9. Chapter 9 #2
“Where’d you live before you came back here?” Cyrus asked. “After you left Michigan.”
Gabe blinked. “Oh well, I ended up in Ohio, New Jersey, and then I was in New York for a while, Brooklyn.”
Cyrus tapped on the steering wheel. “How did you manage to shift in Brooklyn?” he asked.
“Not well,” Gabe admitted. “I only shifted during the full moon when I had to. Tried to stay in one area.”
Cyrus clicked his tongue. “Yeah, I lived in New York for a few months, but I had the unity of the pack in the district I was, so it wasn’t so bad, but nowhere near as free as out here.”
“I thought you only ever lived here, in Virginia,” Gabe said.
Cyrus shook his head and then looked down at the paper in Gabe’s lap, noting the address before turning down another road.
It was only another moment or two before he was pulling into the driveway of a small white one-story house. Two children were playing in the front yard, and a woman was sitting on the porch, smoking, as she watched them.
Cyrus motioned for Gabe to go ahead, and Gabe looked down at the notebook for a moment before he started walking further.
“Mrs. Olivia Shepard?” Gabe asked.
“That’d be me,” the woman said as she stood up from her chair. She looked around her late thirties, the kids in the yard somewhere around eight and nine years old.
“I’m Gabe Sinclair. I was recently…initiated as Alpha. This is Cyrus Reed,” Gabe explained, “We know you were attacked a few weeks ago in the woods while out for the night. I was hoping to ask you some more questions.”
Olivia eyed him. “Liam and Patrick already asked me plenty of questions,” she said. “No offense, Sir.” She looked over at Cyrus as well.
Cyrus had seen her a few times at the bi-yearly meetings, but they’d never spoken, and she didn’t come to the pack house. It seemed most of the names listed were people on the far outer circle of the pack. Less likely to be noticed.
“There have been some more attacks. We want to get our stories straight, especially—” Olivia cut off Gabe.
“Considering you’re new, you don’t know anything,” Olivia said and then shot them an apologetic look. “I get it. Come inside. We can talk.”
She then leaned around them to call to her children, “Grace, Tanner, come play inside for a bit!”
Once everyone had gotten inside, the kids off in their bedroom and the three adults sitting at the small dining room table, questions started.
“What did you see?” Gabe asked.
Olivia chuckled. “Well, a big black wolf coming straight for me, I think they were a she, from what I could tell, I didn’t exactly take the time to check,” she explained. “It happened so fast. I ain’t ever been attacked like that before. Attacked ever.”
“Was there anything else specific about them you noticed?” he listened and wrote down what was said.
“I’m not sure… It was hard to tell. I was just trying to fight for my life. I thought I was a goner before Liam got there,” she said.
“Wait, Liam showed up while you were attacked?” Cyrus asked, unable to wait for Gabe too.
“Yeah, whoever it was took off when he came running in. He’s the reason I only have scars on my legs and hips and…not a casket around me.” Olivia’s brow furrowed.
“Okay, well, thank you for lettin’ us know,” Gabe said and looked over at Cyrus.
Cyrus nodded his head to the side for a second to motion that they should get out of there.
“Oh, there was…something with their ears,” Olivia said as Gabe and Cyrus stood up from their chairs.
“Like what?” Gabe asked.
“A part of one of their ears missing, I think, it was dark, so it was hard to tell,” she admitted.
Cyrus wrote that down.
“You sure you two don’t want to stay for a bit? I’ll get you some tea,” Olivia suggested.
“No, thank you, ma’am, we have some others to question,” Gabe replied.
The two of them headed out of the house. Cyrus tapped the end of his pen against the notepad as they walked.
“You know Martin said the wolf that attacked him was ‘auburn,’” Cyrus reminded Gabe. “So, it’s not one wolf.”
“We knew that, from what Patrick and Nina told us,” Gabe replied.
“I wanted to be sure,” Cyrus said. “And we didn’t know Liam was there when whoever it was ran off.”
“And we can’t get information because”—Gabe waved his hand around—“He’s not here to get information from.”
“No, but Patrick and Nina must know and not have told us,” Cyrus mumbled.
Gabe sighed. “Guess we’ll have to ask them about it,” he replied. “We should talk to the others first. There’s three more we can get to in-person, two we need to call.”
Cyrus nodded. “Let’s get going then.”
***
Several hours later, all they had was mostly what they had already known. The other three confirmed that at least four people were part of this: a black wolf, auburn wolf, grey wolf, and brown wolf.
As the sun was an hour past setting, Cyrus drove them back to the pack house.
“We need to ask Patrick and Nina about Liam tomorrow,” Cyrus told Gabe as he pulled into the driveway and the car stopped, engine turning off.
Cyrus pulled out his phone.
“We can call Martin now, though,” Cyrus said and pushed Martin’s number he’d gotten and put it on speaker.
“Cyrus, something going on?” Martin answered.
“Just investigating the attacks,” Cyrus explained. “Gabe is with me.”
There was a pause.
“Do you remember what was off about the wolf’s ears?” Gabe asked.
“Ahh,” Martin said slowly.
Cyrus sighed but didn’t push it.
“It was like a part of their ear was missing, I think. Left, maybe,” Martin explained.
Cyrus nodded. “That’s all we needed, thank you, man.” He hung up the phone.
“What are you thinking?” Gabe asked as they both got out of the car.
Cyrus took a deep breath.
“That I’m right, Lotuslacker is part of this,” Cyrus told him.
“How do you know for sure?” Gabe asked.
“Because the inner circle of their pack marks their devotion by clipping their left ear,” Cyrus told him and then turned around to head into the house.
“Damn,” Gabe mumbled and followed him inside.