Page 2 of Wolf Cursed
“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed.
My dad swung his bloodshot gaze to mine. “Ash,” he said, and a flicker of awareness shot across his slackened face.
“It’s two in the morning, Dad. Those guys can’t be here for a good reason.”
More awareness. Then alarm.
My heart rate accelerated until it hurt my ribs.
“Should I get the go-bags?” I asked.
Dad insisted we keep a bag packed underneath the kitchen counter. If we’re ever found—by whom, I still had no idea—I was supposed to run, with or without him. I never actually thought that would happen, but now I wondered if maybe Dad had been right about monsters chasing us all along.
“It’s Vorack. Open the door, Joe,” one of the guys outside called. Not yelling exactly. Confident. Calculating. But no volume. Like a predator who knew he’d cornered his prey.
My dad scowled as some of the panic faded from his taut expression.
“Nah, we don’ need the bags,” he said, unable to meet my eyes. “This is something else.”
“Who’s Vorack?” I whispered.
“Get the hell off my property,” my dad yelled, ignoring my question.
“Not happening,” the man called back. “It’s time to settle your debt.”
“Shit,” my dad whispered, his eyes suddenly wide and no longer dilated.
“What debt?” I demanded in a heated whisper. When he didn’t answer, I grabbed his shirt sleeve and forced him to focus on me. “Dad, who are those guys?”
“Jus’ some guys I met at the bar,” he said, waving me off.
His answer should have made me feel better. Whatever ghosts my dad was convinced were chasing us from town to town and state to state, these guys weren’t it. Local bookies were not the demons my dad forced us to run from constantly. No, these guys were a very normal-looking evil; the kind my dad could have only brought on himself.
Anger eclipsed my fear, and I aimed it all at the one who deserved it.
“How much do you owe them?” I demanded, my breaths coming in short, raging bursts.
“Don’ worry ’bout it,” he insisted.
“Don’t worry about it? There are three angry bookies outside our door in the middle of the damned night, and you want me to not worry about it?”
My dad scowled. “Ash, go back to bed. I got this.”
He swayed, and I used my grip on his arm to steady him. Not easy, considering how much bigger he was than me. My dad had always been tall and built, but after years of drinking away his constant stress, he wasn’t the solid wall of muscle he used to be. Instead, he was a solid beer belly with a spare tire made of fast food—and a brain with a penchant for making stupid bets.
We’d already moved once because of his stupid gambling habit and his inability to pay up. Looked like we were doing it again. This time with nothing but the clothes on our backs. At least I had sweatpants on instead of just the nightshirt I sometimes wore.
Dad, on the other hand, wore nothing but a white tank and a pair of dirty jeans. And he was in desperate need of a shower—a luxury that was probably a long way off for us right about now even if we did make it out of here in one piece.
“You’re not opening that door,” I told him firmly.
My dad waved me off. “Id’ll be fine. I’ll jus’ git ’nother ’stention”
Shit. The slurring was not a good sign.
For a moment, I’d thought the danger of three goons on our doorstep in the middle of the night would sober him. But no such luck.
“Joe, I know you’re in there,” called the man outside. Vorack. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
