Jennifer Lynn Barnes Anthology by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rough hands grabbed our wolf body and hauled us backward, and even though we’d promised not to, we fought—not to injure the one who held us but to escape their grasp, to run to the girl, to curl our body around hers and will her to be well.
A whimper escaped our throat. We needed to fight but had promised not to.
“Chase.” Callum’s voice. Alpha voice. But it didn’t have the same effect it used to.
Bryn.
“Shift back. Shift back, and you can go to her.”
The words somehow permeated our head, and for a moment, Chase and his wolf seemed to consider them, but the fury and fear radiating through their body was too feral to be contained by human skin.
They wanted to kill.
No, I thought, and my voice sounded loud in my ears, loud in his. In ours.
Bryn? His voice was hesitant, his wolf whining.
I’m here, I said. With you. I’m fine.
The body on the ground seemed to argue against that point, but my presence soothed Chase. As he calmed, his beast stilled, and for a split second, the three of us were in perfect harmony. His mind should have felt crowded with all of us there, but it didn’t.
“Change,” Callum ordered again.
The wolf in Chase was opposed to this idea, and I wanted to agree with him, to run away and enjoy being part of Them, not stuck in a human form that would never fit quite as well as this fur. But Chase refused to run, refused to turn tail on this fight, or to leave me—or even my body—behind.
Am I dead? I asked.
The question sent a growl into Chase’s throat, and I was struck by the way it felt, by the way everything felt in this body that was Wolf.
“She’s not dead,” Callum said, and Chase and I both paused, wondering if he’d read our mind. “Smell her. She’s just unconscious. Shift back, and you can go to her.”
Smelling. Pine needles and cinnamon. Bryn.
Good. I was alive. Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe this was my dream.
The pain of white-hot metal cutting through bone shook me from my musings, and a horrible crunching sound, like gravel under work boots, echoed through my—our—his—flesh.
And that was when I realized that Chase was Changing back.
In human form, he crouched down to the ground in a motion more befitting the animal than the man.
Smelling. Seeing. Needing.
Bryn.
Why don’t you put some clothes on first? I suggested mildly. Now that we were human again, I found myself more clearly able to think. And also, a little uncomfortable with the fact that I was inside the mind of a naked boy who wasn’t human enough to realize that he was naked.
“Why don’t I put some clothes on first?” Chase echoed out loud. Callum looked at him very strangely—naked and crouching, ready to attack, but speaking utterly human words.
My words.
And suddenly, I was back in Dead Man’s Creek, floating. Peaceful. Alone. And then a piercing white light split the night sky, and a wave of pain crashed into my body, splitting it into piece after piece.
My eyes fluttered, but I couldn’t open them. The vague sensation of hands under my arms, hauling me up into the air, took me by surprise. And just before I descended into darkness again, I heard Callum barking out an order.
“Bring her inside, Marcus.”
Floating again. Numb. Nothing hurt. Blessed darkness.
I turned over onto my side, submerging half of my face in water, and I realized that I could still breathe—could breathe right through the creek, like it wasn’t even there. Completely accepting of this development—and delighted—I took a deep breath and dove under the water—
“Put her on the couch, Marcus.”
Back in Chase’s body—clothed, thankfully—I saw Marcus, stiff-faced as he followed Callum’s orders and gently laid my broken body down.
“Are you satisfied that she’s had enough?” Callum asked him.
Marcus looked at me, and Chase’s need to rip his throat out became palpable in our joint mind. Chase did not want Marcus looking at me. He did not want him near me. He could not let them hurt me more.
“She’s not faking,” Marcus said begrudgingly.
“No,” Callum agreed. “Sora beat the girl until she lost consciousness.”
Chase hated Callum for the dispassion in his voice, hated him for doing this to me. To both of us.
“Humans are weak,” Marcus said finally. “Females even more so. It is enough.” Marcus turned his head from my body. “Pack Justice has been satisfied.”
Callum simply nodded, and it occurred to me that it was probably no coincidence that he’d chosen Marcus to carry me inside. If Marcus’s thirst for my blood had been quenched, no one else would argue.
“Leave us now,” Callum said. “I’ll tend to the girl.”
Marcus left, and he was barely out the door before Chase growled. “Bryn. Her name is Bryn, not ‘the girl.’ And one day, I’ll kill you for doing this to—”
Back in the creek, underwater. I barreled toward the surface and broke through, rising up into the air like a humpbacked whale or a mermaid child, and for a long time, things were quiet.
By the time I woke up for real, I’d been flitting in and out of consciousness—and, when unconscious, in and out of my own mind and Chase’s—so much that I wasn’t sure where I was, or who I was, or what had happened. As I opened my eyes, feeling flooded back into my body, and I really wished that it hadn’t.
Moving carefully, I sat up, and my body lodged its various objections, from a groan in my ribs to a hissing scream in my lip. The rest of me just throbbed. After the shock of it waned, I was able to move my arms, running my fingers over my legs, arms, and torso, probing the damage and expertly checking for broken bones.
A werewolf who’d committed my crimes would have had his entrails torn out for display. I had a host of bruises, a few cracked ribs, and a face that—if it looked as ugly as it felt—probably wouldn’t be winning beauty pageants anytime soon.
“It could have been worse,” I said, and I winced, deciding that moving my sore jaw wasn’t so easy that I could justify talking to myself.
The door opened, and my first instinct was to flinch or to flee, but I had nowhere to go. My body relaxed—warm, like butter—when I realized that it was just Ali, and that no matter what the pit of my stomach might be telling me, I wasn’t going to wake up any second, back inside the circle of justice.
“You’re up.”
Ali had never been one for stating the obvious. Or using short sentences. Or staring just over my shoulder instead of looking me in the eye.
“I’m up,” I confirmed.
The dark circles under her eyes were uneven and oddly shaped, like inkblots on a note card, and though I was pretty sure that I looked worse, the wage this whole ordeal had obviously taken out of Ali hit me hard.
“How long have I been out?” I asked, determined not to let her see how painful speaking was.
“Three days. Doc couldn’t explain it. Nobody could.”
Three days? I’d been unconscious for three days with a battered face and handful of cracked ribs? That wasn’t normal, was it? Given that I’d never been beaten before, I wasn’t sure. The only thing I did know was that I hadn’t blacked out from the pain Sora had rained down on my body, fist after fist, kick after kick. I hadn’t lost consciousness bit by bit, piece by piece. It hadn’t closed in on me. I hadn’t taken a particularly hard blow to the head.
I’d blacked out because I’d refused to fight back.
The conclusion made no sense and complete sense at the exact same time, and my face was throbbing too much to question it. Memory of the haze—the need to protect myself, the solar eclipse in my brain when I’d refused—grounded me in place and rendered me speechless for a moment.
“Where am I?” I recovered, not wanting to think about it. About how inhuman I felt when I gave in to the whisper in the back of my brain to fight, fight, fight, survive.
&nb
For a second, I thought that maybe I’d suffered permanent brain damage, because the answer seemed so obvious, but then my mind processed the fact that I’d had very good reason not to recognize my own room.
It was bare. Absolutely bare. My desk was empty. My closet doors were open, and there were no clothes inside. My books were in boxes beside the shelves, and even the bedding that I was sleeping on wasn’t mine.
“Where’s all of my stuff?” I asked.
“Packed,” Ali said.
“Packed?” I repeated.
She didn’t say a single word.
“Why is all of my stuff packed?” Was she kicking me out? Was Callum taking me from her? Were they sending me away?
Bryn had been a bad girl, and now they didn’t want her anymore.
I stopped breathing, the tightening in my chest drowning out the ache in my ribs.
“Your stuff is packed because we’re leaving,” Ali said, matter-of-fact.
“Leaving? For where? Who?”
“Yes. Montana. You. Me. The twins.”
What was she talking about? Montana? That was the very rim of Callum’s territory. Only peripherals lived there.
“We’re leaving?”
“Well, after what they did you to, we’re certainly not staying here.”
I remembered the set of Ali’s jaw and the ferocity in her voice when she’d said that I was hers first—her daughter, her responsibility, her charge.
When it comes to her safety, my word is law.
“Casey?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer, but I asked anyway.
Ali’s expression—already hard—went completely blank. “Casey,” she said in a tone that seemed to communicate that she couldn’t be bothered with elaborating further, “is gone.”
“Gone as in dead?”
Ali shrugged. “Might as well be.”
“You’re leaving Casey,” I said, my voice going up an octave. “You’re leaving Casey and taking me and the twins and we’re moving to Montana?”
Ali nodded. “That about covers it.”
“But, Ali—”
“This isn’t up for discussion. It’s decided. The station wagon’s been mostly packed for two days. We’ve just been waiting on you to wake up. Now, can you get out of bed?”
No, I could not get out of bed. I couldn’t even process what was happening. I’d known that Ali wouldn’t take the whole Pack Justice thing well, but this …
“Bryn. Can you get out of bed? Can you walk?”
I swung my feet over the side of my bed and stood up. All things considered, it was easy. Even my ribs didn’t protest too much.
“Doc said you did a lot of healing while you were unconscious,” Ali told me. “You’re still banged up, but your pupils aren’t dilated, and he said that unless there were signs of a head injury, you should be fine to travel.”
Travel.
As in leave.
Leave our home.
Leave our family.
Leave the pack.
“Ali, we can’t go.”
She turned around and walked toward the door. At first, I thought she was going to walk out without answering me at all, but instead, she spoke in a tight, strangled voice that made me wonder if she’d turned around because she didn’t trust herself to maintain steely control over the muscles in her face.
“They beat you, Bryn. Callum beat you. He had you beaten. When they brought you back to me, you were bleeding. You had fourteen bruises, six lacerations, two black eyes, and you were unconscious. They did to that to you.”
“I broke the rules,” I said. “Pack Law, I—”
Ali whirled back around. “Don’t you dare say this is your fault. Don’t you think it, don’t you even come close to making excuses for them. They hurt you. And everyone just stood there and let them—my friends, your friends, my husband—”
Ali’s voice cracked and her body hunched over. For a moment, I thought she’d collapse inward and crumble to the floor, but instead, she straightened and threw her head back. “I don’t care what you did. I don’t care who they think they are, or what Pack Law says, or who’s dominant to who.” She took a long, ragged breath. “All I care about is you.”
“I’m fine.”
She crossed the room and hauled me up in front of a mirror. “Tell me again that you’re fine.”
The unforgiving surface of the mirror told me in no uncertain terms that although the bruises on my face were beginning to yellow and fade, I still looked like I’d been tie-dyed in a vat of black, blue, green, and corpse-colored paint.
“Ali, I’ll be okay,” I said, trying to convince her to take a step back and think about this. “It could have been so much worse.”
She snorted. “If you think you’re making a convincing case for staying, you’re mistaken. Just listen to yourself, Bryn. ‘It could have been worse.’ Who’s to say that it won’t be in the future?” She paused. “Do you think I want that for you? For Katie and Alex?”
Katie and Alex.
Up until now, I’d been dazed and stressing. Now, I was panicked. “They won’t let you take the twins. The pack, they’ll never let Katie go. You’ve seen the way they—”
“Oh, rest assured, I’m dealing with the pack.” The tone in Ali’s voice left very little doubt in my mind that when she said “the pack,” she meant “Callum.”
Callum, who’d given me to her in the first place.
Callum, who’d ordered my punishment.
Callum, who hadn’t looked at me or said a word to me since I’d touched Chase.
“It’s not Callum’s fault,” I said, wanting desperately to believe it. “Ali, he took care with me. He gave me the only chance that he—”
“I am not having this conversation with you, Bryn. I’m just not. I can’t.” She ran a hand through her hair, and for a moment, she looked very young. “The fact that you don’t hate him for this breaks my heart. And if we weren’t leaving because of what they’d done to you, we’d be leaving because the pack has twisted you enough to make you think that it’s okay for someone to treat you that way. It’s not, and we are. Leaving.”
There was no arguing with her. I would have had better luck convincing Devon to don knockoffs.
With gentle hands, Ali took hold of my waist, careful of my tender body, and she pulled me close, burying her face in my hair. Her shoulders shook, and I realized that she was crying. Sobbing. Clinging to me in a way that made me think she’d never let me go.
“You didn’t wake up,” she said. “I waited, Bryn, and I waited, but you didn’t wake up.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered. I didn’t mean to do any of this. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.
This was my fault. Mine.
Without warning, Ali let go of me and straightened back up. She wiped the tears off her own face and then off mine with the same gentle, brisk motion, and then she walked over to my bookshelf, picked up the box there, and turned to leave.
“Be ready to go in an hour.”
An hour. How could a person get ready to leave their entire life behind in one hour? I sat back down on my bed, not even caring about the way my bruises protested and the pain radiated outward from them like liquid spilling over the edges of a pool.
Devon. I had to call Devon.
And Chase.
Chase.
All of a sudden, the air around me felt very warm and the room felt very small. My breath caught in my throat and my stomach dropped, like someone had unlatched a trapdoor in my intestines.
If Ali followed through with this, if we left, I’d lose him.
Bryn?
His voice in my head calmed me, even as my rational self blathered on that the last thing I should have been worrying about when my entire life was being ripped out from underneath me was a boy I’d seen exactly twice.
I’m here, I replied silently. I’m awake. And Ali’s going to take m
Chase didn’t reply immediately, and for a moment, I was terrified that he had gone. But then, slowly, images began to make their way from his consciousness to mine. They danced at the edges of my mind, and like a butterfly, every time I tried to latch on to one, it flew away.
He took it away.
My mouth set in a firm line, I pictured the bond between us and pulled. Growing up, I’d never been a match in strength for the other kids in the pack, but I could hold my own at tug-of-war based on the fact that I never let go. Once I got a grip on that rope, if someone wanted to get it back from me, they would have had to pry it out of my limp, dead arms. Even once they’d pulled me across the line, I didn’t stop fighting.
Chase never stood a chance.
The images flashed into my mind, and I managed to hold on to them long enough for a concrete picture to form in my brain.
Bars.
Steel.
Cage, I realized. They’d caged him. My lip curled upward with fury. Didn’t they realize how awful it was, to be trapped there? I could feel him pacing back and forth.
He wanted out.
I won’t let them do this to you. I’ll—
Nothing, he said back. If I can get out, I will.
A long pause.
They’ll let me out when you’re gone.
Understanding washed over me, and relief. They weren’t punishing him. He wasn’t trapped because he’d disobeyed. He was there because I was leaving, and for whatever reason, they didn’t want him trying to stop me.
Another vague image, a half-completed thought he didn’t want me to hear—
“Ali.” I said her name out loud, and things became very, very clear. Ali had asked them to cage Chase, and they’d agreed. If I’d been in my right mind, I might have wondered what exactly Ali had been forced to sacrifice to get them to grant her request—not to mention permission to leave—in return. But I was too angry to think about anything other than the fact that despite Ali’s ranting and raving about the way the pack had treated me, they were treating Chase like an animal on her bequest.
I couldn’t let her do this. I wouldn’t. In fact, I wouldn’t let her do any of this. I wouldn’t leave. I wouldn’t step foot in that car, and she couldn’t make me. It was going to be a cold day in July before I let her do this to me. To him.