Wolf Sirens Night Fall: What Rises Must Fall (Wolf Sirens #3) (18 page)

“We need to
have a meeting at the cabin,” Reid said, trying not to sound as
desperate as he was for them to comply.

“Why?” came the
steady argument from Jackson, suspicious.

Reid looked
uncomfortable. He didn’t want to speak in front of Angele.

“Do you have a
problem with her?” Jackson challenged, evidently noticing.

Reid knew his
glances had been too obvious. “She needs to come,” he admitted,
working his jaw.

“No. She’s not
going anywhere until you tell us what’s going on?” Jackson figured
it was important for Reid to track them out in the middle of
nowhere. And Reid looked unusually solemn. For a moment, Jackson
thought it was his mother.

“Are my family
okay?” he asked with a sense of urgency.

“No, this isn’t
about that. It’s about us, and Lila.”

“Good. I’m not
leaving Ange.” Jackson was feeling feisty, he moved about
agitatedly.

“So it’s like
that is it?”

“She’s my
girlfriend,” Jackson retorted sharply, his jaw tense.

“She’s a spy.
Narine’s bitch,” Reid spat, jutting his chin.

“Oh, you’re one
to talk,” Jackson belted out, his shoulders back.

Reid’s face
wrinkled. “So what’s it to you?”

“What’s it to
you?” he challenged. They stood, chest to bare chest.

“Cres and I are
different.” The words burnt on the way out. This was the first time
Reid had admitted they were together.

“Please don’t
fight,” Angele’s childlike voice rang. She looked into Jackson’s
eyes. “We’ll go,” she soothed, urging Jackson with concern in her
voice and a still look on her face.

But Jackson
wasn’t convinced. “What's this about, Reid? What was worth so much
to track me down all the way out here?”

“Why did you
need to run?” Reid’s tone was defiant.

“We needed to
get away from all this Cres shit.” Jackson’s eyes flared.

“And the Cult
shit?” Reid remarked.

“Maybe.” They
hadn’t discussed it, but Jackson’s plan was to join the Cult pack.
He hadn’t thought that he had many other options, and now Sam’s
pack was dispersed.

“There’s a war
brewing and you need to decide whose side you’re on.”

“Neither,”
answered Jackson, challenging Reid with an arched brow under his
sandy fringe.

“Not an
option.” Reid’s jaw tensed. Jackson was skating on thin ice.

Jackson
swallowed and pursed his lips. “What war?” he asked defiantly.

Angele knew
Narine had predicted a war with the humans. Why would Reid ask
which side they were on? Of course they would be on the side of the
wolves.

She furrowed
her brow. “The apocalypse?” she inquired, in sweet chiming
lilt.

“She’s been
brain washed, Jackson. She’s only here to spy,” Reid protested,
scathing.

“So,” J
retorted petulantly.

Reid stepped
closer, so his face was inches from Jackson’s. “So the Cult pack’s
gone a little wacko.”

“And, what?
You’re going to knock them back down – take over with your half
caste bitch,” he fumed. “Exchanging one wrong thing for another,”
he added bitterly.

Reid glowered.
“It’s better than a brainwashed crippled bitch,” he replied harshly
in Jackson’s face.

Angele looked
nervously between them.

“What’s to say
Cres won’t shoot us? She’s a spy herself.”

“I can’t
support Narine and Paws; they’re out of hand. We need to work
together to disable them. The power has gone to their heads;
they’ve started to recruit humans, infecting them, so they can take
over. They think they are the law,” he said low.

“What’s so bad
about that? We need a law,” squeaked Angele.

Reid raised his
brows at Jackson. “Do you believe this…they think they can change
the whole world, but the reality is they are putting us all in
danger, our existence, they will never wipe out the hunters. The
more of us the more of them,” he bellowed thrusting a fist toward
the earth.

“Stop,” begged
Angele; she was distressed by Reid’s raised voice.

Reid leant back
on his heels and rubbed his nose. “You have to come back for the
meeting - after that if you want to run and hide, great for you,”
Reid muttered.

“Let us talk it
over.” Jackson turned and hugged Angele; Reid caught sight of him
rubbing her arms as they embraced.

Reid worked his
jaw and shook his head. He turned and walked off some distance, but
he listened to the whispers between them.

Finally,
Jackson appeared decided and he addressed Reid.

“We’ll go back
to the cabin, but keep Cres unarmed. Angele is scared of her.”

“Is she on the
side of Paws? Can you trust her?” Reid urged his pack brother,
pointing toward Angele.

Jackson stared
at his brother. “Can you trust Cres?”

Reid jutted his
lip and scratched his stubble. “Fine, let’s phase.”

Angele, Jackson
and Reid sat before Cres. She had agreed to go unarmed but that was
only because she could phase. A full blood hunter wouldn’t have
been able to do it.

Now they were
here, she noted Angele’s hand cupped in Jackson’s; she looked at
Reid. He’d gone looking for them for two days only to bring them
back unwilling to fight. Angele was on the Cult side. She had spent
too long there, being brainwashed. Cres could see she wouldn’t
change her mindset easily.

She felt
helpless to express their cause. What would she tell Lila?

Reid glanced at
her. “Cres, go ahead.”

“Okay,
well...Lila is alive and she plans to take out the Cult.” She held
her breath, waiting for the predicable reaction from Angele, who
looked horrified. “We brought you here to ask for your help.”
Cresida was met with silence as she looked over Angele’s cowering
body.

“What do you
expect us to do now? This isn’t fair,” Jackson whined.

Reid spoke up.
“If it’s an issue for you, go back with your tail between your legs
and hide in the bush, J.” His deep voice was full of disgust, his
teeth bared in challenge.

Angele felt
cheated when she heard his nickname and felt as though for a moment
she didn’t know Jackson at all. But she hid it. She wanted to know
him so intimately, and she also knew that Reid said it with
passion, like he was scolding a brother. She knew the sound of love
because she had known all about the lack of it, but she saw it here
in Reid’s eyes and could feel it now in the house and she wanted
deeply to be part of its warmth.

“Reid,” Cres
scolded low. “Look this isn’t an ideal situation, but Narine is out
of control, all we want to do is unite for a common cause. Anything
you do beyond that is your business.”

“Fine, is that
it?” Jackson asked defiantly, while casting his eyes downwards.

“Yes,” Cres
replied emotionlessly.

“Good then
we’re going.” Jackson moved to leave.

“No.” All eyes
locked on Angele. “I want to help.” Her powdery voice fell
quietly.

Jackson
blinked. “What?”

“How do you
think I got this limp?” she stated.

Cres smirked;
Artemis had smiled on them. She could tell Jackson would do what
Angele did. They were in love. She could tell by the way they
moved, always touching, mirroring each other. But if she was a spy,
she had to rely on Jackson and that he would rat her out which
wasn’t looking likely, she thought with annoyance. The way he
looked at her told Cres all she needed to know.

And right then,
in Sam’s lounge room, she knew Reid would help her - and she wanted
to help Lila. All the dots connected. Her vision was inevitable.
Wherever Lila was, she had friends, because she was too well kept.
Cresida tried not to think about it, if she let herself she might
know too much and if she was captured she could be used for
information. She blocked out the thought of Lila’s hideout, because
she couldn’t afford to see it.

Cres and Reid
left Angele and Jackson. They had Sam’s house to themselves. They
stood in human form; Angele decided to shower, suddenly feeling the
sticky human skin she had become. She ran the water hot and tried
to regain some sense of herself as not being an alien vessel, after
remaining phased for so long. She washed her tangled hair that had
matted in the dew and caked in dirt. It had become dishevelled as
she’d danced around him in the forest on four legs.

She heard music
course up through the stairway, and when she descended into the
living area Jackson was waiting. He clicked a button and the rock
‘n’ roll that bellowed through the empty house became a mellow tune
which wound its way through her as the Stones sang Angie in that
howling tone. She knew Jack had picked it out for her and she
smiled like a bashful idiot, unable to hold it back.

“Are you going
to go home Jack?” she asked, trying to ignore the way the sound of
the Stones made her weak in the knees.

He loved the
way she called him Jack, even though he had only ever referred to
himself as Jackson - and the pack called him J.

She was certain
now they had made love he would leave for the warm comfort of his
home, abandoning her.

“Are you
worried I’ll never come back?” he asked, adoring the glassy look in
her blue eyes.

She hugged him,
because it was so easy to do. He had stood so close to her. She
rested her head on his long sleeve shirt, which smelt faintly of
another wolf, as clothes were an asset to be shared. She didn’t
realize how close they had become in such a small amount of
time.

“Ange, don’t
worry, I just have to say goodbye.” He tried not to think of his
mother’s tears and looked away, only to see the reflection of
himself and Angele in the window and was disappointed by the sepia
image. He hated that he was trapped in a boy’s body. Despite
training and lifting, he hadn’t spread out like Reid. He was
naturally a more petite, thinner frame.

“Then what?”
came her sticky, honey-sweet whisper.

“Then I’ll join
you, we can run away together.” He wanted to look more like a man
than a boy when he said it, so he turned from their mirror image
reflected in the glass, to rest his chin on her wet head, which
smelt of shampoo.

She shivered
then, because she knew they couldn’t be together in peace. Not
until after the impending fight. If they lived.

“I was going to
join the Cult you know,” he whispered. “Soon.”

“When?” The
music hit a chorus and Jagger cooed through the speakers.

“So we would
have met then,” he uttered gently holding and rocking her in his
arms.

“This is
better,” she whispered back into his chest.

“You wouldn’t
have looked twice at me then,” he said in a self-depreciating
manner.

She stopped the
sway of her cheek against him and lifted her head. “No. I would
have.” But she thought with a pang of guilt that she wouldn’t have
been so easy, because out here her job was to infiltrate by any
means possible, and it had been easier than she thought.

All of a
sudden, Jackson was hers and would follow her to war. His friends
who wanted to destroy her pack had let her into their circle and in
on their plan. She knew she had, in fact, very easily managed to
achieve everything Narine had wished her to, but she was torn as to
whether she would tell her. She knew with a stirring of rebellion
that she wasn’t going to. But later she feared, as her Jack slept,
and her eyes glossed over with moisture, that she wouldn’t be as
convinced of this when Narine came for that information.

Cres felt a
strange elation. She had to wait for Lila, to tell her that she had
Reid and Jackson and it seemed even Angie, though she couldn’t
trust Angele. But she didn’t let the others know that. If she
voiced it, Jackson would talk Angele back into running away and
unfortunately they needed the numbers for a battle, even if they
weren’t steady.

Cres pulled out
her note pad and drew a symbol in pen. While at school, she scanned
and emailed it to a tattoo parlor named Inklings, in Mystic Beach,
a half hour drive away. She called them from a pay phone outside
the school and arranged an appointment.

That night, she
jumped out of her window, hotwired a car outside the pub, and took
off. The artist’s studio stayed open late for her and she handed
the guy a bunch of fifty dollar notes. It was more than the work
was worth but she didn’t have I.D, and it was after hours. She only
wanted something small on her wrist. The next day, she washed it in
the sink with running water, to fade the ink before it stained deep
black.

Cres looked
sad; I could tell she had been crying as I climbed in the window.
Her eyes were unusually red.

“We have Angele
and Jackson. Reid will follow me,” she assured me. She lent down to
a drawer and grabbed something, handing me a box.

“What’s this?”
I breathed.

She shrugged.
“Camera phone.” I looked at her, fighting a smile. She had
remembered my sarcasm, even in the midst of my accusations. “You’ll
have to set it up.” She smiled back, her eyes bright. “Don’t turn
on the G.P.S, in case they track you.”

“Thanks.” Maybe
she was trying to butter me up. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”

“You’ll need
it,” she swallowed, “for the fight.” Her eyes lids fluttered.
“Anyway you’ve been busy too?” She peered at the side of my face.
“You heal well.”

I touched the
light pink scar near my eye. I shrugged. “I put some cream on it.”
I thought perhaps the evidence of dried tears were for what was to
come as I scanned her face. No doubt I’d have a few more scratches
before this war was over. I casually looked about her room. I ran
my fingers over some school books on the chest of drawers.

I warned, “If
Angele’s a spy, she might just agree with you and then tell them
about our plan.” I was playing my cards close to my chest.