A Wolf's Purpose

•Chapter 21• Going Home

Louis sat on the couch. His hands covered his mouth and nose as he tried to think. He wasn't processing this all yet. It has been a day, almost two, and he barely moved. Bill tried talking to his best friend. Nothing seemed to get to him. The two of them were at the small house Bill had been hiding in for the past months. He leaned against the doorpost, looking at his friend. "You need to drink something." He says. "Whatever you drank, I don't want it. It's making people do things they will regret later." Louis spat at him. Bill approached him. He sat in front of him at the tiny salon table. "You hate me that much, huh?" He asks. Louis glared at his friend. "After faking your own death, abandoning your family, and including the kid and not me, yeah we're not on the best terms." He says. Bill sighed. "You're sick. Like sick in the head. You do realize that, right?" Louis questioned him. "If you'd just let me explain," Bill started. "I don't want to hear it." Louis said, "The only thing I want to hear from you is an apology to your family." He added. Louis stood up, starting to walk away from him. Bill followed him. He placed his hand on his arms. "Just let me talk you through it." He said. Louis furrowed his eyebrows. "You're insane." He replied. "Remember how Parker ended up in the hospital?" Bill continued. Louis rolled his eyes.

"She ended up there because of him. She only got worse after that." Bill tells him. Louis nodded slightly. "Yeah, I was there." He said. "Yeah, well, think about what will happen if he finds out I'm not dead. He thinks he has a free pass now, that everything is over. The boys are locked away, I'm dead, and Jade is nowhere to be found. It's like the Salvini family is wiped off the planet. So, when he least expects it, I can kill his daughter and make him watch. And then, of course, kill him afterward. He wouldn't expect a thing." He explains. Louis gives his best friend a look. "It's the perfect plan." He said in an excited tone. Louis glared at him. Just shocked. "Okay, this is where I draw the line." He says. Bill's eyes widened a little. "Now? This?" He questions, "We have killed more than a hundred teenagers. Tortured them. And when I'm finally doing something remotely good, you draw the line?" Bill continued. Louis nodded. "Yeah!" He exclaimed, "Because this is crazy!" He added. "He's twice the age of the people we've killed twenty years ago. How is this worse? He deserves it, he's the reason she's dead." Bill reminds him. "You're not killing the man. This is insane, Bill. You have abandoned your family for months to get revenge? It's not like he stabbed her for hours until she bled out." Louis said. "I thought we were clear on that." Bill groaned under his breath. "He's the reason she's gone, alright? And I just want to see the look on his face when I kill his daughter before I kill him." He repeated. "You don't understand it, do you? You do not need to kill anymore. Why keep going? You're alive. Why don't you worry about your sons and care for your daughter instead of planning all of this? This is sick!" Louis rose his voice slightly. Bill grabbed him harshly. "You don't know, alright? Don't pretend you're the good guy here. You don't know everything." Bill snapped at him. His eyes were dark again. "Yeah? Then why don't you finally tell me? I think it's time for you to be honest with me, for once." Louis replies in an equally dark tone.

"Do you think they're at the house?" Lucas questioned. Hayden shrugged as he walked up to their car. "Hard to say." He replied, "We also thought they were here." He added. Lucas gave him an empathetic look. "It's alright. Maybe they were here. They probably took off after. Don't be too hard on yourself." He says. Hayden glared at his partner as he leaned against the car.
He put his hands on the hood of the car. "You don't get it, do you? The boys are very dangerous. We need to find them. I still can't even get over the fact that they walked out of the prison and no one noticed." He snaps at him. Lucas shrugs. "We'll find them." He assures him. "When? We're getting fake calls and we can't find their sister. She can be our deal breaker here." He says. Hayden was losing hope. And who could blame them? "We're gonna get them. Don't worry." Lucas tells him.

Jade was flipping through the old files Ian brought her. "I still can't believe you got these." She says. He shrugs and sits next to her on the ground. She moved the papers around. "It wasn't easy. But we managed to get into the locked system." Ian tells her. She looked at him briefly. "This is perfect." She says with a smile, "This is exactly what I need." She added. He returned the smile. He looked at the paper she was holding in her hands. "What's that?" He asks. Jade briefly glanced up at the tv playing before looking back at the paper. "This goes into detail about what they found in the cabin with my dad. And," she started and reached out for another paper, "This is what they found with my brothers. Except, this is way more detailed. And they even have pictures here. They didn't use these in court. They said there was no evidence there when they went to gather it with my dad." She explained. Ian grabbed two pictures. Somehow he felt a bit sick to his stomach looking at it. There was so much blood. And to think that belonged to a teenage girl. He started to imagine Jade sitting there. He shook his head and put them down. "God, that's just horrible." He mumbled. Jade chuckled a little. "Too much for you, tough guy?" She asks him. "Yeah, I know these were teenagers they slaughtered. I can't get the image out of my head where it's you. I don't know why." He tells her. She smiled at him again. "Awh, see, you do care for me." She giggles. She leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Love you too, big guy." She added. She focused back on the papers. She could see him reading with her over her shoulder. "They were way too soft. Dad really went out there with it. They had one girl and barely did anything." Jade says. "I'm surprised you can look at that," Ian tells her. She turned her head to look at him. Directly into his eyes. "You're a pussy." She jokes. He nudges her shoulder gently. "Be nice. I helped you." He tells her. They kept eye contact as they joked around a little.

"In Hill City," The news reporter on the tv said. Jade turned her head quickly to the tv. "What?" She said. She reached for the remote and turned up the volume. "After the breakout of what might be the most dangerous criminals of the past decade, following in their father's footsteps, Hill City is worried. No evidence of them being in the city yet. Police are still searching. A misleading call stopped the authorities from busting into their old home." The news reporter read out. "Oh my god," Ian said. Jade was silent. Her eyes were just focused on the screen. He looked at her worriedly. "They're out?" She says quietly. "The boys are still on the run. If you have any information on these criminals, please, contact the authorities as soon as possible. Do not approach these criminals. They are highly dangerous. The people of Hill City are advised to not stay out late at night. And we hope these criminals are put behind bars again soon. It is not yet clear how they got out. The police are doing everything they can." The news reporter continued. Jade turned down the volume again. She was in shock. Ian looked at her. He placed his arm around her. "Are you okay?" He asks. She kept staring at the tv. "They're out." She says. "How did they even do that?" Ian questioned. Jade went over all the possibilities in her head. But the thought of her brothers sitting in her living room. Together. She put the papers down and slowly got up. "Jade? Are you alright?" He asks her. She walked into the small bedroom she was staying in quietly. When she came out, she had her purse and her coat over her arm. "Hey, hey, hey! Where are you going?" Ian asks her. "I need to...I need to be somewhere. I'll be back. I promise." She says emotionless. Ian jumped up and stopped her before she could stumble out of the room. "You're going there? Right now?" He asks. Jade ignored him, all she could think about were her brothers. She grabbed the keys and walked out of the door. "I need to go." She repeated. Ian followed her into the hallway. "You can't go." He tells her. "You're not stopping me." She says. Her sight became a bit blurry as she walked. It was the adrenaline. The thought of her brothers. It freaked her out. She fluttered with her eyes. Her knees became weak. Ian caught her before she hit the ground. "Jade?" He says. Her eyes were shut but she reached out her hand. "I have to go to them." She tells him.