Page 40

Grey

On high alert, we trudge through overgrown grass assessing sights, sounds, scents. The closer we get to the main building and gates of this place the stronger the odors get. And Linc’s correct. It smells of death.

“I’m not bringing my wife in there until I know what this is. I’m lead on this,” I remind Mitch who was given the gist before I arrived, but I want to be sure he knows.

“I’m only here to film everything and help where I can,” Mitch says. “Not because I don’t trust you, but because with everything that happened last night and the night before that, I have a lot of reporting to do and I want as much physical evidence as possible. This bugger has a lot to answer for. I’m just an observer. You’re in charge, Greyson. This is your mate’s pack, and you call the shots.”

I don’t give a shit that everything is about to be filmed. “Let’s do this.”

I also don’t give two fucks about The SCC right now.

I had planned to go in with her and Luke so we’d put people at ease, but Luke will have to be enough for the ‘at ease’ part. No way am I walking Stacy in there until I’ve assessed it with my own eyes. And I was leaning in that direction on the drive here before I set eyes on it. But now? Setting eyes and picking up the filthy stench of this place? No fucking way does she go in until I assess.

The gates start on either side of the old, dingy, painted blue brick one-story building, fencing in everything behind it. Blinds are all down on the windows.

Some sections of the gates are constructed by chain link fence panels. Some of it, scrap metal. There’s a painted metal sign that reads Silver Hills Auto Wreckers and Salvage stenciled with the phone number underneath. A padlock holds the front gates closed with a black, white, and orange Sorry, We’re Closed sign hanging.

Wrecked cars behind the fences are stacked higher than the fences on either side of the building.

We’re all primed and ready to shift, to do battle, but it’s quiet. Eerily so, which has me even more on guard.

My eyes pan the ground, scanning for trip wires or other hazards since this fucker likes explosives. I’m flanked by Luke, Linc on his left, Jared beside Linc. Jase is on my right, Brody beside him. Mitch Blakely walks behind us, filming with his phone.

If this weren’t so open or if it weren’t daytime, we’d probably be in wolf form.

After doing two rotations of the place, spotting a couple trip wires, me, Jase, and Linc have a quick chat and decide to go in at a section in the very back where we’re smelling the least amount of scents. It also happens to be the location with the biggest lock.

Jared wears a toolbelt and passes over clippers when we get to the biggest padlock, a rust-coated one, holding two tarp-wrapped iron gates together.

Luke says we’re just beyond the storage area, which is close to the beta training area, that he describes as having a barracks building and obstacle courses as well as storage buildings.

This checks out against the drawing Stacy drew that’s in my pocket. Two of the nearby locks were extra small, looking like the easiest pickings, but we clocked trip wires by them, which is another illustration of the way Meadows thinks.

When we go in, Jase and Brody will hang back, just outside the gates in case we get into a jam.

Jase isn’t happy about it though, wants to see with his own eyes if his sister is on the premises as soon as possible, but to his credit, he agrees, knowing I want him out there with our link because I need Linc’s extra-strong nose with me.

After triple-checking for additional hazards, I snip the lock and the gate swings in.

Taking in what’s on the other side, my teeth clench. A few paces in, my gut roils.

The stench climbing higher into my senses have my eyes watering. Linc doubles over, heaving hard, nothing coming up. He already emptied his guts.

I turn when I hear Mitch gag. He spits on the ground, holding his gut for a second. Our gazes connect and his lip curls.

Yeah, this is a mishmash of rancid aromas. Rotting meat. Sickness. Feces and urine. Melted plastic. Hot metal. Smoke. Wet wood.

A slope-shouldered, shorter, flabby guy with greasy hair in probably his mid-to-late forties pokes his head out of a single-story concrete block building the size of a double garage and alarm registers on the guy’s face before he slams the door.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

“Larry,” Luke says. “He cooks for the pack lately. That’s a food storage building.”

I step over the edge of a tire obstacle course near a two-storey climbing wall and pull on the door. It’s locked. I pound my fist on it.

“Open up!”

Nothing.

“Counting to three, then I’m bustin’ this door!” I warn.

The door creaks open slowly and I can taste the rancid fear scent coming off this guy.

“I don’t want no trouble.” He raises his hands up high.

I look past him and see some camping stoves and canisters of propane along with shelving holding bags, boxes, and milk crates filled with supplies. A large pot sits on one stove, simmering with soup. There’s another stove with a smaller pot also containing soup. The place is lit with battery-powered hanging lights.

“These guys are here to help,” Luke says. “Hopefully one of the things they do is get rid of you!” Luke looks to me. “He likes to bully those smaller than him. ‘Specially kids.”

This guy looks weak, non-threatening, but this kid clearly has a problem with him.

“Oh yeah?” I back the guy into the wall. “You pick on kids?”

“Hell yeah he does,” Luke asserts.

I bare my teeth.

“Disciplining isn’t bullying,” Larry stammers, looking anywhere but at me or the alphas at my back. “The whole pack looks after the youngins. I’m often tasked with that. And not just me!”

“Where is everyone?” I demand.

“Our alpha and his team are on a mission.” He shrugs. “I’m just the cook. Making today’s dinner for the pack.”

Linc moves closer and his nostrils are flaring as he looks at the soup cooking on a propane stove. I peer into the pots and see it’s broth with some beans and rice in it. But there’s a cloyingly sweet smell in the space, too.

“What the fuck is in this shit?” Linc begins rifling through shelves sniffing bags and containers of dry goods and grabs a paper bag and turns to me, holding it out. “This.”

Me and Linc peer in. It looks like loose spices. There’s a tablespoon sitting in the bag and it smells mossy but also sweet.

Linc looks to Larry. “You’re putting this in the soup?” He gestures to the big pot, then looks to the smaller pot and his nostrils flare.

The guy is sweating profusely. He’s also pissing his filthy pants.

“My alpha’s orders. Thu-there are fuh-folks that get that soup and some thu-that guh-get thu-that soup. Sick ones get that one. It’s mah-medicine.”

I get in the guy’s face and back him up, tilting my head to glare straight into his eyes. This fucker knows that’s not medicine; I’m sure of it.

I step away from the puddle of piss at his feet.

“Where is everyone who’s here?” I demand.

He’s looking off to the side, showing me his neck. “Got some sick folks in bed. Others are looking after the sick ones mostly. Sittin’ around. D-doing some chores. Some of the pack is gone on a mission with our alpha. Some are off on a… another mission.”

“What medicine is this?” Linc demands.

“Don’t know. Just following orders,” the fucker lies.

“What do the tripwires do?” I demand.

He shrugs. “I’m just the cook.”

“Who’s in charge?” Linc clips.

“We’re just waiting on our alpha to come back from his mission.”

“Take us, show us where your people are,” I command and the guy shuffles along, us following.

I eyeball Luke and he looks ticked, also like he’s found some bravery, likely because we’re all at his back.

“Stop,” I tell Larry and open the door to another building. Six sets of triple bunks with thin mattresses on them. It looks like a prison-style barracks. I smell old blood, body odor, piss, and musty mattresses. The place also has the faint odor of Wyatt Meadows, though I can tell it’s been days or longer since he’s been here.

I move along while Mitch steps inside with his phone, being thorough with his filming.

We move past a dumping area with a rotting wolf smell coming from a faintly smoking burn pile. I’m smelling charred flesh.

“What’s been burnt there?” I ask.

“Dunno,” Larry shrugs, ambling along toward a large, newer looking modular home, but he’s not climbing the back steps, he’s walking past it.

I grab him by the scruff and glare into his eyes. I want fucking answers, damn it.

“What got burnt back there?”

Heat pools behind my eyes.

“Th-the dead,” he says, terrified, “We burn our dead.”

“What dead?”

“Any that die.”

“Why are they dyin’? At least two of your dead have been burnt back there in the past twenty-four hours.”

“Three,” Linc corrects.

“They’re sick,” Larry says, “Wyatt makes me feed the old, sick, and the useless the soup with that green leaf mix he makes me put into it. When they die, we haul them back there and burn the bodies.”

“He’s pickin’ off his pack one by one starting with the weakest? Why?” I demand.

“We’re low on resources. Maybe because he doesn’t have the resources to feed those that are no use to him.”

“They die as soon as you give it?” Linc calls out.

He stares at Linc blankly.

“Answer him,” I clip.

“It takes about a week, sometimes two,” he answers quickly. “I’m just following orders. If I don’t follow orders, I’ll be fed that soup, too. Or else he’ll just end me himself. His temper is shorter than usual right now.”

The guy is spewing the secrets, the heat behind my eyes has me thinking I’m pulling this from him against his will. I’m leveraging some magic.

“Tell me what happens when people take it.”

“They get headaches. They get weak. Eventually, they just… d-die.”

This the same shit he had Stacy using at the diner? I look at Linc and can tell we’ve got the same thoughts on this.

“How long has this been going on?” I snap.

“A while. More the past couple weeks. Used to put it in the small pot, it only went to a couple people. Now I put it in a medium one.”

I look at Luke and jerk my chin toward the house.

“That’s the alpha’s place,” Luke advises. “It’s off limits.”

Yeah, I smell that fucker, but the stink is old. He hasn’t been here in at least a few days.

I’ll check it out later.

We move along and though I don’t smell anyone close enough to have me thinking there’s someone hiding in there, I can’t trust my nose right now between the foul odors everywhere and Meadows’ track record for scent-masking.

I dial Jase.

“Grey,” he greets, breathless.

I should’ve called by now.

“We’re good, I’m gonna put you on speaker, keep you with us.”

“Yeah,” he replies. “I’m here but Brody found another trip wire. He snipped it and is following it. Oh, it goes under a gate. He’s lifted a tarp off the gate, and it shows it goes into a building… say … about sixty feet to the left of where you went in. Careful in there.”

“Yeah, bro.” I put him on speaker and say, “Halt.”

Everyone freezes. Larry looks over his shoulder at me and immediately drops his gaze.

“What’s the trip wire leading to that building for?” I ask, pointing to the building in the far corner behind us, beside the burn pile.

“Don’t know.” He shrugs.

“Eyes on mine, fucker,” I snap.

He looks up and repeats “Don’t know specifically but suspect it’s probably one of Wyatt’s nail bombs. That’s what he usually keeps in there.”

“Stay here.” I march to the wooden storage building kitty-cornered to the edge of the fence and eyeball the perimeter for any signs of more trip wires. “Three paces back, everyone,” I clip, wait, and kick the door, feeling confident I can handle whatever is on the other side.

“Wyatt often has a couple trips hooked to those in case people nose around that aren’t supposed to,” Luke says.

“You know what’s in there?” I ask, eyes adjusting quickly to the dark and seeing mostly gardening tools and junk.

“No, sir,” Luke replies.

“Flashlight,” Linc says, passing me his keychain.

I turn it on, though I don’t really need it, and pan over gas cans, propane cylinders, and easily see wires connected to a small box that feeds out the back.

“I can disable that,” Jared remarks. “Suspect it’s a mickey mouse setup.”

“Have at it,” I say and back up, handing him the light.

“Let me get some footage first,” Mitch asserts and steps up with his phone.

Larry and Luke both look nervous. Me and Linc watch for a minute until Mitch backs up. Jared moves in and as per what we’ve seen so far, Jared has his shit tight.

He’s hunched over it for a minute with his tools, then he lifts the cardboard box and sets it into the half-full rain barrel three feet away.

He dusts his hands off and we move along.

“Jase, Brody – that’s disabled.” I say and look to Linc. “When we figure all this out and it smells normal here again we could use you putting your nose to the ground and suss out any other-”

I’m cut off with a series of bangs in the distance and echoing through the phone line.

“Jase!”

“One sec,” Brody answers.

There are several more bangs, then all goes silent.

“Jase? Brode?” I ask after a minute.

Jase answers, “All good. Noisemakers. Tripped ‘em not at the fence line, but five feet from it. See a bunch more in a straight line. Gonna set the rest off now.”

“Right. Speak up as soon as you’re done.”

A few minutes later, after a succession of bangs, Jase calls out, “Done with this section. We’re back by the gate if you need us.”

I want us moving quickly at this point after all that noise in case someone here thinks to do something about our now obvious presence. I knew we wouldn’t have the element of surprise with this many alphas in one place.

Moving in, I’m drawn to check out the large, ramshackle cabin behind what’s obviously Meadows’ house. I push open the door. No one’s in here but it reeks like male seed in here.

“What’s this?” I ask Luke.

“That’s where Wyatt keeps the girls,” he says.

“What?” I ask.

“The girls.”

“What girls, Luke?”

“The girls available for betas that are training.”

I look at the kid and he looks panicked, probably at the energy rolling off me because of the potential meaning here.

“Explain, Luke. Plainly.”

“The betas who train get their reward.” He gestures to the building and looks at me like he can’t understand why I don’t immediately get it. “Three rooms with beds in there. Bathroom. That’s all. He has the girls ready while we’re training and the best of us each session get time with a girl. Also if you do something he wants to reward you for, you also get time in there with a girl.”

Linc’s expression hardens even further, and our gazes connect.

My mate’s pose of defeat the night I identified her flashes in my mind. Braced, on all fours, waiting for my claiming to be over and done with.

The look of fear and resignation in her gaze as she bent over me licking the droplet of syrup from my shaft.

Ronnie’s voice rings in my ears.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but she’s been very badly abused, Grey. Badly.”

“Fuck!” I roar.

“Grey,” Linc clips, probably because fiery red sparks burst from the atmosphere around me and my immediate urge is to shift and rip shit up. The urge is so overwhelming, I’m having trouble not shifting.

“Reel it in, Grey,” Linc says, “C’mon. One step at a time.”

Linc gets it.

I’m having trouble. I’m trembling with absolute fucking fury. I feel more pressure in my head and the warm trickle of blood coming from my eyes.

“Fuck!” I bark out again. Gutturally.

Linc squeezes my shoulder. I jerk and very nearly shift, a growl flying out of my mouth.

“Back off!”

“Yeah, man, got you, but c’mon and let’s go. We need to get to the people, assess, lock down any threats, then get Cat in here with medicine. You can lose it later when the fucknut responsible for your anger is within reach.”

He waits, then calls out my name.

Right.

We make eye contact and I nod, then push air out of my lungs and draw more air in. But the air I draw in is putrid. Foul. I don’t want to reel anything in. I want to unleash it all. On the fucker responsible for this shit.

Luke looks frightened and confused. Larry is looking away.

“All good in there?” Jase asks through my phone.

“We’re moving along,” Mitch says and gives me a look that shows he understands.

“First thing we do is round up every male in this place and keep them in one place,” I snap.

“Yup,” Linc agrees.

My eyes are on Mitch. He nods.

I swallow bile and my urges, pulling the map Stacy drew out of my pocket. “You guys, round everyone up, please, and get them in one place. The big building on this, will it work?” I ask Luke.

“Yeah. Our mess hall is the biggest building. It’ll hold the whole pack for sure.”

“Start knocking on doors, Luke. You too, Larry. Tell everyone to get to the mess hall immediately and in an orderly fashion.”