Out Of The Shadows

by Julia Davies

  “I’m going for a run,” Jai told him. “I won’t be long.”

  Dane yawned. “Wake me when you get back,” he mumbled, huddling deeper under the covers.

  Jai shook his head with a laugh. Dane was certainly not a morning person. He pulled on a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt, then slipped on a pair of running shoes. His usual route took about forty-five minutes, through the streets and then cutting back across the park. He set off at a slow pace, speeding up once he got warmed up. The roads were deserted at this time, and he saw no one at all until he reached the edge of the park. During the day, the park would be filled with kids playing football or just hanging out. At this time in the morning, however, it was empty except for one man in the distance, throwing a ball for an excited Labrador. Jai watched as the Labrador chased the ball, then the man chased the Labrador to get the ball back from it.

  He heard someone nearby but figured it must be another early morning jogger. Veering to the left, he headed towards the streets again and on his way back home, where he hoped that Dane would be awake when he returned. The footsteps followed and he sniffed cautiously. Unfortunately, the breeze carried most of the scent away and what was left was indistinguishable when he wasn’t in wolf form. He glanced back over his shoulder as the footfalls continued behind him.

  * * * *

  Dane stretched his hand out but found nothing but a cold bed. He opened his eyes and, seeing that it was light outside, squinted at the clock. Well, that was weird. Jai must have left him to sleep in and gone down to breakfast without him. He got out of bed and dressed quickly, frowning as he reached the kitchen. Jai wasn’t there—no one was—and hadn’t even left him a note. Great, he thought. How the hell was he supposed to get to the office? He found the keys to the garage and went out to check what was still in there, and saw Jai’s bike. Sasha currently had the courtesy car, still on loan as Jai’s Jeep was a total write-off. He was stuck with the little borrowed Fiat until the insurance money came through. Jai must have had Sasha drop him off so that he could leave the bike for Dane. He smiled; that was sweet of him. Dane went back inside to find the motorcycle keys and lock the house up.

  * * * *

  When got to the office and saw Jai’s desk empty, he frowned.

  “Hey, Ret? Where’s Jai?”

  The other were leaned back in his chair to look out from his office and shook his head. “Not here.”

  “What do you mean he isn’t here? Has he called?”

  Ret came out of his office and sat down on the edge of Andy’s desk. “No. I thought that the two of you must have been keeping an eye on Sasha today, that’s why you weren’t in.”

  Dane sighed, pulling his mobile from his pocket and scrolled down until he found Sasha's number. Glancing up at the others rather sheepishly, he put the phone to his ear.

  “I didn’t think to call Sash,” he admitted.

  After a brief conversation, he tossed the phone onto his desk.

  “He’s not there,” he said. “He said he’d wake me when he got back from his run this morning.”

  “Maybe he had errands to run,” Dex suggested.

  “No. He always wakes me.” He didn’t mention that Jai was usually horny when he got back and Dane’s typical wake up call involved a slow fuck in the shower they shared. Although, from the looks that they were giving him he figured that they had guessed and felt his face begin to heat up.

  Dex chuckled. “He’ll come barging in through that door any minute and we’re all going to feel pretty stupid for worrying.”

  Dane nodded, realising that Dex was correct. If this was anyone else, he would say that they were making a fuss about nothing.

  By noon, however, he was beginning to think that his concerns were founded. No one had seen nor heard from Jai since he had left the house that morning. Sasha was currently under the watchful eye of Brand and Joe but, as she had told her brother on his fifth call, she hadn’t seen Jai.

  “Ret, do you mind if I take off?” Dane asked. “I just want to go and check that he hasn’t gone home. I’ve been ringing his mobile, but either he isn’t answering or he’s left it at home.”

  Ret nodded. “Dex, go with him.”

  Dex set off towards the door, hooking his jacket off the rack as he passed by. He climbed into his Land Rover, waiting until Dane was in and setting off. When they got to Jai’s house, Dane did a quick search, finding Jai’s mobile on the coffee table but no Jai. They drove over to Dane’s flat as well, though he didn’t think that Jai would go there. After all, he hadn’t been there in ages. Eight days, he thought, shocked. Eight days since he had actually stayed in his flat. He was just about to get back into Dex’s car when his phone rang.

  “Jai?”

  There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. “Hi, is this Dane? It’s Lindy, I work with Sasha. I don’t know if you remember me.”

  Dane frowned, signalling to Dex. Dex came around to lean close, to listen.

  “I do. Is something the matter?”

  “I’m not sure,” Lindy told him, sounding concerned. “Sasha got a note a few minutes ago and she just left her counter. I don’t know what was in it but she looked worried so I thought I should call you, what with all the shit that Nick bloke has been putting her through.” She broke off for a moment and there was a murmured conversation with someone else. “There’s a guy here, says he knows you. He wants to talk to you.”

  There was a brief scuffling as the phone changed hands.

  “It’s Brand. Dane, I’m sorry, I lost her,” he said. “I swear we only left for a minute but when we got back, she was nowhere to be seen.”

  He and Dex drove over to the department store but as Brand had said there was no clue as to where his sister had gone. Neither he nor Joe had seen anything at all, and none of the other staff had seen her leave. Lindy was busy trying to cover Sasha's unexpected absence with her manager, making sure that Sasha still had a job to come back to.

  “I could track her,” Dane said, “but I’d need to shift.”

  He glanced around at the customers milling about, oblivious to their current situation. They needed a way to get the human public out of the way, or at least stop them noticing a huge grey wolf tracking a scent trail through the store.

  “I know I can’t, but how the hell else are we meant to figure out where she went? And why?”

  Lindy came back then. “I could ask security to check the CCTV,” she said, pointing at the cameras mounted around the ceiling.

  Dane nodded, but before he could agree, his mobile rang again. He glanced at the display: number not recognised.

  “What?” he snapped. When he heard the voice on the other end, he felt a wave of relief wash over him. “Sasha? Where the hell are you? We’re at the store; Lindy called us to say you’d just walked out…”

  “I don’t have long to talk,” Sasha told him, cutting him off. “I’m on a pay phone. Nick has Jai. He’s a fucking loon, Dane. He sent me this note saying that I had to come here, alone. I saw Jai inside through a broken window and so I called you first. He’s hurt, I think, because he isn’t fighting back.”

  “Sash, tell me where you are.”

  She gave him directions but before she was finished, he heard a muffled yelp and the sound of the telephone handset clattering against the side of the booth.

  “Sasha?” When there was no answer, he turned to Dex. “Nick has them both.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Dane drew the Land Rover to a stop a street away from the address Sasha had given. She gave them enough to find the place; even without the exact building number, her description had been enough.

  “Stay here,” he said, cutting off Dex’s protests. “I have to do this myself. If I go in with someone else, he’s likely to do something stupid. Sasha or Jai could get caught in the middle of it.”

  With a last glare at Dex to stay behind, Dane took the side alley that led to the building Sasha had described. This wasn’t a good part o
f town to be in at the best of times. Not that he had a choice, it just worried him that Nick had chosen such a place. The low stone building had once been a nightclub, but now it was closed up. The windows had boards, covered with fly-posters and graffiti, nailed over them. Above what had been the main entrance, marks on the stone spelt out Inferno, the former club’s name; where the letters had previously been had left cleaner marks on the wall once they were removed. Dane moved around to the front of the club, keeping his senses on full alert, but all he picked up was the aroma of rotting rubbish in the bins nearby, used by the Thai restaurant that backed onto this building. The faint breeze blew around the fast food wrappers and old beer cans, dropped by drunken revellers in the other nearby clubs, the sound unfortunately drowning out the small sounds he was listening for. Peering through a gap in the boards over one of the front doors, Dane tried to focus in the darkness.

  * * * *

  Sasha tried to edge across the floor to where Jai lay slumped against the wall but someone yanked her back. A hand took hold of her arm and roughly pulled her away, pushing her back into her seat.

  “Let me help him, please.”

  Nick shook his head. “No, he’s dangerous. You don’t know what he is.” He came to crouch before her, being careful to keep out of her reach in case she kicked him—again. He already made the mistake of getting too close once and had the bruise on his shin to prove it. He had a rifle on a leather strap over his left shoulder. “I just want to help you.”

  She looked at Jai again. “What have you done to him?”

  She had been around weres her entire life, but Jai looked worse than she’d seen before. Whatever Nick had done to him wasn’t healing. He was barely moving, his head lolling forward onto his chest. She could see that his face looked pale, his skin covered with a sheen of sweat, even in the dim light.

  “I had to tranquilise him. You don’t have to worry about him any more,” Nick told her, smiling reassuringly. “That’s why I asked you to come here, so that I could show you that I would do anything for you.”

  Sasha felt her eyes welling again but she blinked back the tears, refusing to let him see her cry. She just wanted to go to Jai, knowing it was her fault that he was hurt. If he hadn’t got involved, trying to help her, then her nutcase of an ex wouldn’t have brought him here.

  Suddenly, Nick looked up, turning back toward the front entrance, hearing a noise.

  “Stay here,” he told her, glancing up at his cohort and handing over the rifle. “Pete, keep an eye on them.”

  Sasha backed up and sat in her corner as Nick had told her to, not wanting to give the taller man any excuse to come near her. She had met Pete a couple of times whilst she was with Nick and there was something about the man that made her skin crawl. How on Earth Nick had convinced him to help out with this kidnapping, she didn’t know; she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to know what Nick had offered him to do it.

  Nick vanished into the darkness as he left the room and she found herself offering up prayers to anyone who might be listening that he would lose his footing and fall down the stairs or that the police would be here, wondering why there were squatters in the abandoned club. Seconds later he came back into the room, shrugging his shoulders at Pete.

  “Nothing there.” He went to Jai and poked him with the toe of his boot to get his attention. Again, he kept his distance, flinching slightly when Jai’s gaze met his eyes. “I know what you are,” he said. “I looked it up on the Internet. I’m doing the world a service by getting rid of a monster like you, protecting Sasha.”

  * * * *

  Jai struggled to get upright but he ached everywhere. His limbs felt like lead whilst his muscles just wouldn’t work to hold him up. Trust his bad luck that Nick had actually found the one kind of tranquiliser that would actually work on a werewolf; there weren’t many that did. Of all the Internet sites he could have checked, he found one with a tiny grain of truth about weres. He glanced up at Sasha and saw the look of panic as she tried desperately to stop the tears that were gathering in her eyes.

  “Please, let her go,” he said. “She’s scared.”

  “How can I? I can’t let you turn her into a creature like you, but I know how to protect her. I just have to kill you and then she can come home with me. I read all about it—once you are dead, she’ll be released from your curse.”

  Jai sighed. That was bullshit; why the hell couldn’t Nick have got his tranquiliser information from the same place he found that load of rubbish?

  “Sasha was right, you are a fucking loon,” a voice announced from the doorway.

  Both Nick and Pete turned, Nick aiming the rifle at him, but Dane stood his ground.

  “I told you what would happen if you messed with me and mine, Nick.”

  Nick glanced back at Sasha. “She’ll be fine; I’m saving her. You don’t know what he is.” He paused. “You shouldn’t have let her go off with him. He’s turned her into a monster like him.”

  Dane tried to go to his sister and Jai but the other man stopped him.

  “They are with me,” he told Nick. “I want you to give them back. I would also appreciate it if you’d tell your friend to stop looking at my sister like that because if he so much as lays a finger on her, I’m going to have to hurt him.”

  Pete took a step away, seeing the nasty gleam in Dane’s eye as he spoke. He nodded at Nick in silent conversation.

  “If I let you take her with you, you can keep her safe until this is over, until he’s dead.”

  “I want Jai as well,” he said as Sasha got to her feet and scurried to her brother.

  Nick frowned. “No. She’s family so I’ll let you take her but not him.”

  “Well you’ll have to keep two hostages then,” he said.

  Sasha nodded. She still looked scared but she wasn’t leaving her brother or Jai behind. “Three,” she said.

  “I’m not leaving without him,” Dane said, “and you’re going to have a fight on your hands if you don’t hand him over. You have no idea what I could do to you.”

  Nick’s partner in crime frowned, confused.

  “If it was my sister who was fucking a thing like him, I wouldn’t try so hard to save him,” Pete said.

  “He’s not my boyfriend, you moron!” she snapped. “I told you that before.”

  Nick’s confusion would have been comical if not for the seriousness of the situation. He shook his head slowly.

  “You moved into his house. I saw you with him, I heard you with him.”

  “I moved in because he had a spare room and he let me stay there.” Sasha's expression turned to disgust. “Hang on—you were spying on us?”

  * * * *

  “Obviously not very well,” Dane added. “She isn’t with him, I am.” He sighed. “Let me spell it out for you, Nicky. Jai is my boyfriend. I’m the one sleeping with him, not Sasha. Jeez, you really are as dumb as you look.”

  Nick’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. “No,” he said decisively. “You’re lying.” He turned and, in one swift move, swung the rifle from his shoulder and into his hands, levelled it at Jai, and fired.

  Dane could smell the blood mixing with the gunpowder in the air, seeing the red stain growing on Jai’s shoulder. It wasn’t a kill shot, due to the fact that Jai had tried to dodge it, but it was clear that Jai was in agony by his ragged breathing and the lines across his forehead. Dane turned on Nick, knowing that his eyes had shifted and his canines elongated into fangs.

  “You’re going to die for that,” Dane growled. He saw Pete make a move toward him and bared his teeth, lashing out. His fingernails lengthened into claws, slashing tracks across the man’s chest. Pete swore loudly as his skin tore and, one hand clutched to his chest, pulled a pocket knife out of his jacket. Flicking the blade open, he lunged at Dane.

  “Dane, behind you!”

  Dane turned, managing to dodge the blade, and saw Nick raising his rifle. Suddenly, Dex stepped out of the shadows behind him, wrenching N
ick’s wrist hard enough that Dane heard the sickening crack of bones. Nick howled in pain and dropped to his knees, clutching his wrist, the gun forgotten.

  “See to Jai,” Dane told his sister, turning his attention back on Pete. He flexed his claws as he reached out and clenched his hand around Pete’s throat. The man made a feeble attempt to fight him off but Dane was stronger, much stronger. With barely any effort, he threw Pete across the room, seeing him hit the far wall and land in an unconscious heap on the floor. Dex took out a mobile phone to call the police, but before he could even dial, Pete struggled to his feet, then grabbed Nick’s arm and began dragging him toward the door, ignoring the man’s yells of pain. Nick cradled his broken wrist to him as he fled. Dane and Dex began to go after them but Sasha called to them.

  “Dane, there’s something wrong.”

  Dane heard the panic in Sasha's voice and hurried over to kneel before Jai, abandoning the chase. Brushing Jai’s hair away from his face, he tilted Jai’s face up to look at him. He was too pale; his werewolf genetics should have healed whatever injuries he had sustained by now but, if anything, he looked worse than he had only minutes before.

  “The wound isn’t healing,” she said.

  Getting up to grab the rifle, she removed the remaining bullets, swearing creatively as she held one up. “Silver.” Looking around, she went to pick up Pete’s pocket knife. “We need to get that bullet out of him or it’s going to make him sick.”

  She knelt down next to him again, gripping the knife tightly. Her hand trembled as she positioned it over the wound on Jai’s chest and she took a couple of deep breaths, trying again. The blade wobbled and she just couldn’t steady it.

  “I can’t,” she said, shaking her head. She thrust the knife into her brother’s hand and stood up, going to stand by the wall. “I’m sorry, Dane.”