Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3)

by Tina Smith

  Cres shifted gears. “They’re at Key Inlet, right?”

  Reid felt anger then. “Cres they’ll kill you.”

  Only her lips moved. “Then get out,” she said emotionlessly. Her stare avoided him.

  “No.” As the countryside sped by, he found himself praying for Lila to somehow turn up and stop her. The more he thought about it, the more he knew it was a suicide mission.

  Cres kept her eyes fixed on the road.

  “Cres we need to think about this. Jackson and Angele and Lila will help you. I will help you, just not right now, like this,” he begged.

  “I don’t need you to come.” She turned and looked through him with a cold blue stare.

  “Fine, then I won’t,” he threatened. “You won’t be able to negotiate your way out of this,” he implored.

  She slowed the car and pulled to the curb, hoping she would turn around and that she wasn’t throwing him out. “Cres I will back you up, you know that?”

  “This isn’t helping, Reid.”

  “Do you really want me out?”

  “I do,” she said coldly, her eyes hard.

  He knew what the answer would be, but it still hit him like a blow to the guts. “Then you are going to die, Cres. They won’t just hand him back, they’ve done this for a reason.”

  “Get out.”

  “Promise me that you won’t do anything careless,” his voice was pained.

  Her voice was hard. “Are you done?” She looked through him.

  “No, I’m not! Cres you will regret this. I want him back too, and Lila will help us,” he pleaded.

  “No, if I know where she is, they will beat it from me,” she growled.

  “You are supposed to see things. Can’t you see they’ll destroy you and him now? This is what they want,” he begged exasperated.

  “Reid I’ve been on a limited time frame since Sam bit me. Did you think I’d stick around for you? Did you think we’d get married and have kids and have friends? I’ve been dying every day since she infected me, so it’s either I do it, or I let them. Maybe I can try and get him back and die for a reason,” she said harshly.

  “But if we plan...”

  “No, I need him back. They could be turning him now.” She was unable to hide her glassy eyes as they glistened.

  He was desperate. “This is madness. Cres it was inevitable they would try and change him. Honestly did you think if they took him we could stop it? That you could stop it yourself, against all of them? They use him to control you.”

  “Get out,” she interrupted sternly.

  “No,” he protested.

  “Reid, go,” she said as she turned her stony eyes on his.

  In desperation he searched her face for any hint that she didn’t mean it. “Tell me where Lila is, you must have a clue, if I get her before them we can help...”

  “Get out and I’ll tell you.”

  Reid folded his arms. “I promise I’ll get out when you tell me.” Even as he said it, he regretted it. They stared each other down as he slipped his hand around the door handle and cracked it open.

  She spoke. “She leaves charms from the bracelet.”

  “Where?”

  “In my room, when I’m not there - that’s how I know to meet her - find one and wait for her to show. If she sees you she might run, so surprise her. She leaves them on the window or my bedside table.” Her voice was distant.

  “Cres,” he urged as his fraught brass eyes implored her desperately.

  She placed the gun against his temple. Her eyes were bloodshot and her nostrils flared. “Goodbye Reid,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes glistening in pain.

  “Cres, I will come for you.”

  “Get out!” She gritted her teeth.

  He put his hands up and slowly backed out, his eyes never leaving hers and as she drove off she pulled the door closed with a slam. He watched her, petitioning her to stop, but she drove on. He felt as though he had been kicked in the guts. She chose them. She chose to die, she wanted to leave him and it hurt because not only did she throw him away, but quite possibly her life as well. Like a double blow. For moments he couldn’t breathe.

  Cres walked into the house at the compound as though on business.

  The human pack reclining inside glanced at her as they watched a television infomercial; she walked up the stairs and came into the main living area. Tyler was playing a video game on an old Nintendo, Lonnie sat behind him and they seemed far more enthralled with the TV than any uninvited presence in the upstairs lounge. A rough looking wolf with a neck tattoo was playing a game boy.

  Cres stood there expecting some attention. “Where’s my brother?” she asked calmly, readying her hand on the trigger of her gun in the front of her pants. Lonnie ignored her, focused on the game. When she turned, a pale scantily clad female with long wavy hair was gazing at her from the hallway entrance. The short woman’s eyes became wider and before Cres knew it, she was surrounded by other members of the pack. Two males came up the stairs behind her, and suddenly she became the centre of attention.

  “Tell Sam I’m here,” Cres croaked to no one in particular.

  Paws came jogging up the stairs behind the others “Aha, the famous Cresida.” He smiled but his orange brown eyes gave a mad twinkle.

  She remained motionless from her stance. She rebuffed his greeting. “I want to see Sam.” She tried to keep her voice even and barely succeeded. But her features gave nothing away.

  “Yes, well, should we take this somewhere private?” He gestured down the stairs and paused momentarily on the step to face her. “I assume you’ve come for Bron?”

  Cres’s back tensed and she gritted her teeth. She felt the concentrated stares of the pack and then slowly obliged. She walked in a relaxed manner towards the stairwell as her heart thumped.

  “After you,” Paws gestured.

  Slowly, making eye contact with the creature, she stepped below him and gradually descended the steps. She felt his heat behind her and loathed it. But she steadied herself.

  Only now did she feel fear. Her back to the monster who had made her life hell and taken the one piece of her life that she had left.

  When she reached the bottom floor, he touched her shoulder lightly and gestured to a room she had walked past on her way in. It was an office of sorts with a large desk in the middle, and behind it stood a small shelf. There was a filing cabinet on the opposite wall, some papers piled on a chair in the corner and a small window which faced the front of the house. She would remember to use it later. She felt the moist heat linger and her mouth dry.

  He took a deep breath and urged her to sit with a polite hand gesture and then plunked himself in the chair behind the old green desk, moving a pen as he sat, swinging in the chair to place it in a mug on the desk.

  “Now we have a few things to discuss.” He smiled a line at her as he bounced comfortably in the old fashioned chair. “Please sit, we hadn’t expected you so soon.” He slouched with his elbow on the armrest.

  “But you knew I would come,” she remarked.

  He rubbed his nose. “Does anyone ever see these things coming?” He gestured with his hand. Then he looked down and laughed under his breath. “Ha, ha.”

  It struck her as a self-depreciating laugh because Cres did know things.

  He clasped his hands. “Please state your case.”

  “Where is he?”

  He stared at her. “Forgive me; we were expecting an attack,” he chuckled. “Maybe a phone call, but never this.” His eyebrows parted in amazement and thinly veiled irritation. He was evidently struggling about what to do. She did not share his humour.

  Cres readied her hand for the gun. “Where is my brother?” she uttered sternly.

  He rubbed his chin. Cresida kept a steely gaze over him.

  He picked up the phone. It was an old fashioned land line. Flipping a book open, he dialed the number under his finger. “Narine, guess who’s here?” he said heavily. He waited and the
n offered the bulky green receiver to Cres with his hand outstretched.

  She tried not to hesitate as she took it.

  “Hello?” Narine's distant unassuming voice sounded through the receiver. “Hello Cresida? This is Narine.”

  “I want my brother,” Cres replied flatly.

  “He’s in good hands. Look, Sam is going to come down and speak with you. Are you alone or is Reid or Jackson there?”

  “I’m alone,” she replied steadily, her eyes focusing on Paws.

  Narine was quiet as she considered this information. “Can you wait for Sam? She shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”

  “What do you plan to do to him?” her voice struggled to remain steady.

  “Bronson? Darling, we won’t hurt him, we just need you to tell us were Lila is and you can both go home.”

  Cres looked at Paws. “I don’t know where she is,” Cres uttered hard.

  Narine answered. “Well darling, until you find her for us, we are going to keep him, alright?” Her voice was clipped.

  “No.” Cresida’s voice was breathy.

  “Cresida, we have given you more than enough time to comply with our deal. We have reached a point where we simply couldn’t avoid action,” Narine urged with a sympathetic lilt.

  “The cops will be after you,” Cres threatened feebly as her eye lids gave a flutter.

  “Ha, ha darling we are the police. Now I know you won’t go anywhere without Bronie, so until you help us, he stays here with me,” she said defiantly.

  Cres had been toyed with enough; she offered Paws back the phone arm outstretched. She resisted the urge to cry. Her face was a pale, stone mask.

  He took the bulky receiver and spoke into it. “Well, sorry baby, she isn’t talking.” He waited listening. “Yes, okay, bye now.” He hung up the clunky phone.

  “Will she turn him?” Cres muttered, barely audible.

  “No,” he sighed.

  “Good,” she replied.

  “Not until he is ready.”

  Cres swallowed back the anger as her blood boiled. This new pack was clever, cold and strategic. She felt a fool now. They were evidently toying with her.

  She should have listened to Reid. There was no colour in her face as she considered her options. Adrenaline pooled in her veins. This was the moment she had seen in her visions. She knew what she would do. Lila wouldn’t end her, so suicide was the next best thing.

  Paws leant back, reaching with his long arm to an object leaning on the low shelf behind him. He lifted a broom that leant against the wall and used it to tap the ceiling above him. Peeling paint and dented plaster suggested this had been done many times before. Pieces of paint chipped away and fell down onto the carpet.

  “Dahlia!” he called softly upward, “Dahlia, Tyler!”

  After a light knock, the dark haired girl with caramel skin appeared in the doorway “Paws?” she said softly with questioning with her startling blue eyes. He flicked his hand at Cres. “Entertain this one,” he said with a hard look as Tyler appeared behind her grinning like a hyena.

  Cres stood and they moved to leave, readying to escort her upstairs.

  “Cres?” Paws asked. She stopped and looked at him with a firm face. “Leave the gun,” he urged with a gentle, pleading expression.

  Cres lifted it from under her shirt and placed on the desk. With a smirk she pulled another gun and aimed it at him, watching him swallow.

  “I see you dead.” Despite her better judgment, she pulled the trigger and his brains splattered with a loud bang over the back wall of the office. In an instant thick blood dripped onto the shelf behind what was left of his head. Dahlia dove on her, but Cres struggled and phased, escaping her grasp and knocking into Tyler as she tore through the glass of the window to the front of the house and ran. As she neared the drive, sprinting as fast as her legs would take her, she saw them after her, in the corner of her eye, two or three closing in. She knew she’d never make it, as she heard their breath and felt them nip at her heels. They brought her down as her body tossed over with the momentum and they threw themselves on her, biting into her hard hairy flesh. She waited for the wound that would drain her blood and end it, but it didn’t come. She was pummelled and bloody as they dragged her back towards the house.

  They hauled her along the gravel as she faded in and out of consciousness. She awoke to the feeling of her mouth and legs being tied with rope. She was tipped over and wrapped in a net and kicked about the ribs by a woman, so hard the cracks were audible. She felt her bruised body dragged along the carpet and down some cold stairs where the sounds echoed and a gate squeaked closed and suddenly it was quiet except for the buzzing in her ears, and all she could see was darkness. As she came to, she heard the muffled sounds of a commotion above and she willed herself to sleep in her dog body, broken and trembling. She was left for a long time unable to tell if it was day or night. As her bones healed the discomfort became the cold cement making her hips ache. She wished they had killed her. She felt the hard cold metal bars and the stench of wolves and excrement. She wondered what Reid and Lila would do as her purple eyelids closed tightly.

  Lying there many hours later in the cold dark, a trickle of a tear ran from the black edge of her deep blue canine eye over the salt and pepper coat and it trickled onto the cement floor of her cage.

  33. Charm

  Reid followed her desperately and he found the building and the property. He hid behind the wall and his heart sank a little more as he saw the jeep was parked there with no sign of Cres. Not long after he arrived, a black car with tinted windows rolled down the driveway and right up to the house, Sam’s G6. A woman with unmistakable straight blonde hair slid out of the driver’s seat and walked through the front door. He watched under the cover of darkness as they took the jeep out to the edge of the trees behind the compound and torched it.

  When it was only embers they dragged the remnants of the metal carcass into the bush with ropes. Another vehicle entered the driveway from the same direction. It was an old Mazda hatch and a large man emerged carrying something wrapped in a blanket that had to be a child. A woman jumped out of the driver’s side. Later a few of the males came out and pulled some luggage from the boot.

  He stayed all night in the cold, observing the wolves, hoping to see her or some sign of her or the boy again. In the dim early hours he knew he was endangering himself and he wouldn’t do that until he found Lila. He was of more help to her away from the Cult and this was the only reason he left. In order to pry himself away, he told himself he was angry, and that if she was trapped she deserved it, for being so stupid. His face pulled with grief.

  It was late morning by the time he climbed in Cres’s window in Shade. Though he looked again and again, the charm wasn’t to be found. Everything was as she had left it, maybe messier – he noted the Aunt had been through it already.

  On closer inspection, he could smell the cops had been through her drawers. Ordinarily Tabetha wouldn’t have called the police over Cresida’s disappearances, which were frequent. But the young boy’s disappearance was serious.

  In the coming days Bronson’s colour photocopied image was spread over the town, waving in the breeze against telephone poles on the side of the road and in local stores. Reid returned home only once to change before heading to the cabin. While he was making toast, he saw a note on the fridge that read: ‘Reid, the police are looking for you. Do you know anything about Cresida James and her brother? - Dad.’ Reid ignored it, biting the toast. He knew that he too was in hiding and would probably become a suspect. He phased as soon as he was out of sight in the bush land. For hours at a time he camped by Tabetha’s house at night waiting for Lila, until exhausted, he crawled back to Sam’s cabin.

  Jackson was there. “The police have been,” he mentioned as though it had been hours instead of days since they had last spoken.

  “Did you speak to them?”

  “No.” J shook his head.

  Reid looked reliev
ed.

  “Has she run with the brother? Are you going to join her?”

  Reid moped. “They have taken the boy. She went to get him,” he breathed, his honey eyes wide.

  “Alone?”

  “Yes,” his voice broke and he swallowed.

  “You look bushed.” J moved to set a stool by him “Sit, talk,” he gestured.

  “I couldn’t stop her.” He looked at Jackson, his amber eyes full of pain. “Have you decided to help us?”

  Jackson quietly glanced at Angele who was out back reading on a chair by the pool.

  “Yeah, it’s the same as at the meeting. I’d rather not, but Angele believes we need to take the leaders out. You were right, they wanted her to spy,” he admitted.

  “You have to be with me, J, or you’re against me now.” Reid was asking for more reassurance. “Is she with us or them?” he asked sternly.

  “With us – I don’t doubt it. But they have a hold on her. We have to protect her from them.”

  “Have you been keeping an eye on her?”

  “Yes.” He said sternly.

  “J, I’ll only ask you this once – are you with us 100 per cent?”

  He looked indecisive. “Fine, I’m with you.” He motioned to Angele to come inside. “Just fill us in on what’s happened,” he asked Reid as Angele slid the glass door open, understanding the urgency in Jack’s eyes.

  Reid sat down and rubbed his eyebrows, resting his hand over his brow with a blank stare aimed towards the floor. “They’ve got her there. She went as soon as she knew Bronson was gone. She took the guns from the basement and I couldn’t stop her. Fuck, I helped her.” He breathed out, frustrated.

  “What now then?”

  “We wait for Lila to show. No one, not even Cres, knew where she was.” Lila was the only one who could have talked Cres down. “Dammit,” he grunted, flipping his dark hair out of his eyes. He jumped up to pace the carpet and stopped to face Jackson. “They’ll kill her.” He looked at Angele and she didn’t disagree. “If they haven’t already,” he admitted, tearing up.