Page 19

CHAPTER 19

C hristophe

“I can help,” I tell Chance as I look at him over my shoulder. He needs to see my lips in order to understand what I’m saying.

Unlike Chael, he doesn’t always avoid my gaze.

Chance lightly shakes his head.

“Look.” I point at the computer screen with the location of a restaurant in a small town close to the New Mexico-Colorado border. “We’re so close. If this is the right place, then those guys could be there,” I almost plead.

Over the past two weeks, this is the first break we’ve gotten on the names I was able to give Chael and Chance.

While I never saw the faces of any of our captors, I remember some of their voices and the names they called one another, along with the initials that were displayed on the clothing of their uniforms.

Through piecing some times, dates, and initials together, we’ve come up with the location of a restaurant. The owner could be connected to the prison somehow.

“It won’t work,” Chance says firmly.

However, I don’t let his tone deter me. Something inside of me won’t allow me to back down. In my previous life, I was more than happy to remain indoors and to let the others handle any matters that needed personal attention.

Right now, though, I’m too eager to get my hands on anyone involved in what happened to us.

“I’m the one who can recognize their voice.”

Chance narrows his eyes at me.

I wave my hands frantically in front of me. “No, no, I don’t mean …” I trail off. “It’s not that you can’t hear, it’s that I have their voices, all of their voices, memorized. Not just memorized.” I bang my palm against my head a couple of times. “Their voices are stuck inside of my head.”

I have to make him understand.

Chance is deaf. Even in his wolf, he can’t hear, but I’ve never seen that as his weakness. If anything, he turned it into his strength. I would never imply that he’s not capable of handling this situation on account of his lack of hearing ability.

“I spent day after day in that place listening to their taunts. The way they laughed whenever I screamed out in pain from one of their electrodes or begged them to stop.”

“Weak!”

The internal taunt makes me drop my head, shaking it.

“I know what they sound like, even their movements. If I see even one of them, I’ll spot them. I can point him out. I can be useful for more than running database searches,” I tell him before clamping my mouth shut.

Chance pops an eyebrow as he stares at me intently. At least the tension in his forehead eases, leading me to believe he no longer thinks I was trying to insult him.

His jaw tightens as he looks to the side, thinking.

A part of me wants to push to try to convince him. My greatest fear is that he’ll say we need to wait until Chael returns. The alpha has gone up North with his wife and son for the next few days to tend to NSA affairs.

Apparently, after my confinement, Chael was appointed as Rufus Dalton’s replacement on the National Shifter Alliance. Now, he splits much of his time between the NSA’s headquarters, which is only a few hours south of the Canadian border, and here at home.

“Fine,” Chance finally says.

I push out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

“But you don’t make a move without me approving it.”

I nod sharply. “Never,” I tell him. “You’re in charge.”

He gives me a doubtful look before running a hand over his head, shaking it. Chance pulls out his cell phone, his fingers flying over the keyboard before he stuffs it back into his back pocket.

I want to ask if he’s contacted Chael but I don’t ask any questions.

“Let’s go.”

He doesn’t need to tell me a second time before I’m following him out of the door. The drive to the restaurant takes a few hours. The sooner we hit the road, the sooner we can get answers and can return just after nightfall.

On the way out of the door, Mike gives Chance a strange look, before glancing over his shoulder at me then back to the head beta.

“He’s coming with me. I’ve already cleared it.”

Chance’s quick comments let me know he’s told Chael about our trip. Somehow that makes me feel better.

It takes us just under three hours to get to the restaurant that I’ve pinpointed. The place is more of a dive bar and diner than a restaurant, but that’s to be expected in small towns like this.

It’s also not much of a surprise that either a shifter or someone who knows about shifters would be tracked down at a place like this. Most humans don’t know about the existence of shifters, of any kind, amongst their existence.

Chance taps me on the arm once we pull into the parking lot. I glance over at him, and he nods toward the diner’s windows.

“Not many customers inside.” He takes a quick sniff of their air. “But there are shifters around. Not just wolves, either.”

I sniff at the air but don’t catch what he’s picking up. It takes me lowering the window of the passenger side of his truck in order to scent the shifters in the area. Even after years of seeing it, I’m still in awe of Chance’s abilities.

His remaining four senses are so much more honed than that of even other wolf betas. I’m pretty certain he could be the alpha of his own pack if he chose.

“We’ll go in and order something to eat first, before we start asking questions.” He pauses and looks at me.

“Got it,” I reply to his unasked question.

A minute later, the bell at the top of the diner’s door alerting the diner chimes over my head. One of the waitresses behind the counter looks up and welcomes us with a half smile and juts her head to the right.

“Free table that way,” she says, holding a plate of burgers, coleslaw, and fries in either hand.

Chance and I head in the direction she just pointed. My stomach growls, and for the first time I recall that I’d only taken a few bites of the breakfast Ms. Elsie brought over this morning.

I hadn’t eaten much over the past few days, despite having an abundance of food. My wolf seems to be disinterested in food ever since the day of our run with Ashley. Hell, we both are, to be quite honest.

Miss her.

Though I agree with my wolf, I have to ignore him.

We’re not here to ponder over our own feelings. I was adamant about coming with Chance because I need to help him track down the criminals who hurt her.

Seconds after taking our seats, the same waitress comes over to our table with large, laminated menus.

“We’re out of the turkey club and pickles.” She pauses and looks back in the direction of the kitchen. “We’ve only got enough corned beef for one order, and no more mashed potatoes. What can I get you boys?”

“Two burgers, fries for the tables, and two vanilla milkshakes,” Chance orders without hesitation.

My stomach rumbles, making the waitress smirk in my direction. “I’ll put a rush on it.”

I nod, then turn to look at Chance once she’s walked away.

“Her voice wasn’t familiar,” I tell him.

He dips his head in understanding.

I lean into the table. “There weren’t any female voices in that place. Save for the prisoners.”

My hands tighten into fists underneath the table.

“The guards were all male.”

“And the experimenters?” he questions after reading my lips.

I’ve told him this information before. Both to him and Chael, but I know he’s ensuring that he has it all straight for his own investigation. That or he’s trying to discern whether or not my story changes.

I wouldn’t fault him for taking that kind of precaution. Not with my history.

“I recall their voices as if they were my own. All male,” I tell him before lowering my eyes to the cracked wooden table that sits between us.

‘Tell me if you hear anything that sounds familiar,” he says.

I nod.

“Did you pull up the information on the owner?”

On the drive up here, Chance gave me his phone to dig into a little more information about the diner’s owner.

“Lawrence Greenberg,” I tell him. “That tracks with the initials LG I read on one of the guards.”

He looks at the image of the guy on the phone who’s listed as the owner of this diner. “Didn’t you say there was a J in the initials?”

I nod. “LGJ, but this guy has a son.” I scroll up to the second page I’ve downloaded. “A junior.”

“Lawrence Greenberg Junior,” Chance mumbles.

My wolf perks up, as if on alert, at the sound of the name. I run my hand across my chest, which catches Chance’s attention. I remind Chance that my memory of the initials may be fuzzy since I only saw them briefly, in between the covers they often put over my eyes, or in the glimmers of light in the extreme darkness of the prison.

He doesn’t say anything, but the look he gives me tells me he understands. A beat later, our waitress brings our food.

“Enjoy,” she says, but when she starts to head off Chance calls out.

“Is Lawrence around by any chance?”

She gives him a startled look before her brows lower. “You mean Junior or the boss?”

“The boss,” Chance quickly answers.

She glances at the clock on the wall behind the counter. “You fellas are in luck,” she tells Chance. “He usually pops in on Wednesday afternoons around two or three.”

I look at the time, noting its ten of two at the moment.

“Who should I tell him wants to speak with him, if he comes in?”

I don’t miss the way she uses the word if. Like there’s a chance he won’t be in today. We may have missed our opportunity to catch him.

I look over at Chance, who’s expression remains neutral. He doesn’t seem the least bit concerned that our one chance could slip away from us.

“Calm down,” he says in a whisper once our waitress leaves. ‘We’ll get him,’ he mouths.

His assurance eases a little of the tension that’s built up inside of me.

“Stop shaking the table and eat,” he tells me in a voice that almost seems joking.

That’s when I realize that my leg had been shaking underneath the table. I do as he instructed and take a huge bite of my burger. Turns out, it’s really tasty.

I devour the thing in less than four bites.

“Your appetite’s grown,” Chance notices, nodding at my plate.

All that’s left is a handful of fries.

“I’ve gotten a little bigger,” I reply, acknowledging the increased muscles I’ve acquired due to my now-daily calisthenics routine. It’s helped to keep my mind occupied, especially at night, when all I can think about is her. But now, I can’t even speak with her through a wall.

It should be enough for me to know that at least she’s free. Ashley isn’t bound by any concrete walls or metal bars. That should be enough, but as I sense my wolf whining inside of my chest, I know that it isn’t.

“We’ll take you out on more runs, from now on,” Chance captures my attention once again. “If you’d like.”

Is he asking me?

“I’d like that,” I say a little too eagerly. The truth is I want more runs, but I don’t know if he’s also talking about allowing Ashley to come with me. I’m about to ask when the overhead bell chimes again.

Chance looks over my shoulder and his gaze noticeably sharpens. I don’t look back at whoever’s just made an entry, since the expression on Chance’s face tells me exactly who it is.

“Over there,” I hear our waitress call out.

A beat later, a tall, broad man stands over our table. I immediately pick up on his scent. He’s a shifter. Wolf.

There are a few places, in neutral territories, where shifters of all kinds mix with one another. This diner appears to be one of them.

Lawrence’s scent brings to mind the mountains, not around New Mexico, but farther northwest. Where the weather’s much colder.

“Betty tells me you boys are looking for me?” He gazes moves between the two of us, but finally lands on Chance.

When I look over at Chance, his eyes are on me. I give him a short shake of my head, and he quickly turns to face Lawrence Sr.

His voice isn’t the one I recognize.

“My brother and I are interested in your diner,” Chance says as he rises from his seat. “But we’d like to speak to you about it in private.”

Did he just call me his brother?

That’s the first time I’ve heard him say that word since before my confinement.

He gives Chance a contemplative look. “Well, we’re not interested in selling at the moment,” Lawrence Sr. says. “I’ve always wanted to pass it down to my son.” He points out of the door toward an SUV.

There’s no one inside.

“It seems he’s gone to our back office,” Lawrence says.

“Maybe we can speak in your office,” Chance suggests.

Lawrence frowns, but then seems to think better of an outright rejection. “What pack are you fellas from?” he questions.

“Nightwolf pack,” Chance and I say in unison.

Lawrence’s eyebrows raise, his eyes visibly lighting up with interest. The Nightwolf pack is known to be one of the wealthiest wolf packs in the country.

“You know, that boy of mine never seemed too interested in running this place. Why don’t we go have a talk?”

Soon, I find myself following behind Chance and Lawrence out of the main entrance of the diner and toward the back. Behind the diner, unseeable from the parking lot, is a small trailer with a set of wooden steps that leads up to the door.

“Junior?” Lawrence calls out. “You in here?”

Chance follows him inside, but I pause, taking a look around. The diner is located on the side of a long stretch of a two-lane highway.

There isn’t much around, save for a line of forest that separates the highway we’re on from another.

“Yeah, Pops, I’m here,” a male voice responds.

My entire body freezes.

That voice.

Though it sounds much less sinister, less taunting now, I know the voice. Without thinking, I grab Chance’s arm. He looks at me and immediately knows.

“What are you doing in here, son?” Lawrence asks, missing the interaction between Chance and me. “Thought you wanted to have lunch first.”

I enter the trailer behind Chance, and as soon as Junior looks up from the laid-back position on the couch a shock of awareness rushes through me.

His dark brown eyes read irritation when he looks at his father. Soon, though, they widen slightly when he peers up at Chance’s much larger frame. But when his gaze finally lands on me, they widen considerably.

He instantly sits up.

“These two came in to talk business,” Lawrence explains. “Looks like they’re interested in buying the restaurant.”

Lawrence has no idea what’s going on.

“Uh, yeah, that’s cool.” Junior stands up. His eyes skirt over to me every few seconds, but it appears as if he’s doing his best to seem unbothered.

“What did you boys say your name was?” Lawrence asks.

“Chance and Christophe Nightwolf,” Chance replies.

Lawrence blinks. “That’s right.” He chuckles. “Everyone’s heard of the Nightwolf pack, even around here. What brought you out here, interested in the diner of a couple of lone wolves?” Lawrence asks.

“Lone wolves?” Chance asks.

The older man nods. “Yeah, we were part of the Whitewolf pack in the Pacific-Northwest, but after Junior’s mother died, they didn’t make us feel welcome. Thought about going back up to Canada where my roots are.

“My birth pack is still up there, thriving, but my boy’s never known any other home but the States. Didn’t feel right taking him away.”

“How’d you get out here, then?” Chance asks.

Junior remains quiet, but every now and again his attention skirts over my way. I don’t look his way, doing my best to make it seem like I’m more interested in what his father has to say than anything else.

“They had the nerve of accusing my boy of some awful shit,” Lawrence says adamantly. “I know my Junior, he would never do what they accused him of. I knew they would try to convict him, so I made a deal with the alpha of the pack that we’d leave, and he’d never hear from us again.

“Came on over to the Southwest where we drifted for a few years. Packs aren’t too kind to a couple of lone wolves. Anyway, I lucked up when I came across the sale of this diner. Was owned by an old loner, himself. He was looking to retire, and I had saved up a little cash.”

Holding out his arms, he gives us a proud smile. “The rest is history.”

“Seems like you made good for yourself given some shitty circumstances,” Chance says.

“Yes.” Lawrence grasps onto his son’s shoulder. “All for my boy.”

My stomach rumbles in disgust. Lawrence might believe his son’s an innocent kid, but I remember that motherfucker’s voice.

He’s far from virtuous, and it’s at this moment that I have no doubt that whatever his old pack accused him of, he’s guilty of. His father’s just too blind to see it. Probably doesn’t want to believe the worst of his own son.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go get something to eat,” Junior finally says, removing himself from his father’s hold.

“Betty’s in there,” his father tells him.

I don’t immediately move when Junior walks past me. Once more, his eyes skirt in my direction before quickly looking away.

“Bring your meal back so we can talk with these two gentlemen about business,” Lawrence tells his son just as the door slams.

I look over at Chance, who gives me a sideways glance.

He doesn’t move. Silently, I try to convey to him the urgency of our need to act. Still, he doesn’t move. In fact, he goes on to ask Lawrence more questions about the business as if he’s still interested in buying this place.

Did he not read my signal from earlier correctly? Does he not understand that this is one of the guards who made my life hell for the ten months I was in that hellhole?

He made more than my life hell.

“Don’t touch me!”

Ashley’s scream and terrified words come racing back to me. There was more than one occasion where I heard the taunts from who I now know is Lawrence Greenberg Jr., in her cell.

“Get off of me!” she’d yelled one night, wrestling me from my sleep.

“Stop fighting me, bitch!” Whack! He’d hit her when she tried to fight him off.

My heart pounds as I race through the door without thinking.

“Christophe!”

I ignore Chance calling my name and search the vicinity. Junior hadn’t gone around to the front of the diner.

He’s standing on the side of the diner, a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other.

When he sees me running in his direction, his eyes narrow then widen. He tosses the cigarette and starts to make a run for the woods.

Looking over to my right, I see a metal trash can. One second the trash can’s standing on the ground, the next, I’m holding it over my head before hurling it at Junior’s back.

It hits him dead center, causing him to fall flat on his face. Before he can get up or shift into his wolf, I’m on top of him, turning him over and landing a punch across his face.

The first hit doesn’t satisfy the bloodlust that’s boiled up inside of me. By now, I’m sitting on his chest, pummeling him in the face.

There’s sounds and screams behind me, but nothing deters me from doing my damnedest to tear his head off.

All I can make out clearly in my mind are Ashley’s screams. Her yells for him to get off of her, and I imagine the worst. The most harmful ways in which he could’ve hurt her. I continue to pound his face in.

It doesn’t even occur to me to reason why he hasn’t shifted into his wolf to force me off of him. He’s about the same height, but much broader than I am. My wolf would likely have a tough time against his, but neither my wolf nor I care about any weakness we have right now.

The stinging ache in my hands doesn’t stop me either, not the blood splashing onto my face and staining my clothes, not his flailing. Not even Chance’s voice behind me.

I don’t know how long it takes before stronger pairs of hands and arms pull me off of the piece of dirt.

My chest heaves as I struggle to get oxygen into my lungs. Even still, I fight to get back to the bloody, curled up lump on the ground to finish him off.

“Christophe, no!” Chance insists sharply. He shakes his head back and forth. “It’s over.”

I look over his shoulder to see Junior still moving.

It’s not over.

“We need to get information from him. We can’t do that if you kill him,” Chance tells me as if he’s read my thoughts.

Slowly, the foggy haze of my anger recedes, though it doesn’t completely evaporate. It never will. Not as long as I hear Ashley’s cries and tortured voice in my mind.

“Let me take it from here.” Chance stares into my eyes until I meet his gaze.

The sharpness in his eyes doesn’t go unnoticed. But Chance’s gaze lingers on me. He’s silently communicating with me. Though we can’t share thoughts like he and Chael, he’s communicating with his eyes. A silent vow for justice.

I take a small step back.

Chance dips his head slightly before pushing away the two men who’re now trying to help Junior off of the ground.

Knowing if I continue to look at him, I will go back to trying to rip his head off, I pivot on my heels and head back to Chance’s truck.

“Y-You can’t just come here and assault my son!” Lawrence says as I walk past.

Even though I ignore him, he continues yelling about calling the NSA and reporting Chance and I.

“I want to know what your alpha’s number is this instant!” he demands. “I’ll have him alpha arrested for allowing you two to attack my son.”

“That son of a bitch deserves worse!” I yell in Lawrence’s face. “He’s not innocent. He’s a damn sociopath who deserved every part of that ass whooping!”

A sharp sensation shoots through my jaw, and I know that my incisors have descended. Even if I hadn’t realized it, the way Lawrence jumps away from me in fear and horror, would’ve told me the story.

The idea of wrapping my hands around his throat passes through my mind. However, I’m just clear minded enough to realize that Lawrence wasn’t involved in his son’s activities.

He’s nothing more than a father who believes that his spawn is innocent and the world is simply out to get him.

Aside from coddling his little sociopath, probably for years, this man hasn’t done anything wrong.

That awareness doesn’t make me feel any better. Not when the echo of the terror in Ashley’s voice continues to ring through my mind.

I need to get out of here before I do something that I’ll regret. I storm away from Lawrence without taking so much as a swing at him. The next thing I know, I’m slamming the door of Chance’s truck so hard the entire vehicle rattles.

A look down at my hands tells the story of what just happened. Bloodied, bruised, and a couple of my fingers are crooked, speaking to their broken bones. This was the first real fight I’ve ever been in.

“Omegas are protected.” My birth mother’s words from long, long ago suddenly come to my mind. I shake my head free, not understanding why that memory decides to resurface right now.

“That was some show,” Chance says as soon as he slips behind the steering wheel, into the driver’s seat.

I peer over my shoulder to see the back of the truck covered with a black tarp.

“He’s back there, tied up with some silver chains and passed out on the sedative from my tranq gun. He’ll be out until long after we arrive back home.”

I snort in acknowledgement of his words. “How did you manage that?” I ask, wondering how his father and the other shifters around didn’t stop him from taking Junior.

“Everyone's heard of that horrible prison by now,” he answers, looking me in the eye. “I told them the truth. The other shifters looked like they wanted to help you kill him once they found out.”

I swallow the saliva pooling in my mouth and grit my teeth.

“You alright?” Chance asks after a beat of silence.

He’s staring at my hands, a pinch between his brows.

“We need to get you back to Dr. Pines.”

“I’m fine,” I reply.

He doesn’t respond as he starts up the truck. Seconds later, we’re speeding out of the diner’s parking lot, headed back to the Nightwolf commune.

Though I broke my promise to Chance to follow his lead on this venture, I can’t say I regret it. Junior deserved a hell of a lot worse than what he’s gotten so far. But we still need answers.