Page 77 of Sire
She laughs, but it’s true.
Wren has no idea how we’ll kill for her tomorrow and always.
And how I’ll die to make everything right for us, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WREN
“It doesn’t looklike he’s there.”
Sire searches through his binoculars while Loch does the same, confirming, “I don’t see movement.”
I use the scope on my rifle, scanning what’s left of Nannie’s house, but it’s hard to talk. Charred rubble. Cinder blocks. A stone chimney. A burnt stove and debris. It’s all that’s left of my home.
But with Sire on my side and Loch on my other, we lie on our bellies and spy over the ridge. Grant, Jace, Axel, and Nash flank us, making sure we’re not ambushed from behind, and…
This is my home now.
With Sire and his family.
When we work together like this, how can I be embarrassed about anything that happens between us? It only makes us closer.
Together, we’re watching Nannie’s barn. I never burned it down, so I guessed Waylon would return to it. My instinct kept telling me he would, and Loch listened to me, but now I feel foolish.
Did I lead us on a wild goose chase?
“Wren?” Sire asks. “Angel, it doesn’t look like he’s here. The barn is empty.”
“I know. I just…” I keep scoping. I keep getting that instinct.
It’s the same I felt when I met Sire.
You belong here.
Through the crosshairs of my rifle scope, I spot a monarch butterfly. It flutters out of the barn, to the thicket of my favorite red oleander bushes, and…
“Wait, y’all.” I spot it, my pulse tripling. “Beside the barn, through the oleander grove, there’s a fresh trail through it. It wasn’t there before.”
I lower my scope, nodding toward it. “I bet that trail leads over the next ridge and across the creek. There’s an old farmhouse there—Mr. Grinzer’s. He’s a sweet older man, and Waylon’s an evil piece of shit. He’s probably forced his way in and moved his lab there.”
We hike in a single formation, using the dense cover until we reach the next ridge. I lift my nose and immediately smell it on the breeze.
Grant does, too. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Is that cat piss?”
“No.” I raise my rifle scope, scanning the windows of Mr. Grinzer’s tattered farmhouse, noting the new fan in the kitchen window. “It’s ammonia and phosphorus.”
“It’s a meth lab,” Loch agrees.
Quietly, we crouch into position and watch the property through our scopes and binoculars. After an hour or so, Sire whispers to me, “You okay?”
I lower my gun, grinning at him. “I’m hunting, city boy. I’m peachy. How ‘bout you?”
He lowers his rifle, smirking back. “Woman, I’ve hunted, too. Just not for my dinner.”
After two hours, a willowy figure opens the front doorand stands on the porch. He removes his respirator to light a smoke.
“That’s Alan,” I whisper to my men. “Hurt him and I’ll shoot your ass.”
