Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Within minutes, Samara pulled the van behind the gym where no one could see it. Another minute she had George inside the gym and back in Carlie's arms.
The two embraced the same way Kellen had embraced his brothers, but with joy instead of resignation.
Samara opened the office door to leave. Carlie pulled away from George and whispered, "Maria, you are coming with us, right? That's why you're here? Because Kellen wants to keep you safe."
Samara’s throat closed so tight, she couldn’t respond.
Yes, that was what Kellen wanted, but she couldn’t do it.
Her head still spun with conflicting instincts, her wolf shadow wanted her to run, but her grandfather’s was still dominant.
She left the office without a word and made her way back to the van so she wouldn't have to hear Carlie explain to her husband just how much Samara had fucked up their lives. She never meant to hurt anyone and yet that’s all she’d done since she hitchhiked into Winterbourne.
Yanking open the back of the van, she rummaged through supplies, until she found what she was looking for—three automatic rifles wrapped and stored.
Only after she unwrapped them did she realize these weren't the commercial automatic rifles her grandfather had owned. All three had automatic and burst options, along with a sling. Each one showed light scars of past usage. If she had to guess, she’d say the brothers had kept the rifles they used the last time they served in the military.
At the moment it didn't matter how they got the weapons. The only thing she cared about was finding bullets. It didn’t take long.
They were also packed in another carton along with pouches and gloves so she could easily carry the boxes and access the silver bullets without hurting herself.
Further digging in the spare tire compartment revealed three handguns and more silver bullets along with holsters for each.
She placed the weapons on the pavement and slammed the van door shut. Part of her wanted to search for body armor but decided to forgo the extra protection since it wouldn't fit her and could cause problems if she had to shift. She knelt down to get the rifle strap around her shoulders.
That was when she saw the drone. Stephen had landed it at the other end of the building. An idea bloomed, so she ran over, picked up the hawk-looking device and ran back.
Squatting back down next to her stash, she slipped the holster around her right hip and secured a sidearm.
"What the hell is all this?"
Samara didn't bother to look up at George, who stood over her along with his wife.
"Maria, please tell us you're not going after them. You know Kellen wouldn't want you to." Carlie's voice sounded both pleading and stern at the same time
"My name is Samara, and Kellen isn't here, so he doesn't get a say in what I do." She winced at her own words, but she hadn't exactly said she wouldn't try to rescue Kellen, just that she would protect George and Carlie. How better to protect them than to kill Josiah and rescue Kellen. Right?
George squatted down. He must have realized that talking her out of her plan was useless. He ran a hand over one of the rifles.
"Do you know how to use any of these?"
"My grandfather taught me." Still keeping her gaze off her friends, she scooted around George and opened the passenger side door.
From the floor she picked up Stephen's laptop. The only way to secure both was to place the laptop in her backpack and wrap the rifle’s sling around the drone.
She'd be loaded down with the extra weight, but for what she had in mind, she wouldn't need to carry it for long.
"Is there anything we can do to help before we leave?" Carlie asked, her voice tight.
"Yes. I need you to get something for me from the pharmacy. Can you do that and be back here in ten minutes?"
Carlie nodded after Samara told her what she needed and jogged away, realizing just as George had, that talking Samara out of her plan was useless.
Waiting was agony, but she used that time to secure the pouch and shove the boxes of bullets inside.
The gloves were too big for her, but she’d have to work around that when she needed to reload.
By the time she had finished, Carlie had returned with her secret weapon, a sixty-four-ounce bottle of colloidal silver.
This she would have to keep in her hand as she made her way to the camp.
She faced the only other people in the world that she trusted more than the brothers.
"The van has a full tank of gas. There's more stuff in there you can use to protect yourself.
No phones, and change your clothes first, just like Kellen said.
The man after me won't think anything about going after your kids if he thinks it'll help him find you. "
"We'll never be able to return?" Carlie started to tear up, making Samara feel worse.
“Just keep an eye out for those ads.”
There wasn't anything else she could say, so she gave them both a quick and final hug while whispering, "Be safe." Without looking back, she jogged farther down the road so she could cross the street without the sheriff or anyone else seeing her.
Once in the woods, she quickly reoriented herself to find her tree and continued heading east. Ten minutes later she slowed down.
If she was going in the right direction, the camp would be in front of her.
At least she was downwind from this angle, so there was less of a chance of the Riverstone Pack picking up her scent.
Thinking about the map on Stephen's laptop, Samara circled around so the line of outhouses was right in front of her. If the guards still avoided that area, the stench would mask her scent and help her sneak toward the perimeter.
A few minutes later the overwhelming smell of piss and shit hit her.
She slowed down even further to avoid making a racket while walking on the fallen leaves.
Just before she reached the perimeter, she craned her neck to look for the nearest guards.
Leo had been right, no one had wanted to stand anywhere near that horrible smell.
Hunching down, she shuffled forward until the back of the outhouses blocked her view of the campground.
The quiet of the forest unnerved her. It was as if the wildlife had picked up on the evil that trespassed on these grounds and knew to stay away. While the forest was quiet, the pack was not. The sharp sound of a muffled howl followed the rattle of chains and caustic laughter.
Rage at the sound of that voice engulfed her and made her dizzy. Temptation to just charge into the camp, guns blazing and blowing Josiah's head off almost overcame her. Then another sensation washed over her. A cool sense of calmness pushed back against her grandfather's wolf shadow.
Had her own wolf shadow started to fight back against her grandfather's?
Was she back to where she was when she first escaped Riverstone—torn between two wolf shadows, one hellbent on revenge and one demanding survival at all costs?
Closing her eyes, Samara turned her focus inwards.
She'd managed to convey her thoughts to Kellen's wolf shadow, so why couldn't she do the same with her own?
All right you two, calm the fuck down, now.
I need your help. I will free Kellen and the others, but if you can't help me, then be quiet.
Here are the rules. Primum Genus Suum , you don't come out to play until I tell you.
As for you, alpha wolf, you keep me steady.
If you can't work with Primum Genus Suum, I swear I'll buy another sixty-four ounces of silver and drink it down in one damn gulp.
If the wolf shadows were a part of her, then all she was doing was talking to herself. It didn't matter. All that she cared about was that it worked. Both wolf shadows stopped pulling her in opposite directions and let her take control of her actions.
The sound of pain from inside the camp changed. Another voice. Someone else was taking the brunt of Josiah's cruelty. She needed to see what Josiah was doing and where exactly he was in relation to the perimeter of the camp.
She looked up to see that the outhouses appeared to have flat roofs.
First, she lowered her backpack to the ground with the rifle and drone.
Then she pressed against the buildings to give her leverage when she jumped and grabbed the edge of the middle outhouse.
At least her preternatural strength had returned, making it easy to pull her body weight and the other weapons she carried to the top.
What she saw as she lay flat sickened her.
The guards surrounded a burned-out fire pit with Kellen and Grace sitting off to one side, chains around their legs and wrists.
Behind them, an omega had his meaty fingers dug into their scalps, forcing them to watch Josiah use Stephen, who was also restrained by chains, as a punching bag.
Leo lay nearby, also chained, but also half shifted.
If this was the limit of the protection spell, the protection spell needed a hell of a stronger punch.
Swallowing back bile, she noticed it looked like the skin around Stephen's chains had turned his skin blue mixed with blood red. That could only mean that the chains were silver based and were poisoning them. Josiah was one sick and twisted bastard.
The full truth of what happened a century and a half ago revealed itself in a terrible image superimposed on what she was witnessing.
If Kellen was an alpha, that meant Grace was also an alpha.
And if alphas only mated with other alphas, that meant that Kellen's father had to be the alpha of the Riverstone Pack.
The same alpha that Josiah murdered in front of Kellen and Grace.
He was recreating what he did back when he attacked the pack by making Kellen and Grace watch him slowly kill the ones they cared about the most.