~~
Reece
~~
By the time that we all made it to the park that Clovio had mentioned, there was no one there. The park was supposed to be closed, but that hadn't stopped those Jaegan assholes from using it. And it wasn't stopping me and the guys from searching it as well. Not to mention, if the cops showed up to stop me from doing my job, I had several people to call and fix the situation. I wasn't concerned at all.
OK, I wasn't concerned about being caught and arrested. I was concerned though, just about other things. I was concerned about Clovio and Warrick, not that they deserved that from me. I was worried that they might have been hurt by the other men in their group. And since we needed their help to finish this shit and to save my people, I needed to make sure that those two boys were safe. I was going to protect them to the best of my ability.
Not to mention, whether I liked it or not, I had to protect Warrick for Alyssa. He was her mate. Her actual mate. Not like Talia who was trying to force it to happen because she liked the boy. Alyssa and Warrick were mated for real. I knew this for a fact the moment that I saw them together. The way that they were looking at each other, the connection and love that they had for each other was real. And that was why Alyssa had been hurt so deeply when she found out who and what Warrick really was.
Alyssa had looked like someone had destroyed her. She had looked like a part of her had died and the world would never recover. I knew that look, it was a look that Trinity and I had a lot when we were first together. Our wolves wanted each other, but neither of us would give in to the other. It had almost destroyed us completely and I never thought that we would recover from it. We did though, we made it through that tough time, and we are so much stronger because of it now. And I know that Alyssa and Warrick will make it through this as well. They just need to be patient. And if he loves her, Warrick will do whatever it is that he has to just to make sure that Alyssa is happy.
.....
“They're gone, Reece Though you already knew that.” Riley came running back to me from across the park. “There were a lot of them here though. Enough that I think that we can track their scents and see where they went.”
“Yeah, I agree.” I nodded at him. “We should split up and follow them. I will go with-.” I started to explain things when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Knowing the messages that I had gotten earlier I wasn't about to postpone this. It could have to do with those people as well.
Sure enough, when I took my phone out of my pocket, it was a message from a new number. It wasn't Clovio this time. This message had come from Warrick, and he seemed to have sent me an audio clip.
“What is it?” Riley asked as he looked at the phone in my hand.
“Well, I guess we will be finding out soon, won't we.” I downloaded the clip and pressed play on the screen. I had the volume low, since we would hear it no matter what. There was no reason to let anyone that wasn't part of my group hear the message. I couldn't risk that. Not to mention, the message that had accompanied the audio recording had me feeling nervous.
“I thought that I needed to record this. The others that just joined us in Colorado Springs have some nefarious plans that they are going to enact. We were worried about you and the girls. I hope this helps a little bit.” I thought that this sentiment was nice of him. Then again, he was in love with Alyssa, so he was on our side more than his family's. I guess it was beneficial to have a mole on the inside for us.
I looked up just before the message started to play, Trevor and Noah were coming toward me while Carter, Landon, and Valerian were just a little further behind them. They were all almost here, so they would all hear the message that Warrick sent me.
It seemed that the majority of the recording was done by one man, but there were a couple times when others would talk. They were all men though, and they all had similar accents, so I knew that they were all from the same place.
VOICE 1:
“–past time that we stepped up our game.”
It was like the recording started in the middle of the man's sentence. That was frustrating, but I would have to deal with it.
VOICE 1:
“Those filthy nonhumans need to pay. They must beg for forgiveness and let their souls be judged by the those that meet in their afterlife. However, no amount of begging from them will warrant forgiveness from us. We need to stay true to the mission that we have been given. We need to see this through. They must die. All of them must die.”
The man was acting like he was giving them a pep talk or something. He was trying to pump them up for a big game. Or a big fight.
VOICE 1:
“The next attack will happen in just two days. We have scouted the perfect location for the bodies to be laid out. We will be targeting five people at one time. The targets this time will be used to send a message to the others. We will ignite in them a rage that will blind them to what is actually happening around them. This will be the start of the war. This will be the true end of the beginning.”
VOICE 2:
“What will be different this time? How will we make it so that they will send that message to the right people?”
This man seemed to be slightly scared of the leader. He must not be used to him, was he one of the college students? Or was he one of the guys that came here from the last set of kills? I wasn't sure, but I knew that it wasn't Clovio or Warrick. I knew their voices.
VOICE 1:
“There will be differences with the way that the bodies are left behind. The words that we leave for those mongrel monsters to find. And lastly, all five of the bodies will be left at the same place. This time it's not just a serial murder, it will be a mass murder.”
That man was literally laughing about this. He thought that this was somehow funny. He thought that the wanton acts of violence and the senseless loss of life was some sort of game. To him, and most of the rest of the group that was there, they were just taking out the trash of the world. Too bad that their family, and only part of that family, were the ones that thought that way.
VOICE 1:
“We have come to the home of the leader of those animals. Those mongrel monsters have a king and queen, and they live here, in this city. But they are so stupid and clueless that they don't even know we have started to spy on them. They have no idea that we have a few of our guys pretending to date their daughters. It's the perfect cover, as long as those guys don't get too wrapped up in the roles that they were playing.”
I could tell that they all must have turned to look at Clovio and Warrick then. They were the two that the man was talking about. But no one said anything to them. It was just a long and awkward silence that stretched on for several moments.
VOICE 1:
“The declaration of war is just the beginning though. When we pull this off, those monsters will be so lost and confused about what just happened in their own backyard that they won't even see us invading their home directly. Once this is over, we give them forty-eight hours before we swarm them. Their measly little army won't stand a chance against us while they are still running around like chickens with their heads cut off. They will fall prey to us like the elders always wanted them to. We will finally make our ancestors proud. We will finally rid this world of all the nonhumans. This will once again be a place where humans can live in peace and harmony.”
VOICE 2:
“YEAH!”
VOICE 3:
“LONG LIVE THE HUMANS!”
“VOICE 4:
“KILL THE BEASTS!”
There were several other cheers, but they were hard to make out with the cacophony of sound that was on the other end of the message.
VOICE 1:
“AND ONCE ALL THOSE MONGREL MONSTERS ARE DESTROYED, OUR FAMILY WILL TAKE ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE AT THE FOREFRONT OF IT ALL! WE WILL DESTROY THE MONSTER AND RULE THE WORLD LIKE WE'VE ALWAYS BEEN MEANT TO! WE WILL PROTECT THE HUMANS AND LORD OVER THEM WITH AN IRON FIST!”
Well, I guess we finally knew what it was that these people wanted. They were after world domination. They weren't trying to save the world, they were trying to make it their own. I should have known that this was their plan from the very beginning.
