Chapter Twenty-three 14 page

?He?s not my favorite person either. How?d you get here, Mouse??

?I was sleeping and he grabbed me.?

?From your bed?? Hope was horrified. What did they want with a child? Then it occurred to her the child was in chains and she, the adult, was not. Her stomach felt leaden.

?Mouse? Why did he chain you up??

?Because I?d bite him and he?s scared.?

?Ah, I see.? Hope nodded. ?You?re wolven.?

?Yeah. And after I bite him, Ren?s gonna bite him more and she?s got big teeth. He?s gonna be one sorry pup.?

Ren. Hope was confused. So it was not Ren?s pack that had chased them out of Portland and terrorized them on the road.

?Where is Ren, Mouse?? she asked.

?Dunno.? The voice sounded small again. ?She left to find Isabelle and we were to mind the farm. Then Patrick grabbed me. He pulled my hair. Ren will be mad at him because he did that and disobeyed orders.?

?Okay.? This was interesting. So Mouse was one of Ren?s pack?and Patrick, too, from the sound of it. Why had he grabbed her and Mouse? It was serious stuff to disobey your pack leader. Had Mouse got her facts straight?

Hope was surprised at the age range in Ren?s pack. Isabelle had said they were young, but Mouse?s age put them more in the category of a family den than a gang of feral scavengers. ?Does Patrick not want to be in Ren?s pack anymore??

?I don?t know.? Mouse was troubled by this idea. ?He?s sneaky. Me and Joey never liked him.?

?Joey?? How many were there running around out there?

Mouse sighed, tired with the questions. ?Joey?s in Ren?s pack with me. He?s my best friend. And there?s Jenna and Noah. Jenna?s kind. She?s Noah girlfriend. And Noah?s the best hunter, after Ren. He?s gonna teach me how to skin as soon as Ren says I can have a knife,? she explained patiently.

Mouse?s adoration of Ren was obvious. This corroborated what Isabelle had said earlier. Ren was sounding less and less like the murderous monster she had expected. Hope needed to dig a bit more. Too many pieces of this puzzle were missing.

?I?m sorry for all the stupid questions. Isabelle only told me a few things about the farm.? Hope chose her words carefully.

?Isabelle?? Mouse exploded with excitement. ?You know her? She?s my friend. She had to go away because of an emergency and Ren said she had to go help her.?

?She?s my friend, too,? Hope said, wondering why Ren had covered up Isabelle?s escape, and what that meant.

?I miss her.?

?She misses you all as well.? Hope realized it was true. When Isabelle talked about these kids, which was often, there was genuine warmth in her voice. She wondered how much Isabelle realized this. It was all very odd. Like a little family torn apart.

The chains rattled as Mouse moved her legs. Patrick had shackled her by the ankles. The chain looped through a steel ring attached to the floor and looked tight and uncomfortable.

?How long have you been here?? Hope asked.

?Two days. He goes away lots. Sometimes others come back with him. Three more. He bosses them about like he tried to boss us. The new guys don?t like him much.?

?Three guys were chasing me and my friends. Two of them looked sick. Could they be the same guys?? Hope tried to ascertain just how many there were.

?Yeah. The other two have bad guts. They?re always moaning about it.? Mouse sounded disgusted at such weakness. ?They?ll never be Weres.?

?What?ll happen to them??

?They?ll die. They always die once their guts start to rot,? Mouse said, matter-of-fact.

Hope looked away remembering Isabelle?s pain. She was in trouble. Please let her be in Little Dip by now. Marie could help her, perhaps save her. Hope guessed she?d been in the car trunk for about two hours, though it had felt like a lifetime. That was more than enough time for Godfrey to have found Claude and handed Isabelle over.

?Will your friends come for us?? Mouse asked hopefully.

Hope smiled at the ?us.? ?I?m not sure. I have a rough idea where we are, though. It?s not far away from some other friends I know.?

The chains rattled violently, displaying Mouse?s enthusiasm for this news. ?Will they come??

?They don?t know we?re here.?

?Ren will find us,? Mouse stated with certainty. ?Patrick stinks. Ren will sniff him out and pound him for stealing me. She?ll pound him for hurting you, too. Especially if you?re a friend of Isabelle?s.?

Hope wasn?t sure she wanted to meet this Ren at all, with her big teeth and pounding. But Isabelle clearly loved her, and Mouse adored her?and Patrick had betrayed her? Hope was confused. If Ren wasn?t behind this double kidnap, who was? Someone?or something?much more frightening.

Isabelle wasn?t sure when she?d stopped being the prey and became the hunter. Best of all, her pursuers knew nothing about it. As far as they were concerned, they were hounding an exhausted woman up a sodden, muddy hillside.

She had lost Patrick?s scent quickly, and with it all chance of finding Hope. The incessant rain had washed everything into one big gloop of earth scent.

It was strange, the connection she felt for Hope. Hope had a big heart and had offered nothing but unstinting support. Hope was a den mother. Isabelle realized that had been the magnet drawing her to Hope?s house all along. And now she had lost Hope?s scent and failed her as a friend.

Panicked, at first she had tried to stay close to the tree line, but as her predators flushed her into higher ground the trees had thinned, and her cover with them. It surprised her how fast she had adapted. It seemed second nature to lurk in shadow and move in short, sharp bursts of speed. She intersected these with longer, crouched runs, drawing her hunters farther onto the steeper slopes after her. They were unwell and tiring quickly. They thought they were chasing her, but she knew different. Somewhere, while clawing through rock and thorny scrubland, the roles had reversed. She always moved with a target already mapped out in her mind, be it a boulder or a lone, twisted tree. It gave her the advantage and exposed her pursuers.

On the way to her next waypoint, she realized she could pick up their scents even though they were far away. Higher up, and free of the forest, the air swirled the entire world of the hills toward her. She now knew exactly where her pursuers were, and how to execute her next move. That?s when she decided her next move was to circle around behind them.

Her mind was as sharp and hard as a flint edge. Thoughts sparked off her, yet she moved on instinct alone. This wasn?t learned logic; this was an innate wisdom. Somehow it had seeped through her pores into her organs, through every fiber of her body. Her chills and sweats had gone. She didn?t shiver anymore. Her skin felt crisp and cool; only her feet and hands were hot. Her scalp prickled with excitement. Her chest rumbled in quiet pleasure with a purr for her own cleverness.

She lay on her belly on an escarpment, ignoring the mud creeping through her clothes and onto her skin, and watched her hunters flail about in the gorge below. Her tracks had long gone cold. The beasts circled and snarled and nipped at each other, the healthiest one bullying the weaker two, until all three were on the edge of frenzy.

She rolled away, pleased, and lay with her back in a cold puddle, looking up at the night. The rainstorm was passing. High winds were breaking up the tumbling clouds. Patches of starry sky peeked through, promising a bigger, brighter night. The stars burned holes in her, they riddled her with pinpoints of light and energy. The moon, when it came, would blow her apart.

Her clothes were sopping wet. With little thought, she pulled them off and gloried in the cold night pressing against her nakedness. She stretched her arms and arched her back until her spine popped and her shoulders and elbows crunched. Her ears rang with the splinter and creak of her facial bones shifting. Mandible, maxilla, zygoma all cracked and crunched. She had a moment?s sharp, unpleasant pressure, and then it was past her. Her sinuses flooded with deeper, richer scents and flushed away the pain. These smells were headier than anything she?d experienced before. She felt faint from it, drunk on it.

Lifting her face to a strong gust of wind, she sniffed and snuffled, her wet nose twitching in its squat, leathery muzzle. So many scents?she wanted to explore each one. She wanted all the smells in the world to fill her head, she wanted to suck it all in until her lungs burst. She panted with delight and flipped over onto her hands and knees, then hunched into a sprinter?s start. She licked her lips, flicked her teeth?so smooth, and long, and sharp. Very, very sharp. A bead of blood bubbled on her tongue, and the coarse hairs along the ridge of her spine rose in pleasure. She wriggled her toes in delight. She felt like running. Her thigh muscles were pumped and hard, bursting with energy. Her bare feet tingled and she dug her toes into the grass and dirt. She wanted to run for a million miles. She wanted to run around the widest part of the world, over and over again.

Her fingernails sank into the mud, curved and sharp, like claws. They were claws! Massive claws, on massive paws. I?m brown. My coat is brown. Her last human thought hummed in her head as she shot out of her sprinter?s crouch and bounded forward, leaping, howling, pushing her huge, bunched muscles to their glorious limit.

The wind caressed her fur, her ears twitching as it rushed past. She pulled her muzzle back and bared her canines, and snarled. These Weres had taken her friend. She couldn?t recall much else. She had a friend, and now she was gone, and these three were somehow responsible.

The three wolven in the gorge below froze. They were ignorant, stupid, useless in their newness. Isabelle was new, too. But she knew what to do. She powered into them, bowling them over like ninepins. She flashed her wonderful claws. Throwing a loose roundhouse to the chest of one, she hooked several ribs and tore them from his sternum. His left lung popped like a balloon. She kicked out at the other. A tight, hard stab. Her clawed foot plunged into his unprotected underbelly, ripping his abdomen open like paper.

The healthy one ran, but she didn?t care. She would find him later, and he would tell her whatever she wanted to know. But these two, the dying ones?she was doing them a favor.

Chapter Twenty-three

?It?s not a punctured lung.?

?Thank God.? Godfrey breathed a sigh of relief.

Ren secured the bandage wrapped around Tadpole?s torso. ?His breathing is labored because of shock. His ribs are badly bruised from the kick and he?ll need an X-ray, but I don?t think anything?s broken. At worst, a cracked rib or two.?

?Bastards.?

?I?ve given him a shot of Metacam, and he?ll sleep now out of pure exhaustion.? She dropped her stethoscope into her bag and snapped it shut. ?That?s all I can do for now. We?re lucky I even thought to bring this with me.? She tapped the leather. The truth was the bag and its contents had been packed with Isabelle in mind.

Godfrey looked around the dingy motel room he?d rented only half an hour ago.

?What do we do now?? he asked. ?I can?t leave him here alone, but I have to somehow find Claude and tell him Hope and Isabelle are missing.?

?And what can Claude do about that?? Ren had speculated on what Wonder Boy?s plans were, but he had been so distressed and useless about the dog that she had decided first things first. She would help his pet, and in return, he would help her.

?We were to meet up with Claude along the route, and he would take Isabelle back to Little Dip. Marie was going to help her with her medicines.?

?Isabelle is sick?? Ren tried not to snap the question. Her guts lurched. Isabelle had been robust when she?d last seen her. How far had she declined in the last few weeks? She wanted no other wolven near Isabelle. Only her.

?She wasn?t looking too good,? he said.

?How? What do you mean, not looking good?? This time she did snap.

?Ill. Couldn?t eat. She was in shock when we heard about Barry. But to be honest, she looked off before that. She said she?d been losing weight, not sleeping, stuff like that.? He leaned away from her, unnerved at her tone. She?d better watch that. She didn?t want to turn him off completely; unfortunately, she needed him right now.

Ren nodded. She wasn?t happy.

?You mean Marie Garoul, don?t you?? Her leather bag of tricks seemed lame compared to the famous author of the Garoul almanac?s cure-alls. She pushed down her jealousy.

?Yes. Marie. The Alpha,? Godfrey said uneasily.

Ren realized how cold she sounded speaking of the Garoul matriarch. She turned away and dragged an empty drawer out of the dresser. She had no time for his concerns. He?d find out soon enough she was not what he thought.

?Give me one of those pillows.? She pointed at the bed. She placed it in the drawer and gently laid Tadpole on top. Her mind was racing. The plan had been to take Isabelle to Little Dip. In the circumstances, it was a good plan, except Isabelle hadn?t made it. She was lost out there, sick, and pursued by feral Weres.

?Here.? She handed the makeshift bed over to Godfrey. ?Put this in the foot well at the back of the car. It?s more secure and will keep the drafts off him.?

?We?re leaving??

?We?re going to find your Claude,? she said. She needed reinforcements, no matter how distasteful the idea was.

?I don?t think we can,? Godfrey said. ?I?d love to, but I?ve no idea where he is, and we?re hours behind schedule. My cell phone is in the Lexus, and I don?t know his number to call from a pay phone.?

Ren stiffened. ?Then we go back to the diner.?

Every bone in her body wanted to snap open with frustration. Her marrow boiled with impatience. Isabelle had slipped from her fingers at every turn, and continued to do so. She needed to find her, to hold her, smell her?

?I have another idea,? Godfrey said.

?What??

?They took Hope for a reason. It can?t be to negotiate with me. They must want to talk to Marie.?

Ren grunted. She didn?t get it. She didn?t care about this Hope person. Or Claude and Marie Garoul, either, for that matter.

?Explain.? She led him out to the car.

?Well, if the ferals chasing us weren?t yours, then someone else took Hope. Isabelle seemed to recognize a scent or something. She yelled ?patchwork,? and ran off after Hope.? He tucked Tadpole?s box safely behind the passenger seat.

?Patchwork?? She glared at him. Stupid man.

He slid in the front seat beside her and shrugged. ?It didn?t make sense to me, either. But my point is, nobody kidnaps a Garoul?s mate unless they want to deal with the Garouls.?

He had barely time to click home his seat belt before Ren shot out of the parking space. His head banged against the headrest.

?Ouch. Where are we going?? he asked anxiously.

She slammed on the brakes at the motel exit, and he ricocheted forward in his seat belt with a sharp grunt.

?You tell me,? she said. ?Left or right?? She watched him puff for breath. ?Which way is Little Dip??

?Hey. Psst! Hey.? The urgent whisper crept through the shutters just as dawn began to turn the sky a steely gray. Hope jerked out of an uneasy doze. Her head hurt too much for her to sleep well. Mouse snored gently on the floor opposite, curled into a tight ball, the hard floorboards no problem for her young bones.

Hope scrabbled onto her stiff knees, feeling every minute of her thirty-one years.

?Mouse.? She gently shook the girl?s shoulder. Mouse grunted awake.

?Shush.? Hope held a finger to her lips. ?There?s someone out there. At the window.? She pointed at the closed rear window, just above Mouse?s head.

Mouse was immediately alert. Unfortunately, her slightest movement was accompanied by the loud clank of chains.

?Mouse? Is that you?? The whisper came again.

?Joey,? Mouse cried delightedly and scrambled as close to the window as she was able, scraping her chains across the floor.

?Shush, Mouse. Patrick will hear,? Hope hissed and put her finger to her lips. ?Joey? Your Joey? From Canada?? she asked. She could barely believe it. How had he gotten all the way down here? According to Mouse, Ren?s pack was under orders to mind the farm back in B.C.

?Go tell him it?s me. I can?t move.? Mouse tugged at the chain in a huff.

Hope moved over to the window. ?Joey??

There was silence for a moment. ?Who?s that??

?I?m Hope. Mouse is in here with me. She can?t come to the window. Patrick has chained her up.?

Joey gave an angry hiss at this news. It tailed off into a forlorn silence. Hope waited, would he talk to her?

?Hey. How do I know she?s even in there with you?? he suddenly asked, as if the idea had just occurred to him. ?It could be a trap.?

?It?s not a trap.?

?But it could be??

Hope sighed. ?If it was, you?d be caught by now,? she said.

More silence as he thought this over. ?Okay. Prove it.?

?Prove what?? This was the worst rescue attempt Hope had ever heard of.

?Prove it?s not a trap.?

?Well?do you feel trapped??

More silence followed this.

?No. But it wasn?t a good test,? he said finally. ?Hey. I know. Prove Mouse is in there with you.?

?How? She can?t yell. That would wake everyone up.?

?Get her to tell you something only she and me know.? He sounded very satisfied with this plan.

?Okay. Wait a minute.?

?Wait! How do I know you?re not going to warn the others I?m he??

?Oh, shut up. I?ll be back in a minute.?

Hope was back in seconds. ?Mouse says you?re stupid and you smell.?

Joey giggled, and Hope took it she had passed the test.

?Okay, Joey. What?s the plan? Can you get us out of here??

?Um. I can pull the shutters off?? he said.

?Mouse is chained to the floor,? she reminded him. ?And Patrick has the key. We don?t know how many there are of them out there.?

?I?ll go look.?

?Please be careful.?

Joey slid back a few minutes later. ?There?s only Patrick.? He sounded excited. ?I can take him any time.?

?Mouse says you can?t because your guts are busted and Patrick will whup you good,? Hope relayed.

?I can jump him easy.? Joey sounded petulant. This was dangerous. Hope didn?t want him to try something rash. He was their only chance of escape, and that stacked the odds against them heavily.

?You?ll need to surprise him, Joey. Be clever. Get him from behind somehow.?

She could hear Joey sucking his teeth as he mulled this over.

?Mouse?? Hope turned back into the room. ?We do get fed, don?t we??

Mouse nodded. ?Breakfast is chicken bones. He?ll bring that soon.?

?I can hardly wait.? She went back to Joey. ?Joey. Lie low until you see Patrick bringing us breakfast. When he opens the door I?m going to distract him, and you sneak up on him. Okay??

?What are you gonna do?? he asked eagerly.

?Never mind. You just sneak up on him and sucker punch him good.? She thought that might appeal to Joey.

?He?s coming,? Mouse whispered.

?He?s on his way, Joey. Leave the distraction to me. You get ready to pounce.?

?You bet.? And Joey was gone.

?What are you going to do?? Mouse asked. She sounded worried. ?Patrick?s sneaky. He?ll open the door a crack and push the food in.?

Hope could hear his footsteps now, long minutes after Mouse?s keen hearing had picked up on them.

?Don?t worry. I have ideas.? She?d better. There was very little thinking time left.

The lock rattled, and the door screeched open about one foot. The dim light of a downcast day crept in around Patrick?s shadow. He set a tin tray with a plate of chicken bones down on the floor.

?Better make it last, ladies. I?ll be heading out?? His words trailed away as a small round object trundled out of the darkest corner toward him. It rolled slowly across the floorboards. He frowned. The ball bumped into the rim of the tin tray with a soft clunk. He reached for it, full of cautious curiosity. It was barely in his fingers when he let out a surprised yelp and dropped Hope?s prosthetic eye back to the floor. At the same instance, Joey, in his wolven glory, gave a mighty roar from behind and dropped a huge rock on Patrick?s head, sending him sprawling.

Joey threw back his head and howled in delight. The morning sun broke through the clouds, and for a hallucinogenic moment burnished his fur in a triumphant red-gold blaze, like some pagan god.

?Good boy, Joey.? Hope scrabbled the key out of the lock, delicately side-stepping the pool of blood around Patrick?s head. Joey sat on his hunkers panting with pleasure at the praise. Hope fumbled with the lock to Mouse?s chains.

?Yes!? Mouse leapt to her feet and stamped them on the floor in a brave little dance. Hope couldn?t begin to image how cramped she must feel after days in leg irons. She was one tough kid.

?Is he dead? I want to bite him.? Mouse snapped her teeth. Her eyes gleamed with a wicked amber glow. Hope knew the telltale signs. There was no time for more wolven antics.

?Not quite dead. But don?t bite him. Let?s chain him up here and let him eat chicken bones.?

Mouse?s face lit up with glee. ?And then I can bite him.?

?What?s the point? He?s out cold. Help me drag him in here and lock him up. We need to get out of here before any of the others turn up,? Hope said. Escape was paramount. Revenge, no matter how well deserved, could wait. ?We?ll let Ren have the first bite, okay? She?ll like that.?

It did the trick.

?Joey,? Mouse said, and without a blink Joey lifted Patrick?s dead weight and tossed him into the shack like a sack of cow fodder.

?Mouse, do me a favor. While I chain him up, could you look for my eye?? Hope bent to her chore. Mouse needed a distraction from the possibility of chomping on Patrick.

?Gross,? Mouse said happily and began to scour the floor. ?I wish I had a magic eye.?

?You go first,? Ren said. ?Someone will come out to challenge me. Keep going. Don?t stop or turn around no matter what you hear.?

Godfrey?s frown deepened. She could tell he was nervous. He cradled the dog in his arms a little closer. They were standing by the car, on the western boundary of Little Dip valley.

?Challenge you?? he said uncertainly. ?But you?re a Garoul. I know that just by looking at you. Why?Oh.?

He?d turned to her as she stripped off the last of her clothes. Now he was acting the gentleman and looked everywhere but at her. His cheeks flushed and she realized it was not because of her nudity, but her scarring. She bared her teeth. She was proud of her scars. She was a hunter, a fighter; she had a right to these scars. They were a badge of courage, a tattoo of her Alpha identity.

?Remember. Keep going,? she said, annoyed at his stalling. He?d brought her all the way to the Garouls? golden valley, and now he was beginning to fret. But they had a deal, even if he didn?t realize it, and he was carrying his part of the bargain in his arms. ?Don?t turn back, no matter what.?

?Like Lot?s wife,? he muttered sulkily.

Her ?Huh?? came out as a low rumble. A drop of her saliva dripped onto his shoulder. The dog drowsily stirred in his arms. At least it knew an Alpha order, even when half comatose. Godfrey peeped over his shoulder, checked out the bloody drool on his jacket, then gazed on up at her until his neck cricked and his eyes popped. She knew he had a wolven mate, but it gave her immense pleasure that he was nonetheless awed by her size and strength. She was a prime specimen. She was wild.

He paled and swallowed loudly. His temperature plunged. She could feel the heat drain off him as a chilling realization took hold. She was Garoul, but she was not family.

Another low growl, so soft the air around them bubbled with subtle menace. Her lips trembled delicately against her canines. He whipped his head around and fixed on the path before them. She snorted a satisfied puff past his left ear, lifting the hair at his temple. He had permission to step out and lead her all the way to the Garoul home compound.

How strange she had ended up here of all places. Her insides constricted in distaste, and she had to struggle not to leave belligerent claw marks on every rock and tree. She could not afford a fight. Her mate was in danger and she had come to parley, nothing more.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 66