Chapter 149: Going In Threes

Draven’s pov

I said my goodbyes to Jade. She kept insisting she’d find me again. I kept my response simple.

"Don’t."

She looked at me, all emotion and certainty, so I gave her what I could.

"You’ve found your path, Jade. I’m telling you ... follow it. But if you’re right about everything, then we’ll see each other again." I kissed her on the forehead. "I love you."

She held my gaze. "I love you too, Draven. And I am right. We’ll only know with time."

We left together after that.

The six and I met at the spot we’d agreed on. We hugged each other the moment we locked eyes ... all of us complete, all of us standing. There was something about seeing every single one of them in one piece that hit different every time.

"Guys, I have a surprise for you."

"Show us," Lucas said, his eyes already lit up with curiosity.

"Come out, please."

Jade stepped out from behind me.

The screaming that followed was immediate. They jumped on her ... all of them ... wrapping her up in arms and noise and pure, unfiltered joy. She laughed and held on to every single one of them.

"I’m so happy to see you guys," she said, her voice muffled somewhere in the middle of that pile.

That was Jade. A heart like that ... sweet, open, genuine ... was rare. Damn near impossible to find. We held each other, some of us blinking back tears we wouldn’t admit to, and then the news broke.

A bounty. On all of our heads.

"Please, guys ..." Jade looked at us, voice tight. "Survive."

And then we ran.

There was nowhere to hide. Everyone in Valdris knew our faces by then, so we stopped trying to be subtle and took to the streets, trusting our instincts to keep us ahead. I found myself wondering exactly how they planned to catch us ... we weren’t easy targets. We were fast, we were smart, and we knew how to move.

We made it to the airport. The plan was simple: board a flight, use whatever was left in our pockets, and disappear.

Then I saw our faces on a banner.

An actual banner.

"Forty thousand for each of them ... two hundred and forty thousand dollars for all six. Report immediately on sight."

The reporter delivering the voiceover sounded enthusiastic about it.

We retreated from the airport without a word. No discussion needed. That option was dead.

---

Back on the streets, we made a new call.

"Let’s go in threes," Lucas said. "Two groups ... better odds of at least one of us getting through."

It was a solid idea, so that’s what we did.

I ended up with Lucas and one of the lady wolves ... the one who used to work the strip bar. We moved fast. The other three went their own way. The plan was to link up again at the front of wherever we landed.

We didn’t make it far.

"Hey ... them! That’s them!"

Four male wolves spotted us and broke into a chase. Fast ones, too. Dollar signs in their eyes.

"Oh shit..."

We ran. Hard. But at some point running wasn’t going to cut it anymore, and we turned to face them.

Three against four wasn’t pretty, but we managed. Fists, elbows, whatever we had. The lady wolf caught one of them with a clean elbow straight to the skull ... brutal, precise ... and the guy went down jerking on the ground, out cold. The other three took one look at their boy convulsing on the pavement and decided forty thousand dollars wasn’t worth it. They scattered.

We barely had time to breathe.

Waiting for us around the corner was a group of rogues. Eight of them. Bats in hand, smacking them into their palms in that slow, deliberate way that told me these weren’t amateurs and they weren’t nervous. These were people who’d done this before and enjoyed it.

We had no choice but to double back and find another way around. But they followed us ... straight into an alley, cutting off every exit. We were cornered, and they knew it.

"Please," Lucas said, hands up. "We can work something out."

"No," their leader said flatly. "We want that money."

I stepped in. "What if we told you we could put more money in your hands than that bounty? You let us walk, we make it worth your while."

The leader looked at me like I’d said something amusing.

"Coming from criminals?" He laughed. "Tell that to the authorities."

"Aren’t you criminals too?" I shot back, keeping my voice even, stalling, scanning the alley for any way out. "Because you sure as hell don’t look like civilians to me."

"We’re not here for too much talk."

One of the twins swung his bat before the sentence was even finished. It caught Lucas clean across the head. He dropped like dead weight, instantly.

Then the lady wolf ... and I hadn’t even seen her pick it up ... hurled a piece of scrap metal straight into the chest of the rogue nearest to her. Right into the breastbone. The sound was sickening. He went down and didn’t get back up.

That bought us half a second.

I used it.

I kicked the leader full in the face, knocked the bat clean out of his grip, and brought it down on his femur with everything I had. The crack was loud. Damn. Another body on our conscience, but the alternative was being someone else’s.

The lady wolf already had Lucas up, half-dragging him toward the alley opening. I covered her, throwing the last few punches needed to keep the remaining rogues from following, then we broke for the street.

The commotion hadn’t died down behind us. They were still coming.

A car screeched to a stop right in front of us.

The other three.

"Get in ... come on, get in!"

I waited just long enough to drop two more of the wolves still on our tail, then I piled in last and we floored it.

"We’re still meeting at the front?" I asked, catching my breath.

The driver nodded without looking back.

"Lucas will be fine," I said to the others, watching him slumped against the seat. "He just took a bat to the face. That’s all."

Nobody laughed, but nobody panicked either. We drove.

---

We drove until the city started to thin out and the landscape shifted into something I hadn’t expected ... remote, quiet, and completely abandoned-looking. It felt off, like a place even Valdris had forgotten about.

"How did you know about this place?" I asked our driver. He doubled as our hacker, and right then I was grateful for both skills.

"Desperate times," he said simply.

It was cold out here ... offshore cold, the kind that settled in the bones. But if this was what survival looked like, then we took it.

We approached the door at the front of the building. The hacker led the way. He knocked twice.

The door opened.

An elderly she-wolf stood in the frame, steady and unhurried, looking at all seven of us like she’d been half-expecting us.

"Come in, sons and daughters," she said.

In a city where everyone either wanted us dead or wanted to collect on us, I hadn’t expected that. I hadn’t known people like her still existed in Valdris.

We had a lot to recover from.

I just hoped we had the time.