Page 38 of Misfit Monsters (Pack of Outcasts #1)

Periwinkle

W e’re still in the same old camper van, but it’s never felt as stealthy as it does this morning. I peek through the window at the motel on the other side of the narrow highway, my heart thumping fast.

There’s nothing really to be worried about. Mirage is using his talent to create illusions that haze the windows so no one can see me anyway.

The man who controlled me and tormented me is on the other side of that door. At any second, he could emerge.

With a fierce rumble, Raze adjusts his weight impatiently. “The second we see him, I should tear him to shreds.”

Jonah shoots the basilisk shifter a chiding look. “You know we can’t do that. We need to find out if he has anything to do with the state of that rift. We’re not going to figure out anything if he’s dead.”

“And we need to free any shadowkind he’s got trapped now,” I remind Raze with a reassuring caress of his arm. “The influence of his sorcery might disappear when he’s dead, but if he has them caged with lights and metals—it could be years before they’d be able to get free.”

He lets out a huff. “Right. We follow him to his evil lair, see what he’s doing, and then tear him to shreds.”

My stomach clenches at the thought of that kind of violence, but I can’t say the villain we’re surveiling doesn’t deserve it. “That’s a much better order of things.”

At the other side of the van, Hail lets out a dry chuckle. “When even the cream puff wants you dead, you know you really screwed up.”

I glance over my shoulder at him. “I don’t really want anyone dead. I just… don’t see a better solution.”

As soon as my former captor realizes we’re around, he’ll try to force his sorcery on us. Jonah gave us more potent commands to shield us from other influence, but even he admitted that his talent probably isn’t as strong as the older man’s.

Our opponent is too dangerous for us to try to imprison and interrogate him. I don’t want to watch any of my companions fall under his sway or Jonah be torn up by his captured shadowkind.

Hail offers me a crooked smile that feels surprisingly genuine.

“Of course you don’t. And it’s a good thing we’ve got you around to tame the beast, hmm?

” Before Raze can do more than start to growl at the implied insult, the winter fae adds, “I consider myself lucky that you still think I’m salvageable. ”

I blink at him, startled by the self-deprecation that sounds awfully genuine too. I knew Hail felt bad that he dismissed my efforts to protect them, but I had no idea he saw it as that huge an offense.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” I tell him. “What this man’s doing is deliberate awfulness, over and over again. I’ve never seen anything good in him.”

Hail’s chuckle expands into a brief laugh. “If you see goodness in me, I suppose I’m doing all right then.”

Mirage has kept quiet as he concentrates on his illusion, but he reaches across the bench and gives a strand of my hair a playful tug. “Our Rainbow doesn’t realize that she makes all of us better.”

None of the men around me argue. A faint sheen hazes the windowpane with the pinkish glow of my hair, matching the affection that’s lit in my chest.

Then the door to room 107 swings open, and the man I never wanted to set eyes on again steps out into the dreary morning.

As David Blaver glances up at the overcast sky, my heart stutters and squeezes tight.

It can’t have been that long since I fled his cage—years but not decades.

His brown hair is grayer now, and he’s grown a short moustache and beard that cover the pudginess around his jaw, but I still recognize him in an instant.

He walks over to his truck with that slightly bow-legged gait that used to carry him around his basement workroom.

He's wearing an olive-green sweater—like the bit of yarn I noticed snagged in the woods.

All our gazes track him as he slides into the driver’s seat. The moment the truck has headed north along the highway, Jonah starts the van’s engine.

“On these quiet roads, we should be able to stay a good distance back and still see where he goes. We don’t want him suspecting that he’s being followed.”

Mirage sinks down on the bench with a soft sigh, releasing the illusion that’s no longer necessary. “I can hide the whole van in a pinch!”

Jonah shoots him a tight but grateful smile. “I know you can, but I think we should all preserve our strength for the end of this journey, wherever it leads us.”

I scoot forward on the bench so I can watch through the windshield. Without comment, Raze scoops me up and offers his lap so I have a better view. The steadiness of his body helps settle my spirits, so I ignore the indignity of needing a living booster seat.

The man we’re trailing is never going to hurt me again. We’re going to make sure of it.

We follow David Blaver into the nearest town, where he parks on the main street and goes into a café.

For a tense hour, we wait for him to finish his meal and eat.

When he returns, he drives for another half an hour before turning off at a parking lot for a local beach.

He takes a folded chair and a bag with a rolled towel out of his trunk.

The five of us peer at him. I can’t help breaking the silence. “He’s going to spend the day sunbathing?”

Jonah swipes his hand across his mouth. “Maybe he likes to relax for a little while before getting on with his business?”

“Or maybe he’s decided not to do any business for a few days after he tangled with Peri yesterday,” Hail says. “If he recognized her powers, he might have been just as surprised as she was to run into her… It could have made him think he should lie low.”

Raze inhales roughly. “He doesn’t look all that scared— he’s not moving like prey. I don’t think he cares all that much, even if he’s pretending to be normal just in case.”

It’s true. Having shut his trunk, the sorcerer is strolling through the parking lot as casual as can be.

He slows briefly near one of the other cars. After a quick glance around, he eases closer, glances through the back window, and then heads down to the lake.

My stomach flip-flops. “I think he’s scoping out a new target. Someone he’s going to send his brainwashed shadowkind after when he thinks he can get away with it.”

Hail frowns, his pale face turning abruptly pensive. “Maybe we should?—”

The peal of Jonah’s phone cuts him off. Our sorcerer grabs the device. “It’s Rollick.”

My body tenses up. Even the gentle tightening of Raze’s arm around me can’t stop my nerves from dancing a jitterbug as Jonah answers the call.

We were supposed to meet with the demon today to report on what we found out at the rift—which isn’t anything all that useful right now. Is Jonah going to decide there’s no point in continuing the investigation on our own?

Will Rollick let me stick with the mission once he finds out that my powers exploded all over again?

Jonah’s voice stays even. “Yes. It didn’t go exactly as planned. We’re following up on another lead. We’ve found the sorcerer who’s been messing with the warped creatures. I didn’t want to reach out until we see where that takes us.”

He pauses, and his jaw works. “Yes, you’re right. It could be we’ll want some backup. You can track the van, can’t you? And we’ll call you if we need you here faster.”

After he ends the call, he slumps in his seat. “Rollick wants to monitor the situation directly. He’s going to give us a couple more hours, and if we’re still uncertain of what to do by then, he, Sorsha, and her shadowkind partners are going to come join us.”

One of Mirage’s tails twitches into view for a second. “And take over.”

“Something like that.”

Hail grimaces. “They’re all shadowkind, even Rollick. What can they do against a sorcerer that we can’t?”

“I don’t think Sorsha will be affected—benefit of being hybrid,” Jonah says. “But it’s true, even Rollick avoids tangling with hostile sorcerers. They might go straight to the tearing apart option.”

My heart sinks. In a couple of hours, David Blaver might still be lounging in the sun, scheming against his neighbors and giving us no help solving this problem.

All Rollick will see from our efforts is a bunch of burnt out equipment, not proof our team can shine.

Unless we get on with the shining…

I turn to Hail. “You were going to suggest something before.”

He stares at me as if surprised that I remember—or that I’d want to know what it was. Then he sits a little straighter.

“If the problem is that this prick doesn’t feel like prey—doesn’t think he has anything to worry about—maybe we should give him something to worry about.

If we make him nervous, he’ll check on whatever’s most important to him or go wherever he feels safest, right?

Which is probably wherever he’s got his enslaved shadowkind and the rest of his sorcerer things. ”

Mirage perks up. “I can conjure something to terrify him.”

Jonah holds up his hand to stop them. “That’s a reasonable idea—but we’d have to be subtle about it. If you throw any illusion that’s too intense at him, he’ll realize it’s supernatural influence. Especially if it’s a generically scary thing. If we knew what he’d personally find most frightening…”

As he trails off, his gaze slides to me. My heart skips a beat in understanding.

I tasted my former captor’s emotions while he kept me caged. I have insight not just into his external life but everything that was going on inside him.

My skin crawls at the idea of dredging up those darker emotions, but it’s better than sitting here like lumps.

“Let me think,” I say quietly, and close my eyes to concentrate.

When did the sorcerer feel scared? What would make him anxious about protecting whatever awfulness he’s created in his new life?

I riffle through the scraps of my experiences in his cage. There’s so much I ignored or tried to tune out to keep my sanity.

A fragment comes to me, vivid enough that the sour-metallic flavor of the fear passes over my tongue in an echo.

“There was something… One time his daughter let someone into the house when he was down in the basement and not expecting it. I think he was terrified they’d find out what he was up to.

He yelled at her a lot. He’d always get uneasy even if he was talking on the phone and the other person suggested they’d come by. ”

Jonah hums to himself. “He was afraid of being discovered.”

“Maybe if he thinks he’s in danger of being discovered now, he’ll want to make sure everything is still hidden.”

“Yes.” Our sorcerer grins at me and then at Mirage. “Do you think that’s enough material to work with?”

The fox shifter’s eyes gleam. “I’ll sneak and creep through the shadows to spy. Make him imagine the other people are looking at him suspiciously, whispering about him, plotting plans and planning plots.”

“Not too overboard,” Jonah reminds him.

Mirage nods eagerly and leaps away.

There’s nothing for the rest of us to do but continue waiting. I lean against Raze. He strokes his hand up and down my arm, but my pulse keeps thumping away.

Did I pick the right fear? Will it be enough?

Jonah sucks in a breath. “He’s coming back to his truck.”

I jerk upright in time to see my former captor hustling over to his vehicle with his beach gear wobbling in his arms. He shoves it into the trunk and practically dives behind the wheel.

A giggle bubbles up my throat. “It worked!”

As the truck peels out of the parking lot, Mirage materializes next to me with a cheeky grin. “He didn’t like the stares or the suspicious airs. Let’s see where he goes!”

Jonah is already taking our van out of park. We rumble down the road on our target’s tail.

David Blaver takes a winding route onto increasingly narrow and rundown roads.

We stay far behind, but when we see him turn onto a dirt track amid thickening forest up ahead, Jonah motions to Mirage.

“We do need the whole van hidden now—there’s no way he won’t be suspicious if we follow him in there. ”

The fox shifter crosses his legs on the floor of the van, an expression of total concentration gripping his handsome face. Magic tingles over my skin as his illusion surrounds the vehicle.

We have to slow down on the bumpy track. Jonah closes the distance between the van and the truck, but we still almost miss it when the other sorcerer pulls off onto an even smaller laneway several miles later.

We follow him for another mile down that overgrown lane, the leaves of overhanging trees warbling across our windows, before the truck parks… at the edge of what looks like an empty clearing.

Please don’t tell me he’s figured out the secret of invisibility.

My former captor gets out and hurries across the clearing. As I crane my neck to watch, he bends over and appears to yank up a chunk of the grass.

Ah ha! There’s a trap door in the ground.

David Blaver clambers into the hole he’s opened up, shuts the grass-covered door over him, and it’s as if he was never there.

The five of us exchange a glance.

“We can either wait here for backup, or risk going down there and taking a look ourselves,” Jonah says. “Well, you can take a look—there’s no way for me to get into that bunker without him seeing me.”

The men all turn to me. Raze nuzzles the side of my head. “The three of us could go. You shouldn’t have to face that brute again.”

But I’m the only one who knows this sorcerer and how he works. They might need me.

I’m the only one in danger of getting banished if we sit around waiting for Rollick to handle the problem for us.

I take a deep breath. My emotions are roiling around, but I don’t feel out of control.

I know who we’re going up against. I know I didn’t deserve what he did to me.

He won’t ruin any more of my life.

“No,” I say. “I’m coming. Let’s find out all the vile secrets he’s been hiding.”