This story is fictional, I'm sorry (actually I'm jelous) if it resembles your life in any way shape or form. Constructive criticism is welcome. If gay relationships offend you, then "How did I manage to start reading this story?" is a good question to be asking yourself. However you're still welcome to read it!
This story is owned solely by Gaco and may not be copied by any means by any unlicensed individuals, groups, or organizations.
Copyright 2020 Gaco. All Rights Reserved.
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Chapter 15
"Bryce!" I screamed, causing Zeke to whimper and push his head further into my lap.
The door I had gotten in through opened after half a breath.
"Shh! We don't need to draw more attention to..." Bryce stopped mid-sentence.
I looked up at him, seeing that he had caught the sight and scent of all the blood covering Zeke.
"What the fuck happened?" Bryce asked, looking at me as if I had information he didn't, or like I caused it. "Zeke. Shift. We need answers. Now."
Zeke just shivered again before laying his head back down on my lap, looking away from Bryce.
"Zeke." Bryce's voice was much deeper than normal, and I looked up to see his eyes glowing gold. "Shift. Now."
Zeke, however, didn't budge. Something had him nearly catatonic with fright. Probably the same something that caused him to be covered in so much blood.
"I'm not sure he can right now..." I said softly. "He's been shaking since he got in. He doesn't appear hurt, but he is definitely in shock."
"Fuck." Bryce said before closing the door again.
"Justin." Bryce got his attention and threw him the keys. "Get Tom and Zeke to a hotel. Do NOT use the credit cards."
Bryce pulled a wad of cash out of his wallet and handed it to Justin.
"Alexi and I are going to see if we can get close to the house. If the cops aren't inside we're going to try to get in and see what the hell happened." He said before turning around and walking towards the direction Zeke had come from.
Justin silently got into the driver's seat, adjusted it for a moment, cranked up the car, and pulled away. I turned to watch as Bryce and Alexi headed into the darkness before we pulled too far away to see them.
"What's happening, Justin." I asked, turning back around to stare at the back of his head.
"I don't know any more than you." He replied after a moment. "Nothing like this has ever happened before."
After a five-minute drive we pulled into a hotel with a small "Pets Welcome" message tacked underneath the hotel logo.
"You and Zeke stay here. I'll see about getting us a room." Justin said while getting out of the car.
I just nodded while keeping one hand on Zeke as I watched the area hoping no one would look too closely at us. After a few minutes Justin got back into the car and cranked it back up, pulling us around to one of the farthest buildings from the office.
"I told the desk clerk that we have a dog, and that while he's usually quiet, he might occasionally bark." Justin said as we were pulling around. "I asked for a room away from the other guests so we wouldn't disturb them. Hopefully it helps prevent people from overhearing our conversations or seeing us come and go."
I nodded and opened the door after we stopped. Zeke still had not moved an inch. With him sill laying across my lap it was going to be hard to get out. Justin walked around to our side of the car.
"Is he hurt?" Justin asked after opening the door and staring down at us.
"Not that I've been able to see." I responded. "It's dark though so I can't be sure. I think he's just in shock."
"Well, you're already covered in blood. One of us should probably stay clean just in case we need to go out for some reason." He said.
I looked down at myself and nearly recoiled. The blood that was covering Zeke had soaked my shirt and jeans as well as the back seat of the car and the back of the seat in front of us.
"Why don't you take Zeke inside. I'll see what I can do to clean up out here." Justin grumbled, handing me the key to the room while he went around and popped the trunk.
I slid out from under Zeke, attempting to coax him into following me, but he just laid in the seat unmoving and staring off into space.
"Come on Zeke, we need to get inside." I whispered, trying again. He still didn't move.
I looked to Justin who had been watching us and shook my head.
"Pick him up and carry him in. I'll get the door." He said, gingerly taking the key from my hand while trying to keep the blood off himself.
I blanched.
"I'm not strong enough to carry him! He must weigh over one hundred and thirty pounds!" I exclaimed.
"Thomas. You've shifted. Twice. You're fully into your change now. You're stronger than you probably realize." He said without sympathy. "Get him up and inside."
I leaned down to pick Zeke's wolf up, surprised when I was able to do so with very little strain. I nodded to Justin and followed him to room 189. He pushed the door open and held it for me as I walked into the darkness. Justin flipped the switch, revealing a small hotel room with two queen sized beds. A small flat screen tv sat on the cheap dresser across from the beds. It smelled like this room hadn't been opened in a while.
I moved towards one of the beds only for my shoulder to be grabbed by Justin.
"No. We don't want to get blood all over the room. Put him in the shower and get him cleaned up." Justin said, nodding towards the bathroom.
I sighed and walked into the bathroom with Zeke in my arms. I flipped the switch with my elbow as I entered the tiny bathroom before slowly lowering Zeke into the tub. Looking up I noticed that we were fortunate enough that the shower had a detachable sprayer and switched it to only use that function before turning the water on full hot. I directed the sprayer to point directly into the drain.
As the water was warming up I looked back towards Zeke who still had not moved or even acknowledged that we had moved from the car.
"Are you OK Zeke?" I asked, looking into his eyes. He didn't so much as blink.
Once the water was scalding hot I adjusted the cold water to make it more bearable and moved the spray onto Zeke's back. He jumped, his eyes looking towards me for the first time since we'd gotten him into the back of the car, but he still did not move from his spot in the tub. After several minutes of hosing down the areas of blood I found covering Zeke's body Justin came into the bathroom to wet some paper towels he had found.
"I've wiped up as much as I could, but there's still a large stain in the back of Bryce's car." Justin grimaced as he wet the paper towels in the sink.
"How's Zeke?" He asked.
"He doesn't appear to be hurt." I responded. "He's still not really reacting to anything though. Only jumped a little when the water started."
Justin grunted.
"You're covered in blood yourself. Strip off those clothes and take a shower when you're done with him. I'll see if I can find anything you two can wear in the trunk." He said while turning to leave.
"Can you get out on your own?" I asked Zeke, holding out a towel.
He looked up at me for a moment before rising up on shaky legs and climbing over the edge of the tub clumsily, nearly falling on his face as he tripped when his back legs hit the rim of the tub. I held the towel out from my body, trying to avoid getting any blood on it as I dried Zeke off as best I could. The towel was soaked with water and he was still dripping a little, but I had done all I could without getting blood on him or the towel.
"You want to stay in here or go out to the room and get on one of the beds?" I asked, looking down at Zeke.
He didn't move from the spot he was standing. I sighed, grabbed another towel, and laid it out on the ground in the bathroom. Zeke just walked over to it and collapsed. I watched him for a few moments before getting back up off the ground, shucking my clothes, and stepping back into the shower. I put the spray nozzle back on the hook it came from, set the shower back to full spray mode, and adjusted the heat up a bit.
After about ten minutes Justin came back into the bathroom.
"Still no word from Bryce yet." Justin said on the other side of the shower curtain. "Whatever happened must be a real clusterfuck."
"I found a couple pair of old sweats and tee-shirts of Bryce's in the trunk. You and Zeke at least won't have to go around naked for the foreseeable future." He said as I pushed shampoo out of my hair.
"Thanks." I said softly, still soaking in the steamy hot spray and not really in the mood to get out of the shower yet.
I heard the bathroom door close as Justin left. I continued to soak in the shower, taking in what had happened during the day. My day had gone from nervous anticipation, to excitement, to exhilaration, to panic, back to exhilaration, and now back to near panic. The rollercoaster of emotions and feelings was taking a lot out of me and I was starting to get drowsy from exhaustion.
Once out of the shower and dry I walked back into the main hotel room. Zeke slowly followed me and leapt up onto the closest bed, still as a wolf. I looked to Justin whose face was wrinkled in a grimace.
"I still haven't heard back from anyone." Justin said as he looked up from his phone and noticed me.
"What can we do?" I asked, causing Justin to sigh.
"I don't know, and that's really bothering me." He said. "I can't leave you two here alone. A catatonic wolf and a wolf who's just went through his first shift." He gestured at Zeke and myself. "Bryce would kill me if I left you alone. Not knowing what is happening is driving me insane."
"Is there someone we should call?" I asked. "Lawyers, friends, Alpha Johnson?"
"There are no friendly packs or allies in the city with us. Not really." He said with a frown. "And Alpha Johnson, while friendly, is over an hour away and Bryce would not be happy I involved another alpha in internal pack business. It would be even worse if it turns out that this is something he can handle easily on his own. Calling our lawyers though... That's a good idea."
Justin pulled out his phone to search through his contacts for a few moments before putting the phone to his ear. He must have had the volume very low as I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation even with my newly enhanced shifter hearing.
"Billy. Yeah, hi." He said after a moment's wait. "I know it's getting late, but we have a situation here at the house. There's some sort of commotion out front and the police won't let us though."
He paused as this Billy person responded. While I couldn't make out words I could hear a soft murmuring from my position across the room.
"No, I'm not sure who's still inside. We couldn't get in, and no one is answering their phones. There is a flipped truck out front. It's just laid out on the lawn like it rolled after hitting something." Justin eyed me, arching his eyebrows. We both knew that truck had been mine, and had been returned to a parking garage at James' old college.
"Right. It's got me concerned. The police seemed awfully interested in the house, though there appeared to be no damage or problem in or around it from what we could see from the street." He said.
"That's why we pay you the big bucks." He laughed. "Thanks man. I'll call back if I hear anything from Bryce."
Justin hung up the phone before turning back to me.
"That was my friend Bill from my army days. He went on to get his law degree. He has his own practice here now. Bryce hired him on retainer, and once we were clients gave him a short idea of what we are. I don't think he believed Bryce until I went with him one day and he'd seen I hadn't aged a day since we got out of the army." He said.
"Since then he's dealt with all our pack business, and gotten us out of a few rough spots when we get tangled up with the law." He continued. "I should have thought of him earlier, but I guess even I'm a little in shock... Not hearing from anyone else is very very bad."
"What's he going to do?" I asked.
"He's going to call around to a few of his police contacts and figure out what's happening." He said. "Hopefully he can get the police lines around the house pulled down and we can get inside and figure out what the hell happened."
I stared off into space for a few moments trying to think of ways to help, running all of the possible scenarios of what could be happening or could have happened through my mind.
"We should add multiple IP cameras on a heavily secured system to our wish list for the den." I said, after an indeterminate amount of time had passed. "If we had had some today we would be able to get an idea of what the hell happened from here. We would also be able to check on Bryce and Alexi and whoever else may still be there."
"Fuck. You're right. Even us city wolves seem to have a hard time keeping up with the latest and best technology." He said with a grunt. "I'm glad you joined us. Even if the exact circumstances weren't ideal I can tell you're going to be a huge asset. New blood isn't always a boon. More often than not it's a burden for a few years rather than an asset, but I think you'll do."
A few moments later there was a deafeningly loud pounding on the door. Justin and I both grabbed our pistols from where we had set them and nodded to each other before he went to the door. With the door guard still in place he cracked the door open an inch with his boot braced behind it and peeked through the crack.
"Jesus Christ!" Justin exclaimed sounding panicked and slammed the door shut quickly.
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