Wolf: To Your Bones (Wolf series Book 2), page 15
I looked at my phone to check the house number. Liam had sent me an address via text message, but instead of sending me to his apartment, he’d sent me to Keith’s. The pack was actually willing to welcome me right into Keith’s apartment. I was almost certain that I wouldn’t have been able to even drive by the house in the past. Today, though, I was here because I had experienced far worse than Keith’s rage. I wasn’t even nervous when someone opened the door and looked down at me.
It wasn’t Keith; it was Hunter. He wore cut-off jeans, even though the weather was actually too cold for them, and a loose black shirt. His immense size cast a shadow over me, and I tried not to cower. The dark-skinned man looked like he wanted to say something, but he fell silent. My swollen face and the dark circles under my eyes must’ve made him uneasy.
I said nothing, and he stepped aside and let me in.
“You okay?” he asked in a chummy tone that was probably reserved for his friends, but I ignored him.
Keith’s apartment was similar to Josh’s. I saw a kitchen unit, a huge flat-screen TV, and a large sofa with two black armchairs next to it. The ivory-colored carpet contrasted against the furniture’s dark leather and the modern sofa table. I was perplexed because I didn’t think Keith had that much taste at all. It was strange to see his home so normal. My mind still seemed to classify Keith as a werewolf and not as a human.
The pack leader was lying on the couch with his legs up. His arm hung listlessly over the backrest. I had just turned stepped into the room when his steel-blue eyes met my face. It was a single look that made me stop in my tracks. It reminded me mercilessly of my old fear.
“Well?” He didn’t sound friendly, but not completely hostile either. I could tell that he just didn’t want me here.
His one-word question sent me into a tailspin. All this time I hadn’t really considered the fact that I would have to explain to the pack everything that had happened. I had only told Liam the bare minimum. I must’ve turned ashen, because when Liam came out of the bathroom, he watched me with a frown. He was probably wondering if I had turned into a werewolf during my ordeal.
I strained my chest to catch my breath. “Josh.”
I couldn’t figure out where to start. I couldn’t find the right moment. No memory was easier to bear than the others. I knew I only had this one chance to ask for their help, but I couldn’t find the words. Telling it all meant making it real, so I burst into tears and buried my face in my arm.
“They took him . . .”
I needed a long time to calm down. I sat on one of the leather chairs, surrounded by three obviously uncomfortable werewolves, and tried to dry my tears with the toilet paper that Hunter had brought me. He and Keith sat on the sofa, Liam on the other chair.
It was now nighttime. The living room was lit only by the TV and the small floor lamp at the end of the room, which for some reason reminded me of a UFO. My eyes focused on all kinds of details in the room in an effort to calm down while I tried to sum up the events of Sunday. Thinking back opened up more wounds than I had expected. However, I remained steadfast. I bombarded the pack with all the information I could muster and with every detail that came to mind. I suddenly even knew which aftershave the dark-haired policeman had put on. Dad sometimes used the same kind.
My story was followed by a tense silence. Keith, seeming so bored before, had sat up to fix on me while Hunter finished eating a second bag of chips. I’d never seen anybody eat chips that fast, not even Audrey.
“So . . .” Liam started at some point. His friends seemed happy to give the floor to him. “They assaulted him with a stun gun?”
His question strained my entire body. “Yes.”
My eyes were glued to the tabletop. I couldn’t look at any of them. I was too afraid they wouldn’t help me. I wasn’t even sure I could’ve looked at myself. Was it fair to involve them? Wouldn’t they be putting themselves in danger by trying to find Josh? I just didn’t know what else to do. They were the only ones who knew the truth. How could my parents help me? They weren’t werewolves. They might even think I was crazy.
My thoughts kept circling around the same things until Liam spoke.
“That’s weird,” he said. “Normally, werewolves are impervious to such weapons.”
He raised his index finger. Apparently, he always did that when he was explaining something.
“Every body consists of a slight voltage. Roughly speaking, a stun gun confuses that voltage.”
His words were almost lost under the loud crackling of the chip bag. Had Hunter just opened a third bag?
“The tension of a werewolf, however, is much higher,” Liam continued. “Our transformation alone causes an electrical impulse that could knock a normal person out.”
Keith interrupted him.
“That means the thing was reinforced,” he said. “A stun gun designed for werewolves?”
Liam rubbed his chin. He had made a few notes in the last hour as I’d been talking, studiously writing out his thoughts with a ballpoint pen.
“Looks like it.” His tone made obvious how much it worried him. It meant that there was someone out there who knew about the werewolves, and who had even developed weapons against them.
Hunter noisily rolled up his bag of chips. His lips were covered with crumbs and paprika powder.
“The question is, how did they find Josh?” he mumbled.
I hadn’t thought about that before; there had just been too much going on. The brutal moments of the last few days had damaged my logical thinking. Instead of gathering clues and hoping to get an indication of Josh’s whereabouts, I had only tried to survive from one day to the next. But those cops knew Josh and where he lived. They knew his middle name was William—something Josh hadn’t even told me.
Keith shrugged.
“I have no idea,” he replied with repulsion. “It’s none of our business either.”
I stared at him, but he wasn’t kidding.
“If these guys really do catch werewolves, we’d be idiots to draw their attention.” He shrugged. “They were successful. Maybe they’ll leave Shatterlake alone now.”
He was serious. I saw by the dull glare in his eyes that he wouldn’t help me. He was going to sacrifice Josh to stay safe.
I gasped. All this time I had tried as best I could to gain his trust, or at least his sympathy. Now I realized that it had been in vain. This werewolf didn’t seem to possess any humanity.
Liam and Hunter stiffened. They didn’t agree with the decision of the pack leader, but it couldn’t hold me back.
“Are you crazy?” I was so angry I jumped up, ramming the chair back. For a fraction of a second, I felt strong enough to stare him down.
The alpha also shot up, surpassed me by two heads, and withstood my gaze. “Got a problem?”
His words were a threatening growl. I almost expected that he would transform and kill me. I wasn’t scared, though. Not after all I’d been through.
“Yeah, you! This is all your fault!”
The look on his face, and everything else about him, made me furious. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d despised someone this much, even the men who had shot Josh. This man wanted to be a leader, but he only cared about himself. Here and now, I doubted everything. I wondered whether he would have even tried to save Liam or Hunter if they’d been the ones to be kidnapped. Until now, I hadn’t known exactly why I was so angry. Now it became clear.
“If you hadn’t messed up the Jetta and the whole street, they wouldn’t have noticed us at all!” I slammed the table with my fist. It was an expression of my desperation. A single decision, the pack’s decision, would’ve spared Josh a possibly horrendous fate. I was absolutely sure of that. “You and your disturbed little werewolf friend brought all this shit down on us!”
I needed to catch my breath. My fingers trembled with rage and my voice still seemed to echo around the small apartment. I felt what seemed like a tense whirring, a warning that I stood on very thin ice. For the time being, though, there was silence between us. Keith watched me, stunned by my outburst, and I felt the same. I had lost all sense of self-preservation. My anger had taken control.
Was that what it felt like to become a werewolf?
Hunter was the first one who dared to say anything—he whistled approvingly at me. “Wow.”
Keith’s head jerked in his direction as if he wanted to hit him, but Liam interfered.
“Keith.” It was the tone of a big brother, or of a consultant. “She’s right.”
Liam seemed to have more access to Keith than I did, as his shoulders relaxed a bit.
“We may have gone too far,” Liam added. “Someone must’ve noticed the destroyed road and put two and two together.”
“The police never asked us any more questions,” I whispered. My heart was pounding against my ribs like a fist. “Not once.”
Liam watched me intently. Afterwards his eyes went to his pack leader. Keith refused to verbally give in, but he eventually fell back onto the sofa, where he crossed his arms. Was he pouting?
“If these men really are hunting werewolves, we’re in danger.” Hunter’s face looked like he was trying to placate Keith. “We should find out what’s going on.”
He threw a glance at Liam, who nodded.
Keith still seemed unconvinced. His gaze targeted me like I was his mortal enemy. It reminded me of how much I had been afraid of him back at the lake. It was a miracle that he hadn’t transformed a second ago. It made me think for the first time that maybe he wasn’t as uncontrolled as he claimed to be. He was still sitting there like a petulant child, though—ungracious and unwilling to give in even though he’d been outvoted.
I took another deep breath. This time my voice was quiet again. I could hear how exhausted I was.
“Keith . . .” I rubbed my eyes to get my thoughts in order. I remembered something else that might help. “These men . . . I think they’re the ones who took the dead werewolf.”
It was the only logical explanation. Until now, I had believed that they had been normal police officers, maybe from the FBI or wherever, because Josh’s secret was out. After Liam noticed the thing with the stun gun, however, it was different. They had weapons to fight werewolves specifically. I still remembered the blond man’s words.
That voltage would’ve fried a normal person.
This was much more than an interrogation due to a car accident—and perhaps even more than the abduction of one werewolf. The van, the syringe with the transparent liquid, and the stun gun. These people seemed like hitmen. Could it be? Could there be humans who took werewolves?
You can shoot anybody, but not that one.
“M01,” I whispered. My tone had become so hoarse that Liam bent closer to understand me.
“What?”
“M01.” I couldn’t believe I had forgotten this detail until now. It was a number—some kind of code that had reached my ears before I lost consciousness. “That’s what they called Josh.”
Liam scribbled hastily on his piece of paper.
“Sounds like they were looking right for him,” Hunter concluded. “If they named him.”
“Absolutely,” Liam said. The look on his face was deadly serious.
“If these men found the werewolf body,” I whispered, feeling Keith watching me, “then maybe they took Ian too.”
The mood in the living room changed. Where until now the heat of our verbal exchange had been, the air suddenly filled with an electric crackle. It was the tension of imminent danger. At that moment, the four of us seemed to feel the same—that a dark omen was casting a shadow over us. It left the leaden taste of having stumbled upon something terrible. We just didn’t know what it was.
Now Keith was convinced. His tense posture dissolved as he leaned back and fixed me with a disparaging glare. I had judged him correctly. He would do anything to find out what happened to Ian.
“Fine,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do.”
Chapter 13
A weight fell from my shoulders. I could hardly believe that I had actually done it. I had succeeded in convincing the pack to save Josh—at least, I hoped so. In my infinite relief, I completely disregarded how to find him. The only important thing was not to sit here one second longer and have to endure this uncertainty.
“We need to leave immediately.” I was about to jump up and get my phone, but Liam’s hand grabbed my arm and held me back.
“No” he said.
I must not have heard him right. “But . . . we have to help Josh! How long is it gonna take for us to do something?”
Liam let go of me and crossed his arms. Hunter and Keith had similar stances. They all seemed calm and relaxed, a grotesque contrast to myself. I was so energized that I was hopping on the balls of my feet. I could no longer stand still, let alone sit.
“We need to get some information first,” Liam said, trying to calm me down. “I can’t do that in five minutes.”
“But they could kill him!” I didn’t mean to yell at him. Nobody was forcing the pack to help me. I tried to soften my voice. I mustn’t push them too far. However, I couldn’t stop thinking about Josh and those men.
“There must be something we can do,” I continued. “At least go to the police or . . .”
Hunter shook his head. His deep voice startled me, because he had been silent for a while. “Don’t go to the police. Very bad idea.”
“He’s right,” Keith said. “If the military or the government is involved, we will be dead before we know it.”
I didn’t get it. My head seemed to have closed itself off from making logical decisions. I just wanted to leave so I wouldn’t have to bear this fear any longer.
Liam had leaned forward. He folded his hands in front of his face and looked at me seriously.
“Listen.” His tone was compassionate but did not tolerate any backtalk. “These men gave Josh a number, and they have technology that seems to be designed for werewolves. How much do you think that all costs?”
He gave me a minute to think about it on my own.
“It means that we must be dealing with some kind of organization.” Liam frowned. “We don’t know who the backers are. If we are unlucky, the police are our enemy.”
I was impressed with how much Liam had considered. For me, there had been nothing more than the Sunday afternoon when Josh was suddenly overpowered and taken away by two unknown men. The pack, however, was worried about their future, and they were right. There was no point in drawing any attention to themselves. If we really wanted to save Josh, we had to do it alone, without outside help.
I was so discouraged that I sank back into the leather chair.
“That’s why you need to stay quiet,” Hunter said to me, his voice imploring. “Let Liam do it. He’s good at this.”
Liam straightened his glasses, looking a bit flattered. “They seem to have put a lot of effort into keeping Josh alive. I don’t think they’ll kill him anytime soon.”
It was horrible to hear the “soon” part, but at least the sentence soothed me a little. I had learned that Josh was still alive. The question was only what the strangers wanted from him. For the first time, I consciously wondered what they might have done to him, or might be doing to him. The images in my mind gave me the creeps.
He won’t like that.
“What do they want with him?”
I was on the verge of tears. Liam saw it and sighed.
“I don’t know,” he softly admitted. “That’s what we have to find out. I have a few friends around here and in the USA. I’ll ask them if they’ve heard of anything suspicious lately.”
He peered at me.
“Werewolf friends,” he clarified.
I nodded in agony. What would any friends know? And if Josh had been taken to another country, would we ever find him again? My hope kept fading. In the meantime, I had become a heap of misery, sitting exhausted in the large armchair. These last few days seemed to have sucked every spark from my body. I didn’t even feel up to discussing the situation with Liam anymore, but I forced myself to.
“They were at Josh’s house,” I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. “Can’t you pick up their trail or something?”
Liam snorted. “I’m a doctor, not a private detective. But I have built up a small network of acquaintances over the years. We’ll see if they have anything to say about this.”
The discussion seemed to be over for him at this point, as he glanced at the clock. It was made of black glass and hung over the front door.
“You should go home,” he added. “It’s almost eleven.”
His words stung me, reminding me that I owed my parents an explanation—and that I had to endure the next few days, somehow. I had no idea how I was supposed to manage it. Everything inside me just wanted to hole up in Josh’s house and not talk to anyone. My parents, my friends, my work. It was all just too overwhelming. I was dead tired yet terribly excited at the same time. I suspected I’d never sleep again. Whenever I’d tried to close my eyes over the past few days, all I’d seen was the strained face of the hybrid. I wanted to somehow convince the pack to leave right now and make whatever arrangements were necessary to get Josh back, but, in the end, I simply nodded and stood up slowly.
“Okay.” The word came over my lips without a sound. I was defeated and had no choice but to leave the matter to them. The realization made me deeply sad and took the excitement out of me. Now there was nothing I could do to numb myself. I had to calm down and accept. It was the hardest thing I could imagine.
As I turned around to leave, Hunter jumped up and hurried after me. “Hey, I’ll drive you home. My car is right outside.”
His words brought Josh’s abduction back to life. I saw myself sitting next to him in the patrol car, my forehead hidden at the crook of his neck. Had that been our final goodbye? The last time we’d ever touch?
