Page 19 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 18

Gone Rogue

FLOR

G len’s fear and worry prickled in our bond, and I tried to control my own. This was bad, but not a disaster. Mama had gotten impatient and gone rogue, slipping away using her magic. She knew exactly where to go to get inside, and had helped me with the plan.

“She’s gone to the garage,” I breathed to Glen. “I have to follow her.”

His eyes went wide, and he grabbed my arm. “It’s not safe. You don’t have magic to cover you.”

“I know. But I’m sneaky.” I pressed a kiss to his hand, then broke away, adjusted my backpack, and checked that my steak knife was secure on my belt. “You coming with me, or…?”

A voice that was definitely not Glen’s answered from a distance. “Hey, look over there!”

“Shit,” I whispered. “They’ve spotted us.”

Glen’s features hardened as he made a decision. “I’ll lead them away. You get inside.” Glen pressed a quick, desperate kiss to my hairline and stood. Then he sprinted away, ducking around the corner in a second.

I didn’t hesitate, knowing the guards would come to inspect the area for others. Staying as low as I could, I snuck along the last few feet of the pale gray stone garage extension, then slipped around the corner and through the door that Mama must have left slightly open. Closing it, I silently slid the old-fashioned deadbolt lock just in time for someone to jiggle the handle from outside.

My breathing was loud in the cold space. I’d never seen a garage like this one, not even at Northern. It was a long room, with gleaming concrete floors, but instead of furniture, it had cars that all had mirror polishes, and shiny tires that must never have gone down a dirt road.

There was no one inside, as far as I could tell, only my breath making a sound as I tiptoed past a silver sports car. The air warmed slightly as I moved toward the far end, where a half-open door let a faint cloud of steam escape. The familiar rumble of washing machines and dryers dampened the sound of my footsteps.

I was terrified for Glen, but I could feel that he was still running. If he could get out of the fence line, he’d be fine. Sergeant and the Tenebris boys would help him out, and he was fast and strong.

But I couldn’t focus on him, so I pushed the bond down, concentrating on my own hunt. I crossed behind the rest of the cars, doing my best to stay low, my head covered with my backpack. There were two cameras in here, though I wasn’t sure if they were working, since there was no telltale red light. But just in case, I kept silent and as hidden as possible while crossing the floor.

When I reached the door, I saw Mama was doing the same, crouching low inside a laundry room. The washers and dryers rumbled on the opposite wall, next to an ironing board that jutted out into the small room. In the corner squatted a very young woman in a maid’s outfit, a white top with a short black skirt. Her face was marked by tears, and her arms by what looked like claws, or maybe just fingernails. Her expression held fear but also defeat, like she’d given up, though she couldn’t have been much more than eighteen.

“What do you want?” she whispered. She had a slight accent, not an Eastern one. More like Grigor’s, or that bastard general Ivan.

“Not to hurt you,” I said softly. “I promise that.” Mama just tilted her head and sniffed.

The girl’s eyes moved over me listlessly. “You’re not from here, not with that accent and those clothes. You here to what? Kill somebody? Steal stuff?” She didn’t look or sound like she gave a rat’s ass if I did.

“Not exactly.” I wasn’t sure how much to share, but when I pushed my hair back, tucking it behind my ear, I didn’t have to.

“You really aren’t from here.” Her eyes were fixed on the metal tag at the top of my ear. “Why are you… How? ”

“You smell that?” Mama whispered, interrupting us. She slid across the floor toward the girl, who went very still as Mama held out a hand. She offered her own after a second, and Mama gently lifted the blood-streaked arm to her nose, sniffing. “It’s him.” I moved a step closer and sniffed, too, his familiar sour odor with hints of tobacco and menthol wafting up not only from the girl, but also the laundry piled on the floor by my feet. I glanced at Mama, hoping she wasn’t losing grip on her lucidity with the stench of her mate so close.

“That asshole Callaway? You know him?” The girl let out a soft sob, and I padded across the room to sit beside her. This close, I could smell more than blood and laundry detergent. I could smell other things. Sex and sweat. Her thighs were marked, too, with blood and semen.

“Yeah, he’s my father, unfortunately.” When she flinched, I went on. “I might not have been honest about not killing people. If I see that fucker, I’m going to make the time to end him. What’s your name?”

“Vanya,” she whispered, her lips tightening as she shifted position and straightened her back. “I’m Vanya Volkovskaia. I was given to this corrupt pack four years ago. My father was told I would be a foster daughter here. But they only wanted me as a hostage, and a slave. I haven’t been outside this house since I was left here.”

“You work in the lower levels?” I asked quietly.

“I do. There and the kitchen. I take meals to the prisoners, and to the ‘guests.’ Your father?—”

“Call him Callaway, or the Rat Bastard. That’s what I did.”

She didn’t smile. “He’s the worst guest we’ve ever had. He sent two girls to the hospital. Two shifters . I’d be down there now, if I hadn’t gotten locked out taking his laundry.”

“The doors automatically lock?” She nodded. “When they open, will you help us get inside? I need to rescue my mates from the lower levels. And my mama here?—”

Vanya’s eyes went wide. “He’s her mate?” Any normal wolf would want to rip out the throat of a woman her true mate had touched. Would demand revenge for the pain it would have caused. She must’ve known that, since she tried to scramble away.

I raced to reply. “He is, but you see her scars? All of those? He gave them to her. She knows what he is. Her wolf knows. You don’t need to worry; she won’t hurt you. We just need a way in, and when we leave, you can come with us.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she whispered. “But if you promise to kill him… Him and as many of the others you can—Enforcers, all of them. Not the Alpha Heir, if you can help it, though. He’s the only one who’s ever kind.” Her nose wrinkled. “I’m not sure how those two evil ones had a son like that, or a daughter that’s even kinder. She got out, though. That’s why we’re locked down. She escaped, and her parents went to find her. I bet her brother helped her run.”

“Tana, right?” When she nodded, I grinned. Tana being safe made our own escape a little bit easier. “I wish I’d met her. I know her brother pretty well. He’s kind of stuck up, but he grows on you after a while, right?”

She gave a tired smile, as she slumped back down. “Sorry, I’m tired. I have to rest to heal.”

“You’ve never shifted?” Mama asked quietly, moving even closer. She raised an eyebrow, and when Vanya nodded curiously, she placed a hand on the center of the girl’s chest. “You have a very strong wolf. Very powerful.”

Vanya did smile then. “My mother came from a royal line, she used to tell me. Kings and Queens, in the time before Alphas.”

“Alphas and Alpha Mothers,” Mama whispered. For a moment, I thought she was going to do something else. She pressed her other hand to her own chest and inhaled, but then her eyes got hazy, and she shook her head like she was clearing away cobwebs. “We’ll kill them all, princess.” Lifting one finger to the girl’s face, Mama traced the path of a tear down her cheek. “We’ll do the moon’s justice for you and all the others.”

She tucked Vanya under one arm, the rumbling dryer behind her back as we spoke softly about what we needed, and made a far better plan than the one I’d come up with. There were maid’s uniforms in the room, real ones with the Eastern crest, though there were black trousers as well as skirts. Small favors.

Vanya would be sent back to the lower levels with food as soon as the locks opened. “I can’t get you in,” she admitted. “They only let one in at a time, and only a few of us have clearance. The guards have silver, by the way. There’s a lot of silver down there; some of the rooms stink of it. Anyway, once you get inside, even if you can get past the guards, there’s no hope that you can get back out, not alive.”

“No hope, huh?” I murmured absently, closing my eyes and thinking of my mates as the rumbling of the dryers and the warmth of the room began to lull me to sleep.

“Hope is a trick,” she replied, her voice sharp. “Hope is the thing that traps girls like us. Makes us think there’s something better around the corner. That someone will save us.”

My eyes snapped open, and I turned my head to her. She sounded so much like me, only a few months ago. Certain that the only thing that lay ahead was more of the same torture I’d known up to then. Sure that I had no friends left in the world, once Del had been killed.

“Hope is the thing that’ll save us,” I said, tasting the truth in my words for the first time. “We have to hope that the moon is with us, and that we can change this shitty world the older shifters have stuck us with. If we don’t have hope, we won’t have energy to move the mountains of bullshit out of our way, and start making the packs do what they were always meant to do. What they’re fucking for, in the first place. To protect. ”

“The pack protects,” Mama agreed, moving between me and Vanya. “And a pack can be small. Two wolves, even. Or three. Come on, now. We’ll need our rest for the fight ahead.” She held out her free arm to me, and I inched closer, moving carefully to keep from jostling her wound. Then I rested my head on Mama’s shoulder, and Vanya half-crumbled against her chest as she began to hum the lullaby she’d sung to me.

We woke a few hours later, though we’d taken turns getting up to switch the dryers back on when they finished their cycles. The noise and smell of them protected us as much as anything. Most of the day had gone, and we took turns in the small toilet, then put on the maid uniforms, waiting for the lockdown to end. I had to help Mama into the black trousers and shirt, since she was weak, and her wound had bled an alarming amount. She swatted my hands away when I went to check it, though.

“Mind yourself. We don’t have time to fuss.” I liked her scolding me. It felt like the kind of thing a normal mother would say, a thing she’d never really said before. “Now help me stick this to my back,” she told me, picking up her sword from the floor. I’d almost forgotten she had it; I’d left my own with Sergeant.

She turned around, lifting her white maid’s shirt. The scars went all the way around her ribcage and up and down her back. A brand-new surge of hatred for the Alpha who’d done this to her—beginning when she wasn’t even as old as I was now—had me tasting bile. I pushed the rage down, storing it with all the rest of my hatred for him, as I made sure my own steak knife was hidden under my clothing. He’d answer for his crimes soon enough.

I shoved my backpack under some dirty clothes, and had no sooner buttoned up the too-loose white shirt than a bell in the house rang, and a voice from inside shouted, “Back to work.”

“Gotta hurry or they’ll come looking.” Vanya quickly sprayed some fabric softener on Mama’s clothes to obscure the scent of blood, then splashed some on me. It smelled awful, and far too strong. “So no one wants to get close, if they see a new girl,” she explained. “That’s it. We can go in now.”

“Look-away,” Mama panted as she walked stiffly to the door.

“No, Mama. We have disguises; we don’t need that. Save your strength.” Vanya gave us an odd look, but passed me a basket of clean kitchen linens, before taking one herself and handing Mama a light stack of folded towels.

We followed her inside, surrounded by the chilly air of the house and the scent of something I didn’t recognize but never wanted to smell again. Mama sniffed and whispered, “So much pain,” then fell silent as Enforcers confronted Vanya, demanding to know where we’d been.

She answered, but not fast enough obviously, since one of the men slapped her across the face. “Get to your station.”

Mama and I scurried behind her, though we knew better than to help her up. But when our eyes met behind the girl’s slumped shoulders, I could practically hear Mama’s words. They would all need to die.

I nodded slightly. Absofuckinglutely.