The alpha sighed. “I’m going to really have to punish him this time. You want the honor of deciding what the punishment should be?”
A tempting opportunity, like having a carrot dangled in front of him. It felt like a trap, even though he didn’t really think it was. “No, thanks.”
Cain nodded. He seemed pleased. “He needs to learn that being a biker doesn’t mean you go around causing shit. We’re better than that.” He straightened up, finally turning his head to look at Moody again. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Am I in trouble for something?” His heart started pounding as he realized that the previous conversation didn’t mean he was out of the woods.
“No! No, you aren’t. I just wondered if you’d seen Isaac recently.”
Moody froze, thinking back to the way Isaac had chased him away from the beach. “Not for a few days. Since we went on patrol together.” He didn’t see much point in informing Cain of their coincidental meeting on the west end of the island.
“Damn. No one’s heard from him.”
“That’s not exactly unusual,” Moody pointed out. One thing he and Isaac did have in common these days was their desire to be left alone.
“No, you’re right,” Cain agreed softly. “But someone told Destiny that they saw Isaac with another wolf they’d never seen before. They said Isaac looked really upset. We’ve been keeping an eye out for him since then, but he hasn’t been around. No one’s seen him out in the city either.”
Isaac looked upset?
For the past couple of days, all he had been able to think about was how he felt when Isaac pushed him. But what had come before that?
Closing his eyes, he tried to remember.
Isaac told him to go. Demanded it. Snarled at him. And even before that happened, Isaac had looked around across the beach. And before that, he had gone still, like he was concentrating. His scent had gone bitter.
He had been afraid.
“Moody? What are you thinking about?” Cain pressed.
The sudden change in Isaac’s demeanor hinted at something incredibly important, relating to the sighting of him talking to a strange wolf. And now, he was missing.
“I can go look for him,” Moody blurted out. He spoke too loud and a few other wolves glanced over in his direction, then away as they noticed he was still with Cain. Struggling to lower his voice, he continued, “I thought he seemed kind of weird last time I saw him. Maybe the two are related.”
“Maybe. Would you have time to go see him, then? Or were you in the middle of something important?”
He bristled at the question, then relaxed when he realized Cain wasn’t mocking him for his writing. “I can go. Right now, even.”
“That would be best, yes.” Cain looked thoughtful now, or at least as thoughtful as it was possible for a man like him to be. “Do you know where he lives?”
He shook his head.
“Do you know the trailer park in the middle of the Triangle? I think it’s called Tanglewood Gardens.”
The Triangle was a local name for the part of the city sandwiched between the parallel highway 29 and I-110, and the perpendicular I-10 which connected them at the north. Isosceles in formation, the Triangle was a very long and thin area whose point came to a blunt end at the south. It wasn’t the best place to live.
“I know it, yeah.”
He’d never set foot in the trailer park personally, though he’d seen it from a distance while riding his bike on the highway. The trailers were all cluttered together around a few roads, surrounded by thick tangles of the kind of trees a person could only find in Florida. Swampy, humid, drooping, sickly trees that looked as if they were fantastic homes for snakes and mosquitos and any manner of other unpleasant things. Broken furniture littered tiny yards, and faint dog barks occasionally burst up as the animals went into a frenzy for no reason that Moody was able to understand. Of course, it was hard to tell anything while he was on the outside.
Cain was speaking still. Moody tuned in to the conversation again. “His address is 14 Quiet Lane. Apparently it’s difficult to find anything based on the numbers, so look for the blue trailer with the cardboard in the window.”
“Wow, what a great place to live.”
“Good thing we don’t live in Canada or someplace with actual seasons, right?” Cain grinned. “So, you going to go over?”
“Sure. You want me to text you or something when I find out what’s going on?”
Cain mulled over the question. That was the difference between himself and Destiny. The pack leader made his decisions very quickly, confidently, always certain that he was right. Usually, he was.
“Unless it’s something bad, I think you can hold off on that. Just tell him that Destiny and I would like to talk to him.”
Moody nodded. “Got it. I’ll get going, then.”
“Thank you. And Moody?”
Moody looked over at Cain, raising his eyebrows at the alpha. “Yes?”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. Simple thanks didn’t seem good enough, but pushing himself beyond that would be overdoing it.
Rather than do anything, he just nodded and walked away. No one bothered him at all as he walked down the stairs and went out of the garage to the parking lot. He grabbed his roadster, placed a helmet on his head, and got moving.
It was an easy ride to Tanglewood Gardens once Moody got over the highway, though not exactly a walk in the park. There was little other traffic and definitely no cops, but the roads were so knotted and tangled he could hardly go half the speed he wanted to. Buildings and shrubbery and tree branches jutted out into the angles of the twisting road, so it was difficult to tell if there was another side road there or not.
Relying on his internal compass to keep him heading more or less north, correcting his course whenever the sounds of the distant interstate grew too near, Moody finally found the park. He broke through a very rough wall of trees, tangled giants crowding in on the road from either side, and there were suddenly trailers right ahead of him. Most of them looked to be either old or just in terrible shape, with breaks in the foundations or rotting wood steps. Windows were boarded up. Doors sat oddly on their hinges. Everywhere, paint needed refreshing.
This was a place for the tired, the broken down, and the destitute. Only people who had very little to begin with would choose to come to such a location.
His heart climbed up into his throat. Isaac had very little to be here. He’d had a job before, a very important one, and that was the reason he returned to Daphne and left Moody all alone. Isaac had had a pack. A purpose. A future, all leading out in front of him with no end in sight. And now he lived here.
“What happened, Isaac?” he whispered.
The sound of his voice, already quiet, was lost beneath a volley of threatening barks that exploded up from a yard to his left. His hands clenched on the bars and his body jerked with surprise, making his bike stutter to the side. Twisting slightly with the motion, Moody managed to bring the bike back on course. As he did so, he glanced at the source of the barking.
A huge dog of indeterminate breed, presumably a mutt of some sort, bucked and writhed at the end of a short length of chain. A circle of torn yard surrounded the chain post, signaling that the animal was often kept outside and maybe had taken to endless pacing in order to satisfy its need for exercise.
The dog’s eyes were mad red with fury. Saliva sprayed from its opened maw, drizzled down from yellow fangs. Its face was warped into an ugly, monstrous caricature.
Other dogs around the neighborhood heard the cry and took the opportunity, howling and baying and yapping in a dozen different voices.
Clearly, this was why the dogs were always barking. One saw something and set the others off.
“Don’t you mind him, boy.”
Moody turned his head, startled, wondering why he hadn’t noticed a human nearby. He quickly got his answer wh
en a lanky man stepped around the side of a trailer, bringing with him a plume of blue cigarette smoke. The man’s face and hands were stained with nicotine. His hair was greasy, and would probably qualify as dreadlocks. His eyes were squinted slants, not because of his ancestry, but because his skin was wrinkled and leathery with too much exposure to the sun.
When the human didn’t say anything else, only drew deeply on his cigarette, Moody ventured, “Are you talking to me or the dog?”
The man gave a phlegmy sound, then spat a huge glob of something against the side of the trailer. Judging from the huge brown stain in that general area, he did this same action quite a lot. “You. Damn dog don’t listen to nobody. He just barks his fool head off all day. Don’t mind him. He’ll shut up soon.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Moody adjusted himself in his seat and started forward again. So far, he had seen plenty of yellow and white trailers -and the yellow ones had probably been white at some point- but no blue ones.
“’fore you go, why are you here, boy?”
“Visiting a friend,” he replied, truthfully enough.
“Like hell you are.” The man dropped his cigarette, then stomped on the butt and ground it underneath his heel. “Ain’t none of us up here got a cityslicker like you for a friend.”
That was confusing, since the trailer park was part of the city. Moody looked over at the man again, sensing he probably shouldn’t ask the question in his mind or else be labelled as a fool. He noticed now that the human wore a stained wife beater with huge damp patches under the arms, and sweatpants spotted with little burn marks, as if he often put his cigarette out on them.
He thought he understood.
Moody might live in a parking garage, might be jobless—unless he counted the chores he did around the place to earn his keep—but he had plenty of food, all the amenities he could ever ask for. He was wearing a shiny black leather jacket that probably cost more than what this man could afford for food each month.
He didn’t know what to do or say. It seemed like it would be in his best interest to just ignore this guy and get moving, so he gripped his bike and headed off again. He wouldn’t stop now, no matter what the man said.
“Mutt don’t much like the sight of you and neither do I, cityboy!”
Moody turned the corner. The man stopped shouting after him, though the dog kept barking for several more minutes. As the seconds passed, the furious cries took on a more hoarse, spent edge, until the dog seemed to be coughing instead of baying. Then, silence.
He just looked harder, searching and searching for a blue trailer. His internal compass was all fucked up at this point. He couldn’t get his bearings. Everything started to look the same, and then the trailers ran together at the edges.
Oh, no!
His heartbeat picked up, a pounding cadence in his chest. Nausea gathered in his stomach, a bitter, churning sensation which hinted at an approaching dizziness.
Not here. Not now. This is so important.
He opened his mouth, pulled in a breath until his lungs ached. Let it out, pulled another one in. Over and over, until he finally caught sight of the trailer where Isaac lived. One of the windows had clearly been broken at some point in the past, covered as it was now with sheets of cardboard. The cardboard was moldy and drooping, signaling that it had been there for quite some time. Months. Maybe an entire year.
Moody dropped his speed down, almost faint with relief at the way his heartbeat was also slowing. The nausea remained, though he no longer felt at danger of becoming dizzy. He parked right next to Isaac’s bike and dismounted. Grabbing the key from the ignition, he shoved it in his pocket so no prospective thieves would get a lucky break today. Then, he turned to walk up to the front door of the trailer. The only door, probably.
A glimmer of metal out of the corner of his eye stopped him. He turned, a little puzzled. Motorcycles were at least partly made of some metal. They naturally glittered. He didn’t know why this caught his attention except that it did.
The glittering metal wasn’t naturally part of the motorcycle. It was a key. Isaac’s key, still stuck in the ignition.
Moody stared, dread nibbling at the base of his spine with needle-sharp teeth. He imagined one of those deep ocean fish emerging from the frozen dark with the sole purpose of gnawing on him.
Isaac would never, ever leave the key in his bike. He wasn’t stupid. He knew it would be stolen if he did that, especially in a place like this.
Reaching out, Moody gripped the key fob and twisted it. At least, he tried. The key was already turned as far to the right as it would go.
So, not only had Isaac left his bike out here for anyone to steal, but he’d also left the engine running?
Holding his breath, Moody turned the key all the way to the left, paused, then twisted back to the right.
Absolutely nothing. The engine didn’t even cough, didn’t try to start. Hell, it didn’t so much as turn over. There was no gas left inside, and on top of that the battery was dead.
Moody took Isaac’s key and stuck it in his pocket with his own. Then, he turned and ran towards the front door. He mounted a series of five rotting wood steps, each one curving so far down under his weight that he wondered how they weren’t already snapped. Isaac went down these often, didn’t he? And he weighed much more.
Oh, well. Puzzles with no solution. Unimportant.
Lifting up his fist, Moody pounded hard on the door. That, at least, was solid. Heavy, muted thumps resulted from his knocking. He stopped, waited, straining his ears.
No sound. Nothing.
He knocked harder this time, then called, “Isaac? It’s Moody. Are you home?”
No answer.
Moody stared down at the doorknob, contemplated a third attempt, and then he said, “Oh, fuck it,” and grabbed for the knob. It twisted easily in his hand, having not been locked.
His heart fluttered uneasily in his chest. Leaving his bike out there to run itself down completely, and now not locking his front door? Isaac was never so lax as to miss even one of these details, but two? Something terrible had to have happened.
Moody pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The door opened directly into a living room, which was rather sparse. An armchair, an end table, a few shelves with books, and that was about it. No TV, no wall decorations, nothing.
To the left of the front door was a kitchen, which at a glance already had considerably more personality than the living room. A coffee pot, microwave, toaster, and several other typical devices lined up along the length of one short counter, like soldiers awaiting orders. Little motorcycle figurines stood on the windowsill, keeping watch over the sink. Magnets studded the fridge, each one appearing to have come from a different city. Moody supposed Isaac collected them in the past, when he’d gone on business to other places.
A hallway led from the living room, deeper into the trailer. Moody started for it, then stopped and looked back at the kitchen.
Bikers were indulgent creatures by nature. They had to be, when their main mode of transportation was all about desire, rather than need. Moody knew very few of his pack members who didn’t smoke or drink.
Isaac was one of those who didn’t drink. At least, that was what he said a few years ago. He liked to be clear-headed. If he had to drink at a business dinner or something, if it was absolutely necessary, he limited himself to one. One shot, one glass, one of whatever was being served.
Even if he had changed his opinions in the time they were apart, what Moody was seeing on the kitchen counter was extremely worrying.
Someone—presumably Isaac, though Moody still had difficulty associating this with his ex-lover—had purchased a case of beer and then tore into it, like a bear smelling food inside a campground tent. Empty or half-empty bottles surrounded the case, intermingled with torn strips of cardboard packaging. One of the bottles had tipped over, leaving a sizable puddle.
In addition to the beer was a bottle of whiskey. The cap was on
the floor. Moody couldn’t see a shot glass anywhere, so he could only assume that Isaac had drunk directly from the bottle. Several fingers of whiskey were missing, putting the level of the alcohol well below the neck of the bottle.
Last, but certainly not least, was a bottle of Grey Goose. The vodka was on the floor for some reason, and looked to be unopened as of yet.
“Isaac?” Moody called. He went over to the hallway. Three doors, two closed, and one open in the middle.
He yanked open the first door and found a central air-conditioning unit. He didn’t bother closing it and moved on to the second door, the open one. Poking his head in, he discovered a bathroom. Though cluttered by the addition of a washing machine and dryer, the space was tidy, with a sense of orderliness about it.
Dread was no longer just nibbling at his spine. He was being bitten, savaged by the sense that something was terribly wrong.
Backing out of the bathroom, Moody went over to the last door, at the very end of the trailer. That was where he found Isaac, in his bedroom, sitting on the floor with his back against the bed.
Isaac held a beer bottle in one hand. He didn’t even seem to notice Moody was there. Lifting the bottle, he held it up to his mouth. Nothing came out, the contents clearly having been drained some time ago, but Isaac swallowed and wiped his mouth anyway.
He looked like shit. His blond hair looked like it hadn’t been washed and it was standing on end, as if he’d been running his hands through it in the wrong direction. His nose was red and so were his eyes, threaded with bloodshot veins.
“Isaac?” Moody said, uncertain, afraid. He looked around the bedroom, half-expecting to see some sort of assailant waiting to spring out at him. There was nothing to see. What sparse furniture and decorations Isaac had in here were all neatly in their designated spots. Really, only Isaac and the alcohol were out of place.
Isaac’s eyes slid over in his direction. He blinked a lot, his gaze skittering and jumping like he was having a hard time focusing on anything. “Moody? What’re you doing in my house?” He slurred when he spoke, house turning into houshe. He lifted one hand in greeting, the answer to his question apparently of no particular concern to him. His wrist was limp and floppy, and he seemed to forget what he was doing halfway through actually doing it.
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