Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
E mery
After what feels like an eternity, the truck finally comes to a stop. I scent the air and know we’re in the woods somewhere. The smell of white pine and sugar maple trees tells me we’re still in Upstate New York.
I barely manage to keep myself from flinching when the back of the truck bed opens.
“Whoa! What the hell we got here?” a man asks before letting out a whistle. “That’s a big motherfucker, isn’t it?”
There’s a slight southern accent to his words.
“Just for you and your crew,” Dr. Lee says.
“Oh shit. He looks like he could be a lead beta. Ron, come look at this big fucker.”
It pisses me off that they’re referring to my mate like this. But I know from their ugly comments that they must be knowledgeable about wolf packs and shifters. I sniff the air again but don’t detect that they’re shifters themselves.
But something is off. My nose picks up on more than humans.
“Just get those things away from me,” my mother says as she comes around the back of the truck.
“Let’s get inside.”
More voices come out and I’m forced to keep my eyes closed as someone moves my cage from the back of the truck. We enter a building and the odor in the air shifts from one of the forest to an acrid smell.
My stomach flips, and though I try to hold it down, the scent, whatever it is, makes me recoil, until I’m gagging.
I can’t disguise the fact that I’m no longer knocked out because I’m too busy retching. It’s a mixture of that sterile hospital smell, blood, and something else pungent and sulfuric.
“Oh god, that horrible thing is throwing up,” my mother shrieks.
Through my blurred gaze, I actually see her tuck her head into my father’s chest. As if she’s too disgusted to even look at me.
Pain and sorrow lance through my chest. How could someone who raised me and supposedly loves me, look at me with such disgust?
The retching is too much and tingling again starts over my body. My wolf is pulling back. Within seconds, my bare skin touches the cold metal of the cage. I scurry around and find a white sheet in the corner of the cage.
I grab it and use it to cover my naked body.
In my human form, the scent of this place isn’t as bad, since my senses are dulled in this form.
“Wh-what is going on?” I pant out as I try to regulate my breathing and heartbeat.
“This is your new home,” my mother says tersely. She turns away from me, while still clutching father. “We need a ride home. I’ll have to have everything they touched washed. No, better yet, we will throw everything out and redecorate with the money Dr. Lee sends us.
“I don’t even want to look at anything those wild beasts touched!” she shrills
I shrink back, covering myself more.
“Are you talking about me?”
“What else would I be referring to?” she snaps. “First Ashley and now you.” She pinches her forehead. My father holds her by the arms, stroking them as if she’s the one who’s been tied up in a cage.
“Ashley,” I say out loud. “Where is she? What did you do to her? Where is Chance? Where’s my mate?”
The cage is large enough that I can stand. I do so and move around from one side to the other, searching for Chance.
Fear grips me when I turn to see the large cage that holds Chance placed on top of a metal table. I can’t figure out what’s going on, but I know this isn’t good.
Two men in white hazmat suits walk toward him. One of them has an electric poker in his hand.
“Stop!” I yell. “What are you doing? Get away from him.”
The men ignore me. One pulls the cage open. The one with the poker shoves it inside and I hear the electric current as it zaps through the air. Chance’s body jumps in response from the shot of electricity.
Pain rips through me, sending me to my knees. It’s as if I can feel the anguish in his body as if it were my own.
“Stop!” I yell and rattle the cage with my hand. “Stop it!”
He’s shocked again and my fingers tighten around the bars from the agony coursing through me.
“That’s enough,” Dr. Lee’s voice stops the one with the poker. The doctor I’ve gone to for almost fifteen years looks at me and squints. “You can feel his pain,” he comments.
“You stay away from me, you son of a bitch!” I seethe through gritted teeth.
“Listen to her foul mouth,” my mother’s words bring my attention back to her. “I knew she was nothing more than a wild animal. Now that the money that Rufus was giving us to raise and keep them is dried up, you can have her and I want our compensation!”
That’s the third time she’s mentioned money. It finally starts to click for me.
“Money..? Wait, you knew?” I glare at her. She visually shrinks back into my father’s hold. “What did you know?” I yell.
The pills, that night she caught me eating in front of the refrigerator, all of the years of her needing to ‘tame’ me, come rushing back.
“What the hell did you know?!”
“What you truly are!” she finally answers. She shoves away my father’s hands when he tries to pull her back. She approaches my cage with her finger pointed in my direction.
“You should’ve been grateful. We tried to save you. After Dr. Lee had your dreadful parents killed, you were never supposed to turn into this thing.” She gestures at the cage.
She’s referring to my wolf. Who and what I truly am. A shifter. She’s despised me and Ashley for all of these years.
How could I have not realized it? How did I not see it?
“Those pills should’ve worked. They would’ve worked for your parents if they’d given it more time.”
“My parents,” I mumble. “My birth parents?”
“They claimed the pills made them sick,” Dr. Lee answers. “They changed their minds and chose not to give the pills to you girls. They, for some reasons, couldn’t see the plans I had for the lone wolves of this country.”
“Atrocious.” My mother’s disgusted voice brings my attention back to her.
“I knew once I caught you eating like a pig in the middle of the night the time came to give you those pills. To keep that animal locked away for good. But then Ashley went asking questions. She never listened. She always wanted to know why she needed the pills.”
Every word she says is like another stab to my heart.
“Ashley went to Dr. Lee with tests from another doctor that her iron levels were above normal. Then she decided to take that trip to Florida. It’s a good thing Lee still has his connections in Florida and tracked her down before she could do any real damage.”
“You didn’t tell me she’d contacted Emery,” Dr. Lee’s voice breaks through my mother’s tirade.
“I had no idea what she told her sister. I should’ve known Emery would be the first person that little brat talked to.”
“Fuck you!” I seethe, rattling the bars of the cage.
My mother jumps back.
“Don’t you ever talk about my sister like that. All of these years I told her you just wanted the best for us. That you were just looking out for us. I told her, like I told myself, that we were the ones who were the problem.
“That we just needed to learn how to behave like proper women, but it was all a lie! You made me believe I was wrong in every way. And I made Ashley feel that way too.”
“Just look at you!” my mother yells back. “That ugly gray streak in your hair. You’re sitting in that cage naked for goodness’ sake because you just shifted out of being a wolf!” She says it like that’s justification for her behavior.
“You said she would never change.” My mother points a finger at Dr. Lee. “You said she would never know.”
“She shouldn’t have. Unless…” Dr. Lee looks over at me. “When did you stop taking the pills?”
I snarl at him by way of an answer. Slight pain rips through my jaw as my incisors sharpen. My wolf wants to tear everyone in this room apart. It’s getting difficult to hold her back.
Yet, I try to keep her calm, reminding her there’s nothing we can do from inside of this cage.
He chuckles as if he has no care in the world.
I glance around at the people in the room. It’s a large, open space with metal tables spread out. It reminds me of an autopsy room from one of those crime drama shows.
“We should have never allowed her or Ashley to leave the state,” my mother says to my father.
A growl I can’t control crawls up and out of my throat. My mother looks on at me in horror as she jumps back into my father’s arms.
“She’s a lively one,” Dr. Lee says. “Maybe, unlike her sister, she’ll survive the experiments.”
Unlike her sister.
I think back to Ashley’s empty bedroom. The packed boxes in the corner and a pair of her colorful running shoes in the corner. All of the furniture, the decorations Ashley had put on the wall, all gone. As if they knew she was never coming back.
“Where is my sister!” My yell is so loud that it rattles the cage.
The cocky smile on Dr. Lee’s face drops. “She’s gone,” he says.
“No.” I shake my head, tears coating my eyes. “No.” The finality in his voice terrifies me. I refuse to accept what he’s saying.
“No.”
“Yes!” My mother’s vicious tone bites through the air. “She went asking questions and that little brat got exactly what she deserved. If she would’ve just shut up and did as she was told, she might’ve survived this. But that beast inside of her just made her too rebellious for her own good.”
My mother’s expression shifts from vicious to relieved in less than a second.
“At least we no longer have to live with the presence of beasts in our lives. Once we walk out of this door, you’re out of our lives for good.”
She looks over me, turning up her nose.
“Good riddance.”
“Shut up!” I yell. “I hate you. Where is Ashley? Give me my sister!” Tears stream down my face. I can’t comprehend anything right now beyond the fact they keep telling me Ashley is gone.
She didn’t survive.
Survive what?
What the hell had they done to her. Where is she?
“Give me my sister.”
I shake and rattle the cage, doing my damndest to rip the door off its hinges. I feel the bars loosening and I see a dent in the metal lock from my shaking. I hesitate in shock that I’m actually strong enough to slightly bend metal.
Yet, encouraged.
I have to get out of this cage.
Chance remains unconscious. Though, they’ve moved his body from the cage to one of the metal tables. There’re metal chains on the corners of the table. As soon as one of the men in the hazmat suits ties the chain around his wrist a searing pain courses through my arm.
The smell of something burning courses through the air.
It’s silver. They’re tying him up in silver chains.
“No!” I bellow and rattle and shake the cage door even harder.
The lock bends even more. Just a few more hits and I can break out.
“I’m going to kill all of you,” I swear to them all. “I’m going to rip your throats out!” My wolf invades my voice as I shout the vicious words at the people who raised me, Dr. Lee, and those despicable men in hazmat suits.
A tingling sensation starts all over my body and my wolf’s fur springs out of my skin. The change is happening.
“Ahh! That beast is back. She’s going to break free.” I hear the woman who I thought was my mother yell for someone to get the tranquilizer gun.
A second later, I’m standing on all four of my paws. I throw myself with all of my weight against the metal bars.
It hurts like hell but I ignore the pain. I’m seething with anger and hostility.
“Dammit, I knew we should’ve used silver for those fucking cages,” Dr. Lee grits out to the men in hazmat suits.
“Then we all would’ve gotten burned.”
Their words barely register as I throw myself at the bars again. The door begins to fold underneath the impact of my wolf strength. I need to get to Chance and at the people who hurt my sister.
I growl and howl as I throw myself one final time at the bars. The door flies open from the broken lock and I spill out of the cage, sliding across the linoleum floors.
The strength of my paws brings the skidding to a stop.
“She’s free!” my mother shouts.
She runs across the room, my father directly behind her. I dart for the door, getting between it and their freedom.
A growl emanates from my throat as I bare my incisors at them. The horror on my mother’s face only encourages me. I want her to be afraid of me.
I sniff at the air, inhaling their fear. A howl rips from me as I go to leap at her throat. As soon as I do, pain explodes in my side and I’m sent spiraling sideways. My body slams into the far wall at the other side of the room.
Dazed and confused, my wolf whimpers from the pain.
We struggle as we attempt to rise to our paws once again. Though, I stumble a couple of times, once on my feet, I spot one of the men in the hazmat suit wielding a wooden baseball bat.
“Run!” he says over his shoulder.
The two people behind him—my parents—start for the door. I refuse to let them get away.
I lunge at the bastard with the baseball bat. He tries to swing, but my wolf speed gives me the advantage. I reach his throat before the bat makes contact with me. It falls from his hands, the loud sound ricocheting around the room as I clamp down on the vital organs of his neck.
He goes limp and falls to the ground. I don’t even think about the fact that I’ve killed someone, because I start for the two people who raised me.
Angela and Davide Clarke. The people I thought loved me.
Now I know Ashley and I were no more than a means to them. To get money. All while they loathed who we truly were.
The same people who made me feel ashamed and disgusted with who I was for years. The sick bastards who lied to me and made me believe I wasn’t fucking perfect the way I was born.
“Oh god!” my father yells as I bite his leg. “Angela, help me!” He reaches for my mother as I rip a piece of flesh out of his calf. He goes down to the floor.
“Get off of him!” the woman I called mother for years, shrieks while swatting at me. She doesn’t get near me though.
I leave her husband and slowly stalk toward her. When she realizes my attention is now on her, she freezes in place. Her bottom lip quivers in fear and tears begin to slide down her cheeks.
“No, please. Don’t come any closer,” she begs with a tremble in her voice. “Please, no!”
“Is that how my sister begged you for her life?” I ask, but in my wolf form it comes out as a growl and howl that she only interprets as malice.
I’m only a few feet from her. I recoil with the intention of leaping directly for her throat but pain rips through my side.
On instinct, I swat at whatever’s just attacked me with my paw. I pivot to find another wolf. This one is red and larger than me. He’s ready to attack.
With his teeth bared, he jumps in my direction, aiming directly for my neck. I tuck and roll, causing him to land on the floor, nearly colliding with the wall. He doesn’t stop his pursuit of me. I push a chair and then knock over one of the smaller metal tables to keep him from getting to me.
He’s not perturbed, though. It’s obvious this wolf is determined to kill me and I’m left with no other option but to engage with him.
As soon as I make this decision, I see Angela Clarke at the other side of the room, helping her husband to his feet and scurrying toward the door. I start for them, determined not to let either one of them get away.
Yet, the wolf stalking me snaps his jaws at me. Without thinking, I leap, using one of my paws to swat his face. It’s a direct hit and his head snaps sideways. The blow would only be enough to merely stun him for a second or two, however.
That’s not enough.
This is a life and death matter. I give into my wolf’s base desire for blood. I go directly for his neck while he’s distracted. My sharp incisors slice through muscle and flesh. I twist my head this way and then the other.
The wolf goes limp.
I free him from my jaw, and he falls to the floor with a thud. I don’t spare him one thought before starting for the door.
That’s when a series of threatening growls sound off.
Horror crashes through my limbs. My body stiffens before I slowly turn around to peer over my shoulder. Two more wolves have entered the room from the back door. They’re larger and from the way they bare their teeth, even more vicious than the wolf that just attacked me.
A whimper involuntarily falls from my mouth.
Another noise behind me catches my attention. I peer ahead of me to find two more wolves entering the other opened door. My parents are nowhere in sight.
Every inch of my body quakes in fear. I’m strong all on my own, but I’m not strong enough to take on four wolves alone.
I peer over at Chance, still lying unconscious on the table.
Please wake up. I need you.
He probably can’t hear me, but my instinct is to call on him. We’re both done for if these wolves have their way.
Help.
I whine one last time before turning my attention back on the wolves who entered from the back. They’re the most vicious-looking. Knowing there’s no other option, I step back at an angle so that I have both sets of wolves in my line of sight.
One of the feral-looking wolves barks and then howls. It’s some sort of battle cry.
I brace myself and decide which of the wolves I’m going to go for first.
Just then, a thunderous growl from the table behind me catches my attention. A look up fills my eyes with the most incredible sight.
Chance rises from the table, his eyes glowing, incisors bared and his long, dark hair streaming over his chest. One of his arms yanks the silver chain out of its holder.
He looks like a beautiful warrior.
In a move laced with both grace and incredible danger, he leaps from the table and shifts from human to his wolf in mid- air. Pieces of his shredded clothing fall around me like ashes from a flame and he lands on his paws directly between me and the four vicious wolves.
My heart squeezes when all four leap in his direction at once.