First Time Train Wreck Read online

  He pulled off on his own. Why? Because he didn’t play with corpses. Bye, Jaren. He lifted his head to the bull on the other side. He had a gash under his horn that was freely bleeding, was missing an ear, and one of his horns was broken off. He was a buckskin color and covered in scars from head to toe. His chest was heaving as he stared back at Wreck. He nodded and backed slowly to the other side of his pen.

  When Wreck kicked his back legs, the wranglers gave him some space. Slowly, he sauntered down the alleyway at his own pace. A couple wranglers were trying to revive Jaren. Good luck with that. He looked up at a dark-haired greasy wrangler in a sweaty baseball cap. His blue eyes were wide.

  You’re next. Wreck bunched his muscles and charged a step forward. The wrangler startled and fell off the gate, landed hard on the other side.

  Another private smile.

  Wreck made eye contact with every bull in every pen he passed. So many light eyes. So many shifters here, pumped full of meds, turned into animals. One was missing his front leg, and the stitches on the stump looked fresh. The white bull nodded, but his eyes were almost, almost dead.

  Wreck took note of everything. Every gate, every bull, every door that led out of the building, the setup of the pens, and he memorized the features of every wrangler who had filtered in to contain him. They were all going to die for what they were doing here.

  He veered toward the pen with the Hagans he’d come with. The old black bull with the long black horns that looked like Raven was standing at the gate. He ducked his chin, eyes on Wreck. Respect.

  “Put him through the chutes first!” a wrangler yelled from behind him.

  Another wave of rage overtook him, but when he spun around and charged, a gate slammed closed, trapping him in a smaller space in the alleyway. He trotted the space, avoiding the bottleneck he was being herded toward.

  He bellowed, head up, ears erect, muscles moving easy as he warmed up this body.

  An answering bellow met him from across the room, then another. The black Hagan bull tossed his head up and let off a deep, rumbling call. Wreck had riled them up again.

  The room went deafening with the sound of the bulls.

  Another smile.

  These assholes had no idea what was coming for them.

  He trotted to the edge of the alleyway. Another gate closed him in. They were pushing him toward a chute area.

  Be ready.

  Hot Shots sent bolts of painful electricity through him as wranglers hit him through the slats in the gate when he got too close. Oh, they knew what they were doing now.

  When he was pushed into a narrow alleyway, he bolted for an opening. A metal collar was slammed closed on either side of his neck. This wasn’t some normal chute. It was reinforced steel that he couldn’t escape no matter how much he fought.

  There were more wranglers in here. New ones. Dressed in white lab coats over their jeans and work boots. Movin’ on up.

  Up ahead, there was a set of double doors that were open, and beyond that, he could see white, sterile walls. There was the lab. This was just the holding area.

  Ropes were tightened on his horns and tied off, immobilizing his head.

  A Wrangler ducked in and clipped a tag onto his ear. Wreck used the pain of the piercing to fuel him. He slammed his body weight sideways and slung his neck, snapping the rope on one side. He slammed his horn into the wrangler, and the asshole fell backward with a pained yell.

  Chains came next. Chains on his horns, and now he couldn’t move at all. The smell of fire and metal filled his nostrils. He rolled his eyes as far as he could and, yep, there it was. Right on the edge of his vision, a man was preparing a brand in a fire pit.

  Train Wreck was going to kill them. He bucked upward, straining his neck.

  Some of the bulls could still see him through the fence slats. Don’t make a noise. Don’t show them anything.

  He’d broken Piercing Boy’s arm. He’d felt the break against his horn, and now handler was limping away toward the lab, holding his hurt arm and yelling at another Lab Coat. Ha ha. Train Wreck would finish that job later.

  Warmth was running down his ear, and the tag flapped annoyingly every time he moved his head.

  “You’re just a number now,” said a wrangler sitting on the fence, Hot Shot resting on his leg as he watched Wreck. “One-zero-one-zero. You won’t ever be a man again. You’ll die before they let you change back. Accept it, bucker. You’re here to feel pain and fill stat boards. Maybe they’ll cut your body parts off and monitor how fast you heal. Maybe they’ll take organs to study. Maybe they’ll breed you. That sounds fun, but it ain’t.” The man smiled an evil, empty expression. “It won’t be your choice. They won’t kill you right away, though. You’re an important one. Expensive. Do you know how much Sloane got paid for you? Thirty-five thousand dollars. And he gets rid of his problem. You. Shoulda just turned the other cheek, ignored what you knew, and focused on bucking. You could’ve lived happily ever after, but now you’ll suffer and you’ll die, just like the rest of these freaks in here.”

  Wreck hated him. Hated everyone here. Hated anyone involved in this awful operation.

  The brand was coming. A few lab coats were shouting out stats and measurements. His weight, length of his tail, legs, horns. His name and lineage. When they said his parents’ names, he nearly broke his neck trying to get to them.

  He could see them—the Hagan bulls he’d been brought in with. The black one had cleared out a space right at the fence, and his eyes were intent on Wreck. Don’t show them fear, he seemed to say.

  Wreck closed his eyes and fought every instinct to bawl out when the hot metal hit his hip. Every second it stayed pressed to him was a year of agony. That’s what it felt like. The smell of burning fur and flesh filled his head and turned his stomach. A cloud of reeking smoke surrounded him.

  The burning metal was pulled off his flesh with a sick sound. Wreck chugged breath, eyes focused forward on the open hanger doors. This whole operation was going to burn.

  How did he know?

  Because this was part of the plan.

  This was exactly where he’d wanted to end up. He hadn’t known where this hell was, but now he did.

  They thought he was just another shifter to study.

  But he wasn’t.

  Train Wreck was a grenade.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Grenade.

  That’s what Wreck’s rejection felt like, just sitting in her chest, ticking off time before she broke apart completely.

  Amber sniffed and wiped her hand across her damp cheek. She texted her grandma, I’ll be home soon. Her phone rang almost immediately. Before she picked up her grandma’s call, she inhaled deeply and steadied her voice. “Hey, Gram.”

  “What happened?”

  “I…I don’t really know. I think there are things here that I don’t want to be a part of.” Nope, she wasn’t ready to talk about Wreck yet. That part, she wanted to work through alone. The shock still hadn’t worn off.

  “I wanted you to see for yourself.”

  Amber squinted at the sun peeking over the trees. “What?”

  Gram sighed into the phone. “I left for many reasons, Amber. There ain’t much good there since Lewis died. The ranch was taken into the wrong hands. I always thought you were luckier to be away from it, but you were so curious about our family. About your roots. I couldn’t keep you from there forever. You’re grown and smart, and you’re a watcher. You were always going to figure out your path on your own. Family is what you make it.”

  She thought about the cameras and the bugs and the cold looks in Uncle Sloane and Aunt Helena’s eyes when they looked at her. She thought about the Hagan file and the awful things they did to people for money. And then she thought about how she’d felt with the herd. How her friends had looked at her, danced with her, and made her feel important. And Train Wreck… She swallowed the thickness in her throat. That was going to be a much bigger loss than her aunt and uncle’s appro
val.

  “I’ve learned that family is who you choose to be in your circle. Sometimes it’s by blood, and sometimes it’s not.”

  “Those are very important lessons to learn, honey. But very hard ones, too. Are you okay?”

  “I will be.” She forced a smile, as if Gram could see it. “I’ll be home soon.”

  She disconnected the call and made her way inside. This place seemed foreign to her now. Gah, her body felt so heavy. Her heart weighed more than the rest of her. More than her body, more than her mind, more than the duffle bag in her hand. Waterlogged with confusion and hurt and betrayal, her heart glugged on, saying something different with each beat.

  You’re not enough.

  You didn’t belong.

  He lied.

  But she’d felt him. Amber shook her head. She’d caught him watching her and bathed in the smile she’d put on his face time and time again. And she had been open about her uncle when he’d asked questions. What he’d said earlier to her made no sense. Had he really only been pretending?

  Tears streamed down her face again, and she hated this. Hated how weak and sad she felt.

  Desperate to think on anything else, she made her way to the bedroom and dragged the empty suitcases out of the closet. She cast a quick glance at the space where the gun bag Wreck had given her had once taken up. How could she know someone for such a short time, yet still everything reminded her of him? How could a person have such an impact on another? She’d been so stupid to let him in.

  She threw herself into packing. She should’ve known she wouldn’t stay here for long. She hadn’t even brought much. Just what could fill up the back seat of her car. The rest of her belongings were sitting in a storage unit in Boise, like something inside of her had known she wouldn’t set down roots here.

  She packed up her car and looked around the cabin. The picture was still sitting up on the mantle. She padded across the wood floor and picked it up. Her parents looked so happy to be together and holding her, but Sloane looked miserable. His eyes were so cold.

  Biting her lip, Amber turned the picture over to remove the photo, and found another bug taped to the frame. She huffed an angry sound and ripped it off. Dropped it on the ground and slammed her foot down on it. She pried open the back of the frame and removed the picture, folded Uncle Sloane out of the family pic, and ripped along the crease she created until it was just her parents and her left. She let Uncle Sloane’s portion of the picture fall to the ground and put the remaining photograph into her back pocket.

  Out on the front porch, the sun was setting, and the shadows of the trees were stretching longer, reaching for her. She would miss the beauty of this place. She looked up, remembering the camera on the eaves. She wouldn’t miss feeling watched and hunted.

  And that’s when something hit her.

  God, how embarrassing that Uncle Sloane and Aunt Helena had probably seen Train Wreck reject her.

  Amber frowned up at the camera.

  They had seen Train Wreck reject her.

  She winced in embarrassment and made her way to the four-wheeler. She needed two minutes with Uncle Sloane to explain why she was leaving, and then she would be out of here. Maybe she should just call him. The sun was going down, and she didn’t like driving at night. No, she owed him a face-to-face when she quit this job he’d offered her. She wasn’t a coward.

  She turned on the ATV and zoomed toward the fence. And when she got out to open the gate, movement caught her eye.

  Dillon’s truck was slowly rolling up the long drive, but it was towing something behind it. Something big and mangled. It was scraping loudly against the ground. It was… “Oh, my God,” she whispered, ducking down behind the bramble-riddled fence.

  Dillon was towing Train Wreck’s mangled truck toward the big barn.

  Amber sat there frozen, peeking through the foliage, chest heaving. The entire front of Train Wreck’s truck was destroyed as though he’d wrapped it around a pole or a tree or something.

  Train Wreck.

  Her entire body started trembling from her bones out.

  Wreck.

  She didn’t see him with Dillon, and he wasn’t in his truck either. She knew because the driver’s side door had been dented inward and hung open, unable to close.

  The second Dillon disappeared into the open barn doors and Uncle Sloane closed it behind him, she reached for her phone in her back pocket where she usually kept it. Not today, though. Her jeans had been too tight. Shit.

  Where did she put the dang thing? She looked around the woods distractedly. It was hard to think with her mind racing like this. When had she had it last? Keeping low to the ground, she made her way back to the ATV, hit the gas, and gunned it for the cabin. The second she pulled into the yard, she hopped off and bolted to her car, dug frantically around her bags in the back. She’d shoved it in the side pocket of one of them, but just didn’t remember which one.

  There! She pulled it out. She had three missed calls. One from Wreck and one from a number she didn’t recognize.

  Hands shaking, she called Train Wreck. No answer. It went to his voicemail. Shit!

  She called twice more.

  Adrenaline pumping, she climbed into her car and grabbed the keys from the cup holder, fumbled them into the ignition, and then jerked the car in a circle, heading straight for the little dirt road that would lead her out of here. She zoomed down the bumpy trail, but as she took the first curve, a massive black Chevy Silverado blocked her path, and Amber had to slam on the brakes to avoid a head-on collision.

  She rocked to a stop and stared up at the driver. Aunt Helena was sitting there, eyes dead and her lips thinned into a grim line. She opened the door to get out, and Amber could see it clear as day—the pistol in her hand.

  Panting, Amber threw her car in reverse and jammed the gas, sped backward. A shot rang out, and her front window shattered inward. Pain slashed across her face, and she shrieked in agony. Wreck. There was an opening in the trees just wide enough for her car.

  “Scamper away, you little bitch,” Aunt Helena called out, her voice rattling around in Amber’s head. “You won’t get far.”

  In a truck, she wouldn’t get far, but in her little zoom-zoom car? Oh, yes, she could.

  Her face was on fire, and warmth was streaming down her cheek. The shattered glass had hurt her. Another shot rang out just as she threw the car into drive and hit the gas. Her back window shattered. Three more shots rang out as she sped through an opening in the trees. One of the shots hit a tree right by her door, and the bark splintered. Amber yelled, “Goooo!” to her little car as she wound this way and that through any opening wide enough.

  Helena screamed a curse and, Amber turned around to see her bolting for her truck. Wasted your bullets, bitch.

  She hit the gas harder and controlled a fishtail as she sped through the trees. There was a hole between two pines, but it was so tight. She wouldn’t make it. She wouldn’t make it! But Helena was reversing, cutting off her path to the road, so Amber slammed her foot on the gas and yelled a battle cry as she sped through the two tree trunks. Her side mirrors were ripped off and the sides of her car screeched as the bark scraped against it, but she’d made it. Gripping the wheel harder, she hit the road just feet before Helena could reach her. And now that monster had to chase her in reverse because the trees were too thick beside the road for her to turn around.

  When Amber rubbed her hand across her chin, her entire hand came back red. Fuck. She was really hurt. The fire in her cheek said she probably had glass in her skin still. But at least she was putting space between them. Behind her, Helena turned too hard on a curve and slammed her back end into a tree. Hell, yes. That would buy her time.

  In the cupholder, her phone rang. She couldn’t take her eyes from the winding dirt road to check caller idea, so she just hit the green button. Please let it be Wreck. “Hello?”

  “Please tell me you are on a road trip to Soda Springs,” a man said. Not Wreck.

/>   “Who is this?” she demanded, swerving around the sharpest curve. Another two hundred yards, and she would be to the road. Her face hurt so bad.

  “It’s Dead! Amber, tell me you’re fucking somewhere in a hotel in Soda Springs with Train Wreck!”

  “No! I’m driving for my freaking life from Two Thorns! My aunt just shot at me and I’m fucking hurt and I’m not even with Train Wreck!”

  “Fuck!”

  She hit the speaker button and put it back in the cupholder so she could drive with both hands.

  Dead’s voice was muffled. “Hit the gas. She’s still at the ranch.” To her he said, “Amber! Is she still chasing you?”

  “I don’t know.” Amber checked the rearview as she spun her backend, hit the main road out of Two Thorns property. “I can’t see her.”

  “Come straight to town. Don’t stop, don’t slow. We are almost to you!”

  “What’s happening?” she asked, wiping the drip-drip-drip off her jawline again.

  “They took him. They took Train Wreck. I’ve got a tracker in his shoulder, and he started moving toward Soda Springs this morning. I tried to call him, but he didn’t pick up, and neither did you, so we started heading your way.”

  “A tracker? Who took him?” she asked, her heart roaring in her ears.

  “He made us swear to make sure you’re safe before we go get him. Where are you now?”

  “Seven minutes from the edge of town!” When she glanced up in her rearview, the black truck was behind her now, closing the space between them. “Helena is on my tail again. Dead…” She swallowed down a lump in her throat. “I’m hurt.”

  “Just hit that gas, girl. We’re coming. Get to us, and we’ve got you. Get to the courthouse on Main Street!”

  Amber floored it on a straightaway. Helena was catching up, coasting in the lane beside her. She was going to hit her back end and drive her off the road!

  A truck hauling a trailer of hay appeared going the other way, and Helena had to slam on her brakes and swerve into the same lane as Amber, behind her.