Kelly Meding - Wrong Side of Dead

“Why the blue hell is there a Jeep in the corridor?” Astrid’s question boomed down the hall. She stalked toward us with long, angry strides; Isleen followed, taking shorter, more precise steps to keep up with the almost-sprinting were-cat.

Kismet stood and shifted closer to Marcus.

“My fault,” I said, still sitting. Now that my adrenaline was wearing off, I hadn’t yet mustered the energy to get up.

“When Phineas called, he said someone might be injured,” Astrid said.

“You spoke to Phin?” Hope bloomed in my chest, and I sat up a little straighter.

“Just a moment ago, yes.”

“Did he track the werewolves?”

She gave me a critical eyeballing. “He lost two of them in Mercy’s Lot but managed to backtrack and find the injured third. He’s holding it in a secure location until Baylor’s squad can get there.”

An osprey was holding a wounded werewolf captive. Sometimes my life was too strange, even for me.

“What location?” Marcus asked.

“He mentioned the trunk of a parked car.”

“They can’t interrogate the wolf in a car,” I said.

Astrid gave me the look that impatient teachers give their dumbest students. “Once the Lupa is secure, he’ll be brought back here for interrogation.”

“No way.” I mimicked her expression. “Those wolves are working with Walter Thackery. Teen Wolf admitted it to my face, and if Thackery loves anything, it’s to keep track of his toys. He tracks his hounds and his hybrids, and he probably tracks the wolves, too.” Just because Astrid’s people hadn’t found a tracking device on the wolf I killed at Boot Camp, didn’t mean these guys were clean.

“Evangeline is correct,” Isleen said, inclining her head in my direction. “It would be decidedly unwise to bring the Lupa back to the Watchtower.”

Something niggled at the back of my mind like a fire alarm in a faraway building.

“Okay, you’re right,” Astrid said. “I’ll have Baylor find someplace in the city to interrogate the wolf. And to be on guard for possible tails to their location. Now, do you want to tell us what happened on your end, Stone?”

“Fuck me.” It hit all at once, a wall of ice water that turned my guts inside out. No, no, no, no.…

“Stone?”

I don’t know who said it, because I was on my feet and running. Trying to outrace the panic of having done something so fucking stupid—unable to believe we were all capable of such obvious idiocy. Someone was following me, and I probably looked like a crazy person racing down the corridor in bloody clothes. No one, thankfully, was stupid enough to try to stop me.

Nevada was sitting on top of his desk chatting with Morgan, who was seated in the desk’s actual chair. They both gave surprised squawks when I slammed through the jail door.

“I need in there right-fucking-now,” I said, pointing at the interrogation room.

Nevada took in my state, then leapt off the desk. “What’s going on?”

“Please, just open the door.”

Maybe it was me using “please,” which rarely happens. Or someone with actual power to order him around came into the jail behind me and silently gave him permission. I don’t know, and I didn’t care. Nevada punched in the door code, and the lock snicked back.

I gave little consideration to just how terrible Felix looked after his long exposure to the wooden chair and whatever creative interrogation methods Marcus and Wyatt had used. He was about to be very, very dead anyway. He watched me with bleary eyes and a sad half smile, as if he knew exactly why I was there.

I plucked a slim wooden spike off the table behind him, circled around to his front, and drove it as hard as I could into his right thigh. He shrieked. Saliva sputtered from his lips. I pressed the spike down harder until he started to cry.

“You son of a bitch,” I growled, getting in his face. “Is he tracking you?”

A flash of clarity stole through his agony, and Felix nodded.

“Thackery is tracking you?”

Another nod.

I swallowed back bile. “What’s the plan, Felix? We go after you, bring you back here, and Thackery sends his werewolf army to tear us down in our own headquarters?”

He lifted his head, clearly astonished by some part of my accusation. His leaky nostrils flared. “You smell like them.”

“That’s because one of them tried to kill Wyatt tonight, so he returned the favor by slicing its guts open. Now what’s the plan?”

“I don’t know.”

“Really?” I yanked out the spike, then slammed it down into his left thigh.

He jerked forward, snapping at my throat even as he squealed; I leaned just out of reach. “I was there to recruit; I wasn’t supposed to get caught!”

“Bullshit. What’s the fucking plan, Felix?”

“I don’t know!”

“Tell me what you know.”

“I can’t!”

“There are a dozen more spikes on that table, Felix. You know you’re going to die today. How many holes do you want before we end this?”

He closed his eyes. Tears feathered his lashes and ran down his blotchy cheeks. Judging by the blood on the floor and the cuts on his exposed skin, he wasn’t as upset about the pain as the emotions warring inside him. The little bit of humanity still lingering in his brain as opposed to the instinctive rage of the vampire infection.

“I don’t know what he’s doing with the werewolves, Evy, I swear,” he said. “Just that they’re freely loyal to him.”

“How many does he have?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only interacted with one.”

“When?”

“The night I was infected. He was sent to follow you. He saw the bus crash, then followed me. He took me to Thackery.” His voice cracked and his iridescent eyes begged me for mercy—something I wasn’t about to give. Not now. Not when he’d walked into our home wearing the equivalent of a police wire.

I believed him, though. So far. “How do you control the bloodlust, Felix? What’s Thackery giving you?”

“What’s that sound?”

“The voices in your head? Sorry, pal, they’re all yours.”

“Something else.” He shrank into his chair, curling forward like someone with a severe stomach cramp. The oddest look crossed his face, as though he suddenly understood the punch line to a frightening joke. “Goddammit. You should have killed me.”

“Give me time. I promised, right?”

“It’s too late.”

“You’re not going anywhere.” The look on his face said he thought otherwise, and a cold knot of dread squeezed my heart. “Felix?”

“This is wrong.”

“Now that’s a fucking understatement,” said a familiar voice that got our collective attention. Milo stood just inside the interrogation room, stone-faced, arms pulled so tightly across his chest that they seemed ready to snap. Marcus hovered just behind him.

Felix jerked upright, unable to move far thanks to his bonds, but struggling nonetheless. “You came now?”

Milo took a step backward and hit Marcus’s chest. His expression shifted from cold to furious. “I didn’t want to come, but Marcus told me you’re being tracked. You bastard!”

“It wasn’t my idea.”

“Of course not. You’re the victim, right? Poor crazy Halfie?”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“By leading Thackery right to our doorstep?” Milo came forward, stopping next to me. “What the hell do you want from me, Felix?”

“Get out of here.”

Milo made a choking sound. “Oh, so now you want me to leave? Fuck you.”

“It’s not a tracker.” Felix’s face pinched, and he doubled over again as far as his restraints allowed. “Get the fuck out of here!”

The hair on the back of my neck prickled as Felix’s words rang in my head. If he hadn’t been given a tracker, then what? Something was very, very wrong. Milo moved toward him. I grabbed Milo’s arm and pulled him back. Gave him a hard shove toward the door.