I definitely have this series on my radar and it now has a place on my watch list with me always on the lookout for more. I received this book from the author with a request for my honest review without any compensation whatsoever, other than the joy of reading a new book. Sep 03, Mary Lou Hoffman rated it it was amazing Shelves: Heart of a Wolf Category: Paranormal Romance Recommended for: B — a few small errors Received from: MaryLynn Bast in exchange for an honest review This is the second book in the Heart of the Wolf series.
Before she reunited with Blake, Amber was alone for more than ten years. She knew she was a werewolf, but had not changed. She was traveling from to Series: She was traveling from town to town, taking jobs in bars, never getting close to anyone, never staying long lest she be discovered by the Council. Knowing her time was finally near; she was prepared for her first change.
Then she overheard a conversation that worried her. Did she dare, to be held in the blood lust to be unleashed during her first change while near an innocent victim, while pursuing her justified kill? I think I love Amber a little more after reading this story. She has to be tough because of the life she is living. Then, when the chips are down and there is an innocent in jeopardy, her true self comes forward.
She risks herself and exposure in order to help someone in need. Take a chance and see the good that can come of it! Bast has created characters that I love and villains that remind of the days of my youth — the bad guys wear black hats — or in this case, they are greasy, gross, and smelly.
Once again, no cliff hanger, so this book could be read as a stand-alone. I absolutely will not miss the rest of the series. The editing was improved this time. Nov 03, Apageaway rated it it was amazing. A Justified Kill is a great story outside of the series, but is a great addition to it. Struggling with her past and dealing with her present, Amber finds herself at a crossroads in her life and has to decide which path to take.
She does an amazing job of writing with such detail that you feel like part of the story. She develops the characters wonderfully, which makes them easy to connect with. I highly recommend this book and give it 5 out of 5. Aug 23, Rebecca Graf rated it really liked it. Did you read No Remorse? Whether you did or not, you'll be able to enjoy this novella which explains a segment of Amber's life.
A Justified Kill takes the reader to the first human kill of Amber. Marylynn Bast gives you a deeper look into Amber's past.
- Kindred.
- Frog In My Bucket!
- A Justified Kill – MaryLynn Bast!
Though Amber is a werewolf, she does not want to kill innocent humans. She is years behind on her change, and worries if she will hurt someone. Surprisingly, the person she targets for her first kill more than has it coming. You don't have to have r Did you read No Remorse? You don't have to have read No Remorse before reading this one, but you appreciate the story better when you do. Bast took two sections out of the first book of the series and gave the reader this short prequel to expand more on Amber's life. There is language in this book with a few F-bombs dropped.
There is death and violence. This story gives the reader a little insight into Amber's past and her initial change into a werewolf. A must read if you are interested in No Remorse. If you are uncertain about reading No Remorse, then check this book out and get an idea of what the stories are about. I was furnished this book for a book tour with no expectation of a positive review. Mar 09, None Ya rated it it was amazing. I received this for free for my honest opinion! This is an amazing companion to go with No Remorse. We find out more about Amber and her first turning.
Amber is like no other werewolf, she doesn't turn like any others. When she finally turns she is able to get revenge on someone that truly needs it.
Amber has been alone for many years and has to learn about changing and what to expect mostly on her own. It is always nice to be able to get further inside a characters head and Marylynn Bast pulls y I received this for free for my honest opinion! It is always nice to be able to get further inside a characters head and Marylynn Bast pulls you in from the start and of course makes you want to keep going.
You will want to read the rest the heart of a wolf series. I know I am hooked!! Jul 17, Tina rated it it was amazing. A delicious little background story for "No Remorse" by the same author. The best thing about this, is that you dont HAVE to read it first to move onto "Remorse", read it before..
Looking forward to reading the next 3 books i have by MaryLynn Bast and will of course post reviews on each once im done!! Jan 03, Ali Woodhams rated it it was amazing. This is a great story, some good insight into Amber and her past. I would really recommend reading this after on the run. Gitanc rated it liked it Jul 15, Lilly Lopez rated it really liked it Sep 08, Lucybee rated it did not like it Mar 02, Candice Messina rated it really liked it Jun 05, Mistressesofpassion rated it it was amazing Jun 09, Mitebsyco rated it really liked it Oct 21, Marcelo rated it liked it Aug 11, Nicola Murdochrundell rated it it was amazing Dec 10, Carmen rated it it was amazing Jul 15, Deputies patrolled the neighborhood looking for a clue Elizabeth may have left behind but found nothing.
That's really when hit me, when I saw the helicopter and they were looking around. Friends, strangers, all were ready to help find Elizabeth. I mean these are people I didn't even know. I mean they just come up we got people bringing us coolers and stuff and food. I had a neighbor that made a flier and then my sisters would go and make copies of that and then I work with Wal-Mart, so they were ready to bring out people in the first notice.
And now, it was day three. Dozens of trained searchers mounted horses to search places difficult to reach on foot. But there must have been something to make her want to run -- a dispute? We woke up late. She had forgotten to set the alarm clock from the night before. Everybody was rushing to get out of the house. By now, as their minutes blurred through harrowing days, makeup was the last thing anyone cared about. But of course her parents could not have imagined, even in their long slow terror, that their Elizabeth was in fact the centerpiece of a murder plot that was right on schedule.
Sheriff's Deputy Kirk Corley was put in charge of special operations in the search for Elizabeth. Well, we started in an area where she was last seen and we actually brought in our tracking dogs and started squaring the area to see if they could pick up a scent and try to track out if she had left on foot. And a big chunk of the land nearby was owned by a mining company where the thicket was virtually impenetrable, and access, in any case, was prohibited.
We brought in air support the following day. And from there it also built onto our mounted patrol. And we just kind of cut it up into blocks and started grid searching from the house out. The good -- and occasionally bad -- news was that hundreds of volunteers kept pouring in to help. Our tracking unit and our mounted patrol picked up several different foot tracks.
And once we would track those out and follow them out we were able to link those back to some volunteers that were searching … And the trail just kind of dies out from there. And you start back over again. The media attention so welcomed by the Shoaf family spurred hundreds of tips. All had to be investigated. You hear of reports from people. You know, "oh, they found a body in this county. Or they found a body in that county. I hated it for the person that actually passed away. But just thank God it wasn't her. We sent out during this investigation everything we had in the sheriff's office.
We had our school resource officers out there. We had everything we did, our bloodhounds, our mounted patrol. We used everybody we could get our hands on. Oh, the Shoaf family asked for an Amber Alert, they begged the sheriff to call one, as did many people in their town.
But the sheriff said he simply could not call an Amber Alert and refused to do so, no matter how anguished the family's requests.. It's very very sad because you look at an Amber Alert now and you're just like my God you know they weren't there to help my child and she went missing. I mean there'd be national TV coverage five hours after she had left Well the criteria didn't fit it, number one. There was no vehicle, which is required by the Amber Alert. We did not know who she may have been with. There was really nothing to put out there. Besides, as day five ended, then day six, Sheriff McCaskill's instinct was telling him it was too late for any Amber Alert.
It was much worse now. Especially as the days, you know, when on and on. You just get that policeman's feeling, that gut feeling, that you know this really looks like it's going to turn out bad. I don't know how many miles I put on that 4-wheel. I mean I stayed gone until I couldn't see any more, so I mean, you know and then we would connect here and there in the evenings and cry and do whatever.
Were you doing to find your daughter or were you going to find a body? You know, you wanted something there but you didn't want something there. Up to the rise that looks across at the deepest part of the wood. You know, I could only go so far and I couldn't go no further. Prayed that, you know, she would come back. As I left, went by and picked up my cell phone and grabbed my keys. And I was heading out the door and I happened to look at my cell phone The road where the big trucks go in and out.
It was private property owned by a chalk mining company, an area officers had not yet been able to search. I just knew it was her. I mean, I knew it was her, just the mannerism of the text. You just sit there and you know how your child talks to you … I was like "my God. A murder plot, right on schedule But there was more the message said. She was kind of half-hysterical.
And I said, well the first thing is call the police. I was hysterical, yeah. I was in shock, too. Because I was just, like, "oh my God, here's what we've been waiting for. Just to get one answer to where she was. And this was our answer. Deputies who had barely slept in a week rushed to the site hoping for a big break, but fearing another wild goose chase.
When I first heard it, I said I hope nobody's playing a joke on this dear lady to do something like this. Marshals started a trace on the phone number that appeared in the message but investigators didn't wait around for those results. In the pitch-black darkness, they searched the area for hours. But, you know, I remember thinking it could've been some fruitcake somewhere doing something. You know how kids like doing, do jokes and stuff.
I mean, that was in my mind.
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But Madeline Shoaf couldn't know, of course — and nor could the sheriff -- that the man was watching carefully, waiting for the deputies to solve his little puzzle. That was another long, sleepless night. The sheriff made a call, put some technical people to work on the electronic footprint the phone left behind when that message bounced off some local cell towers. And we were able to come together with the marshal service and triangulate between the three cell towers in the area and get the number.
And when the number came back that's when the big break came. Whenever the law turned up, he wasn't there. So now, armed with a search warrant, deputies rushed right over. And what they found there? Well, it wasn't Elizabeth. But it wasn't good. I guess that's the sickest I was -- I ever got. But we looked around, and put everything together: You put them all three together and you think about what you've got.
And it really -- it really scared you. Vinson Filyaw wasn't home, but Captain David Thomley discovered the reason -- one of the reasons -- he'd been able to escape detection for so long. In the trailer, in the back bedroom that he shared with Miss Hall, the first thing that caught my attention was the fact that there was a mattress on the floor without the railing. And after we removed the mattress, we could see that there had been a hole cut in the floor of the mobile home And we kept looking and we found that under the trailer, you could tell where there had been some activity under there, where somebody had actually been dropping through the floor.
And making footprints —. And then, if you guys came to the trailer, he could just drop down in there.
- A Justified Kill;
- Esperanza Rising.
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- Are You an Author?.
Today it looks like nothing more than a trash pit, but back then Thomley discovered somebody had been digging underground hiding places -- bunkers. This is actually the first bunker that we located behind Cindy Hall and Vincent Filyaw's residence. When we found it had a door, it was constructed with a roof.
You could see it but I don't think most people would have realized that's what was actually there until you opened the door and entered. We located a, what we described as a fairly fresh bunker located also behind the trailer. In that little shed there. We found a fresh mound of dirt that was covered by a carpet, a piece of carpeting.
And we actually entered that bunker. It was around six or seven feet deep at that point. It was an outstanding arrest warrant, based on what Vinson allegedly did to a young girl named Amber, or as Vinson used to call her, Peanut. I was 11 when it first started. My mom just decided he was good enough to move in with, so, in the fifth grade we moved over here.
If Vinson had taken Elizabeth as she walked home through the woods that day, no one could have a better idea than Amber of how she might be suffering. Amber is 15 now, but the appalling memory is fresh. It was an October night and he was drunk. And then he had came home and he had told me that he wanted to play a game. He used his fingers. The farthest I can say he went was one night he was doing that and then it's like I black out and he's on top of me. And that's all I can remember.
That went on for months, Amber says, because Vinson later claimed she was given Benadryl by her mom so she would sleep thru the abuse. But there was more. Amber noticed Vinson digging what he called a storm cellar in the back yard. That, of course, is the one Captain Thomley discovered when he searched the place much later.
Vinson had warned her, she said: But finally, one terror overcoming another, she told a trusted teacher. The cops knew instinctively that Filyaw would be following the sexual criminal's pattern of escalating behaviors. Just what we were all afraid of, that we had someone who was out of control, someone who had already committed criminal sexual conduct and who had another victim somewhere doing the same thing.
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We felt he was progressing to become a serial killer. I had absolutely no idea we would find this young lady alive, not with what I felt like was going on. At least there was a suspect, someone to look for. And so they did not fully realize as they talked together here at home that their horrible situation had just gotten worse.
You're just sitting there praying that the worst hasn't happen to her, you know. That he doesn't harm her, you know. If he saw that report, and realized that Elizabeth had somehow managed to sneak out that text message, he'd surely kill her. Well, we presented it to the media because we wanted him to know that we knew.
I mean let's face it, he could have killed her at any time. I was thinking it was a risk. But I was thinking it was a risk worth taking. Captain David Thomley and a few others worked their way into the thickest part of the wooded tangle, an area too difficult for easy movement. And we just start walking the woods. I was, I guess, second from the end of that particular line. We'd been in the search maybe 30 minutes. From the air, the acres of the Hanson brick mine look benign.
If Elizabeth Shoaf had been taken here, alive or dead, there was not a sign of it from up here. It's just so thick,, we had horseback, we had people on foot. Two of the three won't make it in here. So our manpower to use on foot would have taken days or weeks. But Captain David Thomley knew they didn't have days to look. They might not have hours to find Elizabeth alive now that they knew that text message had been linked to a man police feared could be morphing into a serial killer. At that point, we were feeling more and more like Vinson was the person we were looking for.
It was at first light. David Thomley walked toward the thickest part of the wood, and that's when he heard it: I knew it was her, I could feel it was her. I would have walked thru hell on a Sunday to get to her. I've been asked many times what it felt like to come out of the wood line and see her standing there. Now, just remembering the moment, he is overcome. Because the fact is, he'd been looking for a dead girl.
I don't know if you could call it a run in my shape. I ran as fast as I could. All of a sudden I seen something coming up the road. I said, is that one of the police officers? When he said that he had her, it was my whole life started again, it was like, my heart just started beating again. I feel like I shut my eyes and she come flying in the room, "They found her! We couldn't make it to the hospital fast enough. Dude, pass the light, pass these people…. Yeah, put your light on, do something, get us there. That's all I could think of: And of course, I saw her, I couldn't stop it.
I just jumped on her. I just had to give her a hug and kiss her. Yes, and what's more, she seemed OK. Or at least alive, with no obvious injuries -- like some latter day version of Little Red Riding Hood, snatched from the jaws of the wolf. She wanted to talk, the adults discovered. It was harder for them to ask than for her to answer -- as it was initially when we finally met Elizabeth. Understated, shy, with a captivating smile, Elizabeth told us, hour by hour, about her long, terrible, journey. It will come up and I think about it. I don't want to forget it though.
It was a Wednesday afternoon when she stepped off the school bus and watched her friends go off in a car. She walked on alone, up her own driveway, 50 yards from her house.
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He just walked out in camouflage and told me he was the police and that he needed to talk to me. And then I walked over and he handcuffed me behind my back. Yeah, because he had like camouflage pants on and a green shirt. And then he had like a fake badge. But I thought it was real. He told her it was something about marijuana, that her year-old brother Donnie was already under arrest. And now she was, too. Then he put like a fake bomb.
I didn't know it was fake, because he told me it was real. But he put it around my neck. I was like, kind of angry, because he had told me he had my little brother with the other people. But instead of marching her back down the drive to a police car, Filyaw led her away from the road. He was asking me just like the oddest questions. If I had a phone and if I was a virgin and Of all things for a police to ask me, that's when I kind of was wondering what was going on.
And then he said that I was a smart girl and I should have figured it out. And then that kind of got me scared. That's when my heart started pounding because I knew something was wrong. Vinson led a shackled Elizabeth through woods and trails for an hour, doubling back, circling around, throwing off her sense of direction. He told me to go down a ladder and get into the bunker.
He had like a rifle and a belt that had guns and I saw a Taser in it. So I knew he was really equipped to do anything, if I acted stupid or whatever. Inside, he closed the door and turned on a battery powered light. Now Elizabeth understood why he asked if she was a virgin.
More than two times every day. Between two and five times a day … All I remember is that it hurt, of course. And I had looked off to the side to one of the shelves that was there. And I was looking' at it like-- there was, like, a propane tank and dishes and stuff on it. There was a chain that was like a long, a big chain or whatever that was hooked to like the roof part of the bunker.
And he just had it down. And then wrapped it around my neck and locked it. An unforgettable sound He'd outfitted the bunker to keep them going for weeks. It was, like, dirt walls and then over the walls he had some kind of sheet of some kind of fabric. And then he just had, like, his own little homemade bed and homemade shelves and a retarded toilet. Elizabeth could see a stove, food, and heard Vinson talk about his water supply -- a stagnant pond near the bunker.
There was even a battery-operated TV. I watched my mom and my sister and my aunt, and all the other people I saw on the news. And just watched like them talk about how I was missing. And they wouldn't put an Amber Alert out for me. The next day it seemed to Elizabeth that deputies had figured out she'd been abducted and she was about to be rescued. I could actually see their shadows walking across the door above me. Yes … I didn't say anything, but he just came up to me and told me that I needed to be quiet and if I said anything, all he had to do is Taser me and it'd knock me out.
Those searchers had seen nothing. In fact, the footsteps belonged to volunteers not trained deputies, who might have noticed something amiss. They were all pretty much on the way towards the water hole. And he showed me that one thing he had in the ground. It was between these two trees and it was shocking bullets that were, like, pointed upwards.
And if you step on it, it will shoot you in your feet. He kept her there in his bunker and day three became four then five. The perpetual darkness left Elizabeth disoriented until she lost track of the time of day or night. In the afternoons, and then at nighttime it'd be really cold. I would sit there for like hours. About my boyfriend and my family. Because that was all I could do. In the deafening silence of the dank smelly bunker, Elizabeth realized Vinson was right: No matter what people would say about him later, there was no dispute about one thing: Vinson Filyaw had a finely honed talent for disappearing.
I guess I pretty much just shut my brain down. And I-- it was painful, but I would just think about other things. He told me that I needed to calm down, and if I ever tried to escape and I got away, that he didn't have to get me to hurt me. And he knew how much I loved my brother. They took turns sleeping, she at night and Vinson during the day, while she sat, chained to the rafters, watching him.
He had a pellet pistol. And while he was sleeping, I grabbed it. And I pulled the trigger to his head but it got jammed. And I couldn't-- I didn't want to un-jam it, because then he'd hear it. So I just put it away and cried. And then, in her desperation, she began to play with an insane idea. A sort of reverse psychology. I always would do what he told me to do. And like he'd always call me baby. And he'd tell me he loved me, and I told him I love him. And before long, he began to act like he was sweet on her.
Once in a while, he'd take her out of the bunker for a minute or two. And she began to behave like a child in some dark fairy tale. Did he tell you about having been accused of sexually abusing his And then one night, as she followed Vinson outside the bunker to get water, Elizabeth saw an opportunity. He'd sit there and text message his wife or girlfriend and that kind of gave me the idea of text messaging my mom. When he was like real, real deep in his snoring that I knew he was asleep, I would start text messaging.
For three days I did. I wrote so many that like some of them were long text messages and some of them were just short. It always told me it didn't.
Into the woods
He asked me what I was doing. And I just told him I was playing games, which sometimes I was because I was bored. One night, careful not to wake him, she crawled silent up the ladder to that heavy trap door and pushed. I pretty much smashed my arm. I didn't exactly like lift it all the way. And then did it tell you whether that message was getting through? Because I knew that the text messages weren't going out.
And I couldn't kill him, because it's just -- I can't hurt anything. All of a sudden helicopters just popped up and he was confused. I was like happy because I thought somebody knew where I was. And then he found out why they knew. Not only had her text message gone out. Now Vinson knew she had betrayed him. Eleven o'clock news came on and then they said that I sent a text message out to my mom saying where I was. Then I thought I was going to die cause he was angry, angry, and I just sat there and cried and told him it wasn't me.
Missing girl has to save herself He was afraid. He didn't know what to do. He was just asking me like if he should pack stuff and he should start leaving or if he should stay and wait it off to see if they never find me. Fourteen years old, traumatized beyond comprehension, she offered instruction to the tormentor suddenly now in her power.
And I just told him that he needed to pack his stuff and leave while he could because the police were going to get him. And I didn't want him in jail. And I acted like I wanted him to be safe. As dawn arrived on day 10, Elizabeth pushed with all her might on the bunker's heavy door, forced herself up and into the morning sunlight and heard the sound of barking dogs. And then that's just like a big, big relief I just like fell down and started crying. As she lay in her hospital bed later she told her parents she couldn't possibly go home, not while Vinson was free.
Hindsight, as everybody knows, can torture a person. Even veteran investigator Kirk Corley, who used every resource he had to find Elizabeth has second thoughts. If you could go back and play it all over again, that pit area, which is within a mile of the house, back deep in the woods -- if we could have put somebody directly on top of it. All those officers who'd been chasing leads all over the state, over the whole country, some of them, remember, pegging her as a runaway.
I know she was scared to death. But she stuck in there.