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“Damn it! Where did he go?!” Spencer yelled, frustrated and worried. Mitchell ran up beside him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“He’s gone, and I can't get his scent. The stink of all these bodies is making it hard. I think he’s also using something to cover up his scent, so he’s harder to track. I think that’s how they got here without us knowing,” Mitchell said.
“What about the silent alarms? How did they get past them?” Spencer was reeling at how they had been ambushed. How did they get in basically undetected? All the alarms were in working order; they should have been tripped when the first hunter crossed into their town. Spencer's frustration boiled over.
“I don’t know. We’re going to have to reevaluate them.” Spencer cut him off. Rage still burning inside of him.
“Not now. I want everyone to fan out and find him. If he’s still alive, he’s up to something, and I hope it’s not what I think it is.” Spencer’s mind raced, as he helped to check all the businesses. They did backyard checks, sheds, everywhere he could think of. There was no sign of him anywhere. Spencer yelled in frustration and anger, this was taking too long, and the thought of Adria being in danger nearly crippled him.
“Maybe he turned tail and ran. Maybe he saw that he was outnumbered and knew he wasn’t going to win,” Madox said hopefully.
Spencer stood by the oak tree, placed a hand on it, and looked around the town. There was no way he would have ran, no way he would have given up so easily A small gust of wind whipped through the town and assaulted Spencer's senses. It was that smell again, what he smelt when he first left his house. It was Braddock’s scent, but there was something off, it wasn’t the usual scent of a human.
“Madox, do you know where Adria went?” Spencer suddenly asked, thinking he already knew the answer. A level of fear and rage shot through him so violently that he visibly shook.
“Your place, I'm pretty sure. I passed her as I was running here. She looked terrified. She'll be okay,” he tried to reassure Spencer, but there was something they didn’t know. Something else Spencer hadn't had a chance to tell her.
“She doesn’t know where the panic room is at my place,” he said hollowly. They ended up having to move it because of getting the foundation fixed by that part of their house. This had all happened when Adria had been away, and he never thought of telling her. He never thought the need was there. Spencer shifted and raced toward his house, the scent of Braddock, and his life.
Chapter 11 - Adria
Adria rushed into Spencer's house and frantically searched for the panic room. She knew they had one. Everyone did, she went to the door of the kitchen where she knew it to be and was presented with a pantry.
It’s gone? Where is it!?she thought, as she frantically ran around the house. Her heart beating a mile a minute as the urgency to hide pushed her harder and harder. She stopped in the living room and looked around, instinctively Adria’s hands covered her belly,I'll protect you little one, I promise, daddy will too,she thought to herself as she tried to figure out another place to hide. The sudden shrill of the town siren filled her head. She knows the fight has started. She prayed that Spencer and their pack were okay, that they had trained enough to defeat the hunters. To defeat her father.
She didn’t have a chance to see how many there were. Seeing her father leading the hunters froze her to the ground. He didn’t look anything like she thought he would. His face was scarred and weather-beaten, his stature was short but lean, and he looked at all of them with pure disgust. She wanted so badly to shift and attack him, rip him to shreds, and avenge her mother's death. But she knew she couldn’t put her and Spencer’s child in danger. If it wasn’t for Spencer grabbing her and pushing her into the car, she would probably still be standing there, wanting to see him lying dead on the ground. She saw nothing of herself in him, in the monster he was.
Stop worrying about that and find a place to hide!she yelled at herself.The basement!she thought and raced down the stairs.The panic room has to be somewhere!Looking around, she saw no place that would keep her hidden, no door to a panic room, and growled in frustration. Adria ran back up the stairs,wondering if there was enough time to get to her aunt's house. If the hunters and her father were dead or at least distracted enough and she was to take the back way, she could get there unnoticed by anyone.Sounds like a plan, so get going!She yelled at herself. Racing back up the stairs, she reached the living room, and was hit with a smell that nearly knocked her off her feet. It was a smell of death and rage, but not of a human. The scent of her father.
He’s here,a feeling of dread washed over her. She slowly rounded the corner to the parlor, seeing a figure just outside the frosted window of the front door. Fear gripped her so hard she had to slap her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream, she turned to run to the back door as fast as she could. Adria heard the door crash open, and she couldn’t help but scream as she tried to go more quickly. When she reached the kitchen, she felt two large paws pushing her on her back and taking her down to the hard floor. She landed with a painful thump and felt the paws let up. Rolling over, she scrambled to back up as far as she could, hitting the fridge. Looking up, she furrowed her brows, confused to see a black wolf staring back at her, teeth bared, and growling. Adria’s eyes widened as she shifted into her wolf form.
Braddock leaped for her, trying to sink his teeth into her neck. Adria tucked and rolled, causing him to crash into the fridge with a howl of pain and frustration. She ran for the living room, but he caught up to her and pounced on her back. She rolled over and used her paws to try and push him away.
He's a wolf? How? Why was he doing this if he was a wolf to?She thought as she tried to fight him off.
“No, please, I’m pregnant!” she shouted at him with her mind. For a moment, he stopped and snarled, rage burning in his eyes. She hoped he still had an ounce of compassion, but she was wrong.
“All the more reason to end you and your future Alpha,” he shot back at her.
He snapped at her, trying to bite her neck. She placed all four of her paws on his underbelly and pushed him as hard as she could, he flew off of her and landed with a yelp and a thud. She hoped she hurt him. Thinking about the baby, she knew she had to fight and survive. She howled a cry for help as loud as she could, hoping someone would hear her, that someone would come and help her and her baby. She knew she was no match for him in wolf form, he was easily twice her size.
Braddock got up and lunged at her again, but he was tackled by a blur of grey fur before he could reach her. As she got up, she saw it was Spencer, Braddock and him rolled across the floor, snarling and snapping at each other. Both baring teeth and claws. But her father stood no chance, though. Spencer was younger, stronger, and had more to fight for. He got Braddock on his back and used his claws to scratch a deep gash from his neck to his chest.
The howl that came from Braddock was one of pure pain. Spencer opened his jaws to bite down and finish him off when Adria shifted and yelled, “NO!”
Spencer stopped and looked at her, he looked down at Braddock and slowly got off him before he shifted. Braddock painfully shifted as well as the blood poured from his mortal wound. Adria hurried over to them, tears streaming down her face, and looked her father in the eyes. She knew there was no hope for Braddock as he gasped for air, but she was going to try to get the answers she wanted, the answers she deserved.
“Why?” she yelled at him. “Why did you do this? Why are you like this? Why did you kill my mother?” she demanded to know between sobs. She wanted answers, needed answers, and he was going to give them to her whether he liked it or not.
“My parents were killed right in front of me, ripped apart by a wolf named Barlow. Then he changed me and bit me, so I would become like him. He said I was his protégé. There was no way I was ever going to be like you filthy beasts. Never. He destroyed my family, and my life. I hid what I was from everyone, nobody ever knew. When I met her, your mother, I thought I could have a normal life and a family. But she betrayed me. She was a wolf. I knew who you were as soon as I saw you. You look exactly like her.” He looked at her with contempt as the blood slowly pooled around his body.
“That’s how you were able to get past the alarms. How you could track other wolves and hide from them,” she stated, looking at him. His elusiveness finally made sense. The alarms were meant for humans, not wolves.
“I vowed that I would kill every Alpha in the world since an Alpha took my life away from me, and I regret nothing.” He gasped again as his eyes rolled back, and his head slumped to the side. Just like that, he was gone.
“No. No! Don’t say that. Don’t go! I have so much more to say to you. Get back here!” she screamed at him, shaking him for all she was worth.
She barely felt Spencer’s hands on her shoulders, gently lifting her off of him. She turned and buried her face in his chest and sobbed. Spencer wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. Adria was so angry at him. She wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to be a hunter, that not all wolves were like that. She wanted to tell him that he had a choice: to stay with her, be a father, and be a grandfather. She wanted him to know that she could show him how they lived in peace and didn’t hurt anyone. But she couldn’t. He was gone, forever, and for real this time. A father she never thought she had was gone before she had a chance to say anything more to him.
