by May Dawson
“Yeah, sure.” I got out and went to the pump to swipe my credit card.
She jerked her thumb at the brightly lit quick-stop behind us. “Want anything?”
“Grab me a black coffee, please?”
“Black coffee? Boring.”
“I like to think of it as strong, practical, and straight-forward.”
“Of course you’d like to think of it that way. I read that black-coffee drinkers are more likely to embody sociopathic and anti-social personality traits.”
“Well, I am a fucking werewolf, Dani. What do you want from me?”
She laughed out loud, and something swelled in my chest at the sound as she headed for the bright windows of the gas station. A pick-up truck pulled through the empty parking lot and parked parallel to the building instead of in the spaces. I rolled my eyes. Even when there was no one else here, it didn’t seem that hard to follow the rules. Civilians, man.
I was almost done filling the tank when a strange feeling crept over me. I slipped the nozzle back into the pump, looking for the source of whatever had set my alarm bells ringing. I always trusted my intuition. Anything less in my world was asking for a visit from death.
Someone got out of the passenger side of the pickup truck, then opened the door to the gas station.
I swung open the passenger door and smacked Rafe’s shoulder. “Look lively.”
He startled awake, rubbing his hand across his jaw reflexively. “What?”
“I think we’ve got trouble.”
Rafe sat forward, releasing his seatbelt and slipping his gun out of the glove compartment at the same time. He grabbed my sword from behind the console and handed it to me.
I frowned at it. “Quite the entrance to make if my instincts are off.”
The pop of gunfire sounded inside the gas station.
I whirled, yanking my sword from the sheath. Together, the two of us ran for the gas station.
“Check the truck!” I shouted to Rafe.
He was already wrenching open the driver’s side door. Rafe dragged the man out of the car, and he fell to the ground.
He and Rafe tussled before Rafe cold-cocked him across the jaw. It sounded like the kind of hit that leaves someone unconscious, and the man slammed into the side of the truck.
When I got inside, the cashier was hiding under the counter, but he jumped over the counter and fled past me, and the bells on the top of the door jangled.
A man with a gun was slammed up against the refrigerated cabinet of Gatorades, pinned there by nothing.
Or so it looked at first glance.
“Dani!” Rafe called, a note of urgency in his deep voice. “Dani!”
She stepped out from behind the shelves. Sweat was beaded along her hairline, and her hands were up, her fingers flexed. Pain was etched across her face, and her lips were peeled back from her teeth.
Without hesitating, I ran across the room and wrenched the gun out of the hand of the guy.
Rafe came up on my other side, his own gun held low and ready in his hand. “You can let him go, Dani.”
She nodded, but it seemed painful for her to break the spell. Then her tense fingers finally relaxed, and the man fell at our feet.
“You think our friend behind the register called the cops already?” Rafe asked as he flipped the terrified, gibbering man onto his stomach. “Hand me the duct tape from the end cap there.”
We tied him up and left him on the linoleum in front of the registers, along with his friend. We had to get out of there before the cops arrived, and I doubted we had much time.
I was checking for police lights when I looked through the windows and saw Dani pacing on the sidewalk. Her fingers tangled in her hair, tension written through her body.
“You should go talk to her,” I told Rafe.
He frowned at me. “You talk to her. She likes you.”
“You like her.”
“I don’t like her, not like that. We’re friends.”
“Then why’d you want to go on this trip so badly?”
“For Will? Remember Will? Your best friend?”
Rafe was maddening.
“Whatever,” I snapped. Someone had to go talk to her. Calm her down. I left Rafe behind and stepped onto the sidewalk. “Dani?”
She turned toward me, her eyes wide.
“Are you all right?”
“I don’t like doing magic like that. The kind of magic my…” She shook her head. Her voice trembled, and so did she.
“You saved someone’s life in there,” I said. “I know we were just talking about how the covens are awful, but you did a good thing with your magic. Don’t doubt yourself.”
“It feels really good,” she murmured. “That kind of magic. That’s the terrifying part. It’s addictive…”
“You’re all right,” I told her again.
Then somehow, she was in my arms, still shaking. I wrapped her in a hug to try to comfort her.
She looked up at me, blinking back tears. “Thanks, Lex.”
“No problem,” I said.
But as she leaned her head against my chest, her body shaking, I couldn’t help but feel like it was a big problem.
Chapter Seventeen
Maddie
We drove into the night. I put my feet up on the dash so I could turn my lap into a desk, and I read the files with my phone light, telling Jensen whenever I found something worthy of discussion.
“Is this really the best first step?” I asked, slipping a set of papers carefully back into their folder. “What are we really looking for?”
“It’s not perfect,” he admitted. “But if one of them survived, I bet someone in their pack knows.”
“And what? We ask nicely if anyone knows some secret information they’d like to share with us?”
“Of course not,” he said.
I waited. Jensen had a plan. He always did. I hoped it didn’t involve violence.
“Once we find a good lead, I have a spell to force him to tell the truth.”
Magic was far worse than violence—at least to shifters.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before we left?” I sat forward, aggravated. “You are going to get yourself imprisoned by the council again. You can’t use magic against another shifter. You can’t use magic at all!”
“But you can?”
“I’m not using magic.” I drew an X over my heart before I realized how childish the gesture was.
He dared to look away from the windshield to level a skeptical look my way. But once he’d made his point that we both knew I was lying, he conceded, “You’re right. But I know that survivor is covering up what really happened.”
“Then prove it the old-fashioned way. What if we talk to—” I flipped back through the files. “Reefer Tegan?”
“I don’t think we’re going to get much useful info out of a guy named Reefer,” Jensen drawled.
“He was in her patrol,” I said. “But he left the teams. I don’t see anything in here about why…”
“You think he might have a helpfully disgruntled perspective,” he finished.
I nodded. “We can hope.”
“What’s his address?” Jensen reached out to touch the GPS screen mounted on the dashboard.
I read off his last known address, then added, “I didn’t expect you to listen to me.”
I felt unexpectedly satisfied by the way I’d convinced Jensen to try a different route.
“If I thought you were an idiot, I wouldn’t have brought you along with me,” he said.
He sounded so reasonable and friendly. He was completely unpredictable, and it was going to make me lose my mind.
I ticked things off on my fingers. “Two things. One, you didn’t want me to come with you. Two, you specifically said I’m an idiot just earlier today.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you a bunch of times you’re not an idiot. Stop fishing for compliments.”
“That’s not a compliment. That’s barely th
e absence of an insult.” Jensen had phrased it in the past as: there are a lot of things wrong with you—a lot—but you’re not an idiot.
My cell phone vibrated. No one should be calling me this late, and I pulled out my phone to see Lex’s number on the screen.
I hadn’t seen the picture that accompanied his number for a while, but it was of me sitting on his lap, his arms wrapped around my waist, the two of us beaming at the camera. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“It’s Lex.”
“Do you think he knows?” he asked.
“Maybe. Or maybe he’s just checking in on us…”
“You have to answer,” he said. “Or he’ll know something is up. Hang on.”
He cut the radio as he pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine. I bit my lip, nervous as I pressed the button to accept just in time before it could go to voicemail.
“Hi,” I said. Keep it quick, keep it natural.
“Hey. Were you sleeping?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Good. I just didn’t want to wake you up. Ah.” He sounded as uncertain as Lex ever got, and I frowned. Something was bothering him. “I wanted to make sure you’re safe at school.”
“Safe as ever,” I said.
Jensen mouthed at me sarcastically, “I’ll always take care of you.”
I rolled my eyes. I would’ve punched him if I wasn’t worried the sound would alert Lex to be suspicious.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and there was an acerbic twinge to my voice.
Jensen waved his hand across his throat. Cut it off.
“Driving with Dani and Rafe up to the Hunter’s academy. It’s a ways—we’re taking turns driving.”
“And are long-distance check-ins a standard operating procedure when the cadre go on road trips?” I asked. “I assumed one of you would stay.”
From the PT sessions to our extra time in the pits to the library hours, one of them had been with us whenever we were suffering. One of the tenets of leadership in the packs was to never have your men do anything you wouldn’t do yourself.
On the other hand, I didn’t think that the fact the cadre essentially punished themselves every time they punished us led to a more pleasant attitude.
“Get off the phone,” Jensen mouthed at me.
“Do you need me?” Lex asked.
“Lex.” I swiped my hand through my hair. That question was so loaded. On the surface, sure, it was just about whether I was safe at the academy. But that wasn’t really the question. And I couldn’t need Lex anymore. “I’m fine. Have fun with Rafe. And Dani.”
“Maddie.”
Jensen pointed down the road, where an eighteen-wheeler drove toward us in the opposite lane, his headlights blindingly bright. Right. Road noise.
“I’m fine, Lex. You don’t need to check on me unless you’d do it for any cadet. Good night.”
He started to say something, and I hung up on him.
Well. He’d definitely appreciate that.
Whatever. He deserved being hung up on. He was messing with my head so much lately.
I double checked I’d really ended the call, then said, “I’m off. It’s safe to try to boss me around out loud instead of just frantically mouthing things at me.”
“I doubt you’re going to listen either way,” Jensen said. Then skeptically, he added, “He called to check up on you?”
“On us.”
“Bullshit,” Jensen said. “Man, I always thought he was so cool.”
It was hard for me to imagine Jensen looking up to anyone. “You did?”
“But he’s got it so bad for you,” he said, ignoring my question. “You’re not the only one who gives me a terrible case of secondhand embarrassment.”
“It’s not like that,” I said. “We dated before the academy, but it’s over now.”
“Right.” Jensen’s lips twitched. “That’s why the two of you went at each other like feral spider monkeys when you stayed at the hunting lodge.”
Two things clicked home for me with dreadful finality when Jensen said that, and his face changed the second the words had left his lips, as if he realized it too.
Jensen was indeed jealous, instead of simply hating me;
Somehow, Jensen knew Lex and I had sex when we had to escape the campus.
I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure which was worse. “How did you know about that?” My voice came out quiet but clear.
“Lucky guess. Thanks for confirming.” That cocky, smirking Jensen mask slammed back in place.
“No, it wasn’t that. And you’d been arrested, so you weren’t skulking in the woods…”
“Anyone who sees the way you look at Lex could tell the two of you had sex,” Jensen said. “Everyone’s been talking about it.”
“Great,” I said.
Jensen exhaled under his breath. He was relieved.
He was lying.
“You know I’m going to figure out what you’re keeping from me,” I said.
“Okay, great, Sherlock Holmes. Let’s see your detective skills at work on this asshole first.”
We turned onto a country road, the kind with a handful of houses dotted over a mile’s distance. I yawned, but my tiredness faded rapidly as adrenaline took over.
“We’re going to visit him in the middle of the night?” I asked. “Seems legit.”
“We’ve got four days,” he said. “Can’t afford to waste any of it.”
In front of his house, Jensen made a quick U-turn and positioned us to head back the way we’d come. He cut the engine. When we got out of the car, the quiet of the night felt deep.
I glanced over at him. His face was cold, stoic. It was hard to believe he was the same guy whose hands shook with his rage when he held the testimony accusing his sister of cowardice. But I was pretty sure cold, controlled, cruel Jensen was a mask.
I wasn’t sure if I’d rather have Cold Jensen or Raging Jensen with me right now. Either way, I asked him, “You all right to do this?”
“You all right not to ask me any more stupid questions?” His voice was flat.
Jensen was definitely not all right, but fine. The two of us kept going across the yard. His pace quickened, and his long, lean legs took enormous strides. He climbed the bottom step of the porch stairs before I did.
On the other side of the front door, a shotgun pumped.
Without missing a beat, Jensen stepped in front of me, his broad shoulders fencing me from the front door. What the hell. I raised my palms facing out in a sign of surrender as I stepped to Jensen’s side, ready for anything.
He raised his hands to his shoulders and called, “We just want to talk.”
“I don’t need Jesus, I don’t need cookies, and I don’t need magazines.” The man’s voice was muffled through the door.
I’d expect a guy named Reefer to always want cookies, but okay.
“You might remember me,” Jensen said evenly. “Eliza McCauley was my sister. I think you guys came by my house a few times.”
A slow minute dripped by, as if our unseen friend with the gun was thinking it over.
“I’m not sure it’s going to help if he remembers you,” I told Jensen.
“Always a smartass,” he muttered. “I’m sure you’ll have a great quip ready to go if we get shot.”
The door opened, and a big-framed man with wild dark hair stared at Jensen, a frown across his heavy features. He still gripped his shotgun, the stock pressed into his shoulder so he could raise it again quickly.
“Jensen?” He studied Jensen’s face curiously. “Yeah, I remember you. The basketball star. Eliza wouldn’t shut up about your games.”
Jensen stiffened. “I guess. I played in high school.”
“Will used to text her the play-by-play and she’d tell us every damn thing, and we’d be like, McCauley, we don’t give a shit, but there was no stopping her.” He grinned.
A muscle ticked in Jensen’s jaw before that cold mask was sm
oothed flawless once again.
“We hoped you could tell us about her,” Jensen said.
“You’re her brother. I’d think you’d be the expert,” Reefer said mildly.
“I’ve got some questions about what happened in your patrol.”
He glanced down the street, his eyes narrow and nostrils flaring, as if he was looking for someone. “Anyone follow you?”
“No.”
“Would you have noticed?”
Jensen jerked his head in a tight nod. But it wasn’t likely we’d been followed anyway. Even if we were discovered to have left the academy, unless someone knew Jensen had those files, they wouldn’t expect to find us here, at the house of a random ex-Patrol who’d gone lone wolf long ago.
He snorted as if he didn’t believe Jensen. “Well, come on.”
He stepped back, holding the door open, ushering us inside.
A prickle of unease crept up my spine.
“Stay behind me,” Jensen muttered as he headed for the door.
“Maybe you should stay behind me,” I shot back.
“Maybe I’m asking you to watch my back,” he replied.
His words startled me, but I was pretty sure he was just suckering me into letting him go ahead. His powerful shoulders and the lean taper of his waist filled my vision as he walked through the door ahead of me.
“Are you carrying?” Reefer asked.
“Yep,” Jensen said.
Reefer mimed him turning around, and he took the gun out of the holster at the back of Jensen’s hip. “You can have it back when you leave. How about you, girlie?”
Moving slowly, so he could see my hands the whole time, I slipped the 9MM that Jensen had handed me in his father’s house out of the holster and, taking the barrel, held it out toward him.
“Sit,” Reefer said, jerking his head toward the couch. “And if you two idiots are going to poke into what happened to that patrol, I highly recommend you don’t allow anyone else to take your fucking guns.”
“You think someone doesn’t want us to know the truth?” Jensen asked.
“I think there’s nothing to learn from me,” Reefer said. “I wasn’t there.”
“We know that. But you worked with Eliza, and we hoped maybe you could just tell us—”