Chapter 41: Ryan

Joseph and Rodrigo said very little as they all got their supplies together. Ryan wasn’t up to talking much, that was obvious. He had gotten teste with a pack member who sniped a comment in his direction about this being the plan that gets them all killed.

“It’s not enough you wanna kill your little girlfriend-” the pack member had spit the word like it was acid burning his mouth- “ya wanna wipe out the rest of us too.”

Ryan lunged for the members and held him by the throat until Joseph managed to pull them apart and make some type of peace.

“No one else needs to go anyway,” Joseph assured whoever was listening.

“We don’t need you assholes messing it up,” Ryan added, and Joseph yanked him out of the pack house sharply.

At Rodridgo and Ryan’s apartment, the silence was uneasy but preferred. Sheila was gone. Wherever she was, she had taken the kid. She hadn’t told Ryan she was going anywhere but the last time he had spoken to her was on the phone yesterday when he had called in the middle of the night. When he made his way home, Sheila and the kid were already gone. Ryan couldn’t say he blamed her. If this didn’t work out and the headlands pack was able to sniff out their members, it was bound to get ugly.

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” Rodrigo asked, packing glass bottles of tap water into a backpack. “I mean, she has to get us a signal whenever she can. What if she gives us a signal and when we get in, it’s too early.”

“I thought that shit worked pretty quickly,” Ryan answered curtly. He didn’t even seem to consider the question worth his time from the tone of his voice.

“Yeah, it does but, Ryan, man.” Rodrigo put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and turned him away from what he was doing. “If one of them is still with it, it doesn’t take much to fire a gun. Ya feel me?”

“You’re that scared of getting shot?”

“They can fire a gun at her too, man.”

Ryan’s hands dropped to his side. Too much had to be pushed out of his head for him to continue moving forward. He had to lie to himself, pretend that there was no way this would fail, and that even if it did, the consequences would be limited. Looking the reality of it all square in the face rattled the earth under his feet more than the fault line over which San Francisco was built.

“I know this plan isn’t exactly fool proof,” Ryan said, taking too long to answer, returning to his work with a slowness that hinted at the weight of his conscience. “To be honest, I don’t know if there is such a thing as fool proof in this game.”

Joseph swung his car keys around his ring finger and let them fall jangling into his palm over and over again. A nervous habit the pack had gotten used to but each clinking noise stabbed Ryan in the ear. He clenched his fist and shot a hard glance in Joseph’s direction. Joseph froze aside from his hand as if that was under a function all its own. It took a long second for him to notice he was still doing it.

“Sorry, man,” Joseph said, slipping the keys into his pocket. “I’m just jittery as hell.”

Ryan turned away from the two of them. “Helena’s smart. She understands timing. God knows she doesn’t want to end up being bred by Troy.”

“Can she even?” Rodrigo asked to the back of Ryan’s head. The question had been covered a million times in shifter circles and everyone had a different answer. “Do you think they’d come out as shifters or just normal humans or what?”

“I don’t know, Rodrigo,” Ryan answered without facing him. “I’d rather not find out from Troy.”

The silence took root between them all again, now so quiet it was painful. There was no clear cut way forward and even if the plan moved along well, it could still be days of them in the woods, trying to keep their scent off the wind and themselves out of sight.

Warm weather brought long days, and Ryan thought the summer sun in San Francisco lasted even more than other places. When the fog rolled in, it trapped the light pollution in its mottled drafts, holding a pink effulgence that vibrated well into the night. In their younger years, their wild days, Ryan remembered standing outside of bars well past ten o’clock, staring up at the perpetually moving flow of moisture and radiance, marveling at how bright it still was even as time approached the witching hour.

Magical then but now that they needed the cover of dark, the lingering light tightened his jaw and caused the gnawing feeling in his stomach to dig deeper, grow darker, more painful. In all the chaotic years of his life, in all the times he’d lie awake worrying about what was going to happen next, he had never experienced anxiety so profound that it hurt. Before this, he didn’t think he had much to lose; how much was really on the line was a hard pill to not only swallow but keep down.

“We can get on the road now,” Joseph said when the sky was still blush and coral. “By the time we’re close to the compound, it’ll be dark.”

“Plus the fog isn’t the same up that way,” Rodrigo added.

Ryan watched the sherbert color of the clouds. “Not as much of a cover to trap the light.”

They packed the car in tacit motions, no words wanted or needed. Joseph’s truck was big enough to carry a sizable load but being able to carry supplies on their backs kept their supplies limited. The closest they could get to the compound without giving themselves away was about a mile then it was a hike straight uphill to get there. Back-ups of everything could be left in the flatbed in case they found themselves lurking in the woods longer than they planned for.

“How far is their place from here?” Ryan asked Joseph as the three of them got into the cab of the truck. “I’ve never been to the actual compound.”

“Close to an hour’s drive,” Joseph said.

Rodrigo released a low laugh from the back of his throat. “So they’re not really in the headlands? Do they just call themselves that to sound fancy?”

“When I think of Troy and the rest of those dirtbags, fancy is not exactly the word that springs to mind.” Joseph put the truck in gear.

Ryan felt pinpricks of sweat forming along his hairline. There was no turning back now. Not that there had been a chance to do it before either. Once Helena had been handed over, they passed the point of no return.

The Golden Gate Bridge presented their exit from the city. Below them the bay roiled blackly. They crossed the bridge with a whole slew of other cars, people idly going about their night, heading home or out for a good time or just going for a drive to clear their heads. Ryan wondered if anyone else was sitting in tense silence, a trajectory of violence and confrontation trailing ahead of them, phantasms of a path not quite solidified and all the possible ways it could play out glinting in the fog.