Hunting Human (12 page)

It took long, pain-filled minutes, but finally, the zip ties popped apart. Relieved she rolled to her back and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, trying to find the composure to figure out what to do next.

She pointed the small beam of light against the roof and along the walls of her prison, searching for anything that looked like an emergency release.

What? Forty or fifty thousand dollars doesn’t buy you a two-dollar piece of plastic?

She’d have to wait for them to open the trunk.

Fine.

She needed to be in a position to defend herself. Step one was accomplished; her hands were free. Step two had to be to find something to defend herself with.

Beth pushed the scissors into the back pocket of her jeans. They were too small to be an effective weapon, but they might come in handy later. She pointed the flashlight back into the roadside bag, checking for anything else that could be useful.

Nothing.

She needed something offensive. Something to surprise whoever opened the trunk. But what? The flashlight wasn’t heavy enough to…

The jack.

That could work. Beth searched the floor of the trunk for the jack she’d tossed aside. Grasping it in both hands she weighed it in her palms.

Short, solid and heavy.

Perfect.

She tightened her hands around the jack. If Braden thought she was going to come quietly, he had another think coming.

And it’s coming for your head.

“Think you can handle her?” Chase asked as Braden killed the engine.

Braden stepped out of the car and slid an ugly look toward Chase. “I can manage. She’s probably not even conscious—you hit her pretty hard with the Taser.”

“Yeah, well, keep it handy,” Chase said, tossing the Taser over the car.

“I’m sure I can manage.” Braden snatched it out of the air as he walked toward the trunk. “Go intercept Mom—she’s opening the storm door on the porch.”

“Braden, Chase?” Their mother’s clear voice preceded her out the door and down the front steps. “What on earth are the two of you doing here?”

Braden waited until Chase started herding her back into the house before he clicked the trunk release. He carefully lifted the lid, keeping one eye on the front of the house, completely unprepared for Beth to push the lid out of his grasp and leap at him.

“Shit!” Braden swore as he struggled to get the Taser up and the safety released. Something solid and heavy glanced off the side of his head and sent him reeling, black spots ghosting across his vision.

What the hell did she hit me with?

He hit his knees, his fingers automatically probing at the blood pouring down the side of his face.

“Fuck.” He tried to push to his feet and grab Beth, his fingers snagging the back of her shirt. She whirled on him, hands raised high, clutching a car jack like a mace, ready to swing again.

“Don’t even…” Braden growled as she stepped in and swung at his head. He ducked beneath the blow and leaped at her knees, falling short as she scrambled back. She kept her weapon raised against him as she backpedaled, keeping the road to her back and scanning wildly for an escape route.

Braden saw the moment she realized they were isolated. She tightened her jaw and widened her stance. Regripping the jack, she lifted her chin as if to say
bring it on
.

Braden felt Chase approach him on his right, circling in to cut her off from the driveway and the road beyond. The moment her eyes went to his brother, Braden lunged again, throwing his body into her and bearing her to the ground.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Slowly, Braden pulled back, straddled her hips and rolled her to face him. She struggled for breath beneath him, eyes dazed and glassy. She forced out a sound—half sob, half battle cry—and tried to swing the jack at his head again.

“Stop it, Beth,” he commanded, catching her wrist before the blow connected.

Clearly exhausted, Beth went limp and the jack clattered to the pavement. Finally, resignation. The expression on her face hit him like a physical blow.

Don’t go there.

Frustrated, he forced himself to look away. He hoisted them both to their feet and began to half drag, half carry her toward the house.

“Braden Anthony Edwards.”

Braden’s cringed at the use of his full name. His mother stood on the porch, stance wide, hands on her hips, pummeling him with a stare of disapproval. The idle onlooker would have seen a petite woman in her mid-fifties sporting a modern blond bob, fashionable jeans and a bright green polo shirt smudged with flour. Braden recognized her for what she was: a five-foot-four-inch pixie with a temper to rival Angie’s.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Don’t you
hi, Mom
me!” His mother matched his stride as he dragged Beth toward the door. “Explain yourself, immediately.”

“Not now, Mom.” Braden huffed. Beth became a dead weight against him. He braced for the incoming explosion of yelling and heaved her over his shoulder.

“Gently!” His mother’s rebuke came, sharp enough to cut steel. “Now explain yourself. You pulled that poor girl out of the trunk of your car. The trunk, Braden!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Braden rolled his eyes at Chase and stomped through the door. “Ow!” Braden winced at the sharp pinch his mother applied to the back of his arm.

“Mind your tone.”

Braden tried to ignore Chase’s laughter and let a grim smile touch his lips when Chase choked; apparently their mother had turned on him.

Braden shifted Beth on his shoulder as he reached for the door to the basement. She could stay down there until they figured out what to do with her. He hadn’t opened the door more than a few inches when it slammed back into the frame, his mother’s palm pressed against it. Sighing, Braden turned to face her.

“Let me just get her downstairs. I’ll explain everything to you and Dad after that, okay?” When his mother didn’t respond, Braden pulled the door open. “Where is Dad, by the way?”

“In town with Lucy,” she answered, her tone clipped. Braden felt her eyes boring disapproving holes into his back as he descended the stairs.

Whatever. I can’t deal with her right now.

“When you’re done, get back up to the kitchen. I’m going to call Michael. He can come out and take a look at your head.” She turned and started down the hall, tossing a comment over her shoulder. “Although I know full well he won’t be able to do anything about it, thick as it is.”

The basement was just smaller than the footprint of the house. The majority of it was a family room. He’d spent a good portion of his youth down here, playing pool or soundly beating his brothers at video games on the old big screen television that used to sit where a forty-two-inch plasma now resided. There was one small bedroom with an adjoining bathroom, though they hardly ever used it. Guests typically stayed upstairs, or sprawled out on the sectional in front of the TV. The bedroom had been an afterthought when his dad had finished out the basement. He’d built the room in a corner with no windows and installed a few dead bolts on the door. More than one wolf had skulked around their property, a few threatening their family, but Beth was the first to stay in the house.

Braden dropped Beth onto the double bed. Her eyes remained closed, but whether she’d passed out from exhaustion or was just ignoring him, he couldn’t tell. He switched on the bedside lamp and watched, transfixed despite himself, as the light spilled across her face. She had a bruise forming between her temple and the top of her cheek, next to a small cut mostly hidden in her hair. Had he been responsible for it? Or did it explain the blood he’d seen when she’d first come running out of her apartment? Braden’s gut clenched, unsure which scenario bothered him more—Markko hitting her or being responsible for hurting her himself.

He pulled the door shut behind him and flicked the dead bolts into place. His head already throbbed thanks to Beth; he didn’t need her to set his mind racing in circles, too. He’d rather face his mother.

Ascending the stairs, Braden made his way down the hall and through the family room, into the open kitchen. His mother stood at the counter, beating something to death with a rolling pin, occasionally glancing out the huge window that overlooked a portion of their driveway and the expanse of woods surrounding their home.

“Where’s Chase?”

“Waiting for your father on the porch. He’s five minutes away.”

Braden pulled out one of the barstools crowded around the large granite island in the middle of the kitchen and resisted the urge to curse. His cowardly brother had fled to the relative safety of the porch and left Braden to deal with their mother on his own.

Giving up on whatever she was brutalizing on the counter, she washed and dried her hands and stomped out of the room. She stormed back in and slammed a large plastic toolbox on the counter next to him, popped the lid and rummaged through the first aid supplies.

“I’m waiting.” She tugged on a pair of gloves, twisted off the top of some disinfectant, and tore into a package of sterile pads.

“Don’t worry about it. As soon as Dad gets home we’ll take care of it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

He hissed as she slapped the disinfectant soaked gauze against his head.

“When you pull a half dead woman out of the trunk of your car I am most certainly going to worry about it. What on earth did you do to her?”

“Her? What did I do to
her?”
Braden asked, temper flaring. He caught his mother’s wrist before she could press any more alcohol to his head.

“That woman hit me over the head with a jack, a
car
jack,
Mom! Hell, I’m bleeding all over your kitchen and you’re worried about what
I
did to
her?”

Un-fucking-believable.

She jerked her wrist out of his hand, tilted his chin and forced the gauze against his head before he could move. “You’ll watch your language in this house, Braden Edwards. And you’ll explain to me exactly how that young woman came to be in the trunk of your car. And you’ll keep your temper under control while you do it.”

“I’d like to hear the answer to that as well.” Braden’s father strode into the kitchen. “Hi.” As was his custom, his father brushed a gentle kiss across his mother’s cheek in greeting. Turning, he tilted Braden’s head to the side, inspecting the cut along his temple. “Better call Mike. That’s gonna need stitches.”

“I already have.” His mother’s voice softened a little in response to his father’s proclamation about the stitches.

“Oh. My. God.”

Braden groaned as his twenty-two-year-old kid sister bounced into the room, tossing her gym bag onto one of the barstools next to him.

“Did I hear Chase right?” Lucy asked, as usual, practically bouncing with barely restrained energy. “Did you bring a woman home in your trunk? What? Couldn’t get your girlfriend to meet the parents any other way?”

Something in Braden’s expression must have given away how close to the mark Lucy was because she burst out laughing. “Oh my God! You did not bring the girl you’ve been seeing home in the trunk of your car?” When he didn’t respond, Lucy looked around, eyes landing on Chase, who’d followed her into the kitchen. “Chase?”

And Chase, the bastard, who’d never been able to deny Lucy anything, smiled.

Lucy dissolved into a fit of laughter. “I always said you’d have to club a woman on the head and toss her over your shoulder to get her home with you.”

“That’s enough, Lucy.” Their mother’s warning effectively silenced her. “Braden, start explaining while we wait for Michael to get out here.”

Knowing there’d be no peace until the entire story was divulged, Braden briefly explained how he knew Beth, then gave as detailed an accounting as he could of the events of the day. Thankfully, his father was already aware of Markko’s presence, as well as Jason’s death, which meant the rest of his family knew, as well.

Braden’s father broke the silence that descended over the kitchen when Braden finished relaying everything.

“You do a background check?” The question shot across the room to Chase.

“Yes, sir. I’m hoping we’ll have a detailed history tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest.” The doorbell rang, interrupting Chase.

“That’ll be Mike. I’ll go let him in.” Lucy slipped out the room, heading for the front door.

“I can call my contact and see if he can speed things up on the background check,” Chase offered.

“If it has to, it’ll keep until tomorrow.” Braden’s father settled his large hand on his shoulder, but whether it was a show of sympathy or support Braden wasn’t sure. Either way, he didn’t like it.

“Look, I’m going to let Michael stitch me up, then head home. You guys can handle it from here.” The last thing he wanted to do was spend the night under the same roof as Beth. As far as he was concerned, the more highway he could stretch between them the better.

“Absolutely not.” When his mother had left the kitchen, Braden wasn’t sure. But she strode back in with a stack of clean towels and fresh bed linens. “You’ll have Michael take a look at you, and then you’ll take these down to Beth.” She plopped the stack of towels onto the open stool next to him.

“You can’t be serious.” Braden looked incredulously at his mother, then to his father, who only shrugged; he wasn’t going to argue with her.

“Of course I am. Until we have a definitive reason to believe differently, she’s a guest in this house. You’ll stay here and see this through. Bad enough if you’re wrong about her—you won’t abandon her to strangers on top of it.” His mother leveled a knowing glance in his direction. “You’ve got a deep enough hole to dig your way out of as it is. A Taser? Honestly!”

Braden stared, wide-eyed and flabbergasted. “That was Chase!”

“Regardless, you pulled her out of the trunk of your car. You’ll not be leaving her here alone. Am I understood?”

“Fine,” Braden muttered.

Mike strode into the room in gym shorts and a T-shirt, dropping the small bag of medical supplies he always kept handy on the counter. “You know, one of these days, it’d be nice if you called me for a normal reason. It’s always
come wrap my ribs, Mike
, or
come sew up my head, Mike
. Just once do you think you could call with something like,
Hey, Mike, I got courtside seats for the game tonight
, or
hey Mike, I’m going camping for the weekend, care to join
?”

“Hi, honey. Stay for dinner tonight.” Braden’s mother wrapped Mike into a big hug before stepping back to pull dishes out of the dishwasher.

“Now, see? That’s what I like to hear.” Mike tilted Braden’s head right and left, then let out a long, low whistle. “What the hell she hit you with?” Amusement tinted his voice, alerting Braden to the fact that Lucy had filled him in on what she no doubt thought were the funny parts.

“Car jack.”

“Must have been a glancing blow, or it would’ve done more damage.”

“Yeah. Lucky me.”

Braden put off the trip down to the basement for as long as he could, lounging on the couch with a towel-wrapped ice pack pressed to his head. Unfortunately, the moment he and Chase started arguing over what to watch on television, his mother pronounced him fit enough to take the linens, a couple of sandwiches and a bottle of water down to Beth. No amount of protesting had dissuaded her and now he found himself outside the locked door, wishing for all the world to be brave enough to hide the sheets, wolf down the sandwiches and water, and tell his mother he’d done as she asked.