Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
TALON
I'd torture the asshole that took her if it would do any good, kill him if the guys would let me.
He's obviously not stable, muttering about wolves not being wolves while Sagan and Leo haul his crazy ass back to the Jeep for a ride back to town.
"They going to take him into the police?" I ask Austin, not sure if I think that's the best fate for him, crazy or not.
Austin silently shakes his head as he helps carry the rest of the camp gear we've retrieved to the rendezvous point where Leo will pick us up in the Bronco I left at the trail parking.
"We have better accommodations than the local PD will offer him."
Austin aims a heavy gaze at Arizona, tucked under my arm and hanging on to me for dear life.
"I take it he didn't tell you anything more useful than he's said since we caught up to him?"
Zona shakes her head.
"He just kept saying they aren't wolves and that he was going to prove to someone that he didn't let the women go."
Austin sighs, running his hand up his neck and into his hair.
"Would have been helpful if he'd given us a hint of where these not-wolves took the women from."
"And how many women they took," I add.
Austin nods, pulling his phone out of his pocket when it buzzes a notification from the satellite messaging app we all use.
My eyes catch on his lock screen before he reads the incoming message.
"Cap's back at the house with Harlan," he informs me. "Says they got pizza."
"Is that a bad thing?" Zona questions, echoing my thoughts.
Austin sighs again, turning his head toward the oncoming headlights of the SUV headed our way.
"Means the boss is in a talking mood. Maybe you can tell him how you're settling in while I get some actual work done. We have a lot of new aerial video to sync up with Sag's tracking today. Hopefully we can figure out where these assholes have set up shop."
The tired look Austin gives Arizona doesn't go unnoticed. It's clear he's got opinions about us, but he seems a lot less mad about it since we found her tied to a tree with a mad man screaming about demons.
"Can I ask you about something?" I tap his shoulder before we climb into the SUV while Leo and Zona wait on us.
"Yeah, what?"
I gesture toward his phone.
"Who's in the picture on your lock screen?"
Austin pauses with one foot on the step rail, his hand on the open passenger side door, as he levels a cautious look my way.
"Family. Why?"
"I've seen that photo before, is all."
At that, Austin turns fully toward me, his hand catching me by my shoulder before I can get into the back seat with Zona.
"Where?"
"Base back east, few years ago. Kid named Meyers? He was going in, I was coming out... we didn't really interact much, but I remember him printing that photo out because he wanted a hard copy to keep with him when he deployed."
Austin's lips silently repeat the name I gave him, a pained expression crossing his face.
"You guys getting in? Boss has pizza waiting. Cap's back. Let's go," Leo shouts at us from behind the wheel, pounding the headrest of the empty passenger seat to hurry us up.
Arizona
Leo drives us back to town, blasting heavy metal from the Jeep's speakers while Austin is lost in his phone. Talon's hand holds mine but there's no point in trying to talk with Leo screaming all the wrong lyrics above the music.
"Fuck you!" Leo screams at a random house on our way through a nice neighborhood on the outskirts of Paradise Point, his middle finger aimed proudly at the pretty, red brick house with the camellia bushes filling the front flower beds.
"Knock it off." Austin lowers the volume to barely audible, making it easy to overheard him chastising Leo. "Don't give him any more reason to get in our way. The man already wants us out of his town."
"Because he's an asshole that's more concerned about keeping tourist dollars coming in than keeping the tourists safe."
"Yeah, well, we don't need to put ourselves any higher on his shit list, so shut the fuck up."
Austin focuses his attention back on his phone and Leo's hand moves back to the volume dial on the stereo.
"Um... who are you talking about?" Talon cuts in before the volume can go back to trying to vibrate the car apart.
"Police chief. Man's a dick," Leo grumbles.
"Probably didn't help that Leo and Sag made a stellar first impression on him."
Austin chuckles as he says it, but doesn't elaborate, and Leo has the volume back up before Talon can ask.
The house the men share is a large, ranch style on the other side of town from where the police chief apparently lives, set away from the street in a neighborhood where all the houses seem to be on lots of a few wooded acres.
Leo parks the Jeep in a long driveway where a few other vehicles sit and Talon doesn't drop his arm off my shoulder even when we walk into the house where the rest of the men are gathered around several open pizza boxes.
Austin grabs one of the pizza boxes off a stack on the kitchen table and heads straight to the back of the house.
Leo snags his share of pizza and pulls a kitchen chair over beside the sofa where Sagan has his feet propped on the coffee table.
It's slightly unsettling to see the prosthetic leg casually crossed over his other ankle as if nothing were out of the ordinary, but if Sagan bothered to hide the titanium limb, you'd never know it wasn't a real leg.
Two men I haven't met are at the table, an open box between them with only one piece of pizza left that looks like it has more kinds of meat on it than I can name.
"Pepperoni, pepperoni and mushroom, meat lovers, California--"
"What's on a California pizza?" Talon interrupts the older man with the white flat-topped haircut as he rattles off what's in each box.
"Fuck if I know, Jay put in the order. I'm just reading off the side of the boxes over here."
Talon shuffles boxes, holding the one in question open for my inspection.
Artichoke hearts and zucchini, among a variety of other vegetable toppings. I don't see any meat.
"Pepperoni," I say, opting for something considerably less healthy. After the day I've had, I deserve it.
"Beer or soda?" Talon drops two slices on a plate, pulling out a chair for me at the table before heading to the refrigerator for drinks.
"Beer." I point at a dark brown bottle in his hand and nod. I deserve that too. Actually, I deserve an entire bottle of merlot and a three hour long bubble bath, but I don't think that's an option.
Apparently today was business as usual for this group.
I hear Leo asking Sagan about the guy who tied me up.
I don't know where Sagan took him, or what they plan to do with him and from eavesdropping on the two men discussing "extracting" information from him as casually as my uncles might discuss football teams has me quickly looking for something else to give my attention to.
"I don't get it-- like someone said 'chloroform' in some movie from the fifties or some shit and every asshole on the planet reaches for the stuff when they need to kidnap someone now."
"...can't believe it's so easy to get.."
"...cyanide..."
"Hey, Cap! You should check Zona out when you get a chance. She got kidnapped today, guy used chloroform."
One of the men across the table from me looks at me more closely.
"How do you feel?"
"Um... okay, I guess. I've never been kidnapped before. Or chloroformed."
"Let me know if you experience anything that doesn't feel normal.
"Like the last two days, you mean?"
That makes the older man laugh, which makes the other men stare at him.