––––––––
Cole brought his fists down forcefully onto the two-inch thick, solid wood kitchen table in his cabin, causing a crack to stretch down the center. He scowled at the people around him. “I’m not waiting. They already have a six-hour lead on us and I’m not waiting another damn minute to go after them.”
Scotty shook his head. “C’mon Cole, use your brain on this one.”
Not even a second had passed before Cole grabbed him by the throat and pushed him up against the wall in the kitchen. “The only reason I haven’t killed your sorry ass already is because Lacey cares about you. In case you haven’t noticed, asshole, she’s not here to keep me from killing you now. So you might want to keep your damn mouth shut.”
Scotty pulled at Cole’s hands as he tightened his grip.
“Let him go, Cole” Jeremiah said and placed his hand on Cole’s shoulder. “He’s not the one you’re mad at.”
Cole glanced over his shoulder to meet Jeremiah’s gaze then reluctantly dropped Scotty to the floor. “The hell he isn’t. Lacey is out there somewhere and he doesn’t even want to go look for her.”
Scotty rubbed his throat with his hand and shot daggers with his eyes at Cole. “Lacey is like a sister to me!” he shouted. “Of course, I want to get her back. But running out in the dead of night without a plan and no idea where Branson took her, is pointless. They could be in the next town or the next state by now.”
“They’re in Alabama” Cole growled.
“How do you know that?” Kindal asked as she moved to stand beside Scotty with Dean less than a foot behind her.
“That’s where Frank said Branson’s new facility is. He’s working from his home now.”
“Alabama is less than two hours from here” Jeremiah said and glanced around the group. His gaze stopped on Cole, “Did he say where exactly?”
“No.”
A sudden, constant knocking at the door of the cabin grated on Cole’s already spent nerves. “Come in!” he shouted at the top of his lungs as he gripped the edges of the kitchen table and squeezed, crushing the wood in his hands.
A boy, who looked to be around fifteen years old opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Jeremiah” he called out, “Mira sent me to get you. Maggie is in labor and Luke is freaking out. Doc Sims said if he doesn’t calm down he’s going to hit him in the head with a two-by-four. He was probably just kidding, but then again, Doc does have a mean streak in him when he gets mad.”
Jeremiah looked to Cole.
“Go on. Take care of your family” Cole said and cocked his head toward the door for him to leave.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can” Jeremiah said before hurrying out of the cabin.
“And I’ll go to Mira’s to take care of the twins while Mira tends to Maggie and the baby” Kindal said and followed after Jeremiah.
Cole let out a deep breath and glanced over at the only two people left in the room with him. Dean and Scotty. He shook his head as sorrow settled in his chest. “If we don’t find Lacey soon...we never will” he said and turned his back to the men so that they wouldn’t see the devastation in his eyes.
“Then let’s go. Right now. Just the three of us.”
Cole spun around to face the man who’d spoken. “Didn’t you just say a minute ago that it would be pointless to search for her without knowing an exact location?” he asked and pierced Scotty with a narrow-eyed stare.
Scotty shrugged. “Yeah, well what the hell do I know. It’s sad to say, but I’ve always been a follower, not a leader. But one thing I know for sure is that damn near every person you’ve ever searched for, you ended up finding...whether they wanted to be found or not” he said, hinting at Cole’s past and the way he used to hunt down humans for sport.
Cole thought about it for a moment then nodded. “Alright. We’ll stop in the village and let Jeremiah know that we’re leaving.” He looked at Dean, “Are you sure Kindal is going to let you out of the house long enough to go?” he asked with a hard tone and a slight lift to the corner of his mouth.
Dean straightened his back. “I don’t need permission from Kindal. I wear the pants in my house” he barked.
Scotty chuckled to himself, “I don’t think any of the men around here wear the pants in their relationships.”
Cole ignored Scotty’s comment and headed into his room to change out of the cut-off jean shorts he was wearing. Five minutes later, he walked out ready to kill wearing a tight black tee shirt, jeans and black boots.
“Don’t we need weapons?” Dean asked when Cole rejoined him and Scotty.
Scotty rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Are you serious? You’re a freaking wolf, man. Use your God-given talents.”
“Hey, man, this is all new to me. Until Cole showed up here a few years ago, no one here ever had a reason to fight. So you’ll have to forgive me for being more of a lover than a fighter” Dean said.
Already irritated with his two companions, Cole said, “Let’s go” and stormed out of the cabin with the only two weapons he needed...his bare hands.
*****
Lacey had spent the last ten hours screaming in agony as Branson tortured her relentlessly. After burning her with the searing hot steel bar, he then dumped ice-cold water on her wounds. And before her body had time to adjust from being too hot to suddenly too cold, he burned her body all over again.
Once Lacey’s voice had become too weak to scream out, Branson covered her battered body with a thin white sheet – knowing that the fabric would stick to her burns and rip her skin off when he removed it later – then he changed up his routine. Eager to move on to his next device, he retrieved a stun gun from his table of goodies and delivered a shock to her neck with it every time she blinked. Her body had seized up so many times, that she’d lost control of her muscles as they twitched involuntarily, making it much harder to keep her wolf from surfacing. She was mentally and physically exhausted but she knew if she didn’t keep a tight hold on her wolf until the right moment, she’d never make it out of there alive.
Halfway through the day, Frank had become so distraught while watching Lacey suffer, that he had closed his eyes and refused to witness anymore. When beating him didn’t make him reopen them, Branson forced his eyes open by putting tape on his lids and raising them upwards, toward his forehead. With every scream that left Lacey’s lungs, a new cut was sliced across Frank’s heart and a bit of his soul died, just as Branson had wanted.
“I think that’s enough for now. It’s time for my lunch break. I got to keep my strength up” Branson said as he looked down at Lacey’s sweaty, pale face then over to Frank, who was slumped forward on the floor with his arms chained in the air and his head hung low. He had cried so much that he was completely spent of energy. Branson leaned his head next to Lacey’s ear and whispered, “Rest up well. I’ll be back in a few hours and we will start all over again.”
Lacey forced her heavy eyelids open at the sound of the door to the room slamming shut and a locking mechanism shifting into place. Her chest barely lifted with each ragged breath she took. Pain riddled her body but she knew she didn’t have time to rest. She wouldn’t survive another torture session. Even as she felt her physical wounds slowly healing, she knew mentally she couldn’t take anymore. And she feared that once Branson returned and saw that instead of open wounds all over her body, all he’d see were fresh scars, then he’d know her secret.
With great effort, she turned her head from side to side and scanned the room for a way out. When she saw nothing but four white cement walls and the table near the wall, she looked over at Frank and called out to him to get his attention. “Frank” she whispered hoarsely, her throat burned from hours of screaming.
He slowly lifted his head and met her gaze with an unspoken apology in his bloodshot eyes.
“We have to find a way out” Lacey gasped. “Is there any way you can free yourself?”
Frank pulled against his chains then shook his head. He tried to speak but the tape around his mouth muffled his words the same way it had muffled his screams all day long.
Lacey squeezed her eyes closed as the last bit of hope she’d had, drifted from her mind. “We’re going to die” she said sadly as the faces of Cole and her children played like a movie in her mind. “Without my powers, I can’t save us.”
Frank made several loud grunting noises to get her attention. When she looked his way again, he pleaded with his eyes for her not to give up hope. But it was too late. She was tired and in excruciating pain, physically and mentally. Her head had been throbbing from the moment Branson inserted the chip in the back of her neck. The pain had grown so severe that she was starting to lose her vision.
Knowing that she may never get another chance to speak with her father outside of that room, Lacey let out a deep sigh and said, “I forgive you, Dad. I forgive you for leaving me” she said, her words barely more than a whisper.
Fresh tears filled Franks eyes as he stared at his daughter. Fear settled in his chest at the thought of losing her without ever being able to tell her how much he loved her. Out of desperation, he started using his teeth to bite through the tape over his mouth. The taste of blood slowly filled his mouth as he bit at the tape with as much strength as he could, nipping his own lips with his teeth in the process.
He had gnawed halfway through the tape when the rattling of keys in the door from outside the room, caught his attention and his gaze flew to the door. His heart pounded erratically in his chest at the possibility that Branson had returned so soon to finish what he’d started with Lacey.
When the door eased open and a man with dark brown hair, glasses and fear in his eyes rushed into the room, Frank let out a much needed deep breath. Relief washed over him as his gaze shifted over to the table where Lacey was laying. She was so still that he was beginning to wonder if he’d already lost her. The thought stuck in his mind and brought fresh tears to his eyes.