Vengeance Borne

by amanda bonilla

  Jacquelyn looked over the contents spread across Wes’s desk. The photos weren’t much of a shock. When Jacquelyn and Finn were a couple, they hung out with Wes all the time. And she knew Wes had been a wreck when he showed up at Finn’s house to load him up in the ambulance. He was obviously worried that Finn might die. She knew that Wes had a heroic spirit, not to mention a healthy addiction to dangerous activities like rock climbing, B.A.S.E jumping, sky diving, since the day she met him. That need to flirt with danger was why he was more than interested in her and Finn’s extracurricular activities. Micah’s concern wasn’t unfounded, though. There was enough damning evidence here to make her at least suspect Wes more than she had. Shit.

  Micah slumped down on the desktop, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. He massaged his temples before looking down at Jacquelyn, his expression somber. “We’ve got a problem.”

  She didn’t like the darkness in his tone. Or the way his power buffeted her, like tiny insects crawling over her skin. Micah was damned agitated and it sent a spike of adrenaline through Jacquelyn’s bloodstream. What emotions did he sense? Had something happened to Trish? She hadn’t heard the Banshee cry for a single one of them. Were these Furies so dangerous as to frighten the wailing woman from ushering the souls of the departed into the afterlife? “It’s worse than we thought, isn’t it?” Her voice sounded small in her ears.

  She wanted to throw up. All over Wes’s office. Was Micah right? She’d been the objective? The Furies, the victims, the needless deaths…this was all about her somehow. Or more to the point, about her position as Waerd. It seemed impossible, but could it be that Wes wanted to be the hero so badly that he’d attacked his best friend just to take his place as Jacquelyn’s partner? It would explain why he’d taken Trish as well. Maybe he thought she could teach him, give him some sort of power. Infuse him with Finn’s gifts. Oh, god. “We’ve got to find him, Micah.”

  “Jacquelyn.” Micah gave a sad shake of his head. He touched his finger down to one of the pictures near Wes’s face. “He isn’t the guy.”

  “Jesus,” Jacquelyn breathed as relief flooded her. She picked up one of the photos and held it in front of Micah’s face as if to give him a clearer view. “Are you telling me this isn’t who you saw at Sinkers this afternoon?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

  “Shit.” Jacquelyn pushed the chair back to stand with so much force that it slid into the office’s back wall. “Shit! Then I’d be willing to bet that Wes is out looking for the son of a bitch right now.” Her words came through gritted teeth as she headed toward the door. “I mean, he had a book on Norse Mythology. Who the hell knows what Finn told him. He could be anywhere, and if he gets lucky and manages to stumble across our host—”

  “He could be in a shitload of trouble,” Micah finished for her.

  “Yeah,” Jacquelyn responded as she massaged her temple between her fingers.

  “Hang on a sec…” Jacquelyn’s head perked up and she looked over to find Micah bent over Wes’s desk, his face scrunched in concentration as he studied an old training photo tacked to the wall. “This guy,” he rested his finger below a fire fighter in full turnouts. “This could be the guy I saw today.”

  Jacquelyn leaned in to get a better look, her gaze trained on the image. “That’s Pete.” Micah raised a brow at her flippant tone. “Are you sure?” she asked, this time more serious. Micah had to be positive and Pete was usually about as vicious as a hamster.

  “I’m not positive.” He leaned in to study the picture again. “It could be. I mean, the guy I saw this morning was a lot leaner and not quite as baby-faced. He looked like he might have been sick or something. But maybe…”

  “I can’t go by maybe,” Jacquelyn said. “Every minute spent chasing a dead end is another minute we risk Trish’s safety.”

  Micah swore under his breath and Jacquelyn cringed. He was in the pressure cooker now. “Without an emotion to associate to the picture, I just can’t be sure.”

  “This sucks,” Jacquelyn said as she led the way out of Wes’s office back toward her car. “Fucking Furies. They’re impossible to track.”

  “Okay, we’ll do this systematically,” Micah said as he went around the front of the car and climbed into the passenger seat. “We know our guy’s a fireman, right? We’ll start by finding Wes to make sure he’s okay and see if he knows anything, then since this Pete seems like the next best lead, we’ll check him out. I’ll help you turn the town inside out, one place at a time, down the list until we find the host. I won’t stop until we find Trish. And for what it’s worth, I still stand by what I felt at the restaurant. The asshole controlling the Furies wants you. Plain and simple. We should check Wes’s house first. Then your place. Who knows, Wes might be there looking for you. Plus, it might be the next place the host hits. If he took Trish, it’s because he knows you’re close with her and he’s probably using Trish as bait to get his hands on you. If that doesn’t pan out, we move on.”

  “To where?” McCall was such a small town, it shouldn’t be so hard to track one guy down. Yet the many wooded areas and rural spread of houses were just as hard, if not harder than downtown to track someone.

  “Maybe this Pete’s house?” Micah continued. His expression was thoughtful, as if constructing a mental checklist. “If we get lucky enough to find Wes, he can get us a list of everyone on the fire department’s roster. It shouldn’t be hard to track everyone down. I know we’re down to the wire time-wise, but I think this is the most effective way to track the host down. Unless you can use my blood to do that spiffy trick with your dagger again?”

  Jacquelyn pulled out onto the street and headed south, out of town toward Wes’s house. “As much as I wish we could, that particular trick doesn’t work on Furies. Like I said, they’re too close to the old gods for certain types of tracking magic.”

  “Damn,” Micah replied.

  “Yeah. Damn.”

  Jacquelyn fished her phone out of the cubby on the dash and handed it to Micah. “Look in my contacts for Wes’s number and see if he answers.”

  Micah did what she asked and she said a silent prayer that for once, Wes had his phone with him. “Voicemail,” Micah replied as he slipped the phone back into the cubby.

  “Crap. It’s probably sitting on his damn counter or rolling around the floorboards of his truck.” Strike one.

  “Does Wes have any neighbors? Maybe someone we can call to run over and see if he’s home?.”

  “Not many, and the ones he has live a few hundred yards away. I don’t really know any of them so I wouldn’t know who to call.”

  “How long will it take to get to his house?” Micah asked.

  “Ten minutes at least. Seven if nobody’s on the road.”

  “Jacquelyn.” Micah scrubbed a hand over the short stubble of his head, an action that Jacquelyn had come to find cute. “That night that you found me in the motor home…”

  “Micah, it’s over and done with. You don’t have to worry about it. Everybody slips once in a while. I know you’re good to go and I trust you.”

  “No.” She gave Micah a sidelong glance. His expression was tense. “It’s not that. I drove to your house that night because I had a dream about you.”

  “Oh.” Jacquelyn didn’t quite know what to say. Was he making some sort of confession?

  “Sometimes I dream about things that happen later. This dream shook me up. Someone had taken you. I could feel how frightened you were. Your screams…they were so real. So terrified.” He turned away and looked out the passenger window. “The house seemed isolated, no one else around for miles. I tried to get to you, but I couldn’t. No matter how hard I ran, the house slipped out of reach.”

  Jacquelyn placed her hand just above his knee and gave him a reassuring squeeze. “Micah, it’s okay. It was only a dream. There’s no such thing as prophecy. Besides, we’re here together. Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Trish believes in prophecy.”
He placed his hand on top of hers, the warmth seeping through her skin and infusing her entire body with comfort.

  “Maybe she does, but I don’t.”

  “Either way, I just want you to know that I’ll protect you. I promise you’ll be safe.”

  Jacquelyn thought of Finn’s words. He’ll take care of you. I felt it the first time we met. He cares about you. You won’t be alone. Goddamned Bearers and their witchy mumbo-jumbo. All-knowing, all-seeing, pains in the ass.

  Wes’s house sat about three hundred yards off the main highway, seven miles or so out of the city limits. A winding driveway led to the house, lined with Blue Spruce trees. Tufts of grass jutted out from the center of the road, the only thing not squashed by the constant assault of tires. On either side of the grass, the dirt ruts jostled Jacquelyn’s car, trying to hold the narrow wheelbase in the track.

  His place looked like any other in McCall, not too old, not too new. A motorcycle sat outside of a too-full garage, along with a few errant motor parts that had spilled out on the driveway. Wes obviously hadn’t done much to the place since Jacquelyn had been there over the summer. He spent most of his time at the fire station or over at Finn’s anyway. She didn’t think he gave much thought to what his own place looked like.

  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Micah said. He opened his door before the car came to a complete stop. “Think we can get in the house?”

  “Sure,” Jacquelyn said, heading for the front door. “He never locks it, and if it is locked,” she pulled the Glock from its holster, “well, that’s what this is for.”

  Jacquelyn took the lead, that was the way it worked, and Micah didn’t object. He fell into their partnership pretty easily, something Jacquelyn could be grateful for. Like his office at the fire station, the knob to Wes’s front door turned easily, the door creaking on rusty hinges as she pushed it open.

  “God, it smells like a locker room in here,” she whispered as she stepped inside.

  A bachelor pad to the tee, it didn’t look like Wes had entertained any hot dates lately. In fact, from the looks of it, she didn’t think he’d been home at all. Not for several days at least. With Micah at her side and her Glock ready to go, she tiptoed through the house, scouring it for any sign of foul play. “Wes?” she called, and then a little louder, “Wes! You home?”

  “I don’t think he’s here,” Micah said, his tone defeated. “I really hoped he’d be here. Besides you and me, there’s not another emotional signature in the house. No one’s been here for a while. I can usually pick up on even a lingering emotional signature and this place is practically a dead zone. Weird.”

  Jacquelyn couldn’t help but marvel at Micah’s sensitivity. She’d never encountered a Bearer besides Trish who was so strong. What had her emotions felt like to him when he sat beside her on the bed, his fingertips lingering on her skin? He’d absorbed every ounce of her pain and sorrow and bore the weight of it, no questions asked. Micah was strong. So much stronger than she was. “We can check the garage on the way out, but believe me, there’s no room in there for a baseball, let alone a full-grown man. Wes isn’t here. Strike one for us.”

  “Back to your place?” Micah asked.

  “Yeah. We can regroup there. If we can’t find Wes, I’m sure I can get Sarah to give me a department roster with contact information.” Either that, or she’d have Micah charm it out of her. “I want to pick up another clip of silver rounds and we’d better grab a gun for you too while we’re there. I don’t want to move forward without being one hundred percent. Trish deserves that much.”

  Jacquelyn shut Wes’s front door behind her, pushing her disappointment and panic to the back of her mind. She started the car and backed out of the driveway, trying not to dwell on the fact that they were running out of time. As she sped back toward her house, a tickle of intuition told her that she should pay heed to Micah’s dream, but she tucked that worry away as well. An involuntary shudder rolled over her flesh as Micah’s words haunted her. I could feel how frightened you were. The clock was ticking against them, time slipping through her fingers like water through a sieve. Holding out any hope of saving Trish would be a wasted effort if they couldn’t get their hands on the bastard responsible. And, as of yet, he was keeping one step ahead of them.

  As she pulled into her driveway, Jacquelyn’s jaw fell slack and she looked askance to Micah, a similar expression painted on his face. A truck, Wes’s truck was parked in her driveway and the man in question seated on the front porch bench. Neat and tidy practically wrapped with a bow. How in the hell did she get so lucky? One guy found, one more to go.

  Dressed in dusty jeans and a t-shirt, Wes’s expression was drawn and haggard, his scowl deepening as Jacquelyn got out of the car, Micah following close behind. Micah stiffened at her side, bristling as he grabbed her arm at the wrist pulling her back just before her foot landed on the first step.

  “Careful,” he murmured.

  Jacquelyn raised a brow in question.

  “He’s pretty angry right now.”

  Great. Just what she needed, a little more anger and confusion in her life. “Hey Wes,” Jacquelyn said as she took the steps onto her front porch. He might be angry and confused, but she was damned relieved to see him okay and in one piece. She couldn’t handle it if someone else she cared about was hurt. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “I want to know who’s responsible for what attacked Finn,” Wes said as he left the bench and crossed the porch toward her. “Because there’s no way in hell a cougar, a bear, or any other animal did that to him.”

  Jacquelyn’s heart squeezed painfully. She didn’t have the time to explain any of this to him. No doubt he was angry and confused. He had every right to be. “Wes…”

  “Look,” Wes interjected, taking another step closer. Jacquelyn’s skin tightened and she knew that Micah was focusing every ounce of his attention on her. “I don’t claim to know everything about what the two of you do, but I know enough to realize that something really bad is going on. Willie. Bree. Now Finn. You need to come clean about this, Jax. I want to help. I want to get whatever is responsible and kill the son of a bitch.”

  Jacquelyn opened her mouth to speak, but the words stalled in her throat. Wes just didn’t understand. Keeping him in the dark was in his best interest right now. She couldn’t afford to waste any precious time making sure Wes kept himself out of trouble, but how was she supposed to do that when she needed him to help them track down their suspected fireman. “I think I know what you two are hunting so you might as well come clean. You can’t play with lives this way, Jax.”

  Jacquelyn met Wes’s deep blue eyes, a hard lump of sorrow rising in her throat. Tears stung at her eyes. Did he really think she was so callous? “Wes—”

  “What, Jax?” He pinned her in place with his stare “Finn is like a brother to me, you know that. He told me last week that you were hunting something really dangerous. They’re Furies, right? I read about them in one of the books he gave me. I want to help you find them.”

  Damn it Finn, why did you have to encourage him? “That’s not going to happen, Wes,” Jacquelyn whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Gotcha,” Wes scoffed. He jutted his head in Micah’s direction. “You’ve already got a new partner, right? Finn told me all about it. I guess he was pretty easy for you to replace, huh? Just another day on the job.”

  “How can you say that, Wes?” Jacquelyn’s chest ached with suppressed emotion. After all of their time spent together, how could Wes think she’d be so callous.

  “Oh come on, Jacquelyn!” Wes all but shouted, rounding on her. Rage sparked in his eyes, his expression fierce. She didn’t have to be an empath to know that grief and frustration ate at the man standing before her. “If you gave two shits about Finn, you would have asked for my help. I have a right to be involved in this, damn it. Hell, I am involved. Finn made sure of it when he decided I had a right to know what else lived in this world. Keeping me out of the lo
op isn’t going to change that.” Wes leaned in until he stood nose to nose with her, his chest rising and falling with every heavy breath. “I want to help. I need to help you. Just quit fucking around and let’s get these bastards—”

  “Jack-lyn, are you okay?”

  The voice came from directly behind her, his mispronunciation of her name hitting Jacquelyn like a slap to the face. She turned, her heart pounding a frenzied beat against her ribcage. His duty pants were covered in dark splotches, his pullover ripped just below the Maltese cross embroidered on the chest that read, Volunteer.

  “Pete.”

  Before she could react, Micah grabbed her around the waist and shoved her behind him. Her mind spun as pieces of the puzzle locked into place, disbelieving the possibility even when it stared her straight in the face. Shy, harmless, Pete Koskella had become a monster of unimaginable evil and it damned near broke her heart.

  He smiled his game-show host smile, his fists opening and clenching at his sides. “You don’t have to worry anymore. No one’s going to hurt you ever again. I’m here to take you home.”

  Chapter 30

  JACQUELYN FLOATED SOMEWHERE in the realm between awareness and nothing. A dark gray cloud. No light permeated her vision and, honestly, she wasn’t sure if her eyes were open or not. Strange sounds filtered in through the haze, voices that made no sense, as if they were speaking on a frequency she couldn’t quite hear.

  She fought for a single lucid thought, as she recalled her last memory. She’d been standing on her front porch with Wes and… Micah. He tried to protect her. Her knuckles throbbed, reminding her she had appendages below her neck, and she remembered smashing her fist into her attacker’s face more than once. Micah stepped in, fought like hell alongside Wes but the three of them together were no match for the inhuman strength of their opponent. A voice slithered into her thoughts, an overeager voice that went hand in hand with his smile. He was taking her home…