Ambushed (32 page)

"They
don't provide any direct overhead concealment if you're standing on
the road, but they will do a great job of giving us cover until the
last possible second when we put tire shredders on the road."

"What
if they've got run-flat tires on the truck? Brandon used a similar
tactic against a convoy of jaguars while we were all down there. I'd
be surprised if Kaleb hadn't learned from that little trick."

Jack
smiled. "I almost hope they have, but it won't make any
difference. By the time that truck hits the top of the hill it's
going to be going slow enough that you, James or I could easily run
it down in hybrid form and rip the door away from the cab. One way or
another that truck will be stopping, and if it stops then the escort
vehicles will have to stop too."

I
nodded my agreement, and Jack continued. He had everything worked
out, including an escape route, but there was one thing he hadn't
dealt with. I debated raising the point with him, but ultimately
decided against it.

Jack
hadn't come up with a contingency for the one thing I was the most
worried about because there wasn't a good way to deal with it.
Besides, I already had a plan for that particular issue if it arose.
It wasn't Jack's problem to deal with, it was mine.

Everyone
talked through the plan, asking questions and offering suggestions,
and then just as things were winding down Alison and her mother
entered the theater. They'd obviously been crying and Alison's mother
had ahold of her arm as though trying to stop her from entering the
room, but I'd known Alison for long enough to know that it would take
more than tears to stop her.

Alison's
eyes were red from all of the crying, but she looked better than she
had in a long time. She was still too skinny and too tightly-wound,
but there was an air of acceptance to her that hadn't been there
before. I turned around in my seat so I could meet her eyes as she
walked up to me.

"Whatever
you've got planned, I want in."

"You
don't have to do this, Alison. I meant what I said. If you want to go
to ground with your mom you're welcome to do so. One person isn't
going to make the difference in what we've got coming up. If I can't
turn up another twelve or thirteen people all of this planning won't
count for anything anyway."

"I
know I don't
have
to help you out, but the fact that you're giving me the choice means
that I don't really have any other option but to help. Guys like
Kaleb and Brandon need to be stopped, but I'll settle for being there when
Sam gets put in the ground. If a few of the pack back in Sanctuary
had stood up to Kaleb then maybe Chloe would still be alive."

She
took a deep breath and held it for a second. When she released it she
seemed at peace for the first time I could remember.

"I'm
not going to sit around and just let Kaleb continue to screw people
over."

"Okay,
welcome to the team."

I
turned to the rest of the crew and gave them another nod of thanks.

"You
should all take a long break and get some sleep once we get back to
the hotel. I'll go see what I can do about rounding up some more
help."

I
tossed James and Jack each a stack of bills that I figured would be
more than enough to get everyone settled for the night and then
exited the auditorium as I pulled my phone out of my front pocket. It
was pretty much a given that Brindi would follow me out of the
theater, but I hadn't expected the stream of other people that were
only a step behind her.

"We
want to help too."

Chloe's
dad had the look of someone who knew he was going to be refused, but
who couldn't bear not to ask. The problem was I knew that I
should
turn him down. I needed all the help I could get, but I needed
fighters and neither of Chloe's parents remotely fit that
description.

They
were both submissives who'd spent most of their adult lives avoiding
confrontation by just giving into the demands of whichever dominants
crossed their path.

Kaleb
was a power-hungry monster whom you would have expected to turn
everyone around him into living weapons, but no pack could function
for long filled with nothing but battle-hardened dominants.

You
needed submissives to serve as a pressure release valve, and the
bigger the pack the more submissives you needed to offset the
dominants. A pack the size of the Sanctuary pack, especially one that
was as militant as Kaleb had made it, needed a huge supply of
submissive wolves and they needed to be extra weak-willed to offset
people like Brandon and Vincent.

In
their own way, Chloe's parents were as much a product of their
environment as Vincent was. In another pack Vincent would have still
been bad, but faced with fewer hybrids gunning for the top spot he
probably wouldn't have become the kind of heartless monster he
currently was.

By
the same measure, in a smaller pack Chloe's family would have still
been submissive, but they would have been forced to become better
fighters. A smaller pack couldn't afford to have as many
non-combatants, not if it expected to survive in a world filled with
vampires, werewolves and rival packs.

Chloe's
parents were stronger and faster than any human could hope to be, but
they would be barely more than cannon fodder in a fight against a
group of vampires. Putting them up against other wolves, or even
worse hybrids, would have been like signing their death warrants.

"Mr.
Peterson, I appreciate the offer, but going up against a bunch of
Coun'hij enforcers isn't going to bring Chloe back."

"Please,
call me Dylan. You're the boss around here. Everyone is working
together fairly well, but eventually you and James or you and Jack
are going to have some kind of difference of opinion and you don't
want to muddy the waters by showing a couple of submissives more
respect than they deserve."

"It
doesn't have to be like that…Dylan."

He
looked at my hand, currently holding Brindi's hand, and shook his
head. "I'm sorry to disagree with you, but it does. I've been
alive for nearly two hundred years. I'm a submissive, but in some
ways that just means that I understand dominance posturing better
than most dominants.

"Eventually
you're going to have to force obedience out of someone. You probably
won't want to, it may even be for their own good, but it will
eventually happen. You're not enough stronger than the other hybrids
here to force the issue without a fight, not if you haven't played
your cards just right."

His
wife stepped forward and put her hand on her husband's arm. "Please.
We know that we're no good in a fight, but we're willing to learn.
Back in Sanctuary we would have been beaten down for trying. Even the
other wolves would have resented us for trying to better our standing
in the hierarchy, but that's not the case here. You need fighters.
Let us help in whatever way we can while you turn us into fighters."

My
beast had a very decided opinion as to what course of action I should
take. She was right, I needed fighters, but if I said yes then their
lives would never be the same. Even if they didn't die the first time
I was forced to throw them into a fight, they would still be
different people by the time I was done with them.

In
a world where it was kill or be killed a pair of non-combatants were
worse than useless, but I didn't want to drag them into my world.
They'd had a taste already. Nobody could spend time around murderers
like Brandon and Vincent without getting glimpses of the world that
civilization was designed to protect us from. Not only that, they'd
already lost their only daughter to Kaleb's pointless war with the
jaguars.

They
knew what they were getting into, but I still almost refused them.
Chloe's mom loved her husband despite the fact that he wasn't the
ultimate killing machine, despite the fact that he couldn't protect
her from someone like Vincent. There was a chance when I was done
with them that they wouldn't like each other, that they wouldn't even
like themselves.

"Very
well. Jack's plan was to pay humans to leave our vehicles at the
bottom of the cliff, but it would be even better if some of our own
people were to drive them there a few minutes behind the Coun'hij
motorcade."

"Thank
you very much!"

Dylan
shook my free hand with such enthusiasm that it was almost painful to
watch. Someone old enough to be my grandfather shouldn't be so
overcome with excitement when I allowed him to do something he'd been
wanting to do for years. It wasn't right for me to have this kind of
power over other people and yet there wasn't any other way to keep my
friends safe. Other than maybe Jack, I was the best killer we had.

I
was the only one who could hope to keep a dozen strong-willed
predators all moving the same direction, all working towards a common
goal, but even that wasn't the scariest part. The scariest part was
the question of what I'd become if or when my ability finally
manifested.

Mallory
hadn't ever been wrong before. Part of me was afraid that she was
wrong now, that it had been too long and I wasn't ever going to
manifest a power, but mostly I just hoped that I was going to
manifest a spectacular, unbeatable power soon. That was the only way
I was going to keep Kaleb and the rest of the Coun'hij from rolling
over us sometime in the next few months.

"Go
to Jasmin and tell her that I want her to begin training you. Given
the lack of room and privacy it's probably going to be a while before
she can do much with you, but she's the best we have and she might as
well start thinking about what she wants to teach you."

"Thank
you, Mr. Graves. Thank you."

The
two of them backed away from me with smiles still plastered across
their faces, and then they disappeared around a corner and it was
just Brindi, Rachel and me.

"Alec,
can we talk?"

I
wanted nothing more than to call Carson, but I nodded. Rounding up
the additional bodies we needed was more important than almost
anything else right now, but a few minutes wasn't going to make any
difference.

"Sure,
Rach. What's up?"

"No,
alone."

Rachel
had the grace to look embarrassed. She reached out to take Brindi's
hand and gave her an apologetic smile.

"I'm
sorry, Brindi, but I really need to talk to Alec alone."

Brindi
shook her head and latched onto my hand even tighter. "No, I'm
not going anywhere."

Rachel
shot me an imploring look, but that probably wouldn't have been
enough to sway me if I hadn't spent far too much time lately worrying
about Brindi's increasing attachment to me.

"Brindi,
please go help James and the rest cross-load the supplies we bought
into Jack's vehicles."

There
was a flash of something in Brindi's eyes that disappeared so fast
that I wasn't sure I'd correctly categorized it.

"They
don't need my help. They're stronger and faster than me and I don't
want to be there, I want to be here."

"Those
are all true statements, but I want you to go help them regardless."

"I
saved your life."

Her
words came out in a low hiss, but that didn't surprise me. It was
just the next step of the behavior I'd been noticing ever since I'd
taken her with me to see Carson. I still meant everything I'd told
him, but I hadn't counted on just how much her addiction would change
her or how fast it would all happen.

"Let
go of my hand, Brindi."

"Or
else you'll hurt me?"

"Listen
to yourself. You just tried to use the fact that you saved my life to
compel me not to make you help James and the others. Did you even
stop to think about the logic behind your argument? They have all
saved my life dozens of times over the years."

It
was like I'd hit her with a club. She was trying to come up with some
rebuttal to what I'd said but she couldn't seem to get any words out.

"Your
having saved my life means that I owe you in at least some small way,
but it doesn't make you more important to me than the friends and
family who've been there for me again and again. I'm sorry if I've
given you the wrong impression by keeping you so close since you were
hurt in Chicago, but you're not the most important person in my
life."

"So
what, you're going to just toss me aside like so much trash now that
it's not convenient for you to have me around? I would have done
anything for you, I tried, but you told me not to."

I
looked pointedly at her hands, both of which were now desperately
wrapped around my bare arm.

"If
you ever want to touch me again then you need to let go of me right
now."

I
could see the calculation going on behind her eyes. If she didn't
believe I'd go through with it then now was the time to refuse, to
play on my guilt for having addicted her and force me to back down.
It was the surest route to some kind of twisted codependent
relationship where she'd never have to go without a fix.

If,
however, there was even the slightest chance that I was willing to
cut her off completely, then she would be cutting her own throat by
disobeying me. For the barest of seconds she refused to let go, and
then she pried her fingers off of my arm with an almost tangible
effort of will.

"Now
what?"

She
was refusing to look at me, so I reached out and gently pulled her
chin around so she had to meet my gaze. It was risky, but I wanted to
reward her for having forced herself to let go.

"Now
you can go help James and the others, and when you are done moving
everything I want you to stay out there and strike up a conversation
with one of the others. If all else fails find the Petersons and talk
to them, or listen to their conversation with Jasmin if they are
having one. You can come find me once forty-five minutes have
passed."