23. Cash
Cash
I got a phone and we found a shitty motel to hole up in, but it turned out, Evie wasn’t the only one nervous about how Jax would react to me reaching out after all this time.
Now that I had everything I needed, all I could think about was the stark betrayal on his face when I said I wasn’t leaving with them. We were tight, and I’d let him go without me.
Sometimes, I wondered if it would’ve been better for me to go—if Reeve would’ve let Pa get off clean and everybody would be whole.
But Evie fixed that, and it was having her there that gave me the strength to reach out to him. She needed me, and I needed him.
Maybe he needed me too. I didn’t think Grant stood much of a chance at dismantling what the Crescent pack had built on his own, but he was clever, and if he got the drop on them, he could do some damage.
I hoped helping Jax now would make up for letting him down back when we were kids.
I kept my message simple: Hey, it’s Cash. I need to see you.
Then I sent him the address of the motel.
I didn’t know if it’d be better for us to stay here or go out and spread our trail around so it was harder to track. That might just lead Grant or his lackeys right to us if we weren’t careful. And, well . . . even running the short way across the rest of California, we were both exhausted.
I needed sleep, and the first thing Evie did was get in the shower.
I laid on top of the motel bedding and I must’ve drifted off, because I came to with a loud knocking on the door.
Evie sat upright in the double bed beside mine, her wide eyes reflecting the blue of the television she’d put on quietly while I’d been asleep.
For a split second, I thought it was Jax, but the knock was angry. Even if he was pissed at me—
No. An inhale, and I knew exactly who’d come to our door, and Evie did too.
She was shaking as she stared at me, but I knew that chain we’d latched on the motel door wouldn’t hold werewolves out for long.
“There’s a window in the bathroom,” she breathed. “It’s little, but I think we could make it.”
And then what? We wouldn’t make it around the motel if Grant had brought his loyalists with him. He wasn’t stupid enough to leave the place unguarded, was he?
If Evie was going to get out, she needed a distraction. And I was—
Fuck, I wasn’t up to being half of what she needed, but I could do this.
“No, baby,” I whispered back. “I need you to go. Run fast and don’t look back. You find the Crescent building and tell them where you came from, okay? I’ll meet you there later, I promise.”
Another harsh bang shook the door. I picked up her bag and shoved it into her arms. “You’ve got to go.”
“But—” Her eyes were watery, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t think about that.
I shook my head. “You remember how to run, don’t you? So stop standing here and get on with it.”
She swallowed hard and nodded, and I drew her in and kissed her forehead firmly before shoving her back. “Go.”
I shut the bathroom door behind her and heard her lock it. It wouldn’t be much, but every second counted if she was going to get away. And whatever they were going to do to me . . . I wasn’t letting them get their hands on her.
“Just a second,” I called out toward the door to outside, hoping to buy her a little more time.
I was stunned they didn’t just knock it down, but given that I was making noise, obviously headed that way, maybe they didn’t want to risk drawing attention.
I opened the door on Grant, flanked by Marcus, John, and Adam.
“Well, hey there, boys,” I said, forcing a grin as I held up my hands.
Grant sneered, but it was Marcus who shoved his way into the room first, snarling. “You piece of shit.”
His hand wrapped around my throat, and I growled. My claws out, I raked them down his face. He howled, but his skin was already stitching back together.
It was damn hard for a werewolf to hurt another one of our kind. It had to be brutal, permanent, or it had to come from an alpha.
Marcus’s fist crashed into my ribs, and I swore I felt them break. It was a different kind of pain than the shift.
But they healed too. Just not in time for me to get my breath or bearings. I doubled over, and Marcus grabbed my hands and jerked them behind my back, hauling me upright. The room spun as Grant stepped into it.
“Where’s the girl?”
“The girl?” I echoed.
“You took Evie. Where is she? Why come this way? What are you up to?”
“He’s a traitor,” John sneered.
I bit my lip against the strangest urge to laugh. What the fuck I was up to was trying to keep my family safe, trying to survive, and in that moment, something broke in my mind, because it was all so wrong and ridiculous. Nothing was supposed to be like this.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
Grant breathed in deep. Evie’s scent was all over the room. There was no hiding it.
“You’re lying.”
I laughed then. It was bleak, but I couldn’t help it. “Of course I am, you halfwit dick, but you’re fooling yourself if you think I’m going to put what you want over what Evie needs, and what she needs is the fuck away from you.”
Behind me, Marcus was growling again. I could feel it rumbling through my back.
Grant? He didn’t react.
He stood there, contemplating me, for the space of a breath or two.
Then, his hand slashed out, and a sick slicing preceded the worst pain I’d felt in my life.
Cackling, Marcus let me go, and I toppled onto my knees, gripping my middle, sure I was touching parts of myself that shouldn’t ever be on the outside.
Grant crouched in front of me and I fell back against the end of the motel bed. He wiped his bloodied fingers clean on my shirt.
“I’ve got no need for traitors and liars, Cash, but you bet your ass I’ll find use for your girl.”
I wanted to shove up, stand, fight him off, but he turned away and my limbs weren’t—they weren’t responding to me. Not at all.
I sagged to the side, bracing my hand on the floor to try and push myself up, but the pain left me dizzy.
I was bleeding so much. How the fuck did I have this much blood in me?
Everything was hazy and chilled, the pain so deep it became all that I was.
I heard the sound of Marcus clearing his throat, the hauck of him spitting on me, but everything had gone cold and needly feeling, and the pain in my middle was overwhelming.
His spit didn’t register. It didn’t matter.
I was dying.
My last thought before the darkness at the edges of my vision spread across the whole field was that I should’ve given Evie the phone. I didn’t even think about it until Marcus was shoving me over, digging it out.
He held it up. “He’s got a phone.”
“I want the number,” Grant said. “And anybody he’s communicated with. Think he got one for the girl?”
I bit back a groan. I hadn’t. Hadn’t been that smart.
But if I’d given her this one, she could’ve found Jax herself. I could have done one fucking thing right, but instead, I failed her.
Marcus took the information he wanted and tossed the phone down. It might’ve hit me, but it was hard to pick one pain out from all the rest.
My eyes stung, grief drowning my every last breath. I could only hope that one werewolf girl in a city this big would get lost. She’d be safe.
If she was safe, it wasn’t all for nothing.