Once everyone was settled, she called Avery, and he came to pick her up and take her back to headquarters.
“They remembered me,” she said on the ride back. “They remembered that I was with them during the first strike, when you guys were firing into the house. So, I think that helped some of them, but I’m not sure if some of the older ones trust me.”
Avery clutched the steering wheel. “Was the little girl who got hit with the tranq dart with them?”
Dana thought about it. “I don’t think so. I don’t remember seeing her.”
“Damn it,” said Avery. “Rusty said that she’s not the same. They think she was out too long. She might have been brain damaged.”
Dana put a hand over her mouth. “Oh god.”
“Gray, I was shooting into that house as much as anyone else. The thought that I hurt that kid—”
“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.”
“We went in there without knowing anything,” he said. “It’s amazing that we didn’t do more irreparable damage. You know, if I go back in time and do all of that over again, I would have insisted that we try to talk first. That’s what we should have done, you know?”
She reached across the car, meaning to put a reassuring hand on his knee, but then she stopped. She wasn’t sure if Avery would welcome her comfort. After all, he had told her that he hated her. And even though he was being civil to her right now, that didn’t mean all was forgiven. She didn’t want to overstate her bounds.
Avery noticed. “What was that?”
“Nothing.” She didn’t want to bring up sensitive subjects if she didn’t need to.
“You don’t want to touch me or something?” He was accusatory and hurt.
“No, nothing like that. I thought maybe you didn’t want me to touch you.”
“Why wouldn’t I want that?”
“Because you hate me, maybe?”
He sighed. “Jesus, Gray.” He stared ahead at the road. It was only a short drive back to headquarters and they were almost there. “I said that when I was angry.”
“So, you didn’t mean it?”
“I don’t hate you.”
She wasn’t sure what to say.
“You know,” he said, “maybe it’s better if there isn’t any kind of romantic shit between us.”
That disappointed her. She still felt as if she and Avery made sense, as if they were good together. And she didn’t want him to give up on that.
He kept going. “It’s just that it makes it harder for me to see things clearly, and it’s probably screwing up my ability to do my job.”
“No,” she said quietly, “my connection to Cole is screwing things up. It’s screwing up our interaction, and it screwing me up, and it’s hurting you. And I went and got myself mated to him, and now it’s even worse.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But there wasn’t anything between us until Cole came along. Remove him from the equation—”
“Don’t say that. I thought you realized that you were still attracted to me when I wasn’t an alpha. I thought you realized it wasn’t all wolf stuff. That there was something real about it.”
“Well, if that’s true, Dana, then there’s something real about you and Randall as well.”
She bit down on her lip.
“Just to be clear, it makes me ill to think of you with him.”
“I know that.”
“And yet you can’t keep yourself away from him?”
“I… I want to.”
“That’s not the same thing, and you know it. If you really wanted to, you would.”
“But Lowell says that I need to be a distraction for him—”
“This isn’t about Lowell. It’s about you and me. If you really cared about me, and you wanted something between us to work, you’d stop doing things that hurt me. And whenever you do anything with him, it hurts me.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She leaned her head up against the window of the car.
Avery pulled into the driveway for headquarters.
Dana turned to him suddenly. “It’s not fair.”
Avery parked the car. “What’s not fair?”
“You telling me that I can’t be with anyone when you won’t make it official between us. Either you want me or you don’t. And you haven’t sent me a clear message, Avery.”
His jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me. How can I try to make things official with you when you’re mated to Randall?”
The unspoken solution hung in the air between them. The one they’d discussed for months and months. That Avery would just mate with her.
She didn’t say it, though.
Avery looked away. “Maybe we should officially end it, Gray.”
“Like before? With you wandering over to make out with me whenever?”
“Well, I can’t make out with you anymore, can I?”
He was right. It was ridiculous to try to keep up this idea that they could sustain some kind of relationship while she was mated to Cole.
“If it’s over,” she said, “then you don’t have any right to tell me who I can and can’t sleep with.”
He laughed. “Sure. I guess that’s true. Go and fuck the man who murdered your mother. I don’t care.”
“I’m not going to—”
“Sure you’re not.” Avery got out of the car.
She stayed inside, leaning her head back against the headrest. How had things gotten so badly messed up?
* * *
“What are you doing here?” Dana stood in the doorway of her apartment.
Cole was in the hallway. He had different clothes, now, not his prison uniform. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but the shirt was on inside out. His hair was a little bit messed up. “I know you don’t want to see me.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Of course, that wasn’t strictly true. Thanks to the stupid alpha bond, she’d barely been able to go ten minutes without wondering where he was.
“I’m thinking I should go,” said Cole.
“Go?” He couldn’t go. He wasn’t really a free man.
“I’m going to go on the farm, find Jimmy, do what I need to do with him, and you won’t see me again. You can mate with someone else. Maybe Brooks? And then we won’t be connected anymore, and…” He passed a hand over his face. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
“Cole, you can’t leave,” she said.
“I don’t want to hurt you worse than I have.” He shifted on his feet. “You know, it’s funny, it’s always been so hard for me to hurt you. When I tried to kill you, it was impossible. I never felt like that about anyone. But… I know that’s not normal. It’s not the way people usually form attachments.” He furrowed his brow. “There’s something wrong with me. I’ve known it for a long time. I’m not sure if it was always wrong, but it’s definitely wrong now.”
“Promise me you’re not going anywhere.” She couldn’t let him go.
“I’m going,” he said. “Wouldn’t it make you happier if I was gone?”
She considered. Yes, in some ways, yes. But it was a moot point, because if he tried to leave, she was sure that he’d be stopped. And then he wouldn’t help with Jimmy, and he’d be locked up in that cell again, and god damn it, she still wanted him, so it would be harder to get to him if she wanted to be with him…
She swallowed. She opened the door wider. “I think you should come in.”
He shook his head. “Why are you saying that?”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
He looked at her, confused. “Why not?”
“Just come in, Cole.”
Still with that dazed expression, he shuffled into the apartment.
She closed the door behind him. “You want some coffee?”
“No.”
She gestured to the couch. “You want to sit down?”
He ambled over to the couch and sat down. He massaged the bridge of his nose. “You know, I meant to cal
l the SF and turn myself in. That was my plan. But then I saw you and Kyle, and then I went home. And Jimmy locked me up in one of the punishment rooms, and he gave me solanicia and then everything… After that, I don’t know, things seemed different. Killing all those people didn’t seem like a big deal.”
She sat down on the easy chair, opposite him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The massacre.” He looked up at her. “I didn’t think about people’s mothers. It just didn’t occur to me. Why wouldn’t it occur to me, Dana? Why didn’t I think about it?”
“I don’t know.” She’d never seen Cole like this. Cole was always smug and sure of himself. He never questioned himself. “I still don’t understand.”
“I don’t know if there’s a way to understand.” He scratched his temple. “I’m not sure if I understand it myself anymore. The thing is, everything was muted after the solanicia.”
“Solanicia?” She’d heard of that before. “That’s poisonous to werewolves, isn’t it?”
“Probably to people too,” said Cole.
“You ingested it?”
“Jimmy made me,” he said.
She made a face. “Why? Why would he do that?”
Cole laughed bitterly. “To teach me a lesson.”
Dana shook her head. Where had she heard of that herb before? Then it came to her. “It’s got hallucinatory properties, doesn’t it? Brooks and I worked a case where some crazy teenage werewolves were taking it for fun. They messed around during the full moon, and they shifted. They ended up killing a bunch of people. But the thing is, we did some research on that stuff. High doses of it can really fuck someone up. Permanent damage. What kind of lesson was he trying to teach you?”
“The normal lesson,” said Cole. “That everything belonged to him, and that nothing belonged to me.”
Dana thought about Jimmy, about the way he’d thrown her in that punishment cell, and the way he’d treated Cole. She’d mocked Cole earlier for blaming his violence on a bad childhood, but she had to admit that she had no idea what it would be like to grow up with a man like that for a father. She herself hadn’t really had a father at all. He’d skipped out on her and her mother when Dana was young. All she’d had was her mother. Cole had taken her from her.
“Maybe,” said Dana, “I want to try to understand. Maybe you owe me the best explanation you have.”
“I wanted to call the SF. I was going to, but I was avoiding Julia.”
“Julia was your sister, right? The one who died in the massacre?”
“She wasn’t my sister. She was one of Jimmy’s brides. His favorite bride. She did whatever he said.”
“And why were you avoiding her?”
“Maybe I need to start earlier,” said Cole. “Are you sure you want to hear?”
“Yes,” she said. “Tell me.”
And so he did.
At first, his words were halting, as if he didn’t quite know how to explain what had happened to him. But as he continued on, he seemed to grow stronger, talking about things in a matter-of-fact tone, relating everything he could about Tasha and Julia and his mother and the massacre.
Dana was horrified. She’d never heard anything quite so twisted and sickening.
It didn’t excuse what Cole had done, of course.
It shouldn’t.
But by the time he had finished, she felt sorry for him. She wished she could have known what was going on with Cole back then. She wished she could have found a way to get him out of that horrible place. She’d barely given him a second glance back then. He’d been another skuzzie, a nobody. She hadn’t even remembered that he’d been such close friends with Chase and Adam, or that she’d confused the three of them back then.
Cole’s development had been warped. He’d been a teenager when the worst things had happened, but he’d been young enough to be scarred by it.
Still, it wasn’t an excuse.
It shouldn’t be an excuse.
So, she wasn’t sure why she found herself wrapping her arms around him when he was done talking. At first he resisted her, but then he gave way, burying his face against her breast and holding onto her.
She held him for a long time. The two of them twined their bodies around each other on the couch in her apartment.
They only held each other. There was nothing more to it. No kissing. No groping. Nothing sexual.
She didn’t even feel like an object of Cole’s affection.
She felt like some kind of surrogate mother figure, someone to comfort him.
And she wouldn’t have been honest if she didn’t admit that Cole comforted her too.
They fell asleep that way, so close that their hearts beat in the same rhythm.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dana awoke to the sound of someone knocking on the door of her apartment. She extricated herself from Cole’s body, realizing that her arm was asleep and that she’d slept funny, and now she had a crick in her neck.
She made her slow, painful way across the room, shaking out her arm as pins and needles flowed through it, stretching her neck at the same time.
The knock again.
She opened the door.
It was Avery.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he said. “Look, Earl wants to try to contact the farm again. We got the kids out, but we need to try something else to get the rest of them. He wants you to be there. And Randall. You think you can go and get him?”
“Um, sure,” she said.
“If you really don’t want to do it, I can,” he said.
She rubbed her neck. “No, it’s fine.”
From inside the apartment, Cole’s voice, still full of sleep. “Dana?”
Avery’s face hardened.
“Listen, Brooks—”
“Save it,” he said.
* * *
“No, you won’t be hearing from Rusty, anymore,” said Jimmy’s voice over speaker phone.
Dana, Cole, Avery, and Earl were gathered in the back of a van outside the gate of the farm. Avery had tried to get in touch with Rusty, but Jimmy had answered.
“Can I ask why?” said Avery.
“You can ask,” said Jimmy. “It doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
Avery looked at the others. What did that mean? “So, where’s Rusty, Jimmy?”
“Rusty betrayed me,” said Jimmy. “He went against his own blood. He’s no longer going to be chatting with you guys. I don’t trust him not to betray me further. That’s all you need to know.”
“If this is because of the children—”
“Not important why. It’s only important that you don’t call again.”
Avery sighed. “But Jimmy, if we don’t keep up communication, how are we going to resolve this situation?”
“Maybe it’s a situation that can’t be resolved. You think of that?” said Jimmy. There was a muffled noise in the background. “Hold on for a second. I’ll be right back.”
“Wait,” said Avery.
But the only answer was more muffled noises and voices, too faint to be made out.
Cole leaned forward. “Rusty’s probably dead.”
“Dead?” said Avery. “That’s his own son.”
“He hasn’t killed you,” Earl pointed out.
“True,” said Cole. “But he’s never been this backed into a corner either. He’s feeling like his control is slipping, and it’s making him nuts. Let me talk to him.”
“Rusty said that I was the only one who should talk to him,” said Avery. “He’s not even supposed to know he’s on speaker.”
Earl nodded at Cole. “Let him talk, Avery. He needs to hold up his side of the deal.”
Jimmy’s voice. “Sorry about that. I’m back. Look, Avery, basically what I’m saying is—”
“Avery had to step out.” Cole glared at the phone like it was someone alive.
“Cole?” said Jimmy.
“That’s right. It’s your oldest son. Miss me?”
“You little snake,” said Jimmy, his voice dropping to a growl. “How are you managing to work with those SF folks, boy?”
“That’s not important.”
“You can’t trust them, you know. They don’t take well to our kind. If they made you promises—”
“I don’t want to talk about me.”
“Maybe I don’t want to talk at all.”
“You want to talk about Marissa?”
Silence on Jimmy’s side.
Cole’s mouth twisted. “That’s three of your brides I’ve taken away from you, Father. How long you think it’s going to be before they all leave you?”
“You tricked her,” said Jimmy. “You said something that made her turn away from me. But I’m done with her now. You’ve tainted her.”
“Well, actually, I think that it was Seth doing the tainting,” said Cole. “So, let’s consider, shall we? How you doing in there Jimmy? Three sons who have turned against you. Three brides. All because of me.”
Avery made a confused face. What the hell was he talking about? Three brides?
Earl shrugged.
“Like I said, you’re a snake,” said Jimmy.
“I’m going to destroy your world, Father. Piece by piece, I’m taking it apart.”
“You aren’t anything. You can’t touch me.”
“It’s already started. It won’t be long before everything you built lies in ashes.”
Avery didn’t like this one bit. Cole was deliberately baiting Jimmy. Did he want the man to strike out at them?
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t you wish you could stop me?” said Cole.
“I will stop you.”
“You want to take a shot at it?” said Cole. “Meet me. You and me, Father. One against the other. The best wolf wins.”
What the fuck was this? Avery started to say something, but Earl shook his head, stopping him.
“I’m not falling for that shit,” said Jimmy. “You’ll have the SF there, they’ll grab me right away.”
“No,” said Cole. “I don’t want them there anymore than you do. Listen, you figure out the place where you want it to go down and leave word with one of your guards. They’ll make sure I come alone and that I have no way to communicate with the SF once I’m there. They’ll tell me where you are. I’ll come to meet you. And then, if you really are a superior being, chosen by the moon to rule the world, you can crush me and take everything back I’ve stolen from you.”
Bad Moon Rising (Cole and Dana) Page 25