Chapter 27 #2
Ty punched the car into drive, tires squealing as he dropped the gas to the floor.
I threw out an arm, holding him to his seat so he wouldn’t go flying, bracing myself for impact.
Movement behind the gates immediately caught my eye, but the two men guarding the door stayed put, pulling rifles from their backs.
“Swerve!” I roared just in time, shots ringing out.
Ty whipped the car into the other lane. The windshield shattered between us, followed by the back window as a bullet meant for our heads whizzed through the car. Tyler didn’t even drop our speed. He was completely tunnel-visioned, blazing down the street and aiming right for the gates.
Another gunshot split the air—followed by a pop.
The car rumbled. One of the tires was blown, but we had momentum on our side.
The steel gates crashed open, flying off their hinges as we barreled into the lot.
The eyes of the men standing guard at the door widened. They took one step back, ready to bolt.
A massive shape dropped down in front of us moments before we collided with the door. The whole car lurched, back tires lifting off the ground as huge claws sank into the hood, halting us completely.
“Fuck!” Ty bellowed as the wolf latched his claws beneath the front bumper.
“Ty, hold on!” I dove on top of him, bracing him right as my poor Impala went flying backward, front end soaring up and over. Everything happened in slow motion. Our bodies lifted from our seats. My arms tightened around Tyler, his entire body rigid with shock.
The windows blew out, glass flying everywhere as we hit the pavement upside down. A sharp crack to my head made my ears ring and my vision blur. Then everything went still.
“Em!” Ty shouted in my ear, his breath on my skin, but he sounded miles away. “Emery!”
“Fuck…” I heard my own voice come out, muted as if I were hearing it from underwater. “You okay?”
“They’re coming, Em! We gotta—” The sound of metal tearing cut him off. He was ripped from my arms, someone dragging his blurred shape out of the car. “Get off me!”
The second I opened my mouth, claws sank deep into my shoulder. Pain seared my nerves as the wolf that had thrown us hauled me from the Impala, sharpening my dulled senses. “F-Fuck!”
“Get the big man,” one of the men holding Tyler snarled, jerking his head toward the sanitarium.
My eyes narrowed weakly, something familiar about the man clawing at the back of my mind. I’d felt unsettled by those dark eyes before. Heard his voice before.
Outside Fitzgerald’s with Tyler’s father.
“He told us to kill any intruders, Parker,” another droned, cocking their gun as they paced into view around my destroyed car. “The human fucker deserves it.”
Parker. Kyle Parker, would-be alpha of the northern forest pack.
“I said get the boss.” Parker shoved Tyler backward into the lot, jabbing the butt of his rifle into his back. “Evans might be free game, but this one has some value.”
The huge wolf above me grunted in Parker’s direction, its claws digging deeper, making me roar through gritted teeth.
“I want him conscious, Davis,” Parker snapped over his shoulder. “Get his ass in here so he can watch what they do to his chew toys.”
“What the fuck have you assholes done with Hudson?!” Tyler spat, whirling back to the man.
“You know—” Parker whipped his rifle around, smacking him in the face and sending him to the ground. “I oughta be thanking you two, getting rid of Vera for me. She tried so hard to throw a wretch in this whole plan.”
“No love lost between psychotic werewolves, huh?” Ty snarled, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “Funny way of showing gratitude.”
The man's lips twisted into a nasty smirk as he stalked toward Tyler, aiming the gun right in his face. “Shut your mouth, sit there like a good boy, and you might get to live. Your boyfriends don’t get that option.”
The wolf dragging me, Davis, lifted me from the ground with his claws sunk into my shoulder, tossing me across the asphalt like a sack of flour.
My skin peeled over the pavement as I skidded, crashing into the side of a black van, but my ability to feel pain was fading beneath the fury coursing through my veins.
“You’re dead…” I slammed my palms flat on the ground, ready to set my wolf loose and rip them all to pieces. “You’re all fucking d—” Every shred of primal power that had been brimming to the surface of my body suddenly puttered out like doused embers. “Wh-What the…”
A low whine echoed across the lot. I glanced up, panting for breath as I watched the one named Davis shift back into his human form with a pained expression. His fur vanished, bare chest heaving as he sank to his knees in nothing but camo field pants.
“The fuck, Davis?!” Parker spat, stomping toward him. “You’re on shifted duty! Change back!”
“I-I can’t…” Davis sputtered, shaking his head. “Something… forced me…”
The other men standing around the lot suddenly clutched their heads and their chests. I felt the same weakness that washed over them, a dulling of our abilities. A muting of our wolves.
Then the asphalt beneath my palms turned an eerie red. I lifted my head, gazing up at the full moon high in the sky, a sliver of its pale light darkening.
“The fuck is happening?!” one of the wolves shouted.
“I can’t shift!”
“Me neither!”
The front doors of the sanitarium swung open with a screech. “Nothing to fear, men,” a familiar, deep voice called across the lot. My blood boiled at the sound as I whipped my head around. “It’s all part of the ritual.”
On the shallow stone steps in a neatly pressed shirt and tie, glancing over the scene—my totaled car near the twisted front gates, me, battered on the ground, and Tyler, on his knees in the middle of the lot, bleeding from his forehead—with nothing but ice in his eyes, stood William Hargraves.
“D-Dad?!” Tyler had turned white as a sheet, gaping up at his father with wide eyes. “What the hell are you doing here?! Do you even know what they are?!”
William paced down the steps slowly, closing in on Tyler with a dead look in his eyes as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.
“I toiled endlessly to shield you from this ugly world, you idiot boy. The lengths I went to, crushing your ceaseless questions, purging occult filth from your life, keeping your mother’s disgusting family from you. ”
“M-Mom?” Tyler sputtered, staring up at him in confusion. “What does Mom have to—”
William brought the back of his hand down, striking Tyler right across the face with a crack that had me hurtling toward him. Every gun in the lot turned on me before I could close the distance, and William huffed a laugh. “But you let your… curiosity get the best of you, time and time again.”
“Where… is Hudson?” Tyler snarled, lifting his head to look his father right in the eye.
With a disgusted curl of his lips, William turned back to the men by the entrance, jerking his head.
One of them opened the doors while the other aimed his gun at me in warning.
My heart shot into my throat as bleached blond hair appeared from the other side, matted with dried blood.
A broken sob left my chest at the sight, my vision clouding with tears.
On his knees, his torso bare, nothing but iron bands clamped around his wrists and neck, with red rimmed, bloodshot eyes—was Hudson.