Page 84 of Pack Baines

Josh has barely changed in the years that spans between us. His dark hair is still cropped short, his brown eyes still empty and void of anything that would make him look like an actual person. His scent, a strong, suffocating stench of spilled gasoline, chokes me when he grows near, and I’m helpless as memories surface and assault me. I remember the times where he’d corner me against a wall, push his body against me where I was helpless to feel how turned on he was at having me trapped and at his mercy. I remember when he’d yank my head back by my hair when I said something he didn’t like, or refuse to offer something that wasn’t his to take.

“I see you recognize us, little bird. It’s been a long time, huh?” Josh asks, tone void of any emotion, expression blank. “We’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

“I wish you hadn’t bothered,” I spit awkwardly, Peter still gripping my cheeks tightly enough that I’m sure I’ll end up with bruises in the shape of his fingers.

My back talk results in another sharp and brutal backhand that has my vision blurring, the agony instant as it bleeds through my face. Pretty sure I bite my tongue, because hot, coppery liquid fills my mouth and I’m forced to spit it out awkwardly.

Peter sneers before moving away, standing shoulder to shoulder with his brother, and it’s like every nightmare I’ve had come to life. I’m stranded and wounded, left to the mercy of two rejected alphas who have clearly not changed in their ways in the time we’ve been apart. I find myself regretting how I took those years for granted, wishing I would have appreciated my freedom from the crazy family a little more while I had it. Because now? With the way the brothers peer down at me with contempt and disdain, things don’t look good for me.

Heart thundering so hard that my chest aches, fear spilling through my veins, I scramble up to sitting, crying out when my broken arm jerks with the motion. I try to scramble away, only they don’t allow me much distance before Peter is grabbing my ankle and yanking me toward them.

“Not so far, little bird,” Josh croons, and the sound sends waves of terror through me, knowing the last time I heard that horrible nickname was when he was trying to sink his hands into my pants. The only thing that saved me was Mr. Burton coming up the stairs with an almost finished cigarette hanging from his lips. I would have taken a million cigarette burns from that man if it meant I didn’t have to be alone with his sons. “I’ve heard you’ve been busy lately.”

I don’t reply, my body trembling so hard that my teeth chatter, from the cold or fear or both, I couldn’t say. All I know is that I’m experiencing a waking nightmare, I have no idea where Pace is orif he saw the accident, and I can feel echoes of terror coming from the bonds that link me to the guys.

“You’ve bonded with a pack that doesn’t include my brother and me, haven’t you, little bird?” Josh asks theoretically, eyeing me like I’m nothing more than a bug he’s stepped on. “So, tell me, what do they have that we don’t?”

“Everything I ever wanted and needed,” I rasp, eyeing them like they’re both crazy. Which, they fucking are. It’s been years and they’ve been looking for me this whole time. Instead of letting me go when I ran, they’ve hunted me down, but for what? What the hell could they possibly want with me not that I’m bonded to a pack that isn’t theirs?

“Well, now, that’s a shame,” Josh sighs, as though he’s genuinely disappointed that I found my pack, my family, instead of accepting their slimy offers. Every time I turned them down, the more aggressive their advances would become until it simply turned into a game of cat and mouse I wasn’t interested in playing.

Running away was the best thing I ever did.

“The trouble is, Juniper,” he says, walking slowly toward me before he crouches low in front of me. “We don’t share, do we, brother?”

“We don’t fucking share,” Peter seethes, sending me a nasty scowl as he glares at me from behind his brother.

Before I can question what that means, Josh stands and jerks his head toward me, muttering, “She’s all yours, brother.”

Eyes widening as a new pulse of terror floods my body, I try to scramble back, only I’m too broken to move fast enough. Peter’s hand is in my hair before I can stop him, and he drags me off the ground with a chilling chuckle. With his fingers digging into the roots of my hair, tearing strands out as he uses his hold to maneuver me where he wants me, he sneers, “Should have kept your hair the way it was. Looked much better on you. Didn’t make you look like a thirsty little tramp.”

“Get fucked,” I grit, fighting against the agony that bleeds through my scalp as he drags me toward the water.

Laughing again, this bone-chilling sound that scares me more than anything Josh could ever do. Because where Josh is a controlling and perverted little creep, Peter is the one of the two that doesn’t have a handle on his anger. It takes very little to send him spiraling, and it always comes with that spine-shivering sound that has played many a part in plenty of nightmares.

“You’re going to wish you never said that, you little bitch. I was going to take it easy on you, but now? Fuck it. I don’t care if you suffer. You deserve to suffer. If we can’t fucking have you, then no other cunt in the world can,” he sneers, words spat like venom, and I’m all too aware of the danger I’ve found myself in as his words slowly process in my mind.

When they do, I find a renewed energy and urgency through adrenaline and fear, and I begin fighting against Peter’s hold. I drag my feet into the mud, only it’s too soft and only results in coating my boots in dirt. I scratch at Peter’s hand where it grips tightly to chunks of my hair, but he simply laughs again, tightening his hold until I feel hot tears fill my eyes out of pain and frustration.

“You should have picked us, little bird,” Josh calls from nearby, and he steps into view only enough for me to see the horrifying smile he wears as Peter drags me to the very edge of the lake and kicks my legs from under me. “You’re ours, Juniper. And we won’t stand by and let any other low life pack take what’s ours. If that means taking you away from them for good, then so be it.”

“You got your options, whore. Now you can pay for the wrong choices you’ve made,” Peter snidely retorts, right before he uses the hold on my hair to shove my head into the frigid water of the lake, cutting off the panicked scream that bubbles up my throat, stealing my breath, and trapping me beneath the freezing-cold water with another chuckle that will haunt me long after I die.

Chapter 32

Lowie

“Lowie,” Juniper rasps, and my heart instantly lodges itself in my throat,

“Juno? What’s wrong?” I demand, tone gruff and filled with horror, flashbacks of answering a very similar call coming back to me with all of the force of a tidal wave. “Where are you, Angel?”

“Low,” she breathes, so quiet that I strain to hear her clearly. “Crash. It was them. Help.”

“It was who, Angel? What happened? Where are you?” I rush, overrun with panic now, terrified that something has happened to my girl again and I’m not there to help her. “Juno, baby, where are you?”

My panic doubles when I don’t get a reply, and I swallow hard before rushing into Leylan’s room, keeping the phone stuck to my ear despite the lack of response.

“Juno is in trouble,” I blurt the moment my brother lifts his head to peer at me over his book.

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