Page 47 of Callen's Captive
The gas station smelled worse than a dump. Machine oil, animal droppings, and mildew littered the inside of the decaying building. His Kate was too used to living in squalor. If it was the last thing Callen ever did, he’d find her a nice place to live. A house or apartment with walls that weren’t pealing, a roof that didn’t leak, and had running water and electricity. Maybe he’d make sure the place had some plush carpeting too, so she could sink her bare toes into the soft fibers and enjoy a little decadence in her life.
She led him to the back room where there was a cot with bedding. Other than a thin layer of dust, the blanket was pristine. No insect hole or even a wrinkle marred the surface. When she pulled out a box of supplies from beneath the cot, he realized this was one of her safe houses.
“Why haven’t they found this one?” His hackles were up, his and his wolf’s, expecting the WSSO to barge through the glass door of the service station any second.
“There’s nothing that would lead them here. I found this place by accident and came back with supplies when I had a chance. That was over a year ago. No computer searches into properties or any digital footprint to show I had an interest in the place. No phone on me that day either.”
She pulled out some water bottles from the stash and handed him one. “I didn’t leave any passports here unfortunately, though there’s a small stash of cash.” She transferred a bundle of cash to her backpack. “No clothes that would fit you either, except. . . Wait here.” She disappeared into the service area of the garage and came back with a pair of overalls.
Callen held the pants up against him and raised a brow at the skinny, short legs of the overalls. “You think this will fit?”
“Give it a shot,” she said as she continued scrounging through the garage.
Callen cursed as he squeezed himself into the pants of the overalls, not even bothering with the top. He ripped that part off entirely. There was nothing about this life he liked, but it didn’t seem to faze her at all.
“Oh, my!” Immediately, she covered her mouth to contain her laughter. It wasn’t working. “I’m sorry, but you look like someone tried to stuff a sausage into a drinking straw.”
“That sums up how I feel. I’d prefer to be naked.”
Her smile disappeared. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said as she began pulling papers out of her pack and spreading them out on the floor. He let her organize the mess before kneeling beside her. That’s when she grabbed a small stack and headed for the front office.
She stopped long enough to point to the papers out on the floor. “I think you’re going to want to read through these by yourself.”
Translation, she wanted to be alone. Callen sighed and got comfortable on the floor as she disappeared into the front office. She had organized everything chronologically by the date and time stamps on the bottom of each page.
He hadn’t missed the name on the file earlier. Oskar Black, Damien’s grandfather. Callen skimmed the aerial photos, charts, and ground photos. The WSSO had been gathering information on his pack for decades. The photos were recent though and taken close up at ground level. Callen sifted through the pages. The WSSO had photos of every adult shifter in his pack, from Damien on down to the shifters who worked in maintenance. The timeframe of the photos spanned slightly less than a year, with the last image taken only four months ago.
Only one shifter was missing from the photos. Ian. The traitor had been murdered back in May. Fuck. Ian had been conspiring with the WSSO for a long time, giving the organization everything they needed to hunt and murder Damien’s pack.
The rest of the photos were aerial shots of the terrain, providing intel on the terrain and the location of every building, house, and formal guard post. Damien’s house, the lodge where the kids had classes, the cookhouse, and the trails that led to the cabins that housed over one-hundred seventy pack members. . . everything was in those papers. Another realization struck. The images weren’t simply aerial shots; they were satellite photos. Kate was right. The WSSO had access to too many government agencies.
The most recent note in the file had Callen seeing red. The WSSO had been tainting the area’s salt licks with the SEV-2 virus to contaminate the deer—his pack’s and the nearby packs’ main food source.
The last few documents made Callen glad he was already sitting down. The plans showed that contaminating their food supply was only the first phase, the one meant to weaken the pack since the WSSO was aware that shifters had developed a cure. The next phase called for sending in crews to start fires, to box in and kill any shifters that survived the virus.
The date of the next mission was a week away. This changed everything. He had to break his promise to Kate. He had to go back to warn his pack.
If he insisted she go with him, if for only a short while, she’d refuse as she had so many times already. If he left her here, she’d continue going after the WSSO. Fuck!
Callen looked at the photos of his friends, his pack. He had a duty to them, an obligation borne from a shared history and forged in blood. These were his friends, his brothers and sisters, the shifters, the family he swore to protect. He couldn’t fail them, but Kate, his sweet Kate. . . If he left her here, she might not survive.
