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“But countrywide? Could it be several packs?” Nyx asked. “That seems unlikely unless they attack and absorb what’s left after the assault.”
“Emma did say there are worse things out there,” I said with a heavy sigh. She was downright terrified just recounting some of the atrocities she’d seen.
“They’re awful, Callum. Not only do they capture andkeep women under lock and key, they also breed them to make their pack stronger. Female babies are sometimes tossed to the woods to die because they’re seen as weaker. They trade females that no longer have use to them and buy new ones frequently, packs either not realizing or not caring what fate awaited them,” she explained. Her hands twisted in her shirt, a nervous tic I’d never seen her show.
“I know that’s awful,” Leven said, wincing preemptively at his word. “But we’ve seen that in packs. Does it get worse?”
“Sure, packs keep females under their thumb, but I’m talking all shoved into a dirt compound, chained to walls, and taken against their will, kind of thing,” she said in a whisper. Her eyes showed true fear as she spoke, and I already wanted to form a charge and attack this pack.
“Is there anything else?” Nyx asked. Though he looked like he didn’t want to hear anymore.
“Outside of the abuse and breeding, they keep them drugged. In fact, I’m pretty sure they were getting a steady supply from someone. I don’t think the pack who wanted me was the one you’re looking for, but I guarantee they’re tied together. It’s a comply-or-be-forced-to-type-of-world out there, Callum, this place is a diamond among coal.”
“Emma?” Vanya asked. Her worry brought me out of myhead, and I turned to her with a strained smile.
“She’s fine,” I reassured her. “She just gave us some intel on how these packs work.” Every set of eyes stared at me in horror as I recounted the details. Except for Nyx and Leven of course, who’d heard it all before.
“Can we get Antonio on it?” Vanya asked. “There’s no way there’s not large bank transfers or something, right?” She was focusing on finding them but her eyes were clouded over with unshakable fear. Her sister was confirmed alive and that means they’ve had her for several months. What would be left of her when we found her at this point? That was something I was afraid to dwell on. Our girl had lost enough, and I knew that losing her sister all over again might break her.
“We can,” I agreed. Zoey cleared her throat, reminding us this wasn’t the Bluffs and they had their own information.
“I have allies. We aren’t the only two packs recognizing what’s happening here,” she admitted. “There aren’t many reported missing yet, but I just sent word out on the network today.”
“Won’t the packs you’re avoiding, see it?” I asked. The alpha network was fucking useless and had been for a long time. I’d used it before but gotten little to no responses. It was set up to help each other out but that was during a time when packs didn’t use tradition as a shield to hide torture and having no moral compass.
“Not that one,” Zoey countered. “We made a new one. It’s obviously not spoken about and is kind of like Fight Club, but I’ll add you in. I need to check in on my message board anyway.”
She pulled it up on her tablet, the sight looking like a shady corporate website until she clicked the portal and signed in. Then it was a whole new world. There were message boards, maps, intel, profiles, the works. It was a social media site as the network was intended and from what little I could already see… active. Something the original obviously lacked.
“How did this come about?” I asked. The ‘and why am I just now hearing about it’ was left unspoken. It may not be shared widely, but how did they pick and choose which packs to include?
“Please don’t take it personally,” she said with an apologetic smile. “It’s been running for about two years, after the first attacks started. There were far too many small packs being taken over for it to be a coincidence and despite asking around, no one had answers. So a few of the packs here started a new network, and it expanded from there. Welcome to the good fight, my friends.”
“And the board?” Vanya asked pointedly. She was laser focused tonight, not that I could blame her. The last week has been hell and it was only one among many. Her life had been hell since she got shot and her sister disappeared.
Zoey clicked through to the message she had posted earlier, the comments upward of ninety-nine plus now. She scrolled, counting out loud as she did. By the time we reached the bottom, we had over thirty reports of missing women, all in their twenties.
“This isn’t an isolated incident, it’s a fucking epidemic,” Nyx growled. “So what now?”
“I’ve added in both of ours so technically it’s more than thirty-two. But look at these locations,” she pointed out. “From California, to Colorado, to Illinois, to Florida… it’s all over.”
“Wait,” Grant said as he jumped up. We watched as he started ripping down notices off of a cork board, then unrolled a US map in its place. “Give me the cities.”
She read them off one by one and he placed a pin in each location. It was even worse to see a visual display of it, solidifying how bad it had gotten before anyone realized.
“This is strategy,” Leven said. Though when he didn’t elaborate, Vanya shoved him playfully.
“What is, you big oaf?” she prompted. “Clue us in.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. Just think about it though. It took two years of attacks and abductions for anyone to start putting this together. And if your network has been up just as long, you didn’t see it any earlier than this.”
“You’re not wrong,” Grant agreed. “I don’t know the dates, but I’d bet that they hop around. So if you take a girl from Cali, then hop over to New York, well no one will notice.”
“How strong does a spell have to be to travel that far?” Nyx asked, standing and pacing now. “Because no way they’re loading these girls on planes.”
“Insanely powerful I’d think. Unless they have a private jet?” Vanya wondered. “Yet another thing for Antonio to check into. If it’s the same pack then the same plane would be showing up in these spots, right?”
“You’re onto something there, let me make a spreadsheet of the locations and dates the girls went missing,” Grant said, grabbing Zoey’s tablet without preamble and rushing off.
