A Wolf's Oath (37 page)

“
If that’s the case sir, then why don’t we just call in some
additional members from the branch?”

“
Like I said we need skilled people and at the moment we don’t
have them. Besides you were sat here yesterday just like me. You
saw that there were people coming and going at random hours of the
day. We don’t know when they’ll come back so we can’t adequately
prepare for them. No, it’s best for us if we try and use their
weaknesses in our favour. If what you’ve told me about the woman
having amnesia is true then we won’t have to engage in a costly
direct confrontation. She’ll deliver them all up to us on a silver
platter.”

“
They’re moving sir,” David commented from his seat beside
Vincent, his dark eyes were trained on the small group of four as
they left the safety of the house and entered the car in the
driveway.

“
Follow them from a distance,” Vincent ordered.

As soon as the words had left his lips, David sprung into
action, starting the car and waiting until the vehicle they were
tracking was a sufficient distance away from them that its
passengers wouldn’t be aware of anything suspicious in the dark
truck that was following their journey. The blue car driven by
their prey was heading down the path towards the town, but they had
expected this, there was nowhere else to go in this area. The car
stopped, pulling over at the side of the main street, his car
slowed correspondingly. Vincent watched, his eyes intense, as a
familiar woman jumped out of the car. The glimpses that he had
managed to attain through the long lens of their camera hadn’t
confirmed the woman’s identity, but his own two eyes couldn’t deny
what was in front of him. The wolf was indeed here, alive and
breathing and he hoped memory less.

The woman,
Erica,
his mind corrected. If he were to pull this off, then he would
have to appear as though he knew her; his plan wouldn’t work if he
continued to refer to her as ‘woman’. Erica moved around the car
and proceeded to open the rear doors. Two small children exited and
a sinister smile appeared on Vincent’s face.
Leverage,
he instantaneously thought,
watching the protective manner that Erica was exhibiting around the
small children. She took each child by the hand and proceeded to
walk away from the car, which immediately took off and continued to
move down the street.

“
I’m getting out here,” Vincent said quietly, turning to face
David. “I want you and Dominic to keep an eye on the male. She
might have amnesia but he definitely doesn’t and will probably
recognise my scent, which will give everything away. I’m going to
follow her, if he looks like he’s coming back tell me
immediately.”

“
Yes sir.” The order was accepted instantaneously and Vincent
smiled, glad that Dominic was finally showing some potential for
being the man that he hoped to mould him into. He stepped out of
the car, his briefcase firmly in hand, his eyes fixed firmly on
Erica's movements and his body falling into step with hers. She was
laughing and giggling with the two small children at either side of
her body as they walked into the town’s supermarket and his gaze
was instantly drawn to them.

That must be the family she was so determined to protect.
They look very innocent for monsters,
he
mused as he leaned against a building opposite the
supermarket.
There’s no point me trying to
corner her in there, I won’t be able to get her alone, those two
children looked like they wouldn’t willingly leave her side,
he pondered remembering the way that they had
tightly gripped Erica's hands as though afraid to let her
go.
If I can’t do that then I doubt this
will work.

His posture against the wall was relaxed belying the nervous
energy that filled him as he waited, anticipation building at the
thought of rectifying his last mistake. Anyone who walked past
would think that he was merely waiting for a friend who was running
late. No one would think that he was harbouring ill intentions
towards a woman with no memory and two small children and that was
what he wanted. His mind wandered once again to the two children
that had walked beside her.

Vincent didn’t have any children and he would never have had
the patience to spend time around them should he have had any. He’d
never seen the attraction in starting a family; his job was more
than enough. His lack of contact with children meant that he wasn’t
an expert in the subject but from his initial glimpse of them he
supposed that they were, for a lack of a better word, cute. Their
seeming innocence might have made a lesser man reluctant to go
through with this plan, but Vincent wasn’t a lesser man. He was
well aware of the reason behind their innocent façade. Their
cuteness was a genetic trait to ensure the survival of a race of
monsters and he wasn’t fooled by it. Most humans would find it
difficult to attack a child who appeared so innocent and that was
what allowed their race to continue to grow despite the
organisation’s best attempts to usher them into extinction. If the
child was left to continue it’s growth, it would inevitably become
one of the monsters they later had so much difficulty disposing of.
Vincent thus felt no remorse in his plan that would likely lead to
the deaths of those children, it was for the good of mankind after
all.

Erica left the supermarket with a triumphant smile plastered
across her face as she revelled in the accompanying feelings of
pride and accomplishment. Another memory had returned to her. If
someone had told her when she and Sebastian had first moved to this
little town in the mountains that she would be grinning like an
idiot over recalling something as simple as an ingredient for a
cake, she would have laughed in their faces without remorse. Things
had apparently changed in the relatively short time they had been
here. The memory had been simple and short. She had been following
her sibling’s lead as they dragged her through the supermarket when
the flashback had occurred. She had seen herself in a different
kitchen to the one in their current place of residence, her face
was contorted into a mask of concentration as she single mindedly
went about her task of crushing hazelnuts into a fine powder for
her cake. The memory was gone almost as soon as it came and as soon
as it left the forefront of her mind she had rushed to find the
ingredient within the limited selection of the store leaving both
Dylan and Wyatt staring after her confused. She had been pleasantly
surprised when she had found them and even happier when her brother
and sister had instigated a quick round of applause for her
achievement.

She was unsure when exactly she had made the transition from
frantic attempts to regain her lost memories to her current state
of calm acceptance at her lack of them. Despite not knowing when it
had happened, she knew that it had and she had made her peace with
it. In fact, the longer she thought about it, the more she became
convinced that this was a positive thing. She couldn’t allow her
amnesia to continue to dictate not only her life, but the lives of
those around her and if she kept pining over her lost memories then
that was exactly what she was allowing to happen. Sebastian had a
life that didn’t revolve around her and he was disrupting it for
her sake. He had a job and family and friends that missed him, he
couldn’t afford to be on indefinite leave from them because of her
accident. It wasn’t just him that she was affecting either; both
Dylan and Wyatt were suffering too. It had been selfish of her to
ask for Sebastian to bring them to her when he did, they were in
the middle of a school term and she had taken them away from that
without a second thought. None of their lives could continue like
this forever.

The longer she spent with her family, the more she became
convinced that she could live without her memories before the
accident. It was so easy to interact with them that at times she
even forgot that there was a large chunk of her life missing. It
had dawned on her that the time that she had forgotten, in the
grand scheme of things, wasn’t actually all that much. She wasn’t
very old and had her entire life ahead of her in which to develop
new memories. In fact it could be seen as a blessing that she had
forgotten the likely uncomfortable teenage years of her life and
the years before that she probably hadn’t been able to recall even
before her accident. In that light she had only lost a few years
worth of memories, nothing that she couldn’t live without. She
wanted to go home, and soon. Let those who knew her from before the
accident tell her of her life before it, it was no longer
important. Her true friends would understand that she was unaware
of their history and would be willing to forge one afresh and those
that couldn’t accept the change were probably not the best friends
to have around anyway.

The tranquillity that came with having made an active
decision for the direction of her life enabled her to smile as she
and her siblings left the supermarket and made their way across the
road to the town’s diner. She and Sebastian had agreed to meet up
there so that they could all have something to eat for breakfast.
He’d told her he wasn’t sure how long he’d be trying to acquire a
new generator so she should start without him and judging from the
increasingly audible growls that her brother and sister’s stomach
were making, it had been a wise decision on his part. As she
approached the diner’s door, she became aware of a large man
leading against the side of the building. Their eyes met, locking
for a moment and she hesitated unsure of whether she should
continue her walk towards him so that she could reach the diner’s
interior. Though the man had made no attempt to approach her, she
couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew him from
somewhere.

Would you listen to yourself?
her
mind snapped.
One minute you decide that
you’ve accepted that this is your life and it doesn’t include
memories of the past and the next second you seem intent on
discovering the identity of someone you may or may not know. You
can’t have it both ways; it’s one or the other. Just leave him
alone. Don’t go near him, leave him for Sebastian. There’s no need
to go looking for trouble.

Erica quickly conceded that the voice was right, she couldn’t
have it all.
I can’t keep disrupting the
lives of my family like this,
she
decided.
He hasn’t introduced himself so
I’m just going to let it go. I clearly don’t know him.
Her decision made, she walked past the man into
the warmth of the diner, briefly flashing him a smile as she passed
him.
The past is the past and I’m not
going to worry about it anymore. All that matters is here and
now.

Chapter
Thirty-Six

She doesn’t remember.
The single
thought refused to leave Vincent’s mind. Erica had walked straight
past him as though there was no history between them, let alone the
violent one that they shared. He had experienced a moment of
concern when she had stopped her advance towards the diner but then
she’d carried on as though nothing were amiss. It was true; the
woman did have amnesia and that meant that he had to begin to put
his plan into action.

His plan rested on his ability to take advantage of Erica's
unfortunate lack of memories and if Dominic’s information had been
incorrect, the plan would have failed. He wasn’t sure what he could
have done if that had been the case. He had only succeeded in
capturing her the first time because of a trap and there was a
distinct lack of other people in the area. It wasn’t as though he
could simply throw her over his shoulder and carry her away, this
location wasn’t conducive to that option. He had to admit that the
wolf had chosen well, the organisation tried its best not to harm
innocent humans, they weren’t the enemy after all, but Vincent
didn’t doubt that the citizens of the town would come to Erica's
defense should he attempt to abduct her. He was well aware of the
limitations that had been placed on him and was now prepared to
work within them.

He pushed himself off the side of the wall and reached down
for his briefcase before walking to the diner’s window. He watched
as Erica and the two children sat down in one of the diner’s booths
and waited to be served.
I’ll wait for
them to get settled,
he thought, the cogs
in his mind beginning to work as he thought of the best way to
initiate contact with the woman.
I doubt
she’ll be willing to pay attention to me if her two brats are
fussing. Hopefully that shouldn’t take long and then I’ll make my
move. With any luck the male will take a long time doing whatever
it is he’s doing and I’ll have enough time to convince
her.

*****

Within seconds of entering the diner both Dylan and Wyatt
were seated within the red vinyl seats of the diner’s booths, menus
in hand. Clearly the prospect of food was a good motivator for
these two. She stored the information away in the back of her mind.
Having reached the decision to give up on her lost memories, she
knew that she had to start afresh with all her relationships and so
it was in her best interests to gather as much information as
possible.

“
Hello Erica.” A familiar voice called from above her head. She
turned to find the waitress that had served them the last time she
and Sebastian had entered the diner. Her eyes wandered to the name
tag on the woman’s chest, confirming her name.