“Yeah,” said Earl. “He captured her, right? Kept her captive, tortured her? She’s the one who brought him in. So, explain to me why you would send him in after her. He’s a murderer. A serial murderer.”
Aver cleared his throat. “It’s complicated.”
“Make it simple.”
“Uh… well, during the course of Gray’s imprisonment by Randall, they somehow managed to… mate.”
“He raped her?”
“No, they shifted into wolves and… mated.”
Earl’s lips parted, but no sound came out.
“That’s how we found out what we know about wolf packs,” said Avery. “Because Randall and Gray were alphas of a pack together, and she and he had a bit of a… bond. All weird psychological wolf stuff. Anyway, he’s got a thing for her, and I thought he’d protect her.”
“A thing for her which made him try to kill her?”
“Well, that was before the mating thing. They’re not mated anymore, but, uh, he showed up when he knew she was in danger, so…”
“And Randall is Jimmy’s son?”
“Yes. He grew up on the farm.”
Earl popped a cigarette into his mouth. “Wonder why his last name isn’t Hadley liked Jimmy’s.”
“Maybe you can ask him someday.”
Earl lit the cigarette. “You guys ever figure out why he killed all those werewolves, anyway? Was he just batshit insane?”
“He was making a pack. He killed the ones that wouldn’t submit to his being their alpha. But I think he’s also batshit insane. Got some kind of crazy idea that werewolves are naturally meant to kill humans for population control or something.”
Earl chuckled. “Really? Well, that’s a trip. That’s a trip for sure.” He started to walk away.
“Hold on,” said Avery.
Earl turned. “Yes?”
“What about the offer that Jimmy made? You think that’s something we’ll be able to do?”
Earl took a long drag on his cigarette. “I don’t know about that, Brooks. It doesn’t look good.”
“But how else are we going to get them out of there?”
“Well, there’s a couple issues with it. One is that those wolves are rogues. They’ve killed human beings. And there’s a policy for dealing with rogue werewolves at the SF. It’s there to make everyone feel safer.”
“It’s not the same as a regular wolf attack, though,” said Avery. “They didn’t do it on their own. They did it to protect themselves. They felt threatened. If these were regular people and a government group assaulted them in their home—” He broke off. Okay, maybe there wasn’t a great precedent for cooler heads prevailing in situations like this.
“The other thing is that the pack structure makes them dangerous,” said Earl. “You should know. A pack was loose in your facility when Cole Randall broke loose.”
“Right,” said Avery. “You’re afraid that if you leave the ties in place, that they’ll attack us from the inside.”
“Yeah,” said Earl. “That’s about the long and the short of it. So, I’ll go and I’ll take the offer to the board, but I doubt that they’re going to go for it. In the meantime, you probably should be thinking about other things that we can offer these people to try to convince them to come out without us forcing them out.”
Avery sighed. Things were complicated, weren’t they?
* * *
Cole made his way into the big living room of the main house. There were sleeping bags rolled out on the floor, and about four teenage girls in nightgowns lounging on them, giggling with each other. Cole knelt down next to two of them.
They were both startled.
“Oh, hi,” said one.
He smiled. “Hi.”
“You’re, um, Cole, right?” said the other. “Jimmy’s wayward son? We’ve heard all kinds of stories about you.”
Cole’s smile widened. “Really? What kind of stories?”
“You know, bad stories. You’re very wicked, aren’t you?”
“I am that,” said Cole. He looked back and forth between the girls, who were both staring at him with wide eyes.
So, this was the allure. This was the reason that Jimmy did it, wasn’t it? The innocence, the newness, the awe. It was like being discovered again and again for him, wasn’t it?
Cole dropped his gaze. “Look, is this where all of the brides are sleeping?” After the SF raid, everyone was staying inside the main house, even the women who had their own trailers. The brides, as well, weren’t staying in their normal quarters. Too dangerous.
“Yeah,” said one of the girls.
“You aren’t going to hurt us, are you?” The other girl sounded almost excited at the prospect.
“Of course not,” said Cole. “I wouldn’t dream of hurting you. I actually was only wondering which one of the girls here spends most of her nights with Jimmy. He always has a favorite. Who is she now?”
“Jimmy doesn’t have favorites,” protested one girl.
At the same time, the other girl said, “Marissa.” She pointed.
Cole looked at Marissa. She had long, curly, dark hair and wide, wide brown eyes. She was pretty. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Man, this place was so sick. How Rusty could defend it was beyond him. “Thanks,” he said, without looking back at the girls. He got to his feet.
“Wait,” said one. “Are you going to hurt Marissa?”
Cole turned back to them. “I would never hurt girls like you. Never.”
He made his way across the room to Marissa, who was sitting on the couch, bent over a book.
Cole approached her. “Marissa?”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked up at him. “Yes?”
“I wondered if you and I could talk?”
A bewildered smile broke over her features. “You and me?”
He nodded.
“About what?” She closed the book slowly.
He gestured with his head. “Come with me.”
She looked around the room as if she were unsure if she should go with him. Then she seemed to decide. She set the book down and got up. “Okay.”
Cole took her back to his room. He didn’t want there to be prying eyes and ears. He ushered her inside and closed the door.
She cast a worried glance at the closed door.
Cole moved away from her. “It’s okay. You want to sit down?” He motioned to the bed.
She twisted her hands together. “What’s this about?”
He was glad she didn’t look like Julia. If she’d looked like Julia, he might have hated her without reason. It was a good thing his father didn’t have a type. He was an equal-opportunity molester. He took a deep breath. “I only want to talk. I’m curious about you.”
“About me?”
He nodded. “Maybe you’re curious about me too. The other brides said they tell stories about me here.”
She looked down at her hands. She shrugged.
He wasn’t sure if that was encouraging or not. “How about I ask you a question and then you ask me a question.”
She didn’t look up. “Okay.”
Good. Okay. So far, so good. He wandered over to the window in the bedroom and peered out into the growing darkness of the evening. “Where were you before you came to the farm?”
“Nowhere.”
He turned to her, raising his eyebrows. “That’s not much of an answer, Marissa.”
She peered at him, raising her eyes but not her face. “I mean, I was staying places, but I wasn’t really living anywhere. I had a boyfriend, sort of, but he got mad at me after a while, because he’d been fronting me too much junk, and he wanted me to pay for it. And, of course I couldn’t, so… well, he wanted me to do other things.”
Cole turned back to the window. That sounded about right. These were the kinds of girls that Jimmy always picked for brides. It helped with his messiah complex if they felt like he’d saved them. “I guess you were happy Jimmy found you, then.”
>
“Yeah,” she said. “But I think it’s my turn to ask you a question.”
He smiled. “You’re right. Sorry.”
“What did you do to Jimmy? Why does he think you’re so bad?”
Cole looked back at her again. “You know how to cut the heart of the matter, don’t you, Marissa?”
She squared her shoulders, facing him head on. “You didn’t say there were things I couldn’t ask.”
“No, I didn’t.” He trailed his fingers over the window sill. “When I was seventeen, I got a little crush on one of Jimmy’s brides. He didn’t like that.”
“A girl like me?”
He nodded. “I kissed her. Maybe she kissed me. I don’t know. Anyway, when Jimmy found out, he didn’t want anything to do with her. She was tainted to him. He forced me to kill her. I can’t forgive him for that.”
“Kill her?”
“Uh huh.”
“Jimmy wouldn’t.”
Cole shrugged.
She wrung her hands out, furrowing her brow. “No, he couldn’t. There’s no way that he…”
“He did.”
She shivered.
“My question?”
“Okay.”
“I want you to be honest, Marissa. If you could choose a perfect man for yourself, would he be a man old enough to be your father? A man that you had to share with forty other women?”
She went over and sat down on the bed.
“A perfect life,” said Cole. “A fantasy life. Is this your fantasy?”
“Maybe not.”
“Is it possible that you stay here only because—”
“My question.”
“Sorry.”
She twisted to face him. “How did Jimmy find out that you and the girl were kissing?”
“Someone saw us. Why do you ask that?”
“Is that your question?”
“Maybe we could just talk now, Marissa.” He left the window and pulled a chair away from the desk so that he was facing her. “I promise that whatever you say won’t leave this room. I won’t tell anyone.”
She twisted her hands up again. “He was angry at her for doing that? Really angry? Angry enough to kill her?”
Cole narrowed his eyes. Wait a second. Had he really gotten so lucky? “You’re involved with someone besides Jimmy, aren’t you?”
She shook her head furiously. “Of course not. Not really. Not like… I never kissed him.”
Cole leaned back in his chair. One thing in his life was actually going right. “You want to kiss him?”
“I don’t…”
“Marissa, how would you like to get off this farm? You and whoever your friend is?”
“I…” She bit down on her lip. “I have nowhere to go.”
“You could go through the training at the SF. If you like it there, you might be able to train for a job with them. I almost did that myself, you know. Not a bad life. You and your friend could be there together.”
“But Jimmy—”
“Your tie to Jimmy will be broken, Marissa. He won’t have any hold over you anymore. You’ll be away from him. He won’t be able to do anything to you anymore.”
She drew in a breath, closing her eyes. “Why are you asking me this?”
“You’re in a position to help me, Marissa,” he said. “And if you help me, I can help you in return.”
“Help you?”
“Jimmy has a key on his bedside table. You share his bed most nights, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“Get me the key, and I’ll get you out of here.”
She pressed her fingers against her lips.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“So we’re going to lie to them?” Avery said. It was morning. He and Earl were outside the gate to the farm preparing for the upcoming conversation with Jimmy.
“It’s the best way,” said Earl. “Surely you can see that.”
Avery didn’t know. He could see why the SF couldn’t promise not to break the pack bonds between the wolves. But he also felt awful telling them things that weren’t true. “It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
“These wolves have your partner captive, but you feel sorry for them, don’t you?”
“I’ve been working with genetic werewolves for months now,” said Avery. “At first, I wasn’t keen on it. But the longer I’ve been near them, the more I’ve realized that they’re mostly like us. Our way to control shifting is to repress our animal instincts. Their way is to embrace them. But, for the life of me, I can’t see either of them being better. And I don’t thing we should punish them for doing what comes naturally.”
“Well, this place isn’t exactly natural, now is it?”
Avery hadn’t really explained the dynamics of Jimmy and his women, but other people had gotten some idea from some of the discussions he’d had. He’d kept it to himself because he was worried that it would erode the negotiations.
“Besides it isn’t really about whether they have a pack or an alpha or any of that. It’s about the fact that they took your partner hostage and that they killed SF agents. Those two thing hadn’t happened, we’d be dealing with this a whole different way.”
“I know that,” said Avery. “But you realize that there are a lot of wolves in there, and that if they were to decide to attack, instead of just defending their home, they could do damage not just to us but to innocent people living here.”
“Which is why we’re neutralizing the threat. I haven’t heard any better ideas. This is what we’ve got. So, you make Jimmy believe that we’re going to deal. Can you do that?”
Avery nodded. He could do that.
* * *
“Well, now, Avery,” said Jimmy, “we can’t just up and leave on the drop of a dime, you know.”
Avery sighed. Here he was, lying through his teeth to Jimmy, promising the man everything he wanted, and he was being difficult. “Last night, when we talked, you said that if we could promise there’d be no training, that you would come out. Not next week, not tomorrow. Right away.”
“I’m not going back on my word. I’m not at all,” said Jimmy.
“Well, what are you doing then? Because, Jimmy, you don’t know how hard of a sell this was to our superiors. Technically, you are rogue werewolves who’ve killed people, and they’re not inclined to trust you. So this is a big leap of faith on our part.”
“Don’t get huffy, Avery,” said Jimmy. “I’m understanding what you’re saying. But the thing is, there are a lot of people in here. We’re not talking about getting five kids and shoving them in a minivan, if you know what I mean. We’re talking about a community. There’s a lot of organizing that needs to be done.”
“Okay,” said Avery. “So how soon do you think you can start sending people out?”
“Well, there are other considerations as well. What about our animals? We got a farm here. We got chickens. We got horses. We got a few pigs. Those animals are going to need care if we’re all gone.”
Avery rolled his eyes. “All right, Jimmy. All right, I hear what you’re saying. What if I can get some people to look after your animals?”
“People?”
“Yes, people to tend them and feed them and keep their stalls clean. All of that. What if I can do that?”
“That would be a help, I suppose.”
“Assuming I can do that, how long you think this organizing would take?”
“How about you get in touch with me when you got something for the animals and then we’ll work it out from there?”
Avery glared at the phone. “Okay, I can do that.”
“Good,” said Jimmy. “Then I’ll go on and hang up. You call back. I’ll be waiting.”
The connection was severed.
“Motherfucker,” said Avery. “He’s not going to come out at all, is he?”
Earl lit a cigarette. “Maybe he’s really concerned about the animals.”
“Then why didn’t he bring the animals up last night?”
> “I don’t know.” Earl blew out smoke. “You seriously going to try to find people to feed the chickens?”
“What other choice do I have?” said Avery.
* * *
There was a soft knock on Cole’s door. Morning light streamed through the window. He strode across the room to open it.
Marissa was there, still in her nightgown.
He let her in.
She pulled a tiny silver key out of her pocket. “Here.”
Cole grinned at her, taking it. “Perfect. Thank you so much, Marissa. Did you have any trouble?”
“No. I waited until he went to sleep,” she said. “Took him forever, because he’s got that wound in his side. But I got it. He didn’t even notice.”
“Good job,” Cole said.
“What do I do now?”
“You need to get your friend, whoever that is, and meet me out behind the old cow barn in an hour. You know where I’m talking about?”
She nodded. “Got it.”
“If you aren’t there, I can’t wait for you, you understand?”
“Yes.”
Marissa slipped back out of the room.
Cole looked down at the key in his hand. This was happening. He couldn’t screw it up.
He put the key in his own pocket, waited a few minutes, took a deep breath, then opened the door, and followed Marissa out.
He strode down the hall and found himself in the kitchen within minutes.
The kitchen was full of women in long skirts, running to and fro from the counters. They were working on something for breakfast. It looked like oatmeal. Figures, Cole thought. Oatmeal was the old breakfast standby on Hunter’s Moon Farm.
Gail spotted him. “Cole, what are you doing in here? I thought someone brought breakfast to you from the first batch.”
That was typical, too. The kitchen wasn’t large enough to make enough food to feed everyone, so the women generally cooked in batches. The first batch always went out to Jimmy, the men and boys, and the brides. The rest of the members of the farm ate the second batch, which they usually didn’t make until they’d cleaned up from the first one.
“I did,” said Cole. “I’m here because Rusty wants me to take breakfast down to Dana.”
Gail knitted her brows together.
Cole held his breath, hoping that Rusty hadn’t already sent someone else down with Dana’s food.
Bad Moon Rising (Cole and Dana) Page 17