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“You’ll know it when you see it,” he continued. “Only place up there. Somehow, it’s even less livable than Mallory’s shack, but it gives a great view down at the truck stop. Rooster already dropped off some sleeping and cooking gear, a few power tools and a generator to run them.”
I nodded. Night Falls was a small town comprised mainly of shifters. An elderly human couple ran a dilapidated hotel on the other side of the mountain. They also sold moonshine, the hotel rumored to be just a front for laundering money they made on the moonshine and a few side deals. When any of the shifters I’d met talked about the Crockers, they just said “Nedna” unless they specifically meant Ned or Edna. Advanced age and Ned’s current refusal to have his hair cut anymore had turned them into twins.
There was a post office on the pack’s side of the mountain and a re-sale shop currently operated by the Veep’s human mate, Paisley. A distant cousin of Nedna ran a small grocery store that doubled as a hardware store after the last real hardware store recently closed up shop.
No one could tell me whether Betty Pincher traced to Ned’s side or Edna’s, or both, but they all agreed that customers could count on high prices and a small selection at “Pincher’s Groceries and Sundry.”
The largest presence of humans could always be found at the truck stop. For big rigs, it was the last location for food, gas, and a piss until they hit Buckley. That meant there were always at least a half dozen semi-trucks gassing up or parked for a meal, the bounty and prices of which matched the selection at Betty Pincher’s. A burger, a burger with cheese, scrambled eggs with bacon or sausage, French fries morning, noon, and night, and a sludgy pot of hot coffee that tasted like motor oil.
The restaurant didn’t have a cook. It had a cashier who could push buttons on a microwave—not quickly, not always accurately, but at least some buttons would be pushed.
With the truck stop in the middle of the pack’s territory, it made good sense to have some kind of observation post on the other side of the valley. It made even more sense with everything that had happened to the pack since last fall.
Everything I knew about past events was nothing more than second hand, but that’s when the pack’s last president had met his mate, a she-wolf on the run from a large group of Illinois wolves. Somehow they had tracked her. A short-lived war broke out. It might have been a small war, but news had traveled fast. It traveled fast, and it traveled far, eventually reaching me all the way up at my makeshift cabin in Skamania County, Washington, where I was living rogue.
Without a vehicle or acceptable identification, it had taken me a few more months to hitchhike my way to Night Falls. Hell, it had taken me weeks to have an iota of an idea about which way to head. But I knew a few shifters I could call on for gossip. Help? No. But they had so much gossip it was hard to get them to focus on the information I wanted.
I finally arrived a few weeks after more trouble had hit the pack. A feral group of hyena shifters had rolled through Buckley, kidnapped some human females and the baby sister of the MC’s current president.
After all that, I was surprised there was even one shifter willing to sponsor me for membership in the Woodsmen.
“I’ll be supervising the job,” Mallory said. “We’ll do a supply run in the morning. So get a good idea tonight what materials and tools you’re going to need.”
“Send a list around first,” Joshua said, pulling out a wad of cash and peeling off about five-hundred dollars worth of twenties. “Lots of tools just hanging around the pack.”
Mallory moved to extend his hand, but Joshua pushed the money in my direction, his gaze on Mallory as he spoke.
“Club officers have pack business tomorrow,” he told the old wolf. “Doone can go it alone.”
Watching the exchange between the two men, I knew there was no pack business tomorrow. The job of fixing up a place that sounded even worse than Mallory’s, plus a vehicle and a significant chunk of cash, were a test. First, would I grumble about more hard work. Second, and far more importantly, would I take the money and run.
I guess they’d find out when someone came around to check on me tomorrow afternoon.
CHAPTER6
MOSA
The heavy rainsthat had threatened the greater Chicago area for the last two days decided to hit hard as I turned onto Michigan Avenue. Reaching the Magnificent Mile after the corporate lunch hour had ended left the streets even less populated at a time I needed all the human witnesses I could get.
I felt like a sitting duck as I drove around without a damn clue what to do once I finally ditched the car. The rain would dilute my scent, but Henric could have a dozen shifters searching for me. Not all of them would have had to beat me to the city. Rockford was close enough to warrant keeping at least one security unit set up in Chicago as an outpost. As soon as Henric realized I had escaped, he could have mobilized the unit to search for me.
And my mother’s last words before telling me to run only added to my confusion.
Never get off a train at the station…
I was pretty sure the whole point of a station was getting on and off! And, while the doors between passenger cars would open during transit to reach bathrooms and the cafe car, the actual exits were sealed with electronic locks.
Panic made my skin itch. There could be a tracker on the sedan. Who was I kidding? There damn well was one. The guards had been onto us too soon with no other reason to watch us than they had already been warned. That meant Henric had planted the video file to see what would happen. I couldn’t know why, though. Had he recognized the face on the video, too? Or had someone else who then pointed it out to him? And how long ago did the identification occur?
Seriously, how long had that sadistic, devious cathole been hatching his plot?
I was fucked. My mother might already be dead and I hadn’t stayed to fight by her side. Didn’t matter that she told me to go. I shouldn’t have left without her. I should have ignored Henric’s trap after finding nothing else on the thumb drive. I should have married the least sadistic suitor he had pushed at me years ago instead of turning my snout up at anyone he might suggest.
Anything was better than the cowardice I had displayed.
As if she wasn’t probably dead already, I heard my mother’s voice again.
Never get off a train at the station…
