Finding My Pack (22 page)

W
hen I walk into his office Remy takes one look at my edible treasure and shakes his head. He comes toward me and makes a move to take my basket.

"
Mine!
" I growl at him. Turning to the side and placing a protective arm over my candy.

  He takes a step back, raising one eyebrow. At first he looked taken aback, now he just looks amused. "Kitten, if I wanted the candy you never would have seen it in the first place. I was merely going to set it aside for now as I have serious things to discuss with you and I think it will interfere." Remy says slowly.

  "Oh," I say lamely. I still don't give him the basket, though, I sit on the chair and put the basket on the floor in front of it. He looks down at my basket, for too long, I think! I use my foot to push the treasure under my chair and narrow my eyes at him.

  He shakes his head in wonder as he rounds the desk to sit. After putting on his ‘I mean business’ face, he speaks. "First off Kitten, I want to apologize that it took me this long to have this conversation with you. Be honest with me, here. Do you know a man by the name of Charles Daily?"

  I shake my head. "I don't think so. Why?"

  "Because Kitten, he is very interested in you. Before you came here, did you ever notice anyone following you?"

  What kind of question is that? "Uh...no. Who would follow a street kid around?" I ask, confused.

Remy sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "When you told us where you resided Kitten, Ash and I went to take a look. We wanted to see if you had, in fact, killed the man who attacked you."

Oh my God! I think I must be brain damaged to have forgotten all about that night. What's wrong with me? Here I am, happy, eating candy, and continuing on like nothing ever happened. I'm a horrible person. The worst kind of person.

"Don't!" Remy barks out. I jump slightly and focus back on him. "Let me finish before you start thinking bad about yourself.” The man you hit with a brick didn't die, Kitten, you must have knocked him out. He went through your belongings at the warehouse. They were scattered all over the place. We think he was looking for something. Maybe information on you. Maybe something he thought you had."

  I see red as I picture what Remy just said. 'Mine, mine, mine, mine' rings through my skull. That bastard touched MY stuff.

  "Focus Kitten," Remy says, the friggin mind reader. "We brought back everything we could find. I need you to look through it and tell me what's missing. We'll do that when we're done here."

  I nod. I'm a little mad that he's had my things and he's kept them from me. I'll kick him in the shin for that later, hard. Harder than I do Logan. For now I want to hear what else he has to say.

  Remington continues. "We were able to track his scent to a warehouse not far from yours. His blood was all over the place so it wasn't that hard. The warehouse was empty of people, but we did find evidence that someone has been watching you for quite some time."

  WHAT? "What kind of evidence?" I demand.

  Remington shifts uncomfortably. "Pictures mostly, notes of your schedule, where you went and when. Who you talked to. Articles of clothing with your scent still on them."

  My mind is spinning. Someone has been taking pictures of me? How did I not notice something like that? I did notice when my panties went missing, but I just figured some pervert went through my bag when I was working. Wait...

  "He's the one who stole my panties?" I shout at Remy, indignant. Son of a mother-licking-toad! If only I would have hit him again with that brick.

  "Yes Kitten, but I think you're missing the biggest point here. Why he took them. Why he was taking pictures of you in the first place." Remy sighs, running his hand down his face. "Wolves had been in that warehouse, Miss Kitten. The man who attacked you was human, but we think he was working for wolves."

  I don't know what to say to that. "Do you have any clue why wolves would be interested in you Kitten?" He asks.

  I blink at him. "I don't know Remy. You'd know the answer to that more than I would."

  He frowns. "What do you mean by that?"

  I slouch in my chair, feeling more confused than I ever have. "I mean...that you are wolves too and here I am...sitting in your office with you. Why did you all take me in Remy? You've lived for how long? I couldn't have been the first street kid you ran across, or the first beaten girl either. Why am I here? No other broken girls are here. What made me different?"

  "I don't know Kitten, we've been trying to figure that out since you got here. You're here because each of us feels a certain pull toward you like you are our sun and we your planets. It's never happened before so we don't know the answer to that." He shakes his head sadly.

  Minutes or hours pass, I'm not sure. I bite my lip, picking at my jeans. I don't know how to feel about any of this. I was positive that the man who attacked me had been just a random bum who saw me enter the warehouse. I didn't even know werewolves existed until I came here.

  "Kitten, talk to me. What are you thinking?" Remy asks, looking a little worried now. I'm worried too.

  "Honestly Remington, I'm not sure what to do with this information. Am I endangering you guys being here? Are these people still looking for me? Why were they looking in the first place? Actually, they found me and followed me. But for what reason?" I feel myself tearing up. Why is this happening? What does it mean? I sniffle, bringing my hands to my face.

Remy is on my side of the desk in an instant. "Hey, it's going to be okay. You have us. We won't let anything happen to you. Look at me Kitten." I sniffle again but remove my hands, searching Remy's steel eyes, for what? I'm not sure.

  "We'll figure all this out together. Do you understand me?" His commanding tone is comforting for once. If Remy wants information I'm sure he'll get it. I nod my head, leaning into him. I bury my face in his neck, seeking comfort. He must understand because he picks me up and sits in my chair with me in his lap. His strong hand rubs up and down my back.

  Minute-hours pass and I finally calm down. I lift my head and look at Remy. His eyes have gone soft now as he brushes loose strands of hair behind my ear. "I need you to go through your things, Kitten. We need to know what he took, if anything. Think you can handle that?"

I nod and push myself off of him. I straighten my clothes and wait for him to lead me to my stuff. Remy takes me one door over from his office to a mostly empty room. There's a coffee table pushed against the wall and a burgundy rug laying in the middle of the room, on it, is my treasure chest. I run to open it, despaired by what I see.

  My treasure chest is an old Army footlocker I found at the thrift store one day. I got it, thinking I could drag it around like the boy with the wagon. It was too hard to do that, but I didn't want to give it up. I took it to the woods behind a strip mall that I was certain no one ever entered. Over the years I have collected things, putting them in my treasure chest. Favorite books of mine that the librarian told me I could keep because they were too worn anyway. Pastel drawings I drew once I discovered their magical quality. Other sketches in a sketchbook. A baby blanket that the crazy cat lady said she found with me in the dumpster and the security videos of the market across the street from that dumpster. I had three years’ worth of them. The owner of the market was a pack rat and when the store closed I offered to buy them. He was nice and traded me a picture for all of them. They were on discs in plastic folders.

  But none of those are here. I sob into my hands. I never got around to watching any of them. One of the market's cameras pointed right at the dumpster, I was sure I'd find at least one of my parents with that footage. Or at least know when I was born. I'm beyond devastated.

  Eventually, I hear several pairs of footsteps moving behind me. I cried myself numb so I sit, staring at the blank wall in front of me. A warm hand lands on my shoulder. "These are pretty good Kitten. Did you do them yourself?" It's Reed and I know he's just trying to get me to talk. I don't want to but I don't want to be rude to him either.

  I nod my head yes. He makes an 'hmm' sound. Does he not believe me? I look over to see him flipping through the sketchbook, pausing and studying each page. I watch as a tear slides down his cheek. I will admit that some of those drawing are a bit disturbing if you can pick up the meaning behind them. I shouldn't have let him look, Reed's sad enough as it is. And he's artistic enough to read between the lines.

  I try to shut the book, hoping he won't ask me about the pictures I drew. No such luck. "This is you isn't it?" He asks. I look at the page he's on. It's me alright. I drew a girl on her knees in front of a mirror. She's smiling at the mirror, looking happy and perfect. The girl in the reflection has one hand beating on the glass, the other clutched to her chest. She's crying, tears streaming down her face, her hair out of place, her dress the exact copy of the other girl's but instead of it being perfect, it's torn and ratty looking. Her mouth is open in a scream, her eyes pointed to the sky, praying to a god that never answers.

  "Yes," I whisper to Reed, answering his question.

  "And the other one, the woman on the ground?" He asks.

  "That was my best friend. She was a hooker. Nicest woman I'd ever met. She'd take me for pie at the diner and she's also the reason I got the dishwashing job."

  "What is this drawing about Kitten?" Reed sniffles but makes no move to wipe away his tears. He's not ashamed of them. I respect that.

  I don't want to answer his question, but I will, just on my own terms, I don't want him judging her. He needs to know the whole story. "You know, I asked her once why she did what she did. She said it was because it was the life she knew and she was too scared of the possibilities another life could have. She didn't have to be a hooker. She was pretty, and would never tell me what she did with the men that paid her, but she would tell me about how many of them wanted to take her away, to give her a better life where she didn't have to sell her body. But she never went with them. She taught me about hygiene and how to care for myself. Kids used to pick on me and mothers wouldn't let me play with their kids because of how I looked and smelled. She taught me. She said she would have let me stay with her, but her life was too dangerous for me, that I'd get pulled in and she didn't want that for me."

  I hear a couple sniffles behind me and throats clearing. I've gone this far so I might as well explain the picture. He sees it anyhow, right in front of him. "I was walking down this alley one day, there was a bakery that threw out unsold bread and other things daily. I was desperate so I went to see if they'd thrown anything out recently. A man had followed me, but I was too hungry to notice. The alley was on the edge of where she waited for customers, she saw the man and ran after me. When she called out my name, the man turned and fought with her, he had a gun."

  I don't feel like I need to explain more as the picture he's looking at is of a pretty dead woman in short, tight clothing lying on the ground with a bullet wound to the chest. At the bottom of the page is a loaf of French bread that I had dropped. Blood pools around her in a massive puddle, her purse still around her arm but the contents spilled out. There's so much detail because the image is forever etched into my brain. The way her open eyes looked with the life gone out of her. The sound of the shot ringing out.

"Her last words were 'Run Kitten, but don't be afraid like I was.' She's why I'm here now. She was afraid to change her life, afraid what would happen. When you offered to let me stay here, I agreed because of what she said. She didn't want me afraid like her."

Reed breaks down now. Completely falls apart. It scares me a little. I've never seen a boy cry before. Not a big one. I do what they do with me. I pull him into me, letting his face press to my chest and stroke his beautiful hair. "It's okay Reed," I whisper to him. I don't know what else to do. I look for Tristan, wondering if his magic voice works on others as well.

  I find him with Logan in much the same position as Reed. Holy crap. I made all of them sad. I'll either have to hide that book or they will have to stop asking me questions. I don't want to be the reason these beautiful boys are broken like me. I just knew I'd bring them down.