Thrown to the Wolves (Big Bad Wolf)

by Adhara, Charlie

  Marcus flushed.

  “But manipulation. Manipulation you’re good at. That and computers. So you decided to help the investigation along by laying a nice little trail.”

  “Ollie, is this some kind of prank?” Marcus asked. “Tell your boyfriend his timing is terrible.”

  Park, who had been staring at the tooth, turned blank faced to Marcus and didn’t respond.

  Cooper continued, “Of course, you couldn’t be the one to draw attention to the trail. You had to have an outside party. Someone who couldn’t be accused of making up information in order to take control. Fortunately, you knew someone who’d rather die than be part of the Park pack. You’ve been in touch with Daisy Boudillion Park all these years, her eyes and ears in Port Drove, giving her updates on her kids as they grew up. That’s how you knew Benjy was dead when no one else had spoken to her in years. That’s how you knew she was in town following up on a WIP rumor of the coup to end all coups.

  “From there it was easy. Thanks to having recently murdered David Freeman, you had access to his computer. With the information on there, you were able to doctor up a few emails and screenshot the bank statements to make a nice little trail right to Sylvia. You gave it to Daisy knowing that she doesn’t trust any wolves in this town and would give it to me and that I, in turn, would bring in the BSI.”

  Cooper’s skin crawled, disgusted that they’d each done exactly what Marcus thought they would. Well, Park had been the one to call the BSI in. But what had seemed like a huge gesture of support from his partner was now forever tainted by the conspiracies around it. “We were all just puppets to you. As predictable as plucking on strings. Each with our little part to play.”

  “Are you insane?” Marcus said. “Sylvia tried to kill you. After you found a hostage on her property. Dr. Freeman was a victim, too, remember? She was abducted and held in a fridge, for Christ’s sake. Explain that.”

  “Easily staged. She had the most superficial head wound I’ve ever seen and I suspect her tox reports will come back with zero trace of tranquilizers, which is why she checked out so suddenly. It never did make sense why Sylvia would kill everyone but hold Dr. Freeman alive and able to identify her. Rather, I suspect that after you realized poor Charles Girard had seen you kill David Freeman and then escaped, you needed a credible witness to point the finger at Sylvia, and fast. Dr. Freeman was perfect.”

  “And she just agreed to do this? Why?”

  “For the samples, of course. You promised her proof of a secret that would make her career. More than a career—she’d be a legend. The scientist who discovered werewolves. Can you imagine that prestige?”

  Cooper shook his head. “What I don’t understand is why enlist Dr. Freeman in your plot to begin with? After all that effort to rise to the top, why meet with her? Why willingly give her the tools to destroy you?”

  Marcus’s amaretto eyes, so like Park’s, were ice-cold and full of hate. “When I heard your partner tortured and killed werewolves, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Clearly that was a mistake. I don’t know what his plan is, but you can’t possibly believe a word he’s saying. For god’s sake, for all we know he’s just attacked Helena!”

  There it was. The final, desperate blow. And it could work. From the looks on the other’s faces, they hadn’t known about the videos. Were frightened by Helena’s absence. The stench of her blood on his body. Weren’t sure what to think now. Cooper knew he’d just spun a twisted and unbelievable story about someone they’d known and loved all their lives. Meanwhile, he was no one. Not even a wolf. He was an outsider who didn’t belong.

  Park came to stand by Cooper. “I believe him.”

  “Ollie,” Marcus said with disbelief. “No.”

  “Cooper has never lied to me. I trust him.”

  “Against your own family? Your blood?”

  “Against anyone.”

  Marcus’s face twisted and he snorted, his usually pleasant voice mocking, “So what, you follow him now? Is he your human alpha?”

  “Yes,” Park said simply. “He is.”

  Cooper glanced at him, startled, but Park did not meet his eye. He stared at his family, his ex-pack, one by one. “He is.”

  After a beat, Mai and Jackie, holding hands, walked across the room and stood behind Cooper, too. Marcus’s face slackened in shock. But before he could say anything, Camille and Ricky crossed the room as well. Lorelei and Tim were looking at each other, having the sort of silent conversation that only lifelong friends could.

  “Lollie—” Marcus said.

  Lorelei shook her head, not able to look her brother in the eye. She and her ex-husband joined Cooper. Eventually only Delia and Bethany remained, though from their expressions it was less about choosing a side and more that they were still too shocked to move.

  “You set my dad up,” Delia whispered.

  “Del—”

  “You killed Grandpa.”

  “I—”

  “For what? So you could take over the pack? For more money? Was all this not enough for you?”

  “No!” Marcus yelled, and the room rang with shocked silence. “It had nothing to do with money. I did it for us. For every one of us. So we could all move forward as a species. Humans hunt and kill us. The BSI does nothing but tell us how to run our packs, and all we do day in and day out is have the same petty arguments over land.

  “Dad wanted to keep the land untouched for wolves to run in secret. Stu wanted to develop the land so wolves could live together in their packs in secret. Both too stupid to see they were arguing for the exact same thing. When we aren’t fighting over land, we’re funneling millions of dollars to corrupt humans to keep our secret. Secrets, secrets, secrets. Can’t you see how vulnerable it makes us? Someone needed to do something.”

  “And that something is going public? Coming out to the whole human world?” Camille asked sharply.

  “What would be so wrong with that? We are the stronger, faster, dominant species. But because of this massive secret, we cower in what little woods are left in the world while the humans poison the land, arrest our people and drain our banks through blackmail.”

  Marcus took a step forward, eyes shining bright gold. “If we came out, all the way out, we wouldn’t have any weaknesses left. What the hell could stop us then? Who the hell could stop us? We’d rule this whole fucking world. We would save the earth, control the population and restore the natural resources.”

  “A revolution,” Park said. “With you at the helm.”

  “Why not?” Marcus hissed. “Why not me? I’ve watched you all pass me over all these years because I’m not ‘alpha material,’ because my AQ is too low. But look what I’ve managed to do in a few days. Now think what we could do together!”

  He looked to his wife with pleading eyes. But even Bethany had started backing away from him.

  “Oh, Marcus,” she whispered. “What have you done?”

  “The right thing! I did the right thing!” Marcus yelled. “We need to protect the earth from the hunters. Don’t you see? Don’t you remember?”

  But it was no use. His family had chosen. The Park pack stood united as one behind Cooper, and there was nothing Marcus could say to change their minds. And if he wasn’t able to talk his way out of it, he had nothing. It was over.

  After all, as Park had said, Marcus wasn’t a fighter or anything special at all, really. Just like any power-hungry man, deep down he was a coward.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cooper left Park and his family hovering around an unconscious Helena’s hospital bed with the murmured excuse that he needed to find some coffee. Though he deeply appreciated the support Park’s family had shown that morning, to say the situation was awkward was a massive understatement. Most of them still seemed in shock. Within hours, they had lost yet another family member.

  Coope
r’s gut twisted to imagine what Helena would feel when she woke up and someone told her. He hoped she’d reconsider letting Stuart back into the pack. Cooper didn’t know why he was so hung up on that, but he was. For all intents and purposes, he should either dislike or at best feel neutral about Stuart. But the thought of being thrown away by your pack and left alone in the world against your will made him feel sick to his soul, even if he wasn’t a wolf himself.

  Cooper stopped in place and nearly dropped his too-small Styrofoam cup of coffee. In the hall, Margaret Cola, head of the Trust, sat primly on one of the dark blue plastic chairs.

  She looked the same as the last and only other time he’d met her in person. Same pearls, plum lipstick and sharp, black eyes that drilled into his soul. Only her sheath dress had been replaced by an electric-blue pants suit that glowed against her dark brown skin. She looked like a queen here to pass judgment. In every way that mattered, she was.

  “Ma’am,” Cooper said, nodding at her. “What are you doing here?”

  Cola acknowledged him with nothing more than a slow blink. “Helena and I have known each other for many years. I’ve come to support her during this difficult time.”

  “Right.” He supposed that didn’t surprise him. The same way finding out Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, had been pen pals for years didn’t surprise him. Who knew what kind of grapevine the rich and powerful were on? “She’s out of surgery and the doctors are optimistic she’ll be fine.”

  “A gunshot is not the only injury Helena will need to recover from today,” Cola said neutrally.

  “No,” he agreed, then hesitated. “Does Stuart know what happened? Someone should tell him.”

  “We haven’t been able to locate him as of yet. But I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”

  “And Sylvia?”

  “Of course most of the charges against her have been dropped, but Ms. Rosetti is still being held by the BSI for attacking you and Mr. Eli Park.”

  “They’re going to consider the extenuating circumstances, though, aren’t they? I mean, she had a good reason to think she was being set up. She was.”

  Cola studied him. “You do understand both she and Stuart are still responsible for millions of dollars’ worth of property theft.”

  “Well, when you put it like that,” Cooper said, sighing. Cola was right. Whatever else had gone down, Stuart and Sylvia weren’t such great people themselves. Cooper wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much that she was still under arrest. Sylvia had tried to kill him, after all. Stuart had, too, in a roundabout way. But to see them both punished almost felt like the real villain had gotten exactly what he wanted in the end. Everything except the throne.

  “What will happen to Marcus?”

  “He’s in the Trust’s custody for now. We’re hoping he’s able to give us some indication of just how much information Dr. Freeman was able to abscond with or where she might go. So far, he’s not speaking. Likely holding out hope that his plan pulls through.”

  “Publish and be damned,” Cooper murmured.

  “It seems so.”

  “What if you don’t find her in time? What if she does release the proof?”

  Cola smiled, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes. A small, dangerous expression that looked more like a wild cat than a wolf. “You don’t really think an entire secret species can be brought down by a single phone call or article? True, assuming Marcus gave her more than sufficient evidence, there is a concrete threat, but even then Dr. Freeman will need time to put together her findings and the right people to present them to. While she does that, we will find her.”

  “We?”

  Cola inclined her head and her eyes scanned his body scrupulously. “Agent Dayton, I was also hoping to speak to you.”

  “To me? I already made my report to—”

  “Not about today’s events. Not directly, anyway. I wanted to talk to you about your future.”

  Cooper blinked. “You know, the last person to say that to me is in a hospital bed currently hooked up to life support.”

  Cola smiled coolly. “Well, I hope you consider my offer just as seriously as hers.” She patted the seat beside her, sparkly nails clicking against the plastic. “Please.”

  Cooper futzed with the zipper of the borrowed hospital hoodie, then sat, perching awkwardly on the edge so he could keep his body twisted toward Cola.

  “I hear you quit the BSI.”

  “Where’d you get that so quickly?”

  Cola raised her eyebrow. “Is it wrong?”

  “No,” Cooper said cautiously. And then more firmly, “No. I am leaving.”

  “And what do you plan on doing instead?”

  “Work at a movie theatre for a bit?” Cooper said impulsively, though at the moment he quite liked the idea of sitting in the dark for a month or ten. “See if I can teach? Or consult with...somebody? I don’t know yet.”

  “You hate the BSI so much you’d leave it for the unknown?”

  “Not hate,” Cooper protested. “It’s more like...”

  He trailed off, trying to put words to the feelings that had been growing for months. The feeling that had only been confirmed by his every interaction here. He’d been confronted firsthand with the utter uselessness of the BSI when it came to wolves as victims. He understood now that werewolves were angry over more than just a rough start and a few missteps. He’d seen how problematic the BSI’s lack of respect for werewolf history really was. In the last twenty-four hours alone he had witnessed things, aspects of their culture, he couldn’t have even imagined before.

  This ignorance was the very thing Marcus had used, what he had relied on to be able to set Sylvia up. Broken systems you could depend on to behave brokenly. He knew the BSI would see a wolf and blame a wolf. He knew that his own family would see a subservient and assume she had to be plotting for power.

  Marcus was a bad guy, but Cooper had to admit he was right about a couple of points. One of which was the state of things right now was not working. And continuing in the BSI was passive support of the toxic status quo.

  “It just doesn’t feel right,” Cooper said finally. “Like I’m fighting in the wrong war. Or I’m on the wrong side of...things.”

  “There are no sides in justice. Just good and evil,” Cola said neutrally. A sound bite if he’d ever heard one, and Cooper had to laugh. A long time ago, the director of the BSI had said a very similar thing to him the day he’d first met Park. He’d thought it was bullshit then, too.

  “We both know it’s way more complicated than that,” Cooper said. “Marcus was wrong to kill but not to want a better world for wolves. The BSI is right to arrest violent offenders but not to turn a blind eye to every violence that doesn’t look like a wolf killing a human. I don’t want to be a cog that helps a broken system keep running anymore. I...can’t.”

  Cola tilted her head and observed him for a long time. She then bent sharply to pull a thin leather briefcase out from under her chair. Opening it in her lap, she took out a sheaf of papers and handed it to Cooper.

  “What is this?”

  “In short, a better future.” She stood, and Cooper hastily got up as well. “I would like you to consider working with us, Mr. Dayton.”

  “Us? You mean—”

  “The Trust, yes. We have been in the process of establishing a department of field agents to investigate crimes against wolves. Both from within the community and from outside, human threats.”

  An entire agency that investigated crimes against werewolves. Cooper realized his mouth was open. “You’ve been in the...process of establishing?”

  “For a couple of years now. Our partnering with the BSI was only ever meant to be the first step of many. We have long known there needs to be change in the way we wolves live. We have the support of the WIP. With our agents available to step in, there wil
l be less unchecked abuse by the ruling packs. Wolves will have somewhere to turn in times of trouble. We have the ruling packs’ support as well. Less responsibility and cost for them in managing their territories and constituents. Well, most packs, anyway. And if Helena gives her public blessing, others will surely follow.”

  “So I would—”

  “You would be a Trust field agent working in a similar capacity to what you do for the BSI now, but for cases where werewolves have been targeted, either by fellow wolves or aware humans.”

  Cooper’s heart leapt into his throat and excitement pumped through his body. It sounded...perfect. He could still do something he loved, something he was good at, while doing something good, too. Filling a real need.

  He bit down on his tongue. He was getting ahead of himself. “Do you think I’m qualified for that, though? Being a human, I mean.”

  “It’s true most of our agents will be werewolves. But our world is a small one. With that comes a certain level of familiarity that could prejudice their investigations. It’s handy to have an outside point of view. Plus, you have the training, empathy and a definite knack for picking up these types of cases already.”

  “Oliver—”

  “I will be making Agent Park the same offer as well. His particular skill set and intimate understanding of many of the power systems and pack relationships down the eastern seaboard are invaluable to us.”

  “You know about that, then. That he was the, uh, Shepherd.”

  Cola blinked at him slowly, evaluating. “I think you will find very few wolves who do not.”

  “I’m trying to picture what that means, but it’s difficult. I guess my understanding of fame is limited to trying to get autographs and selfies.”

  “Park has dealt with it his entire adult life. Eastern wolves either fear him or want to ingratiate themselves to him. I’m sure he’s accustomed to it by now.”