“We don’t need that kind of help,” her father insisted. “Chad and Bryce are my responsibility. I won’t risk their lives calling in the feds. We’ll do it our way, just like we always have.”
Zarina cursed silently. She’d never dealt with anyone so infuriating in her life, and that included Tanner.
“What do you expect, that Tanner and I are going to stand around here and do nothing?” she demanded.
Chad shook his head. “I don’t expect you and Tanner to do anything. This is our problem, and we’ll handle it. You’ve done more than enough for us already.” His expression softened. “If you really want to help, then maybe you could go into town and pick up some supplies? We’ve been sticking close to camp for the past couple of weeks, and we’re out of just about everything, especially medical supplies. Since you’re a doctor, you might have an easier time replacing the antibiotics and pain meds we’re out of.”
Zarina frowned. Yes, she was a doctor, but she wasn’t licensed to practice in Washington—or the United States for that matter. Even if she was, she couldn’t simply walk into a pharmacy and load up a cart full of prescription drugs, then walk out the door with a wave and a smile. It didn’t work that way.
“I’ll do the best I can with the meds,” she said. “But I’m not too sure how successful I’ll be. It’s not like I have any connections out here.”
He nodded. “That’s all I can ask. I can give you the names of the doctors who have helped us out in the past. Maybe with you doing the asking, they’ll help us again.”
Chad stayed long enough to tell them where they could get the supplies they needed and give them a key for a vehicle.
“I want your promise you won’t call your friends back in DC,” he said as he handed it over.
Tanner’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. “You have my word.”
Chad walked off after that, disappearing into a big building on the other side of camp. The hybrids followed suit. Lillie stood where she was for a moment, gazing at Tanner and Zarina like she wanted to say something but couldn’t, before she left as well.
Zarina watched her go. She didn’t understand these people at all. Sighing, she turned to Tanner.
“Are we really going to go along with Chad’s demands and do absolutely nothing while his trackers run around in the woods on the off chance they stumble across Josh and Bryce?” she asked.
When Tanner didn’t say anything, Zarina was afraid he was going to go along with Chad. But then he bit back a growl, and she knew he was as frustrated as she was.
“I promised I wouldn’t call the feds, and I won’t. I owe Chad that much,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t call someone else.”
“Who?”
“My brother.”
Chapter 4
Tanner pulled the big pickup truck they’d borrowed from Chad into a space in front of Darryl’s Diner in Wenatchee a little after two that afternoon. But instead of climbing out, he sat there with both hands on the wheel and the motor running, aware of Zarina sitting quietly beside him. He hadn’t said much to her since they’d left the camp and even less after talking to his brother on the satellite phone, and he braced himself, expecting her to demand answers now that they were about to meet with Cam. But she didn’t.
How the hell had he gotten to this place? Everything around him was spiraling out of control, and there was nothing he could do to stop any of it.
When the first few preppers and homeless people had disappeared, he’d convinced himself it wasn’t his problem and the best thing he could do for the world was stay as far away from other people as possible. That was the only way to make sure he didn’t lose control at the wrong time and kill someone.
But where had that decision led? To over half a dozen innocent people going missing, including some he’d come to think of as friends. His desire to not kill anyone had almost certainly led to those disappearances regardless. The only difference was now he felt like a coward for not doing a damn thing to stop it.
Then there was Zarina. He’d intended to get her off the mountain at first light this morning, even if he had to tie her up in her sleeping bag and carry her all the way to the departure gate at Sea-Tac. But those plans had been shot down the moment Burt had walked into their camp and told them about the attack. Now that she knew about the missing preppers, there was no way he was getting her to leave, cinched up in a sleeping bag or not.
Everything he’d done over the past two months had been in the name of keeping the people he cared about safe, especially Zarina. Now the woman he loved was in more danger than she’d ever been, not only because of those assholes who were attacking the prepper camps, but because he was a monster who should never be allowed around anyone.
He bit back a growl as he replayed the fight with Spencer and the other hybrids at the prepper camp. Shit. That had been bad. He hadn’t lost control like that in a really long time. He could have easily killed all three of those hybrids, not to mention Chad, Burt, and Lillie. And yes, probably Zarina, too.
He’d convinced himself that coming out here and staying away from people and situations that might set him off would help him get a better grip on the animal inside. He’d obviously been wrong about that. The truth was he was worse off now than he’d ever been at the DCO compound. As much as he hated to admit it, being away from Zarina had caused him to lose even the small amount of control he’d fought to gain over the past year. He felt as on edge as he had when the DCO had first dragged him out of the woods a wild, feral monster.
He guessed he’d made a lot of bad decisions lately. He’d made them for the best possible reasons, of course, but they were still terrible decisions regardless. Now he was heading into a diner to meet a brother he hadn’t seen in years in the crazy hope that somehow it’d make things better. The only problem was that he couldn’t imagine how this family reunion could possibly end well.
To say he hadn’t been planning to see his brother or any other members of his family while he was out here was an understatement. He’d been living in the Wenatchee Forest within two hours of the home he’d grown up in and had never even considered calling them. The fact that he was meeting with Cam now only because he needed help made him feel kind of dirty.
“How’s your shoulder?” Zarina asked softly from the passenger seat.
Tanner glanced at her. It was obvious from the concern on her beautiful face that she was worried about the damage he’d sustained in the fight, even though she knew he’d survived far worse. In addition to bandaging the wounds at the camp before they’d left, she’d checked his injuries twice on the way down the mountain. He flexed his shoulder, feeling the fresh scar tissue tighten and pull across his deltoids and biceps. It hurt, but the gouges and bite wounds were healing. Within a day, he wouldn’t even notice them.