Outliers

She wasn’t looking for a knight, she was looking for a sword.

- Atticus

It rained for nearly our entire journey home - heavy torrential rain that saturated the earth so much so that when we finally made it onto Colorado territory; it made it nearly impossible to drive along the narrow dirt paths that lead to the main house. We had barely stopped to rest during the night and hadn’t bothered to set up a tent to camp. It would have been impossible to stay dry. So instead, Thane and I had slept uncomfortably in the compact car for only a couple of hours before he insisted we continued driving. The sooner we arrived home, the better.

It was as we had crossed into the inner territory and were approaching the field where the main house, training grounds, and cabins were that we caught up with the returning trainees. The rain had begun to ease by now, and I could see their blurry forms through the wind-shield. Human forms, not wolves, greeted us. They had all shifted back and were standing still as I noticed Sandra and Lorcan greeting them.

Except Sandra’s expression twisted into a scowl while Lorcan next to her stood stiffly, arms crossed. Zahra and Taron looked tense as they listened intently to whatever Lorcan was saying, but it was hard to hear above the sound of the rain hitting the car.

“What’s happening?” I asked Thane.

The car continued onwards, tires struggling in the mud, until we had a clear view of the field and the sight of a large gathering of enforcers outside the main house could be seen. Thane halted the car and stepped out into the rain without a word, the car still running and the driver’s side door left wide open. I could only stare after him with wide eyes as I struggled to unbuckle my seatbelt and follow him.

Within seconds, Thane was drenched from the rain, his clothes saturated with strands of his hair sticking to his forehead and the sides of his face. When he reached his Head Hunter and Head Trainer, the wolves only gestured towards the main house and Thane was off once again, leaving me behind.

The rain was like ice, enough to have goosebumps break out across my skin. Numb fingers pushed back wet, red hair from my face as I approached Sandra, Lorcan, and the others. All looking as tense as each other and talking furtively amongst themselves. I spotted Nero easily amongst our training group, but noticed that Daniel and the other two Nevada wolves were absent.

Nero caught my eye, and noticing my quizzical expression only shook his head and mouthed the words, ‘Ask Adriel’, pointing over in the direction Thane had gone.

Indeed, squinting through the rain, I could see Nero’s uncle waiting impatiently for his Alpha to reach him, the scowl marring his expression foreign on a man usually full of smiles and mischief. The wolf I knew didn’t seem to be present at all, and in his place stood the sombre Beta I had first met at the Alpha meetings.

So I stalked towards them, feet sinking into the sodden dirt, legs caked in mud and rain. Even my black shorts were not spared from the grime, my fast pace splashing muddy water up to my hips. When I reached them, Thane didn’t so much as turn towards me as Adriel explained the situation, but muttered quickly and quietly, “Benjamin Russo has escaped.”

The crowd of enforcers stood just a step away, listening intently to every word from their beta, waiting for their next command.

Russo and his mate — who had been locked away in a cabin and guarded by two enforcers at all times — had escaped their holding. Apparently, they had managed to overpower their guards, killing one and injuring the other. The surviving enforcer had been found only ten minutes ago when others were sent to rotate shifts, but the attack had happened almost an hour ago before the enforcer was knocked unconscious.

“He must have had help,” Adriel said, his scowl never lessoning. His blond shoulder-length hair was loose from its usual tied back style, soaked and sticking the length of his neck. Small strands were plastered to his jaw and face as the wind picked up and changed direction, assaulting our faces with rain. “It’s unlikely Russo and his mate were able to overpower them alone. But we’ve had no sign of trespassing wolves on the territory.”

I stepped closer to Thane, shamelessly using his large stature to shield me from the rain.

“How many of the trainees stayed behind? Who didn’t attend the Mating Rotations?” I asked with a frown, drawing Adriel’s attention, as well as the surrounding enforcers.

“You think it was one of the trainees that helped them?” An enforcer I didn’t know spoke up.

“You’re missing three Nevada trainees right now.” I gestured across the field over to my training group. “Only one of which I recall seeing at the Rotations.”

“Daniel,” Thane muttered beside me, neck arched over to trainees as he scoured the group with a glare of his own, looking just as sombre as his Beta.

I had seen how much Daniel cared for Riley first hand - and I had seen the anger he felt towards Russo for threatening Riley’s safety. I couldn’t believe he would do anything to aid his escape. Yet… he was unaccounted for.

“Shit.” Adriel cursed, shoulders slumping in exhaustion. “What an absolute shit show. What do we do?”

“Send everyone out,” Thane sighed, nodding at the enforcers. “Including the trainees. I want everyone searching for Russo, his mate, and the three Nevada wolves. Search in groups. Your enforcers out by the outer boundaries of the territories with you, trainees searching at the inner boundaries with Taron, Zahra and Lorcan. Sandra and I will split up and take the rest of the enforcers. Sandra takes lead.”

Adriel nodded firmly, already turning towards the enforcers as Thane grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the house, only glancing behind us to call out towards Nero and gesture for him to follow us. As we grew closer, I realised Riley sat on the porch with three enforcers surrounding him. The young boy seemed shaken — clearly concerned about Russo’s whereabouts — but was otherwise unharmed.

“I need you to stay inside with Riley and Nero, okay?” Thane murmured, pulling me into his arms with his head stooped towards me. Rain battered against his face, the wind whipping his wet hair violently. There was a deep tension locked in his jaw. His eyes were hard, and his mouth was set in a thin line. He seemed furious… no… not furious. Worried.

“Because it’s safe?” I asked, cupping his jaw in my hand. He leant into the slight gesture of affection, eyes closing as he allowed himself to sigh and arch his shoulders further into me.

“No,” he said, arms tightening around my waist. “Because I trust you more than anyone else, and I know you place similar trust in Nero. Riley is untrained and vulnerable. I need you to protect him.”

I smiled at that, my heart warming at the knowledge that he had genuine respect for my skills as a fighter, that even though we were mates, he didn’t want to hide me away to keep me safe.

“I’ll see you soon,” I assured. Leaning up to place a kiss against his cheek.

He offered me a bittersweet smile and moved quickly to capture my lips with his own before I could move away. It was a brief kiss, one I didn’t want to end. Not when I knew he was about to run out into the woods in search of Benjamin Russo and whoever aided him.

“Stay safe.”

***

The three of us, Riley, Nero and I, sat in Riley’s bedroom in absolute silence. Riley was on his bed, knees up against his chest, eyes set intently on the window that gave him a view towards the trees where the majority of the enforcers and trainees had disappeared. Nero was laying down on his back in the middle of the room, arms and legs spread like a star as he stared up at the ceiling and I sat by the closed door, my back against the adjacent wall, twirling my knife in my hands as we waited. Waited, waited and waited for someone to return, or for Russo.

It was hard to guess what to expect. Nero had bets on who of the inner pack would be first to find Russo and his mate - the concept of the male escaping them was not one he entertained. He had a lot of faith in Thane and his pack. So far, Sandra was the believed victor. She was, after all, one of the best hunters I had ever known. If anyone were to find Russo, it would be her.

But I wasn’t so sure he would be captured. If Russo truly had fled, he would have had an hour’s head start. Thane was fast, but if Russo was travelling in wolf form, he could have made it close enough to the pack’s borders before anyone even noticed him missing. The likelihood of being caught now was slim. If Russo had fled, that is.

I couldn’t ignore the sinking feeling in my gut that suggested a far more insidious option. A man who was so intent on stealing power that he was willing to murder his own Alpha would surely be insane enough to risk his freedom just to murder the next wolf in line to that power. Thane was smart to leave Riley protected, but I couldn’t help but worry that he’d had made a careless choice in choosing only Nero and I.

Riley could be in serious danger, and he had left a young, barely trained wolf and me to guard him. Not exactly a powerful combination.

“It’s been twenty minutes,” Nero remarked, wrist watch raised to his squinting eyes.

Twenty minutes they had been searching, which meant those that were in the lead — Thane, Sandra, Adriel, Lorcan — were now all twenty minutes away should anything happen back at the pack house. The sinking feeling in my gut didn’t lessen.

Riley glanced at Nero briefly, acknowledging he had heard the young wolf speak, but turned back towards the window. He had been staring outside so intently for the entire twenty minutes - as if he was expected to see something. His expression had been warped by worry the entire time.

“Why do you keep staring outside?” Nero asked.

’Who are you expecting to see? The returning enforcers... or Benjamin Russo?’ I wanted to add.

“What else is there to do?” Riley mumbled, though a frown remained knitted across his brow.

Nero’s eyes narrowed on the younger boy. “Fair point.”

“It’s probably best we stay quiet,” I said, speaking up for the first time since we all sat down, in a sharp tone. Nero pushed himself up into a sitting position and first looked down at the knife in my hands, then eyed the door beside me which I was guarding. He nodded once, expression sobering.

He seemed more alert now, mirroring my behaviour. I didn’t for a second want to drop my guard. Especially as the longer we waited, the more certain I grew that something terrible was going to happen.

It was still raining; a miserable backdrop to the day. It fell heavy from a dark grey sky that made it seem as if it were a late evening rather than early morning, the patter against the windowpane loud and distracting.

The rain was so loud that I almost didn’t hear it. Footsteps.

Light, slow footsteps on the staircase. Not ascending from the ground floor but descending, coming from the second floor of the house.

I froze from my position on the floor, knife now firmly in one hand at my side as I gestured silently towards Nero and Riley to catch their attention.

Someone was in the house.

I all but pressed my entire body to the door, listening intently to locate the intruder. It was hard, with my hearing less sensitive than a usual wolf, the sound of the rain, and the almost silent way the intruder managed to move through the house.

The footsteps had stopped, and silence greeted me.

But they were closer now. They were close enough for me to finally scent them.

And I knew the full-blooded wolf would be able to smell us.

“We need to move.” I surged towards the other side of the room, pushing Nero in front of me. “Out the window, both of you. Right this second.”

Silence was no use any more when I knew we had already been found. And every second now counted towards our escape.

Riley had already opened the window, one leg swinging out and then the boy was jumping haphazardly towards the ground as if he’d been doing so all his life, landing with a roll onto the grass below.

The door burst open behind us, wood splintering as the lock on Riley’s bedroom door gave way and Benjamin Russo’s bulky but haggard looking body filled the doorway and grinned at me with such mirth that I shivered.

“Emily,” he greeted, voice deep and smooth - as if he wasn’t covered in dirt with a visibly bleeding claw mark that had ripped through his shirt. His thinning grey hair seemed thinner somehow, in the short time that he had been detained by Colorado, and his skin no longer had a deep tan but looked sickly pale. As a result, the scar that slashed down the left side of his face looked more brutal than ever, shining silver under the dim lighting in Riley’s bedroom.

He stood with confidence and eyed me as if he weren’t an injured male facing against a female who had trained all her life to prove she was better than an average wolf, to prove that despite any prejudice she had faced from packs like Nevada, she didn’t need to shift to kick someone’s ass.

But I didn’t have anything to prove right now, and I sure as hell didn’t care about his shitty opinion of me.

So without responding to the cocky male, in one move, I firmly shoved Nero out of the window and threw myself out after him.

[ a bit shorter than usual but it’s all kicking off now, and we’re so so close to the end of the book which is heart-breaking to be honest ]