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Day 158 of the re-emerged Hat Island pack, Tuesday, Nov. 12, Penticton
Benny followed his brother and Jessie out of the bar and took a deep breath of fresh air. That had gone better than they could have hoped for, although he dreaded what they were going to find out in the days to come. The whole pack felt like domestic abuse victims. Not quite the same as the Hayden Lake pack — more like the Lebenev pack in Odessa. Maybe there ought to be term limits for Alphas, Benny thought wearily.
He took another deep breath, enjoying the night air, even if it was cold enough to see his breath. In doing so, he scented a shifter approaching from the bushes by the wall. “Incoming,” he warned softly.
Titus was standing next to him, and the biker team were behind them — a lot of bodies crowding out of the bar and forcing Ryder and Jessie onto the sidewalk. Benny moved in front of them.
“I’m sorry,” a young man said nervously. “I mean no harm. But there’s a problem, and I was told I could find the new Alpha here.”
“That’s me,” Ryder said easily. “What’s up?”
“I’m Miles McKenzie,” the young man said. “Duncan McKenzie is my great-grandfather? Anyway, I’ve been living in the dorm with the new recruits? It’s kind of nice to live with people my own age....” He trailed off, and then started over. “But tonight? When the Alpha fell, I felt it. And I felt my pack bonds shift. But the others? Their bonds are broken, but they say they don’t feel the new Alpha — that they’re free agents — lone wolves. But....” He swallowed hard. Benny revised his guess of his age downward. “But it’s not going well. They’re fighting, and breaking up things, and I’m afraid neighbors are going to call the cops. And they’re a mess really,” he said in a rush. “Can you come?”
Ryder nodded. “Of course,” he assured the young man, who looked relieved, like he hadn’t been expecting it to be this easy. Telling, Benny thought. Ryder looked around. “Benny? Titus? You’re with me and Jessie. Miles? You ride in the pickup with Titus and show us where we’re going. The rest of you, get that sad-sack of a clerk to give you keys, and get some sleep. We’ve got some long days ahead.”
“How many of them are there?” Ken asked in a low voice. “Maybe a couple of us should go with you?”
Ryder grimaced, and shrugged. “I’m not sure a bunch of bikes parked out front of a loud party in the dorm is going to reassure the neighbors,” he said just as quietly. “We’re good, I think.” He grinned at the man. “Don’t turn off your phone, though.”
Ken snorted, and the six men got their bikes and rode them down the block, made a U-turn at the light, and came back to the motel. Stupid way to do things, but there you go, Benny thought with a chuckle.
“Jessie, you’re behind me,” Ryder said. “Let’s go.”
“I want my own bike,” Jessie complained, following Ryder to his bike. “I want to learn to ride.”
“Need some upper-body strength for that,” Benny said. “And we need to teach you to fight. So we’ll put that into the mix — fighting, upper-body strength, and as a reward, your own bike.”
She stuck her tongue out at him which made him laugh. Titus started the pickup and Benny hurried to not be left behind.
The bonds broke, but didn’t reattach? That sounded like an explanation for the other recruits they’d been dealing with in Vancouver, he thought, disturbed. What would cause that? And the recruits had been hungry enough for connection, they’d latched onto Mei when she exerted her authority. Cousins, she’d termed it. It felt like she’d inherited a bunch of new cousins — family links, not pack bonds. Abby had said it looked like a dandelion burst on her map of links.
He blew out a long breath. He wished he had had time to talk to Abby and Cujo about the complexity of links and bonds they were experiencing. In particular, he wanted to grill Cujo. That man knew more than he was telling! Benny didn’t think he was withholding out of some malicious motive, but simply because they never seemed to have time!
He reconsidered that. Cujo was keeping secrets because he was working for Haru Ito, and that man considered everything classified. He was suspicious of someone asking him for the time. Still, even Cujo thought it was time to tell Abby more. And damn it, he was up here, not down there.
He did need to be here, he conceded. They couldn’t afford to have these two pack’s territories go up in flames. And he meant that literally. And maybe, he could learn more about these young men — the recruits — up here.
Just don’t start the party without me, he thought wistfully. He shook his head. He’d gone from being a lone wolf to being a needy bastard who didn’t like to be away from his pack.
Titus parked at the dorm building that Benny had spotted on his night walkabout. It wasn’t far from Bjorn Hansen’s house. That needed to be dealt with too. Well, it looked like the McKenzies were going to be helpful, which was a boon. It wasn’t like the Vancouver pack, where the new Alpha had a battle on his hands. Even Hiro Tanaka was having problems in Bellingham. He wondered idly about the other new Alphas in the region. There were a bunch. Maybe Abby should host them at Hat Island — a symposium for new Alphas. He snickered. Featured guest speakers? Akihiro Tanaka? Okami Yoshida? Sessions on pack management.... Well, that was a joke he was keeping to himself. Abby was likely to think it was a fine idea and run with it.
And he might be getting punch drunk — gods, he was tired.
Benny set all those thoughts aside as he parked his bike — Maggie’s bike, he reminded himself — next Ryder and the pickup. “You still thinking of sending these lads down to me in the Okanogan?” Titus asked Ryder.
“Thinking about it,” Ryder said. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
“Well, a bunch of shell-shocked shifters — and I don’t want to have to say that more than once as drunk as I am — should fit right in. Guess we’re about due for another generation,” Titus said.
The building was long and narrow. The street-side of it had offices on the ground floor — Benny had gotten the impression they might be offices for various pack businesses during his meandering walk about town Sunday night. The dorm rooms were upstairs apparently. He could hear shouts, but he didn’t think they were loud enough to alarm human neighbors.
Benny just kept his eyes on the McKenzie boy — Miles? Benny thought that was his name. Miles was nervously leading them around to the back of the building and to a door there. He unlocked it and led them inside. Benny glanced around and realized the building must have been converted from an old motel — a long hallway divided the front businesses from a back set of rooms. He wasn’t sure how they were configured inside, but his nose told him both food prep and laundry was done there.
They were quiet going up the narrow stairs to the second floor. Benny didn’t think Miles was setting them up. There was always that chance, of course, but Benny couldn’t see it. Miles was anxious, worried, and young. But who knew what they would find upstairs? It was probably at least an hour ago that Miles had left them to go find help.
Benny stopped him while they were still in the stairwell. “Quickly,” he said softly. “Do they have weapons?”
Miles frowned. “Like guns?” he asked puzzled. “No, I’ve never seen anyone with a gun. Might have some knives?”
“How many are there?” Titus asked.
“Nearly a dozen? Plus me?” Miles was obviously one of those young people who ended everything with a question mark. It made Benny crazy. He vowed to personally break him of the habit — probably by building up some self-confidence, he acknowledged, but he’d do it.
Benny nodded and gestured for him to continue up the stairs. Miles opened the top door, and they were out into another long hallway. Yup. Old motel. The backside of the building still had multiple doorways — bedrooms, Benny assumed. Miles was looking at the front side of the hallway where there was just one door, and down the hallway, a second. Communal rooms? Probably.
Miles hesitated. “I don’t....” He trailed off.
Benny didn’t know either. He looked at Ryder and Jessie. Jessie sighed and kicked off her shoes. Benny chuckled. She had the right of it, though. If she was going to defend the Alpha, it would be in wolf form. Actually.... “What about Jessie shifting out here?” he said softly, his words almost soundless. No point in giving their presence away.
Ryder considered it and looked at his mate. He raised an eyebrow? Jessie grimaced and nodded. She pulled off her sweats and shifted — she was getting very quick about it. Benny knew she still was uncomfortable being naked around male wolves. And that probably more than anything else told him how abused she’d been. Young wolves weren’t body shy — no wolf was, really. She’d learned to be, though.
She needs therapy. Know any good therapists around? Benny jeered to himself.
But for now, she’d solved the problem herself. Wear as few clothes as possible, strip and change in almost one move. Good enough. Ryder bent and picked up her sweats, folded them, and set them on top of her shoes.
So now they had the big bad Alpha and his werewolf companion. Benny grinned inwardly. Jessie was a smaller wolf — grays and browns except for blazing gold eyes — but she still weighed 150 pounds or so and stood thigh-high next to Ryder. Any shifter-wolf inspired caution, if not fear.
“I’m going in first,” Benny decided. “Titus, you and Miles bring up the rear.”
Ryder nodded. “Do it.”
Benny took a deep breath. This was always the most dangerous of any op — going through doors. Still, he was unlikely to die from whatever they could manage to throw at him. The door opened inward. He gave it shove and took two steps into the room.
The room was trashed. He noticed a couple of black eyes. Most of the men were shirtless, and some bore scratch marks. Although all of them were in human form right now, that obviously hadn’t been the case earlier. Not good. Not good at all.
“I am Benny Garrison, intelligencer of the Northwest Council of Alphas,” he said formally. Formality usually helped, he’d found — or at least, it never hurt. “I have the pleasure of introducing you to the new Alpha of the Penticton pack, and his Second.” He was going to avoid Jessie’s name and gender for as long as he could, he decided. And if he got 10 minutes to himself, he was going to have to craft a story about the first female Second — a companion to the story about the first female Alpha, he thought with a smile.
Ryder came into the room, and surveyed it sourly, making his disapproval obvious. Benny stepped back to watch. His brother knew how to deal with hotheads — brutally, if necessary.
“I’m Ryder,” he said. Benny noted he was using that name, not his family names like he had with the pack at the Last Chance. “I’m now the Alpha of the Penticton pack.”
“Not my Alpha,” someone muttered. “We didn’t re-enlist, apparently.”
“Do you know why not?” another voice asked, softer. “My head hurts. I hurt. Why am I no longer pack?”
“Those are good questions,” Ryder approved. “And that’s what we’re here to figure out.”
“You don’t know?” the first, rougher voice sneered. Benny singled out the speaker. A big man, but young. Well, they all were, weren’t they? That was the big mystery. The way he stood told Benny he was ready to fight, but he really didn’t look skilled at it. He was rocked back on his heels, his fists clenched.
“I just had 700 bonds transfer to me,” Ryder pointed out. “So, no, I didn’t know some didn’t, until Miles came to tell me. Smart man. As opposed to you all who have trashed this room. Does the phrase ‘don’t shit where you eat’ resonate at all?”
“Everything is irritating,” a third man said. He glanced at the bigger man next to him. “And people who are usually mildly irritating are really getting on people’s nerves.”
“No one knows what to do,” the soft voice said. Benny spotted him. He was crouched down by another man lying on the floor who looked like he’d been on the losing end of a fight. “Do we need to leave? Can we stay?”
“Those are also good questions,” Ryder said with approval. “Part of that depends upon you. What do you want to do? What do you offer the pack? But first, let’s talk about why you didn’t transfer to me like the rest of the pack did.”
“They don’t want us here,” a man said. “And truthfully, we don’t much want to be here. If I had wanted to work in a dead-end job in a podunk town I could have stayed home.”
There were some murmurs of agreement. “They promised us Vancouver,” the soft-voice man explained. “But something changed, and we’ve been in limbo. We were supposed to head to Vancouver two weeks ago. But no one tells us anything.”
Benny took over. This was his work, after all — intelligencer and therapist. He figured they all needed one or the other. “First, I think you’re hungry,” he said. “And that’s never good.” He looked at Titus. “Could you and Miles go after pizza? Miles? Surely there’s still some place open?”
Miles nodded. Titus hesitated, looking at Ryder and Benny, and then down at Jessie. Yes, Benny thought, they should have more guards. They’d have to get better at that. “Give him a card, Ryder,” Benny ordered.
Ryder rolled his eyes. “He’s my older brother,” he told the young wolves. “Some things don’t change, even when you become pack Alpha.” He pulled out his wallet and handed over another black debit card. Titus took it, glancing down at the name. His eyes widened. “He know you have this?”
Benny snickered. “He does,” Benny assured him. Cujo might be a bit bewildered about the charges that came in on it. Well, probably not. He doubted if Cujo even looked at the statements — those were debit cards to his personal accounts. He’d handed Ryder a handful of them when they’d started out from Vancouver with all of those people to care for.
And now they had more people.
Titus nodded, and he gestured with his head to Miles to lead the way. “Pizza. Meat lovers combos? Extra-large, lots of them, coming up,” he said dryly.
The promise of food seemed to straighten up the young shifters — they really were hungry. Benny frowned. “So when did you feel the bonds snap?”
They looked at each other. Benny sat down on the floor with his legs crossed under him. “Get comfortable,” he advised. “We’re going to talk.”
By the time the pizza arrived, Benny had a disturbing portrait of what had been going on here. Ryder squatted down beside him, handing him a piece of pizza. “What do you think?”
“They had employment bonds, not pack bonds, which makes sense actually,” Benny said. “And probably explains the men in Vancouver too. With employment bonds, they could be transferred to Chen or his designee without issue. And that explains why that assassin team who came for Geoff talked about becoming pack — and we couldn’t figure out why they weren’t already pack.”
Ryder nodded. He was listening, but mostly, he was watching Jessie-wolf circling among the men. They didn’t touch her. Good thing, Ryder would probably kill them if they did. And Benny would help him. It wasn’t done to treat a wolf like it was a big dog wanting its ears scratched.
“They’re clueless,” Ryder observed.
Benny snorted. “Yeah, even more than usual for that age — and don’t argue. You were clueless. I remember. You ran away on a motorcycle.”
Ryder chuckled. “I did.” He swallowed some pizza. “And it’s about all I can do to not do it again.”
Benny glanced at him, amused. “Don’t you dare,” he said. “Besides, you’re now attached to 700 people. At least one of them has to be a tracker.”
“I’m sure at least one,” Ryder agreed. “Do I have it right? From your questions, they were attached to Bjorn Hansen — and their bonds broke at lunch, not dinner.”
“Sounds like it,” Benny agreed. “So they’ve been here, getting all worked up, but not having any place to go. Miles gets off work, comes home and realizes there’s a problem. He felt the pack bond transfer. Smart enough to not tell these yahoos that though.”
“They would have torn him to bits,” Ryder said soberly. “So now what? I have got to get some sleep.”
Titus leaned over. “Want me to stay? You all could go back to the motel.”
Benny shook his head. “I’ll stay,” he said. “I’ve got more questions. You get the Alpha and Second back safely to the hotel, get some rest. Come back here after breakfast, and I’ll turn them over to you.”
“Joy,” Titus said. Benny grinned. Where did the man get his slang?
“Before breakfast,” Ryder corrected. “We’re meeting Duncan McKenzie for breakfast, and you need to be there.”
Benny shrugged his agreement. Jessie padded out the door with Ryder, then turned back and looked at him. He knew a call when he saw it — he followed them out and waited for her to change and dress.
“They’re actually physically in pain,” she said softly. “I think it helped for me to move around the room, but they’re hurting, Benny. Can you do something?”
Benny nodded. “I’ll try.”
Back inside, he looked around the room. He was starting to attach names — Miles, of course. The soft-spoken man was David. Trevor was the belligerent one. Mike had a southern drawl — how had he ended up here? Benson was Black — the only Black recruit he’d seen, now that he thought about it. Andrew was Chinese, and that was rare too. He frowned. Well, Canada, and the northern USA were White. But the shifters in Washington state were actually more diverse than the state itself. He set that aside.
“All right,” he said easily. “I can see that you’re still hurting. I know. I was a lone wolf for a long time, and I will never forget the pain of being separated from the pack. So I’ve got some tricks that will help. And then we’re going to call it a night.”
He made them stand and taught them to center themselves. He wasn’t surprised when Trevor protested ‘this girlie shit.’
“Come at me,” Benny invited. “You think you’re too manly to do what I tell you, come at me. Go ahead. You won’t hurt me. Hell, you won’t even lay a finger on me.”
Trevor hesitated and then came at him with a rush. He probably outweighed Benny by 50 pounds and was 4-5 inches taller. It didn’t matter. Benny put him down on the ground before Trevor could even touch him. There was a murmur of surprise.
“So we’re going to do some Tai chi,” Benny continued as if nothing had happened. Trevor got up and went back to his position in the circle. There had to be someone, and Trevor was the kind of man who didn’t respect someone until they’d been defeated. Benny had learned a lot from watching Ryder run the MC.
“Tai chi?” someone said, bewildered.
“Tai chi.”
“Is that what you just used to take him down?”
“Yes,” Benny said. “It’s a discipline used for fighting for centuries, although I use it more for settling myself.”
“What do you use for fighting?” the guy wanted to know. Benny didn’t have his name.
“Muay Thai,” Benny said. “Among other disciplines.”
There was a murmur at that. “Tai chi it is,” the guy said cheerfully. “I’ve seen that Muay Thai shit. It’s lethal.”
“It can be,” Benny agreed. “So can Tai chi. It’s the man that’s lethal. The rest is training and tools.”
He had them interested now, so he taught them some basic stances, and then the movements of the first form. They were sweating when he was done, an hour later. Well, so was he. And he felt better. He thought they did too.
He bowed to them, eyes forward, as one did, and waited until they all bowed back in various degrees of clumsiness. He blessed his own early teacher and stood up.
“Better?” he asked. There were nods.
“Thank you, Teacher,” Andrew murmured. A couple of others echoed him. He nodded.
“Lukewarm showers. Then bed. I assume some of you have work in the morning?” There were nods. “Do you share rooms?” he asked.
More nods. “Good,” he said. “A dogpile can help, actually.” He paused for their laughter, and grinned. “So if you’re struggling with pain still, come back in here in wolf form. We’ll get a pile going.”
“Why are you doing this?” Trevor asked, sounding bewildered.
Benny looked at him curiously. “Because it is what I do,” he answered. “I am a Teacher, a Keeper of Stories, and yes, an Intelligencer. Should I leave you hurting?”
Trevor shook his head and stalked out of the room. The others trailed along behind him. Andrew lingered. “They don’t know much about packs and shifters,” he said quietly. “I don’t understand how they can be so ignorant.”
Benny thought about the Pied Piper. Were some of these men his recruits? Had to be, he decided. “Where are you from?”
“A family pack east of here,” Andrew answered. “Too many men, not enough women. And not enough jobs. So when the call came, I decided I’d give it a try. Big mistake. But going back? It’s still a family pack with too many men.”
Benny nodded. “And the others? Do they have similar stories?”
“Some,” he said. “Some were banished, and they don’t discuss why. But some? They don’t share anything about before. I found that curious. Now though, it’s worrisome, and I thought you should know.”
“Do you still have your family links?” Benny asked.
Andrew nodded. “It helped when the bond snapped. I wasn’t completely alone, although I’m far from them. It hit some of them really hard. And they lashed out.”
Benny smiled at the young man. He liked him. “Get some sleep. We’ll work on some more things in the morning.”
Benny straightened up the couch, and tossed the pizza boxed in a garbage can and set the can in the hall. Stale pizza was not a smell that lulled him to sleep. He found a blanket, and made himself comfortable on the couch, leaving the door open. He thought he would probably have some takers for the dogpile.
He needed to interview these men individually. He thought they might have answers to the questions that his own students had investigated for him. He smiled at the memory of Sarah and Joy and their presentation. Serious, bright students. They were a pleasure. He’d been griping this whole trip that he should be with them, not out on these missions. But tonight he realized that there were a lot of people who needed a Teacher. And not enough Teachers to go around.
Something to consider.