“Where is Tasha? What did you do to her?”
Jimmy approached his son. He lay a hand on Cole’s shoulder. “It’s a natural urge, so I understand, son. I do.”
“Why aren’t you answering me?”
“But you’re not a normal wolf anymore than I am. You have to see that. I know it’s tough, but I thought you were strong enough for it. I see now that you are weak. Perhaps I’ve been too hard on you.” Jimmy sighed, looking sympathetic.
Cole didn’t buy it. Part of him wanted to. He wanted to believe that his father was actually regretting his actions, that his father would change. But Cole knew better. Jimmy didn’t ever admit that he’d done anything wrong. If he was saying something like that now, it was some kind of trap. Cole wasn’t going to fall into it. “What did you do to her?”
“I’m going to let you get it out of your system, son.”
That sounded ominous. “What are you talking about?”
“Come with me.” Jimmy put his arm around his son and led him out of the brides’ quarters.
Cole considered pushing his father’s arm off, trying to make a break for it. But that wouldn’t get him any closer to finding Tasha, and he needed to do that. So, he let Jimmy lead him.
Jimmy walked him past the main house and all its outbuildings. Past the trailers where women like his mother lived. Past the horse barn, past the chicken coop.
He took Cole to the other barn—the one that used to have cows in it, before they’d been forced to kill all the cows for food two winters ago. That winter, they’d been low on food—the harvest hadn’t been good. They’d tried to keep the milk cows, but eventually, they had to go too. There had been talk about getting more cattle for quite some time, but no one had done anything about it. They ate a lot of chicken instead.
Jimmy took Cole to one of the stalls. It hadn’t been cleaned since before the cows were still here. It was covered in straw and filth.
And Tasha was tied to the post inside, her hands in front of her body, ropes encircling her skin. She wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Cole’s stomach turned over. He turned on Jimmy, rage filling his body. “Let her go.”
Jimmy was still calm. “Not yet.”
Cole tore away from Jimmy and went to Tasha. He seized the rope that was tied tight around her wrists. He started to work at it, to try to pull it loose.
“Cole, I don’t think he’s going to let you do that,” whispered Tasha. Her face was dirty, but she didn’t look bruised or cut or anything.
Jimmy snatched the back of Cole’s shirt and yanked the teenager back, away from Tasha. He shook his head. “No. Not yet.”
Cole reached back and grabbed his father’s wrist, trying to free his shirt from the older man’s grip.
Jimmy slapped him across the cheek.
The sound echoed in the barn.
Cole had been hit by his father before. Usually, he cowered from the man, who was bigger and stronger than him. Even though he was about as tall as Jimmy now, he was scrawnier. Weaker.
But he didn’t care. Cole struck back. He balled up a fist and drove it into his father’s midsection.
Jimmy let go of his son, making noise as air went of him. He took a step backwards.
Cole felt powerful for a minute, watching the effect of his punch.
But then Jimmy made a growling noise—a low-pitched rumble that went on and on. When he lifted his face, his eyes had changed. They were brighter, wilder. He opened his mouth, and there was row of sharp canines.
He sprung onto Cole, digging claws into his son’s skin.
Cole struggled, but he was no match for a man who was half-changed into a wolf.
They both went down onto the dirty floor, Jimmy on top, Cole beneath him.
“I’ll let you work this out of your system, boy,” said Jimmy, his voice wild and deep and grating, “but once it’s done, then I’ll show you that I’m your alpha, and that I always will be.”
He tied Cole up too, in the next stall.
“Moonrise,” said Jimmy. “I’ll be back.”
And then he left them there.
* * *
Dana felt her body forced to shift back into human form. It was a strange sensation, almost like being shoved from behind when she wasn’t expecting it. It was completely different from the way shifting had felt when she was wholly dependent on the moon. That had been painful—bones cracking, skin tearing. This was easier, more liquid, like the way Cole had taught her to do it herself. But it was unexpected. And she wasn’t in control of herself.
She stood up on unsteady human legs, in front of the gathered members of the Pack, all of whom were applauding and whooping.
She was completely naked.
A woman was immediately at her side, holding out a white linen robe. Feeling numb and confused, Dana slipped her arms into the sleeves. The woman draped it up over her shoulders. Dana tied the robe closed.
“Dana Gray has become part of the Pack,” said Jimmy from behind her.
Dana turned slowly.
Jimmy was standing behind her, clad in a similar white robe.
She could feel that she was tied to him.
It wasn’t a positive feeling or a negative feeling. It was simply there. She didn’t love him. She didn’t hate him. She only knew that she was connected to him.
The Pack whooped and applauded louder.
Jimmy grasped her by the wrist. He raised her hand along with his own, as if the two of them had won some sort of victory together.
They were lost in the sea of clapping and celebratory sounds.
Finally, Jimmy let their hands drop and the crowd quieted.
Jimmy put his arm around Dana. He kissed her on the cheek. “Welcome, Moon Sister.”
She recoiled from the feeling of his lips on her skin. This was wrong. She’d been violated somehow. Forced. Taken. She didn’t like it one bit.
“The moon calls to us, does it not, sisters and brothers?” said Jimmy.
Affirmations came from the crowd.
“The moon has showed me the truth,” he continued. “The truth is that humans have destroyed this world, their own home. They have polluted the air, cut down the forests, stripped away the resources. And with every passing moment, there are more and more of them. And that is why the moon has created the werewolf.”
Dana furrowed her brow. Wait a second. She’d heard this before. This was the same shit that Cole had spouted at her when he’d had her in his basement. He’d gotten it from his father?
“Not us,” said Jimmy. “Not us, we are the special chosen ones. But the other werewolves out there, they will rise up against the humans. It is their nature, and there is nothing that can be done to stop it. There will be slaughter. The humans will be wiped out. And then the other werewolves will come to us, the Pack, and they will kneel down. They will be as insects to us. We will be bright, shining—beams of moonlight. They will be blinded by our radiance. And the new earth will belong to us. To the Pack and to the special children that we have created together.”
All of the members of the Pack stared at Jimmy with beatific expressions of hope and excitement on their faces.
They were actually swallowing this vision of the future, even though it made positively no sense.
“This is the beginning,” said Jimmy. “We have been persecuted, sisters and brothers. The uprisings, they are beginning, and the end of the world is on its way. That is what has happened to us tonight. That is why it was necessary to bring our new sister Dana into the fold.”
What the hell was he saying? Whatever it was, it sounded ridiculous. How could any rational person swallow that explanation?
“But there has been loss tonight,” Jimmy continued. “We have lost two of our very dear sisters. The men who came in the night, they shot us with tranquilizers, and those sisters and brothers who were hit with the darts are recovering. But the men also had knives, and they stabbed both Sister Emilia and Sister Josephine to death.”
Th
e room was still quiet, but the expressions of hope and joy had faded. Now the expectant faces were beginning to look angry.
“That’s right,” Jimmy said. “They stole our sisters from us. They killed them. But we gave it as good as we got, because we killed some of theirs as well.”
A smattering of applause.
“Yes,” said Jimmy. “You should applaud that. You should applaud that because the moon delivered into our hands our enemies, and we had the strength and the courage to drive them back. So applaud that sisters and brothers.”
Louder clapping.
“Good.” Jimmy took a deep breath. “Josephine and Emilia did not die in vain. They gave their lives for the Pack, for each of you, for me, and they did it all in the service of the moon. There is no greater honor than to die for the moon. In the next life, these sisters will be revered and blessed. And we must celebrate their sacrifice. We must remember them. We mourn, but we know that death is not the end. We are part of the moon. We are all moonbeams.”
“We are all moonbeams,” the Pack repeated together.
“We are all moonbeams,” said Jimmy again.
“We are all moonbeams,” they repeated again.
“We are all moon—”
“Shut up.”
Dana’s gaze shot to look in the direction that the interruption had come from, as did everyone else in the room.
Cole Randall had just walked into the room.
Her heart leapt, and she hated herself for being so happy to see him.
“You know, Dad,” said Cole, making his way towards the front of the room, “if you wanted to see me again, you could have just invited me home.”
Jimmy looked at Cole with eager eyes. “You know the door has always been open, son.”
Cole cast a look at Dana, his eyes raking her body. There was hunger in his expression, the way there always was. But there was also concern. He was checking to make sure she hadn’t been hurt. “I’m here now. You’ve got me. You can let her go.”
Jimmy laughed. “Oh, Cole, you’ve always been so arrogant. I don’t know where you get that. You really think this is all about you, don’t you?”
Cole turned to face his father. “Isn’t it? You knew if you had her here, I’d show up. Well, you’ve got me. And as long as you let her go, you can do whatever you want with me.”
The older man shook his head slowly, sadly. “It’s as if you never heard a word I ever said, boy. This isn’t about you. This is about the Pack. This is about the end of the world—”
“Whatever,” said Cole. “The Pack has only ever been an elaborate excuse for you to fuck as many teenage girls as you wanted. So, play your games for them if you want.” He gestured to the crowd behind him. “But don’t tell me that taking Dana hostage is anything other than a direct retaliation for the fact I didn’t save Julia.”
Jimmy’s expression hardened. “You didn’t save Julia, did you?” He nodded at several of the men in the crowd.
Right away, the men were on their feet. They surrounded Cole and took hold of him by the shoulders and arms.
“Good to have you home, Cole,” said Jimmy. “But neither you nor Dana is going anywhere.”
* * *
“You did what?” yelled Ursula.
Avery winced, pulling the phone away from his ear. Well, she was pissed off. “I sent him in.”
“Did I not specifically say to you that you needed to call me before you did anything?”
Maybe he remembered her saying something like that. “Sorry.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that Gray was in danger and that Randall could get her out, and I was thinking that if anything happened to her, I would never forgive myself.”
“You trusted the man who nearly killed her,” said Ursula. “You remember that? How he captured her and kept her chained up and tortured her?”
“Of course I remember that.” Avery clenched the hand not holding the phone into a fist, released it, and clenched again. “But he didn’t kill her, and he wouldn’t kill her. Not anymore. You know he calls her every couple of days trying to get in her pants. He’s completely whipped, and there’s no way he’s going to hurt her.”
“You really think that?”
Avery thought about the desperation in Cole’s voice when he’d talked about the chance of Jimmy killing Dana. “Yeah. I do.”
“So, because of your conviction about Randall’s character, you let him go free. You remember the last time that Randall tried to use Gray as an excuse to get free, don’t you?”
Avery did. When Dana had been captured by Hollis Moore, Cole had claimed he could track down Dana and begged to be let out, because he thought Dana was in danger. “Sure.”
“Well, when he did get out, he didn’t go after her, did he?”
No, Cole hadn’t. He’d simply disappeared. But suddenly Avery wasn’t quite sure what had happened back then. He remembered Cole’s demeanor when he’d been locked up that day. He’d been agitated, very worried for Dana. Avery had believed him when he said that he wanted to find her and help her. “No,” he muttered.
But according to Dana, she’d managed to kill Hollis on her own, even after he’d mated with her in wolf form.
Avery’s mouth twitched. That didn’t make sense did it? He knew that the bond between wolf mates was strong. To think that Dana had been able to kill her mate? Was that even possible? Did it make more sense to think that Cole had arrived, and that he’d killed Hollis?
But if that were true, then that meant—
“No, he just disappeared.” Ursula was still talking. “So for all you know, what you’ve done is set free the most notorious wolf serial killer that we’ve ever encountered, and he’s out there killing again, laughing at you. And nothing’s being done for Gray at all.”
“I don’t think so,” said Avery.
“You trust him?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “But I think he has it bad for Gray, and I do think he’s worried about her. Besides, he does know this place.”
“How do you know he didn’t make that up? Maybe he’s not Jimmy’s son at all.”
Avery hadn’t considered that option. He furrowed his brow. “No, he couldn’t have. How would he have known the place? Jimmy’s name? I think he’s telling the truth.”
“You know, Brooks, you’re under a lot of stress. You watched four members of the SF get slaughtered tonight. You haven’t gotten any sleep. And I know you think that you want to see this through, but I urge you, when the other agents show up, please take a break. Let them take over.”
His phone beeped. He pulled it away to look, then addressed Ursula. “Hey, King, I’ve got another call. It’s Randall. I gotta go.”
“He’s calling you?” She sounded surprised.
“I’ll check back in when I can.” Avery switched over from one call to the other. “Randall?”
“I’m here,” said Cole’s voice. It still sounded sardonic and disinterested.
“And? Where’s Gray?”
“Well, things might be a little more complicated than what I thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Jimmy’s not going to let her go.”
“That was your plan? Go in there and ask him to let her go?” Avery felt anger bubble up in him. Ursula was right. Letting Cole try to handle this was not ideal. “We already knew that he wasn’t going to let her go. That was what he said that started this whole thing.”
Cole cleared his throat. “The thing is, I thought this was all about me. And maybe it was at the beginning, you know. She showed up, and Jimmy saw an opportunity to get to me. But then you guys came in here with your tranq guns and your knives, and you killed two people. And you tranqed a three-year-old who has yet to wake up, and you’ve kind of fucked things up.”
“You’re blaming us for this? Jimmy’s the one who started this.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll be sure to send him to a time-out and take
away his recess. Seriously, Brooks. You’re the SF. Don’t you have some creed that you’re not going to hurt wolves, just help them? I never heard of the SF killing a werewolf.”
Avery was quiet. He hadn’t known that Jimmy’s people had sustained casualties. Cole was right. The SF didn’t kill werewolves. At least they weren’t supposed to. But in that situation, out there in the dark, he’d been afraid for his life. He hadn’t been thinking about the ethics of the situation or about the SF creed. “They killed three of ours, you know. Mutilated them.”
“Yeah,” said Cole. “But you came on their property and started shooting at them. They were defending themselves.”
“Shooting at them with tranquilizer guns.”
“How were they to know that?”
“Whose side are you on, Randall?”
“I’m not on a side,” he said. “I’m only saying that the people in here are worked up. And Jimmy’s the most worked up of all. He’s been wounded. One of your guys must have stabbed him or something. He’s gone crazy apocalyptic on everyone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look, my father is not the most stable person on earth. He has a lot of crazy ideas. Some of them make a little bit of sense, and if you listen to them, they suck you in. But then he mixes it all in with this weird mystical stuff about the moon and… Look, he thinks that he’s some superior being. And all the people in here think that they’ve been chosen to live through the apocalypse and rule the world afterward. And he just told them that your attack was the beginning of the end of the world.”
“What? That’s crazy. It wasn’t even an attack. It was an extraction mission.”
“Doesn’t matter what you call it,” said Cole. “They believe what Jimmy says. He’s their leader, and they think he’s a special man with special powers.”
“It’s like a cult, huh? A big werewolf cult.” Avery shook his head. “The Manson Family with fur and claws.”
“They don’t kill people,” said Cole.
“Oh, no, only you do that,” said Avery. “And you grew up there, so I guess whatever they taught you was really healthy for your psyche.”
“Can we focus here, Brooks, or would you like to keep insulting me?”
“Honestly? Insulting you sounds great,” said Avery. But his mind was reeling. What kind of situation had he stepped in here? This was seeming more and more complicated with every passing minute.
Bad Moon Rising (Cole and Dana) Page 10