The Better to Bite

by Cynthia Eden

  “It’s a list of them all,” I whispered and excitement had my hands trembling a bit.

  “What?” Valerie was right behind me now.

  Carefully, I closed the old book. “I have to get this to my dad. Helen—she found a listing of all the cursed families. She knew the wolves!”

  A door squeaked open. Not a door at the front of the shop. The back entrance, the door just a few feet away. My head whipped toward that door, and I saw Cassidy standing on the threshold. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Anna? Valerie? Wh-what are you doing here?”

  The journal was a heavy weight in my hands.

  “You broke into my grandmother’s shop?” She continued, her voice hardening as she took in the scene and advanced on us. “Why?”

  I held the book tighter. Time to get this all out in the open. “Because I wanted to find out who hurt her.”

  “An animal attack, it was—”

  I shook my head and her words stopped. “You know the truth, Cass. You have to.” She’d lived with Helen. Helen had surrounded herself with magic and mystery. How could Cass not know? “You were the one who told me about Haven and the witches who came here—”

  Cassidy swallowed. “That’s just a story. I was messing with you. I don’t…”

  Her words trailed away, as if she couldn’t even bring herself to finish what she knew was a lie.

  “Haven is cursed.” It was Valerie who spoke now. “A wolf came after me—”

  “It came after me, too,” I put in quietly.

  “And it killed your grandmother,” Valerie finished.

  Cass stared at me, eyes wide.

  “But it wasn’t an ordinary wolf.” I gripped that journal tightly, aware of Valerie close to my back. We were in this together. “It was someone who lives here, in Haven, someone who was cursed. Someone who changes into a wolf and kills.”

  No change of expression crossed Cass’s face, but she swallowed, once, twice, as if choking back emotion. “She always told me to keep silver close.” Her gaze dropped to my necklace. “She wanted you to have the silver, too.”

  To keep me safe.

  I realized then that, yeah, Cass understood the truth, even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it, not even to herself.

  Her eyes squeezed shut. “You know who the wolves are?”

  Her voice sounded too hollow. Too broken. I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me. “I do now.”

  Her eyes opened and dropped to the journal. I saw understanding in her sharpening gaze. She held out her hand. “Give me the book.”

  I didn’t. Right then, I didn’t trust what she’d do. I could practically feel her rage spreading to fill the room. “They aren’t all bad, Cass—”

  “Bullshit!” Her voice snapped like a whip. “A werewolf freaking killed her! He ripped her to pieces! Don’t stand there and tell me they’re not—”

  “One wolf.” I braced my legs and lifted my chin. Valerie was dead silent behind me. “Not all of them. You can’t punish them all for what one—”

  “Can’t I?” Cass laughed, and I really didn’t like that mocking sound. The pain and fury were pushing her too far, twisting her. “If what you’re saying is true, they’re all cursed. All monsters, and maybe it’s time someone took them all out.”

  “You don’t mean that.” I hoped she didn’t. “You’re upset. You need to just—”

  “I need my grandmother back.” Her smile was cold and bitter. “But I’ll settle for putting the bastard who killed her in the ground.”

  This wasn’t the Cass I knew. “Let my dad—”

  “Do what? Let him find more bodies? Let him protect the wolves?” More laughter, the kind that held a crazy edge. Too much pain. “Werewolves. Granny told me to watch out for monsters. She told me they howled and clawed, but she never told me that she meant actual werewolves! She never told me they were real!”

  And I suspected why. “Because she wanted to protect you.” As much as she could.

  A tear slid down Cass’s cheek. “But I could have protected her.”

  Now it was too late.

  Her dark gaze dropped to the journal. “Give it to me.”

  I wanted to help Cass, I truly did, but… “No.” Because right then, I didn’t trust her. “People’s lives are in here, we can’t just—”

  Cass lunged for me. Valerie screamed. I scrambled back, slamming into Valerie, and holding that journal as tightly as I could.

  “Everybody, freeze!” Deputy Jon’s voice cut through the chaos.

  We all froze. Cass was right in front of me, breath heaving hard. I couldn’t see Valerie. She’d jumped back when I hit her.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” Jon demanded, coming in with stomping feet. “Didn’t you see the yellow police tape? This scene is off-limits! You could be destroying evidence, you could be—”

  “They’re trying to steal from the shop!” Cass burst out.

  I blinked as my jaw dropped.

  She jabbed a finger at me. “They broke in here—”

  Um, yes, guilty on that score.

  “And they were trying to steal my gran’s journal! Make them give it back to me!” I saw the bright, almost feverish light in her eyes.

  Vengeance. That was all that Cass wanted right then. I couldn’t really blame her.

  But I couldn’t let her out all the wolves, either. Or worse, attack them.

  Cass might think she was tough, but I doubted she’d survive a confrontation with a werewolf. So far, not many folks had.

  Jon frowned at me. “That true, Anna? Did you break in here?”

  Valerie cleared her throat. “I’m pretty sure the door was unlocked, sir.”

  Grateful, I fired her a quick look over my shoulder. Wow, she’d moved fast. She was almost out of the room. One foot in, one foot out.

  “Hmmmm.” Jon didn’t sound particularly believing. I turned back to face him.

  “She’s taking gran’s journal!” Cass yelled, her hands fisted now. “That’s stealing!”

  I raised the journal. “You should take this,” I told him. “Take it, and give it to my dad.”

  “No!” Cass was crying and breaking apart before my eyes, and I hurt for her. “Give it to me! Give it—”

  But Jon had already opened the journal. His eyes narrowed slightly as he flipped through the pages. When he neared the end, I saw him hesitate. I knew he’d seen what I’d seen—

  His name.

  Deputy Jon looked up at me and nodded slightly. “I’ll be taking this piece of evidence in to the station.”

  My breath expelled in a relieved rush.

  Cass started to sob harder.

  “Anna, I want you to come to the station with me. I’ve got some questions for you about that unlocked door.”

  Figured.

  He inclined his head toward Valerie. “You make sure Cass gets back to her aunt’s, would you?’

  “I-I will.” Valerie sounded very subdued. A new attitude for her. But then, maybe I didn’t know her at all. Maybe I just saw the outside, what she wanted me to see.

  Maybe that’s all anyone ever saw. If we looked past the surface of our friends, would we see monsters inside? Or just lost souls?

  I glanced back at her once more. She’d tried to cover for me. “Thank you,” I mouthed the words.

  Deputy Jon led me toward the back door.

  “This isn’t over,” Cass whispered. She glared at me as I walked past her. “Why would you want to protect them?”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer her. Jon’s hold on my hand tightened, and he pulled me outside.

  He put me in his squad car. In the back, figured. He slammed the door and hurried up to the driver’s side. He didn’t speak until he was seat-belted in the front. “Are you afraid of me?”

  I thought about it for a few seconds. “No.”

  He grunted and cranked the engine. “Remember that.”

  I’d try.

  “How long have you known about me?”


  I could lie and say since I saw his name listed in the journal, but what would be the point? “Last night. When you came back in the house.” He’d tried to catch a scent, like an animal would, and his teeth—let’s just say they’d been a bit sharper than normal.

  “That journal can destroy a whole lot of families in this town.” He drove forward, nice and slow.

  I saw Rafe on his motorcycle. He was staring at the deputy’s car, at me in the backseat, with stunned eyes.

  “It can stop a killer, too.” My hands dug into the seat. “And don’t you think it’s time the rogue was put down?” Rogue. I knew that term, and I used it deliberately. I’d learned it in a science class, a lifetime ago. A wolf who left its pack.

  He didn’t answer. Just kept driving.

  Maybe that was answer enough.

  ***

  “I want you to stay in this room, Anna, do you understand?” My dad frowned down at me. I was sitting in his chair, positioned behind his desk, swiveling from the left to the right. He’d closed the blinds at the door, the better to keep prying eyes off me—and to keep my eyes off the folks on their way to the station.

  “You’ve only told me like ten times already, Dad,” I said with a slight roll of my eyes.

  “Yeah, and you still haven’t agreed to stay inside.”

  But I didn’t want to miss this scene. Dad had gone through the journal. He hadn’t let me see it again—no big surprise there—but he’d gone through the book, made phone calls, and in his words, “dragged some asses” to get this meeting at the station.

  Night had fallen. Thanks to my dad, I knew night wasn’t the best time to talk to werewolves, but night was the best time to have a secret meeting in this town. And that’s what my dad was doing. A meeting of wolves.

  Rafe had joked that there weren’t werewolf group meetings, but now there would be. My dad was calling out the wolves in Haven.

  “There could be a killer among them,” my dad told me, and my gaze dropped to the gun holstered near his waist. I’d bet my college fund that he had silver in that gun. He’d loaded his shotgun with silver, so it only stood to reason he’d armed his handgun with silver bullets, too. “And I don’t want you anywhere in his sights.”

  Too late. “He’s already come after me before.” I rubbed my neck. My necklace was chafing a bit. Itching.

  My dad’s lips thinned. “He won’t be coming again.”

  “And how are you going to find out who the killer is? Get them all together, and then ask the psycho wolf to please step forward?”

  He exhaled roughly. “Credit me with some cop sense, would you?”

  I stopped swiveling. “Don’t cut me out of this. I want to be there!”

  Voices rose from outside the building. The grumpy, annoyed voices of folks who did not want to be coming out at night to meet with the sheriff. They weren’t going to meet at the station, that would have been too obvious. But there was an old, closed-down theater right behind the Sheriff’s station, and I knew all those grumbling voices were headed for that theater.

  I wanted to be in that theater, too.

  Dad lifted one brow. Crap. I knew that look. “Do I have to handcuff you to my chair?” He asked, voice flat.

  He’d do it.

  But then, I’d just roll the chair right out of there. I tried a smile. He liked my smiles. “No, I just—”

  He moved fast. Should have expected it. He didn’t handcuff me to the chair, though. Instead, he hooked me to the giant filing cabinet to my left. Snick.

  “Seriously, Dad? Seriously?” I yanked. The filing cabinet was way bigger than me and weighed a ton. No dragging that with me. But maybe a drawer…

  “You’re staying in here.” An order now. “And keep quiet. The less attention we attract from this group, the better.”

  So he said.

  My dad slipped from the room. I glared after him. Protecting me was sweet, but annoying. He knew how much I wanted in on this part of the action. After everything that had happened, I deserved this. I’d found the journal—the journal that was now locked in his desk drawer. He hadn’t even thanked me for discovering that vital book. I’d found the key to their identities, and now—

  I wanted to see the wolves.

  I stretched, pointing out with my shoes. My bag was on the floor, just a few feet away, just a few…

  The tip of my sneakers brushed the bag.

  I smiled. My lock set was still in my purse. Sometimes, it paid to be prepared.

  I would have been such a good girl scout.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I slipped out of the station. Getting past Shirley at the front was too easy. She never even glanced back as I crept from the office. She was too busy checking her social pages on the computer.

  I headed out the back door and kept to the shadows as I made my way to the theater. The voices were muted now that everyone was inside, and I could barely hear a thing.

  But that was okay. Soon, I’d be seeing plenty.

  I pressed against the cold, stone wall of the theater. I rose onto my toes and glanced in the window. There were about a dozen people inside. Men, women. Pacing. Pointing. Looking very, very uncomfortable—

  Oh, crap, that was the principal! Mr. Knoxley! He was a wolf? I’d flipped through the book too fast to see his name.

  Rafe’s dad was there. Brent’s mom wasn’t. Not a real surprise. She was from out of town, so I hadn’t really thought she’d be cursed. Deputy Jon had taken up a position by my dad’s side, and my dad, well, he looked furious. He had his hands in the air, and I saw his lips move as he barked, “Calm down, everyone.”

  A twig snapped behind me. I froze. I was in the shadows, so I didn’t think I’d been spotted. I hoped not.

  Slowly, carefully, I turned my head.

  And I saw Cassidy. She was moving fast, hurrying toward the entrance of the theater, and, oh God, she had a gun in her hand.

  A gun.

  I leapt from the shadows. “Cassidy!” Her head jerked at my cry and the moonlight fell on her tear-stained face. Her eyes widened, and she started running for the theater door.

  Sissy’s father had wanted revenge when he found out a wolf killed his daughter. He’d gone into the woods, shooting at every wolf he saw.

  Cassidy didn’t have to go into the woods. All the werewolves were waiting for her, trapped in that theater.

  Rafe. Brent. Mr. Knoxley. “No!” I screamed as I raced after her. I moved faster than I’d ever moved. So fast. But Cassidy beat me to the door.

  I knew what would happen when my dad and Deputy Jon saw her with a weapon. I knew.

  Even if she was too far gone with grief to understand.

  You’ll die, Cassidy. I leapt into the air just as her hand slammed into the door and shoved it open.

  Gasps filled the air. Cassidy yelled, “Monsters!” And she raised her gun.

  In that split-second, time slowed for me.

  “Drop it!” My dad’s snarled order, but Cassidy wasn’t dropping that gun. I couldn’t stop myself, either. I was in the air, flying toward her. Her hand was up, her fingers tight around the butt of the weapon. I heard a deafening boom even as I slammed into her back. We both hit the floor, hard enough for my bones to rattle.

  Silence.

  She still had the gun. I yanked it from her fingers and tossed it to the side. Everyone had turned toward us. Brent and Rafe rushed toward me. I didn’t think anyone had been shot, but that blast—

  “Anna.” My dad reached me first. “Baby, it’s going to be all right.”

  Sure it was. Cass hadn’t hurt anyone—that I could see—and she was okay, too. She was rising, pushing up and…

  Why couldn’t I feel my arm?

  I glanced down and realized that someone had been shot. Me.

  My dad grabbed my wrist and clamped his fingers around my upper arm. My blood immediately stained his hand, and he swore. “Dammit, Jon, get me—”

  “I’m so sorry!” Cass’s desperate voice yelled. “A
nna, please, I don’t—”

  I looked up. Jon had her. He’d already cuffed her. The others just stared with wide eyes and flashes of fangs. Rafe looked like he wanted to tear someone apart, and Brent’s glare could have burned the skin right off Cass’s face.

  “Did you shoot?” I asked my dad.

  He nodded.

  He’d shot at Cass, and I’d taken the bullet. Because when I’d plowed into her, I’d knocked her out the bullet’s path.

  “Silver.” This came from Rafe’s dad. He had Cass’s gun in his hand, and he’d opened the chamber.

  There was a rumble from the group. Cass started crying. Between her sobs, she managed, “You bastards! You killed my grandmother!”

  Dad’s hold on me was tight. “It’s okay.” He acted like he didn’t even hear Cass’s cries. “It’s just a flesh wound. The bullet nicked you, but you’re going to be just fine.”

  The feeling had already started to come back in my arm, and it felt like fifty bees had decided to sting me—all in one place.

  “We didn’t kill anyone!” Rafe’s dad shouted back at her. “We don’t hurt anyone, we don’t—”

  A woman bent toward me. Pretty, with wide, hazel eyes and a soft face. “I’m a nurse, dear,” she said, “let me take a look.”

  Reluctantly, my dad slid back. I’d noticed that Jon had positioned himself in front of Cass, and I wondered…

  What will they do to her?

  My dad braced his legs apart. “This shit stops now.” Hard, mean, but ice-cold, his voice cut through the rumblings in the room.

  Rafe bent next to me and pushed back my hair. “You okay?”I nodded.

  “I know what you all are,” my dad snapped. The nurse was wrapping my arm in white gauze. Where’d she gotten that? No, not gauze, the material looked like someone’s torn t-shirt.

  I blinked and realized Brent wasn’t wearing a shirt anymore.

  “I know, just like I know that one of you is killing in Haven.”

  That announcement led to silence. Cassidy’s tears kept falling, but now she looked more broken than enraged.

  “Six hikers,” he said. “All dead. We all damn well know that Sissy Hamilton was stalked by a wolf and Helen—”