Pack Dynamics Read Online Free PDF

went to that fundraiser we’d planned on, for recon on some of the players in this case. Alex was there, of course,” Janni said. “Whoever had you called me from your phone and sent me a picture of your back.” Her shaking fingers roamed through his hair, which felt good and normal, or what passed for normal with them. “Alex followed me out—I guess he was bored. And then he got shot, and his driver brought us here because he’s got a doctor on call.”
    Something bubbled to the surface of Ben’s frazzled brain. “Yeah,” he said. “They were asking me … about this job. What we knew. I didn’t tell them anything. I’m so hungry, they didn’t feed me …” He was free-associating and just babbling whatever came to mind, and he thought, distantly, that he might be concussed.
    “They said you’d need something to eat,” Janni said. “Sit up slowly. Alex’s butler made you a protein shake—it’s on the nightstand.”
    He jacked himself up in stages, and this time his head remained un-woozy. He sipped the shake, which tasted terrible but was easy on his too-empty stomach. Dried blood encrusted the creases of his knuckles, and he knew without being able to see—because he couldn’t see a damn thing without his glasses—that he was probably covered in it. “I should get cleaned up, because, yuck.”
    “Can you even walk?” Janni asked. “You need sleep. Real sleep.”
    “Sleep better if I’m clean.” He finished the shake and assessed himself. “I can probably make it into the bathroom by myself. Might need help with the actual shower.”
    “All right. Here we go.” Janni steadied him with a hand on his arm as they walked, bending to pick up a stack of clothing on the way into the lavish bathroom, which was nearly the same size as the bedroom they’d just left.
    They stood there, blinking, for a few moments.
    “Oh, wow,” Janni said, staring at a cabinet plugged into the wall. It had a round window showing several large and fluffy towels rolled up inside, and there was a dial on top. “Is this … it’s a towel warmer. Wow.”
    She turned the odd contraption on, along with the water in the biggest shower stall he’d ever seen, complete with a bench running along the back and down one side. She took off the clothes she was wearing—which obviously weren’t hers. They were several sizes too big, and Ben knew she didn’t have sweatpants like that or a Jarrett Biologicals T-shirt.
    “The floor in here is heated,” he said, stepping out of his boxers, which, yes, were still his. He could tell because of the bloodstains. “Holy cow. I guess you can have nice things when you’re an eccentric billionaire.”
    Ben braced his hands on the tiles and hissed as the hot water hit the welts on his back, squeezing his eyes shut. He cracked them open again when Janni laid a hand on his arm.
    “Too warm, too hard?” she asked. “This shower head has a bazillion settings, and it’s a handheld, too.”
    “No, honey, it’s fine. Just … tender.” That was a good word. His hair was matted with blood, and he tilted his head back into the spray to rinse it out. The water ran into his face—
    And he launched himself across the stall and hit the floor, shaking, as a flash of red bucket and an angry, shouting man leaped across the screen of his closed eyelids. His lungs seized—the short, sharp gasps not providing nearly enough oxygen—and he felt dizzy and ill. Unsure of where he was, he muttered, “No, I don’t know” in a litany that had never stopped them, but he couldn’t help it.
    Janni was beside him right away, wrapping around him, whispering in his ear. “You’re safe, safe with me. I’ve got you,” over and over again, while his heartbeat thundered in his ears in white-hot panic mode. And if Janni was here, then he wasn’t there, so he was safe, he knew it, he did, but he still took a while to pull himself together.
    The water in his face had shocked him like he hadn’t been