Page 34 of Drown My Sorrow

After that, we brought her to Nat, who owed us big time. And the rest was history.

Aspyn was legally an adult but dependent on her mother to live. And that bitch up and left her. Just took off for a better life, no warning, no words, just gone. Who does that? Perhaps if she’d lived in a city, she would have had a better chance of making a life, but out here on this island where everyone remembers her mother, the whore, she got no mercy.

Every time I think about Aspyn’s mother, I want to kill her.

I remember how it felt, that fear and the hunger that gnaws at you until you’d do almost anything to eat. The memory always returns when I’m worried. I’d looked into her eyes that night and knew she’d felt the same.

It shouldn’t affect me so, but I can’t get over that feeling of being alone in the dark, hungry cold and losing the battle. And I can’t forget the fear and horror of seeing Aspyn living the life I thought would kill me.

I finish my coffee, put the cup in the bin, and notice that my surfers have decided to be stupid after all.

Well, there is justice in the world. How fucking deliciously joyful.

I wave down Mitch Osland and climb into his car. The skinny guy is a massive pot smoker and hides his beta designation beneath a cloud of weed, but, right now, he’s going to help me catch a pack of pussy alphas who need a hiding.

We drive along, bobbing on the unsealed road. I get down to the beach we were at last night and ask Mitch to wait. I stand on the hill and watch the three of them paddling on their surfboards. They stop and look around before coming up to the beach and sitting down.

I pull out my phone and dial Shale’s number.

“Hey, bro, so, I’m telling ya, these guys are just getting more and more interesting. And fun. Really, really fun.”

“Oh?”

“They all got on their surfboards and tried to paddle away.”

Shale barks a laugh. “You’re kidding?”

“I’m looking at them from Lover’s Point, and they are resting up for the next part of their journey.”

I can almost feel Shale frown.

“Why are they going the wrong direction?”

“No one wants to go up against pack Daane, and I get the impression they’ve been getting on the nerves of some of the locals.”

“True, the laid back, chill alpha told Margot that she needed to learn how to count better. Everyone here knows Margot can’t see too well these days. Ezy, isn’t it? Yeah, that twat made her cry. How many times you seen that hard woman cry?”

“Did you hear that, Shale? Mitch has been monitoring them.”

“I heard.”

“What do you want me to do?” I peer at the beach. They have no water, no supplies. Absolute morons.

The bonds are a buzzy vibration of anger and panic. Nothing much has changed, but they are calming down a little bit. Yeah, I’m not going to let them get comfortable. Welcome to my hell, bitches.

“Follow them for now. As soon as we’re done, we’ll come join you.”

I hang up the phone and sit down. Mitch sits beside me and puts his chin on his hand.

“Who are they, anyway?”

“A pack of idiots.”

“Ahh, that clears it up.”

I ignore his sarcasm. Mitch is probably one of the few people on the island that I can tolerate and will allow to be sarcastic. But only because he saved Beau’s life when my brother was in dire need after being stabbed by an angry tourist.

“How far do you reckon they’ll get tonight?” I murmur.

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