16. Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Abby
I woke slowly, my body stiff and twisted over whatever hard surface had become my pillow. Sleeping in the back of my car didn’t make for amazing rest and by now I was used to waking sore. I blinked to clear the sleep from my vision and felt a jolt of confusion as I was met with the smell of fast food and the hum of the road beneath the car. My eyes slanted sideways, to where my hand was firmly planted on the denim clad thigh sprawled across the driver’s seat.
Gage was hunched over, focusing on the road as it curved up a steep hill. I shifted as I dislodged myself from the center console, withdrawing my hand and hoping my loud groan would distract him from noticing that I was feeling him up in my sleep. A chocolate wrapper crinkled in my other hand. I licked my lips, praying there wasn’t chocolate on my face.
“Where are we?” I asked, watching trees and nothing but trees fly by the window.
“Northeast.” Gage leaned around his seat to grab a paper bag, and I held my breath. Wherever northeast was, the elevation had changed, and it was a long, long way down. I couldn’t see much through the forest, but I didn’t have to see anything to know how steep the hill was.
I forced myself to look away from the window, peering into the paper bag as he set it in my lap.
“It’s cold. I didn’t think you would be asleep so long.”
“That’s fine,” I said hoarsely. “Thank you.”
“Hmm.”
I gave up on the concept of conversation with Gage and pulled a box of fries from the bag. They were cool, but I was so hungry I didn’t care. When they were demolished, I searched for more, finding another box of fries, three burgers, chicken strips, and a brownie.
“You weren’t hungry?”
“I already ate,” he answered.
“This is all for me ?”
“I didn’t want you to be hungry.” The outline of his jaw hardened.
We drove in silence. I finished a cold cheeseburger and half the brownie. I hated to waste food, especially since I mostly ate canned soups when I wasn’t at work and anything deep fried felt like a luxury, but there was no way I was eating all this. Brushing the crumbs from my hands, I turned my attention back to Gage. He had some explaining to do.
“How long was I out?”
He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Two hours.”
“ Two hours? Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“You said you were tired.”
I glanced out the window, where the road was evening out, and our ascent seemed to be over. “Where are we really?”
“Do you know where Ellisville is?”
“No.”
“Well, we passed it half an hour ago. There’s a travel stop in about six miles. Not a town but they’ll have groceries and gas if we’re lucky.”
I lifted my phone from the drink holder, hoping to pull up my GPS app and locate us only to find it was off. “Did you turn my phone off?”
“It wouldn’t stop buzzing. I didn’t want it to wake you up.”
I glared suspiciously at him as I powered it back on. “Twenty-seven missed calls and sixty-two text messages!” I skimmed through the messages, seeing an outgoing message from me to Levi.
Everything’s fine. I’ll be back at work on Tuesday.
There was a selfie of me attached to the message from at least a month ago.
“Did you text Levi from my phone?” I flipped through dozens of messages from Levi and the guys, seeing the words “kidnap” and “rescue” multiple times. Well, at least there was that.
“He would be half a mile behind us if I didn’t.”
“Because you kidnapped me,” I pointed out. “Where did you even get this picture of me?”
“You agreed to come.”
“You took my keys and forced me out of the driver’s seat!”
Gage took one hand off the wheel to gesture at me. “Look at you! You’re exhausted. I wasn’t going to let you drive.”
“You weren’t going to let me escape.” I crossed my arms over my chest. For someone that hated me he was really going out of his way to spend time with me.
“Abigail,” he said sternly, “you know I didn’t kidnap you.”
“Why am I really here, Gage?”
His face reddened, fingers tapping on the steering wheel. “To keep you safe.”
“No offense but you’re the most dangerous thing in my life at present.”
“I can guarantee, I’m not.” He adjusted the air conditioner on his side, cranking up an arctic blast. “You don’t want Levi to know you’re living out of your car, right?”
“I would prefer if everyone at the office didn’t know my situation.”
“Well, when Levi told me to go to the cabin, that was an alpha order. I can’t deny it without challenging him. Which means,” he leaned to glance at one of his mirrors as we took a sharp turn, “I had to take you with me. The other option was disclosing your situation to Levi so that he could arrange a safe place for you to stay. I figured you would be less pissed at me this way.”
“I’m still pretty pissed at you,” I admitted. “Why wouldn’t I be safe at Deer Base?”
“You were approached by a scent-less shifter last night. At the very same time that someone was shooting through Cargill’s living room. There are no coincidences in my world.”
“That guy was just drunk.”
“No, he wasn’t. He was probably watching us the whole night, waiting for a chance to get you alone.”
“ Me ?” I shivered. “Why me?”
“You’re the weakest link in our pack,” Gage said bluntly.
“Thanks.”
“It’s not a personal sleight, it’s just the truth. You’re a soft spot for us.”
For us ? Even Gage?
“Oh,” I said. I watched the yellow lines flash by on the road, considering this. There were some risks working in the private security world but that was when you were working security. I just answered the phone.
“You don’t have to be scared. You’ll be safe at the cabin with me.”
“Your brother thinks I need protection from you.” Was he wrong? First there was Cargill’s house this morning. Then Gage was waiting in my car and impersonating me over text message.
“He’s an idiot.”
“I thought you were going to hurt me this morning,” I whispered.
Gage placed his hand over the drink holder between us, palm up. “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. I just got carried away.”
Despite better judgment, I believed him.
“You get carried away a lot.”
“I—" He took a deep breath. “I hear this sound. Like a high-pitched tone.”
I blinked at him. “Like tinnitus?”
“No. It’s like a vibration. It’s painful, and it’s almost constant.” He rubbed the left side of his neck. “It makes me…angry. More than angry. It makes me feel like I could kill someone.”
“Do you hear it now?”
“No. Not when—not when you’re around.”
That explained a lot. “That’s…odd. When did it start?”
“Five years ago, on our very last mission.” He took a long pause, before telling me, “I watched my best friend die on that mission.”
“I’m so sorry, Gage.”
“We were held captive. They tortured us.”
“Oh my God.”
“I’ve heard that awful fucking noise ever since.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “But it’s getting better. I’ve got it under control, despite what my pack might think.”
“You’re not crazy, Gage,” I assured him. Scary and emotionally illiterate and impulsive? Totally. But he wasn’t crazy.
His throat worked. “I might be.”
“You haven’t told Levi about this, have you?”
“And I don’t plan to.” He gave me a hard look. “So, now we’re even. I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.”
“So, do you actually need a research assistant or was that an excuse?”
“I need you. We’re going to dig into Cargill as deep as I can go.”
“Why?” I asked.
“To find out what he’s hiding or find information to motivate him to reveal his secrets.”
“Are we talking blackmail?”
“Suggestive intel.”
“Okay, so yes on the blackmail.” I chewed my lip. “Have you done this before?”
“I’ve done every bad thing you can imagine, and worse.” He said it so seriously, and it was undoubtedly honest, but I just couldn’t hold it together.
I laughed. “Do you think Levi will let us put that on the business card?”
“Of all the dumb shit I say, that’s what you choose to laugh at?”
“You don’t say dumb shit. You say smart shit. I don’t know what you’re saying half the time.”
“ I don’t know what I’m saying half the time.”
He smiled, a real, full, genuine smile. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever truly seen him smile before. The entire shape of his face changed, the lines around his eyes softening, that dimple he shared with his brother peeking out from beneath a five o’clock shadow.
I smiled back, and suddenly our eyes were locked, the air between us thick, the uneven rhythm in my chest thumping metallically.
Ping. Ping.
What was that?
“Gage,” I broke my gaze away, “I don’t want to tumble off a cliff.”
He whipped his head back toward the road, car swerving slightly as he corrected. “I won’t blackmail Cargill if I don’t have to. There are other methods.”
“Right, so torture is on the table too.”
“I won’t do anything to put you at risk, Abby.”
I swallowed my fear, quietly asking, “If you’re right and Cargill is lying about Manchini, what’s he really doing here?”
Gage exhaled. The logic of the question seemed to ground him, giving him an anchor back to his body and, thankfully, the road he was supposed to focus on. “That’s the million-dollar question. Why come all the way to Seattle, specifically for our firm?”
“What do you think he wants?”
He didn’t answer for a long time. “Hard to say. It’s possible he’s still in private military contracting and he wants to recruit us.”
“Why not just offer you a job?”
“Shady people do shady shit.”
“It’s a very expensive and dangerous way to lure you into his evil villain squad. And it doesn’t explain who shot at him.”
“He shot at himself.”
I leveled Gage with a skeptical look. “From the comfort of his own couch?”
Gage shrugged. “It’s not difficult to hire someone to shoot a couple of rounds into your window.”
“Okay, filing that away for future anxiety musings.”
I was about to ask another round of questions when a small building came into view on our left.
There was a gravel lot surrounding the steel structure. That was it. No sign suggesting it was a place of business, or even an address for a private residence. The windows were shuttered with sheets of metal and other than the light above the single door, there didn’t appear to be any lights or activity.
Gage pulled into the gravel lot and put the car in park. He twisted behind the driver’s seat again, this time retrieving a canvas jacket and handing it to me. “Put this on.”
I stared at the offered clothing and shook my head. “I’m not cold.”
“It’s not to keep you warm.” His tone was harsh. “This is a shifter outpost.”
“What does that mean? Are shifters offended by immodesty?” I tugged at my white t-shirt. My black bra was visible through the fabric, but it was hardly vulgar.
“Wear the jacket, Abigail.”
“Answer my question, Gage. ”
He froze, his arms visibly dotting with goosebumps. Maybe he was the one that needed a jacket. “This is an outpost for hardcore Wildlings. My brother, myself, and a few others are the only city shifters that frequent this area. It’s not…” He cleared his throat. “It’s not a place for humans.”
“Are they going to eat me?”
“Not if you’re wearing my scent. So, you can either put on the jacket or let me scent mark you.” He said it through clenched teeth, like the latter really, really bothered him.
I stuffed my arms into the oversized jacket, hating how it hung off me. I didn’t know what scent marking entailed though and after my experience with scenting, I wasn’t keen to find out.
That’s what I told myself, anyway. The butterflies in my stomach told a different story. Shifters didn’t casually exchange scents with their friends. From my understanding, it was extremely proprietary. Like stamping a big “no trespassing” sign on another person for all shifters to see. Well, smell.
Gage didn’t want to do it though. He just didn’t want some Wildling to carry me off before I could sit at his cabin with him and take notes for seventeen hours straight.
Wildlings didn’t actually do that, did they? I’d never heard of a shifter carrying a human off into the forest like the nightmarish version of a fairytale but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
The uneasy way Gage scanned our surroundings as he exited the car didn’t reassure me. He hustled me up to the door, knocking twice before letting himself in. The interior was lit by a series of fluorescent lights strung from the ceiling. Combined with the metal utility shelves and the concrete floor, it reminded me of the junky resale shops my parents used to visit when I was a kid.
By the looks of it, this place was a junky resale shop. There were ancient toasters and dented up cooking pots. A crock pot that hadn’t been cleaned thoroughly by the previous owner. Piles of faded clothes. Something about this place made me shiver.
Through the narrow aisles of shelves, I saw a small cooler on the back wall. I guess we were lucky because there appeared to be groceries today. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to eat them.
A sudden movement to our right startled me and I instinctively hurled myself into Gage. His expression remained stoic, but he rested his arm protectively across my shoulders.
“Long time no see, Griffin.”
“Been busy,” he answered vaguely.
The haggard man standing behind a cluttered folding table gave a coughing laugh. He looked as ancient as the toaster, the fading green of his military jacket leeching the color from his pale skin. In the dim light of the building his eyes shone an eerie gold.
Shifter .
“That’s the way of it in those human cities. Don’t know how you stand it. Like living in a beehive.” He came around the table, walking toward me until he was solidly in my personal bubble.
It was one thing when Gage invaded my space. When a strange shifter that was looking at me like I was lunch did it, I felt a little less relaxed. The man inhaled deeply, and I cringed.
Gage didn’t appreciate the invasion either because he stepped between us and bared his teeth. “Back off, Silas.”
Silas bared his own teeth in a feral grin. “She’s going to be a regular then, eh?”
“Yes,” Gage snapped. “Make it known.”
Silas waved the words away, returning to whatever tools he was tinkering with at his table. “No need. Her scent will stink up the place for weeks.”
I frowned. Shifters were something else when it came to manners.
Gage ignored the remark, putting his hand firmly on my back and propelling me to the coolers at the back of the store. I tensed when we came around the corner and saw two men huddled over a shelf, murmuring about a spool of fishing line. They looked up in unison, sporting the same golden eyes as Silas.
I quickly remembered my shifter etiquette and dropped my gaze back to the cooler in front of us. No direct eye contact was a rule if you didn’t want to start a pissing contest. Beside me Gage was relaxed and confident. That, at least, made me feel safe. I got the feeling Wildlings liked humans even less than my current companion.
The cooler was mostly filled with beer and bottled sweet tea. There were three jugs of whole milk, two boxes of butter, and a brick of cheese with questionable coloration. Several cartons of eggs were stacked together on one shelf, but they didn’t bear any kind of label.
“Cool, local food,” I said with a forced smile.
Gage’s answering smile was faint but genuine. He scooped up two cartons of eggs, a jug of milk, and handed me a box of butter. “Don’t have any perishables at the cabin.”
The shifters were still watching us curiously as we returned to Silas. They were young, twenty at the oldest, and when I stole my second glance, they looked more human and less menacing. They were so isolated, maybe they were just ignorant.
I didn’t exhale until Gage tossed Silas a handful of cash—way too much for the quantity and quality of food we were buying—and guided me back to the car. I slid into the passenger side, manually pushing the lock down on my door and huddling into my seat.
Gage deposited the groceries into the back seat beside my folded bedding and started the car. I waited until he was reversing back onto the road before asking, “So why did you pick up suspiciously unlabeled groceries at a 200% markup instead of stopping in the nearest town?”
“Think of it like a tax,” he explained. “Wildlings don’t care about private property laws and trespassing unless it gets them involved in human business. They adhere to territory markers established by their animals. In theory, our cabin is within their territory.”
“Are we safe out here?”
“You’re always safe with me.”
I swallowed, not sure how to respond. The silence in the car grew heavy. Beneath us the road hummed, becoming louder as the terrain grew rougher. Fifteen minutes later Gage turned onto a narrow gravel drive, and I had my first official what the actual fuck am I doing? moment.
I tried to recount my steps, starting with going out for drinks last night, but none of it made sense. Why did I agree to this? Why did he ask me to? Gage was brilliant in his own right. He didn’t need me to sit there and take notes for him all weekend.
I had this constant feeling like I was missing something, like there was more going on with Gage, and it was driving me insane that he wasn’t telling me. At the same time, I didn’t know exactly what to ask to get my hands on the answers because I couldn’t put words to what was happening.
I was consumed by him. What had been an innocent attraction only weeks ago had turned into this compulsion to please him, to agree to any insane request simply because he asked. This man was cold, and only hours ago making unfair accusations, and it didn’t matter. I forgave him.
I would forgive all of it because when I looked at him, I saw through the roughened exterior to the softness underneath. Gage wasn’t hateful. He was hurting. Even now I could feel it thrumming off him, this undying grief. This unending guilt.
If this was what it took to relieve him, I would do it.
And when it was over, I had to remove myself. Whatever it took, I had to put an end to these feelings.
My tender heart couldn’t take another break in this lifetime. When I was ready to find love again, I would look for someone that cherished every moment with me. Someone that would respect me. That would want me despite my failings.
I would find a man that could give me gentle love. That man was never going to be Gage.