Rivals and Retribution (4 page)

“Or Christmas bills to catch up on,” I reminded her. “Let us be generous. Say he took in two grand a day.”

“Fine. Two thousand dollars. Three hotel rooms a night…” Her eyes rolled up in thought, her lips turning down. “I don’t think you can even make it a month in a dive motel for that.… And they’ve been wearing much nicer clothing.…”

“You are really paying quite a lot of attention to them, are you not?” I asked.

“You sound impressed.”

“I never expected you to be so involved.”

“I have my reasons to be invested,” she assured me, her gaze falling on Max.

He smiled.

“So I think they’re being sponsored by someone with resources. Someone with deep pockets.”

Pietr’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

Amy twitched. “There’s only one person who comes to mind. Are you sure Dmitri left Junction?”

The temperature dropped at the mention of his name. The idea that “Uncle” Dmitri was lurking around and had made connections with the new pack after Pietr did his best—sacrificed the wolf within himself—to be rid of him …

We did not answer her. The chance she was right was too frustrating to put even in monosyllabic words.

Max rolled down his window, sticking his face into the biting cold. The breeze tore at his eyes and turned his cheeks pink. “Maybe I’ll pick up her scent when we get closer,” he finally said, closing the window and slumping down, his eyes on the landscape rushing by.

“What will we do when we find her?” Pietr asked me.

I gave him a sidelong glance. “Whatever is necessary,” I said with a coolness my racing heart betrayed.

“Hurt Marlaena? Kill her?” Pietr asked, peering out the window.

“Whatever is necessary.”

He nodded and mimicked Max, slouching down in misery. “And if there is no scent to find—if they’ve covered their tracks so well there is no trail to discover? If Jess is gone—forever?”

I pulled the truck over so fast we skidded, everyone jerking against their seat belts. “There is something you are not telling me.” I studied his impassive face. “Why would anyone kill Jessie? What else is going on here, Pietr? Kidnapping Jessie I understand to an extent. It seems nearly standard operating procedure in Junction. Things run smoothly, everyone feels comfortable and plans for a better future, and then it is time for someone to endanger a nearly average girl who lives on a wonderfully unremarkable horse farm. I think it is time to consider getting Jessie her own personal bubble,” I concluded.

Pietr looked at me in the completely dramatic-hero fashion he had cultivated and—I peered closer at him to confirm my suspicion—
da,
he had
perfected
since meeting Jessie.

“It is completely logical they would take Jessie. It makes us come against Marlaena and engage a foreign war strategy. But
killing
her … Why would Marlaena want Jessie dead? How does she benefit?”

He shook his head, the mop of his hair falling into his eyes. “I have a feeling,” he muttered. “There is something more here—something deeper … like someone wants to get at me by hurting Jess.…”

“Dmitri is far from your biggest fan,” Amy said.

Both Pietr and Max looked at her and then away again. None of us wanted to believe Dmitri had returned, regardless of how likely it seemed.

CHAPTER TWO

Marlaena

“Gabriel, you are truly something,” Dmitri said with a smile. “Taking the Gillmansen girl to lure Pietr to us…”

I didn’t like how the smile twisted on his face. Yes, having Jessica Gillmansen as my prisoner gave me a bit of a high, but knowing Dmitri agreed with it made me question every bit of that amazing sensation.

Gareth slipped out of his room and onto the breezeway to stand beside me.

Our conversation ended.

Gabriel looked down into the parking lot; my gaze followed his, focusing on an old muscle car in the third row. In my peripheral vision someone hurried into the space beneath the extensive balcony and out of sight.

Huh.

Gareth’s hand was on my arm, and I spun to face him. “Good to know my presence is so influential. Gareth, destroyer of conversation.”

I smiled, even though he wouldn’t approve of what we had been discussing. I needed to keep him in the dark a little longer.

He was so kind and compassionate, so willing to be the cowboy in the white hat, or the knight, coming to everyone’s rescue. He was the best of us. And I was going to keep dragging him down into the gutter with us. Just like Kyanne said. I pulled them out of one gutter to get them shot in another.

Some alpha I was.

I’d use the gift Gabe had given me, persuade Pietr to—what was I trying to persuade him to do? Let us stay in Junction? He didn’t care if we didn’t make any trouble … or have any fun.… What did I really
want
from Pietr? My palms pressed against the banister so hard the metal bit into me.

Did I want his pack to join ours? Yes. Why? It’d be an upheaval if he or Max tried for the alpha spot and … I cast a sideways glance at Gabriel.… I had plenty of trouble already.

Jordyn and Londyn opened the door to their room. “Uncle Dmitri!” they cried, hopping up and down like two schoolgirls.

I sighed. Because that’s exactly what they were—two schoolgirls.

As young as they were chronologically, I usually translated their lives into wolf years and so forgot their actual ages. We’d been through so much it aged us, made us old souls. Old, worn out, embittered souls.

Dmitri turned on the charm, grinning and slapping his hands together. “How are my beauties?” he asked as they bounced forward, their nostrils flaring briefly to scent him for gifts. He brought them little treats now. Candies and odds and ends, jewelry and trinkets, things that he called
baubles
—and things Darby called
shinies
.

Useless things.

Things everyone desperately wanted—brand-name sneakers or purses—things no one really
needed
.

“He’s buying them,” Gareth muttered, watching more pups scramble for his attention.

“He’s
providing
for them,” I clarified. “Better than we can.”

“When was the last time we
honestly
tried?”

I got hung up on his emphasis on
honestly
.

“We haven’t tried doing anything
honestly
for months now,” he added, moving closer to me. So close I smelled the mint on his breath. “We could, you know? I have ID, and my record was expunged after Mississippi. I could get a job.” His gaze swept the parking lot and beyond. “There has to be work here—even in this podunk town.”

I snorted. It seemed so simple. So moral. Get a job, feed the family. “Where, Gareth?” I asked. “Where would you work? What would you do?”

“There are burger joints in Junction. I can work a fryer or a grill.”

My backbone slipped, and I bent across the banister, letting my arms slide over its edge so they hung limp. “You can’t.” My hands dangled loose from my wrists, useless.

He straightened, puffing out his chest as he sucked in a deep breath. “Of course I can,” he said, like working as a fry cook would be some challenge to gallantly surmount.

“But, you’re so smart…,” I whispered. “It’s a crime to make you do menial labor.”

He chuckled, the noise making my stomach tremble. Or maybe it was how he stood so close that made my body act that way.… “There are far better men and women than me working what you call
menial labor
. People with degrees in education and psychology and the arts. Amazing people who had big dreams but small means. People like that, they sacrifice their dreams—or delay them—so their families make it. This pack
is
my family. I’d give anything for them.”

“Jesus Christ.”

I gawked at Gabriel, having forgotten he was there.

“Seriously, Gareth. You’re just dying for your own cross and crown of thorns. Sacrifice this, sacrifice that. Give until it hurts. Who ever gave anything for
us
—even a damn? No one. Families failed us. Friends failed us. The system—
you
of all people know better than anyone—the system failed us. So why feed it with our sweat and blood?” Gabe held the banister between whitened fingers and then dropped to do presses against it, his arms rippling with long, lean muscle as he hissed out his frustration. “If you want to feed the system and get nothing in return, be my guest. But don’t expect us to be so self-sacrificing.”

“I don’t expect
you
to do it, Gabriel,” he said.

With a grunt Gabe pushed back from the banister and whipped around, heading after Dmitri. He paused a few yards away, looking over his shoulder at me. “You and I have something planned, don’t we?” He didn’t wait for my answer, but stalked away, self-confidence marking his stride.

Gareth looked at me, suspicion marring his features. “You two have plans?”

I swallowed. “Not like you think…”

He raised his hands between us. “It’s okay,” he stated, backing up. “It’s not like you and I made any plans.” He shrugged and, giving me a sad smile, turned and left me on my own outside our rooms.

Jessie

Inside the shed where they’d stashed me the frost on the ground melted under my cheek, shoulder, hips, and side, just long enough for moisture to wick into my clothing and chill me. Sound was muffled by the snow I guessed was still falling outside. I couldn’t be near any houses or well-traveled buildings because, lying there, awake the entire time, I knew no one had been by since they’d dumped me.

I ground my teeth into the gag and focused. I liked to think I’d come a long way since I first met Pietr, but lying bound and gagged, I wondered exactly how much I’d truly grown.

A smarter girl wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped—again—in the first place. A smarter girl would have thought to leave some trail—it sounded a little Hansel and Gretel, sure, but didn’t survivors of abduction usually do something clever to help their heroes find them? Didn’t survivors drop a bracelet, a necklace, a cell phone, or tear out the brake lights from the car trunk they were transported in? Sure, I was unconscious for part of that, but survivors …

I swallowed, realizing.

Survivors
.

Maybe I wasn’t slated for survival.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to close out the thought.

Jessica Alice Gillmansen, body discovered in an old shed because she was TSTL.

Survival of the fittest—maybe this was finally the proof; I wasn’t fit to survive.

Behind my eyelids like a movie recorded with a shaky camera, images came into focus and my stomach roiled in rebellion.

Derek. I was going to be sick.

Even better.
Jessica Gillmansen, body discovered in an old shed, where she’d choked on her own vomit. Not even her kidnappers had the satisfaction of offing her, because she was, simply, TSTL: too stupid to live
.

I fought the bile back down and sank into the vision, knowing the remnants of Derek, dead but not truly gone, were rising to the surface of my brain again.

I floated behind the eyes of someone just a few feet tall, walking down a long hallway, fancy rugs underfoot, paintings thick with pigment hanging in long blurs of color on either wall. I passed a low-set window and strained to catch my reflection in its sparkling glass.

Derek at age six, maybe?

I—he—paused outside a door that was open a crack, pressing his face against the space between the door and its frame. Inside were two people: a quiet-looking woman with a soft body, narrow nose, and sharp eyes; and a tall man with golden hair and strong features.… There were aspects of Derek in both of them. They had to be his parents.

Someone spoke in the room, but neither Derek’s mother’s nor his father’s mouth moved. Someone was with them.

“It is survival of the fittest, and we are breeding the fittest humans ever. It makes sense there would be some casualties.”

“Casualties,” the woman gasped, and I—he—
we
looked closer. Her makeup had run, tears streaking down her face. “You make it sound like we’re in some war. We just lost a baby.…”

“It was a miscarriage. Unfortunate, that’s true. But you’re young and healthy and you still have Derek.”

“Some consolation that is,” she whispered, lowering her head.

“You will try to have another child. Your genetics are absolutely amazing.…”

“You arrange all this—everything—” she retorted, “as if we were show dogs to be bred and sold.”

“No. Nooo,” the mystery person said, a woman by the pitch of her voice, and suddenly she was in view. A slender brunette with her hair tucked up in a conservative style. My breath caught, recognizing her. Dr. Jones. “We are simply encouraging good matches.”

“‘Encouraging good matches’? Is that what you call taking DNA samples and arranging marriages?”

“No. I call that prudent science and evolution.”

“Mary. Stop harping on the woman. She’s just doing her job.”

“And is that what we should do? Treat all this, our marriage, our children”—she caught herself with a gasp and corrected herself, saying—“our
child,
as a job?”

He looked at her, stoic and aloof. For a long minute he watched her, letting her cry quietly. “You do know survival of the fittest doesn’t mean survival of the strongest or the fastest—the ones who survive and thrive are the ones who
adapt
. You need to adapt to our special circumstances.” He turned to Dr. Jones. “I apologize for my wife, Doctor. She’s emotionally distraught over the loss of our baby. We both are aware that Derek is a prize asset, very trainable and potentially the first in our line.”

“So you will both get back on the job shortly,” Dr. Jones confirmed. “And adapt to your circumstances.”

“Of course.”

Derek’s mother just hung her head and we stepped back, the images fading away and leaving me in the dark of the old shed, colder than ever, one thought in my head:
adapt to survive.

Alexi