“I imagine Gordon didn’t tell you a lot of things,” I said. They were just babies. I’d talked down baby wolves before. That was how I’d have to approach them. “Sergeant Vanderman, what do you want?”
“I want to rip out your throat after I fuck you hard,” he said.
“Okay, that’s helpful,” I said, sarcastic. “Now I want to hear from your human side. Ignore your wolf for a minute and tell me what you really want.”
“Maybe that is my human side,” he said, baring teeth. And yeah, maybe he was right. He wouldn’t be the world’s first misogynistic homicidal bastard. I couldn’t forget, he’d already killed three of his own teammates.
I smiled. “Then I get to tell Colonel Stafford to pull the trigger on you guys.”
They cringed. All of them. Even Vanderman, and I thought I knew why—at some level, their human sides were still observing the army chain of command. Stafford had power over them and they knew it.
“Let’s back up a minute,” I said. “You guys are in serious trouble. Unless you start pulling yourselves together, you’re going to be locked up for a very long time. Shumacher and Stafford are the ones who get to decide whether you’re safe enough to be let out of here. I may be the only one who thinks there’s a chance you might ever be safe enough to go free. You need to start talking to me.”
For a long time, none of them spoke. I kept my gaze on Vanderman—the dangerous one—but could see the others in the corners of my vision. They watched Vanderman as well—looking for cues, waiting to see what he would do before they reacted. Maybe I should have talked to them separately.
“What is there to talk about?” Vanderman said finally. And off to the side, Tyler relaxed. He wanted Vanderman to talk.
“Yarrow. Crane. Estevan,” I said. “What happened?”
Vanderman grimaced. “They wouldn’t listen to me. They put us all in danger.”
“You lost control,” I said.
“I’m the alpha, they had to listen—”
“The alpha is supposed to keep his pack safe,” I said.
“I’m trying,” he said, voice low, snarling.
And I believed him. He really did think he was leading, being the alpha, by smacking down the lesser wolves who dared to challenge him. He was doing what his wolf told him to, and his wolf was angry and afraid.
“I know.”
“I didn’t want to hurt them,” he said.
“You’re going to keep hurting people until you can learn to control your wolf. Before you can take care of anyone else, you have to get yourself under control. So let’s talk about you for a minute. What do you want? What do you want to do next?”
“I want to go back. Finish the job.”
“Back—to Afghanistan?” The answer baffled me. Why would anyone want to go back there? But Vanderman nodded, and I saw the determination in him. It was the first time he hadn’t looked murderous. He was focused on his job. “Then you have to get this thing under control. You know that, don’t you?”
“Who are you to tell me that? What do you know about it, you bitch, you fucking bitch—” He threw himself against the glass. I would have flinched if I hadn’t seen it coming, in his bared teeth and bloodshot eyes. He really did seem more animal than human. He must have known he couldn’t hurt me, but he kept driving at me, trying to scare me.
And okay, I was scared. For him as much as of him. But I was the one in control here, which made me the alpha, which was a little gratifying. He hadn’t figured that out yet. He thought beating people up made him the alpha.
I turned away, showing him that he wasn’t worth my time, and studied Tyler and Walters.
“What about you guys?” I said to the other two. “What do you want?”
Vanderman moved in between them and me. “We’re a pack. We have to stick together.”
“That doesn’t mean anything here,” I said. “You’re human beings with free will. I want to hear them talk.”
Walters looked back and forth between Vanderman and me, shivering almost, trying to decide whom he was more terrified of. I wanted to yell at him to straighten up, to grow a spine, to stop cowering. But he was scared. Screaming at him wouldn’t change that.
“I want to go home,” Tyler said, frowning, sad. “I want to be normal.”
“Sergeant, what the fuck are you doing?” Vanderman said around gritted teeth.