“Marcus…”
“Angie, it’s not just you any longer. Or just you and me. There’s someone else depending on us, our child. It’s no longer about doing what’s best for us. We have to think about more than that,” he continued, punching buttons. Then he held the phone up and said, “And I’m going to find him first.”
“How?” Angie asked.
“All of these phones have built in GPS that tracks locations. Standard,” he continued. “I should be able to tell where they’ve been these past few days – and that should let me find out where they’ve taken you, and likely taken Joanna Rivers. I can find West before he even comes after me.”
He could tell that Angie wasn’t happy, but she nodded just the same. He didn’t feel comfortable about leaving Angie alone at the house – but felt even less comfortable about putting her and their unborn child in harm’s way.
Marcus wasted no time in grabbing the FBI agent’s weapons and putting them in the back of his pants. He found his keys in his desk and went to the back of the Sheriff’s Department, unlocking the weapon’s locker. He handed a couple of rifles and shotguns to Angie.
“Are we going to need all this?”
Marcus shrugged and handed her more. He said, “I don’t know. But I’d rather be prepared.”
Angie nodded and finally, both of them loaded down with weapons, they left the Sheriff’s Department. Marcus loaded the weapons into the car. He walked back and locked the building up tight behind him, sparing one last look back at it. Something told him that he would never enter it again.
Heart heavy and uncertain of the future, Marcus and Angie left the Sheriff’s Department and prepared for what was to come.
Chapter 18
“Be careful,” Angie said, standing on her tiptoes and planting a kiss on Marcus’s lips. “You know I don’t think this is a good idea. You shouldn’t go after him alone.”
“I can’t risk you. I’ll have the jump on him, and I’m not going to take any chances,” Marcus told her. “I love you.”
She refused to answer since the last thing she wanted to do was say goodbye. He reached a hand behind her head and pulled her close, pressing his lips against her forehead and then he was getting in the car and driving down the driveway. Angie stood and watched until he had disappeared from view.
The silence was so loud it was almost overwhelming. There was nothing except the soft rustle of the breeze and the sound of her breathing. Down at the bottom of the driveway before it twisted away, she saw Marcus’s cattle by the trough, eating. She looked to the left and saw the old barn, the tractor sitting abandoned in it. To her right, halfway towards the fence, was a small shack where Marcus kept his tools. It was peaceful here, yet Angie could feel no peace.
She moved a hand down to her stomach.
I should have told him right away. I should have told him the instant I thought I even might be pregnant. To hear it from that other Shifter like that…
Angie felt guilty. She almost felt disgust with herself. She’d just killed a man – though she knew it had been something she had needed to do. There was no getting around it. If she hadn’t killed the man, he would have killed her, and then he would have killed Marcus.
And he would have killed our unborn child.
I don’t regret what I did.
Though when she held one of her hands out, she saw it was still shaking.
She stood for a few more moments, looking around before the sound of nothingness started to suffocate her. She glanced nervously behind her towards the house but there was nothing there. There was no reason for there to be anything – or anyone – there. West was after Marcus, and though she longed to be with him, she knew it wasn’t the right call at the moment. They were on a collision course – and Angie had to accept that she could do nothing, that she had to protect their child, first and foremost.
Hoisting the shotgun in her hands, she turned and went back into the house. The sun was going down on the horizon, so she flipped on the kitchen light when she entered the room and set to making herself something to eat. She wasn’t hungry but she knew that she had to get something in her system.
Half an hour later, she headed into the living room, a plate of frozen pasta in one hand, the shotgun dangling in the other. By that time, the sun had sunk completely below the horizon and the windows were nothing but pure darkness.
Glancing at the window behind the TV, Angie felt a little bit of unease. Marcus had assured her that he would get to West before West got to him – Angie just hoped Marcus was prepared for him.
He has to be. There’s no other choice.
She ate without much zeal. The food tasted good, though she hardly cared. The TV played the news, mentioning the serial killer that had been moving across the United States. Angie had been following the case for the past few weeks, though that hardly seemed to matter then – while West wasn’t a serial killer, he was real, and he was in Charming. The threat of him was imminent.
She heard something scratch against one of the windows and jumped. Angie raised the shotgun and pointed it at the window, then breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the branch of a tree scratching the window. She laughed nervously and exhaled, listening to the wind as it picked up speed.
There’s no one here but myself. Marcus knows what he’s doing.
She heard more scratching – but this time it wasn’t from the same window. Angie felt her heart thump in her chest. There were no windows from the window behind the TV…
Carefully, she stood up, the shotgun still clutched in her hands, and looked over the TV. Yellow eyes glinted brightly in the light from the room. Angie felt her heart plummet.
And then the eyes – if they were ever really there – were gone. She raised the shotgun, heart thumping, hands shaking, and tried to get ahold of herself.
“It was nothing, Angie…” she tried telling herself.
West is after Marcus. You’re just paranoid. There was nothing there. Definitely not eyes.
And then she heard the sound of a window breaking, somewhere else in the house. She jumped and instead of panicking even more, she ran towards the sound of the noise.
The bedroom window had been broken – there was no doubt about it. Glass lay strewn across their bed, glittering. The wind blew inside, whipping the curtains wildly, but no one had yet tried to come inside. Carefully, Angie crept along the room, walking around the bed, weapon raised and aimed at the broken window, making sure that there was no one outside of it. Satisfied that whoever – or whatever – was trying to get inside wasn’t coming in through that window, Angie made a decision.
She’d just made it to the door when she heard something that sounded like claws scratching against wood. She turned around and coming in through the window was a creature unlike anything she’d ever imagined in her worst dreams.
It had yellow eyes, rheumy yet somehow bright in the darkness, and a long snout, complete with fangs as black as the night the creature was emerging from. Spittle slid down its cheeks and fell onto the bed as it weaseled its way into the bedroom. Its eyes fell on her and it snarled, forcing its way into the room faster, almost ravenous in its hunger.
It looked like the creature Lester had turned into hours before – but somehow so much worse.
Angie raised the shotgun and fired. There was a flash of movement, a howl of pain, and then the creature was gone.
Her heart was pounding in her chest as she left the bedroom, knowing just what – or who – was after her.
Right outside of the bedroom was the door that led to the staircase up to the second floor. She entered it and quickly shut it behind her, making sure that the door was shut tight. Up on the second floor were three spare bedrooms and the attic, all four mostly used for storage.
Angie made her way to the attic, making sure to keep the lights turned off, and made her way through the piles of old boxes and junk Marcus had probably inherited from whoever had owned the house before him. She stepped carefully, keepi
ng quiet – she knew who was after her.
It’s West. He’s not after Marcus, not now. He’s going to use me to lure Marcus in. How could we have been so ignorant? We fell right into his trap.
There was the sound of a door being splintered in, then the howl of something triumphant. She could hear the sound of paws on the carpeted stairs leading upwards and she knew West was drawing nearer. She raised the shotgun again and pointed it towards the attic door.
The footsteps grew closer… and closer… and closer…
And then they were going away, down towards one of the other rooms. Angie considered making a break for it – if West was somewhere in one of the other rooms, she could run.
But where would I go? There’s nothing out here, and he can track me with ease.
She was still on the verge of giving it a shot anyway when the door to the attic exploded inward with splinters of wood. Despite herself, Angie couldn’t help but scream in alarm. She raised the shotgun and fired, boxes of random knickknacks and Christmas decorations exploding. She heard a howl of pain and she turned, looking for any way out of the room she’d trapped herself in.
Behind her was a small window – just large enough to slide through. But it was high on the wall, almost out of reach. She knew it was her only opportunity. She hit the window with the butt of the shotgun and knocked the shards of glass out of the frame even as she heard West knocking aside boxes, coming for her, his breathing loud.
She tossed the shotgun through the window and then jumped up to the frame. She could feel the glass underneath her fingers, sharp and painful, but she ignored it the best she could and pulled herself upwards. She could hear the sound of West growing ever closer…
And then she was out of the window, pulling herself onto the roof of Marcus’s house, breathing a sigh of relief. Her hands were hot and sticky with blood yet she still reached out for the shotgun…
And a massive wolf paw, topped with razor sharp claws, reached through the window. Angie screamed in pain as it raked her back, shredding her shirt and the skin underneath it. She felt the claws tighten, digging deep into her flesh, trying to pull her backwards. She screamed but she had the shotgun in her hands somehow. Turning, fighting against the grip around her, she aimed the shotgun into the window and pulled the trigger.
The sound of the wolf Shifter howling in pain was almost as loud as the shotgun blast. But she was free as he had let her go.
Angie rolled out of reach, collapsing on her back, fighting the pain and breathing hard. The wolf couldn’t fit himself through the window, if he was still breathing, so Angie could relax – for a few moments.
She jerked upward when she heard the sound of another window breaking and then she heard the sound of claws on tile.
He doesn’t stop. He won’t stop.
She didn’t know how much damage she’d done to the wolf, but he wasn’t giving up. Angie knew he wouldn’t stop until she was dead.
Angie threw the shotgun off of the roof and scrambled to the edge. The ground looked far away. She knew she had to jump but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Then she heard the sound of the wolf behind her. Stealing a glance backwards, she saw him coming around the corner of the house. He was injured and moving slowly, but he wasn’t quitting.
She took a deep breath and threw herself from the ledge. She screamed in pain as she landed, twisting one ankle and going down hard. She tasted dirt and felt her nose explode in a bloody fountain.
But she was still alive. She grabbed the shotgun and ran as fast as she could towards the barn. She ran underneath the trees that marked the end of Marcus’s sidewalk that led to his house and was halfway to the barn when she heard the sound of the wolf landing behind her.
She knew she would never make it – and even if she did, where would she go? But she had to try.
Somehow, she made it to the barn only mere feet in front of the wolf. She slid between the wall and the tractor – barely enough room for her – and then the wolf was there, one massive paw sliding out towards her. She jumped backwards, just out of reach.
She watched as it simply stared at her, malevolent, and then looked upwards.
He’s going to go over the whole damn thing.
Angie looked left and entered the barn proper. She’d never been in it before but she recognized the general layout. The center of the barn was large enough to drive a tractor through, lined with a dirt floor. A step up off the floor on either side were rooms, probably full of ancient tools and junk Marcus never used. At the far end was the barn door which opened up to the driveway.
She ran that way as fast as she could, hearing the wolf behind her. She tripped over a box she hadn’t seen and the shotgun went flying out of her hand. But she didn’t have time to look for it. She ran, seeing the barn door only feet in front of her, strangely lit up even in the darkness.
And then she noticed that it was lit up because a car was coming down the driveway, its lights flashing over the barn doors. Angie reached out and tried to slide the door open – but it was locked from the outside. Angie tired pushing herself through the door, hoping she was small enough to fit.
The car turned up the driveway, kicking rocks, speeding as fast as the driver could manage – and Angie realized it was Marcus, coming home to rescue her.
She went to scream his name, to tell him that she was in the barn. She reached one hand out, hoping he would see her – but it was too dark and he was going too fast. He was too intent on getting to the house that he never even looked towards the barn.
Angie watched him drive past, going towards the house, and then the wolf closed in on her, and there was no one around to hear her screams.
* * *
It had been a mistake. Marcus had recognized that when he had gotten to the place Lester’s phone GPS had been the same day Angie had been kidnapped.
The place had been an abandoned warehouse on the far side of Charming. As best Marcus could tell, by picking up the faint scent – there had been no one there since that day. Marcus had hoped to walk into the building where West was.
And had he realized that would have been too easy, and with that realization came the sickening thought that he’d been duped. He’d felt his stomach clench, his thoughts turning towards Angie.
With that, he’d torn home, sure that West had tricked them both with the GPS – and hoping against all hope that he had been wrong.
“Angie!” he yelled, running up the sidewalk to his house. The night was dark and the wind was blowing fiercely. Above him, the trees shook crazily. “Angie!”
He wrenched open the door to the mud room and then entered the kitchen, a pistol in one hand. He heard the sound of the evening news and relaxed… she was just inside, watching TV.
But when he entered the living room, there was no one inside. He felt his heart drop. He glanced in the bathroom, but that room was empty, too. With every second, he felt his fears become more and more real. A half-eaten plate of frozen pasta on the side table all but confirmed something was wrong.
Marcus ran towards the bedroom and stopped when he saw the door that led to the upper level of the house was destroyed. If possible, his heart plummeted even further. Wasting no time, he forced himself through the splintered frame, noting the claw marks in the wood.
West. He came for her, and he took her…
He took the stairs two at a time until he reached the top floor. The door to the attic was in similar state to the one down below, splintered and ruined. Inside, all of the boxes and random stuff he’d had in the room had been thrown to the sides. He looked up and saw the shattered window and he could practically see what had happened in his mind’s eye: Angie had fired upon West – there was the spray of blood near the door, and then she’d broken the window and climbed out. Marcus walked close to the broken window and touched it lightly. His fingers came away with Angie’s blood, but she didn’t seem to be too badly hurt.
Then he took a deep breath and the scent of her blood and pain became almo
st overwhelming. There was also the pain that West had experienced but Marcus couldn’t care less for the man. When he saw the massive spread of blood on the wall inflicted by what Marcus assumed to be a shotgun, he smiled.
He was too big to fit out of the window Angie had slid through, so he made his way back into the hallway and went to the door on the left. Reaching the window, he found it had been shattered outward. Following West’s trail, Marcus went out onto the roof.
There was a spray of Angie’s blood on the roof – Marcus knew West had reached through the window and raked her back. But she had lived. Looking down on the ground, he saw where she’d jumped down – there was blood there, too, and crushed grass. West had jumped down after her, so Marcus did the same.
He followed their scents to the old barn, his stomach churning so badly he was nearly sick. He walked around the tractor and made his way down the middle of the barn. There was the shotgun, discarded. Marcus ran over to it and grabbed it. She’d fired a few times but there were still shells in the shotgun.
Why did she not turn and use it on him?
He reached the end of the barn with a sickening realization that the barn doors had been locked from the outside.
Marcus took a deep breath and smelled Angie’s scent not five minutes before.
She probably watched me drive up the driveway. She was probably screaming my name, reaching for me, locked inside with that creature – and I drove right past.
How could I be so stupid?
He reached his hand out and saw that the door was no longer locked. West had forced through it, shattering the chain on the outside, and he’d disappeared down towards the cattle pen.
Marcus sprinted down that way as fast as he could, noticing that all of his cattle had fled in terror and disappeared.
They came this way. Marcus took a deep breath. He’s faster than me. But I have the endurance he doesn’t. I only have one shot.
Fate’s Reaping Page 13