34. Caleb
I let my wolf form fall away from me as I tucked myself against the wall of a rundown factory-turned-trap house. If I was right, the pawn shop was a short walk down the street and to the right, just on the edge between the city’s rundown, overcrammed apartments and the abandoned businesses.
I was nervous about taking my wolf form again, and not just because I was dosed with wolfsbane—now the local cops knew my description. But the cops from earlier had made it clear they just needed to hold me for a little while, so I held onto hope that the time had passed.
The fact that they knew Emily was close to shifting and purposefully denied her access to her guardian was heinous. It went against everything we wolves were supposed to stand for. I just hoped it was Gray’s doing and not the Black Hawk tribe’s. The Lincoln Pack had bad blood with the other werewolf pack, but there were some lines that should never get crossed.
Thankfully, despite the poisonous plant no doubt still lingering in my system, I ran without much trouble. Now I had to relapse into my old life and break into the pawn shop I’d sold Emily’s jewelry to. I intended to get it back before she even noticed it was missing, but now she wouldn’t have the chance to even wear the damn thing. My mind chased itself into a tailspin.
“Enough,” I said firmly. I’d allowed myself to wallow. This was a time for action.
I stuck to walls and narrow alleyways as I made my way to the business. I’d sworn to myself I’d never go back to the life, that I’d made my changes and was going to stay on the straight and narrow. But sometimes desperate times called for desperate measures.
It was easy enough to find my way to the back of the store, where I could already tell from their setup that the two cameras were dummies. Sometimes it could be hard to tell, but I recognized the models. Both of them were cheap, with no attached battery pack. I also knew that each had a little blue light in the back indicating a Bluetooth signal to a receiver nearby, but there was no azure illumination around, either.
From there, I sidled up to the back door and pulled out a long, thin piece of metal I’d picked up on the walk over. It wasn’t perfect, but flat enough to use as a shimmy, and in under a minute, I was able to pop the lock and open the door.
Now came the tricky part.
A rundown shop like this was still going to have some measure of security. I needed to find the system box and punch in the code before it automatically sent an alert to the local law enforcement. In order to do that, I had to hope an old workaround was still viable. That was something people don’t tell you about walking the straight and narrow: all the tips and tricks I’d spent so much time learning to survive and thrive were growing increasingly outdated. I supposed there were worse things in life.
“Here goes nothing,” I commented to myself before searching for the box.
Thankfully, it wasn’t that hard to find, as it sat on the wall right next to the heavily enforced safe. Hopefully, the jewelry wasn’t in it because that’d take a whole lot more work to get through. I may have acquired an eclectic assortment of skills in my previous life, but safecracking wasn’t one of them. Honestly, it’d be easier for me to rip it apart with my wolf strength, but that was dubious given the wolfsbane I still felt in my blood.
I flipped open the number pad’s protective front and let out a small victory sound when I recognized the security system brand. I held my breath, punched in the standard six-digit code they all came with, and reset the system. It was a measure put into place for owners who forgot the new codes they programmed into the systems, but it left a lovely back door in the programming for people like me.
The prompts came up to reset the code, and I hastily set it to all zeroes. Anyone coming in the next day would set off the alarm now that I’d changed the codes. Such an innocuous number would hopefully make them think it was either some glitch or they’d accidentally set it to a default. It would buy me more than enough time.
I went deeper into the store and headed towards the jewelry section. As I walked, it was hard not to ponder all the pieces around me. Each had their own stories no one would ever know, except for the person who’d pawned them in the first place. Even that wasn’t guaranteed, given how often thieves fenced their goods in unscrupulous pawn shops.
It took several minutes, but I spotted what I was looking for: the same necklace I’d fished out of Emily’s bag when she was at my place. Guilt overwhelmed me, but I steeled myself against it. I had too much to do, and I couldn’t keep sinking into misery. I’d made my decisions, and even though I had good intentions, I had to live with the wrong I’d done.
Now I was making them right, or at least as best I could.
I secured the necklace and headed back out, making sure to close the door securely behind me. Although the walk back to the factory was a long one, I felt better about it, like my mind was clearer and everything less hopeless.
Keller was likely right—maybe Emily was alive, and I’d find her again. I’d be able to hand her over the necklace myself and see her face light up with a smile before I had to go through the awkward explanation of why I had it in the first place. Then I’d tell her the truth. I swore to God and all the ancestors that if I got a chance to see Emily again, I’d explain everything and take whatever judgment she gave. As long as she was safe and happy, that was all I cared about.
I felt much more grounded and ready to deal with whatever Zach wanted, yet I was still surprised when I saw Keller’s truck waiting in the empty parking lot of the factory. I spotted my friend leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette. Oof. If Keller was resorting to that old habit, then he had to be stressed—another thing that was my fault. No matter what happened, I needed to make it up to him. Granted, I kept saying that, yet still managed to get into deeper and deeper shit.
Someday, the tides would turn, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t be any time soon.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I joined him against the wall. I didn’t ask for a cigarette as I thought it smelled, but I could handle it if it meant knowing what was on my best friend’s mind.
“I didn’t, at least not at first. Just followed your scent until I recognized the neighborhood. Isn’t this one of the places where you used to fence stuff as a kid?”
“A teenager, yeah. I hate that I’ve come back here, but this is the last time.”
“What is it you needed to grab?”
“Something I never should’ve pawned in the first place.”
“Ah, yeah. That makes sense, then. You ready to go?”
“Do you mean, am I ready to face Zach?”
“Yeah. I’ll warn you, Carl is pissed.”
“When isn’t Carl pissed?”
“Solid point.”
When Keller didn’t offer anything else, I knew things were serious. “Ready to go?” I asked.
“Just let me finish the cigarette.”
A moment of silence together, the last one we’d get in quite a while. The truth was, neither of us knew what Zach was going to say or do after losing Kaia a second time—that is, if he knew who Emily really was at all. He may think that she was a new shifter I’d hidden from him for selfish purposes. But as tempting as it was to deceive him and to keep Emily and Kaia a secret all to Keller and me, I couldn’t do that. Though it’d be much easier, it was wrong, and I’d long since resolved not to take any more shortcuts.
Keller and I just stood there for five minutes, taking in the city around us, living in the moment together. We’d been through a lot, and I didn’t take his help or friendship for granted. I hoped he knew that, but if he didn’t, I hoped I’d get a chance to show that to him.
But as he took that last drag of the cigarette, his phone rang. I could’ve listened in, but my mind was so full, I tuned it out. Either Carl or Zach was swearing at Keller up and down for letting me do what I needed to. I was sure I’d hear it once we were on our way to Maplewood.
I wasn’t paying attention until I heard Keller’s heart rate tick. However, by that point, he’d hung up and was looking at me with excitement.
“What is it?” I barely dared to hope, because there was no reason this should be positive news, though his expression told me otherwise.
“We got a report from a member of our pack who works at a city daycare. She said that when she was out with the kids, she scented a first-time shifter. She wrote the address where she was, and any places she thought might have space for a new wolf to hide.”
I couldn’t believe it. “We have a lead?”
“We have a lead!”
I’d never vaulted into Keller’s truck so fast, but I was in the passenger seat before I could so much as blink. My friend was only a step behind me, and together, the two of us peeled off.
It was foolish to have so much optimism when all we had was a daycare worker, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. There was a chance Emily was safe, and I was going to grip onto that chance with all my strength until I either found her or was proven wrong.
God, I hoped I found her.