Marcus looked down at the bloodied Tobias, then met Ms. Cheng's eyes. They both knew what they had to do. Marcus grabbed Tobias's arms, Ms. Cheng his legs, and together they lifted him up and carried him into the main bay of the garage. Through the open door, they hauled him to his truck and threw him into the bed like a sack of meat.
Tobias's chest was still rising and falling—he was breathing, at least, though barely conscious and badly injured.
"I really hope he doesn't drive a stick," Marcus muttered as he jumped into the driver's seat. He searched for the key and found it still in the ignition. Tobias probably hadn't thought he'd be here long. Marcus had never seen anyone as bloodied and broken as Tobias was. The kid should've run when he had the chance, but he didn't.
Marcus turned the key. Angry music exploded from the speakers. "Shit!" He slapped off the radio and CD player, killing the vibration that had rattled through the cab. Backing out of The Old Winchester Garage's parking lot, he headed down Route 22 toward Route 15, which would take him back to the main area of Corveth Harbor. Pine trees and farmland rolled past the windows before giving way to the city.
There was nothing in the truck he could use to help Tobias. The best thing—the only thing—was to get back to the cannery as fast as possible. Traffic slowed him down, but he wove between cars when he could. When the cannery finally came into view, his stomach dropped. A black SUV sat in the driveway—the same style Moira's goons drove. Something inside him said this wasn't good.
The silence in the truck gnawed at him as he drove, Ms. Cheng sitting wordlessly in the passenger seat. Maybe that's why Tobias had been blasting music earlier. Marcus parked and killed the engine. He and Ms. Cheng climbed out, grabbed Tobias from the bed, and carried him inside the cannery.
"Where can I put him?" Marcus asked, spotting Silas and Kara.
"Thank God you're okay!" Silas said.
"Shit," Raven muttered as he spotted the almost lifeless Tobias.
"Follow me," he added, leading them to a makeshift emergency room.
Marcus and Ms. Cheng laid Tobias out on a giant metal table. Kara gathered what supplies she could—disinfectant and bandages. She looked at Tobias, sighed, and shook her head.
"You and Raven don't need matching wounds," Kara said as she wrapped his upper torso. He was regaining consciousness.
He sat up, looked around, and spotted Raven, Ms. Cheng, and Marcus. "So we gonna plan this shit or what?" Tobias asked. His vision was coming back. He looked around the room and knew he was at the cannery, but he didn't think he'd ever been in this room before.
"You need to rest," Kara said, and she shot Tobias a motherly look. She knew how stubborn he was, and that meant he was only going to rest for a few hours before he was on his feet again. Now she couldn't really do anything about that—he was his own person after all. She just wished these two hadn't gotten into fights today.
"You can take residence up on the couch for now," Kara said as she helped Tobias to the couch that was a few rooms away. He was still hobbling, but he felt more stable than he did before. Kara did a good job at what she did. Every group needed a medic, and he honestly didn't know that Kara knew how to do this kind of stuff.
Tobias climbed up onto the sofa with Kara's help and laid down. The blood on his clothes had dried off, and someone was going to need to go back to his motel room to find him a change of clothes—he couldn't be wearing these any longer. He had noticed that it looked like a massive fight had gone down here earlier; there were a lot of broken things inside the cannery. One thing that he had noticed that was unchanged was the maps on the pool table. Those hadn't moved.
Silas, Raven, Marcus, Ms. Cheng, and Kara were all gathered by the sofa with Tobias, and he looked at all of them.
"It was weird," Tobias said. "Moira had hired these two goons. They were were-creatures but not like us. It was like they were always in their were-form and they were strong as hell." He paused, his jaw tightening. "Almost didn't make it out of there."
Raven looked at Tobias, wondering if he should mention that they'd also gotten jumped by some of Moira's goons. For a lady, she had big fucking balls—sending your goons to the enemy's hideout to try and take them out took guts. Right now, though, he felt like he should keep that information to himself. Tobias didn't need that worry on top of everything else.
"Just remember we have two days to plan this," Raven said as he walked away from the group. "If shit hadn't gone down the way it did today, we probably would have a plan. Can't predict everything." He knew what he had to do with the werewolf now in the back of that SUV. A present for The Graves.
\-----
Moira was sitting in the library when her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket and put it to her ear. "Hello," she said.
Nothing but static answered her at first, then a voice cut through—distorted and unnatural, nothing like a human or were-beast. It sounded like it was coming through a voice changer.
"Your soldiers have fallen," the voice said.
The line went dead.
That bothered her. She'd sent werewolves to the cannery to get the jump on Tobias and his friends, and she'd hired outside freelancers to kidnap Marcus and Ms. Cheng. She wondered how that had gone and whether Tobias had taken the bait. Hell, that bird probably thought it was a trap and went anyway. They were so predictable.
She wasn't really surprised that her soldiers had fallen. She was angry, but calm. She pushed herself up out of her chair and walked across the room to where a whisky decanter sat on a table. She grabbed a glass and poured whisky into it, then began to swish the liquid around inside.
But one thing bothered her more than the failure itself. How had someone gotten her number? That was a well-guarded secret, even inside her own social circle. No one outside her inner circle had it. No one.
She swirled the liquid around in her glass and took a sip, then walked from the library into the main room. This space had couches, a fireplace, and a giant table for gathering and talking. It looked like a common area. Now she should check on the girl.
"I should have my connections investigate the birds," she said to herself as she took another sip of whisky. She walked over to the giant table and sat down at the head of it.
A few of the brutes had come into the common room and they were talking among themselves. They hadn't noticed that Moira was sitting at the table, and they were having a casual conversation about the rumors they'd heard about their comrades dying at the hands of the birds.
"Never thought it'd go down like this," Viktor muttered, shaking his head.
Dmitri let out a low whistle. "You and me both. That Tobias kid... he's something else entirely."
"Right?" Viktor leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "The way he tore through those hired guns? Like they were nothing. We're talking professionals here, and he dropped them in minutes."
Moira didn't care for hearing this and she was questioning if these people were competent enough to do what they were supposed to. She hasn't seen Asmodeus for about a day and she was really wondering what he was doing. Could he had been the caller? No, that wouldn't make any sense and maybe it was time to call The Graves girls father. He definitely could put an end to Tobias Black.
A visit to The Corveth Harbor Police Department might be in order, a social visit might be nice. She liked talking with Erick, he was an alright guy but she feared that he didn't have control of his officers at times.
\-----
Ella had gotten used to her isolation in the cell—the concrete walls, metal chair and tables almost felt like home. There had been no movement outside of her cell for a few hours, a metal tray with half-eaten food sitting on the table. Every once in a while she thought she could hear children playing outside of her cell, but that was probably her mind playing tricks on her to help her survive.
Now she knew this was an attempt to break her down, to make the forced marriage to Asmodeus seem like a good idea. It wasn't working.
"I haven't lost faith in you, Tobias," Ella said as she switched from lying down to sitting on the edge of the bed. There had to be a way out of these four walls. She had noticed that all of her cutlery was plastic. Did they think she was going to try and make a prison break? There was no dirt or anything in her cell for her to dig at.
Her thoughts wandered for a bit, mostly about Asmodeus. How would she feel about him if he was a good guy? She didn't think he was ever a nice guy, but he could've been. Now if there was a way to go to an alternate universe where Tobias was a monster and Asmodeus was the good person, it might be interesting to say the least.
Some people were born evil and others were made that way by society and their parents, and she was wondering if Moira had twisted Asmodeus into the bastard he is today or if he had always been like this. She didn't like it when he was in the cell with her. He could go fuck himself for all she cared.
A few hours had passed and Raven walked into the clubhouse with a duffle bag. Tobias was just coming around, he sat up and then heard something being thrown his way. He blinked and looked up. "Huh?" He asked as he watched the duffle bag hit his feet. He picked it up and unzipped it. A change of clothes he really did need that. He looked at Raven.
"You got a shower around here?" Tobias asked Raven.
"Just the bathroom." Raven said as he pointed towards a room down the hallway. It was a cannery not a place for people to stay, might need to throw a shower into this shit hole. Raven also knew they needed to find another place to play home base. Someplace that Moira wouldn't think about looking for them at.
"Alright." Tobias said as he disappeared down the hallway.
"You going to tell him?" Silas asked Raven.
"Nope." Raven said as he shook his head.
"He's going to figure it out. I mean look at this place it's fucking trashed." Silas said as he motioned towards the area they were standing in.
inside of the bathroom Tobias ran the sink and stripped off his bloody shirt and threw it on the ground and looked into the mirror and he could see his upper torso all bandaged up. He also caught a look at his face, a big gash in his forehead. He saw himself. His eyes were filled with nothing but darkness and regret at this point.
"Shit." Tobias said as he let the sink fill up with warm water, and he found a washcloth and a bar of soap sitting on the sink. He began to wash up. All he could think about was Ella, and he knew that he was going to get her back, even if it might kill him. He wasn't going to let The Graves win.