Jace
“These are some sick fuckers.” Mateo stepped from the bottom tread onto the basement floor, and his gaze immediately found Hargrove’s taxidermy table. He shrugged, and I knew what was coming before he even opened his mouth. “Can’t really blame Abby for reacting the way she did. Hargrove was part of the group that killed her friends, and she’d just seen her picture all over the second stalker board in two days.”
“She took the same oath you did.” I stared up at the photo-covered section of wall. We’d packed up everything but the table, the cage, the filing cabinet, and the pictures, but I hadn’t thought of a thing since Abby and Lucas left except how empty my bed was going to feel without her next to me. How empty my arms already felt.
Why had she worked so hard to make that happen?
“But the real mistake was mine,” I said. “She obviously isn’t ready to separate personal grudges from her duty as an enforcer. I should never have hired her.”
Not that she’d given me any choice in that, or in firing her either. Abby had an infuriating way of getting exactly what she wanted, consequences be damned, and in retrospect, it was clear that she’d been calling the shots the whole time.
Hell, maybe I should have promoted her. Maybe anyone who could manipulate an Alpha that well shouldn’t have been taking orders in the first place.
But that wasn’t how our system worked. We didn’t just hand out Alpha patches like badges for selling Girl Scout cookies. And we didn’t just kill people—even bad guys—against orders.
“Hargrove’s group killed one of our men too,” I said, thinking aloud. “And lots of Titus’s, from the looks of it. What Abby did was about more than those pictures. More than her dead friends.” We were missing something.
No, Abby washidingsomething. She’d practically admitted that much.
Teo frowned. “What else could there be?”
“I don’t know. But she was desperate to get into this basement.” I ran one gloved hand over the edge of Hargrove’s work surface. “In fact, she was hell-bent on coming with us in the first place. I thought that was because she didn’t want to be left out, or…” Or because she didn’t want to be separated from me. In retrospect, I could see that my ego had gotten in the way of my duty. “…something. But what if it was more than that?”
“It was her idea to stop at Hargrove’s house on the way home from the airport yesterday, right?” Teo said. “Because she knew if you went to the lodge first, you’d leave her there?”
I nodded. He saw it too. Whatever Abby was up to was more important to her than her own career. More important than her own welfare, even. She’d killed Hargrove with full knowledge of the possible consequences. Hell, she’d seen Manx’s amputated fingertips up close—Manx had been declawed after the council found her guilty of murder—but Abby hadn’t even hesitated.
Teo held up his phone to recapture my attention, reminding me of the call I’d asked him to make.
“Any news?”
“Not yet.” He slid his phone into his jacket pocket. “Isaac said the lodge is on lockdown but they’ve seen nothing suspicious. No intruders. No threats. Not even a prank call. But just to be safe, they’ve called in backup from the Pride at large.”
The most capable non-enforcer members.
“And Titus is coming with three men of his own. They were near the border, hunting the remaining hunters, so they may actually beat us to the lodge.”
“Good.” That was unprecedented—a group of strays coming to the aid of a US Alpha. Titus knew what was at stake and he knew that his assistance, with adherence to the council’s standard rules of engagement, would help his chances in the vote.
Unfortunately, thanks to Abby’s crime, my backing would be less help to the cause than I’d hoped.
Mateo shrugged. “Honestly, though, I don’t think we’re going to need them. It doesn’t make any sense for Darren to strike us at the lodge. That’s the best-defended spot in the whole territory. It doesn’t fit his MO.”
“No, it doesn’t.” The hunters had only taken stragglers before. Lone strays. Our enforcer Leo on vacation, when he’d had no backup or partner. The most daring thing they’d tried so far was the attempt to catch Abby in the woods. They’d been willing to dispense with her human friends in the process, but they’d brought three armed hunters in order to kill one small tabby.
It made no sense that Darren would be willing to charge into the Appalachian Pride capital—a property crawling with large, angry enforcers—by himself.
“Did Hargrove actually say Darren is going after Melody?” Teo asked, his focus skipping from photo to photo taped up on the wall.
“He said they were going after ‘the other tabby.’ That has to be Melody. There are no other tabbies in the Appalachian Territory. Or within driving distance in any of the other territories.” I frowned, going over what he’d said word by word. “But that doesn’t make any sense either, because he said we’d left her undefended. Actually, he said we’d left ‘them’ undefended, but Abby’s the only tabby who hasn’t had round-the-clock protection in years.” And if I could go back and change that, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
“So, Darren’s going after a tabby he thinks is undefended, but we don’t know for sure that Melody’s the one he’s after?”
I nodded, though that made little sense.
“Wait.” I spun to face the rest of the underground room. “He said they’d taken pictures of both of the tabbies, and that they’d never seen a single tomcat in all that time.”
“But these pictures are all of Abby.”
