They lingered in the embrace, clinging to the hazy afterglow as if their lives depended on it. Jeffery felt a soft warmth grow between them. Then he saw it, turning his black lids red over his pupils. Confused, he opened his eyes. The light wasn't emanating from Jordan, of course. It was coming from the headlights shining on them from a quarter mile away.
"Clothes," Jordan said quickly, but they were still locked together. Until Jordan receded, there was nothing to do but wait.
Jeffery wasn't interested in the clothes. He was trying to identify the cars coming toward them. Why would a bunch of little sedans be stopping at a rest stop on a Sunday night? The details began to come into focus, and his heart nearly stopped.
"Jordan," Jeffery said, numbly. "The car."
"What?"
As Jordan followed his gaze to the lead car, Jeffery saw realization register on his face and watched the blood drain out of it. He slipped out of Jeffery, flaccid with the force of his fear, and rolled into the driver seat.
"Did you lock the camper?" Jeffery asked, panicking at the idea of Darla waking up and stepping out onto moving asphalt.
"Yeah," Jordan said, grimly. "No time. Gotta go."
He started the truck and they started to move just as the convoy pulled into the parking lot. Jordan slammed on the gas pedal and peeled away, coming within inches of the lead car as he tore recklessly through the parking lot. The driver of the car met his eyes with a furious glare, and Jordan swallowed audibly.
"Ignore it, just drive," Jeffery yelled.
Jordan jumped the truck over sandy shoulders and flew over speed bumps. Jeffery winced, and Jordan cursed under his breath. They were both thinking about Darla, bouncing around in her bed. They would have to find a place to hide quickly so they could secure her. Jeffery checked the duct-taped mirror and swore.
The wolf's head on the hood of the little silver hybrid glowed red in their taillights.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"How do they keep finding us?" Jeffery asked, slamming his fist on the dash.
"Your GPS is off, right?"
"Yes! Is yours?"
"Yes, I made sure. The truck doesn't even have GPS."
"The camper! It was Montague's, he must have put something in it," Jeffery realized, slapping a hand over his forehead. "It's not going to matter how many detours we take. Get on the highway and get to Washington."
"No," Jordan said, gritting his teeth. "We get on the highway and get some distance, then we hide long enough to find whatever the fuck is transmitting."
"They'll find us before we do that!"
"Then we pull over long enough for me to jump in the back," Jordan revised. "I'll find the bug, you keep driving."
"Okay."
Jordan's hands slipped on the steering wheel, and they nearly ran off the road.
"We can't drive like this," he muttered. "Pulled over for indecent exposure if we don't crash first. Hand me the baby wipes. I'm pulling off over there behind that warehouse. Jump in the back and grab some clothes. I'll handle this oil issue. You have any more of that go juice?"
"I have a little more in my satchel," Jeffery said, pulling it out. "Can't do it while we're driving though."
"Put it in when you jump in the back," Jordan decided. "Hang on."
He whipped the wrong way down a one-way street and bounced over the dirt to hide in the shadows of an abandoned warehouse. They would have minutes at most.
"Make it quick! And grab my laptop!" he shouted out the window.
Jeffery was out and back in two minutes. He tossed a pair of sweats in the window, followed by Jordan's laptop, then disappeared again. A moment later he opened the back door, cradling the still-sleeping Dora against his chest. He strapped her in securely as Jordan moved over to the passenger seat.
"I'm going to try to piggyback on the signal," Jordan said grimly, as Jeffery ran around the front of the truck. "Drive."
Jeffery slid behind the wheel and started the truck again. He made a beeline for the freeway and barreled up the ramp, keeping his eyes open for Montague and his team. Jordan, meanwhile, had booted up his computer and was busily working on intercepting every signal in or out of the truck.
"Got it, you son of a bitch," he muttered.
"Can you shut it down?" Jeffery asked, sounding panicked. The five lanes behind them had suddenly lit up with a row of sedans, all driving together like some kind of mechanical tidal wave. There was no other reason for that, at this time of night, than Montague.
"I can," Jordan said. "But I have a better idea."
"Whatever it is, you damn well better make it quick. This truck won't outrun them for long."
Jordan's fingers flew over the keys. He was utterly in his zone, and it was a bit of a relief. This whole ordeal had left him feeling like a stupid and clumsy student. This was the one place where he excelled most. He worked his technological magic quickly and with brutal efficiency, but it wasn't fast enough. Jeffery was beginning to sweat as the lights crept closer.
"Take the next exit and go east," Jordan told him.
"What? Why? If I get off the freeway, they're going to..."
"Trust me," Jordan said, leaving no room for argument. "Get off the damn freeway, go east, then flip a bitch around the block and get back on."
Jeffery blew out an agitated breath, but did as he was told. He skidded through three lanes and made it off the freeway with inches to spare, then turned the truck east. He broke every speed limit and ran every red light as he followed Jordan's directions, and was mildly surprised that he didn't kill anyone or catch the attention of a traffic cop. For once, luck seemed to be on his side. By the time he made it back on the freeway, he was dying to know what was going on.
"Why did I do that?" he asked, as he pushed the truck to its limits.
"Because I flipped the map," Jordan said, with a grin. "As soon as you turned around, I flipped the map. The tracer is telling Montague that we're still going east, very fast, through a dense city. He'll be chasing his tail for hours."
Jeffery shot Jordan a look of pure delighted surprise, then laughed.
"You're some kind of genius," he said.
"Eh, you do what you can," Jordan said, grinning. "Keep driving, I'm gonna see what else I can do."
Jordan worked quickly to trace the signal to its receiver. He slipped through back doors and vaulted over firewalls as though he'd been doing it all his life, opening portals with his virtual parkour. He'd been hacking long before he ever got a real job in programming, and his skills were finally of some positive use. He was almost giddy with the pleasure of it all. Just one more barrier, and...
"Yes!" he shouted.
Darla mumbled in her sleep, and he winced. She really needed to not wake up right now.
"What is it?" Jeffery asked.
"I'm in," he said, more quietly now. "I've accessed Montague's network."
"No shit?"
"No shit. Holy... he's got some kind of manifesto here. And lists... oh, hell."
"What?"
"Two lists labeled 'confirmed' and 'pending'. The confirmed list has... shit. Thirteen hundred names. Pending... holy hell."
"How many?" Jeffery asked, through gritted teeth. He fought against the fear rising like bile in his throat.
"Five thousand, four hundred and thirty-two," Jordan said.
"No."
"Yeah. Jesus. But we don't know if these are pending shifters, do we? Maybe it's something else. Oh," he said suddenly, noticing the tabs at the top of the list. "Something else that uses the Greek and English alphabet to categorize people?"
"Like what, exactly? You think Montague's building a college and starting fraternities?" Jeffery asked, sarcasm hiding the tremor in his voice.
"Well, it was a shot. Shit. A thousand more than April had. What the hell does pending mean anyway?"
"He probably vets the humans before turning them, the way we do. Well, probably not exactly the way we do. What does the rank makeup look like for the confirmed?"
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Jordan ran a search on each rank, and named them off as he did.
"Two Betas. Three Gammas. Eight hundred and twelve Deltas. Two Epsilons. One Omicron. Three hundred and ninety-seven Omegas. Three missing."
Jeffery's mind worked quickly.
"He has a council," he said. "A council of three. Two mediators. One human relations specialist. And a boatload of breeders and recruiters."
"I'm guessing that isn't a good thing."
Jeffery shook his head. "It certainly isn't balanced; not by a long shot. What worries me more is the pending list. If he's planning to expand to that degree, he's going to be turning every human his Deltas can get their hands on. Three council members aren't going to be able to keep up with a vetting list that long. It's going to be chaos; I'm talking all-out war with the humans. Trust me, they don't give a rat's ass about pack affiliation when they feel threatened. They'll eradicate the lot of us to get rid of Montague."
Jordan ran a hand over his face and absently noticed that his scruff had gotten significantly more beard-like. He wondered how he'd look with a beard, then realized he was doing it again. Drifting into unessential thought patterns to ignore the crushing reality. He sighed heavily, then Jeffery spoke again.
"How are the pending shifters organized?" he asked.
Jordan jumped over to that file and ran the same search.
"Three-quarters Delta, one quarter Omega. Nothing else."
"That doesn't make any damn sense," Jeffery muttered. "How are you going to run a pack of six thousand with two mediators? And is the Omicron supposed to do the jobs of everyone in the entire Outreach? What the hell is he up to?"
Jordan recalled, with a flash of guilt, the way he felt immediately after he'd turned. If he hadn't had Darla or Jeffery around, would that feeling have subsided? Even now, he could tell that he'd changed. Jeffery had thought to get Darla, not him. He'd been hyper-focused on the problem at hand, and he'd been damn irritated that his night had been interrupted by Montague. It had felt offensive, like an affront to his entitled place. Without a reason to temper that arrogant beast, would he have come around to it in time? He wanted to believe he would, but he couldn't be sure. He was angry that it was troubling him. He'd had crises of conscience before, but never like this. He'd never seen himself reflected in a madman hell-bent on taking over the world, and he was annoyed that he could draw the parallel now.
"Montague doesn't have more people because he doesn't think he needs them," he told Jeffery quietly. "He believes that he is entitled to respect, loyalty, and probably the world. He feels like it's his birthright; like it's inevitable. He knows with irrational certainty that he can take over the world with Deltas alone."
Jeffery was quiet for a long moment.
"You felt that, didn't you?" he asked.
Jordan nodded, but Jeffery's eyes were fixed on the road ahead.
"Yeah," he said. "Still do. It's like a switch flipped in my brain, and I can't figure out how to turn it off."
"You won't be able to," Jeffery told him. "That's your natural rank making itself known. There's an arrogance in leadership. The idea that you know best, and the trust that your people will follow. As long as you don't let resentment grow and fester when your will is frustrated, you won't turn into another Montague, if that's what you're worried about."
Jordan laughed.
"I've had three years to practice having my will frustrated," he said. "I think I can take it."
"Good," Jeffery said, with a grin. "That insight helps. Or at least it could, if I had a degree in psychology. Hey, maybe you should run a search on how to dethrone a narcissist."
"Worth a try," Jordan laughed. He began typing, and the pressure in his chest eased. He was going to be okay. As long as he had Darla... and hopefully, Jeffery... to keep him grounded, he would be completely fine. He searched half-jokingly for a few moments, then the stress of the day caught up to him. With his computer warming his lap and his family safely in Jeffery's capable hands, Jordan drifted off to sleep. He dreamed of rivers of blood and kingdoms filled with golden towers casting shade on squat mud huts. He dreamed that he was strutting around draped in a long, velvet cloak, ordering people around and tearing their chests open when they defied him. He felt a cruel sort of pleasure when they screamed. Darla suddenly appeared before him in his dream, stamping her little foot and glaring. "Bad daddy," she said. "You not nice!" Guilt washed over him, with the sort of hard-edged, pure emotion that one could only truly feel on the plane of dreams, and he wished the castle away.
A particularly deep pothole ripped him from his sleep, to his great relief.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"What? Shit, you scared the crap out of me. We're in Oregon. Haven't seen Montague's people for a while now."
"You might have and not known it," Jeffery pointed out. "With thirteen hundred of them, they could be anywhere. Does your pack have any way to fight this?"
"I don't know," Jeffery said, shaking his head grimly. "We have pockets, sub-packs, all over the continent. We have at least that many individuals. But," he sighed, heavily. "It might be time to bring the humans up to date. They can't protect against a threat they don't know is there."
"You said humans knew about you... us... back in World War Two, didn't you?"
"The Nazis did," Jeffery clarified. "And we have a few people in high places watching our backs. But no, the majority of humans haven't known about us for centuries."
Jordan's heart sank.
"So Darla's freak out in the store...?"
"All over YouTube as we speak. Brace yourself for an interview when we get back to Moorside."
"What kind of interview?"
Jeffery met Jordan's eyes soberly.
"The kind you limp away from."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jordan and Jeffery had swapped places long enough for Jeffery to sleep. Darla had woken up cranky, and Jordan had spent most of the day trying to keep her happy. He'd risked a shopping trip, though he'd chosen a little mom and pop store over the big, glossy supermarket. Darla had finally settled down late in the day, and was now happily chewing a corn dog in the center seat as she watched cartoons. They were just over an hour away from the Washington border, and Jeffery was feeling an odd mixture of dread and relief. They had made it cleanly through Oregon without any more run-ins with Montague's men, so they might just have outrun them; on the other hand, Steel was waiting in Moorside, and he wouldn't be happy. An unhappy Alpha was a dangerous beast, whichever side he was on. He hoped that bringing Darla home safely would be enough to spare him Steel's wrath.
"There's something I want to ask you," Jordan said.
Jeffery sipped on some much-needed coffee, relishing the hot, thick, sweetness of it as it trickled down his throat.
"Shoot," he said, licking his lips.
"The first time you were telling me about the Outreach, you made some vague allusions. Since we're just about there, I think you'd better tell me everything."
Jeffery didn't say anything for a while. He stared off into the sunset rolling on the horizon as he nursed his coffee.
"Sometimes it's easy to know that you're on the right side," he began, easing into it. "Back in the war, I knew. When evil taunts you, crushes your people, tears apart innocents, you know. When that happens, there's only one course of action that makes sense. You beat the persecutor and save the day. But in some situations... domestic situations, social, political; when it comes down to legality versus morality..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "When decisions are made in the gray area, it's hard to tell who's right. And it doesn't stay the same. Sometimes it's this side, sometimes it's that, sometimes it's not so clear-cut and you have to choose loyalty and hope for the best."
"I guess that's fair, in an abstract, vague kind of way," Jordan said, hesitantly. "What are you loyal to?"
Jeffery clenched his jaw and winced at the question.
"I was loyal to Alex," he said, quietly. "When things began to cha
nge in the colony, I took my concerns to him. He was the heir; he would know things I wouldn't; he'd be able to see the bigger picture. He would hear me out, you know, and I would feel better afterward. Like I'd done my duty to my people. But..." He trailed off and looked away. Jordan watched the rushing scenery reflect in Jeffery's glasses, and waited patiently.
"They always tell you that you're doing the right thing by following orders," Jeffery began again. "Back in the war, and now, and every time in between. They know more than you do, they insist. There are things happening above your pay grade. We'll send a memo if your area is affected. So you go, and you do as you're told, and you watch the reactions, and you wonder if you're doing the right thing. But you don't have to live with it. You don't ever go back and check on the people left behind after you've swept through to do your duty. Not your jurisdiction. You wash your hands of it and move on, terrified of collecting another black mark on your record."
"What kinds of things?" Jordan asked, neutrally.
Jeffery took a deep breath, as though he was trying to push a heavy weight off of his chest.
"You aren't the first human to have a feral child," he said. "Sometimes kids get bit. Sometimes... more frequently than I'd like to admit... werewolves are impregnated by humans and my job is to bring both the carrier and the child back to the colony. The human parent is not welcome. You're the first case I've encountered where both the human and the shifter parents are male; in any other case, the human male is turned early on in the relationship, and there's no issue. It's when the women are entangled with humans that things go sideways. It's a lot more difficult for female shifters to turn male shifters; it takes a great deal more effort. She has to be in her wolf form, and she has to wound him fairly deeply. Like the way Darla nearly tore your arm off. Males, on the other hand, have to make an effort to keep their DNA to themselves."
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