Mirror Lake Wolves 02 - Moon Hunted

by Jennifer Snyder

  Movement behind him captured my attention. My eyes shifted from Eli to Drew a heartbeat before Eli pressed his lips against mine. I couldn’t respond the way I wanted to. Not with Drew getting to his feet behind Eli. Drew lifted a tightly closed fist, ready to smash it into the back of Eli’s head. My eyes widened, and I shoved Eli out of the way. He stumbled to my left as Drew’s fist connected with my nose. Blood sprayed from it on contact, saturating Eli’s black shirt with its sticky wetness. The edges of my vision speckled with darkness and blurred all at once. I stumbled backward, my hands cupping my nose as tears pricked the corners of my eyes. The coppery taste of blood trickled down the back of my throat and filled my mouth.

  “What did you do with my paycheck? Did you set her free?” Drew grumbled. His words were still slurred, but I couldn’t be sure whether it was from the alcohol in his system or the concussion he most likely had from the blow I’d given him to the back of the head with the shotgun. “I’ll take you in her place if you did, little bitch.” He grabbed my arm and jerked me toward him.

  I dug my feet into the ground and jerked wildly to get free from his grasp, but it did me no good.

  Drew was ten times my size.

  “Hey, you,” Eli shouted. He’d snuck up behind Drew. When Drew glanced at him from over his shoulder, Eli gripped the sides of his head and twisted. The sound of bone crunching against bone echoed through the basement as his neck snapped. My mouth fell open. Drew’s grip on my arm loosened, and he crumpled to the floor in a heap.

  I blinked. Nothing in front of me changed. Drew still remained motionless at my feet, his head twisted at an odd angle.

  “You killed him,” I whispered unable to take my eyes off Drew. “You snapped his neck.”

  Killing Drew had crossed my mind, but I didn’t think it was something I’d go through with unless the situation called for it. Had this situation called for it?

  “I had to. He was going to take you. He’d already taken Violet. He played a big hand in Glenn’s disappearance. Who knows what all he’s done, or what he had planned to do in the future?” Eli insisted. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me what he’d done was justified, or if he was attempting to convince himself. “You would’ve done the same thing if he’d been coming after me. It had to be done, Mina.”

  I swallowed hard. “I know.”

  I’d brought a shotgun downstairs with me for that very reason. I knew Drew had to be stopped at any cost. Even so, the sight of him dead shook me up. It shouldn’t. He’d called Violet a paycheck and had intended to sell me in her place.

  Why was I so worked up over this, then?

  Maybe it wasn’t that Drew was lying at my feet dead, but that I’d seen him killed. Right in front of me.

  “What do we do now?” I asked in a shaky voice. I needed to pull myself together to somehow make it through this moment and the next.

  My gaze drifted around the basement, opting to look anywhere besides at Drew.

  Warmth tickled across my upper lip, making me remember my bloody nose. I wiped at it with the back of my hand. Deep red streaked across my skin. I pinched the bridge of my nose and tipped my head back to stop the flow.

  “We need to clean this place up. Get rid of any evidence that might point to us being here.”

  Okay, that sounded like a good idea. It didn’t answer the question pressing against me from all sides, though.

  “What do we do with him?” I kicked my foot toward Drew but couldn’t look at him.

  “We need to get him to the bottom of those stairs and make it look like he fell,” Eli insisted. I released my nose and sniffled. The bleeding seemed to have stopped. “He was a heavy drinker. If we can stage the scene right, anyone would believe he’d been drinking and tripped coming down the stairs. People fall down stairs all the time, especially when they’ve been drinking heavily. Hell, people even die from internal bleeding after falling down the stairs. It’s as good a cover story as any. We have to make it look legit, though. We don’t need anyone coming after us in connection with his death later on down the road.”

  I sniffled again and fought the urge to wipe my nose, knowing it would only cause it to start bleeding all over again. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

  Directions. Instructions. Being told what to do and how. It was the only thing that was going to get me through this mess.

  “Let’s get him to the bottom of the stairs,” Eli said. He bent at the waist and grabbed Drew by his arms.

  My hands shook as I reached for his feet. A heavy sensation settled in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t believe I was helping to move a dead body. This was not how I’d thought the night would go.

  “What else?” I asked once Drew was laid at the bottom of the steps. I licked my lips and swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth. Nausea pulsed through me. Along with a strong desire to shower and then curl into the fetal position.

  “We need to clean up any blood. Even Violet’s in the cage. Anything we touched has to be wiped down too. We don’t want to leave anything behind that could be traced back to the pack.” Eli’s voice was calm and steady as though he’d given out orders like this a million times. While it sort of unnerved me because I was on the verge of having a breakdown and he wasn’t, it also had me realizing he was going to be one hell of a pack leader when the time came.

  “Okay.” I searched for cleaner and a rag.

  “Check near the washer for some bleach. It’s the only thing that’ll kill the blood and make it as close to untraceable as it can be to the naked eye.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked as I reached for the gallon jug of bleach beside the washer.

  “Trust me, you don’t want to now.”

  I inhaled a sharp breath as I scratched out a mental note to never piss off Eli.

  With the jug of bleach in hand and one of Drew’s crusty T-shirts from a pile near the washer, I scrubbed the floor where he’d smashed in my nose. Eli brought a rag over and poured some bleach on it before moving to clean the area where he and Drew had fought. We moved to the cage Violet had been held in next. Afterward, we cleaned the other two cages. The cage to the left of Violet’s was horrible.

  “God, this one is a mess,” I said as I paused to glance around the cage. “Looks like it was used to store an animal, not a human.”

  “Ummm, that’s because it was,” Eli insisted.

  My stomach somersaulted as my chest tightened. He was right.

  Once the basement was clean, the only thing I could smell was bleach. I hoped the sharp scent wouldn’t linger around too long. It might seem suspicious if it did. Drew didn’t seem like the type to go on a cleaning binge. Ever.

  “Okay, I wiped off the cage doors, the screwdriver, and everything else I can think of we’ve touched down here. The last thing we need to do is change the padlock on the basement door, wipe the door down, and then put the gun you brought down back upstairs once we wipe it off,” Eli insisted as he ran his rag along the ladder I’d set out. He slipped it back between the shelving unit and the dryer, and then reached for a cardboard box. “Here’s a new lock.”

  He handed me a new padlock. I didn’t ask how he’d known it was there, figuring he’d found it while searching for something to pick the lock to Violet’s cage with earlier.

  Violet. I hoped she was still where I’d left her. Anxiety and shock had managed to freeze time, making it hard for me to gauge how long ago it had been since I’d left her.

  Eli picked up the shotgun and wiped it off. The movement pulled me out of my thoughts.

  “What about his gun?” I nodded to the gun kicked into the corner.

  Eli glanced at it but didn’t move to pick it up. Instead he reached for his bolt cutters. “I think it’s fine where it’s at. Makes the scene look more authentic. It could have slid out of his holster when he fell.”

  I nodded, but didn’t say anything. My skin was starting to crawl. I was ready to get the hell out of here.

  “Where did you
leave Violet?”

  “At the edge of the woods,” I said. “I hope she’s still there.”

  “With the way her ankle was and how doped up she seemed to be, I highly doubt she went anywhere. We need to take her to your gran. I’m sure Violet’s ankle will have to be broken again so it can be set right.”

  A chill ran up my spine at the thought as I started toward the stairs with my bleach rag in hand. “Yeah. All right, let’s switch out this lock and get the heck out of here. I don’t want to be here any longer than we have to be.”

  “Agreed,” Eli said as he followed up the steps behind me. “Wait a minute.”

  “What?” I paused and glanced over my shoulder at him. He was heading back down the stairs.

  “Forgot something.”

  I watched him as he went to the dryer and climbed on top. He reached toward one of the shelves lined with mason jars of moonshine and grabbed a jar. Eli tucked it underneath his arm and then grabbed another before hopping down and jogging back up the stairs to where I was.

  “Didn’t want to leave without one of these…or two.” He winked.

  I rolled my eyes and continued up the stairs.

  Him and his damn moonshine.

  Once we switched out the busted padlock for a new one and wiped everything down, we returned the shotgun I’d taken to its cabinet and made our way outside, cleaning as we went. Fresh air had never felt better.

  I led Eli to where I’d left Violet. She was still lying on the ground at the edge of the woods, folded in on herself. I couldn’t get over how fragile and young she looked. There were two years between us, but from the way she looked right now, it could have easily been ten.

  Eli shined the flashlight on her ankle. It looked even worse. The swelling had intensified. I attributed it to having her walk on it so I could get her out of the house. Guilt swam through me. She’d probably damaged it more because I made her walk on it. I hadn’t had a choice, though.

  I sent a prayer to the moon goddess, asking that Gran be able to fix Violet’s ankle. If not, there was a good chance she might be like my father—forever a wolf inside but never able to shift.

  If that ended up being the case, Drew deserved what he’d got.

  “Here, you carry this and I’ll carry her,” Eli insisted as he held out the two jars of moonshine, the flashlight, and his bleach rag. I took everything he held out and watched as he bent to lift Violet up as though she weighed nothing. He cradled her against his chest and started down the driveway. “Let’s go.”

  “Right behind you.” I started walking. My grip on all I was carrying intensified as I reflected on everything that had happened in the span of a few hours. When my mind drifted to Drew, I tried to think about how we’d rescued Violet instead. How Eli and I were a good team.

  Were we a team, or were we starting to become something more? Could I allow that to happen? Did I even have a choice at this point? And where did that leave things between Alec and me?

  “How’s your nose?” Eli asked, pulling me from my thoughts as he shifted Violet in his arms. “That asshole really popped you good.”

  Instinctively, my fingers lifted to press against my nose. It was tender, and I was positive it was swollen, probably even broken, but I was okay. “Sore, but I don’t think it isn’t anything a little moonshine won’t help,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. For me, at least. I needed this night to be over.

  “Damn right.” Eli chuckled. Violet moaned in his arms. “Shh. You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

  Jealousy slipped through me at the sound of his soft words to her. That blow to the nose must’ve really done a number on me.

  Once we reached Eli’s truck, he laid Violet down on the passenger seat.

  “Sorry, but you’re going to have to go in through the driver side door and scoot across to sit in the middle,” Eli insisted as he closed the door. “I don’t want to lay her in the back.”

  “That’s fine,” I said.

  I climbed in the driver’s side and scooted across the bench seat to sit in the middle. My fingers smoothed through Violet’s damp hair. Her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t wake fully. I wished whatever Drew had given her would wear off.

  Eli climbed behind the steering wheel and cranked the engine of his truck. He flicked on his headlights and shifted into reverse. Seconds later, we were cruising down Wilmont Avenue, heading home, and I felt like I could finally breathe again.

  17

  Eli cut into the trailer park faster than he should. Gravel spun out from beneath his tires, shooting in all directions. He slammed on the brakes when he reached my place, and we both hopped out of the truck. He moved to retrieve Violet while I went inside to get Gran. There was a light on in the living room, which gave me hope she might still be awake.

  When I stepped inside our trailer, I spotted her in the recliner, reading one of her romance novels while sipping tea. Her mouth flew open when she glanced up from her book at me.

  “Oh my, what happened?” she insisted as she tossed her book aside and leaped from her chair.

  “I’ll explain everything later. If I can,” I insisted, knowing I might not be able to give her any details. Pack law was pack law. Anything I said had to be given on a need-to-know basis only. I grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her toward the kitchen where she stored her herbal remedies. “We found Violet, but she’s hurt.”

  The sound of Eli coming up the steps floated to my ears. I rushed to the door and held it open for him.

  “How did you find her?” I heard Gran ask. “How bad is she hurt? What happened?”

  “Where should I set her?” he asked once he’d stepped inside.

  “On the couch,” I said, ignoring Gran’s questions. My answers would have to be carefully thought out. I didn’t want to get into any trouble with the alpha. I also didn’t want Eli to get into trouble either.

  “What happened?” Gran asked again. “I’ll need to know some specifics so I know what to use to heal her.”

  “She’s bruised up. There are a few scrapes, and I think she might’ve been drugged. Her ankle seems to be the worst of it, though.” I stepped to where Gran was and held out my arms, ready for her to fill them with any herbs and concoctions she could use to heal Violet. “It looks like it’s been broken and healed the wrong way.”

  Gran passed me jars of flowers and herbs before bending at the waist to retrieve a ceramic bowl from a cabinet beneath the sink. I watched as she filled it with water, then motioned for me to make my way to the couch along with her.

  “All right. I need to set that ankle right. Which means I’ll need to rebreak it,” Gran insisted. She placed the ceramic bowl of water on the coffee table. I did the same with the herbs she’d passed me to hold. “Eli, I want you to go to the hall closet and grab a sheet. The poor girl is freezing. Mina, grab a few elderflowers and some yarrow flowers and put them in the bowl of water for me while I better access her ankle.”

  I did as I was told, and so did Eli. When he came back with a sheet, I’d already made a poultice of the flowers like Gran had asked. The consistency was lumpy, but maybe that was how it was supposed to look.

  “Oh, the poor dear. This looks awful. What happened to her? Do you know who did this?”

  My eyes shifted to Eli, unsure if I was allowed to say anything. This had been pack business after all.

  “Violet was abducted. We know who it was, and you can rest assured they’ve been dealt with,” Eli said, sounding more professional than I’d ever heard him before.

  “Okay,” Gran said plainly. Her gaze had drifted to me, but I couldn’t meet her stare. “And, the two of you were working together on this?”

  “Yeah. We were,” Eli answered again.

  When Gran didn’t say anything this time, I risked a glance at her. A small smirk had spread across her face. Why was she smiling? Was she happy to hear Eli and I had been working together, or was it because we’d obviously been spending time together?

  Vi
olet squirmed and released a moan. Gran’s touch must have hurt her.

  “Mina, is that poultice ready?” Gran asked.

  “I think so,” I said even though I never could tell with these things.

  “I’m going to need the two of you to hold Violet down. If she’s already starting to come out of her drug-induced haze, she’s going to feel what I’m about to do and react. I need you to hold her steady so I can make sure to create a clean break. I only want to do this once, the poor child has been through enough,” Gran insisted.

  I stood and leaned over the bottom portion of Violet’s body while Eli pressed against her shoulders, making sure she laid flat on the couch. She wiggled at the feel of pressure on her, but not enough to cause an issue.

  “Shhh, it’s Mina. You’re at my Gran’s, and you’re safe. We need you to hold still. Gran needs to reset your ankle,” I said in case she could hear me. I wanted her to understand we were trying to help her.

  “Hold her tight,” Gran insisted. That was all the warning she gave before she jerked Violet’s ankle as hard as she could.

  A loud crack echoed through the trailer, causing me to wince. Violet bucked against us and she cried out. Her scream blasted my ears. I felt horrible for holding her down, but I also knew it was necessary.

  “You can release her now,” Gran said, reaching for the ceramic bowl of mush she had me make. “Once I put this on her ankle she should feel instant relief.”

  I released my grip on Violet and noticed when Eli did the same. His face had contorted with worry for her, and I knew he felt as horrible as I did for having to hurt her any more than she already had been. I shifted my gaze from him to Gran, watching as she pasted Violet’s swollen ankle with a thick layer of soggy flowers.

  “You two are next. Don’t even think about going anywhere.” Gran cast a pointed gaze to me and Eli. “I can tell from looking at you, Mina, you’ve got a broken nose. And, Eli, that cut above your eye needs to be cleaned before it gets infected. First things first though, I need a hot mug of water, some dandelion root, red clover blossoms, and burdock root to clean this poor girl’s blood. Whatever she was given is bogging her down.”