38. Chapter 38
Chapter 38
Abby
I emerged from a dream, my mind clinging to the last tendrils of it, desperate to remember. There was something important about it, something I needed to do.
My hand moved to brush the hair from my eyes, but it never made it. I tried again, at first assuming that it was asleep. Then I became aware of the orientation of my body, upright and seated, and I realized I wasn’t in bed.
I wasn’t sleeping. I was unconscious.
A chunk of hair covered my face. I flipped my head, shifting the tangles enough to see concrete floors. Dusty light was coming from somewhere unknown, daylight and not electricity. A pair of cowboy boots was at the edge of my vision, connecting to denim-clad legs.
I couldn’t see his face.
I started thrashing before I could think better of it, yanking and yanking until my wrist were raw. They were bound behind my back, the cool metal of a chair digging into my forearms. My legs too were locked onto the chair, and I could barely lift my foot an inch.
“Who are you?” I screamed, choking on the panicked words.
Through my fear I remembered the bond. It was like an explosion when I reached for it, bursting inside me with a storm of fury and fear and desperation. I mentally grasped it, pulling frantically. I didn’t know if Gage could tell where I was.
I had a vague awareness of the direction I could find him, but it was faint, as if we were very far away from each other.
Maybe we were.
A sudden wave of calm came down the bond, steady, and confident, and my heartbeat slowed a fraction. It was a silent promise. Even if I couldn’t hear the words, I knew what he was telling me.
“I’ll find you.”
The boots took three heavy steps closer, and I managed to crane my neck until I found a pale face. His hair was a similar shade to mine, long and unkempt. It hung limply over half of his features, shadowing the jagged pink scars I knew were there.
Copper eyes glowed menacingly, and I quickly averted my gaze.
“Dallas?” I whispered the name.
He crouched in front of me, lifting my chin with one finger. His tone contrasted with his appearance, light and playful. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”
I swallowed, searching for more of that calm. “What am I doing here?”
“Is it too cliche if I say ‘revenge?’” He chuckled.
I tried to smile. “Yeah, that’s pretty cliche.”
“I didn’t want revenge until they told me I needed revenge,” he said suddenly, the words a vicious jab. “But they were right. Every last one of them needs to pay.”
“Revenge against who?”
“My pack. Mancini and those elitist assholes. The scientists. Hell, might even try to kill the president while I’m at it.”
My mind grappled for purchase on a clear thought. Could I talk my way out of this? Was he crazy? He sounded kind of crazy, his accented words oddly slurred. “Why do you want revenge against your pack?”
“Because they left me to fucking die!” He boomed, rising from the floor with explosive energy. “They left me, and those fucking freaks took me!” He pointed to his face, shoving his hair out of the way to reveal the extent of his scarring. “I begged them to let me die, but they kept cutting, plugging me up until all the silver leeched from my blood.”
His fingers clawed up the left side of his neck, where brown blood had caked to the skin. A fresh stream began trickling from behind his ear. “They put shit in my head to control me! They put shit in my head to make me think I was crazy. But I still waited. Even when they were controlling my mind I waited for my pack to come get me out of that hell.”
Okay, Dallas was definitely not of sound mind.
“They never stopped looking for you, Dallas,” I murmured as soothingly as I could. “Gage searched for you every day for five years.”
“You’re lying,” he sang. “Every one of you is a liar. Levi and Mancini and those scientists are all self-serving bastards.”
“I know what the Scientists did to you. They did it to Gage too. To Levi and Kai and Ezra and Mason. They couldn’t find you because they were trapped too.”
Dallas studied me, face contorted in a scowl, his left eyelid fluttering oddly. I avoided his studious gaze, letting my eyes travel the room and look for anything that could help me get out.
There were rotting boxes and discarded pieces of scrap metal in one corner. A doorway with a red metal door stood directly behind Dallas. The light I noticed was coming through a hole in the ceiling, large enough to illuminate the dusty space but not enough for me to see where we were.
Out of the blue the bond pinged, and I became aware of Gage again. This time he felt closer. Much closer.
“Then explain this.” He reached into his pocket, unfolding a thick stack of papers and shoving them in my face. One after another he flipped through them, giving me only the briefest glimpses.
They were photographs, some of the team in conversation with strangers, standing outside in a wilderness setting I didn’t recognize, looking relaxed. Some were more recent, Gage and I walking down the street, his head inclined in my direction, hand gently resting on my lower back.
I struggled to focus on the images, my body quaking as my awareness of Gage eclipsed everything else. “I—I can’t explain something I don’t understand. What is this? Was someone following us?”
“Following you, watching you go about your happy little lives like nothing happened.”
“But they weren’t happy,” I argued. “They aren’t happy.”
I thought of Mason and the way he disappeared at the end of the workday only to show up later looking like someone beat the crap out of him. Ezra and his weird obsession with plants, and how he talked to them as if they were his only friends. Kai spent every free moment out partying, usually finding a new woman to keep him company.
And Levi silently shouldered it all. Gave up himself to protect the others. Hid behind his nice clothes and expensive cars because he wasn’t allowed to let them see him suffer.
Stupid alpha bullshit.
“What happened to them—to all of you—has torn them apart. They’re only just learning how to heal.” I gave him my best beseeching face. “They could help you heal too, Dallas. They would give anything to have you back.”
“You are as good at smooth talking as Cargill and I’m smart enough to trust you about as much as I trust him.” Dallas scoffed. “He wanted me to be his little pet. You’ve already turned Gage into yours. Now all that has to happen—"
There was a shout somewhere below us and I became aware that we weren’t on the ground. By the way the floor trembled beneath us with the movement below, we were several stories up. Metal screeched, someone—an animal—roared, and then there was an ear-splitting crack.
Dallas’s lips twitched, his eyelid fluttering, and he reached under his shirt to pull out a gun. My heart hammered so loudly I almost couldn’t hear the sound of conflict and gunfire happening just out of sight.
“Good, my friends are here.” He pulled the slide back on his gun, aiming toward the red door. “I’ve arranged a little competition for them. Winner takes the secretary.”
“What friends?” I swallowed.
“Manchini and his pack of dogs.” Dallas barked out a laugh. “Well, cats, actually, but they act like a bunch of strays.”
I tried to gulp down my fear, but it was clawing at my throat again, making my voice raw. “Why would Manchini want me?”
“He doesn’t want you. He abhors you and thinks your mating is an abomination.” With one hand he flicked the hair from his face. “What he wants is the weapon, and he thinks you know where to find it.”
“Me? But I don’t—I only know as much as he does!”
“Word on the street is Gage Griffin knows how to find the weapon, and Gage Griffin has a soft spot.”
Word on the street? Exactly how many people were looking for this weapon? How many were following us, keeping tabs on everything we did, watching our every step?
My skin crawled. I was terrified and violated and I wanted more than anything to rewind to this morning when I was sitting on the kitchen counter, letting Gage feed me breakfast.
But maybe this was inevitable. This was what we stepped into by deciding to work with Cargill for our own gain, by building this case against the Organization. By searching for the weapon, even if we had no intention of using it.
More gunshots echoed below us, and I resisted the urge to scream. To cry out Gage’s name in desperation. There was only one door and Dallas was ready to ambush him. He needed to stay away, to wait Dallas out.
I clambered for the bond, trying to send any series of emotions that conveyed that message, but it was overshadowed by my terror. I couldn’t calm down, couldn’t make sense of anything.
Gage, I mentally pleaded, don’t come up here.