Chapter 20
THE BIG HOWL
Omar pulls me from the stage as the crowd of forgotten alphas scatters, running for their homes which are now on fire. We sprint across the desert as more explosions erupt at our backs.
“Is it Walter?” I shout, not sure if Omar will be able to hear me over the blasts.
I would be fully not surprised if Walter was happy to destroy these rogues even though they seem to worship him. That’s just the way he is. I almost feel sorry for them and their misplaced faith.
Despite how he’s been recruiting them, Walter hates rogues, alpha or not, just as much as he hates the Elite Pack.
“No idea,” Omar says back, releasing my arm so we can run faster.
I glance over my shoulder. Luckily, the rogues are so distracted none of them have even thought to chase us. I guess if Walter is blowing up their homes, taking me to him is no longer a viable plan.
The rocky desert floor is tricky to navigate but eventually we find our way back to the abandoned strip mall.
“Shit,” Omar says when we arrive. The vacant buildings are even more haunting in the dark, backlit by the fires raging on the horizon.
I can still hear the cries of the men desperately trying to save their community.
But that’s not the most frightening thing happening right now. Because the car is gone.
“Did they move it?” I ask.
“How?” Omar spins, searching as if we might have forgotten where we parked. “They don’t have the key.”
I pat myself down desperately, terrified I’ve somehow misplaced the fob, but it’s there in my back pocket.
“Hey chico,” a familiar voice says somewhere behind me. “Lost something?”
I spin around at the sound of Olivia’s voice and find her a few stores down in the middle of the cracked tarmac.
“What—what are you doing here?”
Olivia jogs over to us. Her thick hair is pulled back in a tight ponytail that bounces with each stride. She’s wearing a gray tank top, khaki pants, and combat boots. Her face is smudged with black. She looks like a werewolf Lara Croft.
“No time to talk now, boys,” she says, arriving in front of us. “We had to move your car. Don’t worry, it’s safe. I know Jasper would hate it if anything happened to it. Come on, I’ll take you to it.”
She turns to go in a hurry.
“Wait,” I say, and she turns back. “How are you—what are you doing here?”
She rolls her eyes. “Those rogue alphas are going to start looking for whoever lit up their little trailers pretty quick. You want to be here when they do?”
Omar and I shake our heads. Definitely not.
“Come on then, there’s time to talk later.”
Olivia takes off and after sharing a look, Omar and I follow.
In front of us lies nothing but desert.
“Yo, where we heading?” Omar asks.
“See those rocks?” Olivia gestures up ahead but all I can make out is a couple of trees and the night sky.
Olivia picks up the pace and so do we. My blood-wolf senses tingle, pulling my attention to our right, where I notice other bodies moving in the dark. Whether they’re friendly or a cohort of pissed-off alphas, I can’t tell yet.
Eventually, we do come to a pile of boulders, arranged into a shape resembling an armadillo curled up to protect itself.
We run behind them, and I sigh in relief to see Jasper’s car waiting, next to a black van and a dust-covered Volvo.
Another familiar face is leaning on the trunk of Jasper’s ride.
“Mia!” I say.
“What took you so long?” she says, pushing off from the car. She’s gone full Kim Possible, in a black turtleneck and similar cargo pants to Olivia. “Hop in.”
She clicks some device and the doors to Jasper’s car unlock, she opens the driver’s side and gestures for me to get in.
“Follow us,” she says.
Olivia is already at the door of the dusty Volvo as the figures I sensed running through the night emerge from all sides.
On the whole they’re young, and there’s a mix of genders, which alleviates some of my stress.
They’re not the alphas. One of them slings open the back door of the van and they pile in while a girl I hadn’t noticed but who must have been there the whole time leans out of the driver-side window.
“Hustle, hustle, hustle!” she cries.
Omar has jumped in the passenger side of Jasper’s car. Mia leaves the door to the driver’s seat open as she heads for her and Olivia’s ride.
“Wait, I don’t understand,” I say, one foot in the car.
“Don’t worry about it now, just drive,” Mia says. “It’s good to see you, Max.”
I watch bemused as she jumps into her car. The engines on either side of me roar to life.
“Hurry up, chico!” Olivia calls from her open window. “Don’t get left behind.”
The van throws up a dust cloud as it pulls away, already plowing across the desert.
Olivia and Mia tear into the night as well.
Suddenly terrified of being left with no way to know where I should be going—and of course, still thinking of the angry, likely bloodthirsty mob that is almost certainly looking for the people who destroyed their sanctuary—I swiftly turn on the engine and hit the gas.
Through the dust and night it’s hard to follow our little caravan but I do my best to keep us from spinning out as the van and Olivia wind across the dirt.
I almost lose them completely when without forewarning they both swerve, taking a hard left.
Panicked, I spin the wheel, trying to keep control as the ass end of the car almost pulls us into a tailspin.
Once I’ve regained control, I realize we’ve turned onto an actual paved road and now, with less dust and more traction, it’s easier to keep pace with the other two vehicles.
Single file, we speed down the road, putting distance between ourselves and the settlement behind us.
“What just happened?” I ask, glancing at Omar, who has one hand pressed against the roof, bracing himself, clearly worried about my driving ability at this speed.
“No idea, man. But those dudes sure got what was coming to them.”
Eventually we turn again, and to my absolute relief we slow to a coasting pace.
From there we settle in as we drive for hours.
Omar and I don’t talk much, still confused and trying to process everything that just went down.
The landscape changes as we drive, we pass suburbs and towns, trees spring up, and eventually, as the dawn arrives, pale light rising, we find ourselves rocking along a bumpy dirt road through a dense forest.
Compared to the desert these surroundings feel super lush and fertile. Everything is green and richly colored. The air is cooler.
We follow our escorts until they arrive in a clearing, where a number of other vehicles are parked, all as dusty as each other. I cruise into a spot next to Mia and Olivia, hit the parking brake then take a moment.
“You trust those girls, right?” Omar asks, and I can’t remember if he’s met either of my friends before. But I immediately know the answer.
“With my life.”
“How was the drive?” Mia says, her red hair standing in stark contrast to the verdant surroundings as we jump out of the car and come to meet her.
“Oh very scenic,” I say. “But, um, where are we?”
Olivia joins us and gestures to a path that leads further into the trees. “Come see. You’ll love it.”
Through the forest we walk, for what must be close to another mile.
“I didn’t know there were any settlements in this area,” Omar says, and I have no idea how he has the breath. I can barely keep up as he and the girls push on through the foliage. The wolves from the van went ahead of us and we’ve already lost sight of them.
“We like to stay hidden,” Olivia says, from her place in front.
“We?” I ask.
“We call ourselves the Pixie Tribe,” Mia says. “But that’s sort of a joke.”
“So it’s like a camp or . . . ?”
“More of a commune,” Mia continues. “For queer rogues, radicals, and wolves without homes.”
Olivia doesn’t turn around but adds, “We’ve been with the Pixies for about three months now.”
“So do you both think of yourselves as rogues?”
Olivia’s shoulders tense, but Mia, who’s walking by my side, just shrugs.
“Not so much, but we believe in the mission of the Pixies.”
“And what’s that?” Omar asks, and I can tell he’s wondering why a rogue commune would attack another rogue settlement.
“The Pixies’ goal is to create a safe environment for the wolves who are ostracized from society, whether that be by packs or rogues,” Olivia says.
“And you use explosives to do this?” Omar asks.
Olivia turns her head ever so slightly but doesn’t look back. “We use whatever means are necessary.”
“So the alpha rogues . . . ?” I ask.
“We’ve been keeping an eye on them for a while,” Mia says, pushing a stray branch out of her path.
“We knew they were planning on aligning themselves with the Axis Pack. That rally you ended up at, they’d been planning it for weeks.
If we didn’t stop them last night they would have marched right to Walter and that would have not been good. ”
“So you blew up their homes?” Omar asks, clearly growing more and more uncomfortable with how the Pixies conduct their business.
I can’t say I wholly disagree, but those same rogues were about to deliver me to the man I fear the most. I may not agree with blowing up people’s homes but I’m sure as hell glad to have been rescued.
Olivia on the other hand is less understanding. She stops in her tracks and spins on her heel to face us.
“If you knew the shit the other Pixies have been through you might care less about a few trailers. We went after their property not those assholes themselves. You think they’d be as generous?”
Omar puts up both hands.
“Whoa, hey, I get it. Believe me. And thanks, you know, for the save.”
With a huff Olivia turns back to the path and continues walking. Mia wraps her hand around my arm and gives it a little squeeze.