Scarlet (12 page)

Frowning, Scarlet squinted down the double barrels. If he was lying, then this was one of the men who had taken her grandmother from her. He was cruel. He was evil. He deserved a bullet between his eyes.

But he was her only lead.

“You’ll tell me everything.
Everything.
” Pulling her finger off the trigger, she lowered the shotgun so that it pointed instead at his thigh. A nonfatal target. “And you’ll keep your hands where I can see them at all times. Just because I’m letting you into this house doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“Of course.” He nodded, all compliance. “I wouldn’t trust me either.”

Twelve

Scarlet gestured with the gun for Wolf to come inside, glowering as he crept toward the landing. He seemed to brace himself, taking in the stucco walls and dark-stained staircase, before passing by her into the hallway. He had to duck so his head wouldn’t hit the door frame.

Scarlet kicked the door shut, refusing to take her eyes from Wolf, who stood still and hunched, his body compacting itself as well as it could. His attention shifted to the rotating digital photos on the wall that showed Scarlet as a child munching on raw peas from the garden, golden autumnal fields, her grandmother forty years younger in her first military uniform.

“This way.”

He followed her gesture into the kitchen. Scarlet glanced at the picture just as her grandmother vanished, before marching in after him.

She spotted her portscreen on the counter, still displaying a picture of an alpha male with his mate, and slipped it into her pocket.

Without turning her back on the street fighter, she propped the gun into a corner of cabinets and grabbed her red hoodie from the back of one of the chairs. She felt less vulnerable as she shoved her arms into the sleeves. Even more so when she snatched a carving knife from its block on the counter.

Wolf’s eyes flickered once to the knife, before taking in the rest of the kitchen. They landed on the wire basket beside the sink, his pupils widening with hunger.

Six glossy red tomatoes filled the basket.

Scarlet frowned as Wolf dropped his gaze.

“You must be hungry,” she muttered. “After all that
running.
”

“I’m fine.”

“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing at the table with the knife.

Wolf hesitated only for a moment before pulling out a chair. He didn’t scoot it back in as he sat, as if he wanted to give himself enough space to jump up and run if he had to.

“Hands where I can see them.”

He looked a breath away from amusement as he leaned forward and splayed his fingers on the edge of the table. “I can’t imagine what you must think of me, after last night.”

She scoffed. “Really, you can’t imagine?” She grabbed the cutting board and slammed it down on the table opposite from Wolf. “Would you like me to clue you in?”

He lowered his gaze, rubbing a finger into an ancient scratch in the wood. “It’s been a long time since I lost control like that. I don’t know what happened.”

“I hope you didn’t come here for sympathy.” Refusing to set down the knife or turn her back on him, she had to make two more trips from counter to table—grabbing first a loaf of bread, then two tomatoes.

“No—I told you why I’m here. It’s just that I spent all night trying to figure out what went wrong.”

“Perhaps you should go back to the moment you decided that street fighting was a valid career choice.”

A long silence went unbroken as Scarlet, still standing, sliced a hunk off the bread and tossed it at Wolf, who caught it easily.

“You’re right,” he said, picking at the crust. “That’s probably where it started.” He sank his teeth into the bread, barely chewing before he swallowed.

Baffled that he had no argument, no excuse, Scarlet grabbed one of the tomatoes and set it on the cutting board, feeling the need to keep her hands busy. She ruthlessly pushed the knife into its flesh, ignoring the seeds that oozed out onto the board.

Skewering the tomato slices, she held them out to him, not bothering with a plate. A mess of bread crumbs on the table were quickly joined with watery red juice.

His gaze was distant as he took the slices from her. “Thank you.”

Scarlet threw the tomato’s vine into the sink and wiped her hands on her jeans. Outside, the sun was rising fast and the chickens were growing restless with their clucking, wondering why Scarlet hadn’t fed them breakfast when she’d been out.

“It’s so peaceful here,” Wolf said.

“I’m not going to hire you.” Grabbing the mug of cold and forgotten coffee, Scarlet finally sat down opposite Wolf. The knife lingered on the cutting board, just beyond her fingers. She waited until he was licking the last of the tomato’s juices from his fingers.

“So. What’s the story with the tattoo?”

Wolf glanced down at his forearm. The kitchen light was making his eyes sparkle like gems, but this time they weren’t making Scarlet flustered. All she cared about now were the answers those eyes were hiding.

He extended his arm across the table so that the tattoo was fully in the light and pulled the skin taut, like he was seeing it for the first time. LSOP962.

“Loyal Soldier to the Order of the Pack,” he said. “Member 962.” He released the skin and curled his shoulders, hunkering down in the chair. “The biggest mistake I have ever made.”

Scarlet’s skin tingled. “And what exactly is the Order of the Pack?”

“A gang, more commonly referred to as the Wolves. They like to call themselves vigilantes and rebels and harbingers of change, but … they’re not much better than criminals, really. If I can ever afford it, I’ll have this awful thing removed.”

A gust of wind rattled the oak tree outside the front door and a flurry of leaves swished against the window.

“So you’re not a part of it anymore?”

He shook his head.

Scarlet glared across the table, unable to read him. Unable to decipher if he was telling the truth. “The Wolves,” she murmured, letting the name sink into her brain. “And do they do this often? Take innocent people out of their homes for absolutely no reason?”

“They have a reason.”

Scarlet pulled the drawstring of her hood until it was almost strangling her, before tugging the material back out again. “Why? What would they want with my grandmother?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t tell me that. Is it ransom money? What?”

His fingers flexed in and out on the table. “She was in the military,” he said, gesturing toward the hallway. “In those pictures, she was in uniform.”

“She was a pilot for the EF, but that was years ago. Before I was born.”

“Then maybe she knows something. Or they think she does.”

“About
what
?”

“Military secrets? Top-secret weaponry?”

Scarlet scooted forward until her stomach pressed against the table’s edge. “I thought you said they were common criminals. What do they care about that?”

Wolf sighed. “Criminals who think of themselves as…”

“Harbingers of change.” Scarlet gnawed on her lip. “Right. So, what? Are they trying to take down the government or something? Start a war?”

Wolf glanced out the window as the lights of a small passenger ship skirted along the edge of the field—the first workers arriving for their shift. “I don’t know.”

“No, you
do
know. You’re one of them!”

Wolf smiled, humorlessly. “I was nothing to them, hardly more than an errand boy. I wasn’t let in on any executive plans.”

Scarlet folded her arms. “Then take an educated guess.”

“I know they stole a lot of weapons. They want people to be afraid of them.” He shook his head. “Maybe they want to get their hands on military weaponry.”

“My grandma wouldn’t know anything about that. And even if she did before, when she was a pilot, she wouldn’t know now.”

Wolf opened his palms wide to her. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else it could be. Unless
you
can think of something she may have been involved with.”

“No, I’ve been racking my brain since she disappeared, but there’s nothing. She was just—she’s my grandma.” She gestured out toward the fields. “She owns a farm. She speaks her mind and she doesn’t like being told what to think, but she doesn’t have any enemies, not that I know of. Sure, people in town think she’s a little eccentric, but there’s no one who doesn’t like her. And she’s just an old woman.” She clasped both hands around the coffee mug and sighed. “You must know how to find them, at least?”

“Find them? No—it would be suicide.”

She tensed. “It’s not for you to decide.”

Wolf scratched behind his neck. “How long ago did they take her?”

“Eighteen days.” Hysteria worked its way up her throat. “They’ve had her for
eighteen days.
”

His attention was plastered to the table, troubled lines drawn into his brow. “It’s too dangerous.”

The chair slammed against the floor as Scarlet bolted up. “I asked for information, not a lecture. I don’t care how dangerous they are—that’s just one more reason I need to find them! Do you know what they could be doing to her right now while you’re wasting my time? What they did to my father?”

A slam echoed through the house and Scarlet jumped, barely catching herself before she tripped over the fallen chair. She glanced past Wolf, but the hall was empty. Her heart hiccupped. “Dad?” She bolted into the foyer and thrust open the front door. “Dad!”

But outside, the drive was already empty.

Thirteen

Scarlet sprinted into the drive, the gravel biting into her feet. The wind kicked at her curls, throwing them across her face.

“Where did he go?” she said, tucking her hair into her hood. The sun was fully over the horizon already, flecking the crops with gold and filling the drive with swaying shadows.

“Perhaps to feed your birds?” Wolf pointed as a rooster pecked his way back around the side of the house, meandering toward the vegetable patch.

Ignoring the biting gravel, Scarlet jogged around the corner. Oak leaves spun on the wind. The hangar and barn and chicken coop all stood silent in the buffeting dawn. There was no trace of her father.

“He must have been looking for something, or—” Scarlet’s heart skipped. “My ship!”

She ran, ignoring the rocky drive, the prickly weeds. She nearly plowed into the hangar’s door but managed to grasp the handle and yank it open just as a crash shook the building.

“Dad!”

But he was not inside the ship, preparing to fly off with it as she’d feared. Instead, he was standing on top of the cabinets that ran the length of the far wall, reaching into the overhead cupboards and tossing their contents onto the floor. Paint cans, extension cords, drill bits.

An entire standing toolbox had been tipped over, flooding the concrete with screws and bolts, and two metal cabinets on the back wall stood wide-open, showing an assortment of military pilot uniforms, coveralls, and a single straw gardening hat shoved into a corner.

“What are you doing?” Scarlet strode toward him, then ducked and froze as a wrench sailed by her head. When a crash didn’t follow, she glanced back to see Wolf gripping the wrench a foot from his face, blinking in surprise. Scarlet spun back. “Dad, what—”

“There’s something here!” he said, yanking open another cupboard. He snatched up a tin can and tipped it over, mesmerized as hundreds of rusted nails crashed and clanged on the floor.

“Dad, stop! There’s nothing here!” She picked her way through the mess, more aware of rusty sharp bits than she had been of the jagged rocks outside. “Stop it!”

“There is something here, Scar.” Tucking a metal barrel under one arm, her dad hopped off the counter and crouched, working the plug out from the hole in the top. Though he was also barefoot, the jumble of nails and screws didn’t appear to bother him. “She has something and they want it. It’s got to be here. Somewhere … but where…”

The air filled with the pungent fumes of engine lubricant as her dad tipped over the barrel, letting the yellowish grease gurgle and spill out over his mess.

“Dad, put it down!” She grabbed a hammer off the floor and held it overhead. “I will hit you, I swear it!”

He finally looked at her with that same haunted madness. This was not her father. This man was not vain and charming and self-indulgent, all the things she’d admired as a child and despised as a teenager. This man was broken.

The stream of oil became a light drizzle.

“Dad. Put down the barrel. Now.”

His lips trembled as his attention shifted away, focused on the small delivery ship not a body’s length away from him. “She loved flying,” he murmured. “She loved her ships.”

“Dad.
Dad—
!”

Standing, her dad heaved the barrel into the back window of the ship. A hairline fracture cobwebbed out on the glass.

“Not my ship!” Scarlet dropped the hammer and ran for him, stumbling her way over tools and debris.

The glass shattered with the second hit and her dad was already hauling himself through the shards.

“
Stop it!
” Scarlet grabbed him around the waist and dragged him out of the ship. “Leave it alone!”

He thrashed in her hold, his knee catching Scarlet in the side, and they both fell onto the floor. A canister bit into Scarlet’s thigh but all she could think about was tightening her hold on her dad, trying to lock his swinging arms to his sides. Blood was on his hands where he’d grabbed the broken glass, and a gash in his side was already turning crimson.

“Let me go, Scar. I’m going to find it. I’m going to—”

He cried out as he was lifted away from her. Instinctively, Scarlet clung, still trying to subdue him until she realized that Wolf was there, dragging her dad to his feet. She let go, panting. One hand went to rub her throbbing hip.

“Let go of me!” Craning his head, her dad snapped his teeth at the air.

Ignoring his struggles, Wolf bound his wrists with one hand and stretched the other out toward Scarlet.

No sooner had her palm sunk onto his than her dad’s screams renewed.

“He’s one of them! One of
them
!”