CHAPTER 15

I was a little surprised that Anthony heeded my request and dropped me off at my apartment, not arguing, not walking me in. He'd always been a little overprotective, and I'd put it down to Rob threatening his life if something happened to me on a mission. Now that he was taking over alpha duties, I'd expected those tendencies to expand, or at least remain, so it was a great sense of relief when he didn't fight me on this.

I unlocked the door to my cramped space, taking in the way the kitchen sat nearly on top of the sitting space—it couldn't really be called a living room—and the bedroom kind of intruded into the rest of the apartment too. On my left the locked door to the bathroom I shared with my neighbours.

I sighed, closing the door behind me. Finally, I could relax.

Inside my subconscious my wolf stretched. Too many days she'd been pushed down into the tight space in my inner mind that we used when we wanted to fit in.

If I looked in the mirror now I would be able to see her just below the surface. My eyes would be glossy and dark, reflecting their surroundings, my lips a little to thin, teeth just a little too sharp. I still looked human, like if I went out for a bite to eat no one would run screaming. But the feral wildness came through and they would cross the street to avoid me. Even the tough biker guys that hung out outside the dive bar a couple blocks over avoided me when I looked like that.

I collapsed onto the scratched up couch I'd pulled from an alley the day I moved in. It had just been placed out for collection and was actually in pretty good condition, I wasn't gross, and I'd asked the owner if I could have it. It was more of a love-seat than a couch, really, which was all that could fit in the apartment anyway, and the man had taken pity on me and helped me carry it the block and a half and up the stairs to where it now sat. The fabric was a little worn and there was a coffee stain on the arm, but it was comfortable and the springs still held.

What a week.

I looked down at the pendant I was still holding, turning it from one side to the next. I thought about Rob, about his cutthroat dealing, about how he'd never once taken the easy way out of a deal. He was not a good man, I'd seen him do terrible things. Hell, I'd done some terrible things for him. But they never involved innocents. He was ruthless as fuck, but only with those who knew exactly why they were facing the consequences they faced. Anthony's description of him didn't really fit the man I'd come to know and I wasn't certain how to align the two ideas together.

The fact that he'd left me the pendant was a sign. He was giving me permission to go after the lead. Which was the biggest reason I'd needed to come home now. Already I had wasted two days.

I glanced out the window, and then at the clock that hung on the wall above the stove. Three O'clock. Far to early to go harass Bobby. So I let my eyes drift closed, my mind playing the shot from the sniper and the subsequent fight over and over, guilt eating away at me. There had to have been something I could have done. I should have been able to sense the danger, should have warned Rob...all of them. But there was something else that had been prickling the back of my thoughts. How, exactly, had our sniper found us?

He would have had to know the exact time and location, even at the distance he was shooting, and that was something none of us actually knew. We might have stopped at one of the small ponds that littered the forest, or another mile up the river. Hell, we might have skipped Blue Hills altogether and made the two hour trip to October Mountain. We'd done it before. It was good practice not to be predictable, and I suspected Rob had chosen Blue Hills for the run that night simply because we had found this clue and he wanted to get people on it right away.
So again, how had there been a sniper there waiting for us?

The few possibilities that came to mind weren't pleasant to think about.

Eventually my thoughts faded into a restless fog, anxiety and guilt flooded me, with nothing solid for the emotions to latch on to.

*The voices of men woke me, my eyes screaming in pain at the bright flash of light in the otherwise solid darkness. It was cold, bitterly so, and the skin beneath my fur shivered, even as I panted trying to release some of the heat that was burning up my body. The scent of the caves permeated the air, sweat and sickness, human and other waste,...death.

*I was sick too, though somehow I could acknowledge it in a detached sort of way. I'd been sick for days. Long enough the men were coming to check if I'd died.*

*The high powered flashlight landed on me, where I lay huddled against the stone floor of my personal little hell. I glared at it through the metal bars, thicker than the last set, and bared my teeth in a snarl.

*"Jesus," one of the voices cursed, and I could hear him turning around, retching.*

*"Fuck. Why does he keep them when they're this far gone?" The second man spoke. I couldn't understand the words, but somehow I knew their meaning.*

*The first man wiped his mouth. "I don't fucking get paid enough for this," he told the other. "Mark her down as dead. She's as good as."*

My eyes flew open, my mind scrambling to hold onto whatever it was I'd been dreaming. I concentrated as hard as I could, but only managed to hold on to the impression of impending doom. Yet even that faded as my attention wandered to my surroundings. I'd had the same dream...or at least I thought it was the same dream, my entire life. A nightmare, really, that always left the same sense of desolation, but I could never remember the details. Of course the frequency of the nightmare only increased during times of stress, which would explain why it happened again now.

I pushed the remnants of it away, focusing on what needed to be done in the waking world. The clock above the stove said midnight, the apartment was dark, the streetlights outside sending an eerie orange wash through the high window in the sitting area.

One of the neighbours was having a shower in the bathroom, so I rose from the couch and walked the five steps to where my clothes lived in neat boxes lined up under my bed. I picked out an old Metallica tank top and a pair of jeans I'd had since high school, changed my socks and the boots I'd been wearing for days into a cheap pair of comfortable runners. I didn't really have a mirror to work with so I turned on the front camera on my phone and pulled the shoulder length mass of black hair into two pig-tail buns. Heavy eye liner, mascara and black lip stick topped the look. I wasn't particularly fashion forward, nor did I have a specific style above comfort and utility, but one didn't walk into Sally's wearing Lemaire unless you wanted to have your ass kicked while you were robbed blind. That set I took one last look in the camera and tucked it into the small backpack that doubled as a purse and makeshift weapon holster. Good enough.

Time to find Bobby.