Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 119935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
He’ll never be as fast as he was. He’ll never be an Alfa, because he can’t move as quickly now, and he can’t hunt as well, either. He’ll never have his own pack because of this injury. Wolves choose their pack alphas very carefully, and he’d be eliminated immediately. All because of that foot. That seems unfair. It happened on my land. In my trap. Wolves are rarely even over that way, but somehow, he was. Something happened. He must’ve been exiled for some reason… left on his own. Or perhaps he was with the pack, then they wandered too far in search of food, leaving him behind because of his abrasion. Abandoning him to die. Either way, he was in a jam he couldn’t get out of.
He swallowed and shook his head as the beautiful monster began chomping down on whatever he’d wrangled.
I think I need to consider keeping you after all. What’s your name, boy? Definitely need to come up with a name. When Kim comes over, she’s going to freak out. My lady is a city girl. She can barely handle our winters, let alone a wolf in the damn house. So, I gotta give you a name… it’ll make you seem more friendly, and less scary to her, I suppose. Hmmm… let’s see. Midnight is so basic. Too common. I hate the name Bear for dogs… We’ll, you’re not a dog, but close enough. Let me think, here…
Sabbath. I like that.
Naw, too creepy. Cool, but creepy…
Pepper. That’s more of a girl name… So is Cola. Bourbon is kind of nice, but I’m not really into naming animals after alcoholic drinks. Besides, bourbon isn’t technically black. It’s brown.
The wolf galloped back towards him. When he reached him, his mouth was covered in blood. The beast licked his jaws, then spit out a bit of bloody matter at his feet. Gristle and partially chewed bone. A gift of raw vole.
Jack smiled at the grisly act of kindness.
“No, that’s all yours, buddy. Eat up.” He backed away after waiting a few moments. The wolf sniffed at the present, licked it, then ate it. In the distance, Jack heard a car with a loud muffler coming down the road. He rarely heard traffic out that way, but sometimes the delivery trucks would drop off parcels. He wasn’t expecting anything—must’ve been for someone else. He looked towards the street, and though it was quite a distance away, he realized it was in fact a big UPS truck. The truck went on by, roaring and loud. He turned back to the wolf, and it came to him.
Diesel.
That’s your name…
Chapter Twelve
“They found another one.” Martha slipped her phone into her oversized pleather purse, then glided on her coat and sniffed, tears brimming in her almond-shaped, ebony eyes.
“Martha, I can’t believe this. I didn’t watch the news this afternoon. This is… this is unbelievable.” Instead of tuning into the news while getting ready for work as she typically did in the late afternoons, she’d been at home in bed that morning, drinking and shoving sugary donuts down her throat. She’d even done an excellent job, if she said so herself, at pretending to be okay when she’d spoken to Jack on the phone earlier in the day. The truth though? She was falling apart like a bad BBL surgery—nail biting as if it were a sport and trying to figure out if and when to call that damn private investigator back or run for the hills. “What did the police chief say in the briefing?”
“Not a whole lot. Just trying to keep people calm.” Martha huffed. The woman spoke as if this were an old record. Apparently, it was. “Honestly, Kim, what can he say?” Martha shrugged, looking defeated as they neared the exit door of the restaurant. “People call the police about their missing loved ones, and the police do sometimes truly seem concerned, but they’re having a hard time figuring out who’s killing my sisters. Some say no one cares, because we’re Indian. When I bring that up, I am sometimes told it’s a bunch of crap.”
“It’s not a bunch of crap. Martha, people who say not to use the race card, and don’t play victim, are often not the ones being targeted and murdered. When it’s them though, it’s a different damn story. Don’t feel like you have to downplay this or sugarcoat the obvious. I promise you that if a bunch of White women were coming up missing at this rate around here, a hell of a lot more would be done to solve these kidnappings and homicides. Period.”
Martha’s complexion deepened, and she nodded in agreement.
“No police department wants to look incompetent, I understand that, so to save face and stop the panic, ya know, they do what they always do: soften the blow, because, well, if you tell the real numbers, it gets everyone in our Native community riled up.” She dabbed at her eyes with her knuckle. “It’s been going on for decades. I’m tired. You can’t meet any of my friends who doesn’t know of someone who vanished or was found dead under strange circumstances now, Kim. It’s not a sometimes thing, it’s an all the time thing. It’s impossible for it not to hit home.”