Wolf Hunt (Book 2) (11 page)

Honestly, George couldn't say for sure that, in Eugene's place, he wouldn't have bashed out his brains against the concrete wall long ago.

What was the point of doing this?

Mr. Dewey wanted to catch a werewolf and force it to bite him. That made sense, in sort of a fucked up way.

Making his own werewolf was even more fucked up, but still, at least you could follow the weaving path of logic.

This? Eugene wasn't an attempt to create a werewolf that hadn't worked out. This wasn't somebody trying and failing to make a lycanthrope. This was a psychologically unsound kid playing with his toys.

So here was the path of logic: Mr. Dewey buys Ivan the Werewolf, thinking that turning into a werewolf himself could be a miracle cure for brain cancer. Loses him in transit. Doesn't have any other werewolf options available at the moment. Becomes werewolf obsessed. Goes from being just regular criminally insane to whack-nut batshit crazy. Takes it out on Eugene.

"Let me tell you something," said George, "I have never in my life met anybody who needs revenge more than you. Work with me, and we're going to get out of this place, and we're going to
destroy
the people who killed your family and did this to you. I promise."

"You can't promise that."

"Yeah, I can. They've got an innocent girl here, fourteen years old, and I'm getting her and my partner out of this place. Help me out and I'm taking you with me."

"Because you feel sorry for me or because you're opportunistic?"

"Both. Mostly the latter, but that's irrelevant. We can do this."

Eugene wiped a tear from his eye. "And if not...I'm your future, right?"

"No offense, but screw that. We're getting out of here."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pressure to Change

Ally blinked against the bright light as the man in the snowsuit pulled the hood off her head. He was no longer wearing his facemask, so she could see that he was a few years older than her, about the age of a college student but probably not actually in college. It was perfectly warm inside, so he didn't need to wear his snowsuit. Ally assumed that he just wanted people to see the bullet hole in the chest.

She was seated in a room that was about the size of one of her classrooms at school. It had cement floors, walls, and ceiling, and there wasn't much in there except for a few shelves containing boxes and what looked like various construction tools. She was bound to a metal chair with thick leather straps—three across her chest, one over each wrist, and one over each ankle. Even if she transformed she didn't think she could snap these.

Lou was seated next to her, in the same kind of chair with the same leather straps. He was still unconscious, his head lolling off to the side as he slept.

There were two chairs across from them. In one sat the old man with the cane. In the other was the man who'd introduced himself as Mr. Dewey.

Neither of them smiled.

The college-aged guy (Ally supposed you'd call him a "henchman") picked up a hypodermic needle from one of the shelves. Ally immediately tensed up, but then he injected Lou with the needle instead. The henchman stepped out of the way, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall.

Lou's eyes popped open. He looked around, completely disoriented, as he struggled against the straps.

The two older men let him thrash around for a few moments, then Mr. Dewey spoke. "That's enough."

"Where's George?"

"He's still alive."

"Let me see him."

"Or what? You'll struggle helplessly some more? Can't you two be in different rooms for fifteen seconds without mooning over each other?"

"I'm serious, if you hurt him I'll—"

"You'll do something bad to me. I get it. He's with Eugene."

"Who's Eugene?"

"Eugene is my stress relief. Now shut up or I'll cut off your other hand."

The look that Lou gave Mr. Dewey was so filled with pure hatred that Ally actually recoiled, even though Lou was sort-of on her side. Mr. Dewey didn't appear concerned in any way. And despite the anger in his eyes, Lou did indeed remain silent.

Mr. Dewey turned his attention to Ally. "This can be very easy for you, young lady," he said. "Easier than a trip to the dentist with no cavities."

Though Ally wasn't scared of the dentist, Mr. Dewey's reassurance didn't comfort her in any way.

"I know the setup here looks very sinister," Mr. Dewey admitted, "but there won't be much more to this than me asking you some questions. If you answer them honestly, this will be over quickly and we'll send you on your way."

"I want to call my mom first."

"No."

"I've been gone for a while," said Ally. "She's scared out of her mind. You don't know her. She has panic attacks. She could end up in the hospital."

"Then I guess you'll be motivated to get this over with as quickly as possible. Cooperate with me now, and when you tell your mom you're safe, it'll actually be true."

Ally nodded.

"Question one: can you control when you change into a wolf?"

"No."

"Did you know you could do it before today?"

"No."

"What were you feeling before you changed?"

Ally hesitated. "I was feeling at peace."

Mr. Dewey sighed and leaned forward in his chair. "That is an incorrect answer. Since you'd just been kidnapped, your emotional state was not 'at peace.' You're already lying to me, Ally. That's not good."

"What I meant was that right as I changed, I felt at peace."

"No. That's not what you meant. What you meant was, 'I changed during a state of intense emotional stress, and I don't want them to try to replicate that.' Correct?"

Ally decided to stick to the lie. "No."

"All right. We may have to go from a no-cavities scenario to a root canal. Have you ever had a root canal?"

"No."

"They're not so bad. Of course, your dentist would use Novocain. And when he removed your front teeth, I doubt he'd use a claw hammer. I need you to take this seriously, Ally."

"I am."

"Make me believe it."

"I don't know what you want from me."

"The truth."

"I gave you the truth."

"You're not a good liar. Fortunately for you, if this does come down to torture, we won't be starting with you. We'll be starting with your friend Lou."

"He's not my friend."

"Still holding a grudge? That's reasonable, I guess. Friend, enemy...the point of having him here is that once we start opening up his face with the claw end of the hammer I mentioned before, you're going to wish you had cooperated back when this could have been a nice and simple Q&A session."

Ally felt so sick to her stomach that she was surprised she didn't just throw up right there. It was too late to not cry, but hopefully she could avoid turning into a complete blubbering mess.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"You're forgiven. Let's skip the questions and get right to the meat of the matter." Mr. Dewey stood up. "I want you to bite me."

"Where?"

Mr. Dewey pulled up his sleeve. "Right here. A good bite on the arm. Break the skin."

Ally couldn't believe that he was serious. Why would anybody
want
to become a monster?

Still standing, Mr. Dewey placed his arm in front of her mouth. "Bite hard. Stop when I tell you to."

What if she lied and said that she was HIV-positive? Would he abandon the whole idea, or would he see right through that and take out the claw hammer?

Better not to find out.

"Okay." Ally noticed that the henchman was now pointing a gun at her. Did it have silver bullets? If she changed into a werewolf during the bite, would he shoot her in the head, to make sure she didn't chew off Mr. Dewey's entire arm?

Ally opened her mouth. Mr. Dewey pushed the back of his arm against it, just below the elbow.

The henchman looked amused. Mr. Reith looked slightly appalled. Ally was terrified; she could handle biting the guy, no problem, but would he retaliate if it hurt more than he was expecting?

"Do it," said Mr. Dewey.

Ally pressed her teeth against his skin, then slowly bit down. If Mr. Dewey made any sounds like he was getting a thrill out of this, Ally was going to kill herself.

So far, he wasn't reacting, though she didn't like the way he was staring into her eyes as she bit.

"You're holding back," he said. "Just bite me. It's okay."

Ally bit down harder. Not as hard as she could, but hard enough that she could feel his skin giving way beneath her teeth and taste the first hint of blood.

He still didn't flinch.

She could feel two trickles of blood running down her chin.

"That should do it," said Mr. Dewey. "Thank you."

Ally opened her mouth and he pulled his arm away. The wound glistened. He looked at the bite mark as if admiring a beautiful painting in a museum, and didn't seem to be in any hurry to apply a bandage or antiseptic.

"Is that it?" Ally asked, not daring to be hopeful.

"Sadly, no. I'm covering all of my bases here. Your bite
may
have worked, but it would be ridiculous to set you free after you've only given me a human bite. I need a wolf bite. So we're going to be here for as long as it takes you to change. Hopefully it won't be long."

"I don't know how."

"You'll learn."

Ally had never stopped trying. She had no idea how to turn back into a wolf. She certainly didn't feel less frightened and stressed out now than she had in the van.

"I'm not lying. I don't know how to do it."

"You may just need a little push. Something to get the adrenaline flowing. Something extremely painful."

Lou spoke up. "Hey, Reith, are you gonna let him get away with this?"

Mr. Reith looked surprised by the question. "I beg your pardon?"

"He's threatening to torture a teenaged girl. You into that?"

Mr. Reith smiled. "I'm into whatever measures are necessary to accomplish the end result."

"Is that so? Because you totally boned us on this job. It's a freaking miracle that we were able to nab her. Does Dewey know how you set us up to fail, even when his life was at risk if we didn't catch her? What would you have done if she'd escaped from us, or if we'd gotten arrested?"

Mr. Reith shrugged. "Right now we're exactly where we want to be, so it's irrelevant."

"He wouldn't even tell us her name," said Lou to Mr. Dewey. "You know what would've helped? Her name. We could've been waiting for her at her house instead of following her in a van, attracting everyone's attention."

"I admire your attempt to try to turn us against each other," said Mr. Dewey. "It's almost smart. But it's not going to work, so think of something else."

"I'll let you know what I come up with."

"Julian, get the drill."

The henchman broke into a wide grin as he walked over to the closest shelf. He picked up a dark blue power drill, held it up as if posing with a handgun, then brought it to Mr. Dewey.

Mr. Dewey inspected the drill, then removed the bit. "You know what? I've changed my mind. Bring me the smaller bit."

Julian got him a narrower bit. Mr. Dewey snapped it into the drill, then waved it in front of Ally's face.

"I was originally going to use this on Lou, to let you see first-hand how messy this process can be. When a big, tough man like Lou was shrieking in agony and pleading for me to stop, you'd understand that this was not a bluff. Unfortunately for you, I've decided that we don't need a pre-show. This drill is going into your ankle. To start."

Mr. Dewey touched the drill bit to Ally's ankle.

She frantically shook her head. "No! Please don't!"

"I'm going to give you ten seconds to transform. And then I'm going to press the button, and this spinning metal drill will start to bore its way into your foot."

"Don't do it!"

"Leave her alone!" Lou shouted.

"Is that really in your best interest, Lou? I'd keep quiet, if I were you."

"Please don't do it," Ally begged. "Please don't. I lied to you, okay? I lied. I can control the change." Her heart was racing and she was drenched in sweat and her voice was so off-kilter that she wasn't sure if anybody could even understand what she was saying.

"Then that's very convenient," said Mr. Dewey.

"I—I've been able to do it for a couple of years now," said Ally, praying that Mr. Dewey couldn't tell that she was lying again.

"Interesting. So do it now."

"I can't."

"Why not."

"I can't do it with Lou in the room."

Mr. Dewey raised an eyebrow, confused.

"He touched me," Ally explained. "In the van." They couldn't possibly know the full timeline of how things played out between her two abductions, could they?

"What do you mean?"

"Do you need me to touch a teddy bear? What do you think I mean?"

Lou, apparently playing along, looked down at his feet as if mortified.

"Hmm," said Mr. Dewey.

"I can't think about anything else while he's here. I can't focus. I need to be able to focus."

Ally began to sob. She wasn't much of an actress, but she'd been struggling to keep her emotions under control all of this time, so releasing them was easy.

It actually felt good to let it all out.

"That true, Lou?" Mr. Dewey asked.

Lou didn't respond.

"I asked you a question."

"No," said Lou. "She's full of shit."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. She's trying to pull something over on you."

"Hmm." Mr. Dewey hadn't removed the drill bit from Ally's ankle. "Those kinds of tendencies would be news to me, but maybe you just don't have a lot of opportunity to indulge in them, huh, Lou?"

Lou looked up and held Mr. Dewey's gaze for a couple of seconds, then looked away.

Lou got what she was doing, right? He seemed to be giving a brilliant performance.

"Please," said Ally, "just take him out of here. Take him away. Then I'll change, I promise."

Mr. Dewey kept the drill pressed against Ally's ankle. "Lou, Lou, Lou, you sick little pervert. I guess when you're stuck for months with only George for company, stuff builds up, huh? Can't control the ol' impulses? Well, it's not my thing, but I'm not one to judge."