Wolf’s Heart (4 page)

Life with G was different. While he was good in bed, he wasn’t great. She’d had great once. With Ryden, she had felt the connection that reaches someplace down deep into your soul and changes you. Apparently, that connection had been one-sided. G eventually filled the void in her bed, but he would never fill the void in her heart. Carlee settled for what she got. It was easier that way, safer. No one would ever hurt her again. Live and laugh became the words she lived by. Love was a fairy tale. 

G seemed completely uninterested. It didn’t matter. She knew that it drove him insane, but talking the case specifics out loud was more for her benefit than his anyway. When they finally arrived at her apartment, it was filled with the scent of cheese and garlic. Still babbling, Carlee went into the kitchen and opened the oven, inhaling deeply.

“Don’t tell me
you
made this.” 

“Of course not, but I did stick it in the oven to keep warm if that counts. Don’t worry. It’s vegetable lasagna. No animals were harmed in the making of the meal.” He came up behind her, steering her out of the kitchen with a glass of wine in his hand. “Dinner can stay on warm. I have a bubble bath ready and waiting, and this should help you unwind.”

She hadn’t realized how tense she was until she sat down in the hot water and began to soak. The bath was just what she needed. The wine was perfect and the sex that came during the bubble bath was an extra nice touch. G had made sure he covered all the bases. 

Eating dinner by a cozy fire in the living room was sweet. Watching as he got up and left the room, she looked at him as he again checked his watch. “Got a hot date?” He only smiled in return. Damn, with a smile like his, he could have sold ice to an Eskimo. It could have been the warm bath, the wine or a combination of it all, she didn’t know. She was truly relaxed for the first time in what seemed like forever.

G disturbed the perfect moment as he returned and tossed her some clothes. “Get your ass dressed, we’re going out for dessert.”

“Seriously? You want to go out? Can’t we just pass on the desert?” She finished her glass of wine before reaching for the clothes and dressing. “This better be the best damn dessert ever or you are really gonna owe me.”

“Carlee, I can guarantee you’re about to get something you’ve never had before.” Thoughts raced through her head and anxiety nearly stopped her as they made their way out of her condo. She was damn near jogging to keep up with his long strides. G knew the score between the two of them. He knew she wasn’t in the market for a relationship, but he constantly acted as if they were more than just the casual fuck buddies they had agreed upon. Thinking back on how many times he repeated that tonight was going to be special, she cursed herself for being an idiot. They had just turned the corner when she turned around slowly, knowing she had to deal with this once and for all.

“Okay, listen G, tonight has been special, but we aren’t going through this relationship thing again. You know sparkly, shiny, and I go together like chocolate on hotdogs. Wait, chocolate goes with anything, how about like…”

The remainder of the sentence died on her lips as she heard a voice behind her. “I was starting to think you had a change of heart.”

Carlee turned and looked between G and the man in the alley. She had never seen him before. Turning back to G, he took her by the arms and threw her to the other man who caught her, taking both elbows and pinning them together behind her back. “Change of heart? You have got to be kidding me. She's a good fuck, I will give her that, but that’s as far as it goes.”

Her heart thundered in her chest as she realized this was what he had planned. Whatever was on his dessert menu, she wanted nothing to do with it. She looked to G disbelieving the situation and wondering what was going to happen next.

The corners of G’s lips lifted into a grin that gave her chills. “You seem surprised, Car. You were expecting something else? I thought you were smarter than that. You didn’t think…” He began laughing. “You actually thought I would give you a ring? Please, Carlee. This has been the longest assignment of my life. The only reason I stayed this long was because I knew I’d get to be the one to put an end to your constant babbling once and for all.”

It wasn’t that G had meant that much to her, but his words crushed. If nothing else she thought he was a friend, someone who had accepted her for who she was, highly intelligent and socially inept—she rocked in the lab, but was socially uncomfortable outside of it.

“G, don’t do this. You know that you can walk away and never come back. I never asked anything of you. Well, the occasional harder, faster but nothing else really.”

“God, this is even better than I envisioned. Get down on your knees, Carlee.” When she didn’t move his voice became angrier, urgent. “I said get the fuck down on your knees.
Now
!” 

G’s friend grasped her wrists in one hand as he pushed her down to the ground. Carlee was grinding her molars at the biting pain in her wrists as what she assumed was a zip tie bound them together. Any moment she thought her shoulders would dislocate as he lifted on her wrists and pushing her forward. He was chuckling, "Oh, don't try to play that tough bitch game now; we all know you’re not. You're going to cry, and you're going to want to scream. It will be like music to my ears."

She knew that she had little chance against the two of them, but that didn’t mean she was just going to roll over and die. She threw her head back, trying to catch her captor in the groin. She may have missed her mark but it had at least made him let go of her wrists. She fell forwards, letting her shoulder hit the concrete and began to roll. Her only chance was to make it out of the alley and back to the main street. She almost made it to her feet when she felt the first blow as G’s shoe connected with her ribs. She rolled away from the blow, gasping for breath. She felt herself being lifted up off the ground, again, strong arms holding her from behind, only this time G approached. A slight smile crossed his face as he spoke, “I have a message for you sweetness—drop the organ donor case. It’s going to be one mystery that even you can’t solve.”

“I don’t falsify evidence G. If you even think that's a possibility then you don’t know me at all.” As the back of G’s hand struck her cheek, sharp pain spread through the side of her face, and the metallic taste of her own blood filled her mouth.

Taking a few steps, Carlee saw his fingers flexing as he spoke. She could only hope that the blow to her face hurt him at least a little. “That's right, you and your high standards and ethics. You see Car, I have nothing to worry about. If you live through this, which I really doubt so don't go getting your hopes up, recovery will take so long that you will be replaced in the lab. Everything that you have been working on will have disappeared.”

Her tongue snaked across her lips, “You don't know me very well then G. I may be a geek, but that does not mean I'm a wimp."

“The tough girl act really doesn’t work for you Car. You still don't get it. Must be the scientist in you. You have to see to believe. Well, let me show you." Carlee didn’t have time to think about his words. The beating came on so fast she had no time to react. She suddenly became his punching bag, a right fist to her stomach, then a left, the force of the blows leaving her gasping for breath and her stomach clenching at the need to purge itself of her recent dinner. Her shoulders were nearly wrenched from their sockets again as she tried to collapse to the ground. She needed to cover herself, to protect herself from the blows, but she was bound, only able to try to curl into a ball. His fists then moved to her face. It only took one blow for her to see stars, after the second she couldn’t see at all.

She barely recognized G’s voice when he spoke, “Let her go, as much as I would love to watch her die, my orders were to just give the warning.”

Carlee moaned as she lay on the ground, barely able to move. Her eyes were swollen shut but she heard the footsteps, felt G’s presence as he came down closer, leaning down and speaking close to her ear “Don’t even
think
of telling anyone Carlee.”

A few slaps across the face to make sure that she wasn’t unconscious. “Listen to me, Carlee and listen well. Memorize it. I know where your heart is. That old boyfriend of yours, Ryden? Or what about your brother Kyle? You wouldn’t want to be responsible for something happening to them would you?”

Blood now poured from her lips, she was struggling with consciousness but managed to get out the words, “You wouldn’t dare.”

G laughed, “Oh wouldn’t I? I would do it with so much pleasure. I would even send them to you a piece at a time. Just push me and find out.”

He rose from beside her. She slowly began to curl into a ball in an attempt to ease her pain. It was over, she survived. There was a sudden kick from behind and she opened her mouth to scream only to find she had no voice. She was unable to catch her breath as she was repeatedly kicked and stomped. Her back, her stomach, arms and legs were all targets. The last blow grazed her temple hard enough that when the darkness finally came, she welcomed it.

She was unsure as to how long she had been out. When she came back to consciousness, she immediately heard the sounds of the cars, people, and the city. It took her only brief seconds to remember what had happened. She tried to call for help but she couldn’t get enough breath to fill her lungs to scream. She tried to move, but there wasn’t a place on her body that didn’t hurt. She cried through the pain as she pulled herself across the asphalt. A female scream stopped her. She found herself suddenly surrounded by people. Voices all mingled together. “What the hell happened to you?” “Someone call 9-1-1.” “I’m on it.” “Don’t worry hon, we got ya.”

Carlee flinched as a hand came to rest against her shoulder. She whimpered as she was suddenly able to move her arms and knew the zip tie had been cut from her wrists. A concerned voice through the darkness, “Don’t move her, she has too many injuries. Just talk to her, let her know that she isn’t alone.”

“Help is on the way, we won’t leave you, just hang in there,” the voice wavered as she spoke. They were the last words Carlee heard before the darkness came again.

Hotels, with all their comforts, were a luxury Ryden didn’t experience often. His bed was usually a hard patch of ground with a bed roll and either bugs eating at him or the sweltering heat keeping him awake. He looked forward to a nice soft mattress to lie on and eagerly stripped down to crawl beneath the sheets.

Lying there, his thoughts went to Carlee. So much had gone wrong in a short amount of time. Three years, yes, but to his kind, three years were no more than a passing glance.

It had been just after he finished basic training and was about to be deployed, Ryden came home on leave, staying with Justin as he had done for the last few years. A few of the guys he’d become friends with, who also stayed with Justin from time to time, invited him out for drinks to celebrate the start of his new life.

Ryden saw her across the smoke-filled bar, her dark hair with its bright yellow streak catching his attention. He didn’t know her name, had never seen her in town before, but it was obvious from the way she carried herself as she walked and the expensive looking clothes she wore, he wasn’t even close to being in her league
.

A few of the guys realized where his attention had gone and began to rib him, encouraging him to at least ask her to dance.

“Come on, man. Give her a whirl. She won’t bite, but if she does, bite her back,” Chris, the youngest of the group, said. They all laughed and Ryden, never having been comfortable around the opposite sex, protested.

“No can do, fellas. She won’t even look my way.”

“And you won’t know until you get off your ass, walk over to her and ask, will you?” John grabbed Ryden by the arm and pulled him to his feet. “Move it, Ry. That girl wants you, she just doesn’t know it yet.”

Embarrassed, Ryden felt himself getting pushed across the room and nearly fell in his haste to get away from his friends. Carlee looked up just as he caught himself on the edge of the table where she was sitting with a few other girlfriends.

“Easy, there, hot stuff. Maybe you should lay off the drinks.” Her intense green eyes looked up at him as she smiled. Ryden thought later that must have been the moment he fell in love with her. Cliché, yes, but she made him believe that love at first sight existed.

“Um, sorry, my friends just got a bit carried away.” He rubbed his hand across his chin, feeling the stubble and wished he’d taken time to shave.

“So I see,” she said as her friends giggled quietly while they checked out the table behind Ryden where Chris and John sat watching.

“Um, well, I was, um…” He stammered, feeling a bit ridiculous with the entire situation.

“Spit it out, hot stuff. I don’t bite.” Carlee looked at her friends, a huge smile on her face and then back at Ryden, who was still trying to figure out how to either ask her to dance or get out of the situation in which he found himself.

“Well,” he started, thinking he’d be better off just to blurt it out. “I was hoping you’d dance with me.” The words tumbled out in a rush, so quickly, he wondered if she even understood him.

“What took you so long? Sure, let’s dance.”

Shocked, he watched as she stood up, grabbed his hand and pulled him onto the dance floor. Bodies parted to make way for them as the music suddenly changed from the high impact rock beat to something slow and easy.

Shit
.
Just my luck.

Sure he couldn’t get out of it, even if he wanted to. He pulled the tiny woman up against his larger frame and found she fit him perfectly.

“Um, my name’s Ryden.”

“Nice to meet you, Ryden. I’m Carlee.”

The shock of blonde hair lying across her cheek, made him think of the buttercups that grew around his home when he was a kid. Reaching up, he tucked it behind her ear. Time stood still as the two of them, oblivious to anyone else in the bar, danced through one song after another, not paying attention to the beat as neither seemed to be eager to break the contact. They talked and laughed, and finally, with very little encouragement, Carlee convinced him to take her home.