There were only four days in her life that Evelyn could think back on with crystal-clear memory.
The first was the day she met Adam; the second, the day she gave birth to Cain; third, the day Jacob was born, and finally the day Jacob died.
She could perfectly recall every second, enjoyable or otherwise.
The majority, if not the entirety, of three of those four days were spent with Dr. Zosak. He had been there through so much joy and heartache—it was hard to think of him as the man he had become.
Stealing away her son, whom he led her to believe was dead, was an egregious act that Evelyn fought hard to morally justify.
After hours of sitting in shock at the news delivered by her husband, Evelyn was unable to come up with a conclusively sound reason as to why the doctor should be excused.
Doing what he did solely for the sake of research was not strong enough ground to stand on.
Destroying her family and diminishing her son's value to that of a test tube was not something she could let slide.
But death was too high a price.
"Dismiss him," she said finally.
Evelyn looked up from her seat at her husband who stood a few feet away next to a fireplace, staring into the flames in deep thought.
Adam's trance was interrupted by her words and his eyebrows furrowed as he realized what she'd said.
"The question was kill or not to kill," he reminded her.
"Don't kill him," she said, firmly this time.
Adam's confusion was evident in his expression.
"I don't understand," he said. "Why wouldn't we kill him? Evelyn, he-"
"I know what he did," she interrupted. "But are we no better if we kill him solely for the sake of doing so? He isn't necessarily a threat. I don't see the point of killing him."
Adam shook his head.
"With all he knows of our pack and our family, he is a threat. I don't trust him enough to simply dismiss him back into the world and I certainly don't trust him enough to keep him here. That only leaves one other option..."
Evelyn stood, beginning to feel angry.
"Why did you ask me what I thought we should do if you had already made up your mind?"
Adam approached Evelyn and placed his hands on either side of her face.
"You're a gracious woman," he said. "If there was a good reason to keep him alive, you would have found it. But there's a time when the line between naivety and graciousness is blurred. We can't afford to allow him another opportunity to do something horrendous."
Her eyebrows furrowed as she stepped back, out of his grasp.
"He didn't kill our son," she said. "If anything, Dr. Zosak is the reason Jacob is alive today."
"Yes and the reason two Betas are dead," Adam reminded her.
Evelyn shook her head.
"Two Betas are dead because of the decisions our son made on his own. Has it occurred to you that Jacob could have just as easily come home to us rather than run away from Zosak?"
Adam seemed hurt by the vague accusation but quickly shielded it with a harsh expression.
"Dr. Zosak will die because he has committed treason against myself, against Cain and against this pack. I will never forgive him for what he did to our family..."
Evelyn began to say something else, but Adam continued.
"I won't let vengeance be the reason for killing him, but it will certainly be the reason that I'll enjoy it."
With that, Adam turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Evelyn turned to look at the flames that danced in the hearth with eyes glossed over by tears.
She wasn't crying because a close friend would soon die.
Evelyn cried because, like Adam, she had a dark side that would be gratified in his death.
When Adam returned to their room an hour later with a blood-stained shirt, Evelyn pretended not to notice.
"Where are you going?" He asked, noticing her suitcase on the end of the bed.
"I've just learned that my son is alive," Evelyn answered. "I'd like to see him..."
"...before Cain kills him again."
- - -
Ella's P.O.V.
We had been sitting at the harbor for so long that the smell—no, stench—of fish had become invisible to my sense of smell.
That didn't mean that the burn of salty air didn't still make my eyes water, nor did it mean that I no longer had a headache from inhaling the steam-rotten air.
I wasn't afforded the luxury of having accustomed to those just yet.
"I don't think they're coming," I said to Jai, repeating the voice that had been saying the same thing over and over in my head since we arrived.
He looked over his shoulder at where I sat on the boat's stern.
"I'm starting to worry the same thing."
The anticipated time of arrival had been hours prior to that moment.
I had wondered at first if we were even in the right place. If I were the Beta and I was trying to flee, I would take a plane. It was the quickest way to get somewhere far and certainly not easy to stop once in the air, but Jai informed me that this was too risky a move for someone to take since they knew we would be coming into Mumbai in a jet as well.
Fleeing on foot didn't make sense and neither did using a train or car. There was too much a risk of being seen and the paperwork involved in crossing borders wasn't an expedient process.
Jai and Jace were both certain they would leave on a boat, that way they would be able to leave virtually undetected.
So there we sat, at the only port in Mumbai that would allow for private boats to dock without notice and leave without a record of direction and heading.
If they were fleeing, we would catch them.
Or so that was how the plan was supposed to go.
Watching Jai's face as he thought through his next moves made me notice just how exhausted he looked.
Dark circles under his blood-shot eyes were prominent against his pale skin. As he slumped into a seat beside me, I reached over and grabbed his hand.
"Maybe you should take about three or four hours to rest and eat something. I'm sure myself, your dad and Zahra can handle things for a while."
He shook his head fervently, looking off at the dark ocean behind us.
"I'm fine. Besides, I think it's you and Daniel we need to worry about."
My eyebrows furrowed.
"Me?"
He looked down at our feet and gently kicked over the steel bottle that sat on the wooden deck.
As it hit the floor beside our feet, the echoing clang of the empty bottle rang out and I sighed.
It was the same one Cain had given me earlier that morning, just empty.
"When did you finish that?" he asked.
I took a deep breath.
"I'm okay," I told him. "It's only been three hours. I went longer than that yesterday and was completely okay."
Jai looked at me warily.
"I promise," I told him. "I'm okay, don't worry about me."
He glanced down at the bottle again before beginning to say something else.
Suddenly, the sound of radio frequency cut the silence that lingered between us.
The static hiss made me nearly fall backwards out of my seat; I had forgotten Jai even had the radio on him.
"You've got a car headed your way," I heard Jace's voice say. "Just passed through the port entry on the south side. Looks like it's two males. I didn't get a good look at them from the car, over."
"Roger that, I see the car but it looks like the driver turned out the headlights. They're still moving towards the docks, over," Zahra added.
Jai lifted the radio to his lips.
"Roger all, stay calm and stay in position. If it's them, we'll get him."
Even though there had been two false alarms already, I still felt my palms begin to sweat with anticipation.
Jai and myself, as well as a team of four other Lycanthropes were on a boat at the end of a dock. Zahra and her team were on a boat at the other end of the dock, near the entrance. Jace stayed in the parking lot with a few other men to scope out incoming traffic and block the exit if necessary.
The car stopped at the end of the dock and I saw the shadows outlining the driver as he got out of the car and walked over to the passenger's side.
We all realized what was happening as we watched the driver pull the passenger from the car and tug him onto the deck.
"Are you seeing Daniel?" Jai asked Zahra.
I saw the driver stop in the middle of the pier and pull something from his back pocket.
"Daniel's here," a voice said, cutting into the radio frequency.
I felt a chill run up my spine as I recognized the voice.
"Jacob," I whispered, looking wide-eyed at Jai.
"Yes, darling, it's me," the voice repeated.
"You can have your friend back," he continued. "I just needed a way to get you all here. You can even have the antidote to the wolfsbane poisoning."
"Shit," Jai muttered, pulling the radio away from his mouth. "We're sitting ducks."
I realized in that moment that we had been so focused on narrowing in on Daniel and the Indian Beta that we hadn't noticed the walls that closed in around us as well.
We were all trapped on that dock with no way off it except through Jacob.
"C'mon," Jacob prodded, "This isn't a trick; no games or gimmicks. You can have back your Beta."
I saw Jai's jaw clench as he tried to quickly think of what to do.
Reaching over, I grabbed the radio from Jai.
"What do you want?" I asked Jacob.
I heard him laugh softly.
"Darling, how many times do you have to get kidnapped to realize that you are what I've been after this whole time?"
I turned to look at Jai who looked like he'd aged ten years in hearing Jacob say that.
"We brought you right to him," Jai whispered, like he couldn't believe the genius of it all. "I should have seen it."
My eyebrows furrowed as I turned to look back at Jacob where he stood on the pier with Daniel.
"If the whole point of this was to kidnap me, then why not do so this morning at the meeting?" I asked.
"Well, there was the issue of Cain... you probably know by now how dramatic and emotional he is. People probably would have died and there would have been lots of blood and I'm just not into that scene anymore."
Jai and I both looked at each other in confusion regarding Jacob's last words.
"I'm afraid I'm not a very patient man," Jacob said. "You can either come and get your friend or I can push him into the Arabian Sea and you'll never see him again."
I watched as Jacob moved closer to the side of the pier and placed a hand at the back of Daniel's neck and pushed him slightly, causing Daniel to teeter on the edge of the dock.
"Wait!" I shouted.
I heard Jai swear under his breath as I jumped off the front of the boat onto the pier and began to walk closer to where Jacob and Daniel stood.
"I'll come with you—but only if I see you give Daniel the antidote," I bargained.
Jacob pulled a vial from his back pocket and held it out for me to see.
"This is in his hands as soon as you're in mine."
As I walked closer, I noticed the dark circles around Daniel's eyes and the beads of sweat rolling down his face. His hair was matted with sweat to his forehead. I also noticed how his legs were shaking, as if merely standing was taking more energy than he could muster.
I saw Daniel slowly shake his head at me before I turned to Jacob.
"Give it to him."
Jacob held out a hand for me to take and I reached forward slowly, watching him closely as he handed the vial to Daniel.
Daniel took the vial reluctantly, his hands shaking as he did so.
Jacob reached forward and grabbed my hand, sending a searing flame up my arm.
Instinctively, I tried to pull back but his grip was firm. Quickly the feeling subsided and I felt nothing in my arm but a numb tingling, as if I'd hit my elbow on a corner.
When Jacob turned, I saw Zahra and her men loading off their boat onto the pier, blocking our exit.
Jai and his crew did the same.
But Jacob was still one step ahead.
He jumped into a nearby fishing boat, ripping the dock line from the pier as he did so. He turned and pulled me close behind him as he hit the ignition on the boat. I heard the engine roar to life as Jai began to run towards us.
Jacob pulled out of the dock so quickly that I fell forward into the floorboard.
I quickly got up to see Jai and Zahra standing on the edge of the pier where I had been standing moments earlier, fading into the darkness as the motor pushed the boat out into the ocean.
I turned to see Jacob intently focused on the horizon in front of us, as if I weren't even there and he had somewhere important to be.
If I had turned away even a moment earlier, I would have missed the quick glance he gave me out of the corner of his eye.
I wished I had missed it because of the uneasy feeling it gave me.
A few minutes went by and I felt the adrenaline levels in my body lower slightly.
I could no longer hear my heart beating rapidly in my chest; instead, I heard a voice scolding me for making such a stupid decision in agreeing to Jacob's terms.
But there was a part of me that would die feeling grateful that Daniel survived the ordeal.
I looked out at the ocean and noticed a boat in the distance that we drew nearer to.
The closer we got, the more I realized that we were closing in on a yacht that was bigger than my house.
Jacob cut the small boat's engine and steered us towards the side of the yacht with the expertise of a master sailsman.
I saw two men rush to the edge of the yacht's deck to catch the rope Jacob threw them. As they tethered the boat, Jacob leaned forward and pulled himself up onto the railing that lined the back deck.
Once his feet were planted on the deck, he turned and offered a hand to help me do the same.
I contemplated throwing myself overboard while I had the chance.
I couldn't decide whether to be more afraid of what lie under the dark, murky waters of the Arabian or the brightly lit deck of the yacht.
He reached forward and grabbed my hand and helped me pull myself up onto the dock.
I immediately turned away from him and looked around.
What I saw made me wish I had chosen to drown myself.
"What is that?" I asked him, staring at the IV drip that stood next to the couch where an aluminum sanitary plate that held an array of medical equipment sat.
Jacob brushed past before turning to look me in the eye.
"Your cure."
- - -