by Jess Haines
Don’t judge. Despite hours of boring surveillance work, it was often better paying and more interesting than insurance work.
That I’d missed all the signs with him—again—was a gut blow. It wounded far more than my pride. It cut down to the very core of who and what I considered myself to be—an ace P.I. with enough experience and know-how to spot the signs of a cheater without effort. Clearly I’d been deluding myself about that. Perhaps there were other things I’d been wrong about, too. This situation undermined everything about who and what I was—and for that, I could never forgive him.
“There is no ‘we’ anymore, Chaz. You burned that bridge and any other chance you might have had with me when you chose to lie and hide things from me.”
He glanced over at me, brows deeply furrowed over his eyes, though he seemed more puzzled than angry. “Don’t say that. I may not have talked to you about it, but I never lied. You forgave me for waiting to tell you about what I was. How is this so different? It’s just a different aspect of the same beast.”
“No, it’s not,” I said, fighting to keep my voice level. “It’s nothing like that. It’s true, before I knew what you were, I said some shitty things about Others. When I broke up with you, it was because I was pissed off at you for being manipulative and for hiding things from me. Acting like that makes you no better than Royce.”
That shut him up. The lines etched into his face, particularly the deepening crow’s-feet around his eyes, spoke of just how deeply I’d managed to wound him with that last comment. He hated Royce with a burning passion. Knowing that, I’d use it to the hilt. Maybe it was low, maybe it was unfair, and maybe it even made me a bitch—but at the moment, I was beyond caring. If it hurt him, I’d wield that knowledge against him, and gladly. Petty or not, at this point I was willing to do anything that might make him hurt the way he and his pack had hurt me.
“Royce,” I hissed, leaning in to whisper in his ear, “never—ever—treated me with the disrespect you’ve shown me. Never hurt me like you did. Even with the contract and the blood bond. How’s it feel to be lower than a leech?”
For the first time in his presence, I felt a thrill of fear for myself as Chaz raised his right hand off the steering wheel, clenching his fingers into such a tight fist that his knuckles popped. He’d never made such an overtly threatening move toward me before. I know his strength, so the move was sobering and had me withdrawing against the car door.
“Don’t you ever—”
His fist came down, cracking the dash. I jumped, staring wide-eyed at the indentation he’d left in the plastic.
“—ever compare me to that leech again. We’re nothing alike.”
Only my fear of what he might do to retaliate kept me from speaking again. He huffed in silence for several minutes. Gradually, the tension eased out of his shoulders, and he resumed speaking, though his tone remained sharp and cutting.
“I never forced you into doing something you didn’t want to do. Didn’t change you, didn’t harm you. Don’t talk about me like I’m one of those … those monsters.”
“Are you kidding me?” I exploded, unable to keep my temper in check, no matter the consequence. Some niggling sense of self-preservation kept me from telling him about the cuts Dillon had inflicted. Even now, enraged, I knew somehow things would go far more badly than they already had if he found out that I might have been infected with lycanthropy by one of his own. “What do you think seeing you and Kimberly fucking like bunnies was, Chaz? A walk in the park? Of course that hurt me, you selfish prick!”
He had the grace to redden. Some of the plastic steering wheel coverlet shredded when his fingernails grew into claws as his agitation got the better of him.
“She doesn’t mean anything to me. She’s just an outlet. You’re the one I love,” he insisted.
“Bullshit. I call bullshit.”
“For God’s sake—”
“Do you have any idea how hurtful this is to me? Do you even have a clue?”
“Of course you’re hurt; you’re always hurt whenever you find out something about me isn’t human enough for you—”
“This isn’t about that!” I shouted.
“Then what’s it about, Shia? I told you what’s wrong. I told you why I had to do it. I knew you’d freak out, just like you did when you found out what I was, and just like you’re doing now. This isn’t how I would’ve wanted you to find out, but it’s too late for that now, and I don’t know any words to say that will make it better. So what exactly is the problem here? What is it about, huh?”
“You! You lying … deceitful …” I sputtered off, too angry to continue.
“You know what? Fuck this. Get out.”
I stared at him, some of my immediate anger edging over into confusion. “What?”
“You heard me. Get out of the car.”
We were somewhere in the Bronx. Nowhere near home. We hadn’t even hit Long Island yet.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. I’m not dealing with your shit anymore.” He cut through traffic in a few savage, jerking motions, and before I knew it, we’d pulled off I-95 and into a part of town I was completely unfamiliar with. He didn’t bother to pull into a lot or find a parking spot, instead choosing to double-park at the side of the road. “Get out. Get your stuff and get out.”
Numbly, I did what he said, hefting my purse on my shoulder as I slid out of the Jeep. He barely waited for me to pull my bag out of the back and shut the door before he pulled back into traffic to the accompanying honks and shouts of irate drivers as he cut people off and shot back onto the expressway.
I stood there between two parked cars for a long time, staring after him, not quite able to believe that he’d dumped me, literally and figuratively. The people passing by barely paid me a glance. Those who did quickly looked somewhere else and hurried on their way.
With a shudder, I hefted my purse higher on my shoulder and grabbed my bag, trying hard not to cry. That could come later, sometime when I was alone and curled up in bed with a pint or two of ice cream and enough chick flicks and alcohol to help me forget this weekend had ever happened.
That Chaz had ever happened.
There was a diner down the street, a real dive, but they might have a phone they’d be willing to let me use. I trudged the half a block to the storefront, dubiously taking in the glass fogged with dirt and cracked cement stairs leading inside. The place was empty save for a tired looking old lady with wispy white hair tied up into a fraying bun who was leaning against the counter, a cigarette hanging limply from her fingertips while she jawed with a cook over the serving counter. They both quieted, looking at me with wide eyes as I stumbled inside.
“Lawd’s sakes, girl, you look like you done seen a ghost,” the woman remarked, stubbing out her cigarette and standing straight. “Come in, sit down. You hurt? Need an ambulance?”
The mention of an ambulance made me jerk in response, terror at being discovered as a possible lycanthrope making my fingers fly to the cuts on my arm hidden beneath my long-sleeved shirt. She couldn’t have seen. She couldn’t possibly know. But the way the waitress looked at me, the concerned wariness in her dark brown eyes, filled me with a bone-deep terror that she somehow saw the monster I might be peeking out of my eyes.
“Jesus, girl, we don’t bite here. Come in; sit down before you pass out. You gonna be all right?”
My throat tightened up at this unexpected kindness, and I shook my head. With some effort, I picked my purse and bag off the checkered tile, inching over to one of the tables by the window and setting my stuff down. My voice cracked when I spoke, so I had to clear my throat a couple of times before it came normally. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I’m just looking for a phone to call a cab, if that’s okay.”
The lady exchanged a look with the cook, one I interpreted as “no sudden moves, don’t alarm the crazy lady.” She gave me a smile, her teeth nicotine stained in places to a color that very nearly matched the chocolate hue o
f her skin. “Sure thing, sugar. You just have a sit right there. I’ll call for you. You want anything while you wait? Some coffee, maybe a slice of pie?”
I gave her a watery smile, and she disappeared through a swinging door into the kitchen. A few minutes later, she came out bearing a cup of steaming coffee and a plate with a slice of warm apple pie. The scoop of vanilla ice cream next to it was already making a sugary pool.
“The cab company will send someone along in about twenty minutes. You just enjoy that now, and let me know if you need anything else.”
I settled in to the comfort food and found it helped ease the nervous tension that had wrung my stomach into knots. Knowing I could curl up into a ball of misery in private at home soon also helped. My eyes burned from the effort to keep from spilling any tears, nothing I wanted to do considering how carefully the cook and waitress were watching me, despite that they’d resumed their casual chat behind the counter.
Already I was worried about strangers thinking I was something different. Something Other. If I went to the hospital, it would come out how I was injured. If anyone recognized me, word might get back to the newshounds who now kept such close tabs on me. Either would be a disaster.
But going to the hospital to get tested or vaccinated would be worse. The thought of what it might do to me to get the news that I was beyond treatment right on the heels of what had just happened with Chaz was terrifying. I didn’t want to get the news that it was too late, that nothing could be done. I didn’t want to be like Ethan, falling apart in a parking lot where anyone could stumble upon me and discover my secret.
I didn’t want to be one of those statistics who disappeared.
Chapter 23
The cab stopped outside, bleating an impatient honk. I left a twenty on the table and gathered my things. The waitress waved her cigarette after me, smoke wafting from the cherry tip as she bid me good-bye.
The bags felt heavier, my reactions too slow. It took more effort than I cared to think about to drag my things out and approach the cab that would take me home. I’d have Sara pick me up in my car on the way into the office tomorrow instead of having the cab drop me off at her place where I’d left it. The thought of possibly running into her while I looked and felt like this was too much to bear. I needed to get my wits around a plan of action for the infection before I could handle talking to her or anyone else about it.
The cab driver got out of his car when he saw me struggling with the bags. It wasn’t until he slid his hand over mine, pulling the heavier suitcase out of my grip, that I looked up and took notice of him.
He was eyeing me speculatively, slicked back hair showing a bad dye job with a few whitish roots that left his features unmistakable. His rounded, stubbly jaw and thickly muscled arms matted with enough hair to do a bear proud gave me a start. He grinned at me, though the expression was tempered with some concern.
“Fancy seeing you again,” he said.
“You, too,” I said once I swallowed back my surprise. How did this guy always manage to find me when I was on the verge of a breakdown? “You have the most fortuitous timing of any cab driver I’ve ever met.”
He barked laughter at that, literally. The guy was a werewolf. A member of the Moonwalker pack, the largest one in New York, if not the whole country. They were “friendly rivals” of the Sunstrikers, and fiercely proud of themselves for being the ones responsible for making Others an accepted part of society. Mostly accepted, anyway.
“Economy being what it is, I can’t offer a free ride this time. But I will lend an ear. Looks like you could use it.”
His words dredged a smile from somewhere, and he returned my weak show of relief in kind before hefting up my suitcase and tossing it in the trunk. As I settled into the backseat, the scent of old fast food and musk swept over me. Familiar, but not as unpleasant as I remembered and expected. He pulled into traffic after I gave him the address and a few directions.
“So, you want to talk?” he asked.
I hesitated. My vision blurred with tears when my gaze settled on the sticker of the Moonwalker pack symbol plastered on the divider between the front and the backseats. If anyone would understand my most pressing problems, it would be my chauffeur-cum-therapist. Talking to this familiar stranger about what was wrong might very well lead to a solution to all of the problems whirring in my head. I couldn’t think of anyone else who would be able to offer the unbiased insights or tempered sympathy this man could. And there was no chance of him subconsciously shrinking away from me as I feared Sara or my parents might once I told them what had happened.
“I … I’m not sure if you can help me …” I trailed off, unable to say it aloud.
“Can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong, sweetheart. You reek of Were, though it’s not from my pack. Have something to do with that?”
I choked back the urge to sob, clenching my fists in my lap. He waited for me to get a grip on myself, flicking glances at me in the rearview every now and then.
“You might say that,” I finally whispered, rubbing the moisture from my eyes with the back of my hand. “I might be like you next month.”
“Like me?” He didn’t get it immediately. Though, once the realization dawned, his eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, I see. Well.”
He didn’t speak again for a bit. I put my hand over my eyes, unable to stop the tears and unwilling to let him see them cutting a path down my cheeks.
“I take it by your reaction this isn’t something you wanted.”
I bit my lip, not wanting to let some careless, caustic comment fall out of my mouth.
“It’s not necessarily a bad thing. You survived. Even if you are one of us now, you’re not dead or badly injured. I’m sure whichever pack is responsible for it will take you on—”
“I don’t want to be a Sunstriker!” I cried, slamming a fist against the Plexiglas hard enough to make it rattle. “That’s just it. I’m not contracted to anyone in the pack, and I never will be! Even if I was, and even if I do turn into—” I couldn’t say it. Saying it aloud might make it real. “… I don’t want to be one of them. Not after what they did.”
“All right, I believe you. Don’t get yer knickers in a knot. Are you saying you’d rather be a lone wolf?”
My head thumped against the seat as I leaned back, unable to believe the absurdity of this conversation. The worst part was that it was completely serious. What I said now might mean the difference between my being accepted into the Other society and being hunted down by anyone with a permit to exterminate rogues next month. I doubted this friendly cab driver would give my name over to any authorities—or worse, White Hats—but once his pack leader found out, I could be in a world of trouble. I hadn’t considered that when I first started talking, but now that the words had left my mouth there was no taking them back. He’d be obligated to tell Rohrik Donovan, leader of the Moonwalkers, that there might be a new wolf in town come the next full moon. For their own safety, they’d make an effort to draw me into their pack, just like the Sunstrikers had with Ethan.
Mouth dry, I croaked a few words, painful as they were to spit out. “No, that’s not what I want. I don’t know. I just don’t want to be one of them.”
His dark eyes reflected concern as he glanced at me through the rearview. I couldn’t bear to meet his gaze, and soon looked away, scrubbing at the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. He pitched his voice low and soothing, and a sort of unwilling calm stole over me.
“Don’t worry just yet. I don’t blame you for being upset with the Sunstrikers if they’re behind this. Could be Mr. Donovan wouldn’t mind lending you a hand. The Moonwalkers owe you anyway; it shouldn’t be any trouble for us to take you in, if it comes to that.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice. At a red light, he twisted around to look at me, frowning as I withdrew and covered my face with my hands, peeking out between my fingers.
“Calm down, I don’t bite,” he said, giving me a forced smile. “Look, after I drop y
ou off, I’ll call Mr. Donovan and ask him to meet with you. Do you mind my giving him your address? He can help you.”
“Okay,” I whispered, not sure if it was. What would Rohrik Donovan be able to do for me? Hold my hand and tell me everything would be all right? That I had a place in his pack structure?
A violent shudder rippled down my spine, but the cab driver was no longer paying me any mind. His focus was now solely on the road and traffic before him.
“Wait—how did you know my name? And how did you know the Moonwalkers owe me a favor?” I asked, alarm driving me to scoot toward the door in case I needed to seek a quick escape. Rohrik Donovan was the one who’d told me as much, and if he was anything like Chaz, I couldn’t imagine him sharing that information with just anyone in his pack. Their pride wouldn’t stand for it.
He laughed. “Are you kidding? I’d be surprised if there was an Other in New York who couldn’t recognize you on sight. Most of the humans probably know you, too, considering all the times you’ve been in the news.”
I made a little choking sound in my throat, but he continued, ignoring it.
“Most of the dominant wolves in our pack know about Rohrik’s promise. We’re supposed to be keeping an eye on you and helping when we can. There wasn’t much we could do to interfere with the Sunstrikers’ keeping such close tabs on you. When you ran off into the park a few months ago, I arranged to run into you. This time? Pure coincidence, but it doesn’t change anything. I’ve got my orders.”
“Great. So you’re stalking me now?”
“Not at all. Consider us a safety net. We’re there to catch you if you fall. Like today.”
That shut me up. My fingers crept back to the cuts on my arm, rubbing at the healing wounds through my shirt. Would it be so bad, being one of the Moonwalkers? Aside from Rohrik Donovan’s being the one responsible for the Others coming out of hiding and announcing themselves to the world, I knew next to nothing about the Moonwalker pack. David Borowsky, the crazy sorcerer, had tried to use them to set himself up as the leader over all the Others in New York almost a year ago. Rohrik and I had fought; he walked away with a few bruises, and I got a stint in the hospital that lasted for months.