Chapter 65 - Red [https://cdn.midjourney.com/79e4f8e6-0a66-442f-b5fc-095151243b8f/0_1.png]

Red…

Throwing gravel and kicking up dust, two tarped trucks careened into the facility’s minimal parking lot, going too fast. Red took a slow breath, reached for his gun, and froze in place. At the speed they were moving, it wasn’t a shipment or a supply pickup. The arrival explained the foot traffic he’d seen in the last hour.

Motionless, he held his position as the headlights swept across his hiding place. The vehicles pulled in close to the loading dock. He’d burned out most of his capacity for fear when he was a kid keeping food on the family table. The only lucky break he’d ever had was when old man Pierson caught him trying to break into the coke machine in back of his shop.

Pierson could have called the cops or beaten him… but he’d fed him half his lunch instead. He’d been the rare adult in his childhood who listened to kids, even the wild ones. Once Red’s belly was full, he had left the shop with dollar bills in his pocket instead of a jangle of coins. “An advance,” the old man had told him before he shook his hand to seal their agreement. The honest handshake had healed something broken in Red and started him on the path to becoming a man.

The next day had been his first day at an actual job, not a hustle. Work suited him, and he took pride in sweeping and picking up after the mechanics. He learned fast and stayed out of the way. The old man had saved them, for certain, from a life that would have had no joy in it. Red lived with enough regrets, as it was.

Suppressing a shudder, he gripped the gun tightly as an ancient memory of a grimy bathroom flashed through his brain like spider lightning along the underside of a cloud. He hated people, and he’d come by that feeling honestly. Even young, a Shepherd’s body healed fast.

Carrying secrets, the wind brought their scent before he could see them. His family. Jaw flexing, he fought the urge to bolt forward when they dragged his cousin’s limp body in human shape from the first truck and let it fall to the ground. Unconscious and bound in rope, he twitched in the dirt. Red released the breath he’d been holding. Alive.

They’d beaten the shit out of him, but they hadn’t escaped without their own marks. He counted eight men, and all of them looking like they’d had the bad end of a domestic dispute. A bloom of pride blossomed in his chest. His little cousin had grown into a tough son of a bitch. Their captors weren’t the brightest crew. They ignored his cousin’s sprawled body. Because his arms and feet were bound, they thought he wasn’t a danger. But they didn’t know how the two of them had grown up. Jeremiah had seen things a kid shouldn’t.

At the second truck, they were setting up a ramp. Under the tarps sat two cages. One enormous bear, Terry, and their woman, naked, beaten, and bloody. The hair on the back of his neck lifted as fury rolled through him. If they’d hurt the baby, he’d turn the entire mountain into a fireball.

Taking deep slow breaths, he steadied himself, counted his heartbeat down. He didn’t need those assholes smelling his anger. Lips moving silently, he renewed his promise to their brat. “You will not die before I do.” As they rolled Terry’s cage down off the truck, they let it slam into the ground, rocking his limp body hard into the side. Big fucking bear, that boy. Massive. Four men pushed it back away from the ramp. The weight of the cage bit into the dirt, furrowing the ground. Nature resisted them, unified with their family, on their side.

The sight of her curled on her side caused his chest to ache. A glint of light reflected as she opened one eye briefly. Little fucking possum. She was faking that she was still knocked out. Seven lives like a cat, that one. Their little Lost wife, his brat. Her fist tightened when they shifted her cage toward the ramp. Simmering little fireball. Explode on them honey, give them what for.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Those dumb fucks had no clue. They had grown too soft for their own good. Most of them were probably stoned all day. They wasted their lives on the mountain being smug, pretending to be above everyone else. They held their fairy tale stories up on a high pedestal. Idiots. Such a bunch of bullshit. They were no different from the town church. Mountain and town were more similar than separate. All of them believed in lies that kept them in check. Sky bears or sky daddy, what was the difference? To his eye, neither one of them gave a shit about the people anymore. They were Shepards abandoned on this rock.

He counted them again, as they removed the tethers from her cage. Eight. Mountain folk, all capable of change. It’d be easier if some of them were Townies. Before they brought her down, they thumped another dart into the motionless Vet. Three silver sticks were enough medication to kill someone. Easily.

Toothpick flicking up and down, the man that seemed to be the leader said, “Hit him with the blue.” He stood apart from the others with his hands on his hips.

Turning to look down at the bear, the man with the tranquilizer gun said, “I don’t think we should. That’s his third dart. He isn’t going to go anywhere in bear. We don’t need him human.”

“You want to drag that big ass bear through the mountain? Some of those passages are narrow.” He gestured with one hand toward the loading dock. “If you think you are man enough, be my guest.”

Resting his tranquilizer gun against the side of the truck, the man gave in and opened the pack slung over his shoulder. He withdrew a capped syringe. “Shit. If we kill him, it’s on you.”

“We are clear on anything we do to these two dip shits as long as we bring her before the council. Hit him with the blue before I decide to put a dart in your insubordinate ass.”

“Fuck you, Dale.”

“Only if you ask me sweet and dress up pretty. I like that peach lipstick your momma wears.” They talked to each other like cousins or husbands.

Red had never seen a forced change, but he knew it was dangerous, even to a body used to changing states. His stomach lurched as he watched Terry split and turned his face away so that he wouldn’t be witness to the violation. The metallic electric smell of change was something he couldn’t avoid. Within a few heartbeats, wet and naked, the Vet lay in the dirt. The ropes that had held his bear shape slumped loosely around him. Red hadn’t expected the wave of relief he felt as the big man took a breath.

The fellow, holding the now empty needle, snickered. “He’s not that much smaller than the bear.”

“Cuff him. Blindfold him. We can dump him in the product cart and push him along the rail. We can only move them one at a time that way, but we can keep them restrained.”

“And the girl?”

“She ain’t going no where in that cage. Start with him.” He pointed to the Doc. “The Vet is half true, but you wouldn’t know it by his choices.” He kicked dirt on Terry. “I knew his Father. He’d be ashamed if he was still alive, breeding with one of the Lost. I blame her men as much for this nonsense as I do her.”

Shame stung Red. It was true. They should have made her stay and waited to see if life had caught in her belly. He felt the weight of their mistake as the man continued. “Letting her go back among the humans, liable to change anywhere at any time, was foolish. Better they had killed her if she wouldn’t stay. It would have been kinder in the long run.” He spit on Terry, and Red gritted his teeth together. That one was going to feel a boot in his kidneys. No one was killing what was his. Bound as he was, it took three men to drag the dead weight of Terry’s unconscious body into the tunnel. Five left.

He might could make a move. Especially with their girl being awake. If she could fight, and they surprised them. Jeremiah lay drugged, limp, and bruised. His eyes were swollen shut and the left socket looked to be broken. Red winced to think what they’d had to do to take his cousin down.

Was her cage locked or latched? The brat wasn’t bound, so that was something. Stupid of them to think a woman was less dangerous than a man. He knew personally that was a mistake. With his ring finger, he briefly touched the scar crossing his palm, his talisman for caution. Think. Wait. A window would open. Using the ramp, they eased her cage toward the ground. The container dwarfed her. Even if she had been in her true heart form, she would have had room to move. The thought of her cute tan tipped ears made him smile. Two men came back out of the Mountain compound. The man in charge wiped his hands together. “Ben has him headed toward the council, and his fate.” He pointed toward Jeremiah. “How many in her cluster? Just the three?”

“Maybe one more. That one has a cousin.”

“And where is he?” Toothpick flipping up and down, he narrowed his gaze and scanned the line of dark trees surrounding the clearing.