Just a Rogue

Amelia

We don’t see Corinne again after she goes back inside the cave when the sun has risen. We hear her, though. The microphones are remarkably sensitive, and we can almost picture what she is doing.

“I think she’s cleaning up,” Janine says, and I have to agree with her. She looks over at Theo and Evan. “Remember how messy that first cave was when we found it? I’ll bet it’s like that and she’s just trying to stay busy.”

Darlene nods. “Makes sense to me,” she says.

Me too. Nothing could be worse than having nothing to do while waiting for something terrible to happen. I’m glad there’s something for her to use to keep herself occupied.

While Evan and Theo are focused on the screens with the drone feeds, the Lunas and I start trying to guess what Corinne is doing. A rustling noise sounds like a bag of chips. A rattling noise sounds like a box of crackers. A scraping noise sounds like she is pushing a big box across the floor. We laugh a little when we hear her say “Ew!” and speculate that she must have found some bugs in something.

I realize, though, that Evan doesn’t seem to be appreciating our running commentary. His jaw is clenched so hard as he stares intently at the drone feed that he looks like he’s about to break teeth. Fine, we’ll stop. I catch Darlene’s eye, lift my eyebrows and tilt my head over in Evan’s direction. She purses her lips, and we fall silent.

The kitchen knows that our shift will last through lunchtime, so they are scheduled to bring a meal in here for us. They already have brought in some snacks, and have been coming by regularly with fresh coffee and tea. When it is lunchtime, then, it isn’t unexpected to have a couple of people come in with huge trays laden with food.

What is unexpected is who is holding the trays.

Darlene sees them first and bursts out laughing. “What is this?” she grins.

Alpha Ross smiles back at her and lays his tray on the table. “We heard you’d be working straight through lunch, and we wanted to eat with our mates.”

Alpha Kanen is grinning behind him. Janine leaps up and runs over to him, and he can barely get his tray set down before they are lost in a frantic clinch. Darlene meets my eyes briefly with a smile before her own mate grabs her.

Well, I might not be able to grab Dom physically, but if everyone gets a hug from their mate I want one too. I send him a quick image of holding my arms out to him, and he immediately obliges with an image of reaching out to me as well. In a moment I am in the middle of a very tangible daydream of kisses and hugs, reality shifting so that it feels like we are really together.

Mmmmm!

He laughs in my mind. “Are you trying to make me crash this drone?” he inquires, but I can tell he’s not alarmed about it. I check the screen over Theo’s shoulder, and see that the feed is steady, the drone camera moving smoothly up a road with trees surrounding it on both sides.

“You’re too good to crash it,” I think back to him. “I just wanted a hug. Ross and Kanen just brought in lunch, and the Lunas were snogging them, and I felt left out.”

“Ha!” he thinks. “The Alphas are reduced to serving lunch now? Have they been demoted to kitchen duty?”

I can’t keep a real smile off my face as I hold this invisible conversation with my mate. “I think they just missed their mates,” I tell him.

“I know how they feel,” he replies, and I flood him with all the love I have in me.

Evan

I suppose it’s hilarious that the Alphas are the ones that serve us lunch today, but I’m honestly too focused on what I’m doing to pay very much attention. I grunt out my thanks, grab something off the tray, and stuff it in my mouth barely noticing what it is.

The drone I am tracking is moving in a steady pattern back and forth from east to west, crossing the landscape to the north of the cave. The signal is in two parts. One is the actual video feed from the camera, and the other is a GPS signal showing exactly where the drone is located. I am keeping track of which areas it has covered. We won’t see from overhead in the cave’s immediate vicinity, because we don’t want the drones to be spotted in the sky there. But out in the surrounding area, there would be no reason to be suspicious even if the rogues did happen to spot us.

So far, we have seen nothing that seems unusual. Cars travel along roads, beachgoers surf or stroll, logging sites load timber onto trucks, customers go in and out of little shopping centers. Nothing that would appear to be the rogue gang.

Theo reaches over to get seconds of whatever he is eating, but his hand pauses and he retracts it, his eyes on the screen containing Dom’s drone feed. “Huh,” he says, leaning closer and frowning at the video.

I immediately lean over to see. “What?”

He points. “A car just turned off the road here, into the trees, but there isn’t a driveway or a road. I can’t see it now.” The drone video is moving past, and the location slips down off of the view beneath the screen. Everyone else is looking over as well.

Alpha Ross says, “Can you replay the video?”

“Hold on,” Amelia says, and I think maybe she is going to call or text Dom to ask him to steer the drone back in that direction. But she doesn’t pull out a phone. In half a minute, though, the video feed loops back around and returns to the area that Theo had been pointing at. It hovers there, and we all stare at the screen.

“Here,” Theo repeats, “I’m sure I saw a white car pull off here, but there’s nothing in front.”

“Could it have just been making a u-turn, and it drove away while we weren’t seeing the area?” Kanen asks.

“Maybe,” Theo says, and after another few seconds I suspect that they’re going to want Dom to get back to his drone’s route.

But then I see something. “Look,” I say, pointing over at Theo’s screen, a few yards east of where he said the car pulled off the road. Someone has emerged from beneath the trees and is walking east. Two people. No, now it’s five people. There are no buildings or anything in the direction they are heading.

Could this be the rogues?

Ross asks, “Can we get the video closer? A tighter shot?”

We don’t have the controls here, Dom will have to do it, and again I think maybe Amelia will call him or something. In a second, though, the camera seems to zoom in, and we can see more details. Oh, I see what’s happening. She’s using their mate thing to communicate with him. That’s convenient.

“Oh,” Ross says, “uh, good.”

The video starts tracking them exactly as it should be, giving us the best possible view of the people as they walk along. I hear Darlene murmur to Amelia, “How are you…?”

“I’m just showing him the feed,” Amelia whispers back, and I get the sense that Darlene bites off more questions.

We all stare at the screen. It’s got to be the rogues, or at least five of them. They are heading straight towards the cave, about a mile east of where they stopped their car. It looks like two men and three women, as best we can tell from overhead. Dom is carefully keeping the drone behind them so they won’t glance up and see it. They are only visible intermittently as they pass underneath the branches of trees, but we can see them when there is a break in the foliage.

The view dips a little lower. I think Dom is trying to give us a closer look, and the angle is no longer from directly overhead. We can see a few more details of the individuals. The male in front must be the leader, Xavier. One of the women walks next to him, then another male, then last are two females.

“That must be Lynette and Nova,” Darlene murmurs, “they match Corinne’s description.”

Then the angle dips a little further, providing some more details, and Janine says, with shock in her voice, “Are they… handcuffed?”

We all lean in, and I think she’s right. The two females in the back have their wrists held closely together, and the noon sun glints down on a flash of metal between them. Then we see what looks like a rope extending from the throat of one of the females, being held in the hand of the second male.

“Oh, god,” Amelia whispers, and we all feel the same as we realize what it is. It’s a leash.

These animals.

I feel a bitter anger climbing up my chest like acid. Corinne is there, in the cave, waiting for them, these beasts that are treating two women like nothing but property. My heart starts pounding, my palms start sweating, adrenaline starts pumping. All of my muscles clench, ready for action, my fight or flight response triggered on Corinne’s behalf, and there is absolutely nothing I can do but sit here and stare as the rogues approach her.

As soon as they get close enough for the webcam at the tree in front of the cave to pick them up, we all immediately shift our attention to the webcam feed. We can see even more. Xavier, the leader, is an absolute monster. He’s like some kind of gorilla, like King Kong, hairy and savage, and he is heading straight towards the woman I love.

The rogues suddenly all lift their noses in the air, sniffing, detecting, and I know that they can smell her. They know she’s in there.

My heart is about to burst straight out of my chest, it is pounding so hard. My fists are clenched so tightly that I feel my knuckles crack. I sense Amelia look over at me with concern.

The audio feed from the cave suddenly comes to life. It has been very silent for an hour or so, since Corinne apparently finished the organizing task she was working on in the cave. When the rogues have gotten to within a few feet of the entrance, the microphones are so sensitive that they pick up the sound of footsteps from outside.

Corinne hears it too. She must jump to her feet, for we hear a brief rush of movement. I hear her breathing, fast, shaky, terrified.

Then we can hear Xavier’s harsh, ugly voice. “Stay here,” he commands the other rogues, and we hear the rustling of the bushes as he ducks down into the entrance. He vanishes from the webcam view, as the other rogues look at each other in alarm.

The sound of Corinne’s silence, nothing more than two or three more rapid and shaky breaths, destroys me. I can picture her facing him with a calm expression, while I know that she is dying inside of terror. Why did I think I could passively observe this? My heart feels like it has entirely stopped.

We hear two more footsteps, then an unidentified rustle of motion, then the crystal clear and sharp sound of a brutal slap. He has struck her. That beast, that monster, has assaulted Corinne, has brutalized her delicate features. I almost feel it, I can imagine exactly what she is experiencing, and I don’t even notice my own motion as I leap up from my chair and back away from the table in horror.

I am gasping for air, wishing that I was there protecting her, but only listening, helplessly, as she begs for forgiveness. This is the worst thing I have ever experienced, this impotence in the face of danger to my woman, this inability to do one fucking thing to help her.

Then it gets worse. “Please forgive me!” she begs, and instead we hear another blow. A grunt is torn from her, and I am sure it is involuntary. I am very certain that she wants to remain silent rather than give him the satisfaction of sounding her pain.

There are more blows, all administered in a deadly silence. We haven’t heard Xavier speak since he entered the cave.

I think that my face is wet with tears, but it doesn’t matter, all that matters is that Corinne is being beaten and I can’t help. I’m startled when arms wrap around me from first one side and then the other, and I vaguely realize that Amelia and Darlene are standing with me, holding me, and I catch the slightest glimpse of Amelia’s face. It is streaked with tears too.

Corinne’s voice is heard again, crying out, “Please! Xavier! Please! I had to come back to you! I wanted to be with you again! I need you!”

Another blow, and this time it is accompanied by his furious voice. “You fucking bitch! You whore! Why would you come back stinking like this?” Another thud, and I think he is kicking her now, and all I can picture is her curled up on the ground in front of him, absorbing his violence.

Amelia and Darlene look at each other past my chest, while they both still cling to me, and I am sure we are all thinking the same thing. We were so careful to disguise our scent on her. He can’t possibly be smelling the pack, can he? No, we made certain of it.

But Corinne seems to have an answer. “I know I smell different!” she pleads desperately. “I can explain!”

Another blow.

This time her voice is thick with tears as she tries to speak. “Please! I smell it too! You’re smelling your baby! Xavier, I’m carrying your baby! I had to bring him back to his father!”

What?

Reality shifts. I hear a shrill ringing in my ears. My head is suddenly spinning so much that I can’t tell up from down, and it is only Amelia and Darlene hanging on to me that prevent me from crashing to the ground. I am so confused, so stricken, so horrified, that I can’t do anything but escape. I yank my arms away from them and bolt towards the door.