Page 83 of Pack Baines

“Are you sure?” I ask, hand shaking as I pull the phone away and press the speakerphone, dropping the cell to the seat beside me before looking left and right, only to pause on a car positioned a lane away to my left. A car I recognize, despite not being able to see the license plate number.

I can hear Pace talking, but I can’t make out his words, a ringing appearing in my ears as I look at the dark car with tinted windows. My entire body turns cold and the panic that sprouted in my body begins to grow until it’s all I can focus on.

“Pace? See that sedan with the tinted windows? What’s the license plate number?” I rasp, swallowing hard as my hands grip tightly around the steering wheel.

“Which one, June? There’s like three of them,” he asks in a rush, stern and growing worried now that he realizes I’m not fucking around.

“The black one with the silver trim. Tinted windows,” I answer, turning my indicator on to change lanes.

“I see it,” he confirms, changing lanes with me and sticking close. “I can’t see the license plate, though. It looks like it’s been painted over.”

Ice fills my veins not a second later, and when I peer over at the car, I find the driver has rolled down the window and is looking directly at me. Fear explodes from me in an instant as recognition dawns on me, a face I’ve seen haunting my nightmares now simply a lane away from me.

The driver smiles, an expression just as chilling as it was years ago, and my heart stops beating. I reach for my cell phone right before the psycho veers his steering wheel to the right and crashes into the side of my truck, colliding with the side of my truck so hard that I jolt painfully in my seat.

Everything happens all at once. I hear Pace shouting my name from my phone clutched tightly in my hand, feel the impact of the car driving into my truck like a battering ram, and see the horror as my hand on the steering wheel releases its grip in a poor attempt to protect my eyes when the window smashes and glass scatters everywhere with the next slam of the car.

Wedging my cell into my bra, thanking every deity that could exist that Evron’s hoodie is large enough that the neckline hangs low enough for such an action, I grip the steering wheel just in time foranother collision. I try my best to control the car as it’s hit once more, my knuckles turning white, and just as I’m convinced that I’ve managed to correct the wheel the car beside me races ahead, right before the unhinged maniac clips the front left fender of my truck, sending me into a manic tailspin that there is no coming back from.

I’m helpless as my truck, ancient and decrepit as it is, hits a pothole just as the car plows into it. The dip sends the truck veering off to the right, mere seconds before we encounter a sloped boulder in the banking of the road. The last thing I hear is the screeching of tires and a crash of metal colliding with metal, before my truck soars off road, tilting to the right before I’m forced to hold on with all of my might as the truck falls and rolls down the steep banking that leads into a valley of thick trees.

I tumble down the banking for what feels like eons, my scream of terror filling the cabin of the truck while every good, pure memory flashes behind my eyes. Every moment with the guys, every laugh, smile, and cry. Every single thought I have as I fall and fall is of my pack, and I roll down the banking with only one regret, and that is not having bonded with the twins.

Thoughts filled with my pack, my eyes fill with tears and I cry out with pain as the truck finally meets the end of the banking, colliding harshly with a thick tree that bends the metal and dents the passenger side so severely that I know there will be no climbing out of it. The driver’s side is no better, the way the truck wraps around the tree distorting and morphing the whole truck until it’s framed unnaturally, the door bent and crooked.

The stop is so sudden, the jolt so fierce, that the seat belt I’d been wearing digs harshly into my body, I feel the agonizing snap of my arm breaking, and my head collides with the frame of the truck. The pain is instant, and I groan as I raise a shaky hand to my temple.

It takes a herculean effort, but I reach into my bra for my phone, finding it still intact much to my surprise. With blurry eyes, I swipe the screen and search for a number I know will answer.

The call rings twice before Lowie answers. “Hey, Angel. I was just thinking about you.”

“Lowie,” I rasp, crying out when I accidentally jostle my broken arm, a tear spilling from my eye. Another follows, drawing a line of tears down my cheeks, and my breath leaves me in a stuttered heave.

“Juno? What’s wrong?” Lowie demands, tone gruff and filled with horror, almost like he’s reliving a similar moment we shared when we were kids. “Where are you, Angel?”

“Low,” I breathe, hand trembling as I try to hold my cell to my ear. “Crash. It was them. Help.”

It’s all I can manage before the bump my head took finally takes its toll. I don’t hear a single word more from Lowie before darkness descends and I pass the fuck out with another touch of warmth that trickles down my temple and drips onto Evron’s once pristine gray hoodie.

***

A sharp sting across my face startles me, and I gasp awake, only to groan as pain radiates through every pore of my body. My arm is killing me, my head pounds, and it takes several blinks for me to open my eyes. Only, I wish I hadn’t, because the first thing I see is the nasty sneer of Peter Burton as he glares down at me where I lay in the mush and mud on the bank of a large lake.

“About fucking time you woke up, you little bitch,” the older son of the Burton family snaps, spittle flying from his mouth and hitting me just beneath my eye.

I try to recoil, only to whimper when pain floods through my system. Apparently, Peter doesn’t like that, because the psycho grips my cheeks hard, blunt fingers digging harshly into my skin. I’m sure he’s pressing into one of many of the cuts I received from the shattered glass, the sting beneath his fingers spreading through my face.

“I don’t think so, Juniper,” he snarls. “You’re going to fucking look at me when you tell me what the fuck you’ve done.”

“What—?” I try, only for him to pull his hand away roughly right before it collides with my face, forcing my head to the side with a harsh slap.

He’s gripping my face between his fingers once more and seethes, “Don’t you even think about lying to me. You know what you’ve done, you filthy little whore.”

I’m blinking back tears as fear infects my bloodstream, the crazed look in his eyes sending me into a panic, and I try to speak through the pain of his fingers digging into my flesh, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course, you do,” Peter grits, right before his free hand reaches for the collar of my hoodie and yanks it aside. With a rough touch that does nothing but send nausea and pain through me, Peter jabs his finger into Creek’s bond mark on my neck and spits, “You just had to give your pussy up, didn’t you? Who is it, Juniper? The first alpha who gave you attention. What, Josh and I weren’t good enough, but some fucker you don’t even know is? I always knew you were a worthless little slut, but I didn’t realize how fucking desperate you were.”

“Now, now, brother. There could be a reasonable explanation,” a chilling voice sounds out from behind Peter, and a moment later, I’m face to face with the younger son of the Burtons.

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