by Mason Sabre
Cade opened his mouth as if to say more but then promptly shut it again. He looked away, as if unable to bear the sight of her tears. After a moment, he straightened his shoulders and cast Shelley an inscrutable look. “I’m sorry to have bothered you at such a late hour.” With that, he turned and walked out.
Both Shelley and Gemma remained silent as they listened to the front door opening and closing, and then moments later, the sound of his engine roaring to life before tearing away.
“He left,” Gemma sobbed in disbelief.
“He’s hurting,” Shelley tried to reassure her, but Gemma’s tears just kept rolling down her cheeks. “Hey,” she said softly, “he loves you, okay?”
Gemma blinked, trying to get herself under control. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered morosely.
Shelley stared at her hard. “I can't lose either of you, okay? I’ll support whatever you decide, but please, don’t do anything that means you both end up dead. I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”
Chapter Seven
The murky water lapped against Stephen’s shins as he stood on a large rock just at the edge of the river. Although the rock was slippery, it stopped his feet from sinking into the soft earth. His hands were icy cold, his fingers almost numb as they clutched the ragged cloth of a man’s shirt that covered the lifeless body of a young girl. Though it was hard to tell how old she was, Stephen would have bet she was younger than twenty. Her face was grey, red lines having wormed their way into her skin and water bloating her inanimate body. Her unseeing eyes stared out into nothingness, taking with them deadly secrets.
Stephen had no idea how long she had been there. Her dirty, wet hair clung to his leg like icy fingers where he held her. He had tried to drag her further out before the tide came up and covered her again, but every time he pulled, her clothes tore. He tried stepping down, so that he could give himself some leverage, but the earth beneath was just too soft and the current too strong. He was so close to the mouth of the river—one wrong step and he’d end up in the water, swept away. The winter was coming, the winds building up; they knew no bounds and didn’t discriminate its victims, Human or Other, it didn’t matter. Once the sea had you, it was too late. The estuary wasn’t so bad closer to the bridge, the one that led to where Cade lived. Two years ago, he, Cade and Gemma had swum across it with Phoenix—when Cade had just found him and was trying to save his life—but this was very different.
His arm ached from the effort of holding such a dead weight for so long. His head fell back and he swore. Where the fuck was the DSA? It felt like hours had passed since he had called them. He had been out running, letting his tiger roam free and trying to forget all the shit that was going on around him, when he had seen her. He’d come for some peace and solace, and a dead body was the last thing he had needed to find. He had spotted her hand first and had immediately waded in to try and get to her. He had gone to her first as a tiger, clamped his teeth down on the sleeve of her shirt to pull her up, but all he had managed to do was pull away some torn and tatty, and rather disgusting-tasting, fabric. He’d taken his chances then and left her to shift back and call it in to the DSA from the call box—but time was not on his side right now, and letting go of the body to go try make another call could well mean coming back to the tide having come in and carried her away.
He leaned down, careful not to slip and lose his balance. His bare feet made it difficult—they were cold and numb and there was a dull ache in his thighs from the effort to withstand the current and stay on the rock. The tide must have exposed her; it was out farther tonight. That was why the ground was so soft, but it was coming in again and would soon claim her once more. If DSA didn’t hurry up, he was going to have to let her go.
His eyes raked the land that was considered Human land—Others weren’t meant to run here, but Stephen didn’t give a shit. What were they going to do to him? By the time anyone came to clear him off, he’d be gone. Except this had happened tonight ...
He heard the sound of the first car pulling up in the distance and after a couple of minutes, the sound of a second. Of course, they couldn’t use the main car park—that was for Humans only. He strained to listen. It would be just his luck for it to be bloody Humans who showed up, maybe for some late night fishing or some shit like that, and wouldn’t they be chuffed they had struck lucky and caught themselves a tiger.
Stephen relaxed when he heard the familiar voices of Cade, and William Harvey. Harvey was the main DSA operative, the man Cade worked under and trained with. One day, Cade would take over and run the agency, but for now, he was simply his lackey. Harvey was a decent guy, though—didn’t pull any shit with Cade or act like an arrogant bastard. Except now …
Stephen might have laughed at the expression on Cade’s face when Harvey handed him the gloves and Cade realised it would be him to have to wade out into the sludge and water and, generally, into the foul-smelling gunk, but right now, Stephen’s back was aching, his legs had long since gone to sleep, the cold that had now seeped into his bones bordering on excruciating pain.
One of the vehicles they had driven in was that of a multifunctional van they used. Thomas Barnes served as the baker as well as the coroner and person who dealt with any dead shit in general. Stephen knew him from way back, but the young Other trailing along behind him was not somebody Stephen recognised—a rookie no doubt. Not that Stephen gave a shit. They were here to collect the body and that was all that mattered.
“You’re going to need some rope or something. This girl is wedged in tighter than a virgin on a …”
Harvey gave Stephen a stern look and raised his hand, silencing him.
“She’s stuck,” Stephen grumbled. “I can’t feel my fucking arms. One of you needs to come and get her out before the tide comes right up and there's jack all I can do.”
“I have rope and a board,” shouted Thomas. He placed what looked like a flight case that bands carry their gear around in on a patch of dry ground and opened it. Stephen missed the length of rope as it was thrown to him, landing in the water and bringing about violent swearing from him as he strained to reach it. After he eventually grabbed a hold of it, he tied the rope securely around the girl’s waist and threw the other end to Cade, who was standing right at the edge of the river, partly in the mud but not too much so he wouldn’t stand firm. “Got a good hold on it? Because I’m letting go, and if she comes free and floats off down there,” he nodded towards the rapids a little further up the river, “then you're getting her your god damn self.”
“I’ve got her. Don’t worry,” Cade called out. He held out his hand to him as Stephen approached, fighting not to be pulled downstream by the strong current. He grabbed Cade’s hand and Cade gritted his teeth in his effort not to let Stephen’s much larger frame pull them both right back into the sludge instead. The problem was Stephen was the bigger of the two—not that Cade was small or weak by any means—but Stephen tended to tower above everyone else. His broad shoulders and well-defined physique, but his incredible height as well, gave him the appearance not only of always being physically larger than any of them there, but made his mere presence overwhelming, one that demanded people pay attention, and even fear.
Stephen’s jeans, which he had hastily dragged on when he’d shifted to go to the callbox earlier, were soaked through, the cold seeping into his skin as if he had ice coating his body.
It took Stephen, Cade, Thomas and the rookie a good few tugs and pulls, and a lot of cursing, but they finally managed to get the girl out. Her legs had been tied to something, and Stephen and Cade both crouched down to get a better look. “Well, she wasn’t meant to come back up,” Stephen observed, and Cade murmured his agreement.
“Why do you think she was so close to the edge?” Harvey asked Cade. It wasn’t that she was actually so close, but more that the shoreline had gone far out this evening. Or that Harvey did know, but he was training Cade’s mind to see everything.
“She was probably thrown
into the water when the tide was high.” He remained crouched down next to Stephen as he examined the girl’s appearance. “Doesn’t look like she has been in the water long, though.” He glanced up at Harvey. “I’ll check when the last high tide was. It will probably give us time of death, or at least the date. Maybe there is some kind of missing person’s report around that time, too.”
Harvey nodded. “Very good.”
The girl didn’t seem to have any outward causes of death. There were no marks on her, no cuts or wounds—nothing that looked to be fatal. Cade did notice, however, that there was a puckered hole on her arm, in the crook of her elbow. She had been injected with something, and maybe more than once. A junkie, perhaps? Cade stood and dried his hands on the legs of his jeans as best as he could before taking back his forms from Harvey and beginning to fill them in. He turned to Stephen, who was now standing and stretching out his aching arms. “I don’t need to call Society, do I? You can sign off on this.”
The girl by Stephen’s feet was a no one, a nobody—probably a stray. It wouldn’t matter if he signed off on it or not. Her death would probably never be solved, not being important enough to bother with. “It isn’t Council worthy.”
“No, but it is Society, and you’re here so what is the point in dragging anyone out?”
Stephen uttered an oath. He should have stayed at home. Surely having to listen to Evie sulk around the house and dealing with Gemma’s foul moods would have been better than this. He looked back down at the girl, and the thought that it could well have been one of his sisters suddenly rose unbidden to his mind. Junkie or not, pity flooded him for the young life lost.
Cade was right—someone had to sign off. It was procedure to protect the DSA. The Society signed off on all cases, ensuring that they were done correctly. It was needed in case the perpetrator was Human. Best not give them some kind of hook that was easy to get off. Of course, Stephen had no doubt, signed off or not, they would find a way. They always did.
Cade rolled the girl onto her side, looking for anything that could help solve this case sooner. He examined down her back, her arm and neck and the rear part of the head, then rolled her over the other way and froze. “Shit,” he murmured, and leaned in to take a closer look. “Another one.”
Harvey stepped closer and Stephen crouched back down again, frowning. “Another what?”
Cade pushed the girl’s ear so that it folded over. “See this?” There was a tattoo behind her ear with a number on it.
Stephen nodded and Harvey swore.
“Five so far this year. They have all turned up dead and with numbers like this.”
Stephen leaned in to get a closer look and ran his finger over the tattoo. “It’s a proper one?”
“Yeah. All of them are like this.”
Stephen looked from Cade to Harvey. “Why doesn’t Society know about this? Or my father?”
“It does,” Harvey said. “But so far, these kids …”
“Kids?”
Cade’s expression hardened. “All of them have been kids.” He scrutinised the girl’s face. “I think this is the oldest one we have found.”
Stephen’s jaw clenched in anger. “What’s the youngest?” Even as he asked, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to hear the answer.
“We guess at about seven, but they’re always strays. No one has ever reported them missing. I bet when I check this girl, no one will have reported her missing, either.”
“We don’t bother the Council with it. Usually it is just signed off and done with,” Harvey added with a resigned sigh.
Five children missing and no one noticed? Stephen couldn’t fathom it. One, maybe, a runaway. But they couldn’t all be runaways. “How were the others killed?”
“Overdosed.”
“All of them?”
It was Thomas who spoke this time. “Yep, all of them.”
“Shit.”
Chapter Eight
Cade stopped at the end of the driveway that led to the Davies home and climbed out of the car. His eyes were riveted to the house, but he made no move toward it. Stephen’s eyes fell to his friend’s stiff posture as he stood there with his back straight and his shoulders squared. He didn’t need to be a genius to know where his mind was, and he knew there was pretty much nothing he could say right now to ease Cade’s mind. What a fucking mess.
He debated asking him what had happened when he had seen Gemma but then decided if he had wanted to tell Stephen, he’d have done so. Stephen decided to let him talk when he was ready. “Are you going to come in, or do we stay out here all night?”
Cade stared off into the darkness. “I don’t know if it is a good idea. She doesn’t want to talk to me …” He swore and ran a hand through his hair. “But being so close …”
“The wolf’s going shit?”
“He’s ready to smash down every fucking wall in your house. It’s been days, and we’ve hardly spoken. When we do, we just end up fighting. I can't get past this. I think I have it right in my head, we can leave, then I hear her, and I know what I want.”
Stephen leaned against the side of the car and buried his fists in his pockets. How Cade was controlling himself this much, he didn’t know. Other men went crazy if they were kept away from their unborn child—especially an animal like a wolf, one that was pack. “You have to talk to each other sometime.”
There was a long silence before Cade looked at him and said quietly, “I asked Gemma to leave with me. I told her we could head to the island.”
Stephen went predatory still. “You mean put yourselves in Exile?”
Cade nodded slowly. “It’s away from here, and we can take Phoenix with us.”
The cautious admission didn’t really surprise Stephen—he’d probably have wanted to do the same in Cade’s position—but it didn’t stop the cold fist that gripped his heart painfully at his words. “You know what is there, right? On the islands? All of our criminals, and Humans who don’t give a shit?”
“Not all of them are bad. There are communities. And what criminals? Ones deemed by Humans to be wrong? But we can head for the enclosed places.”
Stephen had heard of those. They were little pockets of Others that lived in gated areas. They were controlled and surrounded by Humans, of course, but on the islands, it was a Human-run world, and they had the power there.
“You need papers to get into there.”
“I have money,” Cade persisted. “I can get them.”
Stephen pushed himself from the car, tension radiating from his every pore. The thought of Cade and Gemma leaving was almost too much to comprehend. The voices in his head echoed, pushing at the edges and threatening to overwhelm him. Only Cade and Gemma ever offered him any silence from it. He didn’t want them to leave, but he didn’t want them dead, either. Revealing their relationship and the pregnancy to Society would be equal to death. Exile might be a dangerous place, but at least they actually stood a chance of making it out there. Cade was a dominant wolf, a powerful and formidable opponent should anyone try to fuck with him. Whatever happened, though, Stephen would still be losing the two people—three with Phoenix—who knew him … really knew him. Maybe it was selfish that he wanted them to stay, but he knew he couldn’t keep them here just for his own sanity. “Exile isn’t a place for children,” he said roughly, still clutching on to the last straws of hope.
Cade was aware of this, but he was also aware of his limited options. “We can't stay in the stray lands, though. They all know us.”
Stephen swore silently. He knew Cade was right. They’d not be safe there ... like a fucking prize that Humans would hunt down for fun, and mercenary strays would hunt for payment. “What did Gemma say?”
Cade uttered a quiet oath. “She refused.”
Stephen couldn’t help but feel relieved, even though he knew that was the only way Gemma and Cade could ever really be together. Their relationship, as well as the baby, was doomed otherwise. “So what happens next?”
&nb
sp; “I’ve got two days, and then I have to pick one of the Castle women.” He pulled out some folded papers from his jacket pocket. His father had given them to him with great pleasure, to help him better make his decision. “It’s like a damn catalogue. You’d think I was picking out a sofa or something.”
Stephen took the papers Cade handed to him and opened them up. “Ah man, you sure got the shit end of this deal. What is this?” The thought of losing Cade and his sister was just too crushing to deal with, so right now he did what he always did when things got too heavy … he fell back on witticisms. He turned the paper upside down as if the image was too hard to see. The girl in the picture was pale—she looked like something out of a horror movie, where the girl crawls out of the television and kills everyone. Long, black hair draped around her face, her head down, eyes not looking at the camera. “Does she come with a straitjacket?”
“You shit.” Cade reached out to retrieve the papers, but Stephen snatched them away.
“Could make for interesting nights,” Stephen joked.
Cade stared at him, unamused. “She is the middle sister. She has some … issues.”
“I’ll say,” Stephen snorted as he read what was on the back. “You should pick this one, though. Look.” He shoved the paper at Cade, a lopsided grin on his face. “She spends most of her time locked up in establishments. You could pick her and never need to see her.”
Cade stared at him. “You're a jerk, you know that?”
Stephen grinned and shrugged. “Maybe, but practical, too.” He flicked to the next girl. “This one is nice.”
Cade let out a frustrated sigh, but Stephen continued unabashedly.
“Hmmm … Kara ...” He flashed Cade the picture of a young, attractive woman. Her long, dark hair was much like her sister’s, only not looking like some matted mess. Her face was devoid of any make-up, and the picture looked more like a mug shot, but there was some kind of naivety in her face. “She’s twenty-one ... has her own place ... a vegetarian …” A look of utter disgust and repulsion spread over Stephen’s face. “Vegetation? What the shit is that about? She’s a fucking wolf.” Stephen screwed the paper up and tossed it over his shoulder.