Chapter 22 Jax
JAX
The explosion fades, but the silence doesn't return.
Instead, the world turns white.
Floodlights—massive, industrial-grade banks of LEDs mounted on the trucks at the levee—slam on all at once.
They cut through the fog, the darkness, and the privacy of the swamp with a violence that hurts my eyes.
It’s not the soft glow of morning; it’s a sterile, blinding interrogation lamp turning the clearing into a stage.
"Get down!" I roar, shoving Miranda to the floorboards.
I drop beside her, the shotgun stock biting into my shoulder as I aim at the door.
The light bleeds through the cracks in the plywood I nailed up hours ago. It finds the gaps in the floor. It turns the inside of the cabin into a cage of fractured light and shadow.
"Jackson Roux!"
The voice is amplified, booming from a loudspeaker system that shakes the dust from the rafters. It’s distorted by feedback, but the fanaticism is clear.
Gregor.
"We know she is in there," the voice continues, echoing off the water. "Send out the Abomination. Send out the Half-Breed, and the rest of you dogs can live to lick your wounds."
"Abomination," Miranda whispers, her face pressed against the wood floor. She clutches the knife I gave her, her knuckles white.
"Don't listen to him," I growl.
"If you do not comply," Gregor’s voice rises, sharp and gleeful, "we will burn the structure. We will cleanse this swamp with fire and silver. You have ten seconds."
"He’s going to kill everyone," Miranda says. Her voice isn't panicked; it’s flat. Analytical. She’s running the numbers again. "If I go out there—"
She starts to push herself up.
I drop the shotgun. I grab her arm and slam her back down. It’s too hard—I hear her breath leave her lungs in a whoosh—but I don't care.
"You ain't moving," I snarl, hovering over her. "You stay on this floor."
"He’ll kill the Pack, Jax! He’ll kill you!"
"Let him try."
"Five seconds!" Gregor screams.
I gaze at the door. I can smell them now. Not just the exhaust of the trucks, but the men. Dozens of them. They smell like cheap tobacco, gun oil, and fear sweat masked by high-grade repellent. They are surrounding the pylons.
"Time’s up," Gregor announces. "Slaughter the dogs."
The world erupts.
It starts with the sound of glass shattering behind the plywood. Then the wood splinters.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
Bullets tear through the walls.
They aren't lead. I can smell the difference instantly. Lead smells dull. This smells sharp, metallic, and poisonous.
Silver.
Chunks of wood explode inward. A bullet punches through the wall six inches above my head, embedding itself in the opposite log. Smoke curls from the hole—not wood smoke, but the acrid scent of silver burning organic matter.
"Stay down!" I cover Miranda’s body with mine, tucking her head under my chest.
Outside, the screaming starts.
It’s not human screaming. It’s the wet, gurgling yelps of wolves taking hits.
"Remy," I choke out.
I hear a roar—a massive, defiant howl that shakes the floorboards. Then another. And another.
The Pack.
They didn't run. They didn't retreat when the lights hit. They charged.
I hear the wet crunch of jaws snapping bone. The scream of a man terrified out of his mind. The rapid-fire pop-pop-pop of semi-automatic rifles.
"They’re dying," Miranda sobs into my shirt. "Jax, they’re dying for me."
"They’re fighting for their Alpha," I grate out. "And their Queen."
I roll off her.
"Jax, no—"
"Stay here," I order. "If they breach the door, you use the knife. Or the gun. You aim for the throat. Or the head."
I stand up. The air in the cabin is hazy with dust and pulverized wood. Bullets are still chewing through the walls, but they’re aiming high, trying to suppress us.
I can't fight this with a shotgun. A gun runs out of ammo. A gun jams.
I need weapons that don't break.
I strip my shirt off, buttons tearing. I kick my boots away.
"Jax?" Miranda is looking up at me. Her eyes are wide, reflecting the chaotic beams of light cutting through the room. She looks terrified.
"Don't look away," I say. My voice is deepening, distorting as my vocal cords thicken. "Remember what I am."
I close my eyes and tear down the wall in my mind.
I don't ease into the shift. I dive into it.
Snap.
My spine arches violently. The sound of vertebrae grinding and expanding fills the small room, louder than the gunfire outside. My shoulders dislocate, broadening, reforming with dense, powerful muscle.
I fall to my knees.
My hands claw at the floorboards. Fingers fuse. Nails lengthen into black, curved daggers. The skin splits, not bleeding, but revealing the thick, coarse fur beneath.
My jaw pushes out, bones cracking as my skull reshapes. Teeth—human, flat, useless—are pushed out by fangs designed to shear meat from bone.
It hurts. It always hurts. It feels like being burned alive and put back together by a madman.
I let out a scream that turns into a roar.
I hit the floor on all fours.
I shake my head, the world shifting from the dull colors of human sight to the hyper-focused monochrome of the predator. The smell of the cabin explodes—Miranda’s scent (salt, fear, brass) is overwhelming.
I turn to her.
I am massive. My head brushes the bottom of the table. My fur is black, absorbing the stray beams of light. My claws gouge deep grooves into the wood as I shift my weight.
Miranda doesn't scream. She doesn't scramble backward.
She pushes herself up to her knees. She looks me in the eye.
"Beautiful," she whispers.
The word hits me harder than a silver bullet. She sees the monster, and she calls it beautiful.
I step closer. I lower my massive head, huffing hot air against her face. I nudge her hand with my wet nose.
She buries her fingers in my ruff, gripping tight.
"Kill them," she whispers, her voice trembling with a dark, fierce rage I’ve never heard from her before. "Kill them all, Jax."
That is the permission the Wolf needed.
I pull away. I turn toward the door.
The wood is shredding under the hail of fire.
I don't bother with the latch.
I coil my muscles, the power in my hind legs building like a compressed spring. I let out a snarl that vibrates the walls.
I launch myself.
I hit the door at full speed. The wood shatters outward, hinges screaming as they tear from the frame.
I am airborne.
I leap off the porch, sailing through the blinding white light of the flood beams, descending into the chaos of the mud and the blood below.