Page 125 of Claimed

Jase’s truck pulls up and it’s just him in it.

It’s been forever, it seems, waiting here for news.

“C’mon, everybody.” He gestures to be followed. “You’re with me, Stacy,” he adds, getting out of his truck, moving around and opening the door for me. His expression is grim.

It’s been a long while of waiting here, feeling fidgety, worrying about what might be happening on the other side of the fences.

I’ve been feeling pulsing tension from Grey in my chest at an extreme level, so I know whatever is on the other side isn’t good.

“Cat?” Jase calls. “Drive the van to the front gate but stay inside until one of ours comes out for you, please, yeah?”

“Got it, Jason,” she replies, already on the move.

“Gus? Lock up Jared’s camper and tow it with us. Follow with everyone else, will ya? Nothing left behind here.”

“Yup,” Gus says.

I shakily clip my seatbelt.

Jase looks angry. Very.

***

“Watch where you’re walking. Right behind me, yeah? We had to snip some trip wires, and I don’t want to take any chances in case any were missed. There’s noisemakers out here, too and I don’t know if we got ‘em all.”

“Okay,” I say, anxiety pulsing inside me as we go through opened back gates. It definitely smells worse here than it did when I was last here.

“Everyone’s in the big building with all the tables,” Jase tells me.

“Mess hall?” I ask.

“Yup,” he replies, expression harder than I’ve ever seen it. “Rounded ‘em all up so we’ve got everyone in a central zone.”

I follow Jase past the training area, some of the storage buildings, and the canteen where the men drink and get rowdy, and I’m passing more piles of twisted metal, junk, and debris than even before, past Wyatt’s house and that dreaded cabin behind it. It’s painted what used to be a sunny-looking yellow, or so I thought when I was too young to know what went on in there, too young to be sent into the now grayish with peeling yellow paint building that feels like it sits under a permanent cloud.

My senses sharpen as I pick up the scents in our largest building. The mess hall acts as a central meeting place, is where everyone started taking meals together, and this long building separates the village’s back end from the figure-eight road where all the pack members’ homes are.

Ahead of the figure-eight road is a line of mature trees and in front of that, the wood gate that blocks the residences from the business zone. It used to be that the junk was contained ahead of that fence, but in the last few years, it’s built up everywhere. It always smells like an old mechanic’s garage here but now it also smells of sulfur, ammonia, vomit, rotting meat.

My emotions are all over the place. Things are very wrong here. Even more wrong than usual.

Instead of going into the mess hall where I scent a lot of people, Jase mutters that he’s walking me to Grey by the trailers and cabins.

When I spot Grey outside my modular, where I lived since Father died and Wyatt moved me out of his house, my belly lurches.

Grey’s eyes are on me, but his cheeks are streaked with red. He’s pacing, fuming. Blood has been coming out of his eyes, though it looks like it’s now dry. He stops when he sees me and huffs out a hard exhale, eyes flashing from silver to shiny silver and three red sparks flare out from above his head and burn to ash.

Concerned, I hurry to get to him faster, and he’s doing the same, storming in my direction, then suddenly wrapping his arms around me too tight, pressing his mouth to my forehead. The blood on his t-shirt is still wet, but I know by the scent it’s his own blood and he’s not bleeding anywhere so it’s clearly from eye blood vessels popping out of anger. He’s sweaty. He’s shaking with that anger. My chin is tilted up and now our eyes are connected and the fire in his is raging.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

He blows out a hard exhale. “This. This fuckin’ place is wrong.”

My shoulders slump. “I know.”

He blows out another breath looking like he’s trying to calm himself.

“A lot of sick folks, wife. A lot. Gonna need all hands on deck to help Cat with working on helping them.”

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