Blood and Beasts

Chapter 16

It wasn't easy getting the man (the werewolf) to the safe house, but by sunset they had managed. Carrying him through the forest had probably been the most difficult part. He wasn't a big man and he was fairly thin, so Cara had been able to lift him on her shoulders. Andie helped when Cara grew too exhausted, though she was a bit small to support the man on her own. 

They stole clothes from one of the dead mercenaries as they passed by them on the way back. Cara figured if they did happen to pass anyone, it was easier to explain an unconscious clothed man, than a naked one. Cara had originally been planning to use the clothes to bandage up some of his wounds, but they seemed to have already cauterized. They also took as many tranq darts as they could find from the mercenaries. Cara wanted to make sure they had enough to regularly dose him. They needed to find someplace secure to lock him in, and soon, otherwise a bullet would be their only option.

Their own truck was miles back and would have taken hours to walk back to with the extra weight on their shoulders, so they decided to take one of the mercenaries' big black trucks. They didn't intend to drive this truck far, only back to their own, but they did find some useful supplies in the back: handcuffs, restraints, a muzzle. Cara didn't find it particularly humane to put all of this on the man, but Andie made it clear that their safety and the safety of others had to come first if they were going to do this.

Once back at their own truck, they shifted the now heavily restrained man into the back seat of their white pickup. They abandoned the black truck, along with everything else to do with the mercenaries behind them. It would be discovered eventually, but Cara and Andie wanted to be far away by then. They'd ditch their own truck as soon as they could, however first they needed a safe house to keep this man. Logan had dedicated his life to building a network, so that no matter where they were, there was somewhere safe to go. Even still, options would be slim for them; they didn't just need a place to hide, they needed somewhere that they could secure a werewolf.

Andie drove the truck, while Cara kept vigil on the back seat, one hand on the tranq gun. Cara also made the call to Bethany; they needed help and she would be the one to give it. Bethany made much of the same protests Andie had, but ultimately the conversation went the same way. Cara felt such warmth in her heart, such love for these two women that would help her through anything.

Bethany worked her magic while they drove south (not yet knowing exactly where they were going) and she managed to get back to them with the address of a safe house in Port Severn. It was the summer home of a going-on-elderly couple. Their teenage children had been taken years ago by vampires, and they had gotten in touch with the hunters in the hopes of getting them back. The teens didn't survive, but in the process of trying to find them, Bethany and Logan had needed a secure place to interrogate one of the vampires, so they had converted part of the basement of the summer home into a cell. The cell was apparently still there and construction had been done to hide it away. In truth it was the most ideal spot they could have hoped for.

The house was tucked away in the forest, far from the main town centre, something Cara was very grateful of. They could see the lake (Little Lake it was called; an overly quant name for such an occasion) through the trees as they drove along the poorly paved road. There were other homes dotting the edge of the lake, but all were fairly removed from each other. Looping around a small inlet of the lake, they saw a mailbox at the end of a driveway with the address they were looking for.

They drove up to a large two-story cottage with beautiful wooden panels over the exterior, interspersed with large pane windows. There was a lovely porch stretching out from the front of the house, supported by columns decorated with limestone brickwork. The chimney stood high above the house in similar fashion. The roof narrowed considerably past the outcrop covering the porch, but a loft with more of that beautiful wooden paneling broke it up. The garage appeared to be an afterthought, stuck on to the left of the house with little of the grace shown by the rest of the architecture.