by Geonn Cannon
"You are going to give this back to my daughter. Understood?"
Dale nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
She turned to Milo. "What else do we know?" Before Milo could respond, Gwen's cell phone rang. She took it out of her pocket and saw it was from a blocked number before she answered. She put the call on speaker. "Who is this?"
"You made it very easy for me to find you, Gwen. Phone listed under your maiden name, unless of course you never married. How sad. And you should tell those girls of yours they should be better about spotting a tail the next time you send them out on an errand."
Milo mouthed a curse and ran back to the front of the house. Tarun and Hannah hadn't sent up an alarm but they couldn't be too careful.
Gwen had become rooted to the floor, her eyes locked on the far side of the kitchen, her jaw tight. The voice came back and Gwen flinched, then grimaced at her reaction.
"Are you there? Do you recognize my voice, Gwenny?"
Her eyes were cold, and her words were clipped. Hearing it, Dale was reminded of how cold and inhuman Gwyneth Willow had seemed when they first met. The woman who had frightened her was back in full force, and whoever the mystery caller was, Dale almost pitied him if Gwen ever got her hands on him. "I'm here, Jake."
"Good. I'm sure your girls found the little message I left. I'm very upset, Gwen. I can't believe you never told me."
"Well, I couldn't be certain."
"Of course you could. I was the only one in the proper position that night, as it were. You would have known the second you knew you were pregnant. And then once she was born... I mean, she's the spitting image. The jaw is definitely mine. You must have seen me every time you looked at her. There's no doubt this girl is a Keighley. We made a beautiful girl, Gwen."
Dale covered her mouth and Gwen closed her eyes. Milo came back and shook her head, reporting that the street outside was clear.
"Shame that she took after her mama, though. I was hoping she'd be spared those disgusting dog genetics. But that's all right, I guess."
"If you've hurt her, so help me..."
Keighley said, "Don't threaten me, Gwen. Right now, Ariadne is resting... well, not comfortably, but she's in one piece. If you start making me angry I might take it out on her. I always suspected I would be a strict father. I wish you hadn't deprived me of finding out for myself."
"She's not your daughter. You were just a deliveryman for genetic material. Ariadne is mine. I raised her, I..."
"She hates you. I can see it in her eyes when she talks about you. Even if the stories about her parents were lies, the emotion was true. So don't play the super-parent whose child is in trouble. I saw the house where you and the wolves are holed up, and I know I wouldn't have made much progress trying to break in on my own. I could always come back with my friends, I suppose. But I could also make things easy for us both.
"You have the wolfsbane. In terms of price and rarity, that is worth far more than the life of one girl. Bring me the coolers, every single one of them, and I'll trade you. Ariadne for the wolfsbane. I promise you won't come to any harm during the transfer."
"Go to hell."
Everyone in the room looked at Dale, who stepped closer to the phone.
"Was that Miss Frye?"
"Yeah," Dale said, stepping closer to the phone. "And I said go to hell. Ari would never agree to that plan. In fact, you know what? If you're asking us to choose her over every wolf in Seattle, I think she would gladly take whatever you're threatening over a swap. She would give her life to protect her people, and we're going to honor that choice. So fuck you. Fuck you and your fucking graffiti. No deal."
Keighley chuckled without humor. "Gwen, are you going to let this little human girl gamble with our daughter's life this way?"
"She was never your daughter," Gwen said, eyes locked on Dale's. "And the truth is, Ariadne ran away from me and ended up in Miss Frye's arms. Her decision takes precedence. So fuck you, Jake. Give our love to Ariadne."
She disconnected the call.
Dale took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I need to throw up."
Milo guided her to the kitchen sink. When she was finished purging, she cupped her hand under the water to splash her face and rinse out her mouth. Milo stayed by her side and rubbed between her shoulders until she pushed up off the edge of the sink.
"What did I just do?"
"The right thing," Gwen said. "I believe that's exactly what Ariadne would have said. Never doubt that, no matter what happens."
Dale whispered, "No matter what happens." The phrase of course prompted her to think of all the possible outcomes, none of them attractive. "What if they dose her with wolfsbane?"
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Owen said. He had stood up during the phone call and still hadn't sat down. "I think it's up to one of us to say this since we don't know Ariadne, but we have to consider her a loss. Either they'll kill her outright, or drug her with wolfsbane and use her to make a point. We can hope for a best-case scenario, but I think it's more likely she's already gone."
"Christ, Owen," Paige muttered, glaring at her husband. "You could sugarcoat it a little. This is Dale's girl we're talking about. She's the one who saved Hannah's life..."
"And I'm grateful to her for that. Truly, I am. But just because she risked herself to save Mia's girl doesn't mean it'll work out for her."
Benji said, "You might could be a little more diplomatic in front of her fucking partner and her mother."
"This is war," Owen said softly. "And we're not going to gain any points by crossing our fingers. If we can save Ariadne, great, we should try. But that shouldn't be the goal. The hunters know where we are now. They know we have the wolfsbane. We don't have the luxury of distracting ourselves with rescue plans when we could have the entire brunt of the hunter's army falling down on our heads."
Dale pushed away from the counter. "I need some fresh air."
"Backyard," Gwen said. "Just to be safe."
Dale nodded as she went outside, followed quickly by Milo. Dale crossed the back porch and left the halo of the security light's glow, then dropped to her knees in the grass. Milo waited closer to the house, arms crossed over her chest and her eyes on the tree line to watch for anyone sneaking onto the property. Dale let herself cry, accepting that she had just made the decision to let Ari die. Not just die, she had been the deciding vote to let some madman rapist kill Ari however he saw fit. It didn't matter if she knew in her heart that it was the right decision, that it was exactly what Ari would have told her to do, all that mattered was that she'd said the words and delivered Ari's death sentence.
After a few minutes, when she had moved her hands to her thighs and was hunched forward like a lawn ornament of a praying angel, Milo finally crossed over to stand behind her.
"We'll get her back."
"No. Owen was right. We can't waste energy on that, not right now." She sniffled and wiped her cheeks. She looped Ari's collar around her wrist, using the first hole to make it as snug as possible. It fell down around the meaty part of her hand like a slender bangle. "We're not going to focus on rescuing her because she's got that covered. Anything we do would just get in her way or screw up her plans. Ari doesn't need us distracted."
Milo chuckled. "Sounds like her." She offered her hand. "C'mon. Let's go back inside. Owen will feel terrible if he thinks you're out here crying because of him."
"Can we let him feel terrible for a few more minutes?"
"Yeah." Milo withdrew her hand and sat down in the grass next to her. "Hell, let's give him a half hour. Bastard deserves it." She put her arm around Dale's shoulders, and Dale rested her head on Milo's shoulder. "Ariadne is tough. And when she comes back, she's going to be proud of how brave you were just now. Hell, I'm proud. I couldn't have done that."
"I still can't believe I did it."
Milo nodded. "I'm fucking sick of this war."
Dale took a deep breath and sat up. "Then let's go figure out a way to end it. Ari'
s doing her part. We can't just sit around moping in the grass all night." She held out her hand, Milo took it, and Dale hauled her up. They brushed the grass clippings off the seat of their pants and walked back to the house to resume their plotting.
#
Ari woke without a clue where she was or why she hurt so badly. She was lying on the floor, that much she knew, and she could feel the wall against her right foot and her outstretched left arm. Her mouth was dry enough that she smacked her lips and tried to work up some saliva before she risked pushing herself up. She made it halfway and then dropped. One more thing worked out, then... she was not only hurt, she was weak as well. And she couldn't remember a damn thing beyond watching the endless loop of identical car accidents on a laptop at the police station.
She finally managed to sit up, though her head vehemently opposed the change in orientation, and she looked around to see she was inside of a cage that was bolted to the cement floor of an empty garage.
"Ah, hell, not again." She gripped the bars and shook them to see how much give they had. Most cages designed to hold an animal were surprisingly sturdy, but some of them could be knocked apart by applying pressure at the right spot. When the cage refused to collapse at her whim she focused on the garage itself. The room was freezing, and she could tell, either from intuition or some subtle clue that her conscious mind couldn't identify, that it was nighttime. She rubbed her side and lifted her shirt to see a light burn mark.
"Ow," she whispered.
A quick inventory followed. Her pockets were empty, and oddly she was also missing her collar. She assumed her captors were elsewhere in the building, probably close by so they could hear if she raised any ruckus. The cage door was held tight with a padlock, and she didn't even bother trying to pick it. She moved into a crouch since the cage didn't allow her space to stand and turned in a slow circle to survey the area.
She had been at the police station. She was reviewing the tapes. She remembered the rancid coffee, the horrible sandwich... Her stomach growled at the thought of food and she wished she had finished the sandwich. She hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast, and by the strength of her hunger it had to be at least an hour past dinner time. She reached up to touch her neck again, surprised at how naked she felt without the collar.
There had been a car. She was driving to the scene of the accident. No, she was being driven to the accident site by...
"Keighley." The cold wave washed over her again as she remembered what he'd said when he was shocking her with the damn stun gun. He knew her mother, knew her by name.
The door to the main building opened before she could follow the thought down the rabbit hole. Keighley stepped into the room and smiled at her as he closed the door behind him.
"Hello, Ariadne. How are you feeling? That was a nasty bump you got when you hit the window. And I suppose the Taser didn't help things much."
"Keighley. A dog cage... really? That's the best you could do."
"Sorry if it's not up to your standards."
She gripped the bars. "It's actually not my first. Wolves like me have to deal with the occasional wiseass who thinks it's clever to put us in a cage like this. So. This is how you treat your daughter?"
He raised his eyebrows. "You remember that much, do you?"
"You said I looked like my mom did at her age. She was actually about ten years younger when you raped her, but I doubt she looked much different. I've aged well. So, Daddy, what's the verdict? Must be pretty disappointed in your little princess."
"On the contrary. You lived on the streets and avoided drugs to make something of yourself. You built your own business from the ground up, and you're in a happy relationship. Any father would be proud to have you as a daughter."
Ari sneered at him. "Yeah, but that pesky ‘wolf' thing throws things off the rails for you, huh?"
"It does. We've often wondered what would happen if a hunter and a wolf had a child. The only couple of record was a homosexual pair, so naturally there was no resolution there. But you... you've proven it can be done."
"And the wolf DNA won."
He smiled. "Nice try. We did some digging once we learned the truth. You underwent a procedure when you were a baby. Nature made you normal, but your mother made you a freak. That's why you ran away from home, isn't it? She made you a monster. I'm very sorry for that. If I had known about you, I would have come back and taken you from her. You would have been raised as intended, as a hunter."
"No use crying over spilled milk." She looked around. "So what, were you waiting until I woke up to make me snort some wolfsbane?"
Keighley shook his head. "No, I was thinking we could approach this from an entirely different angle. Your mother did something reprehensible. She stole your birthright and turned you into something you were never meant to be. You were born of a hunter, Ariadne, and we can still make that right. Work with us. Wolf manoth is only just beginning. You can make your mother pay for what she did to you. And Dale, your girlfriend? She's working with the wolves, isn't she? That's not natural, either. She should be working with us. Humans, other people like her. You can be our secret weapon. Infiltrate the wolves and help us destroy them from within."
"So now non-hunters are your allies? I thought you just wanted them for cannon fodder."
"We do as we must. That requires sacrifice."
Ari said, "Sacrifice is willingly giving your life for a cause. These people are innocent and you're arranging their murders. There's nothing noble about that."
"Will you please listen to reason?"
Ari said, "When you feed me, are you going to put it in a bowl? It would be keeping with the motif, but it would be a little humiliating. I don't really think my mental well-being is high on your list of priorities." She blinked. "Sorry, you were babbling about something, but my mind was just so fixated on whether or not you'd be feeding me from a bowl or not."
He worked his jaw and stood up. "Fine. I didn't want to play this for you, but..." He took out his phone and touched the screen. "This is an excerpt from a phone call I recorded earlier."
She heard Dale's voice, and something inside her threatened to break, but she kept her face emotionless as she listened. "I said go to hell. Ari... fuck you."
And then her mother spoke: "... the truth is, Ariadne ran away from me. Her decision takes precedence. So fuck you, Ariadne."
"Oh, God." Ari covered her face. "Okay, Daddy, I'll do whatever you want, I'll kill all the wolves and I'll make rugs for you out of their pelts and woe, everyone is against me." She took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. "One, if you're going for realism, you might want to actually use full sentences. And sentences with phrases they'd actually say. Two, wolf hearing, dumb ass. Even if I believed Dale and Gwen said those things, I could hear the break in the recording. Sloppy as hell, man."
Keighley closed the phone. "Just one more tactic I thought I would try. You never know what will work. But we do have one foolproof plan. If all else fails, we won't just kill you. We'll hold you down. We'll fill a bag with wolfsbane and cinch it shut over your head, and then we will throw your dear girlfriend into that cage with you. We'll record whatever happens next so you can get the full experience. Either way, Ariadne, your part of the war ends in this room in that cage. And no matter which side you choose, you'll end up striking a blow for the hunters." He smiled. "Sweet dreams, darling. If you have nightmares, Daddy will be right down the hall."
He turned off the lights as he left the room, leaving Ari alone in the dark.
#
Milo's furniture had been moved so that anything not blocking an entrance was positioned with a view of the street. Dale was seated in an armchair, arms crossed with her hands on the opposite shoulder, focused on the bend in the road so she wouldn't think about where Ari was or what she was going through. She was so intent on her goal that she jumped when someone touched her elbow. Gwen held up her hands in apology, backlit by the hallway as she moved to sit on the edge of the couch.
>
"Sorry."
"No, it's fine," Dale said. "What's up?"
"We're taking shifts sleeping and keeping watch. I volunteered you for the first sleep shift."
Dale shook her head. "No. I can't sleep right now."
"I know you think that, but you're the one who needs it most. You've been very stressed for the past two days, and it's capped by this news about Ariadne. You'll be a nervous wreck if you don't give yourself a chance to process it all. Please, for my sake, go upstairs. Get some rest. Just a few hours, and then I promise I'll send Milo to wake you up so you can take your shift."
Dale looked out the window again. "You called me ‘the human.' Last time we met, in the offices. Ari showed you the collar and you said I'd marked my territory."
Gwen nodded slowly. "I didn't understand why my daughter chose you. I've never been with any who wasn't a wolf. Well, with the one glaring exception. I suppose it was a bit ironic. I had no issues with the fact you were a woman, which is most people's experience. But the fact you weren't canidae was mortifying. I was a little... disgusted by the idea, frankly."
"And now?"
"I wouldn't care if your parents were hunters. If you care this much for my daughter..." She sighed. "You've cared for my daughter more than I have in recent years. You've been there for her when I was absent. I meant what I said on the phone, about your choice taking precedence. I just had to get to know you in order to discover you're exactly the person I hoped Ariadne would find."
"Thank you. And just for the record, Daddy is a dentist and Mom was a teacher. Neither one of them showed any interest in hunting."
Gwen smiled. "Good. Now go get some sleep, Dale. If only so Ariadne won't scold me when we get her back and she finds out I kept you awake all night."
Dale slipped off the chair and stretched. She did feel completely spent, but she wouldn't bet on actually sleeping. Still, she would make the effort for Gwen. She stopped next to the couch and held out her hand, and Gwen took it.