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Benny considered the men. He pointed to Clueless. “You,” he said. “Come with me.”
He led the young man into an empty bedroom. He sniffed, and grimaced. Smelled like sex. “Wait here,” Benny said.
He went into the room where the women were. “How is she?” he asked Jessie in an undertone. She grimaced.
“She’ll live,” she replied softly. “Everything OK out there?”
“For some definitions of OK,” Benny agreed. She looked alarmed, and he shook his head. “We’re all fine. They’re grilling meat.”
Dennis looked up. “Good,” he said. “If they’ve got something easy to chew, I’d like to get her to eat it now.”
Benny nodded. “Come with me,” he said to Cass. She obediently followed him out of the room. “Why didn’t you tell us there were more men?” he asked her, trying to keep his voice soft. She flinched.
“Easy,” he soothed. “You’re safe. I’m not mad. I just want to know.”
She closed her eyes. “They ran out the back door — one in wolf form. In wolf form! No one does that! But I figured they were gone. And I was more worried about Ruth.”
“OK,” Benny said, and he added that to his list of odd things, because she was right. Shifters were trained early to not go about in an urban area in broad daylight as a wolf. “There was another car load of them in the alley.”
She frowned, puzzled. “There’s usually only four here at a time,” she said. “Four of us. Four of them. Unless there is a party, and we’re supposed to entertain the Alpha or Second and their guests.” She swallowed hard. “Two shifts a day — they change at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Except yesterday they left early. Got a telephone call, and they left, locking us up. They lock us up a lot, actually. But then, at the 8 p.m. changeover, no one came, and we started to panic. By midnight, none of us could sleep, and Amanda said she thought she could get out the bathroom window. We were afraid — afraid she would get caught, afraid we would get punished, but also afraid we would die here, if no one ever came back.”
She swallowed hard, and Benny could smell her fear. She was afraid still. “They used to threaten that.”
It would be his great pleasure to kill these bastards, Benny thought coldly. But not until he found out what the hell was going on.
“You’re safe,” he assured her. “You have my word. I am Benny Garrison, and I promise, you are safe.”
She searched his face, and he met her eyes steadily. Finally she looked away, baring her neck a bit, an apology for staring. “I have been afraid for so long.”
He nodded. “I understand,” he assured her. “And it will take a while for the truth of your safety to sink in all the way to your bones. But it is still true —you are safe.”
She let out a shuddering sigh, and closed her eyes briefly, her shoulders dropping in relief. “Now what?”
“You might be happier in the room with the other women,” Benny said. “There are a lot of shifters here right now. None of them will hurt you, I promise. But they can be intimidating.” He grinned at her. “Even I’m finding them a bit much.”
She snorted at that. “I’ll get a plate of food to take back,” she said.
Benny escorted her through the living room and to the back yard, where Trip and Mucho had the grill fired up. “Doc wants something easy to chew for the patient,” he said. “Got any hamburger?”
Mucho nodded. He took a plate and piled on several medium rare burger patties. Glancing at Cass, he got another plate, and added some T-bone steaks —bloody rare. Benny’s stomach grumbled. Mucho rolled his eyes and handed him a T-bone to eat. Benny grinned his thanks, and then escorted Cass back to the bedroom.
“Thanks,” she said, a bit unsteadily. “They are rather a lot.”
Benny’s amusement showed. “They are.”
He ate his T-bone steak and wandered back into the kitchen to throw away the bone. And then he just watched the men, leaning against the kitchen counter. He watched the way the bikers moved. The way Ryder and the McKenzies moved. It was very different from how the young men had moved earlier. Different than many of the young men last night. And then he watched the young men as they began to rouse and realize they weren’t dead yet.
The Pied Piper is real, Benny thought finally. I’ll have to tell Sarah. She and her team were right. Someone is making shifters out of humans —out of humans with latent genes, he amended.
His second conclusion was almost as disturbing. There were more recruits than they had thought. That building last night wasn’t the only dorm, he concluded. There was at least one more. He caught Duncan McKenzie’s eye, and jerked his head toward the hallway. “Who handles real estate for the pack?” he asked.
Duncan grimaced. “I would have said I did,” he answered. “But I didn’t know about this place.”
“What about the dorm I was at last night? Miles was there.”
“Miles is my great-grandson. And yes, I know about that dorm. Why?” He was wary, bracing for bad news.
“It’s not the only dorm in town,” Benny answered. “Some of these young men weren’t there last night. And I’ve got more young men —we call them Chen’s recruits — than I’ve got places. Who else would be buying real estate for the pack? The old Alpha?”
