Chapter 27
chapter
twenty-seven
The van handled even worse with Tobias at the wheel.
“It’s not me,” Tobias insisted. “The van’s been beat to shit! The doors are barely hanging on!”
“Be quiet and drive,” Alexander barked over the rattling doors. He clung to the grab handle as they careened around another suburban corner, holding his phone tightly so it didn’t clatter into the window again.
“We’re almost there,” he announced into the phone.
Meredith grunted. “Understood. Shoot straight.”
“With righteous mercy,” he replied.
He hung up and shoved his phone in his pocket. He had several texts from Sadie and Honey about their stolen van, but they could be dealt with later. Right now they had less than a block before they pulled up outside of Donna’s house.
“Righteous mercy,” Tobias repeated as they swung around another corner at speeds prohibited by the road signs. “What was that about?”
“Nothing. It’s a thing we say.” Alexander braced himself against the turn, thinking hard. They were running out of time. He still hadn’t asked. It had been irritating him ever since Josh’s interrogation.
“Tobias,” he said. “When Josh said my parents did something to your pack, what did they mean?”
The van faltered. Tobias had eased up on the accelerator.
“How should I know?” Tobias replied. “I wasn’t there.”
“But you would have been around,” Alexander argued. “Josh was there. He met the pack after you did.”
Tobias’s scarred fingers twitched around the dented steering wheel.
“Not all your scars are claw marks,” Alexander said. “Some of them are burns. Silver burns. What aren’t you telling me?”
Tobias paused. “It’s not like I didn’t want to tell you. Okay? I’ve just been waiting for the right time. Didn’t want you to insist I’m lying, or trying to turn your family against you, or whatever.”
“I wouldn’t,” Alexander said, unsure if he was lying even as he said it. “What is it?”
Tobias growled. It sounded pained, the kind of sound a dog would let out when you were trying to pull a thorn from its paw. But before you had freed it, when the pain was still deep and stabbing.
“Just after Muzzle turned me,” he started. “Shit!”
Steve-van lurched into Donna’s driveway. Muzzle was sitting in front of the garage, sucking on a cigar and looking bored. There were several wolves crouching beside him, plus one in human form, holding a tranq gun.
Donna stood in front of him, her face dark with bruises. She was only half-conscious. Muzzle’s arm was around her neck, holding her up as she slumped.
Alexander and Tobias climbed out of the van.
Donna’s eyelids fluttered. She peered out from swollen eyes as she struggled to stay awake. Her nose was bleeding heavily.
“What did you do to her?” Alexander demanded. He lifted his crossbow threateningly.
“This lovely lady? Nothing yet,” Muzzle replied. He sucked his cigar, plucking it out of his mouth and motioning like he was considering ashing it on Donna’s staff uniform.
“Hey,” Donna said, muffled and groggy. “Fuggoff.”
Tobias growled again. Alexander was tempted to join him. He was shocked at the protective rage surging through him as he watched Donna struggle weakly against Muzzle’s hold.
“She’s not involved,” Alexander snarled. “Let her go.”
Muzzle tutted. “Obviously she is involved, little Alex. Everyone around you is involved. Didn’t you know? That’s why hunters keep such a tight circle. Hard to make friends when you know you could drag them into a dogfight.”
Donna gurgled. They had drugged her or given her a significant head wound, Alexander couldn’t tell which. She reached up, fumbling behind her at Muzzle’s neck. No, not at his neck—at the amulet hanging over his shirt.
Muzzle batted her hand away easily. “That’s not for you, dear.”
Then he twisted the amulet sideways.
“No,” Alexander barked.
But it was too late. Tobias shuddered, his back bowing as he fell to his knees on the cracked concrete.
“Oh shit,” Donna warbled, a blood bubble popping over her mouth.
Alexander pointed his crossbow at Muzzle’s head. “Let him go.”
“Or what?” Muzzle grinned, his gold tooth flashing.
Alexander looked around, heart sinking. There were too many wolves. Not to mention the one in human form, holding a tranq gun and looking far too intently at both of them.
Should have waited for backup, whispered a voice in Alexander’s head that sounded like his mother.
Alexander had been without backup for so long. He glanced back to the driveway, which was empty apart from the girls’ beat-up van. They could still make it, if they stalled until his parents showed up.
“I warned you what would happen if you defied me,” Muzzle continued, his claws pressing softly into Donna’s neck as his other hand twisted the amulet. “I should make you kill your boy right now.”
Tobias let out a guttural howl. It didn’t sound right. His tongue and jaw weren’t the right shape for it yet, his bones snapping but not lengthening as Muzzle kept him in stasis. Half-transformed, fur bristling out of his skin but not all the way.
Tobias stared up at Alexander. He looked like something out of a horror movie.
Alexander wanted to drop to his knees and throw his arms around him.
He knew he should be calculating escape routes, trying to come up with a way to get out of this.
But the crossbow felt extraneous in his arms as Tobias writhed in agony beside him.
“I’m fine,” Alexander assured him. “Everything’s going to be—”
A tranq whistled through the air and embedded itself in Alexander’s neck.
Alexander wrenched it out, but the drugs were already taking effect.
He stumbled onto his knees, fumbling desperately at his crossbow.
His fingers wouldn’t fold around the column, nor would they raise the weapon toward Muzzle, who had cast Donna aside and was walking toward them with an easy, predatory grace.
Alexander’s vision grayed out. The last thing he heard before he went under was Tobias’s voice in his ear, barely intelligible over his forming snout.
“Don’t go with them,” Tobias slurred. “You don’t have to stay with me but don’t go with them, okay? They’ll kill your fucking heart. Please!”
Something touched his face. It felt like a scarred, malformed paw.
Alexander leaned into it.
Then he was gone, Tobias’s pleas following him down into the dark.
He awoke with a harsh slap to the cheek.
Alexander pried his eyes open. He was, surprisingly, still in Donna’s driveway. His mother leaned over him, weapons strapped to her back.
“What happened?” she asked. “Mission report, now.”
Alexander sat up. His father was kneeling in front of the garage door, examining spots of blood that must have come from Donna’s streaming nose.
Alexander touched his cheek. It was still stinging from the slap, but he hardly noticed. Tobias had cupped his cheek as he was passing out, he was sure of it. He could still remember Tobias’s eyes, huge and pleading and half-transformed as Alexander faded.
Alexander struggled up, stumbling as the drugs threatened to pull him back down. “We gotta find him.”
Meredith stepped out of the way as he swayed. “Excuse me? I asked for a mission report.”
“Them,” Alexander corrected himself, his tongue thick and his head muzzy. “Donna. They took Donna too, we gotta…”
He crouched down, groping for his discarded crossbow. His fingers were tingling, his head pounding. His throat felt dry in a way that made him wonder just how long he’d been lying in that driveway.
“They’ll be in the arena,” Alexander said. “Let’s go.”
He took a step toward Steve-van. Meredith grabbed his shoulder, turning him back.
“I asked for a mission report,” she repeated. “What did you do wrong?”
It was a simple and familiar question. She asked after every training session.
Alexander had lost count of how many times he’d gone over his mistakes, examining them one by one and listing how he would improve next time.
His brother Samson would make a game of it, standing behind their parents and trying to make Alexander laugh while he went down the list. If Alexander ever cracked, they would both get in trouble.
But Samson did it almost every day, until he got ripped apart because Alexander wasn’t fast enough.
Alexander squeezed his eyes shut. The guilt was rising over him again, thick and familiar. But for once, he didn’t sink into it. He had bigger things to worry about.
“That doesn’t matter,” he snapped. “Aren’t you hearing me? They have Tobias!”
“Yes, and they’ll be waiting for us. It’s a trap.
” Meredith stared at him, and Alexander was struck by the childish fear that she could see right through his skull to his whirling thoughts.
The fear was just acute as when he was seven years old and hiding after he broke one of their prized werewolf skulls.
“I know,” Alexander said, determined to get that gaze off him. “I know. I just…Donna’s a civilian. She didn’t deserve to get dragged into this.”
Meredith said nothing. She stood very still, watching him with an intensity that reminded Alexander of birds of prey watching their hunt from a dozen yards away.
Bart grunted as he stood, rubbing his back. “Who’s Donna?”
Alexander blinked. He had never told them his manager’s name. They asked very little about his life, and he hadn’t offered much.
Alexander said, “She’s my friend. I mean, my boss. She—”
Meredith cut him off. “You let him fuck you.”
The driveway went silent.
Alexander reeled, his fingers shaking around the crossbow. “I…I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t play dumb.” Meredith stepped closer, her bottom lip curling in disgust that made Alexander want to hide under the van. “That’s why he was so invested. You rolled over and you let that dog rut you.”
Bart spluttered. “Honey!”
“Were you lonely?” Meredith continued, undeterred. “Were you sad, all alone on your hunts? Did he bat those big brown eyes at you and you surrendered yourself to a dog?”
Alexander shook his head, his cheeks burning “That’s not—”
She slapped him. It was so similar to how she’d slapped him awake that it barely even hurt at first, a sting on top of his already-stinging cheek.
“Being alone is no excuse,” she hissed. “I should have known. The second I saw you in that disgusting van with those monsters—”
“Honey’s a human,” Alexander protested weakly.
“She’s dating one of those things! Her soul is dust!
” Meredith gripped his chin, and Alexander thought of training sessions and his brother making faces across the room, trying to make him laugh while his parents berated him.
He thought of Tobias rubbing blood into his stubble after Alexander stitched him up, how it hadn’t made Alexander’s skin crawl like he had assumed. It made him feel…wanted. Owned.
“Remember who you belong to,” Meredith warned. “It’s not that wolf. It’s not those little monsters worming their way into your sympathies, taking advantage of your stupid, soft heart. It’s us. You hear me? It was always us.”
Three years of grimy apartments and stolen cars and shitty service jobs expanded in Alexander’s mind. Unanswered phone calls on his birthday. Buying himself a cupcake and sitting in the break room and not telling anyone, because they wouldn’t care anyway.
“You haven’t seen me in years,” Alexander mumbled.
Meredith’s fingers dug into his cheeks. “Excuse me?”
Alexander pulled out of her grip. “You never called! You say you miss me, but you never even sent me a text! I’ve been begging you to take me back this whole time, and now you come back and tell me—”
He stopped, the words choking off in his throat. He had never talked back to his parents. Not once. No matter how many late nights they made him stay up training, or told him he had done terribly at a move he’d been practicing for months.
He respected his parents. He obeyed his parents. Their word was law, as unstoppable as gravity.
Why did it feel so easy to snap back at them now? Suddenly they seemed less like ineffable giants and more like…people. Confused, angry people standing in an empty driveway with weapons on their backs, just as out of their depth as he was.
Bart sighed. “I think what your mother is trying to say—”
“Don’t tell me what I’m trying to say,” Meredith commanded. Her hand twitched at her side like she was going to grab for him again.
Alexander stepped out of range.
Meredith reeled back. She looked genuinely hurt, like not allowing himself to get grabbed was a betrayal. Then she straightened, and her expression smoothed into cold indifference.
“They are the enemy,” she said stiffly. “We’re your family. Remember that. No matter what that mutt tells you.”
Alexander thought back to Tobias’s scarred hands gripping the steering wheel. I’ve been waiting for the right time. Then the right time got stolen out from under them with an amulet and a tranq gun.
“What would he tell me?” Alexander asked.
Meredith’s lips thinned. For the briefest second, she almost looked nervous.
“Mother,” Alexander prompted. “What would he tell me?”
He stepped forward. For the first time, Meredith stepped back. She even winced, having placed too much weight on her injured leg.
She flexed it, then turned to Bart. “Bart! Fall out. We have mutts to put down.”
Bart followed her meekly, shooting his son an awkward look as he passed. But that was it. No reassurances, no apologies. He was following his wife, as always.
And Alexander would follow behind him. He would save Tobias, put down Muzzle, and follow them to the next hunt in a never-ending series of hunts.
It was everything he’d wanted since he was exiled. But his mind was stuck, for some reason, on Josh’s tearful words as he stared up at Tobias. I just want a life. A real life, you know?
Alexander squeezed his eyes shut and headed for the van.
He didn’t have time for this. Tobias was waiting.