Vice and Void (The Savage Wolves Brotherhood #1)

24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Dakota

Dakota was in the distillery before dawn, working to shutter the skylights and remove the nearly empty distillation flasks from the burners. She peered at the liquid that had dripped into one of the receiving flasks overnight. While the color and viscosity of the Euphoric were right, she still wasn’t convinced it would work as well as it should. The thinned poppy seed oil she pressed the week before made no promises.

Dismantling the receiving flask from the cooling condenser, Dakota lifted the first flask from the mount and carefully walked it over to the preparation table. With a sigh that broke the silent room, she slowly filled each empty vial she had set out. The work was menial and mind-numbing, but she was grateful for it. The quiet of the distillery, the soft drips as the last of the Euphoric drained into the receiving flasks behind her, the silver moonlight still coating the table while dawn stretched over the horizon—it soothed the ever-focused parts of her brain.

Digging through Lyra’s disappearance. Helping cover up Ethan’s murder. Assisting the Brotherhood in creating experimental distillations for gods-know-what. What was going on in the bowels of the prison. The growing tension between her and Callum. Each was a notch in the belt of her sanity, whittling down with every passing day…every passing second.

Only one of those scenarios could go wrong, and her world would inevitably implode. It was a shadow that haunted her. She was walking on the edge of a cliff, the rocks tumbling into a canyon beneath her sneakers, and perhaps the next step would be her doom.

Swallowing hard, Dakota set the empty receiving flask onto the table and quickly corked the dozens of vials. She lifted the wooden vial rack and walked toward the storage room, pushing it open with her hip. Although the Norwich Guildhall was the largest one between the three cities, seeing the stock at an all-time low was still unnerving. She added the vial rack on the Euphoric shelf lining the far wall.

Dakota took one more sweep of the room, eyeing the other shelves quickly nearing empty, and exited to the distillery.

She emptied the receiving flasks—ten in total—until she filled all three hundred glass vials with Euphoric. Streaks of orange and gold cascaded through the navy sky, sending the moon and stars retreating into the depths of the coming morning. She worried her lip, focusing on her teeth sinking into the flesh.

The problem wasn't the amount of distills they could create. No. It was how weak the distills were, forcing the alchemists to use more and more to fix the patients. Maybe James was onto something with the Arcanum Fade theory.

Preparing the dried yarrow flowers for the oil press should be next on the to-do list, followed by meticulously cleaning the distillation equipment. The annual meteor shower wasn’t too long after the Autumn Equinox, and the Blood Replenishing distill was a high priority for every alchemist, Guildhall or not.

Yet…Dakota couldn’t help but let her mind wander back to her own distillation experiment. The equinox was in three weeks, and Kane’s equipment would be available if she timed it correctly. The leather journal burned a hole in the side of her canvas bag, as did the dried yarrow blooms lining the wire rack in Lyra’s oven, waiting to be pressed for oil. She hadn’t been able to look at it since Callum picked it up. Since Ethan had been killed. The damn thing had complicated everything.

A sharp buzz vibrated her white laboratory coat pocket, jostling her from her thoughts. Dakota stripped the blue nitrile gloves from her hands, tossed them into the trash, and retrieved her cell phone.

An unsaved phone number brightly lit the screen—one her brain had already memorized despite her refusal to add his name to her contacts list. Callum. Dakota almost allowed it to go to voicemail. But he would call at five-minute intervals for the rest of the morning if she didn't answer.

Furrowing her brow, Dakota answered it with a quick swipe of her thumb. “It’s five-thirty in the morning.” She didn’t bother with pleasantries.

“Good, I was worried you forgot how to read a clock,” Callum’s voice rumbled through the line, his tone still tired and low. She imagined him sprawled in bed, shirtless, with his arm draped over his eyes and the sheets bunched around his hips. Ugh. No, she wasn't going to think about that.

“What could you possibly need at five-thirty in the morning?” The awareness of her pounding heart and the flip-flop of her stomach at seeing his number on her phone supplied her with a fresh batch of agitation.

A husky, mirth-filled chuckle came next. “Someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed, princess?” He was certainly smirking, maybe even scraping his hand down his face like he did when trying to wipe the sleep from the corners of his eyes.

Dakota scoffed. “No, I’ve been awake. I’m busy.”

“At work, I hope?”

Agitation edged to wariness as she leaned a hip against the metal preparation table where the ten dirty receiving flasks still sat. “Why?”

“Kane needs a favor.”

Dakota’s eyes narrowed, her keen sense of observation racing from guarded wariness to full-blown suspicion. “Kane didn’t mention anything about it last night when I helped him set up the distillation equipment in the club.”

“Yeah, I know.” He exhaled as though he had heaved himself forward and sat on the side of his mattress. “This is new.”

“Callum.” Dakota let out a breath as she lifted her hand to pinch the bridge of her nose. “The deal was to help with the distillation recovery. You recovered said distills two days ago, and now what I’m helping with is nothing but extras. I’ve held up my end of the deal. When are you going to hold up yours?”

“I’m working on it, Dakota,” Callum replied calmly, though with a clear razor-sharp edge. “It takes more than three fucking weeks to find an untraceable missing person.”

Silence fell between them. Dakota focused on the morning sun finally tipping above the windowsill near the back of the distillery, shards of light crawling toward her like a funeral march across the tiled floor. It could have been an arrow pointing directly at her canvas bag and what sat inside.

Callum sighed again as a Dakota tracked a group of menders who walked past the distillery door. Thalia’s hair, the ends now tinted a fiery red, was easily spotted amongst the neutral palate of the parade. The entry of the day shift meant that James would be trundling in at any moment.

“Listen,” he finally lamented, “Kane just needs five vials of Bone Repair. We don’t use it enough to risk stealing the product from the Fieldhouse. Please.”

Dakota lengthened the pause following Callum’s last words, hoping her continued silence would make him sweat. “I can probably get a vial today and another vial or two at the end of the week,” she said after a long minute that she may have pushed into two. “They’re in a distillery I don’t usually work in, and it would be weird for me to be there other than to restock one or two vials for my shift.”

“Dylan's going to pick them up from you today. We’ve already planned for Logan to get a bullet to the leg in a drive-by. He’ll meet you in the guise of an investigation.”

“Gods, Callum, are you serious?” She hoped that whoever shot Logan had good aim. A leg injury could do far more damage than blood loss and pain. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking Logan will be at the Guildhall around nine this morning, and Dylan will be with him.” Relief peppered his voice. “And I wouldn’t delay too much because Logan won’t appreciate being left to writhe in pain.”

Dakota let her tongue slide along the top row of her teeth. “You know what, Callum, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Dakota—“

“I’ve changed my mind unless you agree to something you aren’t like.”

Callum’s own pause was charged, and Dakota could almost feel the tensity of his shoulders through the line. “What is it?” he ground out through clenched teeth. It was far too early for him—that she knew. Using that would be to her advantage.

“I need to use Kane’s distillation equipment for the equinox.”

She waited with bated breath for the inevitable explosion, moving the phone a few inches away from her ear. When it came, it was a torrent of anger palpable in every syllable.

“ Absolutely fucking not !” Callum shouted into the phone, and Dakota heard it clear over the hum of the vent that kicked on above her.

“Those are my terms,” Dakota replied with a calm glee that spread like wildfire through her veins. Getting a rise out of Callum, who expected and prepared for every obstacle that stood in his way, was sugar-sweet. “You can take it or leave it.”

“Dakota.”

“Callum.”

He went quiet again, his seething breaths growling through the line. “If you get caught… ”

“You can’t send me to steal distills from the Guildhall and, in the same sentence, be concerned that I’ll get caught experimenting. In the privacy of the Brotherhood’s clubhouse, might I add.”

Dakota didn’t bother dampening the victory coursing through every prevailing thought. She had him beat. From the seething breaths that continued through the phone, he knew it too.

“I’m moving that fucking equipment to my house,” Callum relented, though he was audibly unhappy to do so. “You’ll do it there.”

“Fine.”

“Great,” he bit back in the same bratty tone she had wrapped her agreement in. “Nine this morning. Don’t fucking forget.”

“Couldn’t even if I tried,” Dakota retorted before hanging up the phone. Yeah, she wasn’t going to bother with niceties anymore.

The Bone Repair's distillery was in a winding hallway behind the emergency department. Its size could best be described as a janitor’s closet that could fit two people, but only if they stood back to back. The skyward windows far above the preparation table were at the perfect angle to distill under the solstice.

Dakota halted outside the metal door, staring at the blinking red light attached to the badge reader. Logan was waiting in the trauma bay, already given a pain distill to stop him from flopping around the gurney like a fish out of water. The bullet did its job by shattering the femoral bone. Now, it was her job to heal it.

And healing it meant grabbing a Bone Repair distill she had conveniently forgotten to ask for when James restocked her satchel. Even the pretense of inattention was a pitchfork lodged in her ego, but she swallowed it back in lieu of remembering what was at stake.

Logan’s leg, of course. Her own experiment second. She needed that distillation equipment, and if trading barbs with Callum was the only way to get it, then she was set to be a constant thorn in his side.

This was ridiculous. Dakota had accidentally taken distills home innumerable times, especially the non-addictive ones that weren’t tracked through scrupulously kept logs. The only difference now was that her integrity was on the line, as was her future as an alchemist if she were caught with more than her needed share. Shaking her head and letting go of her remaining hesitation, she placed her badge over the reader and entered with a click from the lock.

Bone Repair was always her favorite smelling distill, and the storage room for it was no different. It was sweet and earthy, like the brief period between thunder and lightning. Or a fresh snowfall covering the forest of juniper trees in the mountains. Now, that scent turned necrotic, constricting her throat and promising to choke her.

Dakota didn’t have time to dwell. Minutes had already gone by, and James would come looking.

With a trembling hand, she raised onto her tip-toes to pull down the wooden rack of vials from the topmost shelf. Dust collected on the corks. Gods, she hoped that was enough to deter any rational human from investigating a theft.

Swallowing against her tightened throat, Dakota counted out seven vials of Bone Repair. Five for Dylan, who remained stoic and unnerved outside of the trauma bay, one for Logan’s shattered thigh, and one for James as a consolation apology for her forgetfulness .

Dakota replaced the rack on the shelf after pocketing the vials into her alchemist coat. The clinking was louder than it should have been for just two, and anyone with half a brain would catch on, but she leaned on the chaos of a gunshot wound to hide the evidence. The door opened with a squeak that echoed like a scream of guilt down the winding hallway, and she wound to the emergency department with quick, unfaltering steps.

“I was wondering where you went off to,” James said with a smile on her arrival. “Almost sent a mender to ensure you didn’t get lost.”

Dakota smiled, though it was weak and didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Took a wrong turn with the adrenaline,” she lied with unsettling ease. “I’m not quite used to going to the distillery from here.”

She pulled a vial from the top of the pile in her pocket, clenching her jaw when her knuckles accidentally clinked the remaining ones together and uncorked the glass. James handed her a clean syringe, and she drew up the distill with the steadiest hands she could muster, emptying the dropper into the back of Logan’s mouth.

With a stomach-lurching crunch, the thigh bone snapped together. Logan groaned, his face grimacing with pain before he slipped off into a deep sleep once again. She prepped one more dropper of the distill and administered it. The bone shards lodged into his muscle squirmed beneath the skin before wrenching into place.

“Excellent,” James said with a clap of his hands. “Let’s allow this poor fellow to rest before he’s interrogated by the deputy outside of my bay. We can complete the notes and paperwork at the alchemist’s desk while we wait for him to come around.”

Dakota nodded as she stuck her hand in her pocket, wrapping her fist around the five vials. As she skirted by Dylan, she slid her hand into the open pocket of his cargo pants and deposited the vials. She looked up with an innocent air, scanning her gaze along the counter-height desk outside the bay.

For a moment, Dakota forgot how to breathe. Her lungs beat against her chest, begging for an exchange of air, an exhalation, something to indicate that she still had life in her. But a cold sweat had already taken over her body, and she swore her very soul slithered out of her core and formed a puddle at her feet.

Thalia’s eyes were fixed on the deputy ranger’s pocket, where Dakota had just pulled her hand from. And when her eyes lifted to lock with Dakota’s, it was with a knowing shadow that passed in the depths of them.