Chapter 31 I’ve Got This
Chapter Thirty-One
I’ve Got This
ELI
I sat on Emmy’s couch with my hands in my lap like a little schoolchild in time-out.
It felt like a pile of fire ants crawled underneath my ass, biting me, urging me to stand up and run.
I felt an invisible thread tying me to Gabe.
The incessant pull to be near him during the battle was almost unbearable.
I took out my phone and tried to distract myself with pointless, stupid videos that only served to make me even more anxious. How could anyone be making stupid jokes or silly pranks when there was a life-or-death fight going on? It felt insane to me. Wrong.
Raquel was in the kitchen. We were supposed to go into the shift room in about thirty minutes. There, we’d be locked in and wouldn’t come out until the sun rose again.
I wouldn’t know anything about how the Burlington pack did until then.
The idea of waiting to know if Gabe was alive or not was excruciating.
My brain whirred like a broken gear. So many ideas rolled around in my skull. One of them began solidifying…
It was stupid.
It was fucking crazy.
“Hey, Raquel,” I called out. “What kind of music do you like? It’s too quiet in here.”
“Anything,” she shouted back from the kitchen. The clanging of a pan being placed into the oven followed. Apparently, Raquel wanted to cook a couple of pizzas to bring into the shift room with us. “Whatever you want to listen to. Just not country, please.”
“Okay,” I said. I turned on the TV and went to Emmy’s YouTube. The homepage was full of hockey videos and a few hour-long fireplace videos. I went down to the music section and scrolled over to a rock song.
Good. That would be loud enough for what I planned to do.
I clicked it and raised the volume. The cheesy smell of multiple pepperoni pizzas wafted from the kitchen.
Also great for the purposes of my possibly suicidal mission.
I glanced at my watch. It was getting late. Time was running out. So many warning bells were going off in my head, shouting at me to sit my ass down and stay safe.
I ignored them all. “Gonna use the bathroom,” I said over the music. The kitchen was partly open to the living room, but a large wall blocked Raquel’s view of most of the room.
And, more importantly, it blocked her view of the front door.
I quietly grabbed my keys and slowly—so slowly—turned the doorknob, avoiding any sounds, even though the music provided a good enough cover.
I cracked the door open just enough for me to slip through.
Then, on the other side, I gently shut it again.
I waited a few seconds to see if Raquel had caught on, but the door stayed closed.
I was sure I didn’t have long before she realized.
I ran to my car. I used the key to unlock it, just to avoid the beeping. I fell into my front seat. Fuck, my heart pounded so hard in my chest I was scared it would explode before I even got to the clearing. I turned the car on and braced myself.
Again, it seemed like Raquel couldn’t hear me over the music.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck. Okay.”
It felt like I was breaking out of Guantanamo.
I reversed out of the driveway, thankful that I had just gotten the squeaky brakes replaced last week.
I then pulled down the tree-lined road and exited the community, looking into my rearview mirror and expecting to see Raquel racing down the street after me.
But she never came.
I sped up once I got onto the main roads. In my phone, I plugged in Coral Ridge Park and floored it in the directions it told me. I looked up at the dark blue sky. Still no moon.
This was dumb. I didn’t even have a weapon or a way to fight. But I also couldn’t live with myself if something happened to Gabe and I wasn’t there. Realizing he was my fated mate had changed the wiring inside my brain.
So I threw absolutely every single shred of caution to the wind.
The GPS sent me to a random dirt parking lot.
The preserve was massive, but I had seen the maps they were using to plan the attack.
I saw the trail they’d take to get to the clearing.
It was directly in front of me. There were no other cars around, no other people.
The park and its trails were supposed to be closed after sunset.
This is so fucking crazy.
I swallowed down my fear and got out of my car. The white, round crown of the full moon inched over the treetops. I ran down the trail, hoping against all hope I hadn’t gotten the directions mistaken.
An angry howl tore through the night.
I ran harder, like this was some kind of hockey drill. Dirt and rocks kicked up behind me. The howls morphed. They sounded more like yelps of pain. The commotion became louder and louder.
I ran harder. The trail curved ahead of me, the trees opening.
I stopped just short of entering the clearing. Shock took over.
The battle raged, and fuck, was it bloody. Grass had been stained red all through the clearing. I counted seven weres, all locked in lethal engagements. They all looked different, allowing me to spot Gabe immediately.
No… oh no.
He was in danger. He had been pinned to the ground. Another were was above him. He was about to have his throat ripped out. I had to stop this somehow. Maybe if I shouted and created a distraction, it’d be long enough for Gabe to retaliate and save himself.
I’ve got this.
I took a step forward. I sucked in a breath, ready to shout.
Something flew through the air from the other side of the clearing.
A thick trail of smoke followed behind it.
The item landed on the ground and spewed out more and more smoke, covering the area, making it so that I couldn’t even see.
I coughed and tried to fan it away. I recognized that smell, though.
It was the same concoction I’d given Gabe to knock him out.
I stumbled back into the cover of the trees. Was this some kind of secret plan the Burlington pack had come up with? But why would they drug themselves in the process?
The smoke cleared and revealed an ominous sight.
All of the massive and blood-soaked weres had been incapacitated.
They lay down on the ground in an oddly peaceful manner.
Like someone had called out “nap time,” and everyone had been forced to comply.
I wanted to run through the field and go check on Gabe, but something was holding me back.
Movement from the other end of the clearing caught my eye.
Someone dressed in all black exited from the wall of trees.
Two silver blades gleamed in his hands. He walked with his head down, looking at one of the knocked-out shifters.
There was something about him that felt almost familiar…
I held my breath. The man moved slowly, deliberately.
He didn’t look concerned at all that he’d just walked into a clearing full of weres.
He crouched and ran a knife over the shifter’s all-white chest, some of the fur already marked red with blood.
He lifted the knife in the air. The angle made his face clear as day, highlighted by the glow of the bright full moon shining down from its cloudless stage.
Holy shit.
“Stop!” I shouted out at Harrison before he could plunge the knife down. I wasn’t sure if that shifter was even part of the Burlington pack, but I couldn’t take that risk. Harrison jerked up to his feet, holding the vicious-looking blades out like he was a trained fighter.
What the fuck?
“Elijah?” He sounded as shocked as I felt, but his mask of cool calm that I’d see dozens of times in the locker room flickered back on.
His shoulders appeared to drop, and his hands lowered.
“I didn’t—you and Gabe. Shit.” He tossed the curving blade into the air and caught it effortlessly.
The hilt appeared to be made of some kind of dark stone.
“A blind spot I should have picked up on.”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I moved closer, inching myself between him and the unconscious were I knew had to be Gabe. Harrison didn’t seem to care, his posture still relaxed, considering the situation. He propped a leg up on a smooth stone at his feet.
“How much has Gabe told you?”
“Everything. Enough. But… what are you doing here?” It was like putting a puzzle together through a thick fog.
I could make out some of the pieces, feel a few of the edges, fit a couple together, but no matter what, I couldn’t see the full picture.
“Are you the one that’s behind this? This pack war? ”
He sighed, like he was exhausted from having to go over another bad game with the team. My brain could hardly process the fact that I was speaking to my general manager, but that was probably because I was now focused on how the hell I was going to get out of this.
I had no weapons. I’d brought nothing with me but my fists.
I regretted that. A mistake. But I wouldn’t let it affect me, not now.
I’ve got this.
I had to keep him talking. Maybe one of the shifters would wake up—hopefully, one of the Burlington wolves.
“Yes,” he said. His face appeared etched out of stone, not a single twitch or micromovement. Not even any blinks. I wanted to look away, as if staring into those cold, dark eyes any longer would break me, but I held it. “It was me. All of it.”
“Why?”
“Do you know what happens to someone if they cross an angry were on a full moon? My daughter found out. She went on a short night walk on the trail behind our house. She’d done it hundreds of times before. She didn’t come home. Her body was unrecognizable when we found her.”
Fuck. I’d heard that Harrison had lost his daughter. That the cause had been an animal attack.
“I found her. I knew it wasn’t a wolf or cougar that did that.
I started to dig, started looking around.
” He flared his blades out to his sides.
“I found the Hunters Guild first. They took me in, gave me training. Showed me how to hunt and kill these beasts. But the Guild wasn’t perfect—they follow too many silly rules, traditions.
I defected. Dropped off the radar and decided to hunt on my own. ”
“So you’re hunting these people? These innocent people? You know Gabe, you know Emmy, Chris. They’re real people, with big hearts and—”
“Chris, huh? I assumed Gabe and already had a suspicion about Emmy. Who else is caught in my net?”
Fuuuck.
“Why the pack war?” I asked, deciding to stick to questions instead of handing out information. From the corner of my eye, I could see Gabe’s limp were form. He wasn’t even twitching.
Come on. Wake up. Please wake up.
“I needed to draw them all out. I knew Viktor was a were—he was a fool and shifted in sight of a security camera I routinely checked. And Gabe had healed quite quickly after multiple injuries. I figured the other ones were better at hiding it, but we know Gabe is a shitty actor. All I had to do was spark a flame between them. Plant an iron collar after a game, leave a severed bobcat head at a hotel, abduct Viktor’s wife and make him think it was the Burlington pack. Easy things.”
The fog over the puzzle dispersed. The entire image was clear, and it made my stomach twist.
“My mission, Eli, is to kill these monsters. I don’t care that they wear human faces during the day.
That they laugh like us and speak like us.
These are abominations, and I’m going to execute them.
I will give you one chance to run and to never look back.
And don’t think of tying me to this. When they die in their were forms, they turn to dirt and ash when the sun comes up.
There will be no evidence. No body to bury. No human to grieve.”
He took a step toward me. The blades had a wicked glint to them.
“And if you choose to stay, then I will need to finish you too.”
I believed him. He was going to kill me. Either I ran and saved my own life or stayed and gave it up.
It was an easy decision.
I’m not leaving you, Gabe.
I braced myself. I wouldn’t run, but I wasn’t going to go down easy. I would put up a fight. He may have had the upper hand with weapons, but he was still a forty-nine-year-old man who had plenty of leftover injuries from his time as a hockey player.
I could take him.
I had to.
I pictured him like an opposing player. I charged forward, trying to catch him off guard.
At that exact moment, a loud crash and ear-splitting roar sounded from the opposite end of the clearing, stunning us both.
Harrison, in his shock, whipped his head toward the sound, giving me his back for a split second.
Long enough for me to bend down, lift the stone on the ground with both my hands, and bring it down hard on Harrison’s head.
He fell like a rag doll. I dropped the stone, blood drumming loudly between my skull. A were ran down the clearing, looking like a massive shadow. It stopped just feet away from me and reared up on its legs, looking down at me with honey-brown eyes.
It was Raquel. I knew instantly just by looking into her eyes.
She looked down at Harrison and peeled her lips back, showing a set of canines that were as large as the daggers that had fallen out of Harrison’s grip. She reared back, ready to snap him in half. “Wait, wait, he’s still breathing, hold on.”
Raquel moved her face inches away from mine and growled at me. Her breath was hot and smelled like the pizza she’d been eating.
“I don’t want anyone to die tonight.” I lifted a hand and placed it against the side of her head, her fur soft under my palm. “Please.”
She huffed, as if annoyed, and stepped back.
“Okay,” I said, taking off my shirt. “Keep a lookout, then, while I tie him up to a tree, just in case he wakes up before the sun comes up.”
Raquel gave me an agreeable growl and started to prowl the perimeter of the clearing. I took a moment to collect myself, taking in a deep breath and realizing that not only was it going to be a long-ass night, but that the morning would bring about a celebration.
I’d done it.
I saved them.
I really do go it.