The Lost Omega

Chapter Six

He finally decided it was time to give her some food and said, "Enough of this." He then began to feed her some food. A single bagel was insufficient. "Grab your coat and go."

He'd never ridden one of Jersey's elevated trains before, and if it weren't for a certain woman's intransigence, he probably wouldn't have done so this time either. Despite this, he admitted, even if it was only to himself, that he rather enjoyed it.

Cassie no longer made frequent trips to the Loop because she could find everything she required much closer to her own residence. Despite the fact that he was just a visitor, he obviously knew it better than she did. He chose the stop that they got off on and then took her directly to a small Greek restaurant that was tucked in the shadow of the L train tracks. There, they greeted him by name and took him to a private room that had only one table in it.

He waited until she had finished placing her order before doubling it and adding a few dishes as accompaniments.

While they were waiting for their food, he removed from the pocket of his jacket a small leather-bound three-ring notebook that appeared to have seen better days. After popping the rings, he retrieved a couple of sheets of lined paper from his back pocket and handed them to her along with a pen.

"I'd like you to write down the names of the members of your pack. It would help if you list them from the most dominant and go to the least."

She tried. She was unaware of everyone's last name, and given that she was the lowest-ranked member of the group, she had not paid close attention to rank.

She looked annoyed as she returned the paper and the pen to his hands. "I'm forgetting people, and with the exception of the top four or five wolves, my rank estimations could be off," she said.

He placed her pages down on the table and then retrieved a couple of sheets that already had writing on them. He then compared the two lists and annotated them based on his findings. Cassie maneuvered her chair around the table so that she could sit next to him and observe what he was doing by moving it to the opposite side.

He produced his list and placed it in front of her. "These are the kinds of people who ought to be a part of your group. I have double-checked the names of the people who are missing from the list that you provided."

She went down the list and scanned it before picking up the pen again and crossing out one of his checks. "There is no sign of him yet. Simply put, I had forgotten about him. Also, this particular one."

He went ahead and retrieved the list. "There is not a single woman left. The majority of the wolves that are still missing are senior citizens. Not old. However, there is not another wolf in existence that is more senior than Jason. There are also some younger wolves that have gone missing from the pack." He indicated a few of the names by tapping his finger on them. "These were just children. Here, Saul would have been a werewolf for only four years at this point. Gabriel is not much older."

"Are you familiar with every werewolf in the area?"

He showed a grin. "I am familiar with the Alphas. We get together with every single one of them once a year. The majority of the seconds and thirds are familiar to me. Keeping the membership roster up to date is one of the things that we do at the meetings. It is the responsibility of the Alphas to keep the Marock informed of any deaths that occur or of any new wolves that are changed. If my dad had known that so many wolves had vanished, he definitely would have done some investigating. Even though Jason has been responsible for the loss of one third of the pack's members, he has done a good job of replacing them."

He handed back the list that she had written; a number of names, including her own, had been checked off as well. "All of these are new. Based on what you've shared with me, my best guess is that all of the changes are imposed. The likelihood of victims of random attacks surviving is extremely low. Your Jason has been responsible for the deaths of a significant number of individuals over the course of the past few years in order to maintain the current size of his pack. Enough for it to have brought the attention of the authorities to bear on the situation. How many of these humans were turned into wolves as a result of you?"

"None of these will do. That poor boy is the only new wolf I've seen since I've been watching." She used her pen to lightly scratch the surface of the paper. "They could have easily concealed the disappearance of one hundred people in the greater Jersey area over the course of a few years if they hadn't left bodies behind and spread out the search," said the investigators.

He sat back in his chair, shut his eyes, and shook his head before continuing. "Dates are becoming increasingly difficult for me to recall. I haven't talked to the majority of the wolves that have gone missing, and I can't recall the last time I saw Jason's old second, other than the fact that it was within the past decade. Therefore, everything that happened after that took place."

"Who knows what took place with what?"

"To Jason, I'd guess. Something happened that caused him to kill all of the women in his pack, with the exception of Caroline, as well as the majority of his older wolves. These were the wolves that would have objected if he had begun attacking innocent people, or if he had stopped teaching new wolves the rules and rights that are rightfully theirs. I can understand why he would have to kill them, but what is the motivation behind killing the women? And why didn't the other Jersey Alpha tell anything to my father when it happened, when they saw what was going on?"

"It's possible that he was unaware of it. Both Jason and Viktor avoid contact with one another, and members of our pack are forbidden from entering Viktor’s territory under any circumstances. The Loop is considered to be an impartial space. However, unless we have received explicit authorization, we are not permitted to proceed further north."

"Oh? Interesting. Have you heard anything that might shed light on the reasons why they don't get along?"

Then she gave a shrug. There had been a great deal of conversation. "I heard from someone that Viktor and Caroline wouldn't get s****l together. Someone else claimed that the two of them had an affair in the past, and that he ended it, which insulted the woman. Or that he wouldn't put an end to it, forcing Jason to take control of the situation. There is also the tale that Viktor and Jason were never friends with one another. I really have no idea."

She started laughing out loud as she looked at the checks that denoted the more recent additions to her pack of wolves.

"What?"

"It's just stupid." She gave a slight nod in response.

"Tell me."

Her embarrassment caused her cheeks to flush red. "Fine. You were looking for a trait that was shared by all of the more recent wolves. I was just thinking that if someone wanted to make a list of the most handsome men in the group, all of them would make it onto that list."

They were both taken aback by his open display of territorial resentment, which he had made no attempt to conceal from her.

It was probably a good time for the waiter to bring in the first course of food at this point in the meal.

Cassie started to move her chair back to where it had been, but the waiter sat his tray down and took it from her. He then seated Cassie in the appropriate spot before returning to his job of setting out the dishes.

"And how about you, sir?," she asked. He relayed the message to Levi. "You still haven't given up and relocated to a more civilized area, have you?"

Levi remarked as he re-inserted the sheets of paper into his notebook and closed the cover, "Civilization is vastly overrated." "As long as I am able to visit this establishment once or twice per year for food, I will be satisfied."

The waiter shook his head with mock sadness. "Mountains are stunning, but they can't compare to the splendor of our cityscape. When the time comes, I'll take you out for a night on the town, and after that, you'll never want to go anywhere else."

"Phill!" A woman who was as thin as a bird entered the room. While you are here chit-chatting with Mr. Cronin and the rest of our guests are beginning to feel peckish.

The woman tried not to smile and instead shook her head in response. "Which one is it? Always talking. To keep him in line, he needs a strong and capable wife. It's too late for me." She threw up her hands and followed the waiter after she did so.

The next twenty minutes brought an assortment of waiters and waitresses, all of whom appeared to be related to one another in some way. They brought the food in on trays and never once mentioned that it seemed strange that two people could consume so much food in one sitting.

After he had finished filling his plate, Levi looked at hers and remarked, "You ought to have told me you didn't like lamb."

She took a look at the food on her plate. "I do."

He scowled at her before picking up the serving spoon and adding more food to what was already on her plate. "You really need to up your food intake. A lot more. The transition calls for a significant investment of energy. In order to keep your weight stable as a werewolf, you need to increase the amount of food you consume."

After that, Cassie and Levi decided to limit their subsequent conversations to more general topics by mutual consent. They discussed Jersey as well as living in the city. He looked at her until she took a second spoonful of the rice dish, at which point he took a small portion himself. He shared some information with her regarding Montana. She found that he was very articulate, and the quickest way to end a conversation with him was to inquire about something personal. She had the impression that it wasn't so much that he didn't want to talk about himself as it was that he didn't find himself to be all that interesting.

One final time, the door swung open, and a young lady of approximately fourteen years old brought in the dessert.

"Haven't you forgotten that you're supposed to be in class?" Levi put the question to her.

They signed the document, "Vacation. Everyone else gets time off. But me? The restaurant is where I get to do my job. It is terrible."

"I see," he said. "Have you considered contacting child welfare and informing them that you are being mistreated?"

She gave him a friendly smile. "That is sure to get Grandpa all worked up. I'm tempted to do it just to see his face. If I told him that it was your idea, do you think he'd get mad at me or at you instead?" She made a wrinkly face with her nose. "I don't think so."

"Please tell your mother that the meal was delicious."

She put the empty tray on her hip for support as she retreated through the door. "I will tell her, but she has already instructed me to inform you that it wasn't what you thought it was. Although it was a bit tough to chew, she had to make do with what she could get."

Cassie stated, "I gather that you come here quite frequently," as she picked unenthusiastically at a large piece of baklava. It's not that she had anything against baklava; she just couldn't eat it if she'd already consumed the equivalent of a week's worth of food.

He remarked, "Far too frequently." She noticed that he was able to eat more without any difficulty. "Because our company has some business interests in this area, it is necessary for me to visit here three to four times per year. The eatery is run by one of Viktor's wolves, who also happens to be the proprietor. When it comes to conducting business, I sometimes find it more convenient to do so here."

She expressed her curiosity by remarking, "I thought you were your father's hit man." You have to go on manhunts in Jersey three or four times a year, right?

"No, I can't do that because I have other commitments. I am in charge of managing the pack's financial affairs, which were left to me by my father. Both of my jobs are well within my abilities, "he declared, without the slightest trace of modesty.

"I bet you are." He was the kind of person who would excel at whatever endeavors he chose to undertake. "I'd let you invest my savings. At the moment, I believe that I have twenty-two dollars and ninety-seven cents in my possession."

He looked at her with a frown, his previous amusement long gone.

"It was meant to be funny," she clarified.

But he paid her no attention. "The majority of Alphas require their members to contribute ten percent of their earnings to the general welfare of the pack, particularly when the pack is first starting out. This money is used for a variety of purposes, such as ensuring the existence of a safe house. However, there is a decline in the need for money once a pack has become well-established. Because we own the land that we live on and have sufficient investments for the future, there is no requirement that we pay a tithe to my father's pack because it has been around for a very long time and is very well established. Jason has been a resident of this area for the past three decades, which is more than enough time to be well established. I've never heard of a pack asking for forty percent of its members' contributions before, which leads me to believe that Jason's pack is having trouble making ends meet financially. He sold that young man, along with several others like him, to a person who was using them to develop a way to make drugs work on us in the same way that they work on humans. You called my father about this, didn't you? In order to obtain a single surviving werewolf, he was forced to s*******r a large number of humans first."

She contemplated the repercussions the news would have. Who was it that wanted the drugs?

"When Jason tells me who he sold the boy to, then I'll know that," she said.

"Then why did he choose not to sell to me?" The pack did not place a high value on her.

He relaxed his body and leaned back in his chair. "If an Alpha were to sell one of his pack members, he would find himself dealing with a rebellion on his hands. In addition to that, Jason into a great deal of trouble in order to get you. Since you joined the pack, there hasn't been a single member of the pack that has been injured or reported missing."

She responded to him regardless, even though it wasn't a question. "No."

"I believe that perhaps you are the solution to the riddle, that is Jason."

She couldn't help but snort with derision at her own cleverness. "Me? Did Jason require a replacement doormat?"