Taggart dropped the drives and pressed the palms of his hands to his burning eyes, all the while holding on to his thoughts and feelings to prevent them from spilling out to Arlo and Soren. Chugging in some air, Taggart shoved back his seat, lowering his head between his knees, closing his eyes. He willed his bodyto behave. Having a panic attack right then, after everything, wasn’t on the cards.Stop it.
Get control of yourself.
You don’t want to disappoint Daddy.
The last one seemed to help the most, and he managed to take a decent breath, keeping that on repeat in his mind.You don’t want to disappoint Daddy. You don’t want to disappoint Daddy. You don’t want to disappoint Daddy.
He took several deeper breaths before finally lifting his head to stare at what lay in front of him.
Think. Come on, think.
He reached out with trembling fingers and ran them over the cold plastic case and considered what he should do next. Not telling Arlo was out of the question, mates were truthful with each other. But right then he didn’t have anything to actually share, and he didn’t want to throw fuel on the fire only for it to splutter out with a dousing from an unpredictable storm he’d created with something he’d said.
That wouldn’t do.
He brought his chair closer to the desk and, not overthinking it, connected the two hard drives to his computer, splitting the data between four screens.
The one thing he took solace in was that both smokey things were dead, and both owls were dead. That left the polar bears and the rhinos—as long as they’d not created something else. The odds of that were high when he considered Raul. So he did what he always did, and looked at the information he had sorted, because if there was an answer in it, then he’d find it.
Soren
The scent of the tiger had brought back memories from his homeland that he’d repressed since the day he’d hidden in the hole in the wallow. It was easier not to remember, only he was beginning to understand that it was dangerous too. Learning that what had happened to his people and the black rhinos wasn’t an isolated incident had terrified him because it meant that it could happen anywhere, even here.
With Taggart in his office and Arlington meticulously doing research into the widely spread-out Ambushes of tigers spaced out across the country, Soren was hesitant to interrupt either of them or think too hard about the things that had been nagging him since the encounter with the tigers at the storage yard, though one thing still nagged at the back of his mind. The tigers had reclaimed one of their missing mates.
Could that mean that there were other mates being held somewhere waiting for someone to come for them?
The thought brought tears to his eyes as he bustled around the house, dusting in an attempt to settle his thoughts.
How many more would come to Cookietown seeking a safe haven, haunted by the things they’d seen and the friends and family members they’d been unable to save? It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right. He felt useless to both his mates and the community, just as he’d felt useless the day his family’s lands had been invaded. He was growing tired of that feeling. Taggart’s technological skills were an asset. Arlington was a badass enforcer. What was he besides a little oxpecker with a bunch of domestic skills?
If he was going to have any chance at all of living out a long, happy life with his mates here in the place that they called home, he was going to have to find out. The problem was where to get started. His life before his people’s lands had been invaded was one of peacefulness, playfulness, and to some extent indulgence. Not in the way some people thought about indulgence, where itwas all about monetary things and lavish vacations. Out on their sprawling, remote lands, they’d grown up being able to dabble in all the things that interested them and been given the confidence to try and fail knowing someone would be there to pick them up, dust them off, and offer words of comfort and encouragement.
He'd never been afraid of messing up. Never been afraid of not being enough, either. Hiding, burrowing as deeply in the hole as he could and wrapping himself in his wings—that’s what led to him questioning his worth and ability to contribute to the new family he’d found.
What good would it have been, dying like the rest of his friends and family had done?
It would have benefited no one.
Worse, if Arlo and Taggart had ever felt or sensed that there should have been another mate with them and begun to search for them, his death would have condemned them to a long, fruitless waste of time and energy when they could not turn up any sign of him.
Not only that, but he’d have been unable to share what he knew of the events that had taken place, though deep down, he knew that he still hadn’t been able to convey all of his memories to them. There were things that had happened early on, things that, to his shame, he and his people had dismissed and ignored, content to go about their carefree ways confident that their larger, stronger neighbors would always protect them.
In the end, their cavalier attitudes had contributed to the downfall of their way of life and the destruction of everything they’d known and loved.
It had all started with the construction of the new clinic.
In their remote part of the country, with its rolling hills and wide, sprawling prairies, having easy access to any sort of medical facility had been looked upon by many as a blessing. Many of the elders had succumbed to naggingillnesses and ailments that had slowed them down to the point where everyday tasks had grown difficult and, in some cases, impossible. The little questionnaires sent out through their community had seemed innocent enough, but some of the ones that had come later, no longer distributed to everyone but select families, now felt very suspicious to him.
As he picked up each item to dust it, images began to piece themselves together in his mind. Like with the cookbooks he’d poured over and easily memorized. Now he brushed his fingers off on the apron he’d put on over his clothes, put the dust cloth away, and hurried to retrieve the tablet and pen he’d placed in the drawer beside the kitchen stove.
Sitting at the table with a cold glass of strawberry lemonade, he closed his eyes, focused on the past, and began writing every single detail he could recall from the time the clinic had been built, until the moment their lives were irrevocably changed.
Arlo
It was easier when there were things to smash. Point him in the direction of a target that needed to be dealt with, and Arlo knew exactly what to do. All this waiting around trying to sort shit out, deciphering shifter’s intentions and hoping they weren’t wrong, that was simply becoming a giant pain in the ass. Just like trying to get information about some of the most elusive shifters on the planet.
Over the years, he’d made contacts all over the country. He’d never stored their names and numbers in his phone as his trust in technology had never been very high. That his mate made a living hacking into anything with an electronic signature and the ability to store data had only added to his distrust of the infernal things. Now he flipped the page in the spiral-bound notebookhe’d carefully removed from the lock box beneath the bed and began dialing the number at the top, having to hit the backspace button several times when his large fingers hit the wrong button on the keypad, or multiple buttons at once. He really needed to get another damned stylist, but he’d broken three already and lost a half dozen others. Tiny and inconvenient, that’s what the hell they were. What he really wished was for someone to design a larger phone, even if it wouldn’t slip easily into the back pocket of his jeans.
