The Bureau (A Cage for Men and Wolves Book 1)
Page 22
Clover counted her steps like seconds as she burned holes in the back of Elliot's head. He wasn't dawdling, but his phone led them through a maze of side roads that were slowly driving Clover insane. As they went, the buildings got bigger and less decorative, and Clover thought they might be working their way into the industrial part of town. Elliot's eyes spent most of their time trained on the small dot Clover saw on the map when she looked over his shoulder. She'd been so busy counting and snooping that she almost ran into him when he stopped on a silent strip of sidewalk.
The pounding of Clover's heart made it hard to hear, and for a second she thought she'd missed what Elliot was saying, then she realized he wasn't saying anything at all. He looked at his map, then across the street; at his map again, then at the building they stood in front of. She watched him turn all the way around before she finally jerked him by the shoulder of his coat.
"What are you doing?" There was no one around, but she still had enough sense to keep her voice down.
He looked at his phone again. "It says we're here."
It was Clover's turn to look at every building around them. She didn't know what a finishing school was supposed to look like, but surely they would at least look open. The buildings down the street they stood on all looked closed for the day, if not abandoned all together. Elliot turned to the four story building to their left again as he backed out into the dead street, trying to get a more encompassing view of the brick facade.
"This is it." Elliot said, pointing to a set of metal letters embedded in the pediment over the wide doors. "2105." He looked at his map again.
"There's no sign. Is there supposed to be a sign?"
"I don't know." He walked up to the door, checking the knobs—neither door budged.
"Are we on the right street?"
"Yes." He backed up again, and this time Clover followed him, looking up to take in the wide, squat building.
The structure was only good for function, though Clover got the impression someone had paid to have it prettied up. The windows were all boarded, which made her gut tense, but they'd been painted white with small decorative frames drawn around them. Her heart pummeled her ribs, but not from excitement any more.
"What does this mean?"
"I don't know," he said again, looking up and down the street. "Let’s go back the way we came. I saw a store that was still open before we turned off the main street. Someone there might know something."
Clover didn't want to walk away. Walking away felt like giving up—like she was putting more distance between herself and Reed again. It made her feel sick, but she knew that loitering outside a closed building wasn't going to help either.
"Okay."
The walk back toward the section of town that was still populated somehow felt longer than the dragging minutes she'd experienced going the other direction. She cradled her own arms like she was cold, but knew it was only an excuse to steady herself. Elliot bee-lined for the nearest storefront, a small thrift store—the type that didn't ask questions when one of her pack members had a few dollars to spend on a coat or shoes.
Inside, an older man sat behind the counter while a woman Clover assumed was his wife straightened racks of stale-smelling clothes.
“Excuse me.” Elliot offered the older couple one of his best smiles as they entered the small space. “I was hoping I could ask you folks—“
“We don’t allow pets in the store.” The man behind the counter, who was sifting through a pile of cheap looking jewelry, didn’t spare them more than a glance. Maybe this place wasn’t like the shops Clover was used to back home.
She saw Elliot stiffen, but knew they weren’t in a position to cause a fuss. Instead, he turned to look at her, nodding. Keeping her temper in check had become easier, but her blood still ran hot as she stepped outside. They could be as horrible as they wanted, as long as they provided the directions she needed. The door was propped open with a sale sign, so she positioned herself near the entrance, hoping to hear some of their conversation.
“That can’t be right.” Once Elliot’s voice rose above the polite tone he’d started in, Clover heard the conversation perfectly. “I’m certain this is the address.”
"Well, I don't know what to tell ya, kid." The old man's voice was hoarse, like he'd spent the better part of a century smoking. "That building's been empty for at least ten years. And even before that, I think it was a textile mill. We've never had one of your werewolf schools in this neck of the woods."
A stillness fell over Clover as the store owner's words settled in around her. And Elliot was insisting the man was mistaken when Clover’s feet turned away from the thrift shop.
He was wrong.
He had to be wrong.
- 28 -
She kept her pace under control until she turned off the main street. Alone in the valley of stone buildings, Clover’s feet pounded the sidewalk in time with her racing heart. She shook, and panic washed through her system in. Rainer wasn’t chasing her any more, not physically at least. But he was there, in the back of her mind with his shackles and his wire cutters, promising torment. She had to get inside the building. She had to prove to herself his reach was not this long. It could not reach these outskirts of the city, and it could not reach the depths of her psyche. Her brother would be a victory. Her brother would mean that Rainer hadn’t taken everything from her.
The front doors were locked, just as they had been when Elliot had half-heartedly tried them. She backed up, looking for a crack in one of the boarded windows, anything she might be able to shimmy into—nothing. There were no proper alleys between the buildings on this street, but there was a narrow walkway, no wider than Clover's shoulders. She climbed and stumbled over the empty crates and pallets that had filled the space over the years, the rough wood scraping her hands and knees, but barely registering in her head. At the back of the building she had better luck.
Despite the trim look of the building’s facade, the back had been left to fall apart. Here, where visitors couldn't see, boards fell from the windows, Ivy crawled up the brick walls in sheets, tendrils of green forming unnatural right angles as they followed grout pathways. An old dumpster sat beside a raised entrance that had once catered to semi-trucks. Scraps of wood protruded from under the lid like pikes laid down to guard against enemy attack. But the receptacle was the perfect height to access one of the weakly-boarded windows.
Clover climbed to the top, avoiding the splinters of wood, and hoping the flimsy lid would support her weight. Gripping the lip of brick that framed the window, Clover kicked at the planks that covered it, the noise echoing in the last, quiet minutes of the day. It took minimal effort, but as the wood fell into the dark building, Clover felt like she'd broken down the last boards of hope that had kept the agony at bay.
Before Clover's feet hit the dirty floor inside the building, she knew the old shopkeeper had been right. Even in the dark—the pale grey-blue of twilight only lighting a few yards inside the window—Clover knew the building had been empty for years. She could smell the quiet age of the place, which seemed to be free, even, of squatters. Distantly, maybe from the upper floors, she could smell birds nesting in the eaves of the building. But she knew this wasn't a recently closed school.
She walked to the edge of the light provided from outside the building, where the last rays wouldn't disrupt her night vision, and peered into the room. There were a few support beams that suggested walls at some point, but it was nothing more than a hollowed out veneer now. Something ached inside her, and she had to sit down.
Reed was gone.
M i c h e l l e K a y
majored in anthropology at the University of West Florida and now lives in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. When not writing, she spends her time perfecting her Librarian’s SHHH where she works at the city library.
Visit her online at Facebooks.com/AuthorMichelleKay
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