CHAPTER TWENTY
The two females worked steadily, butchering the slabs of meat into serving portions, then wrapped them in plastic and stored them in the huge walk-in freezer of the café. Neither spoke to the other; all they wanted to say had been said, and now they kept their heads down and worked, swallowing their own burning resentment and, at the same time, not wanting to restart their argument by even so much as posing an innocent question about their task.
Kit hadn't quite known what she would do or say when she came back, only that she was shamefully aware that she'd stepped over the line by running off the night before. And even though it was true, saying she'd been in the grip of base instinct wasn't a good enough excuse. Even so, she couldn't help but feel a little angry that Elise hadn't even wanted to hear her explanation, instead subjecting her to a tirade about foolishness and wasting everyone's time. It was the dig about her not knowing any better due to coming from a Pack that didn't even have the sense to stand on its own two feet that pushed her over the edge.
Her own rant had been nasty and cruel, and Kit accused Elise of a lot of things that were patently untrue, using language she never would have let cross her lips before, especially to an elder. Even worse, she'd acted like the child Elise accused her of being, which, though she currently felt justified in her juvenile behavior, she would regret later.
Eventually, someone had to say something, though, and it was Elise who broke the silence.
"Where's Sarah?" she asked.
Kit looked up from the loin she was working on, and realized that it had gotten dark. Thinking back she realized she hadn't heard anyone go up to the apartment, and Sarah hadn't returned before they went down to the café.
"Was she supposed to have a lesson with the Keeper?" she asked. Elise shook her head.
"Not today. Too much for him to do, what with the Alpha and Beta being gone for eight whole days. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?"
This time it was Kit's turn to shake her head. To limit the Pack's exposure to Sarah, she hadn't been allowed outside on her own, and Kit, because of her own problems with Gerik, hadn't been considered an adequate chaperone. So, Sarah had been reduced to being shepherded around by Elise or Niel, neither of whom had much time for it.
"Something must have happened," Kit mused. "She doesn't know the island all that well."
"Damn that girl," Elise muttered. "If it's not one thing, it's another." She threw down her cleaver, wiped her hands off with a dishtowel and picked up the phone. Her offhand comment pricked Kit's temper anew; yes, Sarah had been a trial, but she'd improved considerably.
"I'll find her," she snarled at Elise and began to strip her clothing off. "Scent," she explained harshly to Elise's questioning look. The older female had the grace to blush, embarrassed that she hadn't thought of that herself.
"Well, she probably just holed up somewhere and lost track of time," Elise commented in a tight voice and hung up the phone. "Could happen to anyone. I'll, uh—I'll just finish up here, then get started on something for us to eat when you bring her back."
Kit nodded sharply and flipped. Elise obligingly held the front door of the café open for her, and she slipped out into the night.
Sarah's scent was a few hours old, but still easily to detect. Kit followed it down the street and around a bend, until it left the pavement to descend stairs set into the hillside. They were incredibly steep, and Kit took extra care making her way down them. There were no streetlamps on Changer Island; the only illumination to break through the darkness of night came from the windows of people's houses. Though the moon provided adequate light, the individual risers cast shadows that made it difficult to see where one began and the other ended.
Eventually, she reached the bottom and put her nose to the ground. Kit circled around a few times, then picked up the scent again and followed it through the rocks and boulders protruding out of the sand.
When she reached the beach, a new obstacle appeared—the tide was coming in. The water lapped at her paws and sucked the gravel out from underneath them. In another hour, it would reach all the way up to the cliffs. She could cross the stretch of land to reach the stairs on the opposite side without worrying about being caught, but it meant that the scent trail had been washed away.
*Sarah!* she projected into the darkness, but there was no response. Frustrated, she decided to head down the beach anyway. She opened up her senses completely and swept her power back and forth along the strip, searching for any clue the younger female might have left behind.
So intent was she in focusing on the whole beach that she didn't see the earmuffs until she tripped on them. For all she knew, they could have been left here by anyone, but Kit rescued them from the waves anyway. She set them on top of a rock and examined them closely.
Thank god for porous plastic, because in spite of them being drenched by salt water, the earmuffs still had a scent. It was Elise's scent, but Kit deduced that if the older female lost them even a few days ago, they would have been washed out to sea by now. So, Sarah must have borrowed them, which meant she definitely came this way.
Encouraged, Kit pressed on. She clambered over rocks, squeezed between boulders, constantly searching for any other clue. And then, up ahead, she spotted something pale laying on the ground. She broke into a run.
*Sarah!*
The howl swept across the island, and Elise dropped her cleaver in shock at the despair in the sound.
Sarah. She's found Sarah.
Elise dashed out of the café and headed toward the source of Kit's mournful cry. Other Pack members who lived in the town joined her, and they convened on the stairs heading down to the beach.
"Stay here," ordered Caius, and Elise nodded. He took two other werewolves with him, and they descended the cliff.
Elise bit her knuckles as she chastened herself. If she hadn't been so preoccupied with her own anger at Kit, she would have realized earlier that Sarah was in trouble. Who knows what condition the poor thing was in, having been stranded out in the cold for so long?
After what seemed an eternity, they returned. Caius led, carrying Sarah in his arms. The other two were helping Kit, still in her wolf skin, up the stairs. Elise bit back a sob and lead them to the apartment. Her hands were shaking so badly it took several tries for her to get the key in the lock. Caius pushed past her when she got the door open and carried the younger female up the stairs into the apartment. He located Sarah's room by scent and laid her on the bed.
"Michael's coming," he told Elise brusquely as he pulled the comforter over Sarah.
"What happened? Where was she?" she demanded.
He shook his head. "Found Kit dragging her over the beach by her collar. She was completely drenched and too heavy to move that way."
Kit appeared in the doorway in her human skin, a bathrobe wrapped around her.
"I found her laying next to a boulder, unconscious," she stated. "There's blood, but it's old. Clotted. I think she hit her head."
"She's breathing, and that's the important thing," Caius said. "Michael will be able to tell us more."
Elise nodded and backed out of the room. The other two werewolves hovered in the hallway, and she retreated to the kitchen.
When in doubt, feed everyone.
"George, can you go down to the café and grab some steaks?" she asked. "The door's still open."
The male nodded sharply and disappeared. Elise put on a pot of coffee and began pulling out cookware. Kit leaned against the door, her hands tucked under her armpits, but that didn't prevent her from shivering.
"For God's sake, go hop in the shower and get yourself warmed up," she ordered her. Kit didn't argue, and slipped into the bathroom. A few seconds later, the sound of running water emerged from behind the closed door.
George returned with Michael right behind him. The Pack's physician immediately entered Sarah's room, and George handed Elise a pile of elk. She thanked him and got to work seasoning them while the broiler heated up.
By the time Michael finished examining Sarah and doing what he could for her, everyone had assembled in the kitchen. Kit and the other three werewolves were seated at the table, already cutting into their steaks. Elise was leaning against the counter, sipping coffee, too upset to eat.
"How is she?" she asked as she handed Michael a plate. He thanked her, then answered her question.
"She's stable. Took quite a nasty blow to the skull. It cracked bone, but it'll heal by itself. She'll need to be looked after until that happens, though. I wouldn't be surprised if she has vision problems for a few days."
Elise nodded dully. The others had stopped eating and gave Michael their undivided attention.
"Any idea how it happened?" Kit wondered. "I just found her. I didn't see anything."
"Hard to say," he replied, pausing long enough to chew and swallow a bite of food. "How exactly did you find her?"
Kit described the scene, adding ruefully that she didn't take much time to examine it closely, because of the state she found Sarah in and the fact that the tide was coming in.
"There are dozens of explanations for her condition," he stated. "I won't know for certain until she wakes up and tells me what she remembers. Which probably won't be much. Head trauma victims tend to have amnesia focused right around the time of their injury."
"How long before she wakes up, do you think?" Elise asked quietly. Michael shrugged.
"Could be in an hour, could be tomorrow. Hell, it could be never. That's the problem with head wounds." To their dismayed expressions, he added, "I'm optimistic about her chances. She's young and healthy, and the wound wasn't that bad. Just let her sleep as long as she wants. If she doesn't wake by tomorrow afternoon, though, come get me again."
He took another bite of steak, then laid the plate on the counter.
"Thanks for the food, Elise. I better get going, though. The Alpha will need to be told what happened."
With that, he turned and left. Elise picked his plate up and looked at the food. She still couldn't bring herself to eat. Not wanting to waste anything, she dropped it in the middle of the table for the others to divide amongst themselves.
Not long after, the males thanked Elise for her hospitality. She thanked them in turn for their help and walked them out. Kit had already started on the dishes, so Elise left her to it. She took a chair from the table and carried it into Sarah's room, where she sat by her bedside the rest of the night.
"Sarah Hollander was attacked," Michael stated baldly to Alrik.
"Are you certain?" his Alpha pressed. "She could have slipped and cracked her head on a rock."
Michael shook his head stubbornly. "I didn't say anything, but there were traces of hatred lingering around the wound."
"Psychic residue transfer?" the younger male asked, brow wrinkling.
"It can happen. Not often, but it does. Whomever attacked Sarah hated her beyond reason."
"Are you certain about that?" Brianna asked. "I don't know anyone who she might have pissed off enough to attack her like that, but there's a first time for everything."
"No, whomever it was definitely was out of control. Besides, if they wanted to hurt her, why didn't they challenge her directly? That's the normal thing to do. Not sneak up on her and knock her out."
"But why just hit her and leave?" Alrik wondered. "There wasn't any other marks on her body, were there?" Michael confirmed that this was the case. "So what was the point? Whomever it was couldn't have seriously thought that she'd be unconscious for so long that they could leave her for the tide. Or that she wouldn't be found."
"Who knows what they were thinking? I'm telling you, they weren't in their right mind."
Michael rubbed his face with his hands. Who would have thought something like this could happen? Yes, the female wasn't the most popular member of the Pack, but general opinion of her had softened considerably. Enough that this kind of violence wouldn't be—
"Wait, didn't she have a disagreement with someone on the hunting trip?" he asked. "Alec told me something about a fight."
"Gerik mentioned it to me," Alrik confirmed. "Mark, Felix and Edith were picking on her, and she fought back. It happened right at the beginning of the trip. Those three are young and new to their wolf skins, but they shared a room with her for a week after that fight, and nothing else happened."
"But it was bad enough that Gerik told their parents," Michael pointed out.
"Only because their behavior was causing trouble overall," he clarified. "The fight with Sarah was just one in a long string of problems."
"But if one of them is crazy, it wouldn't be much of a mental leap for them to pin it all on Sarah, would it?" Brianna ventured. "Especially if this fight happened early on, and the rest of it afterward. They might convince themselves that the only reason they got in trouble is because everyone was on Sarah's side and were looking for excuses to push them down."
"She's got a point," Michael commented. "I'm not saying it's them for certain, but they're the only ones who seemed to have any kind of beef with her. It'd be worth it just to talk to them, see where they were all today."
The questioning of the Pack's three newest werewolves yielded exactly what Alrik assumed it would—nothing. Either they were unusually good liars—always a possibility if one of them was insane—or there was nothing to find.
There was a brief moment where Alrik thought that Edith might have had something to do with Sarah's attack, either directly or indirectly. The young female, persuaded by her parents, admitted that she blamed Sarah for all her current misfortunes. However, her parents confirmed that she had been with them all day, and that she was being punished for misbehaving on the hunt, so had no opportunity to engage in mischief.
Further questioning of the rest of the Beta's hunters, those who would have had the most interaction with Sarah since her arrival at Changer Island, also revealed nothing of any real importance. The only point of real interest, which Gerik told them himself, was that Sarah had spent a great deal of time with James, a male a few years older than Alrik himself. For lack of any other lead, they went to see him.
"I just felt sorry for her," James explained. "She didn't seem to know much of anything. But she was eager to learn, so I thought it would be okay to hang out with her, answer her questions, show her how things were supposed to be done. That sort of thing."
"And that's all there was between you?" Alrik asked. James nodded.
"Pretty much. I didn't mind. But I'm not interested in her beyond being friends, if that's what you're asking."
Though it was nice to have it confirmed, Alrik didn't need his nose to tell him James wasn't lying. It was well-known that James was seriously involved with another female closer to his own age, and had been for a long time. In fact, the Pack had been waiting for them to announce that they were mates for well over a year now.
"And there's nothing else you can tell us?" he pressed. "You didn't notice anyone arguing with her, or hear any comments that might suggest someone had a grudge against her?"
James shook his head again. "Nothing beyond the fight she had with the three kids on the first day," he replied.
"What did you think about that when you heard about it?" asked Michael. Alrik reigned in his impatience—they'd been over this already, but the physician kept pressing the issue. It was almost like—
Alrik paused at that thought. Did Michael know something he hadn't told his Alpha?
"It was just kid stuff," James was saying. "Normal shit you get with a bunch of newly-flipped trying to make a place for themselves. I don't think anyone thought much about it."
"And what about Sarah's decision to stand up to them, even though they're all stronger than her?"
James rolled his eyes, impatient. "They were being rude," he declared. "I don't know all the details, but everyone seemed pretty sure about that. She had the right, and no one thought less of her for it. Look, I don't know her that well, but she seemed nice enough to me, not at all snobbish like everyone said she was. Maybe she made a little mistake, and someone took it the wrong way. Hell, maybe they thought she was someone else—you can't smell shit other than the Sound when you're down on the beach. If they came up behind her, and she had her face all covered up . . . well, it's not like brunette females of average height and weight are a rare thing in the Pack."
Michael nodded thoughtfully.
"Can I go now?" James begged. "I've got a lot of work to catch up on."
Alrik dismissed him, and they returned to Alpha House.
Sarah didn't wake until the next afternoon. Elise had been nervous about her state, and called Michael in the morning to check on her, but he confirmed his earlier diagnosis—that Sarah's condition was stable and she would wake in her own time. He did add that it appeared to him she was in a regular sleep state, and speculated that her body simply was trying to heal itself and conserve energy at the same time.
Sarah opened her eyes, then winced at the bright sunlight streaming through the window. She covered her eyes with her arm and groaned in response to the pain stabbing into her head. Inching her arm away, she forced her eyes to adjust to the light, then blinked a few times to get her pupils to dilate a little bit more.
And then made the mistake of trying to sit up.
A new burst of pain swept through her, causing her head to swim, and her vision immediately wavered again. The next thing she knew, the Pack's physician was tucking pillows behind her and forcing her to recline against them.
"You took a nasty blow to the head, so it's going to be a bit before you can move around so fast," he told her. Sarah nodded in understanding, then flinched when pain shot through her again.
"What happened?" she whispered.
"You were attacked," Michael answered.
"I know that," she said. "I meant after. How did I get here?"
Michael's attention appeared to sharpen as she said that, though, give her blurred vision, she couldn't be sure entirely sure.
"You know you were attacked?" he stated in a hard voice. She winced again, and he deliberately softened his voice. "How do you know?" he asked.
"I remember feeling something hard hit me," she told him crossly. "I didn't see who it was, though. They were behind me." The older male grumbled in frustration. "What?" she demanded.
"The scene was obliterated by the tide coming in," he explained. "We don't know who did this to you, other than they were angry at you. Though why that might be is a mystery, as well. No one we've talked to seems to have held any kind of grudge to you. At least, not that they're admitting." He gave her a long look, which, even through her foggy vision, clearly told Sarah that he was hoping she had some ideas. She didn't.
"You don't think Mark, Felix or Edith might have done this?" he pressed.
Sarah chewed her lip while she thought about his question. Could any of the three have done this?
"I don't think so," she said slowly. "I mean, they were pretty obnoxious all week. Everyone kept having to take time out to correct them, or tell them to pipe down. That sort of thing. I just ignored them, and they seemed to ignore me."
"And except for some latent resentment on the part of Edith, that's pretty much what they told us," stated Alrik as he entered the room and sat down. "Edith's parents gave her an alibi, so it can't be her. Perhaps Mark and Felix were lying to us, but I doubt it. They're too inexperienced to know how to hide their emotions from other werewolves, and there's no way they would ever be able to hide them from me. So, it has to be someone else, and I highly suggest that we drop them as suspects and move on." This last was directed at Michael, who looked away from his Alpha, but couldn't hide his embarrassment completely.
Alrik turned his attention on Sarah, who did her best to not tremble beneath his gaze. Everyone said he was a just, kind leader, but she couldn't help but be afraid of someone so much stronger than herself. Every time she was in his presence, it felt as if she were standing on the edge of an abyss, looking down.
"With your permission, I'd like to try something," he began. "As you said that you do remember being attacked, there might be other things that you noticed that you aren't aware of. I might be able to work through your memories and find those things, if they exist at all. I know this will be difficult for you, having me in your head, so I understand if you don't want to do it. However, you should know that we haven't been able to uncover any information from more traditional lines. In the interest of catching them, you, quite literally, might be our only hope."
Sarah swallowed hard. Could she do it? Let the Alpha so deep into her mind that she could hide nothing from him? Was it even worth it?
"I would also like to add that they might try again," Alrik put in. "Obviously, they were unsuccessful with this attempt, and they might count themselves lucky and change their mind. However, I wouldn't want to risk it. Would you?"
Sarah admitted that sounded likely, and with her not knowing how to use her senses as completely as possible, at least according to Niel, it would be all too easy for her attacker to sneak up on her again.
So here it is. Are you going to be a coward right now, and risk your life later on? Or are you going to swallow your fear and deal with the big, scary Alpha finding out all your deepest, darkest secrets?
And honestly, do you really have any deep, dark secrets that are so bad you don't want anyone to know about them?
She lifted her head and stared the Alpha in the eye. "Alright. I can't promise I won't freak out, but I'll try."
Thank God I forced Niel to show me the records of Brianna's "memory retrieval" exercise, Alrik thought as he guided Sarah through the preliminary steps. Even he wasn't sure he could replicate it—Brianna being a Wild Child as well as only having performed the exercise with her twin were two variables that might be the key to why the whole thing worked in the first place for them. Still, Niel's notes were descriptive enough that Alrik thought it was possible.
When Sarah was as relaxed as she was going to get, Alrik closed his eyes and reached out to her mind. She was fully open to him, but he felt her natural barriers tremble with strain and fear. He had to get this over and done with as soon as possible, and only hoped the her injury didn't create any kind of barriers like those that had been in Brianna's head.
He descended quickly, though gently, into Sarah's subconscious, then paused to get his bearings.
He was in awe; he could feel everything there was about this female. Nothing was hidden from him. All her hopes, fears, concerns, and joys were at his fingertips. Alrik forced himself to remember he was there for one task alone, and to leave Sarah's secrets to herself. Quickly, he searched through her mind, looking for where her memories were stored.
The answer, of course, was everywhere, but the memory of being attacked on the beach was freshest and currently occupied the majority of her consciousness. It was less than a second, but he went through it over and over again, gleaning every bit of information he could, before he was satisfied before he returned to his own body.
Alrik opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Sarah was curled up in a ball, sobbing, while Michael stroked her hair.
"I'm sorry," he apologized.
"Is that just an 'I'm sorry for torturing you,' or 'I'm sorry for torturing you for no good reason'?" Michael snarled.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," he clarified. "But, I do know now who attacked Sarah, so it wasn't for no good reason."
James turned around at the sound of the Alpha calling his name. He'd been dreading this, had known that he'd be caught out eventually, but hadn't known what else to do. The attack on Sarah had been a mistake, and he'd already taken steps to make sure nothing like it happened again.
He turned around slowly and faced his Pack's leader.
"I'd like it if you clarified something you said," Alrik requested. "You suggested that the attack on Sarah might have been a mistake, that the attacker might have thought she was someone else, because of where they were, and because her face was all covered up."
James nodded.
"So tell me, how did you know Sarah's face was covered?"
Damn. He thought he had been clever enough to lure the Alpha away from the truth, but his own carelessness had become his own downfall. He should have just confessed everything as soon as they told him they found Sarah.
The only option was to come clean now, and hope he would be granted mercy.
"I didn't mean for this to happen," he assured his Alpha. "I didn't even know, until after it was all done."
"When Mattie came to you, is that it?" Michael suggested. James nodded.
"She thought Sarah was Laura," he confessed. "Mattie thought I was cheating on her with Laura. I kept tell her that we were just friends—had never been anything more than that—but she wouldn't believe me. She became obsessed with Laura. After we came back from the peninsula and she heard how we all fussed over Laura when she got hurt by the bear—well, it was like all she could hear was that I had fussed over Laura. She became convinced that Laura had purposely hurt herself just so she could claim my attention. She said that I had to choose between the two of them. I was so sick and tired of the fact that nothing I said ever mattered, so I broke up with her. I guess she went crazy and went looking for Laura.
"She came back last night, and at first I wouldn't see her, but then she told me about how she thought she found Laura on the beach, doing one of her sensory-deprivation meditations, but after, realized it was Sarah. She was hysterical. She didn't know what to do, and I just . . ."
"You tried to protect her," the Alpha finished for him.
"Yeah." James sniffed and swiped his arm across his eyes. "I love her. I really do love her. I though breaking up with her might scare her straight, but I never would have done if I thought something like this might happen. It was always talk before, with her. She never actually did anything."
The Alpha sighed heavily. "Where is she now, James?" he asked sadly. "You know what needs to be done now, don't you?" James nodded. "So where is she?"
James told him, hating himself for betraying Mattie, as well as for the relief that swept through him now that it was finally over.
"Could you make it quick?" he asked.
"I always do," his Alpha replied.