45. Sage
Sage
Merle curls up in my lap, silent and still, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this quiet or sad.
I have tried to coax a smile out of her, but she has just clung to me.
I stroke her hair and whisper things about what I learned.
How to stay safe, how to cook when you don’t have anything.
I tell her all the things that might help to keep her safe.
I don’t really have anything else to give but my knowledge.
My phone rings. I answer it reluctantly. I listen to the short, sharp message from my father and growl. Of all the times for this asshole to invade my world, this is the worst. I’m tempted to tell him to go jump, but he threatens to go to Vale.
Merle tenses and looks up at me, her eyes searching my face. I stroke her hair, silently telling her it’s not her, it’s these idiots on the phone, and they are idiots.
I ring his assistant back and wait while she giggles and prattles on about the old days while I get more and more irritated.
“Tell Dad I will meet him in Cherry Vale in three hours.”
I gently lift Merle up and try to put her down, but she clings to me.
“What’s wrong? Do you want to come with me?”
She nods.
I hesitate. The last thing in the world I want is her around my dad.
“Okay, you can come, but you have to stay in the car. I do not want him to see you.”
We get ready, and then, in the blink of an eye, I’m standing in front of my dad, while my pack is hidden in our car in a carpark down the road.
My dad looks like me, except when he smiles, he appears kind and nice. It’s a mask, the only thing he cares about is himself. There are people walking around, but no one is paying us any attention.
“Why did you call me out here?” I ask sharply.
“Wanted to see if you were alive. I have a job for you.”
“A job?” I ask in shock. Has he lost his mind?
“I need this person taken care of.” He huffs in irritation and shoves a folder into my hands.
I flip it open and look at the picture of Daega.
Fury rips through me faster than I can even think. Faster than I can blink. I swallow it down, forcing it gone. Blanking my expression like I’ve been taught.
“Why? Who is he?”
“You don’t ask why; you do as you're told.”
The urge to laugh in his face is so hard to resist, but I’m not ready to destroy him quite yet, and this might be a fun game to play.
“So, you’ll do it?” he asks after I’ve turned away. I ignore him and his arrogant tones. I need to speak to Blaze and Aaron.
I get back to the car with the folder hidden under my shirt.
“All sorted. Let’s go,” I say cheerfully.
I don’t offer any more information, and they don’t ask. We drive home in silence.
The first I realise things aren’t good is when I see smoke. Blaze squeezes the steering wheel and floors it. We pull up in front of the house, and I react before he can, getting out and getting halfway around the car and catching him as he tries to fly past.
He screams, struggling in my hold, forcing me backwards towards the burning building.
“My things. My collection. It’s gone.” His scream is heartbreaking.
“I know, I know. I’m sorry, baby.”
The house, the cabin is burning, but we can see the open bunker, and the inside is gutted.
Blaze’s pain is as agonizing as those flames.
He’s collapsing in on himself. His things are extensions of himself.
His collections part of who he is. Some of the items burning there have been carefully carried through all his pain and suffering.
Some things have value only to him, like the badge I used to wear on my school uniform.
The one he stole the day we met, when he decided I was his.
I know he’s got Daega’s ruined T-shirt in there, too, and a receipt that was in Merle’s pocket the day we found her.
Things are how he loves us. How he protects us.
He fights me and sends me flying. I land hard in the dirt, but roll and grab him by the waist as he tries to enter the building.
“No! You are not doing this!”
“You don’t understand; I can’t lose them!” Blaze screams.
I tackle him to the ground and wrap myself around him, fighting him as he screams, tears falling onto my face as he looms over me, straining to break my hold.
“Blaze, think, please, think.”
I ignore the pain from his teeth and when he head-butts me. I just hang on because I fucking love this alpha, and I’m not losing him.
He breaks free of me, and I cry out, but Daega is there and kicks him hard, sending him flying back, where he hits the car.
Blaze slides to the ground, kneeling. He looks up through his long, black hair.
I scramble to my feet, limping towards him.
Merle rushes past me, standing side by side with her male counterpart.
“Please,” Blaze drops to his hands and knees and crawls.
Shit, this is bad.
“Please. Please let me go get it. I promise I’ll be quick.”
Merle shakes her head. No, she won’t let him.
Daega stalks forward and grabs his chin. “No. I want you more than you love your special things. I refuse to lose you. Would you take my special thing from me?”
Blaze stares up at him, conflicted, broken. “Please?”
Daega makes a sound that is sympathetic.
Blaze howls and rushes him; he gets around him, but he’s taken down by Rolly, and then King lands on him. Roseland stands between them and the fire, the last line of defense.
As I watch the two of them sink their teeth into Blaze, who screams and screams and screams. His pain soaks the forest, soaks everything, but he holds four bonds, and he can’t fight us now.
We get him in the car, where Merle curls up with him and strokes his hair.
“What is wrong with him?” Roseland asks under his breath, glancing at the sobbing alpha.
“Blaze is Kota’s older brother,” I say under my breath.
“But they don’t have the same dad, and Blaze’s dad is cruel.
He kept him down in the dark, in a box, a little room.
He would give him things and then destroy them, crush them.
Sometimes animals. Once he gave Blaze a friend. A little boy to play with.”
Roseland looks sick.
“His things are important to him. I’m afraid we just sent Blaze back to his childhood.”
“Okay, that explains him; that doesn’t explain this.”
I look to the fire where he’s gesturing.
“Can’t you smell the fuel?” Roseland says into my ear. “This wasn’t an accident; it was an attack. Someone knew how to break in. They got us out, and they burned down our territory.”
“Except, we weren’t all supposed to go,” I whisper back. “It was just meant to be me out of the house.”
I turn away from the car and pull out the folder, passing it to Rose.
“Our father would like me to take care of this problem.”
Roseland’s jaw flexes as he studies it. “I want him dead.”
“I’ll take care of it for you,” I say softly, promising him because there is absolutely no way my dad is not responsible for what happened today. He might be a tool, but he’s a tool that just passed his warranty. He’s threatened three of my pack in under an hour.
He’s a dead alpha walking.
We go back to the car just as the place guts itself and explodes. It’s a contained explosion, but it effectively wipes all traces of us out of the space.
Blaze sits in the back, holding our omegas, with tears running down his face.
No one speaks.
We have no words that can make this better.
We’re in a cheap hotel room when it arrives. It’s a massive box that is wrapped in white wrapping paper with a thick blue ribbon and a massive bow on the top. It’s pretty.
I feel nauseous looking at it. Someone is tailing us. Someone is fucking with us. I’m going to kill them slowly and painfully.
I carry it into our room and wait for the door to shut.
Then, I open it.
Merle is beside me when I do, and she only just smothers the scream.
Inside are the corpses of seven nightingales. Merle sways, and I’m only just able to drop the box so I can catch her as she stumbles.
“Breathe, Omega. You’re going to be okay.”
She curls into my chest, holding onto me with a desperation that gives me a really good idea of who is behind all this.
Before I even open the note, I know that this is the serial killer known as Father. He is obsessed with birds. I’ve heard this is a signature of his: to post a warning to the next victim and play his games to torment them.
“What’s it say?” Roseland asks in a voice of granite.
“It says…” I clear my voice as King takes Merle from me. She watches with a white face and huge eyes that seem to be leached of colour. “Come to this address.”
“So, are we going or are we not going?” Rolly asks, cracking his knuckles.
“No way are we going,” I say, but I’m not entirely sure. Where’s the catch? This isn’t a motivation. Where’s the bait?
Merle makes a sound and snatches the note, turning it around and around in her hands. She studies it from every angle and then closes her eyes and hands it back. Her shoulders slump.
“We’ll go kill him. It will be easy,” Rolly brags.
Merle says nothing. Aaron watches her. Daega watches him. Blaze is lost in the dark of his past.
I have a bad feeling about this, but I’m not one for running.
“We know it’s a trap. We’re not going,” I say firmly.
I pause, catching sight of something under the birds. I shift them and grab another envelope. This one is heavier. I peel it open and pull out the photos.
The first one shows a photo of Bonnie. The second is of Meg. I fan through the photos, seeing everyone we’d told to run. He doesn’t have them, I don’t think. I pull out my phone, looking at Blaze who is curled up on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees.
The phone rings. And rings. And rings.
“Vale, pick up,” I whisper urgently.
“Sage, what’s going on?” King snarls and cracks his knuckles. I give him a look, one that communicates without words how much shit we are in. He turns away, swearing but snags the photo.
He stops on the image of his brother Cyn. King explodes. He smashes up the hotel room, breaking everything in sight. His chest heaves, he’s covered in sweat and on his knees when he’s done. But he can’t take his eyes from that photo.
Merle is crying silently, safely protected from him in Rolly’s arms.
“Cyn,” King pants. “Fuck! Not Cyn.”
I’ve called everyone. There’s no answer. I called Kota, Cyn, Rory, Mitchel, and finally, Desi. No one answers. Over and over. I keep trying.
Has he got my family? I feel sick.
A knock at the door has me freezing. I rush to it and yank it open, finding one of the hotel staff on the other side.
“This is for you.”
I look at it and feel ice go through my spine.
“What is it?” Rose asks.
“Someone has got a court order to have Rolly committed.”
Rolly lets go of Merle, stepping away, his eyes huge. He looks like he’s a teenager, all the maturity is gone. He’s just a scared boy.
“What?” his voice comes out in a whisper. “What do you mean?”
I look down at the official document, feeling sick.
He rushes and snatches it out of my hands. He reads it and laughs hysterically. “I’m not going back. You can't make me. No! No! This isn’t happening. I can't go back there!”
He shreds the document and screams.
“I can’t…I can’t…” he just keeps repeating it, losing himself, falling apart.
This isn’t my dad. This is Father. His reach is everywhere. The only way to save ourselves is to end him.
“Roseland, you need to stay with Merle. We’re going to go and kill this fucker.”
There, that will keep her safe. I trust Roseland. I can’t leave Blaze with them, he will be a liability. Perhaps I can find him someone to kill.
I have to spend fifteen long minutes talking Rolly down from his freak out, but his eyes are red-rimmed, and his hands shake.
We get ready, and at dusk, we head out. We have to save our family if we can, then kill that fucker.
I kiss Merle hard and then kiss Aaron. He pulls me close, his lips to my ear.
“Come back safely.”
“I will, I promise.”
Daega doesn’t say anything.
“Phones on silent. Get his hostages; we can kill him another day,” Rose whispers.
Two hours later, we’re almost at the address, and there’s this uneasy feeling in me, but I don’t know what it is. I’m so glad I moved us all to a different hotel. I feel better about it. There’s a relief in being unexpected, but it hasn’t stopped the creeping panic that won’t dissipate.
I check my phone, but there’s nothing from them. The new phone I gave Merle hasn’t called or messaged anyone, and it’s got a tracker in it. I’ll be able to find her if something happens.
Every contingency is covered.
Except when we get to this place, it is a series of homes, newly built, with people and families. Every house has lights on, and people are going about their lives. We watch for a while until Daega goes rigid.
“What?” I ask sharply.
“That’s Sariah. We need to get back, right now!”
It says a lot about how far we’ve come that I obey his sharp bark right away.
I slam the car into reverse, but the road is blocked by a massive truck, and it’s a dead end street. Daega jumps out of the back and runs.
We follow, but he meets that woman and then bolts out of the house. Seconds later, he’s on a motorbike, and he’s gone.
“Come on, we have to catch up.”
I’m halfway down the street when I pause and walk backwards, looking through a window that’s all lit up to hell. Did I really just see what I thought I saw?
Inside, dressed in an evening gown and a suit, are Roseland’s mother and my father. I stare at him. He shuffles and glances at the window as if he can feel my rage.
“What is it, Sage?” Rolly asks.
“That’s my dad,” I whisper. “He sold his soul, and now he gets to reap what he owes.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind, I’ll deal with him when I have more time.”
The hotel room is dark when we walk in. The lights are off, but worse, it feels empty.
It feels cold. Before I’ve even checked the rooms, I know they aren’t here.
Panic makes it hard for me to think, but then I see a flutter of white on the pillow.
Something that doesn’t belong. I spring towards it.
It’s a note with an address in Raptor’s handwriting. It just has an address. Nothing else. Fuck, what is going on?
“Did you find something?” Blaze asks with a voice that sounds dead. I’m just relieved he’s talking.
“She told us where to find her,” I say with a smile. “Let’s go get them back.” And then I’m going hunting.