The Xoe Meyers Trilogy (Xoe Meyers Young Adult Fantasy/Horror Series) (17 page)

Jason put his hand on my shoulder, turning my attention back to him. “We
will
find her,” he said. “I promise.”

“How can you promise!” I screeched without really meaning to. I went on a little more calmly, “You don’t know that we’ll find her. Dan has been one step ahead of us this entire time. We’re playing his game and he has no rules.”

“He's not going to kill her,” Jason assured, “and I will not stop until we have her back.” I didn’t like how he said that Dan wouldn’t
kill
her, rather than that he wouldn’t hurt her. We couldn’t stop him from hurting her.We needed to act. We couldn’t waste any more time.

I stared at Jason and he answered my question without me having to ask it. “We at least have a place to start,” he said calmly, and jerked his head toward the fallen woman, “if she'll talk.”

I glanced at the woman, then back at Jason, meeting his blue eyes calmly, stare for stare. “She’ll talk.” I wasn’t sure how I’d make her talk, but I was going to get Lucy back . . . one way or another. I shook my head at my thoughts. One day I was judging Jason for being a killer in his past, and now I was contemplating torture. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Jason was still watching me, waiting for me to explain my thoughts. I quickly looked away from his eyes and turned back toward Allison. “Allison?” I asked, not liking the fragile tone of my voice. She didn’t answer. I walked to the couch and squatted in front of her. “Al? You in there?”

“She needs to go to the hospital,” Jason repeated.

I looked back to find him kneeling by the unconscious woman.

“I-I just need a few minutes,” Allison finally said, “then we’ll go get Lucy back.” I cupped my palms over Allison’s hands warmly with an assurance I didn’t exactly posses, then left her and went to kneel next to Jason.

“Why isn’t she waking up?” I asked. What I thought was,
Please tell me I didn’t kill her
.

Jason answered without looking at me, “She must be a newer wolf. She's healing the damage, but slowly.”

Jason rose from the woman’s side and came to face me. He put his hands on either side of my face. His wounds were gone, his bloody shirt and pants the only reminder that they had even been there. I stared at his chest, unable to get my thoughts straight. My world was still in a fog. I felt cold.

“Xoe,” Jason said, turning my eyes up into his face. “I think you're going into shock.”

I stared at his face, not comprehending his words. He pulled me against his chest and wrapped his arms around me. My entire body began to tremble violently. Jason lowered us down to the floor and lowered me into his lap. I breathed in the scent of vanilla and trees, cringing at the smell of blood that tainted it. My trembling began to subside as my body grew warmer. I felt safe. I knew it was an illusion, but it was one I was grateful for.

“She’s coming to,” I heard Max say.

Jason and I glanced at him in unison, then followed his eyes to the woman on my floor. She began to squirm around against her bonds.

Werewolves, even new ones, didn’t seem to stay unconscious for very long. It was quite the time-saver. As the woman’s senses returned, she started trying to scuttle away from us. I expected defiance, but instead she cowered, terrified.

“I-I’ll talk,” the woman stammered. “I can t-tell you where they are. D-don’t hurt me.”

Well that was easy.

Once the woman, Lela, got talking, it was hard to shut her up. Apparently Dan had been trying to gather pack members as he traveled. He’d go from town to town, looking for wolves that were like Max, rare cases that had survived without a pack. I guess they weren’t as rare as we’d thought. He had only managed to acquire three pack members, including Lela. Lucy was Dan’s first attempt at turning someone to be in his pack, to be his mate more specifically.

Whenever Dan would find a new wolf, he’d bring him or her into his “pack”. Lela claimed that they didn’t have much choice in the matter. It was hard for lesser wolves to resist an alpha, which Dan was. That was why most wolves went into packs willingly; their alphas would protect them from situations like this one. Dan had originally come to Shelby High to make Max join his pack, but he saw Lucy and things changed.

I looked down at Lela skeptically. “Why should we believe you?”

Her eyes widened even more, which a moment ago, hadn’t even seemed possible. “I-I didn’t want to join Dan. I had no choice, he would have killed me. He’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, stronger and faster than he should be. I c-can tell you where he’s hiding, where he’ll take your friend.”

I crouched down beside her. “Go on.”

Lela told us that Dan was hiding at the old ranger station, roughly ten miles away from my house. It had been abandoned when the state built a new one a few miles east, about four years ago. So now we only had to go there, get past Dan and his other pack members, and get Lucy out. Ri-ight.

Jason, Allison, Max, and I got up to leave the room to discuss things away from Lela.

“Wait,” Lela said, “there’s something else.”

We looked back at her expectantly.

“He wants Xoe.”

What? “I thought I wasn’t important, since I can’t be turned,” I said.

“He doesn’t want to turn you, he wants to
use
you. He’s obsessed with it. He thinks if he can find a way to control you, he can use you to solidify what he calls his
power base
. He’s not exactly sane.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,” I said, trying to act cool. On the inside I was shaking like a little girl.

We left Lela and went outside into the chilly night.

“Sooo what’s the plan?” I asked Jason, as we all walked a little ways away from my house. We stood enveloped in soft moonlight that cast ominous shadows all around. I couldn’t help trying to see through the shadows for any sign of eavesdropping werewolves.

“Can’t we just call the cops?” Allison blurted before Jason could answer.

“And tell them what?” Jason replied. “That they need to go in armed with bazookas? Even if they did, their reflexes would not be quick enough. We would be sending them to die.”

“Ok,” I said, “there are three of them: Dan, and the other two pack members. Including Lucy, there are four of us.”

“Five,” Allison chimed in.

“Sorry Al, you don’t really count.”

She pouted, so I humored her. “There are
five
of us, including Lucy. So, we just need to reach Lucy, and we should have no problem getting back out, five against three.”

“It's too dangerous,” Jason countered. “I'll call Dan’s old pack. For this, they will come. In the meantime I will try to stall Dan, and I will go alone,”

“Oh no,” I replied. “You aren’t pulling any of that gallant hero stuff with us. I, for one, refuse to be left out of the rescue.”

“Me too,” Allison chimed in.

“Me three,” added Max.

“Then it’s settled,” I said, turning back to Jason. “We go in together.”

Jason shook his head. “You could all be killed. He's not going to kill Lucy, but I don't think he will be as considerate with any of us. It's too risky.”

“It’s even
more
risky with just you going in,” I replied. “At least with all of us we have some chance of success. How long will it take for Dan’s old pack to get here?”

Jason met my eyes and tried to stare me down. I slowly crossed my arms and tilted my head to the side, staring back. Allison and Max came to stand on either side of me and mimicked my stance. Jason slowly nodded his assent, but he did
not
look happy about it. Too bad he didn’t have a choice.

Jason sighed. “Okay, here’s the plan . . . ”

The plan was that we would take Lela, in cuffs, with the pretense of making a trade. We knew Dan would never go for a trade, but if we could distract him with conversation, maybe one of us could get near Lucy and free her from any restraints she might have. The idea was that no matter what happened, Lucy would have as much chance of escape as the rest of us.

I was trying really hard not to think about the chance that we might not all escape. In the meantime, should we fail, we would hopefully have Dan’s pack riding in to rescue all of us. They were based in Utah, so they would have to fly. If they were able to get an immediate flight out, we would still have two to three hours before they arrived.

We went back inside and Jason went into the kitchen to call the alpha of Dan’s old pack. I listened to Jason’s side of the conversation as he detailed all that had happened. After a few minutes more, I heard the phone click into the cradle.

Jason came back into the living room. “They're coming.”

Max cleared his throat, turning everyone’s eyes to him. “What about me and Lucy? Will they make us go with them?”

Jason didn’t answer, instead he said, “You don’t have to come with to the ranger’s station, Max. You can just go home now.”

Max crossed his arms at the wrists, then drew them to his sides, like an umpire calling someone out. “No way. I’m coming. We’ll just have to worry about the pack when the time comes.”

It was settled. We gathered Lela up and trooped out the front door, faces stern and somber: a vampire, a human, a teen wolf, another wolf who was terrified enough for the rest of us, and a half-demon without a clue. Bad guys beware.

T
here is a bumpy mountain road leading to the old ranger’s station. We were all piled into Jason’s car, bouncing as we crawled along. I was in the front passenger seat with my trusty fireplace poker across my lap. Lela was in the back, sandwiched between Max and Allison. Allison had traded in her not so effective pepper spray for a baseball bat we had found in my garage, though that probably wouldn’t do her much good either.

I kept having to remind myself to breathe. My love for Lucy was all that kept courage running through my veins. The closer we came to our destination, the less confident I felt in our ability to pull off the rescue. Despite Jason’s assurances, I wasn’t convinced he could take Dan in a one-on-one fight.

Jason claimed that vampires were simply stronger than werewolves, though he did admit that Dan was stronger than any other werewolf he had ever met, confirming Lela’s claims. It wasn’t just Dan’s fighting skills that made him dangerous. Dan had more physical strength and speed than he should have, than any werewolf should have.

As for Max, I was even more worried. The unknown, at least to us, pack member had bested him pretty easily outside of Lucy’s house. Max claimed that his opponent got downwind and snuck up on him, but that fact alone made me think that Max wasn’t a match for him.

I was the wild card in the situation. Including me, we were three against two, given that we couldn’t trust Lela to join in the fight and Allison wouldn’t be much help. I was stronger than I used to be, but I wasn’t sure by how much. I didn’t think that I could trust my new-found strength in the upcoming battle. I’d proven that I could deal a hit, but taking one, well . . . I was not looking forward to finding out how that would go.

“Please don’t give me back,” Lela urged, breaking the silence and my train of thought. “I can’t go back to him.”

“We’re not going to
give
you back,” I said. “You’re just an excuse to get inside.”

“But what if you lose? He’ll take me back! I can’t go back!”

I’d had enough. I took off my seatbelt and leaned into the backseat, getting in Lela’s face. “You helped Dan attack us. As far as I’m concerned
you’re
the reason he has Lucy. Now you’re going to help us get her back, and just be happy that you’re still alive.”

Lela cowered and pressed herself back against her seat as much as possible, hiding behind her long, dark hair, trying in vain to distance herself from me.

“Calm down Xoe,” Jason said in a voice that was meant to be soothing. He had replaced his ruined shirt with a dark green cotton t-shirt from his trunk. Max and Allison had frozen in place, each shoved as far away from me as possible.

I glared back at Jason, a snarl on my face.

He spoke slowly, “Remember what happened the last time you lost your temper?”

I couldn’t think. All I felt was white-hot rage. It felt like burning embers were eating me up from the inside. This wasn't what usually happened to me when I got angry. This was something new.

“Remember what happened with Brian?” Jason urged just as calmly.

The memory of Brian’s scared face came flooding back to me, sobering me and chasing away my anger, most of it anyhow. My temper had never been this bad, not even close. It was an all-too real reminder of my . . . heritage. I sank back into my seat and crossed my arms, embarrassed by my outburst.

The bouncing of the car lessened as we began to slow. Jason pulled off to the side of the narrow road and stopped the car out of sight of the ranger’s station. If a large enough truck came by, it wouldn’t be able to fit past. Luckily, no one came up this way anymore.

Jason turned in his seat to look back at Allison. “You are going to wait in the car, in the driver’s seat, in case we need to make a fast getaway.”

“No way!” Allison argued. “You guys are
so
not going in there without me!”

“It makes sense Al,” I said, trying to placate her, because I agreed with Jason, “you’ll do us more good out here.”

It was better for everyone if Allison stayed outside. She would be out of harm’s way, at least farther out of it than the rest of us, and we wouldn’t have to worry about protecting her while we were trying to protect ourselves. I was reminded that
I
was supposed to protect myself, and my heart sped a little.

Allison’s face contorted into an angry pout. “Fine.” She was
not
happy, but I’d rather have her mad at me than dead.

We emerged from the car, Max holding onto Lela by her cuffs and me gripping my fireplace poker. As we began walking toward the hideout, the unusually warm air gave my skin an electric tingle. My earlier bravado with Lela had worn off. I was all nerves now. I stopped walking. “Umm, remind me again what the plan is?”

Jason stopped beside me, laying his hand on my arm, “You don't have to go in Xoe. In fact,” he gave me a small smile, “I would prefer it if you didn't go in.”