Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
GARRETT
“That’s what I said. Not a single tire track, file, or candy wrapper. Hell, I think they swept the place clean.” Blade finally plops into one of the chairs in Damien’s living room, leaving the others at the table.
“Do you want me to return there, see if anything’s different?”
“Are you questioning my ability to properly recon?” Blade asks, a slight growl to his voice.
“Chill, Blade,” Callen says. “Garrett’s just trying to help.”
“He’s done enough.”
“What does that mean?” I start to rise from my chair, but Damien shoves me back down.
“It means if you hadn’t gone off on your own, against orders, then maybe we could have rescued all the shifters at the same time.”
“It’s not a choice I made lightly.”
Damien glares at me. We had this argument already. I lost.
“It won’t happen again.” Now that Angel’s safe, I’m thinking clearer. And my wolf is talking to me again.
“What’s the plan, Damien?” Frank asks, as if my promise is enough for him. I wish that were the case with Damien, who’s sideways glances at me never cease.
“Blade’s going to send his scouts out using the abandoned WSSO facility as a starting point and see what information they can gather. Hayden will head South and talk to Drake.”
“If that isn’t a sign of desperation, I don’t know what is,” Frank says. “Want company?”
“No. Having a guard along will only make my brother nervous.”
“And if he doesn’t want to share intel?” I ask, wondering if this is why I’ve been asked to attend this meeting. “Are you planning on lending me out to the white wolves, Damien? Give in to Drake’s attempts to recruit me?”
“Hayden and I discussed a temporary arrangement, but without knowing how Drake plans to use you, it’s not my first choice. I’d rather send you in to one of the WSSO’s other facilities, see what intel you can gather from the inside.”
“Just let me know when.”
“When I think you’re ready.”
The comment makes me sit straighter. From the looks on their faces, the others aren’t surprised. They share Damien’s uncertainty. Trust is hard to earn around here, especially after it’s been broken. But I’d do it all over again for Angel.
A howl, long and shrill, breaks the silence.
“East, towards the river,” Frank states before shifting. Tess opens the door, and one by one our wolves race out of the house.
There’s no sound of gun fire or other WSSO incursion. The sounds of children’s screams and someone yelling for help guide us to the exact location. The river.
My wolf pushes himself harder than usual, without any urging from me. The kids know not to go onto the river, but every few years, one daring teen ventures out on a challenge.
I weave through the kids running toward camp and spot Sadie Lynn running along the shore, pointing at the water. “Alex and Angel are caught in the current.”
My wolf leaps past her. Angel’s and Alex’s scent—the horrific bitterness of their fear—hit my wolf like a wall, causing him to falter when every second counts.
When I shove my thoughts at him, ready to forcibly take control, he regains his footing and widens his stride, pushing himself beyond his limits.
The terrain whips by as we catch flashes of the water until their scents just… disappear. We slide to a halt on ice, feverishly scanning every inch of the water. They’re not here. They’re just… gone.
Terror shoots through. They could be trapped beneath the ice, clawing for air they can’t reach. Or snagged on submerged branches, pinned to the riverbed.
Damien’s wolf howls from the other river bank. He’s lost their scent, too.
Downstream, Hayden leaps onto a tree that’s hanging part-way into the river. He shifts and pulls a child from the edge of the water. “I have the kid, but I don’t see the female anywhere,” he shouts.
“She’s under the water,” I say as soon as I shift to human form. Just voicing the thought sickens me, but it’s the only thing that makes sense
“You don’t know that,” Damien yells over the sounds of water slapping against huge boulders in the middle of the river.
I do. Every instinct screams she’s trapped beneath the water. She’s alive. She has to be alive. Trapped, not dead. Trapped means we can still save her.
“Spread out, look for any color beneath the water, anything that doesn’t look right.”
“She should be in this section, near where Hayden found Alex,” Damien shouts.
Hayden passes the kid off to Sadie Lynn. “I’ll head downstream, in case she was swept south.”
Frank catches up to me and we spread out, twenty feet between us, searching for any sign of her along the shore or in the river. No flash of color, nothing that doesn’t belong.
What the fuck had she been wearing earlier? I watched her for nearly an hour and can’t recall a single detail of anything except her face, how she’d been laughing.
Now she’s drowning and I can’t fucking find her!
“There!” Frank yells. “Something moved beneath the ice. No, it’s gone.”
I catch up to him, my eyes dissecting every pocket of ice and pool of water. He could have seen debris floating beneath.
A flash of blonde hair slides beneath the ice. “There!”
“There’s nothing there,” Frank says as I shift to my wolf and scent the air again. The faint scent of lilac—Angel—grabs me.
My wolf leaps ahead of where I saw her, hoping to outpace the current. The force of my landing sends me crashing through a thick layer of ice. The deadly cold threatens me more than the ice shards slicing my back.
I strain to keep my eyes open beneath the murky water, but my wolf and I are completely in sync. We will find and save her, at any cost.
Something brushes my back. I nearly disregard it as debris, but instinct makes me reach for it. My teeth sink into flesh. A muffled yelp, barely audible beneath the water. Angel!
Without letting go, I shift. I lock my arms around her middle and kick upward, toward the surface. Fuck, she’s limp!
We break through the water, and seconds later shifters pull Angel from the river, then me.
Ten packmates brace themselves in the current, arms linked to form a chain.
Hayden hoists Angel over his back, holding onto the shifters as he works his way to shore.
I’m still on my feet, so Frank only steadies me, gripping my arm to make sure I don’t lose my footing.
When I step on shore, one of the women throws a blanket around my shoulders.
A wall of shifters block me from seeing what’s happening to my Angel.
“Is she alive?” I ask.
No one answers.
When I push through the crowd, Frank’s meaty hand clamps down on my shoulder. “Let Pryce work.”
“Let him through,” Pryce calls over. The crowd parts and I race to Angel.
She’s alive! Sitting in the snow, her breathing rapid and uncontrolled, but very much alive!
Blue eyes shoot up and find me instantly.
My knees give way.
“I got you, buddy.” Frank’s not going to let me fall.
“She’s alive,” I whisper.
“Thanks to you.”
Thanks to my wolf and… everyone. I couldn’t have done it without my pack. All the fight and resentment from the past two years leaves me. Not that I ever blamed them for Marla’s death, but they were there when the WSSO cut her down like an animal.
They would have saved her if they could. It’s a truth I’ve known all along, but hadn’t been able to accept. Until now.
“You okay?” Angel asks, those sky-blue eyes locked on me.
“Just… acclimating.”
“Get a warm shower when you get home,” Pryce says to Angel as she rises. “How about you, Garrett? Those cuts healing?”
“Cuts?” I glance down to see long slices across my legs, while he examines my back. I’d forgotten about the sharp edge of the ice where I drove in. “Healing,” I confirm. I trust my wolf to heal me.
Fuck… I trust my wolf. I haven’t been able to say that in a long time.
“The kid?” I ask.
“He’s fine,” Sadie Lynn says as she walks over, carrying the boy on her hip. He’s wrapped in a blanket as well and his eyes are wide as can be as he stares down at Angel.
“See, Alex, she’s fine, just a little cold, like you. They fished her out like a big ol’ salmon.”
“You just compared Angel to a fish,” I say with a slight growl that makes Alex’s eyes widen further as he stares at me.
“I’m trying to lessen the trauma,” Sadie Lynn snaps at me.
Both me and my wolf swallow. “Sorry. Long day.”
“Here, let me take him,” Pryce says.
“No more walking on ice, Alex,” Sadie Lynn says as she hands the boy to him.
Damien’s wolf skids to a halt after racing his way back from the other shore. He shifts, quickly scans faces, bodies, no doubt doing a head count then assessing injuries. He grants himself one deep breath before rounding on Sadie Lynn.
“You and I will discuss this tomorrow morning. Before you meet the kids.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Angel speaks up, her voice scratchy. “I was in charge of watching Alex. I let myself get distracted.”
“She’s in charge. I deal with her. Everyone, go home or get back to work. We’re done here.”
Sadie Lynn lifts her chin. “This won’t happen again, Alpha.”
Angel bites her lip and tears form in her eyes as she looks at me, as if asking how she can fix this. I hold my hand up, telling her to stand down.
Howls, two, three, sound in the distance towards the border.
“Fuck. What now?” Damien listens to the howls, discerning if they’re conveying trespasser, injury, or attack. “Frank, Garrett, with me. Hayden, finish up here.” He shifts and bounds down the shoreline before veering into the woods.
“You sure you’re okay?” It’s the first words I’ve spoken to Angel since I threw her out of my home, the night my wolf started biting me and never stopped. Until now. Can’t say that I blame him any. I was an ass to her.
“I’m fine, Garrett. Just cold and incredibly tired.”
I crouch in front of her and cup her cheek. She leans into my palm, her eyes closing as a smile spreads on her face. “So nice…”
Fuck, touching her heats me in a way no blanket ever will.
“Garrett, you’ve been given an order,” Hayden says.
Her teeth begin to chatter, which means her wolf’s struggling to get her core temperature up. And she’s still bleeding from where my wolf grabbed hold of her shoulder.
“Now, Garrett.”
“Don’t anger your alpha because of me. Not again,” she whispers.
I don’t fucking care who I anger, but I won’t put her in that position again. Her wound is minor and Pryce won’t leave here until he’s sure she’ll be okay. “No more swimming, promise?”
“Not until summer, in a lake, with a bathing suit on.”
“A bathing suit, Angel? That’s a little extreme, wouldn’t you say?”
Red spreads across her cheeks.
“I like swimming, but the river’s too cold,” Alex says and several shifters laugh. Not me. He and Angel came too close to dying. But his presence keeps me from lashing out at anyone, namely Sadie Lynn. Damien’s right, she’s in charge of the kids.
I’m still not entirely sure how Alex and Angel ended up in the river, and it’s not my place to tell Sadie Lynn how to do her job. Damien will do that tomorrow. But I’m sorely tempted to take my anger out on someone. This never should have happened.
“Garrett, are you okay?” Angel says through her shivering.
“Fine. Dandy. Peachy. What happened here, Angel?”
“You don’t sound okay.” Her hand slips into mine.
“I’m fine, really.”
“Then catch up to your alpha. He needs you right now. Be safe, okay?”
I look around, there are enough shifters here to take care of her and the boy. Before my blanket even hits the ground, I shift and take off running in the direction of the howls.