“I want him dead,” said Charlie. “He doesn’t deserve to draw another breath after what he’s done.”
Bartholomew let out a solemn sigh. “Now, son, while I understand your anger, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to see the sheriff suffer as well, but whether he lives or dies is not our decision to make.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Charlie stood and shoved his chair out of the way. “I’ll go along with your guys’ plan. I won’t do anything to mess it up. But I’m telling you right now, if I see him, if I get a chance to slice that son of bitch’s throat, I’m taking it. End of story.” He started to walk out of the room.
“Charlie, don’t be an idiot.” Teddy got of his seat and picked up the chair Charlie threw. Charlie was standing in the doorway, his back to the group. “If you kill the sheriff, you’ll be arrested before you even get a chance to see Alex again, nonetheless be there to see the birth of your child.”
“Teddy’s right,” said Xavier. “You won’t be any good to us rotting behind bars. The sheriff will get all he deserves and more. We will have a rock solid case against him.”
“And,” Bartholomew added, “we will hire the best prosecution lawyers money can buy. He will live out the rest of his days in prison. we will make sure of that.”
Bartholomew saw his son’s shoulders rising and falling with his heavy breath. He turned back to the group wearing an expression of pure, blood-curdling hatred. The only other time he’d seen his son so angry was after he broke the news that the boy’s mother had been killed. There was the same savage, fiery look in eyes that day as there was now.
“Fine,” said Charlie. “I won’t kill him. Not yet anyway.” He turned and left.
That was the best Bartholomew knew they could hope for. Teddy went to stop Charlie from leaving, but Bartholomew put a hand out and cupped his middle-son’s shoulder. “Let him go. We need to start getting ready anyway.”
“Finally,” said Uma. She was standing and in one quick motion, she pulled a handgun that she’d had tucked in her waistband and cocked it. “Now let’s save my daughter and grandbaby.”
Here Goes Nothing
Alex heard voices from upstairs. She couldn’t make out who was speaking, but it sounded like there were at least four or five different people in the house. Her first thought was to call for help, but she decided against it. If what Billy had said was true, these people were here to purchase women or babies, which meant it was probably a pretty safe bet that they weren’t going to help set her free. Besides, she had someone in her corner now and she was sure the brothers and her family were hard at work looking for her. Everything would be okay.
Everything will be okay.
Instead of screaming for help, she focused on once again trying to slip her feet out of the cuffs the sheriff used to bind her ankles together. Originally, she’d just been tied up with rope, but she got those knots undone the first day, and immediately started walking around looking for a way out, or possibly for a weapon. The sheriff wasn’t happy with this new development and decided to use a pair of heavy metal prisoner cuffs.
What he didn’t realize, however, was that when he put the cuffs on, Alex’s ankles had been very swollen, from carrying around her massive pregnant belly all day. Since then, the swelling had gone down immensely, because Alex had been off her feet for nearly seventy-two hours. Now, the cuffs hung very loose on her, and she was pretty sure, if she could angle her foot in just the right way, she could get out of them.
It helped that the basement floor was wet from all the leaky pipes. She took her shoes off, splashed her bare feet around in a puddle by the wall, and went to work.
Sometime later, Alex wasn’t sure quite how long, she managed to get her left foot out. “Ha! Yes!” she whispered to her belly. “I did it.” She reached for her right ankle when a smoky scent wafted into the basement.
Is somebody making a campfire?
There was a commotion upstairs. People were stomping, running maybe. She heard a door slam and some yelling coming from outside the house. Smoke started to seep in through the small window in the top corner of the basement. It’s a fire, she realized with horror. A real fire.
She stood up on her now semi-free feet, and stumbled, slightly, after days of only sitting. Were they really just going to leave her there to burn to death? She started to climb the stairs, dragging the cuffs with her.
“Hello!” she yelled. She reached the top of the stairs and tried the door just in case Billy had thought to leave it unlocked. He didn’t. “Can anyone hear me?! Hello!” She pounded on the door. There was another door slam, huge crashing sounds, and then it was all growls and barks.
There were obvious sounds of a fight, maybe multiple fights. Somebody was growling and another weare was yelping. Alex pounded on the door harder, and yelled louder. All this pandemonium couldn’t be a coincidence. The brothers were here, they found her. She was sure of it.
The hope-shattering sound of gunfire echoed throughout the house. The growls were replaced by yelling. She heard Joel’s voice.
“The fire is spreading,” he said. “We need to get everyone out. Have you found them yet?”
Alex opened her mouth to scream again, when someone else beat her to the chase. The voice came from the other side of the door. “Mary, are you in there?” She didn’t recognize the voice. “Mary, it’s David. Get away from the door, I’m gonna’ bust it down.”
Alex went about halfway down the stairs and waited. Something pounded the door twice, causing it to bend and creak promisingly. On the third try, the lock gave and the door swung open.
“Mary?” He was in human form, but obviously a weare. He stared at Alex, then past her. “Is Mary in here?”
“They took her somewhere else.” Alex ran up the stairs. “But she’s still in the house somewhere.” She slipped past him and into a hallway. “C’mon.”
“Alex!” Suddenly she was scooped up into a pair of strong, familiar arms. Xavier smiled down at her. “There you are.”
He was running towards the front door.
“Hang up,” said Alex. “I need to find Mary and the others.”
“David and Mark are on it.” He didn’t slow down. “My priority is to get you to safety.”
There was no one left in the house except them, David and Mark, whoever they were, and however many women were still being held hostage. Alex caught a glance out of one of the east facing windows. The house next door was engulfed in flames as was the fence between the two properties.
They got to the front door, which was shut. Xavier tried to rearrange the pregnant Alex so that he could better grab onto the handle. “Just put me down!” she ordered. “I can walk.” He did as he was told. “Thank you.” She cupped his face in her hands. “Listen, I appreciate you coming to save me, now I have to go save those women.” She planted a passionate kiss on his lips. “I’m sorry, and I love you.”
Xavier was too shocked by what just happened to grab Alex in time. She slipped out his reach and ran up the stairs to the second level of the house.
“Mary?” She peaked her head into the first room on the left. Empty. “Mary, can you hear me?” Then Xavier and two strangers, presumably Mark and David, were behind her now, shouting as well.
They checked every room on the upper level; nothing. Between the yelling and the smoke, their voices became hoarse. They stopped a moment at the end of the hallway and contemplated what to do next.
“We need to get out of here, now,” said Xavier. “They clearly aren’t here. The sheriff must’ve moved––”
“Shhh!” said Alex. “Listen.”
The four of them fell silent, but the sound of crackling, burning wood and those still yelling and fighting outside drowned out the silence. Finally, Alex heard it again: a soft thump, coming from right above their heads.
Throwing her head back she pointed at the ceiling. “There. They are in the attic.”
“I didn’t think there was an attic,” sa
id one of the men. “How do we get up there?”
Alex scanned the ceiling, running her eyes up and down the length of the hallway. There wasn’t single notch in the wood that would allude to a door or a string to pull and bring down a staircase.
“It’s in here,” called a voice at the other end of the hall. It was Billy. He was gesturing them into the master bedroom. “Follow me.”
They ran after him. He went right for the closet, pushed against the back wall, which opened a panel. There was a hidden staircase. They filed in one at time. The door at the top of the staircase was locked, but Billy, being so large, only had to throw his weight against it once to break the lock.
There were three women in the room. They all looked incredibly weak and exhausted. Mary couldn’t stand on her own and the lap of her nightgown was stained with blood. Her husband, David, picked her up and ran down the steps without so much as a goodbye to the others. The other man, Mark, ran to a slightly older looking woman. She was able to make her way down the steps without being carried. The third woman was backed into a far corner, clearly unsure of what was going on.
Xavier took a step towards her. “It’s okay, we are here to save you.”
“Ge’ back!” she yelled. “Ge’ back, you stupid dog! I aint goin’ nowhere with no weares!”
This gave Xavier some pause. Alex stepped in front of him and got within a foot of the raving woman. “Listen, if you stay here, you’re going to die. The house is due to go up in flames any second.”
“And what does this make you.” She looked at Alex with disgust. “Some kinda’ weare fucker?”
Alex gawked. “What... Weren’t you carrying a mixed breed baby? Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Hell no!” The woman spat on the floor next to her. “I’d never. I don’t know why I’m here. I was mindin’ my own business, in my hometown a ways South from here, next thing I know some skinny, bone-chewin’ half-breed came up behind me and stuck a needle in my neck. Woke up in that basement. A few weeks later they took my baby. My totally human baby girl.”
Alex looked over her shoulder. “The sheriff wasn’t just nabbing mixed breeds. He was starting a full-blown baby selling business.”
A horrible crashing sound came from below them. “We don’t have time for this.” Xavier looked at the woman. “You can come with us or not. Either way, we are getting the hell out of here.” He grabbed Alex’s arm and started pulling her towards the door.
“C’mon!” she screamed at the woman. “You’re going to die if you stay!”
The woman watched them go, still keeping herself cornered. Finally, just as Xavier dragged Alex down the stairs and she lost sight of her, the woman appeared at the top of the stairs. She was having trouble getting down them and she slipped about halfway down.
“Ah!” she yelled. Xavier and Alex were at the bottom of the stairs now. Alex looked back. The woman was holding her ankle.
“Go get her!” Alex ordered Xavier. He ran to the woman, picked her up, and yelled for Alex to make for the front door. The woman was hollering and complaining the whole way, telling Xavier to get his muddy mutt hands off of her. He ignored her offensive comments. They made it to the front door. Alex grabbed for the door handle, but immediately pulled her hand back.
“Ow!” She shook her hand. “It’s hot.”
Xavier peaked out the window in the door. “The porch is on fire. It’s okay, we can get past. We just have to hurry.”
Again, he tried to open the door while holding someone in his arms. Alex pushed him out of the way. She pulled the bottom of her shirt and used it as a buffer between her skin and the metal of the doorknob. It didn’t do much to stifle the pain, but it gave her enough relief to get the door open.
They ran, Xavier just behind Alex. A millisecond after they stepped off the porch and onto the front lawn, the load bearing porch columns gave and the whole thing came down in a fiery, dreadful crash.
Nigel was waiting with the car at the edge of the driveway. Xavier carried the woman all the way to the car, Alex followed them, slowing her pace and surveying the area. The house next door was nothing but a pile of blackened wood, soot, and ash. The sound of sirens could be heard over the snap and pops of the fire. She spotted Joel’s truck parked down the street. He was standing next to it, two weares in wolf form pacing in front of him.
“Hey!” she called and waved frantically. They all three turned and began to run to her. Teddy and Charlie got to her first and nearly took her down with their unbridled excitement. They licked her hands maniacally and rubbed against her legs, yelping and whining. Joel pulled her into a tight hug, careful to squeeze her around the shoulders and not the stomach.
Alex’s eyes stung, both from the smoke and from the moment. She wasn’t sure what to say, so she just kept petting the wolves and hugging her dad.
“I said, I aint gettin’ in no car with no weares, you hear me?” The woman was yelling at Xavier, who was standing with car door open.
“We will take you wherever you want to go, we promise,” said Xavier. “Please, just let us help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’ll find myself a phone and call a cab.”
“Do you even have any money?” Alex walked over to them.
The woman frowned. “I’ll figure it out.”
Alex looked at Xavier. “Do you have any money?” He nodded and pulled some bills from his pocket. He gave it to her. “Take this,” said Alex. “If you insist on getting home on your own, then take this. We’re going to catch the man who did this to us and then we’re going to get him thrown in jail. Your testimony will make our case that much stronger.” She reached out and put the money in the woman’s hand. She held on for a moment. “We won’t bother you anymore, but if you change your mind and decide you want to help us, call the Swan City information center and have them transfer you to the Armstrong residence. Got that? Armstrong.”
The woman took the money but gave no indication she was hearing a word Alex said. She looked at the only other human in the group.
“You gotta’ phone I can use?” she asked Joel.
“It’s in the truck,” he said. “Come with me.”
“We’re going to head back to the mansion,” said Xavier. “Don’t want to be here when all the fire trucks and cops show.”
“I’ll meet you back there,” said Joel. “I’ve got my cover story for them all figured out.”
Xavier nodded. He looked to his brothers. “There isn’t room for you both in this form. You’ll have to get home yourselves home.”
They nodded back, licked Alex each one last time, and ran off into the woods behind the sheriff’s house.
“Master Xavier, we must go,” said Nigel.
Alex and the eldest Armstrong brother crawled into the back seat of the town car. Nigel had the engine running already. He peeled out onto the street, turning in the opposite direction from where the sirens were coming, and drove down the street faster than a speeding bullet.
Everyone, save Joel, was at the mansion once Alex and Xavier got back. They were all waiting outside sitting on the front porch. Uma ran to the car door and tried to open it before Nigel had even come to a full stop.
Alex was embraced by her mother and her other four fathers for what felt like hours. Hera was next. She was crying and couldn’t stop asking if Alex was okay, if they’d hurt her, if the baby was safe. Soon, Charlie and Teddy came out of the house, in their human forms and a fresh set of clothes. They were each given their chance to hug her, kiss her, and tell her over and over again how much they loved her. She’d never felt so warm and safe in her life. Xavier, not one for public displays of affection, had said all he needed to say on the car ride over. Not a block from the sheriff’s house he told Alex he loved her back, and when he went to kiss her on the cheek, she went for his mouth.
Bartholomew was waiting at the top of the steps. Alex smiled at him and slowly ascended the stairs. “I’m glad yo
ur home safe,” he said. “I’m so sorry we ever let this happen. I promise you, we will never let our guard down again.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” She glanced back at Charlie. “It was no one’s fault.” She cautiously reached her arms out for a hug, unsure if she and Bartholomew were on hugging terms yet. He returned the gesture and they embraced. He smoothed some of her hair down and kissed the top of her head, just like a father would.
Inside, Alex went right to the kitchen. She started pulling things out of the fridge, snacking on one food item while she searched for another.
“The chef can make you whatever you want,” said Bartholomew. “I’ll call him.”
“Sure, that’s fine. Tell him to make whatever,” Alex said in between bites she was taking directly off a block of cheddar cheese. “In the meantime, I’m going to keep eating. I haven’t had a real meal in days, and our little baby wolf is not happy about it.”
Everyone had gathered around the white marble kitchen island. They eyed each other nervously as Alex, oblivious to the mood in the room, ate crackers from the box, handfuls at a time. Finally, Uma spoke up.
“Alex, what did he do to you?” She held eye contact with her daughter for a moment, then looked away. “Did he hurt you?”
Alex put the box of crackers down, realizing how tense everyone had become. “Guys, I’m fine. Besides basically starving me, he didn’t do anything. I got off easy compared to those other women.” That reminded her. “Where are they? The others? And where is he?”
“Mary and Charlotte were taken directly to the hospital. They and their husbands are going to call with an update,” said Teddy. “Right now, we’ve got the sheriff locked up in the single cell in council hall. Dad hired multiple guards to watch him, just in case.”
“How’d you guys get him?” Alex picked up the box again. “I want to hear everything.” She made for the living room. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to eat in there, but she figured an exception could be made given the circumstances.
The BabyMakers’ Shared Property Page 13