued, and that nothing else would happen to them, but she had to admit, she was too worried about herself to be reassuring at the moment.
A bad thought had occurred to her. A horrible thought.
These were the wolves that Cole used to be close to. They’d been in communication with him while he was imprisoned in the SF. And she knew Cole’s philosophies about killing and werewolves. He thought that wolves were meant to run free and be predators. If they needed to kill humans, then so be it. Cole saw it as population control. Even after everything she’d been through with him, he’d never taken that back. He still believed it.
So, what if all the things he’d said to Ursula were just posturing? What if Cole had actually captured her to get back into Enoch’s good graces? What if she really were a prisoner here? What if Cole had brought her here on purpose?
She didn’t want to believe that it was true. But it was hard to think hopeful thoughts when she was chained up and naked. When she was surrounded by broken women who had dead eyes.
Was that going to happen to her too?
Suddenly, it was important that she understand exactly how bad it was down here. “Kirsten?” she said.
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