At that same time, Frost, just regaining consciousness, struggled out of the trunk of the car. Staying low, he managed to get back to his truck, which to his surprise was still there, and finally completed changing the flat tire. Stephanie and Simon Jr. were still asleep, surprisingly enough. But instead of just leaving this scene all together, he decided to drive back over the old wooden bridge, where he carefully managed to place the body of the sheriff’s dead step-son into the back of the truck.
Driving around the neighborhood, Frost soon found the ‘Red Fist’ gang just about to clash head on with the ‘Silver Switchblades’. He boldly drove right up into the middle of the two gangs, got out and threw open the back gate on his truck where he carefully pulled out the dead body of the sheriff’s step-son.
“Stop it… all of you! Don’t shoot… wait!” Frost yelled at them all as he was pulling the body carefully out.
“You have no ideas what’s been planned for you all… your two gangs… they have been set up to fight and kill off each other. You don’t have to do this!” Frost yelled, trying to get their attention before the horrible blood bath got started.
“He’s telling the truth!” a familiar voice yelled above all others. It was Marco, standing there in the street holding his bloody shoulder, trying to calm the gangs rage. He had managed to get out of the room Ricardo had locked him in just in the nick of time to find the battle before it started.
Ricardo, obviously outraged at the potential double-cross ordered Marco to take control of the dead body of the sheriff’s step-son and to get Frost out of his territory, never to come back.
Marco and Frost don’t wait around and hop in the truck, ready to get away. Quickly driving out of the gang territory with Marco now seated in the back, Stephanie and Simon Jr. finally start to wake. Before they have a chance to completely awaken, their truck is suddenly attacked by the unmarked police car. Being run up onto a sidewalk, Frost almost crashes into an old, rundown house. Instead he sees the projects, and sped into the compound as fast as he could.
Helping wounded Marco from the back seat, they all ran into the projects to hide, Stephanie and Simon Jr. in complete shock as to what they woke up into. Hearing police cars approaching with sirens blaring, the two gangs split up and scatter all about the neighborhood.
In the midst of it all, Ricardo manages to see Frost and Marco as he is running back to the projects once again, now with a woman and some other guy, hiding behind a dumpster. Still angry that he had almost been set up by the cops, but a little wary of the two unidentified people with them, Ricardo decided to help them anyway.
Ricardo pulled out his gun and fired at two men sneaking up on the dumpster where the group were all hiding. Hitting one of the men, the second one turned and fired back at Ricardo. With the second man’s attention drawn away from the dumpster, Frost rushed out and grabbed the first man’s gun. Firing back, he managed to strike the second man in the leg.
Normally he had no need for guns but in this situation filled with gangs and guns he figured a werewolf would only draw massive attention – the wrong kind – definitely not what they were looking for since they were already on the run from his sister and the pack anyway. The man Frost shot fell down and Ricardo moved in on him.
With the sounds of police cars getting closer, Frost told Stephanie and Simon Jr., “Stay right here,” as he rushed back over to Marco.
He quickly took his cell phone, returning back to the second man. Frost told Ricardo, “Back off… please… I have a plan.”
Backing away, Ricardo watched in silence as Frost called someone and then threw the phone to the wounded man when he was through with his conversation.
Nodding at Ricardo, Frost told him, “Kill him if he doesn’t confess.”
Turns out, Frost had called information and got the number for the District Attorney, who turns out was one of his cousins, once he got the phone. The wounded man flinched as Ricardo moved forward and slapped him the in the face with his gun – once, twice…. Ricardo ordered him to confess, over and over.
Fearful for his life, the wounded man finally confessed to the voice on the other end, “It’s true… I was sent to kill the stranger and Marco because the Sheriff now considered them a threat to his plan for commercial development.”
While he is recording the phone call, Frost’s cousin knows that the only chance his cousin and friends have to survive is to call Sheriff Brady, in the next town over, who he knew to be an honest man. Hearing gun shots ring out in the background, he is told by Frost that the cops were now shooting at them.
Angry, Ricardo managed to sneak away in the midst of all the mayhem and orders his gang and his rival gang to join forces and save Frost and Marco. Together, the two gangs attack the bad cops, pushing them back. And to Frost’s shock, as the cops are being pushed back, he even sees the Sheriff, pointed out to him by Marco, the cause of all this turmoil, taking cover in a cop car.
Frost grabbed a gun and ran around the side of a project building where he came out unnoticed. Sneaking up to the cop car, Frost grabbed the Sheriff and pulled him back into the projects where he is quickly surrounded by the two angry gangs.
Holding his wounded shoulder, Marco tells the sheriff, “Your only chance to live would be to confess your terrible crimes to these men.”
Looking up into lethal and deadly faces, the sheriff finally confesses just as the honest Sheriff Brady and his men arrive on the scene. After a brief moment of unrest, Sheriff Brady finally managed to arrest the corrupt cops on scene and haul them off.
Relieved that they had all lived through a horrible fight, Frost, Stephanie and Simon Jr. drive a confused, yet appreciative, Marco to the local hospital. Thinking the two gangs had somehow found peace with each other, Frost was shocked to hear that a horrible gang brawl had taken place an hour later anyway where numerous gang members were killed.
Marco told him, “That’s just the way it is… there’s no such thing as good guys. Whether you’re a cop, a thug or gang member, when your blood is bad, everyone is the same.”
Visiting the dirty Sheriff in his jail cell a few hours later, Frost yelled, “I hope that some lousy shopping mall was worth your step-son’s life,” before he walked away, back to Stephanie and Simon Jr. where he was sure an explanation was expected as they continued on the run from Ryder and her pack.
Book 2: The Alpha’s a Bitch: Rise Of The Pack Princess Chapter 5
Hours pass before Frost has the thought to check the gas level again. With a sharp sucking of his teeth and a tantrum finger-tapping of the steering column, his eyes sink and his lips stretch once he spots a rundown motel in the middle of nowhere; two deer shoots out from behind it and darts off into the light wooded area just off the interstate. After another long and crazy night, he wastes no time hitting the right blinker, and steering off the road, right into the motel’s parking lot.
“Great,” Stephanie says, yawning. “Now I can finally stretch out and get a real good night’s… I mean, days rest. And maybe even get back to my dream from before.”
“Yeah,” Frost adds. “And I can finally get cleaned up,” he says, taking a whiff of his own musk as he makes a terrible face.
Stephanie turns back, takes a look at dead-to-the-world Simon Jr. She looks back to Frost with a smirk. “What about him?” she asks, hanging her thumb in his general direction.
“I’m not so sure yet.” Frost replied while observing his surroundings. He pulls up to a parking spot four doors away from the office, places the truck in park and turns off the key. “But I’m going to need you to get the room.”
It’s a shabby excuse for a motel that Frost stopped at – but the only one they’d come across in hours; two streetlamps, one at either corner of the one story brick establishment with twelve rooms. The office light is on, and the sign posted above the motel in flickering neon blue lights reads: LU TIDES – it is apparent that the sign use to read Blue Tides. The imprints of the ‘B’ and ‘E’ are still there.
/> And through years of rough weather and lousy owners too lazy to maintain the property’s upkeep, Lu Tides makes perfectly no sense at all. Well, maybe if we were talking table of elements, Lutetium.
Stephanie laughs at the sign as she looks up to it through the windshield.
Frost shrugs his shoulders. “I take it that this is Lu’s place, huh,” he asks, reaching into his pocket for the motel fee.
“Here,” he says, handing her a fistful of money, a few pennies and nickels finding their way to the floorboards in the midst of the handoff. “And ask ol’ Lu in there to give you directions to the nearest gas station.”
“Sure. If I see ol’ Lu wanderin’ around, I’ll make sure to ask him for ya handsome,” she responded through laughter, on her way over to the motel office.
The old, rusty cowbell rang loudly as she pushed through the fragile, wooden front door. She stopped in the doorway and immediately made a turkey expression just as soon as the stench of cigar smoke, boiling beer and spoiled milk hit her. The door leisurely slammed shut behind her, sending her into a shuddering, gasping jolt off her feet as it caught her in the behind off guard.
Nasty! What a place. Dimly lit, dingy and cluttered too. Can you say serial killer den? A fan spun overhead at high speed, which only circulated the horrible odor throughout the hotel room sized office even faster. Two mounted lamps on the wall to the back of the office, another two on each wall ahead of it; only 40 watt bulbs in each. A six pack of empty Hurricane malt liquor cans sits on the front desk, two cans crushed from an earlier game of Forehead Can Crush.
Three uneven and leaning stacks of papers, files and old logs maybe, sits off in a corner on a small kitchen table behind the front desk. The bathroom door is slightly cracked. It has what appears to be a forced entry kick smack-dab in the center; Stephanie sees the light inside the bathroom flickering. Clearly the whole place needs an extreme makeover.
“Hello,” Stephanie says as she strides toward the counter. She looks to the clipboard on the front desk, next to the service bell. A sign-in sheet is attached to the clipboard. She read the only name scribbled in blue ink.
“Randy… Granger?” she whispered, with a lifting of one eyebrow before patting the service bell three times.
“Yeah, yeah, I heard ya the first time.” Calls out a deep southern accented male voice from inside the bathroom. “Just gimme a sec, would ya?” he says just before the flushing sound of the commode crashes.
He comes right out afterwards, no running sink water, and no dry hands. And he has a red ring smack in the center of his forehead. He is a stubby fellow about the same height as Frost, with a rough face only a mother could love seeping out the cracks from underneath an explosion of kinkily red hair. He’s wearing a black t-shirt with the words Last Call embroiled across the chest; beneath it, an enormous keg and a slew of empty see thru plastic cups. He is shamelessly sagging a pair of cutoff denim jeans, and on his feet are .50¢ sandals with a pink strap.
“What can I do ya fur, miss?” he asks with a scratch at his chest, walking toward the front desk.
“Umm, I just need a room for the night.” Stephanie says as civilly as possible. She tries not to look too surprised at the beer bellied man who’d forgotten about washing his hands before exiting the restroom.
“Sign in here,” he says, gliding his index finger along the line beneath Mr. Granger’s. “I need to see some ID… and one night’s stay ‘ill run ya 50 bucks even.”
“Fifty dollars,” Stephanie says, astonished. She looked around the office and sort of cackles hysterically for a split second, then looks back to the attendant, who is now rubbing at his beard. “You can’t be serious… fifty dollars.”
“I don’t make the rules here miss. I’m just a simple messenger.” he says.
Simple is right. But simpleton is a healthier choice of skinnies. At least that’s what Stephanie is thinking through a deceitful grin. She would have most likely pitched an argument about the room charge; she did it before at a fancier hotel and talked the hotel manager down to half price. But she didn’t argue this time; she just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. So she opened her palm and searched through the balled up bills, dropping two crumpled up $20s and a $10 on the front desk.
She knows it to be rude – dropping money instead of handing it to the merchant – but she really does not want to chance brushing fingertips or anything else for that matter with Mr. Last Call. She smiled shyly hoping he wouldn’t notice her rudeness as she dropped the money on the counter.
Then it hit her – Stephanie realized that her Identification was back in the truck with Frost and Simon Jr. She told Mr. Last Call about her realization and he disregarded the ID entirely, tapping on the clipboard, “Basically just sign-in little lady and you can bring it in at checkout time.”
She knows it’ll be too late by then and signed a fake name on the register. Mr. Last Call scooped up the cash and slid it into his jeans pocket just as Steff was gladly heading for the exit.
“Do ya want ya key, miss?” he called out after her.
Oh, darn. She knew she was forgetting something.
Last Call reaches underneath the front desk and lays the copper colored room key on the countertop. And it’s a good thing he did; she almost forgot to ask him about a nearby gas station. Luckily it was just a couple miles up the road.
Before he says goodnight, Mr. Last Call looks down to her name scrawled on the sign-in sheet and addresses her by her alias in awe. “Mrs. Clinton?”
“That’s right,” she says, walking out the front door with the room key hanging off her pinky nail. Then she took a right turn heading straight for the… “What the heck?” she said once she noticed the truck was missing.
She looked up and down the deserted parking lot twice before her sight adjusted to the rays of sunrise and she spotted the tail end of the truck sticking out just a smidge from the other end of the building. And after hearing faint, what could go for, munching sounds, she took a light step forward, trying to lock on to the sounds origin.
“What took you so long?” Frost asked from behind her.
Stephanie jumped once again, as she did when the office door slammed behind her. She spun around and quickly advised Frost to never startle her like that again.
She flung the key to him from off her pinky and said, “We’re in room 5. Where’s Simon?”
He tossed the key back. On instinct, she caught it in the palm of her hand and instantly frowned as she fought the urge to dust off her hands.
“Open the door, “ Frost says, “I’ll go get him.”
Book 2: The Alpha’s a Bitch: Rise Of The Pack Princess Chapter 6
Moments later Stephanie exited the bathroom, hands dripping from a long needed, thorough washing, where she took a second to look over to see Simon sprawled out across the green sofa on the far wall. His head was propped up on a throw pillow and his eyes were still closed. Stephanie wondered to herself if Simon were playing possum…
Frost is seated on an old wooden chair with a floral plush pillow just a few feet away from Simon, his nose poked out the window from behind the dusty gold curtains trimmed in burgundy. Steff turned her attention away from the two of them and looked over toward the beach ball-sized tube television sitting on the chest of drawers and began searching through the drawers with a purpose.
“Did the guy in the office tell you how far till the next service station?” Frost asked.
“Two miles away,” Stephanie replied. She opened the last dresser drawer beneath the tube, and there it was. “Got it!” she said of the television remote.
It is a wonder how she could feel so chirpy knowing their current situation. She could not bring herself to feeling fearful or fretted that the worst was yet to come when it was Frost who had been there for her this whole time. But she had to stay cautiously aware. After all they had fallen into already tonight… she had to hope that it would never make it to the news – as far as they were concerned anyway.
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br /> Then she thought about Simon Jr., and his condition, and took a seat on the edge of the bed. She knew she’d have to check on him soon if his condition didn’t change, but as it were right now, him being out made him much easier to deal with. The old screen lit up like a champ and Steff flicked through the channels, coming to a halt at the local news station when she now thinks about what they’d been desperately endeavoring to escape; and where Frost was leading her on the open road.
Frost was thinking to himself if he’d just traveled two more miles then they would be in the next state already. He heard the reporter mention Parkinsville and brings his nose back into view, strolls over beside Stephanie and takes a glance at Simon Jr., then looks back to the screen.
Unfortunately, the story was about the gang violence back in the small town, the corrupted authorities and terrified community. The reporter decided to let a witness of the madness that unfolded earlier that night speak his piece. It’s a young Mexican man in his early thirties, a low haircut, black hair, tight white tank top with a light smile. He had a very interesting scar on the lower part of his chin. Frost grunted at the sight in a fit of anger, clenched his fists and stormed toward the restroom, advising Stephanie to get some rest.
Stephanie was confused. She watched him storm off.
Seconds later, the water thumps on like a pair of full throttle helicopter propellers from out of the shower head, until finally calming, spitting into a stream. Is Frost upset that the night’s event had made the news; his old pack’s stories made headlines all the time. Is it that the reporter mentioned the police are still rounding up suspects; she’s pretty sure someone remembering his face out the bunch was by a long shot. Maybe the witness is peculiarly familiar in some way; after all, he didn’t stay to hear what the man had to say.
She decided to let it go, looks over to check on Simon, who is still out of it. And then he cracks his left eye open.
The Alpha's a Bitch: Rise Of The Pack Princess Complete: A Paranormal Werewolf Romance Page 5