Fates Must Be Kidding

In pursuit

It's already 3:30 am when I get back to my room, and I am too pissed off to go to sleep. There is no point in even trying. I go to the gym to take out at least some of my frustrations on the punching bag. An hour later I'm feeling a bit better. I still have plenty of time before our training, so I take a nice long bath with lots of bubbles. I relax my sore muscles and almost fall asleep, but knocking on my door startles me awake. I wrap my fluffy towel around me and answer the door. Of course, it is Gabriel. I wait for him to say something, but he just gulps and looks me up and down. For f***s sake, it's not like I'm naked! I check to make sure that everything is covered. Yep, it is! I clear my throat to snap him out of it.

"Right, sorry. We have a problem?" he finally forces out.

"We do?" I cross my arms on my chest to give him some attitude while also making sure that the towel stays in place.

"There...there was another disappearance last night, on the Silver Fangs territory, twenty two young wolves gone," he finally gets himself under control. "I'm about to be read in, I think you guys should be present".

"Give us five minutes," I turn around and close the door in his face. I send out an emergency alert to everyone and tell them to get dressed for a mission. Less than five minutes later we are outside. We follow Gabriel to a conference room at the Council building. Only two seats at the table are available, so we just line up against the wall. As soon as Gabriel sits down, a guy standing near the huge screen at the front of the room starts his update. In short, twenty two young pack members disappeared without a trace at night. Pack trackers weren't able to find a trail. Also, the Council's intelligence unit has flagged three possible locations in the vicinity of the pack that may or may not be used by the Facility assholes. Looks like we are hitting the road again. 

"The Vipers and I are leaving within an hour. I need you to monitor all three locations and nearby areas, also contact packs and covens neighboring the Silver Fangs, tell them to be on high alert. Set up a conference call with the Council members and read them in. Contact me right away if there are any developments," he orders and gets up. That's our queue to leave as well. He catches up with us on the steps outside.

"In forty minutes at your place?" he asks me. I nod and we split up. As usual, we get ready in no time, we are always one foot out the door. As a result, we have more than enough time for our breakfast. Gabriel shows up right as we are loading our bags. I get settled in my favorite seat in the front row near the window and put my hood up, I'm planning to catch up on my sleep. I feel someone occupy the seat right next to me, and I know it's Gabriel. He taps my thigh gently to get my attention. I look at him and he starts, "About last night..." I cut him off right there, "Now is neither the place nor the time!" That shuts him up, so I turn away and lean against the window.

Three and a half hours later I'm woken up by Ricky's loud "Border in ten minutes!" I stretch out my arms and open my eyes, and at first I can't understand where I am. I look down and see that I'm laying on muscular thighs. I sit up right away. s**t, I slept across two seats, one of which was occupied by Gabriel. I have no idea how that happened!

"Sorry about that!" I mumble.

"No problem, you didn't drool...too much," he jokes, but I leave it unanswered. He stretches out his long legs, and I feel bad for making him sit motionless for so long. Actually, I have no idea how long it was, and I'm not going to ask!

Soon we are approached by a border patrol, and Gabriel steps out to talk to them. They let us through, and we drive straight to the pack house, where we are greeted by the leadership of the pack. After quick introductions we are led to the accommodations of the pack members who vanished. We look around, and they were absolutely right, no sings of break in or struggle. I ask pack warriors to pair up with each member of my team and send them in different directions to look for clues. Beta Jax volunteers to accompany me, which I accept. He seems nice and quite easy on the eyes, even though the last part has absolutely no relevance right now. After half an hour of pointless wandering around, I hear Teddy's voice in my ear, "Em, we have something!" Teddy's partner mind-links Jax and he leads me to their location. 

The guys show us a locket that belongs to one of the girls who was taken. It's a good place to start. I concentrate on the locket and detect traces of the owner's aura. I scan the ground until I spot a faint trail leading away from the pack house. I follow it to a meadow ten minutes away from the pack border. I point to deep tire tracks, this is were they were loaded into a big and heavy vehicle. And I'm pretty sure I can hear a highway not far from here. While the guys are busy looking around I stumble to the nearest tree, sit in front of it and lean against its trunk. I think I've overdone it a bit!

I still have no energy to get up when the rest of the crew arrives with our van. Teddy heads to it right away, eager to launch his search and surveillance programs to identify the vehicle by its tire tracks and then find out where it was headed. Rose notices my dire situation right away, but, unfortunately, so does Gabriel.

"What the f**k happened?" he growls looking between me and the Beta. Why on earth would he blame the Beta for my condition?! "When you two left she was fine!" he gets in Jax's face.

"Stop it!" I snap at him. "I am absolutely fine, just a bit tired". That cooled off his temper immediately. He crouches next to me, picks me up and carries me to the van, despite my protests.

"Shut up and rest!" with these words he lowers me onto my seat. I watch him step outside and talk to Rose and then to the Alpha who has just joined the party. What are they discussing?! I hate being left out!

"It was a semi-truck, these tires pretty common," Teddy says making me jump up in my seat. How on earth did I forget he was here?! I shift a bit to see him better.

"Any cameras nearby?" I ask.

"Yes, one, but about 12 semis went past it within our time frame. Do you think you can do your thing on a video feed too?"

"Not sure, I've never tried before. Show me the trucks". I concentrate so hard that my forehead covers in sweat. At first I don't see anything, but then one truck jumps out of it. I can't really sense any individual auras in it, it just has this weird silvery hue. And the aura I was tracking had the same undertones, it must be the pack thing. "This one," I point at it confidently.

"That's so cool! Let's see where it went!" Teddy exclaims excitedly. "Found it, it went into one of the flagged locations".

"Tell everyone, we have to go!" I hear a car stop next to our van and look outside to see what is happening. A young man jumps out of it and rushes to Gabriel handing him what looks like a heavy bag. Gabriel grabs it and heads into the van followed by the rest. Once everyone is in their seats, Ricky speeds away. In the meantime Gabriel opens the bag and starts handing out small packages that smell divine.

"Lunch time!" he announces. Those two words are music to my ears. "Here you go," he offers me one. I accept it eagerly and dig in right away.

"Don't eat the packaging," he chuckles. I just glare at him and moan because this beef and vegetable roll is as good as it smells. Pretty much after I finish eating I fall asleep, it's well-deserved! I wake up because of a violent jerk, I open my eyes right as I'm falling off my seat. I brace myself for impact, but it never comes - strong arms wrap around me and move me back into my seat. I lift my head up, and our faces are almost touching. I look at his lips and even lean a bit more, before realizing what I'm doing. I turn my face away and say a bit rudely, "Thanks! You can let go of me now". He clears his throat and does as I say.

"What the f**k was that?" Knox yells. I look back and see that she is rubbing her forehead that's slowly getting red.

"Sorry guys! A dog jumped onto the road right in front of me, I didn't want to run it over," Ricky explains. I hear a couple more groans, but no one is complaining, who would want to run over a dog?! In thirty more minutes we reach our destination. Ricky parks in an alley around the corner from the building, it looks like a repurposed old plant. We split up and check out the area, it's a warehouse district with a couple of big office buildings. We'll have to wait for nightfall, before we make a move. On my way back to the van I grab Chinese takeout, I don't do missions on an empty stomach. 

Over the next two hours we eat, chat and relax. Well, except Teddy, he is finding and hacking cameras in the neighborhood. Once it's pitch black dark, we put our gear on and get ready to head out. Gabriel and Teddy are staying the the van, the first one is our backup, the second one is our command center. Gabriel is not happy about it, but he doesn't argue. However, before I leave he stops me and asks, "Are you sure you're well enough to go in?" I know he is concerned, he just has never seen me like that before. I know my body and my limits, I wouldn't be going in if I thought I were a weak link for my team.

"I am. If I have to kick your ass to prove it, I will," I threaten jokingly. He doesn't look convinced, but doesn't say anything else.

Ricky and I go in through the main entrance, Knox and Rose through side windows, weapons drawn. The place is suspiciously quiet. I notice tiny red flashing lights wherever I go.

"Get ready, it's a trap. They are watching us," I warn everyone. I take out as many cameras as I can, and I hear the rest doing the same. 

"Movement outside, fifteen hostiles closing in. Humans," Teddy confirms my suspicions. They come in with flash bangs, which doesn't really help them, since we were expecting them. Upon realizing that they open fire, but they have no idea where we are, so no real damage is done. One bullet did graze me, but only because I was trying really hard not to kill any of the attackers, just incapacitate them. 

"Is everyone good?" I ask through our comms. I hear yes, yep and just peachy in response.

"All clear outside," Teddy adds. Wonderful, no how do I turn the lights on? Eventually I do manage to find a master switch that turns the light on in every single room. I make sure that all of my prisoners are tied up well, and then wander around until I get to the kitchen. First, I wash my face in the sink to get rid of the stinging in my eyes, stupid flash bangs! Then I check the cupboards looking for the first aid kit. I spot it, but it's out of my reach. Before I have a chance to turn around and grab a chair, an arm reaches up and gets it for me. 

"Holy s**t, you need a bell or something!" I say startled.

"Go sit down and take off your jacket," he orders. I frown at that, but I know that we will be done faster if he helps me out with the wound. I take off the jacket and slowly lift up the bottom of my top, it's a good thing that the blood hasn't dried yet, getting to the wound would have been a lot more unpleasant. He cleans my wound gently with a wet towel and then bandages me up. As he is finishing with me, everyone else joins us. Ricky and Knox also need some medical care, so Rose takes over as a designated doctor. In the meantime Gabriel and I search the building from top to bottom. Nothing, no sign of the kidn*pped wolves.

"I found old plans of the plant that used to be here, there is supposed to be a bunker underneath," Teddy lends a helping hand. We follow his instructions, and end up in an office cluttered with furniture. We move it around and finally stumble upon a metal door. I let everyone know that the two of us are going in. Gabriel opens the door slowly, revealing a long and dark staircase. He goes in first, right now he can see and hear much better than me. I even have to put my hand on his shoulder, to make sure I don't fall down the stairs and break my neck. That would be unfortunate. 

Fifty nine steps later we reach a long hallway with some light at the end of it. As we get closer we see that the hallway widens at the end and there is another door guarded by an armed guy sleeping in his chair. We move as quietly as we can, so that we don't wake him up, we would be easy targets. Gabriel gestures that he will take care of the guard and I nod. He stalks close to the unsuspecting guy and breaks his neck with one move. It's both awesome and cringeworthy. He gently lowers the body to the ground without making any noise. We can hear sounds from the other side of the door, but there is no way for us to know for sure who is in there. We'll have to risk it. I pick the lock and open the door just enough to peak in. I see people sitting on the ground and one more guard in the far corner doing something on his phone. I get my gun ready, open the door the rest of the way with one move and shoot the guy between his eyes. We untie all the prisoners after they confirm that they know each other and that they are from the Silver Fangs pack.

When I finally step outside I take a deep breath of fresh morning air. This mission is a success, we saved these guys, but we didn't get any closer to finding the rest. Neither the kidn*pped pack members nor our captives know anything useful. They were baiting us, does this mean we are getting closer? Silver Fang warriors arrive in about an hour, they are going to escort everyone back to the pack. Someone from the Council is supposed to come pick up our prisoners for further questioning. We don't join them, we decide to rent a cabin in the woods just outside the border to rest up and figure out what to do next.

Everyone is asleep now, except me. My brain has so many things to process that once again sleep evades me. That's why I'm working out my issues with the help of the punching bag (of course we picked out a place with a gym). I'm so engrossed into beating the s**t out of it, that I don't notice Gabriel join me. He steps behind the punching bag and holds it for me. After a while I take a water break, and he uses this as an opportunity to start a conversation. 

"We need to talk," he states.

"No, we really don't," I deadpan, I'm too riled up for it. I grab my towel, and walk past him.

"I left that night because I felt that you were rushing into things because of Ryder. Like you were doing it to forget him". I froze with my hand on the door handle. After composing myself, I turn around to face him.

"Maybe you're right. I don't know if I'm over him yet. But I wasn't offering you marriage and kids or even dating, I wanted to have s*x, with you, not him. No, scratch that, I wanted you to f**k me. As simple as that," I almost yell at him. Something flashes in his eyes making me stop talking. We stare at each other, until Gabriel starts moving. He closes space between us and presses me into the wall.

"What about now?" he asks huskily.

"What about now?"

"What do you want now?" he clarifies his question.

"I haven't made up my mind yet".

"Maybe I can help you with that," he almost purrs. That sound turns me on more than it should...