Chapter 153: Hindsight

Draven’s POV

"Why did you decide to help us, ma’am?" I asked her.

It was looking too good to be true. We had to confirm it was real.

"You’ve never been helped before?" she asked.

"We have. It’s just that we don’t know why you’re helping us," Lucas said.

She laughed. She offered us water and gave us bare minimum comfort. We were a little relaxed and had stopped watching our backs for anyone following us.

"I’m three times your ages combined, meaning I’ve lived life myself," she said.

Damn. She was looking the part anyway. She looked like a pretty old wolf.

"I’m not blind. I saw the news, and you guys were being hunted with a bounty placed on your heads. I don’t want you to die, so the least I can do is hide you for the time being," she said.

Many things began running through my mind. What was she really saying? We had entered that place out of desperation, but what if she was after the money as well? Forty thousand dollars on each person’s head was not small money.

"And I’m not after your money. I’m not hungry," she said, as if she had read my thoughts.

She told us to stand and led us to a room below the house. It was so well concealed you wouldn’t have known there was a pathway there.

"I want you to go in there and hide. Some people will pass through here in a few hours and they’ll be looking for you. When they leave, you can come out and..."

"Find our way. Yes, we know," I said to her.

"I didn’t say that. But who knows?"

We entered the basement and it was surprisingly big and well-kept. There were screens and gadgets in there, and I wondered how she had managed to get her hands on equipment that sophisticated.

As we were all about to touch something, she shouted down, "Don’t touch anything in there, please!"

We pulled back.

We each sat down, reminiscing about everything we had gone through ... all the heists and thefts, the kidnappings.

We didn’t regret our actions. I, for one, did not.

But there was no way we were going to survive this without facing the consequences. It was crazy how things could turn around on you in a second.

"Remember when we were lavishly spending the money?" the tech wolf asked.

"Yeah. And now that same money is the reward for whoever finds us. That’s total bullshit," I finished.

"We’ll get out of this. We just have to believe and stay together," Lucas said.

Always the leader. Always the one to motivate anyone in the room. But this was a hard and almost impossible nut to crack.

The entire territory was looking for us.

There was no way out of this. It was fucking finished. Fucking closed. If I had any atom of optimism left in me, it was gone. There was no light at the end of this tunnel. We were cooked.

I laid my body down and rested my head.

I hadn’t intended to sleep ... just to rest. I hadn’t rested in days. But I was claiming what wasn’t mine to claim.

Then we heard a bang on the door above us.

The main door.

The old wolf was supposed to answer it and hold things together. Now was the moment of truth ... whether she was genuine or not.

We could hear a little from below. I told the stripper wolf to press her ears to the ceiling. Stripper wolves heard more than the rest of us did. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

"We’re looking for rogue wolves. We know they passed through somewhere around here. Have you seen them?" the stripper wolf interpreted, relaying what she heard above us.

The old wolf said no.

They kept pressing and she kept saying no.

"There’s a bounty on their heads, and if you’re found hiding them, you become a criminal too. Let us check your house to confirm," they said to her.

"They’re not here," she kept saying.

"If you know where they are, we’ll split the bounty sixty-forty," one of them said.

Our eyes locked on each other.

When money entered the equation, anything could happen ... and they were coming inside. We had to be ready to defend ourselves too.

"They’re coming. Hide," the stripper wolf said as she dropped back down beside us.

We went completely still. Not even a breath.

Within seconds we heard their footsteps above us and felt the vibrations through the floor. But they didn’t see anything. They couldn’t have known anything was down there.

They left. We weren’t sure exactly when, or whether it was fully clear.

Then the door above us clicked.

It could have been anything. But it was just the old wolf calling us out.

"You’re safe now. Come out," she said.

We all came out.

"We thought you’d flinch the moment they mentioned money," I said.

"You guys have some serious trust issues," she said. "I have a son who should be around your age. You should have a girlfriend. A family. You’re young and you have potential ... go out there and live the best life you can."

"Thank you, Grandma," we said to her.

Lucas reached into the bag where we kept our cash. He pulled out a handful and placed it in her hand.

"I don’t need your money, young wolves. You need it more than I do," she said, placing it back in his hand.

He didn’t agree.

"No. It’s to show appreciation. People like you are hard to find, ma’am." He put it back in her hand a second time.

"We’ll be on our way now," I said as we moved toward the door.

"I have some advice for you first," she said.

We stopped.

"You’re all on the run. Don’t walk in a straight line. And not everyone you meet is your enemy ... money is what divided people from you, so be discerning. That way you can find help when you need it most."

"Understood. Thank you very much," we said, and we left.

True to her word, we didn’t take a straight road.

It was still dark. But our night vision was solid.

We walked until we reached a point where we genuinely didn’t know which way to go or which path to follow.

"Anybody got GPS?" Lucas asked.

Nobody did. Our phones had all died and we were just as lost as we were before. As we stood there trying to figure out our next move, we heard the clicks of guns and felt their barrels press against the backs of our heads.

"We were told to bring you in alive for the dollars. But if you move, we’ll shoot."

Fear shot through my body like ice water poured straight into my veins.

Guess I’d been right all along.

We were finished.