Chapter 21
The town was small, but the drive took forever.
Officer Keech didn't take her straight to wherever he was going.
He directed her to lay down in the seat, that if she sat up or made a fuss he'd shoot her and whomever witnessed her fit.
She didn't want that kind of blood on her hands.
“I want to know why,” she said out loud, her nails chasing the lines on the seat beneath her. The backseat smelled like beer, pee, and some kind of cleaning agent that wasn't doing its job right. The nausea struck her again. Was this going to be the last thing she smelled? The last she saw?
“You don't deserve a why,” he answered. She thought that would be the end of it, but he added more. “You waltz into a random damn town, and because of your fucking bloodline you're suddenly in charge? You don't know us. You don't know our lives. We've worked so hard for so long to keep ourselves hidden and safe; you don't know how hard it is for us,” he said, shaking his head angrily.
“I don't. You're right,” she agreed, wanting to be on his good side.
Maybe she could convince him out of killing her.
“You didn't even know that you were part shifter. You don't know about our history, about our current lives, and now you're suddenly the fucking leader,” she could hear him getting angrier. Willow kept her mouth closed. She couldn't help but wonder if her family, as distant as they were, had also laid their head on this seat.
The idea choked her up.
She couldn't do better than them. She didn't fix what happened to them, didn't change anything, didn't even learn from their lives.
The second she found out that it was Alphas missing, that she was an Alpha, she should have fled.
She knew this, and it hurt her.
They'd died for nothing.
“The pack needs a leader who can be trusted to make the right decisions because he's done it before, not one who was just lucky enough to be born with a deformity like a star in his fur,” he added. “Luck is no way to run a pack. Luck isn't going to protect you from the real world,” he explained.
“I'll step down as Alpha. You can take the role,” she offered, wanting to bargain, even though she knew it would be futile.
“No, no, it's easier just to take you out this way,” he disagreed. “I considered just shooting you out there. It's how I took out Alex,” he mused. “I was kind, though. Let you have one less romp before I got rid of you,” he sounded like he was waiting for her to thank him. Willow didn't reply.
“I've worked my whole life to be someone the pack would look to as a natural leader,” he continued. “Worked so damn hard as a cop, as a man. I've devoted my entire life to making sure this pack is happy,” he said. Willow tried to think of ways that she could escape.
He didn't have her in handcuffs, which meant that if she could just get out she could be free. Sure, he had a gun, but who uses a gun in a small town like this and expects not to be found out? The houses and buildings became sparser, and they headed into the woods, the midday sun leaving the woods without much shadow.
It seemed sick to her that it would be so sunny out when she was about to be murdered.
“You killed the Wells family, right?” she found herself needing to know for sure. Needing to get it off her chest.
“Yes,” he said, as though she asked if he like pizza, his voice casual and light.
“You know that if the pack found out about this they'd want you dead,” she said, trying to find a grip to save herself. “If you let me live, I'll leave town immediately. I was already planning to.” It wasn't entirely a lie. The guilt spiked higher in her.
“And subject some other pack to an Alpha who's one only in name?” he asked, looking at her in his rear-view mirror. “If it were up to me, all Alphas would be gone,” he explained. Willow tried harder to think of ways to escape. If she shifted, then she could run away into the woods the second he opened the door.
It's all she had.
“I could just live without shifting,” she offered, one last attempt.
“See, that's why you have to die,” he shook his head. “A true Alpha wouldn't just roll over and expose its belly like you are, wouldn't be so pride-less,” he explained.
She couldn't do anything right.
“Lucky for you, though, I'm going to show you the Wells' home.” They pulled into a long and winding driveway and started toward a dark house in the distance.
This was it.
Her last chance to escape.
The idea of a missing poster on the local paper's site with her picture on it clipped into her mind again.
This was really happening, and she didn't think she could do a single thing about it.
The car stopped, and Keech got out, walking toward her door.
The same two words filled her mind as she waited for him to open the door. 'Shift, change, shift, change, shift, change,' she thought to herself, the words beating along like a drum of anxiety.
He began to open her door.