Predator | 7

The dim light of a car pulling over at the parking space brightened the parking space. Light peeked over her shoulders, falling on the wolves that were being kept in the metallic and small cages in front of her.

April's vision became clearer as she took in the full sight of the disturbing scene in front of her. The sight in front of her made her stomach twist in the most violent way.

She felt her own breathing hitching and her heart thumbing madly in a very irregular pace.

Wolves - which seemed to be slightly bigger than she'd ever imagined them to be - were imprisoned in the cages.

It was not difficult to see that the cages were too small for them. The animals barely fit in the cage and all of the wolves were full grown and big animals.

There wasn't even enough space for them to shift within the cage. With a closer step to the cages, she noticed that the animals weren't in a great shape.

Their fur was dull and very dirty, like they were being hunted instead being a hunter in the wild.

On some, she'd to discover, she found even stains of blood covering thick fur.

April was vaguely aware of the car parking somewhere behind her and people shutting the door shut. Her focus was focused only on the wolves and the cages they were being kept in.

Even though April never was too fond of animals, especially dogs, she felt herself growing angry at the animal torturer and these animal sure as hell looked like they were tortured greatly.

April was about to step further forward to the cages with the intention of letting the animals running free into the wild, where they belonged to, but she didn't notice a dark figure creeping close behind her.

A hand found it's way quickly over her mouth, muffling her surprised scream under the rough hand.

Immediately she could tell from the roughness of the hand that it was a male closely behind her with a strong arm around her waist, keeping her in her place.

"Shhh," a deep voice hushed her attempts of screams that were unfortunately muffled under the strong hand.

She felt her heart calming down within her chest when she recognized the voice.

His body was so close to hers. His chest was pressed against her back so tightly.

"Snooping around is a bad habit, you know that?" She heard him chuckle lowly. "Just like your brother, snooping around like a little, lost puppy." Shawn snickered lowly at the end.

April felt him trailing his nose on the curve of her ear, breathing her scent in before releasing a heavy grunt into her ear.

Unconsciously, her body shivered slightly in response.

Ever so slowly, the strong arms that kept her from moving were leaving the curve of her waist and her mouth as she was spun around by him.

"Shawn," she breathed, trying to calm her breathing down. She felt her heart still beating in a quick pace, even though she felt herself calming down slowly. "You fúcking scared me," she spat angrily.

Anger she hadn't felt for quite some time boiled again within her and the desire to let it out on someone, or something. She didn't really care.

Shawn had an amused expression all over his face and watched down on her, with a slight cocky grin hovering above his lips.

She never felt so píssed like she was feeling in this one moment. April desperately tried to focus her mind on something else.

Something that would make her forget about the anger that was burning inside of her.

Her eyes roamed over him and she noticed Shawn wearing his police uniform. She snickered silently to herself.

It didn't suit him.

Neither to his dark and unnatural looking hair, nor to his personality.

She was sure she'd think the same about her brother when she will see him someday wearing his uniform.

"Where's Eric?" She asked when she remembered the reason why she made the effort to drive over to the police station.

"He'd some business to do," Shawn answered and softly pushed her away from the parking space to the front door. "He should be here in a few minutes," he informed her.

April frowned as she kept walking alongside with Shawn. "But his car is parked just over there." Her voice was laced with utter confusion as she quickly pointed her thumb towards her brother car.

"Hmm," Shawn hummed in response and lead her inside the building.

The place that was deadly silent at her last visit some minutes ago was now filled with noises from what she figured would be the copier.

They silently walked further down a narrow looking hallway, until Shawn came to a stop and opened one of the many doors with his key.

Shawn opened the door with a small gesture towards April to enter the room. It was pretty stuffy, she immediately noticed the moment she stepped in.

Tons and tons of papers were randomly tossed over the desk at the end of the room. The room looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years and that made April scrunch her nose in disgust.

She hated untidy rooms.

"This is your brother's office," Shawn murmured silently. "He works here when he's not out," he went on.

That made sense. The room really looked like a room that could be his workplace.

It was absolutely not difficult to imagine her brother working in this stuffy and dirty room. Keeping his environment clean and neat was never really his thing. Will most probably never be.

"Yeah," April muttered, mostly to herself. "This really looks like Eric has been in here."

She silently took a seat in front of the desk with the tons of paper on it. She faintly heard Shawn chuckling along with the sound of his heavy footsteps.

He took the seat at the other end of the table and silently watched her with an intense gaze. For the briefest of moments she even felt uncomfortable.

It was almost funny, since she rarely got that uncomfortable feeling around men.

But in all honestly, Shawn didn't seem to be like most men. Since the night at the pub, she thought there was something about him she should be careful of.

Maybe her brother did the right thing when he advised her to keep some distance.

April cleared her throat before beginning to speak. "So," she began as she was still in the progress of searching for the right words. "The wolves?"

"Hm?" He arched his eyebrows surprised.

"The cages?" She pointed her thumb behind her. "Why do you keep wolves on a parking space behind a police station?"

"I don't keep them," he answered in his throaty voice and chuckled deeply.

"There's someone hiding traps in our town's forest. We just saved the poor animals that got hurt by a wolf trap," he answered in a low tone of voice. "Which reminds me, what are you doing here?"

"He left his wallet at home," she answered lowly.

Shawn threw his head back and gave a booming laugh. His laugh was deep and unlike his low voice pretty loud.

April blinked several times, trying to understand what could be considered as funny for him to laugh.

"Why the hell are you laughing?" She asked angrily.

Shawn ignored her deadly glare and from his eyes she could tell he was pretty amused with the whole situation.

"You're something," he muttered as he chuckled once again. "You are a very weird, has someone told you this?" he spoke again.

April found herself once again glaring at the red-haired bartender - or policeman - whatever the hell he was.

"No need to be glaring at me, sweetheart. You're brother should be here soon, then you can give him even his wallet back!" His tone was toned with heavy amusement.

The sudden change of his mood bothered her greatly.

She hated being mocked.

He leaned his elbows on the desk and rested his chin on his entwined hands.

"You're an asshóle, you know that?" She spoke dryly.

His body trembled as Shawn muffled his quiet laugh beneath his hand and kept watching her.

"I've been called worse," he spoke after a short silence.

"I believe that immediately."

As Shawn was about to response to April's sneaky remark, the door creaked opened following by footsteps of more than one person entering the room.

She watched how Shawn's posture visibly tensed for the briefest of moment before he slightly relaxed. Her eyes narrowed in slits- Shawn was just trying to come off as feeling relaxed.

She slowly peeked over her shoulder, hoping it would be her brother.

But instead of her brother standing behind the door, she watched an unfamiliar and male face entering the stuffy room with a grim expression.

The man was quite young - in his early thirties, maybe. He had only a few, barely visible but deep wrinkled on his forehead she noticed as he kept frowning down at her.

The wrinkles on the skin of his face only let him appear more mature instead of making him looking older, like she'd seen by others.

April would say he was quite a good-looking man, but something about the seriousness that radiated off him non-stop forbid her even thinking that.

He had dirty blonde hair, which he'd slicked back and tied into a short ponytail. His overall appearance emphasized his serious expression greatly.

Like Shawn the other day at the town's coffee shop, the man wore a expensive suit. He didn't only look like a important person, April was pretty sure he even was an important man.

"Shawn," he spoke, his cold and firm gaze though was only focused on April.

She immediately recognized his heavy Russian accent. She'd heard it before and was quite used to it as her parents had their Russian friends over frequently.

"I didn't know you made it your habit to bring your late night entertainment to your workplace now," he went on after a brief pause.

April audibly gasped at the man's blunt and rude remark.

Was that what Shawn did? Bringing girls to his workplace for his personal .. entertainment?

His words left her completely and utterly speechless. She didn't know if the fact that he looked intimidating, or his rude remark caused her to keep her usual rude mouth shut for once.

She silently clenched her fist's tightly on her lap, deciding that for once she should hold herself back and bit harshly on her tongue before anything stupid slipped from her tongue, like it would usually happen.

Shawn cleared his throat before speaking. "She's Eric's little sister." The tone of Shawn's voice was completely different compared to the tone he used while speaking to April.

Now it was just cold and firm, just like the man's voice was.

The man arched his eyebrows in surprise, before taking a deep sniff of the room.

April had to suppress a snicker- so she wasn't the only one that was well aware of the odd smell in this room.

The man's serious face stretched up into a odd smile. It wasn't hard to figure that smiling wasn't his favorite thing to do.

It looked like that the man in front of her was trying to remember which muscle he'd to lift so that his mouth would stretch into a proper smile.

April forced herself to smile as well, forgetting the rude remark he made about her seconds ago. The situation was awkward and April figure that her smile was most probably as odd looking as the man's.

"It's nice finally meeting Eric's younger sibling," he said after seconds of uncomfortable silence. "My name is Viktor," he sounded almost proudly.

"April," she introduced herself confidently with a small nod at the end.

He didn't bother to introduce the man behind him and the man himself obviously didn't think of it as important to introduce himself to her.

He remained silent behind Viktor. April could barely look at his face as Viktor's wide shoulder's were hiding most of him as if he was unimportant.

Viktor was about to raise his voice once again, but the man behind him was silently creeping closer and whispered something in his ear, in which Viktor quickly nodded as if in agreement.

The man, April was quick to notice, wasn't dressed properly in expensive clothes like Viktor was.

Instead, he wore a simple white shirt, looking like the one's her brother would wear. Only, that his shirt seemed rather overused and pretty unclean.

Them of his white shirt was slightly stained with what seemed to be dirt and mud.

His trousers didn't look any different- just as overused and unclean as the white shirt that he was wearing tightly on his body.

Even his dark brown hair seemed to be all over the place, as if he run a hand a thousand times through his hair.

Overall, he seemed to be in a pretty bad state, judging only his clothes.

His face, though, was rather handsome. She roamed her eyes over him. He was really a fine looking man, April had to admit that to herself.

He was well build, she noticed when her eyes roamed once again on his chest that was tightly being wrapped between the unclean material of his whit shirt.

Her gaze met his green eyes and April found herself enjoying staring into them. The bright green color was truly captivating.

The green-eyed man kept watching her with his intense gaze and April couldn't hide a small smile. Instead of smiling back, he gave her a small and firm nod in response.

He clearly seemed to have a rather odd personality, April decided without getting to know him any further. Though, he didn't seem to be a bad person.

"Excuse us," Viktor broke the silence before raising his voice once again. "There is a small business we have to attend to. April, it was nice meeting you." He smiled at her, before glancing back at Shawn and giving him a quick nod.

"Likewise," she answered and watched him and the other man leaving her alone with Shawn, who was being silent the last few minutes.

She quickly turned around and saw that he was already watching her, his chin rested on his hands.

"Do they work here?" She asked curiously. Though both didn't seem like usual cops, she remembered herself that neither Shawn, nor her brother didn't seem to be cops, tool.

"You're brother is here," he answered instead and pushed himself off the chair before leaving her alone in the stuffy room.

April barely had time to process his words in her slow working mind.

Before she could even speak, Shawn was already gone.

But, he was right. Barely ten seconds later her brother Eric entered the room in - not to her surprise - his normal closes.

"I've heard that you're here," was the first thing he said to her, not even glancing at her as he was closing the door behind him shut.

He seemed to be out of his breath when he spoke. "What are you doing here?"

April searched in her pockets for his wallet before waving it in the air.

"You forgot this," she answered. "Found it on the table in the living room," she went on.

Eric arched his eyebrows. "That's why you drove all the way here?" He asked surprised. "To give me my wallet?" He continued.

His surprised expression was too quickly pulled up into one of disbelief.

"Well, yeah," April muttered under her breath.

Eric watched her for long seconds, before his face softened and his mouth stretched into a bright and warm smile.

"Thanks then," he spoke. "What was Shawn doing here?" He asked when he remembered him strolling past him around the corner.

"He was just keeping me company while I was waiting for you," she answered as she pushed the chair she was sitting on aside.

They both left his messy work area and moved to the front entrance, where she again met Shawn, Viktor and the silent man next to him.

Eric's gazed drifted through the entrance and stopped on the three once he saw them.

He quickly halted on a spot for the briefest of moments before he excused himself and strolled around her over to the small group of men.

They spoke to themselves in hushed murmurs, making it impossible for April to catch on what they were speaking about.

In must've been a private matter, April figured. She didn't miss the heavy tension that was being wrapped around the four of them so tightly.

It didn't seem like a nice chit-chat.

April focused her gaze on the man who'se name she still didn't get to now. He was standing stock-still next to Viktor, keeping silent.

For the first time during her short stay in this town, she seemed to have found a man who seemed to be an even more silent person than Shawn was.

His full lips were formed into a firm line and his facial expression didn't give a hint of a smile or any positive emotions rather than seriousness or coldness.

His face actually didn't gave away anything at all.

Her muscles immediately stiffened when the man silently met her gaze with the green orbs of his.

Neither of them seemed to be even thinking about averting their gazes, until Eric excused himself from the small group and left the police station with April.

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I'll try and update once or twice a week. I can't promise anything, though, because of work. I really like writing this so far. Thanks for reading!