BLOOD DREAM (Ongoing)

8.2: Your Son Was Caught Throwing Rocks At Windows Again

The car door opened and Hector grabbed his arm, pulling him outside. Theron staggered into the mud on the side of the road. Hector held him steady while Bard snipped the zip ties around his ankles so he could walk, then Nora loosened the choke collar, allowing him to breathe. He caught her eyes, but his stung with shame and flicked away a second later.

"The rain will enhance the scents enough that you don't need to transform to follow them," said Hector. "You should be able to track Sadie like this."

Theron repeated the phone number in his mind.

"Follow us and keep your head down," added Hector. He stared at Theron waiting for a sign of understanding. Theron nodded once without looking. They descended the ditch and emerged on the other side, venturing into the trees that lined the acreage: Hector, then Nora, then Theron, then Bard. Rain speckled the hunters' black jackets, Theron's arms cold out of his t-shirt. The deeper they went, the stronger the smells became—tidal waves of his packmates, about six of them, and then the faint smells of Sadie and her followers, then blood. Not blood from the goats. Dire blood.

They stopped at a small clearing stained with old gore and tufts of fur. There were too many smells for Theron to distinguish what happened. He circled the clearing, repeating the phone number to himself, before Hector spoke again: "The night you met Nettle at the bar, Sadie murdered one of your packmates. Patrick Davis. Did you know that?"

Theron crouched down, hands in front of him, and touched the dirt. Patrick. Patrick, one of the elders. That's whose blood it was. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"They believe you coordinated it with Sadie," said Hector.

His jaw clenched with rage. "Why would I do that?" They thought Theron plotted with Sadie to murder his own packmate? Patrick was dead and they chose to blame him for it!

"You have a history of violence," said Nora. He looked up at her. "We have it on record, dozens of instances that have endangered the Tyndall Park pack. Records of your domestic abuse against Sadie which caused her to lash out. Not to mention your abusive behavior toward your other packmates." Liam's scar, Liam's bruise. "You've been on our high-risk watch list for a while."

Nora didn't sympathize for him. She told him to his face everything she knew he was guilty of. If he thought their natural sexual chemistry meant something, she was proving now that it didn't.

He shook again, hating that everything he had done was staring him in the face. In this clearing, in the form of blood smell and hunters with guns and a coincidence he couldn't help. He didn't have anything to do with Patrick's murder, but because of his slaughter at the barn, it drew Patrick and Sadie to the same spot, as if Theron was the mastermind behind exacting petty revenge against his own packmates for his ex-girlfriend. "I didn't do this..." he murmured, letting his knees sit in the dirt.

"Whether or not you did doesn't change the fact that somebody is dead," said Hector.

He was never particularly close with Patrick, but it still shook him that one of his own packmates was suddenly gone. Rain spat on his back and slid down the side of his neck. He struggled to remember the phone number. "They think I did this..."

Bard grunted with impatience, taking the leash from Nora. He walked up behind Theron. "That doesn't matter. You need to find Sadie," he said, grabbing Theron's arm to lift him again.

The instant he touched him, Theron imploded. "It does matter! They think I set this up, but I didn't!" He stumbled away from Bard, wild-eyed and damp on the cheeks. "I wouldn't kill my own packmates. I'm not a murderer! Now Kit's gonna think I did this and nobody's going to believe the truth that I didn't!" His emotions were escaping him again. Everything he kept bottled up begged to be heard. His mouth opened, jaw quaking.