Total pages in book: 202
Estimated words: 193561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 968(@200wpm)___ 774(@250wpm)___ 645(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 968(@200wpm)___ 774(@250wpm)___ 645(@300wpm)
“I don’t want no trouble.” He raises his hands up high.
I look past him and see some camping stoves and canisters of propane along with shelving holding bags, boxes, and milk crates filled with supplies. A large pot sits on one stove, simmering with soup. There’s another stove with a smaller pot also containing soup. The place is lit with battery-powered hanging lights.
“These guys are here to help,” Luke says. “Hopefully one of the things they do is get rid of you!” Luke looks to me. “He likes to bully those smaller than him. ‘Specially kids.”
This guy looks weak, non-threatening, but this kid clearly has a problem with him.
“Oh yeah?” I back the guy into the wall. “You pick on kids?”
“Hell yeah he does,” Luke asserts.
I bare my teeth.
“Disciplining isn’t bullying,” Larry stammers, looking anywhere but at me or the alphas at my back. “The whole pack looks after the youngins. I’m often tasked with that. And not just me!”
“Where is everyone?” I demand.
“Our alpha and his team are on a mission.” He shrugs. “I’m just the cook. Making today’s dinner for the pack.”
Linc moves closer and his nostrils are flaring as he looks at the soup cooking on a propane stove. I peer into the pots and see it’s broth with some beans and rice in it. But there’s a cloyingly sweet smell in the space, too.
“What the fuck is in this shit?” Linc begins rifling through shelves sniffing bags and containers of dry goods and grabs a paper bag and turns to me, holding it out. “This.”
Me and Linc peer in. It looks like loose spices. There’s a tablespoon sitting in the bag and it smells mossy but also sweet.
Linc looks to Larry. “You’re putting this in the soup?” He gestures to the big pot, then looks to the smaller pot and his nostrils flare.
The guy is sweating profusely. He’s also pissing his filthy pants.
“My alpha’s orders. Thu-there are fuh-folks that get that soup and some thu-that guh-get thu-that soup. Sick ones get that one. It’s mah-medicine.”
I get in the guy’s face and back him up, tilting my head to glare straight into his eyes. This fucker knows that’s not medicine; I’m sure of it.
I step away from the puddle of piss at his feet.
“Where is everyone who’s here?” I demand.
He’s looking off to the side, showing me his neck. “Got some sick folks in bed. Others are looking after the sick ones mostly. Sittin’ around. D-doing some chores. Some of the pack is gone on a mission with our alpha. Some are off on a… another mission.”
“What medicine is this?” Linc demands.
“Don’t know. Just following orders,” the fucker lies.
“What do the tripwires do?” I demand.
He shrugs. “I’m just the cook.”
“Who’s in charge?” Linc clips.
“We’re just waiting on our alpha to come back from his mission.”
“Take us, show us where your people are,” I command and the guy shuffles along, us following.
I eyeball Luke and he looks ticked, also like he’s found some bravery, likely because we’re all at his back.
“Stop,” I tell Larry and open the door to another building. Six sets of triple bunks with thin mattresses on them. It looks like a prison-style barracks. I smell old blood, body odor, piss, and musty mattresses. The place also has the faint odor of Wyatt Meadows, though I can tell it’s been days or longer since he’s been here.
I move along while Mitch steps inside with his phone, being thorough with his filming.
We move past a dumping area with a rotting wolf smell coming from a faintly smoking burn pile. I’m smelling charred flesh.
“What’s been burnt there?” I ask.
“Dunno,” Larry shrugs, ambling along toward a large, newer looking modular home, but he’s not climbing the back steps, he’s walking past it.
I grab him by the scruff and glare into his eyes. I want fucking answers, damn it.
“What got burnt back there?”
Heat pools behind my eyes.
“Th-the dead,” he says, terrified, “We burn our dead.”
“What dead?”
“Any that die.”
“Why are they dyin’? At least two of your dead have been burnt back there in the past twenty-four hours.”
“Three,” Linc corrects.
“They’re sick,” Larry says, “Wyatt makes me feed the old, sick, and the useless the soup with that green leaf mix he makes me put into it. When they die, we haul them back there and burn the bodies.”
“He’s pickin’ off his pack one by one starting with the weakest? Why?” I demand.
“We’re low on resources. Maybe because he doesn’t have the resources to feed those that are no use to him.”
“They die as soon as you give it?” Linc calls out.
He stares at Linc blankly.
“Answer him,” I clip.
“It takes about a week, sometimes two,” he answers quickly. “I’m just following orders. If I don’t follow orders, I’ll be fed that soup, too. Or else he’ll just end me himself. His temper is shorter than usual right now.”