By the time Gammon got finished talking with us I felt like a fool. David had a sick look on his face and I was betting my face carried a similar look. Most of the information I had gotten about how to be a good alpha came from my grandfather with some little bit coming from David. We had tried to do things differently from David’s dad, I mean, the one person you just do not want to emulate when trying to be a good alpha would be the law breaking despicable alpha your pack had before you.
Swallowing a bit harder than normal I squared my shoulders. Time to put my new found information to the test. If I had known, if I had realized I could use my powers as Gammon was suggesting I would not have had to ask the women of my family and Gammon’s mate to bring Gabby to the plant. Gammon swore when things straightened out I was going to be coming to his compound for some serious alpha training. I got the feeling he did not want his new found niece living with an alpha who was just stumbling along trying to do the best job he could with no one to guide him. Honestly I did not blame him. If training would make me a better alpha then my people would be safer and my pack would grow. I was in favor of all the training I could get.
With a snort I led the way back to the server room. David elected to stay behind and catch Stormie and the others as they came in the front door. We had no reason now to involve Gabby in the situation so David was going to make certain the females got the grand tour sans the server room.
Chapter Twenty-one
Gabriella
When I opened the door for Mia to come in she seemed more excited than normal. I could not help but smile. Her enthusiasm was contagious. When she opened her arms for a hug, as she did every morning, I readily stepped into her hug. She seemed to squeeze just a bit tighter than the previous times, almost as though she did not want to let me go. I felt the same and was a little slower to release her also. If I had known when I opened the door what her excitement was for, I would not have been so quick to smile.
“Guess what! I have the most exciting news. Stormie called, she and her mom and her grandmother are all coming over. We are going to go site seeing, at the plant. I have wanted to get a look inside that plant since we got here. Gammon has been going to the plant every day this week with Trey but I have not been invited before today. Gammon has told me about some of the toys they have. Well, not toys exactly. Please do not say I called them toys.”
By the time Mia had finished talking I had recoiled away from her but she did not seem to notice. She was too busy looking out the window, I assumed watching for Stormie and her family. I was not going to be touring a plant, not even a plant with toys that were not toys. Not today, not any day. I had never been inside of a plant but that did not mean I was ignorant. Plants meant people, lots and lots of people. I had no desire to be around a lot of people. No way was I ready for that at this point in my life, not until I found out why I was being chased, and maybe not even then.
During the last week I had learned quite a lot about these new friends of mine. For instance I have learned the town had a robotics plant and Trey owned it. Most of the people in and around town worked at the plant. Even though I felt at home here I did not feel comfortable enough to be around that many people. It was hard enough to meet new people every day at Trey's house.
Now Mia was saying that we were going to be touring this plant, I had to find a way out of her plans. When I heard a car coming I knew I was running out of time. I still had not thought of a way to get out of touring the plant. Watching Mia I knew she was looking forward to seeing this plant and the toys that were not really toys. I did not want to hurt her feelings but I really could not see myself being comfortable around that many people.
In the past I had used crowds to hide myself from my pursuers but when you are the only stranger in town blending in and using others to hide was not an option. Hearing another car outside brought me back to the present. I had taken my attention off my surroundings a little too long. So unlike me to let myself forget. I could not afford to keep making that mistake. This house, these people, this area, all made me feel too safe and I knew better than anyone safety was an illusion I could not afford.
If I made the decision to go with Mia and Gammon when they left I might have a better chance of staying safe. After all, compounds were always secure, until the government got involved and decided to sent teams in to break into the compound. The thought of the government sending in a team to get me caused me to snort a little in laughter. I was not that important. Mia had talked enough about their compound for me to know how secure they felt it was and how safe I would be with them. Maybe I watched too much television but I knew safe was relative. No one was after them so of course it was a safe haven for them. Why they needed a safe compound was still something I felt I needed to know before going with them but so far they had not seen fit to give me that much information.
That does not mean I did not ask, but every time I asked the subject seemed to be changed. Very subtle and perhaps they thought I had not noticed, but I had. And now they wanted me to go to a plant. Maybe, just maybe if I went I would learn a bit more about these people. I admit I am tired of avoiding my rabbit hole. But, terrified to jump in by myself. I was beginning to allow them to guide me. I so hope I am not making a mistake. Today is the day I am going to get some answers. I may not like the answers, they may not like the questions, but someone is going to give me answers today.
Having made that decision, the decision to go to the plant was a bit easier. When Stormie came bouncing up and grabbed my arm I did not even flinch.
“Did Mia tell you? Trey finally gave permission for us to take you and Mia to the plant. Oh you are going to love the toys they have there.”
“Stormie!” The shock in her mother’s voice unmistakable I turned to looked at her and saw from the corner of my eye Stormie blush a brilliant shade of red. Apparently Mia is not the only one who considered the robots to be toys.
Stormie had told me she worked at the robotics plant, but I did not expect her to consider the robots to be toys, apparently her mother did not expect that either. I could not stop the giggle that escaped.
Although I was not not looking forward to going to the plant when there were so many people I looked to my new friends and decided that maybe, perhaps, it was time to get out of my shell just a little. After all if I surrounded myself with people I trusted then perhaps the people chasing me would not have a chance to catch me.
My gut told me not to go but once again I was going to listen to my heart, after all it told me to take the cabin and that was turning out to be a very good idea. With great trepidation I followed the other women out to Stormie's car.
Before we got in Stormie smiled, “We are going to stay out of the most populated areas. Much of the plant can be seen from secure areas with glass walls separating us from the people.” Then she winked at me. I really loved this new friend of mine.
I barely notice the two guards, at least I assume they were guards, who got in Mia's car to follow us. Somehow over the last week the guards had become so much a part of everything else that even though they always rode with Mia and always got out of Mia's car I never really thought about them anymore. Actually, thinking about it, someone always seemed to drive Mia to my house. I never saw her drive to my see me. She rode up front, sometimes in the back, but never in the driver’s seat. Sometimes she rides in the back with Gammon and a guard drives, sometimes she rides in the front with Gammon and the guards follow in another car. Can she even drive? Is she under Gammon’s thumb? Shaking my head I decide this is not a path I want to go down. She is way too happy with Gammon for it not to be what she wants. I wonder if I am becoming too complacent or just trying to make a happy ever after that does not exist. Answers, I need answers, I promise myself one more time, those answers will come tonight.
As we drove to the plant on the other side of town the women were busy laughing and talking while I was trying not to have a panic attack. All week I had made certain to drive myself anywhere I w
ent, not that I had gone anywhere after the first trip to the stores, well, except to Trey’s house every night. This was the first time I was riding as a passenger in Stormie’s vehicle. The women did not even seem to notice anything unusual, they were just taking the entire situation in stride. Or, at least, if they did find it unusual that I was riding in Stormie’s car and letting her drive, they were kind enough not to point out how far I had come in the short week I had been here.
Something Stormie said caused me to swing my attention her way. Before I could ask her to repeat what she had said Mia changed the subject to something else and the women were suddenly discussing other things. My eyes narrowed as I tried to process what Stormie let slip. And I am sure, the way the other women seemed to talk over her for a minute that is was a slip.
I sat silent as I tried to understand what Donny had to do with us visiting the plant. Apparently this Donny guy I had met last night had locked himself in a room and refused to come out. That guy scared me more than anyone else I had met so far. I had no reason to fear him, not really. I think it was his age and his smell. He was too close to the age of the original guys chasing me and he smelled exactly like them. Perhaps I was being irrational, after all, from what was said last night the guy was engaged to Sam’s niece Cara, who I had not yet met because she was away at school. I wonder about this boarding school again. If the girl was engaged why did she have to stay at the boarding school? And why the magical age of twenty-one?
Why Donny would have locked himself in a room and why Trey needed me there to convince the guy to come out made no sense. Before I could formulate my questions, and I had questions, boy did I have questions, we were pulling through the gate of the plant. Soon after everyone was getting out and patiently waiting on me. Well, everyone except Stormie who was even now bouncing her way over to David who appeared to be waiting for us.
I caught bits and pieces of the conversation they were having, not enough to make sense of but it appeared whatever reason the others originally had for coming to the plant no longer mattered. Now I really wanted to know what the original reason was but decided to bide my time. My aunt looked pretty excited to be going on this tour, and from what I gathered from what little I heard, a tour was all that was happening now.
Knowing the original reason was not to give Mia and I a tour made my stomach knot up. If the others knew this, and they used me, tricked me into coming to the plant, what else were they hiding from me and how dangerous was life going to become for me? My rabbit hole kept growing, and my trust was still shaky. I had to believe Mia only wanted what was best for me. I could feel her sincerity when it came to her feelings for me. Stormie’s feelings for me were sincere, I could feel the love and friendship from her. I do not know how I could feel the sincerity, I just could. I was going to have to trust these feelings. But I was done being left out of things. I was so done with people skating around things and hiding things. Tonight, when we had dinner at Trey’s house, someone was going to tell me what was going on. I was done hiding from the truth. And I was done having the truth hidden from me. I may not know what the truth was but I swore to myself I would by the end of the night.
Chapter Twenty-two
Trey
Fury and fear gripped me. Even Gammon, unshakable as I believed him to be, looked disturbed by the information pouring from Donny. Turns out my alpha powers were enough for me to order Donny open the door and start talking. I had never used my powers to force someone to my will like that. To me that did not seem like something a true leader would do. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew my powers would override the will of my pack but to use that kind of power against my pack seemed the opposite of being a good leader. I guess, if I was honest with myself, I thought using my power against a pack member would be the start of the end of my pack. According to Gammon, sometimes you just did not have the best people in your pack, and sometimes you had to use your powers against your own. He pointed out that on his own Donny would never have opened that door. Not because he was a bad pup but because he was apparently a terrified pup.
Oh I had given orders before, and they were followed by my pack members. But I had never pushed those orders with power. In the past the position I held as alpha was all I needed to get my pack to do as I requested. If I was honest with myself, my orders in the past were more like requests or suggestions which my pack followed out of loyalty to me and the pack. I did not realize I could bend a pack member to my complete will by pushing power behind my order, not until Gammon explained a few things to me.
A good leader knew when to use what he had and when to find another way. Terror was a big motivator and talking would never have gotten the door open. Gammon had told me that until I promised to buy Sam a steak to get his cooperation he had not realized how little I seemed to be using my alpha powers to help me hold my position. He swore he was going to make me a great alpha if it killed me. Considering how many alphas he had allegedly killed, I would have been concerned, but Gabby was my mate and that made me certain Gammon would not kill me.
I had no doubts he would fight at my side because of his mate’s love for Gabby. And if the information spewing from Donny was correct, I was going to find out just how true my assessment of Gammon was when it came to fighting at my side because it seemed someone was after my mate. Someone high up in the government was looking for Gabby and if what Donny had found out was true, they would stop at nothing to find her and capture her. And we may have giving them just the ammunition they needed to get her. Not only that, we may, in our search for her twin, have given these people the information she had a twin.
I knew Donny had some hacking skills, that was the reason, one of the reasons, he was assigned to help find Trina. What I had not realized was just how good a hacker Donny was before today. According to what Donny was telling us he had hacked into some of the most secure government servers searching for whatever he could find. What he found was a group dedicated to finding Gabby, and females like Gabby and now, probably Trina. He was able to download some files and communications before he shut the server down. According to him his hacking skills, as good as they were, alerted someone. That someone tagged him and started backtracking his searches. He could not tell us whether he got the servers off line before they made it in or not.
Tim, hearing Donny had managed to download files was all in favor of gathering his people and going through the files and before I knew what was happening Donny was the center of attention with my communication and IT crew gathered around him. Soon Donny and the others had drifted away to go through the files Donny had managed to swipe. Tim looked back at me before they disappeared into the server room.
“We will find out all we can and get every thing secure again as soon as possible boss. May take a few days though, depends on what we find. I will let you know when we have more information. See what your Gabby knows, she is the key to figuring out what is going on.” With that a grim faced Tim turned his attention back to the group surrounding Donny and it was obvious myself and Gammon had been dismissed.
Taking a deep breath I looked at Gammon, “Seems we need to have a long talk with Gabby, she may not understand or know what she really is, but she is on the run, and we need to know what she is running from and how long she has been running. Not much we can do here till Tim and Gavin gets me the information on those files. Gonna need Jules there.” The last bit was muttered more to myself that to Gammon but he did not miss my comment.
Calling through the pack bond I told David, “find Samantha and get her to postpone the testing we were doing on the new prototype. Send the women back to my place if they are done with the tour and pick Jules up on your way to my house. We need to fill you in on what we found and we need answers only Gabby will have. Make sure Stormie knows they are to go straight to my house. And David? Put every guard we have on Gabby, things just went pear shaped.”
“Why Jules? I think the fewer people around Gabby while we find out what is going on, and explain
things to her, the better for her mental health.” Gammon obviously had problems with my request to have Jules at the house, but I had remembered something about Jules. I remembered one of his stories and I had a feeling Jules was about to play an important part in this story. I could be wrong, I hoped I was, but at the same time I had an uneasy feeling I was not wrong. I just could not figure out why my mind insisted on thinking of Jules.
Jules had come to my pack almost five years ago for sanctuary and healing. I had him investigated and believed his story of the attack he suffered one night to be true. I knew he had left some of the story untold but once I had his oath I knew whatever secrets he was holding about that night were his secrets to hold. In the years he had been with my pack he had proven to be a faithful and true member. Unfortunately for him the attack had crippled him and he rarely took his wolf form. He lived out his life in a wheelchair and mourned the family he lost that night.
Gabby (Safe Haven Wolves Book 1) Page 15