LONE WOLF (On Hold)

Chapter 16 - If only she knew.

Chapter 16 – If only she knew.

Beck's POV

It's a warning, there's no doubt about it. The way the body has been set up, sitting against the tree in plain sight, waiting to be found by someone – to be found by me.

My fears have just been confirmed.

This is not the work of a lone wolf; this is the work of a rogue.

They know I've been patrolling these woods; they set this whole thing up.

Unfortunately, I still have no idea of the who or the why, which means I have no idea how to stop them from doing this again. Whoever it is, they're good at covering their tracks, really good at it. That's not an easy skill to master, at least not to this level, and it's going to make my life all the more difficult.

I've been out in these woods every night and yet, somehow, the bastard has still managed to abduct, kill and return a town member... all without me knowing!

How?

The body wasn't here last night, I would've found it, and judging from the smell it's pretty clear that Tony has been dead for well over a week. The blood from the wound on his neck is dry; this wasn't recent, this was definitely planned.

I can't dwell on this right now, though. Right now I need to focus on Alex who, from the looks of things, isn't far away from passing out – or throwing up – one of the two, at least. Hell, possibly even both.

She's turning slightly green.

"Hey, come on, we gotta go," I tell her gently, taking her hand and lightly tugging her back.

I need to get her away from the body.

"What? No, we can't – we can't just leave him," she says, eyes wide and voice small.

Crap. She's right, I guess.

If I found the body on my own then I'd just walk away, let nature take its course and say good riddance to that asshole. I doubt many people would miss him, after all.

Alex isn't like me, though. Her conscience won't let her do that. Her conscience won't let me do that. Heck, she didn't even want to leave him in the road for crying out loud.

Shit.

I never told her that he wasn't there when I got back; I'm definitely not going to tell her that now. She'd beat herself up about it for the rest of her life. I should probably be beating myself up about it right now but I'm not, I'm not going to be losing any sleep over it either. I've seen much worse happen to much better people; I've done much worse to much better people. As far as I'm concerned, the guy got what was coming to him.

Christ, I really am my father's son.

"We have to do something, we have to tell someone," she says, the conviction in her voice making it clearer still that I'm not going to be able to change her mind.

Tell who, the police? No way. Not in a million-

"We have to go to the police," she states.

Goddammit.

"Okay," I reply, knowing that if I don't agree then she won't leave. "We'll go to the police and report that we've found a body."

Fuck my life.

With the word spoken aloud, it seems to suddenly really hit home for Alex, the reality of the situation crashing down on her.

"Oh my God," she whines, covering her face with her hands and turning away. "Oh my God."