On my way out of the room, I got a glimpse of Marc. Not much, but enough to be sure he was breathing. For the moment, anyway.
“Where’s Jace?” I demanded, and as we passed the third door, Yarnell shoved it open to reveal Jace lying on the bare floor of another, smaller spare room, his breathing soft and even, his hands and feet heavily bound with acres of duct tape. Dan had probably knocked him out the moment I was out of sight, and they’d no doubt made it into the house before I’d even gotten to the front yard. Which meant…
“You knew we were here the whole time?” I asked, when Yarnell pushed me into the living room. In one smooth motion, he pulled my jacket off and tossed it over the arm of a chair, then pinned my wrists again before I could swing around for a shot at him.
Kevin shook his head as if our scuffle had never happened, and shot Dan a bitter scowl as he tore a two-foot length from a roll of duct tape. “I had
no
idea until Painter showed up at the back door with your backup slumped on the porch like a rag doll.”
Dan shrugged apologetically, still wiping his nose. “I didn’t have a chance to call without being overheard. ”
Kevin sighed. “You know what they say about good help….” He held the first strip of tape out in my direction, and when Yarnell took one hand off me to take it, I twisted from his grip and swung around in as powerful a roundhouse as I could muster.
But Yarnell was ready this time. He caught my foot
in midswing with his good hand, absorbing my momentum with a jarring thud of steel-toed boot against bare palm. Then he twisted my leg, and pain shot through my ankle as I lost my balance. I landed hard on my chest, and when my chin hit the floor, I bit my cheek.
I was still struggling to spit out my own blood and draw a breath when Yarnell’s weight dropped onto my back. He yanked brutally on my arms again, and my wrists were tightly taped before my double vision merged. My ankles were bound a minute later.
Duct tape is strong, which is why my own Pride used it to bind trespassers resisting removal. But the interesting thing about that particular kind of tape is that, for all its strength, because of its distinctive weave, a single weak point would be enough to start a tear. Which is why we—and evidently Peter Yarnell—used multiple layers. The chance of a single weak point repeating in each layer was virtually nil.
And I didn’t exactly have a history of good luck in the first place.
When I was secure, though still thrashing, Yarnell hauled me up by my arms and shoved me down on the couch, my hands pressed into the cushions at my back.
Across the room, Dan caught my eye as he nursed his broken nose. “I don’t understand,” I said, practically daring him to meet my gaze. “You made a list of strays for us. You fought alongside us in the ambush! And the whole time you were feeding Kevin information?” And suddenly I remembered Dan sitting at Marc’s kitchen
table, his phone in front of him. The bastard hadn’t been playing
Tetris!
Dan shrugged, but looked distinctly uncomfortable discussing his part in the whole thing. “I had nothing to do with the ambush. Kevin set that up on his own, after I told him you guys would be coming through town. I stopped to make sure Manx and the kid were okay, then it was either fight
with
you or admit I was spying for the other side.” He wiped a smear of blood from one cheek, then dropped his eyes. “And I gave you a list of strays I thought knew nothing about the chips. Feldman was a surprise, of course. Just my luck.”
“Wow.” I allowed myself a small moment to gloat. “You’re a piss-poor spy.” Except for the fact that he’d infiltrated my Pride’s home base—the first successful penetration by a hostile stray. Ever.
Damn it.
I glared up at Dan, cursing myself mentally for not seeing this coming. And no one even knew where we were, since I hadn’t really called my father.
Except for Dr. Carver…
How long would it take him to figure out something had gone wrong, and call for help?
“You know, she’s right! I don’t think you’ve been pulling your weight around here lately,” Kevin said, glaring at Dan as if their conversation had never been interrupted. “Didn’t you let her
beat
the living
shit
out of Pete the other day?”
Dan rolled his eyes, looking more than a little irritated. “What did you want me to say? ‘Faythe, lay off him. He’s my secret partner in crime.’?”
But Kevin continued as if he hadn’t even heard. “And they were
not
supposed to be in my house.”
“How was I supposed to stop them without tipping them off?” Dan demanded, dropping into one of Yarnell’s overstuffed armchairs, his bloody towel hanging limply from one fist.
“You could have at least gotten the tracker away from her.”
“She never put the damn thing down!”
“He’s right.” I shrugged—an awkward movement with my hands pinned behind me—only then remembering that I still had the gadget in my pocket. “I can be pretty difficult to reason with.”
“And pretty damn hard to shut up.” Kevin crossed the room to stand in front of a mirror hanging over an occasional table against the far wall, turning his head to examine his crooked nose. “Who the hell am I going to get to set this again—” Kevin froze, as what he’d said sank in, and I was pretty sure I knew what he’d just remembered. “
Fuck.
Dan, go get the doctor before he realizes something’s wrong and calls in backup.”
“Too late for that,” I bluffed, smirking at Kevin’s newly mutilated reflection. “My dad knows exactly where we are, and he’ll have backup here within minutes.”
“She’s right.” Dan glanced back and forth between us, new worry lines bisecting his brow. “She called her dad before we left.”
“Did you
see
her call Greg?” Kevin demanded, and Dan shook his head. “Then she
didn’t
call him. This
little bitch is
known
for insubordination, and her dad would never approve such a risky stunt, for fear of precisely
this.
” Kevin turned to face the room slowly, his arms spread to indicate my unfortunate predicament.
“Vic’s expecting to hear from me soon, and if he doesn’t, he’ll know something went wrong.”
“Now,
that
I believe. But how on earth will he find you?” Kevin heaved an exaggerated shrug and pouted in mock distress. Then he dropped the facade and turned an angry look on Dan. “Her father has no idea she’s here. And neither does anyone else except the damned doctor. So go get him.”
I could have told him that Vic had the address, but I was afraid if he knew that, he’d move us. Then we’d be screwed.
Dan nodded curtly, and jogged through the kitchen toward the back door.
“Don’t forget this!” Kevin called, and Dan turned just in time to catch the syringe Kevin had pulled from his pocket. “If you can’t con him into coming peacefully, knock him out and throw him over your shoulder.”
Dan shoved the syringe into his pocket and slammed the door on his way out, and suddenly I understood why both Marc and Jace were sleeping so soundly.
“Watch the back window,” Kevin ordered, and Yarnell wandered into the kitchen as our Pride’s most notorious traitor sank into the armchair to the left of the couch, his elbows propped on widespread knees. His eager gaze focused on me, and Kevin opened his mouth. But I cut him off, stalling for time in hopes that
Dr. Carver would come of his own volition, thus conscious and able to fight.
True, he hadn’t worked as an enforcer in nearly a decade, but hopefully fighting was like riding a bike. Only more painful.
“So, you knew Marc was alive the whole time, and that we knew about the microchips?” I said, cocking my head at Kevin.
He grinned and took the bait, evidently eager to show off his evil
skillz,
now that the damsel was officially in distress. “About the microchips? Yeah. Dan told us Ben Feldman showed you his. But the real irony is that Feldman asked me not to tell anyone else about it!” His smile made me want to puke, but I kept my face blank. “I can’t believe he cut it out of his own back. That fucker’s
hard-core.
Seriously, Feldman’s the scariest damned altruist I ever met. Dealing with him takes real finesse, and getting him implanted was a huge pain in the ass. He was a pretty high priority, though, because he’s unpredictable.”
So Feldman wasn’t in on the microchip conspiracy…
“But no, we didn’t know Marc was alive until Dan told us where to find Adam Eckard’s body. But then finding Marc was easy enough, thanks to the tracker. Ironic, huh? He nearly died fighting Eckard before we could get him implanted, then Eckard’s chip leads us right to him.”
“You really weren’t trying to kill him?”
“We were during the ambush. And I can’t even
begin
to explain how hard it is to get that many strays to work together, even fighting against a common enemy.” Marc, of course.
“I assume it was easier with Dan’s help,” I spit.
“Nah. He really wanted nothing to do with that. He didn’t want the baby caught in the cross fire. I think he feels loyal to Manx, since she didn’t kill him when she could have.” Kevin shrugged. “But when that didn’t work out, the powers that be decided it might be more interesting to track him. See if we could catch him breaking the rules. Maybe sneaking into Pride territory to see his girlfriend.” He raised one accusatory eyebrow at me, but before I could argue that that wouldn’t have happened, Yarnell called out softly from the kitchen.
“Hey, Mitchell, they’re here, and the doc’s walking tall.”
“Oh, good!” Kevin grinned as he stood, looking giddy enough to bounce off the walls. “Now that the loose ends are all tied up, the real fun begins.”
“What fun?” I demanded, but Kevin was already walking away from me.
“Keep her quiet,” he muttered on his way across the room.
Yarnell raced in from the kitchen and was on me before I could yell to warn Dr. Carver. He pulled me onto his lap on the couch and shoved the end of Dan’s bloodstained towel into my mouth, then clamped his hand over it. My shout came out as a muffled moan, and no amount of struggling could dislodge Yarnell’s grip on me, though his still-healing ribs must have been in agony.
Kevin stopped beside another armchair and squatted to pull something from behind it. My eyes widened when I saw the tire iron Dan had been carrying, and I wasn’t much comforted when he took the time to wrap his own bloodstained towel around the business end of the tool.
“Shh,” he said, eyes wide, one finger pressed to his lips. “I’m hunting
wabbit!
But we don’t want Carver dead until he’s fixed my nose, now do we?” Kevin stood flat against the wall, where I could see him, but someone coming through the back door would not.
I thrashed harder, but Yarnell’s grip on me only tightened until I was afraid he’d break my ribs. Unfortunately, there was no time for a partial Shift, or any other offensive measure.
The kitchen door opened, and Dr. Carver’s voice reached my ears. “Where is she?” Then his gaze landed on me, and his forehead crinkled in confusion. “What the hell—”
I screeched wordlessly in warning as he passed through the doorway, but it did no good.
“What’s up, Doc?” Kevin swung the tire iron like a baseball bat. The towel-wrapped steel connected with the side of Dr. Carver’s skull, and the doctor collapsed onto the carpet with a muffled thud.
Noooo!
I screamed in my head, but the audible portion was nothing more than an inarticulate groan.
“Tape him up and toss him into the tub,” Kevin ordered, and Dan stepped forward reluctantly, a fresh roll of duct tape in one hand.
Yarnell copped a generous feel of my inner thigh, then shoved me off of his lap, onto the center couch cushion, where I fell over on one side, unable to right myself without the use of my hands. Tears formed in my eyes and ran sideways across my cheeks as I watched Dr. Carver—my last hope for help from the cavalry—hauled down the hall.
“Now…” Kevin said, slinking across the room toward me, the rings around his eyes darkening with each second as he took the towel out of my mouth. “Let’s get down to business….”
“H
ere’s how this is going to work.” Kevin stopped three feet in front of the couch, squatting to put himself at eye level with me, my face half-buried in the cushion. “I’m going to ask the questions, and Pete’s going to make sure you answer them.”
“And let me guess,” I said, my words slurred with the left half of my mouth pressed into the upholstery. “If I play nice, you’ll let me go, but if I don’t, you’ll kill me.”
“No.” Kevin shook his head firmly and hauled me upright by one arm, so fast my vision swam. “You’re going to die either way. I can’t see any way around that, considering how much you know about all this.” His open arms took in the whole room, indicating their little conspiracy.
“Kevin…” Dan began, and my gaze found him slouched in a chair across the room. “You said she’d get to go home….”
“Yeah, well that’s before she wound up in the middle of all this! If you’d kept her out of the way like you were supposed to—if you hadn’t blown your fucking
cover
—she’d get to go back to Texas with you tonight. But you fucked up, so she has to die along with her collection of adoring tomcats.”
Dan flinched and avoided my eyes.
“It’s a shame,” Kevin continued. “Considering how badly we need tabbies. But when Dan brings the bodies of Greg’s Pride cats—including his precious
kitten
—back home, the Alpha will be so grateful for your compassion and so impressed by your loyalty that he’ll accept you into the Pride. Hell, he’ll
need
you. Which will put you in the perfect position to extract both of the other tabbies, when their guard is down and you’ve gathered enough intel…”
Shit.
Kaci and Manx. Were they the point of this whole operation?
No, they couldn’t be.
The microchips were implanted long before the council decided to remove Kaci. So maybe they were just
part
of it.
The lines in Dan’s forehead deepened, and for a moment, determination flickered behind his dark brown eyes. “Kaci’s just a kid, Kevin….”
“Exactly.” Kevin whirled on him, legs spread wide to take up as much room as possible in imitation of an aggressive Alpha stance. “And kids need proper care, which she is
not
getting in the south-central Pride. The council’s already ruled to remove her, and you have the chance to succeed all on your own, where Calvin Malone’s highly trained team of enforcers failed.”
“And Manx?” I asked, curious to know how he could possibly put a positive spin on
her
forcible removal.
Kevin twisted to glare at me over his shoulder, then turned back to Dan. “Manx has paid for her crimes. She lost her claws. Do you really think it’s fair for her to be stuck in the middle of a war zone—once the fighting starts—when she can’t defend herself anymore? Or her baby?”
Damn.
I was almost impressed. If Kevin had shown so much potential as an orator while he was a member of our Pride, my father might actually have found some use for him.
Or not. We weren’t big on moral ambiguity in the south-central Pride, and that included propaganda. But it was the propaganda itself that caught my attention.
“Fighting?” I tried to keep my voice calm and steady.
“Oh, come on, Faythe!” Kevin stepped back so he could see both me and Dan. “We all know the war is coming, but I don’t think even Calvin Malone could have foreseen your father throwing the first punch.”
“
Malone
started this!” I shouted, straining desperately against my bonds. I felt helpless,
worthless,
without the use of my hands. “His tom killed Ethan in cold blood!”
“Ethan died because he stood in the way of an
authorized mission.
The official first strike will be when your father invades the Appalachian territory. And thanks to Dan, we know that’s exactly what he’s planning.”
Dan had the grace to look guilty as hell while judiciously avoiding my eyes.
“And when your father makes his move—an
illegal
breach of another Pride’s territorial boundary—the entire council will unite against him.”
I shook my head with feigned confidence, while my aching heart withered in my chest. “Uncle Rick will never go along with that. Neither will Bert Di Carlo.”
Kevin shrugged smugly. “If they side with your father—supporting his treachery rather than the council’s authority—they’ll be removed from power just like he will, and their territories will be redistributed once the council membership is settled.”
“That’s not going to happen!” I spat, glowering at Kevin in the most frustratingly impotent moment of my life. “No one but your dad and Calvin Malone will support this war once they hear how Ethan
really
died. He was pounced on from above—murdered in cold blood. My father and I saw it with our own eyes.”
“Unfortunately,
you
won’t be there to testify, and after the council hears the intelligence we’ve gathered against your father, the Alphas won’t believe a word he has to say.”
My pulse jumped, in spite of my best effort to steady it. “What intelligence?”
Kevin’s gaze narrowed on me. “That’s where
you
come in.”
“Oh, the whole Q and A bit?” I rolled my eyes, trying to look calm and fearless, while my heart raced like a scared rabbit’s. “What’s my motivation to play along, if you’re just going to kill me anyway?”
On the edge of my vision, Dan went stiff, and I took
heart from his reaction. He was clearly uncomfortable with the thought my murder—as was
I,
for the record—which definitely gave me something to work with. But should I appeal to his sympathy, or his faltering sense of honor?
“Pain,” Kevin said, and I blinked at him in confusion, trying to haul myself back from thoughts of escape long enough to make sense of that one word.
“Huh?”
“
Pain
is your motivation,” he clarified. “Pete’s looking forward to beating a little compliance into Greg Sanders’s infamous shrew before I give him the all clear to take whatever
else
he wants from you. The more you talk, the less opportunity he has to hit you. Is that motivation enough?”
My heart slammed against my chest, and my hands began to sweat against the soft gray upholstery at my back, but I forced confidence into my expression, crowned by two eyebrows arched in challenge. “Knowing that either way, this party ends with my rape and murder?
No.
There
is
no motivation strong enough to guarantee my cooperation.”
“Yeah?” Kevin smiled viciously. “Let’s give it a shot anyway….”
I shrugged, bolstering myself with bravado, since I had nothing else left to work with. “I’m not exactly new to being threatened. Or punched.”
Yarnell’s leering grin widened. “Sounds like she likes it rough.”
I never said I
liked
it that way….
“Well then, she’s in luck.” Kevin paced in front of me again, arms crossed over his chest. “Ryan’s missing again, isn’t he?”
“What?” I was honestly thrown off by his first question; Ryan’s was the last name I’d expected to hear from Kevin’s mouth.
“Any idea how he got out of his cage?”
No.
So far as I knew, no one had figured that out yet. But responding to Kevin’s question—even one I had no answer for—could be construed as cooperation, and I couldn’t let them think I was capitulating so early.
“So Kevin asks the questions, and Peter likes to hit girls. What’s your role in this?” I leaned to my left to peer at Dan around Kevin’s arm. “I mean, other than informant and traitor…?” Because he was the only one who could have told them Ryan was missing. My father hadn’t reported that development to the council, because technically they had no authority in the matter. And until the larger pile of cat shit hit the fan, we were hoping we could find him before anyone else found out.
So much for
that
idea…
Kevin stepped into my line of sight to block Dan from view, so I leaned the other way. “What are you getting out of this, other than Milo Mitchell’s pocket change?”
Dan shrugged, looking miserable. “Membership has its privileges.”
“Membership to what?” I demanded. “You were just eight months’ probation away from membership in the biggest Pride in the country, and you threw it all away! Why?”
“Because he sees logic, which is more than I can say for
you
recently,” Kevin snapped, moving between me and Dan again. “Your dad said he’d
consider
accepting Dan if he could keep his nose clean until September. But by then, the war will be over, and your Pride won’t even exist. Dan’s smart enough to side with the inevitable victor early on.”
“But for what?” I leaned the other way again, already tired of having to fight for eye contact. “You sold us out—sold
Marc
out—for a little cash!”
“No, that was
Pete,
” Dan snapped. “I just wanted out of the free zone.”
“Oh…” Understanding finally came, and I almost felt sorry for Dan.
Almost.
“You think they’re going to take you in. Did they tell you that? That after you’ve served as their spy, or their foot soldier, or whatever, that they’ll let you play their reindeer games? Because they won’t. You
know
that, don’t you, Dan?”
Surely he wasn’t that gullible….
Kevin growled, and backhanded me so hard I fell over sideways again, the living room spinning before me. I never even saw the blow coming. “My father will stand by his word.”
“The hell he will….” I mumbled, my words slurred by shock and the pain radiating through my right cheek. I tasted blood in my mouth, and licked it from my lips as Pete pulled me upright again, probably positioning me for another blow, rather than for my comfort. “He said you could come back, too, didn’t he?” I pinned Kevin with my gaze. “How often has he promised?
How soon did he say you’d be back home, in your old room? Next month? Next week? Or was it
last
month?”
Kevin glowered at me. “Plans change.”
“Wow, you’re so
naive
for a bad guy!” I let genuine amusement leak into my tone, then leaned forward to spit more blood on Yarnell’s pale, plush carpet before I met Kevin’s eyes again. “He’s not going to take you back, and my bet is you already know Dan’ll never make it to the northwest Pride. So how’s he going to die? In a fight? Or peacefully in his sleep? Or are you going to bait one of us into killing him for you? Either way—” I leaned around him again to catch Dan’s gaze “—once you hand over Manx and Kaci, they’ll be done with you, and you’ll end your existence in an unmarked hole in the ground. Maybe right next to Adam Eckard. Because the truth is that my father’s the only Alpha in the country who’d seriously consider admitting a stray into his Pride. The proof of that is lying unconscious in the back bedroom.”
Marc, of course.
“Where
you
put him.” I glared at Dan, unable to censor my anger and betrayal even if he
was
my only shot at survival. “Were you there when they came for him? Did you fight him? We’d never have known, would we? Since you were the one who reported it, we didn’t think twice about your scent in his house.”
Dan closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “I wasn’t there. I knew they were going to implant him, but I couldn’t help, or he’d know I was in on it. I didn’t know the guys they sent, and I didn’t even know when they were going to do it. I never touched him.”
“Yet he’s going to die because of you! What did Marc ever do to you? Other than teach you to fight and welcome you into his home?”
“Enough.” Kevin slapped me again, and this time when he picked me up, I spit blood in his face, knowing it would hurt his broken nose to wipe it off. He dabbed at his nose gingerly with the towel Pete had stuffed into my mouth, then dropped it on the floor, fury glowing crimson in his cheeks. “I’m going to give you one chance to answer, then I’ll let Pete go to work on you. How peacefully you die is up to you.”
I rolled my eyes again, then met his gaze to let him see the derision swimming in mine. “I may be a girl, but I bet my rear claws I have bigger balls than either of you assholes. Not that that’s saying much.” Yarnell growled on my right, but I continued as if I hadn’t heard him. “I’m not going to answer your questions, no matter what you do to me. So why don’t you just save us all the trouble and kill me now?”
Not that I expected them to actually do that. In fact, I was kind of counting on their refusal. And hoping that the madder they got, the more careless they’d get. If I could stall them long enough for one of the toms to come out of their drugged sleep—and Marc was the most likely to wake up, since he’d been put under first—we might have a chance to make it out alive.
Kevin squatted to watch me from eye level, as if whatever he had to say was too important to be spoken at any real distance. “If you won’t cooperate, and we can’t beat the information out of you, we’ll just bring
one of your boys in here and let you watch us beat him until you answer. How ‘bout that?”
I refused to answer, my jaws clenched shut so hard I thought I heard the bones creak. Taking my own beating was one thing, but I couldn’t watch the guys suffer in my stead. No more than I could have watched Abby raped, or Kaci kidnapped. And Kevin clearly knew it.
“Should we start with Marc? I’m assuming he’s the one you’d most want to protect. But I don’t know…” His voice rose on the end, and he glanced up at Yarnell as if for an opinion. “Jace and the doc have nothing to do with any of this. They’re innocent bystanders, of a sort. And I’m guessing you don’t want to see them suffer, either. Maybe we should flip a coin….”
“Good idea, dumbass!” I knew smarting off was a bad idea, but I just couldn’t help myself. My mouth was the only weapon I had left. “You have a three-sided coin?”
Kevin bitch-slapped me again, and this time my lower lip split wide open, and blood spilled over my chin. “Go get Marc. He should be coming out of it soon anyway. I have a feeling there’s nothing she won’t do to spare him pain. Except marry him.”