AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Father wouldn’t leave the jail because his love was there, so they did as much as they could in gathering up food stuffs, and cash while he was gone. It was the most difficult three months of his life. It was a few months later, the day he turned eighteen, that everything went to hell. And the only time in his life when he could honestly say that he hated people. And he hated his parents with a passion that stayed with him for most of his life.
Temptation was nothing he’d ever been swayed by. Not a pretty woman. Not a too good to be truth scam, nor was he ever swayed by fast money. All of them had learned the hard way that if their parents were on board with something, it was going to mean jail time for somebody. None of them ever participated in anything that their parents thought up. In fact, they would let the police know about their scams so that if they were caught with them and made to go on their scams for some reason, they wouldn’t be a part of the arrests. And there were plenty of arrests for their parents the older they got, until his birthday.
~*~
Fred hated his kids. He didn’t much care for his wife either, but she was an easy lay, and that’s mostly all he wanted from her. Paula hated their kids too, mostly Lica, but she would beat them until they were bloodied every time she got the chance. Fred didn’t feel sorry for his boys. Hating them with a passion took care of that. But he decided one afternoon that if he was able to get rid of the oldest one, the others would fall in line with what he wanted more often than they did now. Mother fuckers weren’t even good for scaring people with their beasts. None of them had one.
“You’d think that with having six kids that, one of them would be a wolf like you are, wouldn’t you, Paula?” She told him that she wasn’t a pureblood either, so it didn’t stand to reason their kids would be. Then she reminded him, as she did every time, that she couldn’t be a beast either. “Yeah, I know you can’t shift, Paula. You don’t need to tell me every time I say something about it. But one of them should have been, don’t you think? I mean, your sister, she has her nine kids, and all of them are wolves. I probably should have married her. That would have been better suited to me in getting some scary kids.”
“If you’d of married up with my sister there wouldn’t have been nothing for you to use to father them boys. I would have cut you to the wick. You can bet your ass on that.” She turned and looked at him. “What are you thinking about Tally for? She’s worse off than we are with feeding her kids. At least ours don’t come to the table all the time expecting something for them to eat. We trained them good in not expecting anything from us.”
“Yeah, that’s true, that’s true.” He smiled when he saw his boys out in the yard. They were just sitting there under the tree that they had them chained up to, not saying a word. “I’m thinking that the next time we have to discipline them, we should kill them off. Ain’t no law against us killing them if they’ve been horrible kids, is there?”
“You don’t remember all that trouble I got into when I beat them for working? I still don’t believe for a minute that they were only working for food. But nobody would tell us if they were getting paid real money. And I hate that them people tried to shame us by saying we should have fed them better than we did. Fuck that shit. If I had to feed them every time they were hungry, I’d not have time to have myself some relaxing time.” She turned and looked at him again. “What are you thinking about by killing them off?”
“How old is Lica now? I’m betting he’s an adult. We should make him work at a real job someplace. I don’t know why all of them ain’t working at a real job bringing us home some cash.” She said that it would mess up their food card. “Not if nobody knows about it, it won’t. Besides, if any of them is eighteen or better, we won’t be getting food money for them anyway. We already had them tested for being stupid. They said that they’re all smart boys but not wolves.”
That bothered him to this day that his boys were just plain old humans like he was. The only reason that he agreed to be married to Paula was her being a wolf and her daddy being the alpha. Then, not ten days after they’d been married, Lica senior had went and picked a fight with a young pup and lost not just his life and his pack but all his land and money, too. Fred was thrilled beyond words that he and Paula had been on their honeymoon then, or they would have been killed too. Just like the entire pack had been. Damn, but it was a wholly mess.
The only person that had managed to get away was his momma. He still didn’t know how that had come to be. But she’d been helpful to them for a few years. Her being a doctor of their kind and having a full-time job that paid them real well and kept them in nice things. Then she up and thought that she’d not be helping them anymore. She told him that she didn’t like the way that they treated her grandsons. Stupid woman. There was no threatening her either to make her stay. One day, they got up, and she was gone. Couldn’t find her either. Damned woman. All women were stupid as far as he was concerned. But he didn’t say that very loud when his wife was around. She’d kill him off for sure if he did.
They had to hide out for weeks after the pack was taken over. Them just being married and just being the two of them made it a sight better at hiding than it would have nowadays and all so that the pup and his crew didn’t find them. He didn’t know anything about that kind of thing going on when he arranged to marry Paula. And he wouldn’t have if he’d known that was possible if someone else came along to take over the pack. They joined them a new pack, and then his mom came for a bit to stay with them after the boys started popping out like them Pez candies.
“What are you mumbling about?” Fred nearly told his wife it was none of her business, but he caught himself just in time. “I looked it up, Fred. Today is Lica’s birthday. Imagine that. It’s today like you planned it. What did you have planned for him to be gone from here? I, for one, would like to have them all disappear, but that one, well, you know how much I hate him.”
“I’ve been thinking that he’s going to get into a tussle with the cops. You and me, we’ll knock ourselves up a bit, then call the cops. He won’t know a thing about it until they kill him dead. We don’t have to be drawing too much blood, but enough for them to take him away. And if that one works, we’ll get the rest of them arrested, too. Whatcha think about that?” She told him she didn’t want to be too knocked around. “No. I’ll hit you once, and you can hit me one time. After that, we’ll lay low until he comes in tonight—did they say where they were going when we chained them up this morning?”
“No, they didn’t say shit. I know that they’re not out there keeping their mouths shut under the tree like we told them, so whatever they doing, they’re not doing anything to bring in any money, you can bet that for sure.” Yes, he knew that for sure. They were lazy fuckers, the lot of them. “All right. I like that idea. We’ll get it going tonight, and then we’ll rid ourselves of them kids for good.”
Fred wished he’d been the first one to hit. He knew that Paula was gonna knock his head off for sure. He could tell by the way that she was tensing up that she was gonna hammer his head, but good. Closing his eyes, ready for whatever hit him, he heard the front door open up and turned to look to see if it was one of their kids coming in. It wasn’t his kids but some man he thought that he should be knowing.
“What do you want?” Fred looked at his wife and then at the man standing in the doorway. He didn’t have any idea who he might be, but apparently Paula knew who he was. “You get on out of here. I told you already that we don’t pay dues on account of us not wanting to be a part of your pack. Go on now. You’re interrupting our business.”
“I told you two months ago, Paula that I was going to be giving you a deadline to be paying your dues. You’ve been a part of my pack, whether you want to be or not, for the last nineteen years. It’s totaled up to be a nice sum of money. And the pack needs it. Pay up, or I’m going to have to take something from you.” Fred asked him what he was talking about. “I’m your alpha, Lincoln Bates, you deadbeats. Yearly dues is what I’m talking about. You and your family came here to be a part of my pack when you were nothing but newlyweds. I gave you a year’s grace in not paying on account of you having to take care of your old momma. Well, she’s not been here for decades, and I’m sick of you being in every line there is to be getting free handouts without paying your dues. I told your wife that I was going to be around to collect them and that’s what I’m here for. You owe thirty-six hundred dollars in dues and another thirty-six hundred dollars for me having to come here and collect them. Pay up or face the consequences. I’m finished playing with you people.”
Fred didn’t know how it had happened, but it was a blur of moment, and he fell to the floor. Paula was screaming so loud that it hurt his ears, but he couldn’t get her to stop. Moving his mouth was too much work, so he just moaned his unhappiness at her to get her to stop. Closing his eyes against the movements again, he felt himself be sick and turned to his side and puked up his dinner. Damn, but it didn’t taste any better the second time than it did the first, either. Paula was one of the worst cooks he’d ever encountered. Not like his momma could cook. She could—When someone said his name, he turned to look.
Fred couldn’t get anything to focus in his eyeballs. The man was a big man, bigger than he was anyways, but he didn’t know who he was. Looking around the room made him ill again, but he thought that he should know the bunch of men in the room with him and his wife. It was his house, wasn’t it? That should count for something, he thought.
“You’re dying.” He told the man that he wasn’t doing any such thing. “You’re near dead now. Any last words you’d like to say to Mother? She’s gonna live, mores the pity, but you are as good as dead right now.”
“Who are you?” He was having trouble working up enough spit to talk, but the man answered him. He said he was his son, Lica. “You were supposed to be blamed for beating us up. I’m going to tell the police that you did it when they get here, too.”
“You’re not going to be able to tell anyone anything if you don’t lay still and stop from bleeding everywhere. As I said, you’re dying. You were shot in the chest by Mother. She was aiming for the Alpha, but he moved you in front of the shot.” His son, or whoever he was, looked away and then back at him. “Mr. Bates said that he heard what you were planning, and he’s going to tell the police on you when they get here. There they are now, pulling into the drive. Mother is going to be going to human prison, too, if she lives. I don’t see a reason why she won’t live, but you never know about wounds to the belly.” He heard his wife screaming again. Then she started jabbering about one of them doing the plan they had.
“You take his place, you mongrel. You hear me? That’s the very least you can do for me since I’ve had to put up with you for the last twenty-some years.” He tried to get Paula to come closer to him, but he was getting weaker by the minute. Maybe he was dying. He surely did feel weak. But he could hear his Paula planning as clear as day. “One of you boys, get over here and tell them that you shot your momma. I’m not going to prison. You hear me? Your daddy ain’t going to go to prison either when it was you six that we was going to kill off. Come on over here and bring me that cop’s gun. I’ll shoot the six of you, and that’ll be the end of my troubles. Even your daddy shouldn’t have to die until I said he can. You hear me?”
Fred could hear her fine but what she was saying was making his head spin a little. Another person was in his vision, and he asked who they were. He said his name was Lincoln Bates and that he was going to have the pack take care of his body when it was released to him. For some reason, Fred didn’t think that it was going to be a good thing taking care of him.
He did get to see the police. There seemed to be about fifty of them the way that they kept moving around and such. There was someone laughing, too. He didn’t know who that was, but he thought it rude to laugh like that when someone was supposed to be dying. He couldn’t remember who was dying, but he did remember someone telling him that someone was.
When he opened his eyes again, he didn’t know where he was. There wasn’t much to see. Everything was white like the snow and clean. Paula didn’t keep a good house, so he knew that he wasn’t home anymore. While he’d been lying on the floor one day after Paula hit him, he’d seen dust bunnies about forty inches long. Looking around hurt, so he tried to call out to someone to talk to him. The little squeak that came out of his mouth embarrassed him some, but that was about all he could manage right now.
“Mr. Frazier? You have anything to say about why you were shot?” He asked him where he was. “You’re in the emergency department of the hospital, but you’re not going to be alive much longer. You’ve lost a great deal of blood, and the wound is in a serious location, the doctors are saying. Can you tell me your version of what happened tonight? I’ve already heard from your alpha and wife. Their versions are a bit different from each other’s.”
Could he? He had no idea. Then he remembered what his wife said about their kids. He told the officer as best he could what had been planned out. How they were going to blame it on the kids, so they’d be going to prison and away from them.
“We hate them, you know. All they’ve done is suck us dry. I want them dead. You hand your gun over to my wife, and she’ll take care of them for us. I don’t want them around.” The man asked if he was serious. “As death.”
