by Sage Hunter
“It was easy. You and I had been growing apart for years,” he said, the car making a slow turn on the road towards the property that she had visited where she learned that Lucas was cheating on her. “But you didn’t even seem to notice it until it became blindingly obvious.”
“What’re you talking about?” asked Tessa, her eyes flicking towards the ramshackle settlements that had cropped up along the road since the last time she’d been there.
“I’d been getting more and more into this world for the last year, why do you think I’d been abandoning my art? I started by hanging out with these guys after drinks at the bar. It just kinda grew from there. Turns out I’ve got something of a knack for this business.”
“A ‘knack?’” asked Tessa, feeling as though she were talking to someone she’d never met before.
“Yep. Making connections, distributing, supervision, production- all that. These guys were small-timers until they found me. I was able to do for their business in the last few months what they’d been unable to do in the last two years. They just needed someone with a little imagination.”
“You must be very proud of all this,” said Tessa, gesturing towards the road that led to the compound, the fields on both sides strewn with vagrants and junkies eking out meager existences for the sole purpose of being near the meth lab.
“Cost of doing business,” he said, seemingly immune to the sight of the human misery around him. “This town was on the brink of collapse anyway, it just needed a little push to finish the process.”
“But why?” asked Tessa.
Lucas’s eyes narrowed.
“Because I was tired of our boring life, nothing happening day in and day out. I wanted excitement, while you wanted nothing but the same things every day.”
“So, you thought this was the way out.”
“It was the way out.”
The farmhouse grew closer, another party raging out front, just like the one that Tessa ventured into the night she found Lucas.
“I did this for us, by the way,” said Lucas, looking out the window at the party on the lawn. “You have no idea how much money I’ve been able to make so quickly. I was going to buy the life that we’d always wanted.”
“Is that why you cheated on me?” asked Tessa, not buying his altruistic explanations.
“Hey, when you’re the head of a meth empire you end up getting a lot of attention. You say ‘no’ 49 times, on the 50th, you’re gonna crack.”
Tessa glared at Lucas.
“Besides, that’s all over now. Once we, well, I’ll tell you about the rest of the plan later, but now that you’re here back by my side where you belong, away from those bear freaks, we can get back it just being you and me.”
“’Bear freaks’?” demanded Tessa. “You don’t know the first thing about them.”
“I know that they’re standing in the way of me expanding my market. Do you have any idea how many labs this crew has lost to them over the last few years? Too many, that’s for damn sure.”
The car attracted a crowd as it pulled through the party towards the stretch of land behind the large farmhouse. The crowd was comprised of everyone from junkie hangers-on to teenage groupies to tough-looking gang members, all recognizing the car as Lucas’s, all wanting to discuss business with him…business of one form or another.
“And these yokels here in Branlen all figured they were forest spirits or some crazy shit like that. They needed someone with half a brain to realize that there was something weird going on with that compound that the Swift boys owned, something probably connected to what was going on in the woods. Needless to say, one of my first orders of business was to wipe them off the map. And when I found out that they were loaded, well, so much the better.”
“You’re a monster,” said Tessa, her eyes narrowed.
“No,” said Lucas as the car pulled into what appeared to be a recently installed garage. “The monsters are those…animals out there.”
He pointed towards the general direction of the compound.
“They’re beasts, they kill because they can’t help it. It’s part of their nature. And I don’t know what Atticus or the rest of them told you, but they’ll kill you in time.”
“You’re wrong.”
Lucas shrugged.
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, my plan seems to be going off without a hitch. The pack should be wiped out by now, with the exception of Atticus, who’ll be helpfully depositing his millions into the designated account any minute now.”
The car came to a stop and the driver killed the engine.
“And you’ll be right where you should be, at my side. With the money and power I’ve earned for us, we can do anything. We can even start that family you’ve always wanted.”
Thoughts of a wanting a family flooded back into Tessa’s mind. It was true, starting a family was a journey that she’d always imagined going on with Lucas. But as the years went on, the idea grew more and more distant, until it was only a shadow of a thought. She’d felt that they’d grown so accustomed to their lives as they were that there was simply no room for a baby. But now that Lucas spoke the words aloud, she realized that the love that she had felt for Lucas had simply faded over time, and with it, the desire to start a family with him. And as she grew older, on some level she felt that family was just something that was never going to happen for her.
But now that things were the way they were now, the idea of carrying Lucas’s child brought a feeling of sickness to Tessa’s stomach.
“I’ll never start a family with you,” said Tessa, her eyes narrow, her glare as sharp as blades.
But Lucas only smiled in response, a sly, knowing smile.
“We’ll see about that.”
The driver, a reedy man in a button-up shirt of blue silk and a pair of jeans embellished with rhinestones opened the doors and led the two out of the car, the pair of gang members following close behind. That familiar thumping bass, the same one that she’d heard that night weeks ago, filled her ears. Tessa wanted nothing more than to leave, to never see this horrible place or its hundreds of wasted, junkie inhabitants ever again. But as Lucas took her arm in his grip, she knew that this wasn’t possible.
“Come with me, Tess,” he said, flashing a toothy smiled as he gazed at her with narrowed eyes.
The driver opened the door from the garage, leading to a small, dark, hallway. The volume of the party increased as they reached the end, and once they did, the driver, flashing a smile of his own, opened the door. Beyond was a crowd of parties, dancing to the music, their bodies filling all available space of the farmhouse. But once Lucas entered with Tessa at his side, all eyes nearby fell upon them.
The crowd held still for a moment, as if confirming what they were seeing, before bursting into wild cheering. To Tessa, they seemed to be celebrating Lucas’s return, and she surmised that he must’ve told them that when he came back his business with the Swifts would be long-finished.
Lucas held up a hand, a smile on his face. The crowd continued cheering and Tessa’s gaze swept upon the jubilant masses, noting that each face seemed to be stricken by the effects of meth abuse in its own way. Some were pock-marked, some were red-eyed, some were prematurely-aged. But all looked terrible.
“They’re celebrating us,” said Lucas, yelling to Tessa over the crowd. “I told them that when I returned with you at my side, it would mean that we’d won.”
Horror crept through the Tessa as she looked over the crowd.
“Don’t you get it?” he asked, yelling louder. “These are your people, I’m their king. And you’re my queen.”
Tessa felt as though she wanted to drop to her knees and scream. It was hell that Lucas promised her, a horrible reign over a court of the damned.
CHAPTER 21
“What’s the plan, big brother?” asked Clyde to Atticus, who was looking out through the living room wall at the darkened woods beyond the compound.
“We go get her, it’s as s
imple as that.”
“That much is obvious,” said Ian, entering the room, his feet crunching on the broken glass that lay strewn across the floor. “But what are you proposing, exactly?”
Atticus was still figuring out just how he wanted to approach the plan of rescuing Tessa and destroying the meth operation. But he had some ideas. And all of them ended with him poised over Lucas, preparing to rip him into shreds with deadly swipes of his claws.
“Let the men get a few hour’s rest,” said Atticus, not turning away from the window. “And that goes for you all, if you need it.”
He could sense that Roland was there in the room with them. Turning around, his instinct was confirmed: his three brothers stood side-by-side, awaiting orders.
“No need for rest here,” said Roland. “I’m ready to do what needs to be done.”
“Yeah,” added Ian. “I’m still riding a high from the fight in the woods.”
“I just want to get Tessa back,” said Clyde. “Every moment she’s with Lucas is another moment she has to suffer.”
Atticus nodded, pleased that his brothers were as loyal as ever. He considered just how he might reward them for their loyalty when this business was taken care of.
After a moment of thought, he had just the idea.
But for now, he needed to figure out how to both take advantage of the element of surprise and to overcome the numerical advantage that the gang had.
“How many junkies did the pack take out in the woods?” asked Lucas.
“Hmm,” thought aloud Roland. “Had to have been at least 30.”
“30?” asked Atticus, surprised. “Then that means we can take them at three-to-one odds. Maybe more if we surprise them.”
Then, a thought occurred to Atticus.
“Ian, do you still have the satellite map of the region? The one that showed all of the infrastructure?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I think I just might have an idea.”
* * *
It was hours later, and the pack was ready to take the fight to the gang. But as they followed Atticus through the woods, still in their human forms, running through the still evening air, each man was gripped with the question of what Atticus had in mind, exactly. He had them bring no weapons, all dressed in outfits of their “worst” clothes- what Atticus told them to wear.
But after nearly an hour of running through the woods, they only stopped when they came across a massive power generator, an enormous relay of two large, metal coils draped with power lines, a small shack in the middle. The perimeter of the place was a tall, steel fence topped with vicious-looking barbed wire and festooned with signs covered in large, red letters of warning. Atticus stopped at the entrance gate to the place, looking over the facility with a careful eye. The men fell in line behind him, waiting for a command.
“Everyone!” he shouted to the men and his brothers, who all stood in front of him. “The farmhouse is a mile that way.”
He pointed down the slope of the hill they were on, a path that followed the black drooping power lines.
“Form up, here’s the plan.”
CHAPTER 22
Tessa sat on the tacky, leather chair in Lucas’s bedroom, the very same room where she encountered him in flagrante with two barely-legal women. The room was expansive, it was the master bedroom of the farmhouse. Though whatever tasteful farmer’s décor might’ve brightened the place was gone, replaced with tacky colors, garish posters, and drug paraphrenia that seemed to cover every available surface.
She felt insulted, as though he were rubbing her face in what was going on, that he had succeeded in stealing her away from Atticus, that he had managed to get her right where he wanted her, despite her wishes and protestations. And the worst part was that she knew there was nothing she could do.
“See, this is pretty nice, isn’t it?” asked Lucas, throwing open the curtains of the bedroom, exposing the vast tract of cleared land behind the farm, the first half of which was packed with partygoers, the crowd trailing off into the distance.
It was a massive throng, a black, shifting mass dotted by tiny flickers of light that she assumed were drugs being sparked up. What’s more, she noticed that the crowd was even larger than it was before, meaning the amount of users addicted to Lucas’s poison had only increased. She feared that soon the entire town would be under the thumb of Lucas and his gang.
Tessa glared at Lucas from her seat, her arms flat on the rests, her nails digging into the glossy, red fabric of the chair. Lucas looked out of the window, shaking his head in awe at the masses of people below.
“That’s something, isn’t it?” he said, his eyes fixed forward. “You remember when we first moved here? This place was nothing, just a handful of buildings surrounded by the woods, that big mountain looking down on everything. Population, what, 300?”
He shook his head.
“Now look at it- it’s like an actual city. Sure, it’s mostly junkies and drifters, but it’s more than it was before. And the best part is that I run things.”
“Oh?” asked Tessa. “You’ve ruined this town and you think this is an improvement?”
“Better than wasting my days in that cabin, waiting for a big break that was never going to come.”
He turned towards Tessa.
“And now that the bears are done for, this whole area is under my control.”
“You’re not going to get away with it,” said Tessa, glowering at Lucas.
“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear,” he said. “Because I already have.”
With that, there was a gentle rapping on the bedroom door.
“Come in!” called Lucas.
The door creaked open and Tessa's eyes shot towards whoever it was that was none other than the two girls who she’d seen Lucas cheating on her with. Her stomach dropped as the two scantily-clad women sauntered in, their gazes sensual and fixed on Lucas.
“Tess, I’d like you to meet Becky and Jessica,” said Lucas as the two girls made their way over to him, Lucas slipping his bare arms around their slim shoulders as they reached him.
“Hey,” said the redhead, waving her fingers.
“Hey,” said the blonde, her eyes tracking up Tessa’s body.
“What’s going on?” Tessa demanded.
“Well, you all recognize each other, right?” asked Lucas, to which the two girls nodded in agreement. “Good. Well, I figured that we all got off on the wrong foot that night. And now that Tessa’s back into the fold, I think we ought to give her a proper welcome.
“Sounds great to me,” said the redhead, a seductive grin on her face.
“Mmm, I’d love to,” said the blonde.
The redhead then pulled her shirt over her head, revealing a pair of small, pert breasts with small pink nipples. The blonde followed, her larger, tanned breasts tumbling out from underneath her thin t-shirt. Tessa wanted to get up and leave, to run out of the house right then and there just like before, but she knew there was no way she’d get far.
Instead, she dug her nails into the fabric as the two girls moved their hands up Lucas’s body underneath his shirt, pulling it over his head and off, revealing the sculpted, perfect physique that Tessa knew so intimately. The two girls began kissing his torso, their lips dragging across his body as Lucas took a long swig from a nearby bottle of whiskey.
Then, Lucas ran a hand through each of the girls’ hair, guiding them away from his body and towards one another. The girls got the hint right away and locked their lips together as they kneeled in front of Lucas, their wet sounds of their kissing loud and sensual.
“Didn’t we always talk about spicing things up in the bedroom?” asked Lucas, turning his gaze towards Tessa. “Well, now’s the chance.”
Tessa watched as the blonde scooped one of the redhead’s breasts into her hand and began sucking and licking her nipple, the redhead moaning all the while. But as Tessa watched, a strange feeling began to come over her. She was disgusted by Lucas,
sure, but something about watching these two beautiful women kiss and touch one another aroused something deep in Tessa. She watched the girls kiss and fondle one another, the redhead slipping her hand up the blonde’s skirt, the blonde taking in a sharp breath as she did so.
“Beautiful, beautiful,” said Lucas. “See? It’s good to be king.”
Lucas left the girls to their business and walked over to a nearby dresser, retrieving drug paraphernalia from it.
“You know what would make this even better,” he said, a lighter in one hand, a glass pipe in the other.
The two girls eyed the drugs with hunger and as Tessa watched how their expressions lit up as they looked at Lucas’s offering, whatever arousal she was feeling disappeared like mist on the wind. The two girls eagerly took the drugs from Lucas’s hands and got them ready to smoke.
But right at the moment they would’ve sparked them, the lights in the room cut out, leaving the four of them in total pitch darkness.
“What the hell?” demanded Lucas.
But a slim smile crossed Tessa’s face as she sat in the dark. She didn’t know how she knew, but there was only one thing this could mean: Atticus was here.
CHAPTER 23
Atticus watched from his vantage point on the small hill beyond the farmhouse as the lights to the place went dark, shrouding the building and the partiers around in a deep darkness, the deafening thumping of the music shutting off abruptly, the silence of nature reasserting itself.
The generator has been a simple set-up, and looking over the equipment, he saw that it would be easy to rig the thing to shut off at a particular time- in this case, a half hour. His brothers and the rest of the pack were given orders to infiltrate the party, to take up positions in the crowd, and to be ready to shift and strike when the power shut off.
He looked over the crowd, trying to spot the members of his pack, but it was simply too dark.
But the roars and screams that sounded seconds later signaled to him that the plan was underway.
Atticus was pleased that all seemed to be going according to plan, but this feeling was quickly replaced with a sense of urgency. He knew that Lucas was smart enough to realize that the power outage wasn’t a mere coincidence and that it almost certainly meant that Atticus and the rest of the pack were gearing up to make an attack. And Atticus knew that as soon as Lucas realized this, Tessa’s life would be in danger.