The only sign the room was lived in, besides the food on the table, was the mess on top of the dresser. Papers and books were piled on top of it. Some books were neatly stacked on the far end, but most were haphazardly mixed with papers and envelopes in a precarious stack that looked ready to slide off onto the floor at the smallest provocation.
“What do you want?” Marianne demanded.
“We wanted to see if you were okay,” I said, which was true, if only part of the reason we’d come.
Marianne huffed again. “Of course I’m not okay. I’m infected with this awful disease and forced to live among my enemies.”
“We’re not your enemies,” Raff said.
She glared at him. “Then why am I being held prisoner?”
“You’re not,” Raff said. “You’re being held for your own safety.”
Marianne’s eyes narrowed and she pressed her lips together tightly. It was true, but she clearly didn’t believe it.
“Jean is trying to help you,” I said. “We all are.”
“No, you’re trying to make me one of you. But it’s not going to work.” Marianne folded her arms over her chest, which made her look small and fragile. “My blood is poisoned, but my mind is free.”
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. Raff physically recoiled and moved away from her, edging toward the dresser, where he parked himself against the wall. I merely stared at Marianne, wondering what the right answer was. Leaving her behind to die in her house hadn’t been it. But maybe keeping her here wasn’t it, either.
“Where would you go if you could?” I asked, honestly curious.
“Back to my people. And I’d help them kill as many werewolves and monsters as possible before I put a bullet in my own head.”
Then again, maybe keeping her here was a great plan. I shuddered at her words. The heat in her eyes told me she meant every word.
“Your people are gone. The Guardians are gone.”
“That’s what you think. I’d like you to leave now.” She lay down on the bed and hugged a pillow to her chest.
“How many are there?” I pressed.
I wanted a number. I needed to know how many enemies were still out there, scheming to destroy our pack. Marianne glowered in response. Raff had slipped silently back to my side and tugged at my sleeve, urging me to go.
“Marianne, if they’re out there…”
“Oh, they’re out there. And if you think the potion was clever, you’d better believe they’ll keep coming up with better tricks.”
Goosebumps erupted on my arms.
“So the Guardians are behind the potion?” I asked.
Marianne hugged her pillow more tightly and said nothing. Her jaw clamped shut. I repeated the question. No response.
Raff ushered me outside and closed the door. Sasha and Miles looked at us expectantly. Jean had come up the stairs and gave me a questioning look.
“You were right,” I said to Jean. “It was pointless.”
“She didn’t tell you anything?” Sasha asked, disappointed.
“Only that she believes the Guardians are still active and behind the poison. But that could be wishful thinking on her part,” Raff said. He slipped his phone out his jean pocket and glanced at the screen. “It’s getting late. We should get home.”
“Well, thank you for trying,” Sasha said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this another way.”
Given how little good it had done, I didn’t feel like we deserved any thanks, but I just smiled and nodded and followed Raff down to the car.
Chapter 15
“Well, that was a bust,” I said as the car pulled onto the dark, wet freeway. At least, since it was late on Sunday night, there wasn’t much traffic, and we’d make good time back to Seattle.
Raff nodded silently and didn’t say much. I slumped back in my seat and watched water hit the window as I thought about Marianne. There was no good answer about what to do with her, I knew, and Jean was doing her best to keep her fed, alive, and to hopefully convince her that werewolves weren’t evil. But it felt like a lost cause.
And then there was the poisoned potion. If it turned out that the monster hunters were behind it, trying a new method of killing us, then they would keep trying other things until they were dead. Or until we were.
A thought niggled at the back of my brain as the image of Bryce’s potion video came into my head.
“Oh crap,” I said, as the realization bloomed.
“What?” Raff asked.
“Remember how I said the monster hunters found me through Michael?” I asked.
Raff nodded.
“I assumed they found him at a supernatural bar. And maybe they did. But they probably watched his web series.”
Raff’s eyes widened as he made the connection. “And you think they also saw Bryce’s.”
“That makes sense. Like I guessed earlier, the poison peddler probably used his potion as inspiration for this sick little scheme.”
The car jolted as Raff yanked the wheel to one side, pulling half onto the shoulder. I gasped in surprise and grabbed the handle above the door. Raff honked. The pickup truck who’d almost hit us from the other lane honked back. Raff sped up and pulled back into the lane proper, leaving his blinker on so he could get over further.
“What happened?” I asked, breathless.
“Guess he tried to get over and didn’t see me with the rain—”
His words were cut off as the truck, which had sped up beside us, once again tried to pull into our lane. Except it wasn’t trying to get into the lane. It was trying to run us off the freeway. Raff swore, swerving onto the shoulder once more and gunning the accelerator.
My heart slammed into my ribs as I watched the truck’s headlights grow large behind us. An exit was coming up. Raff pulled the wheel and swung in front of the truck. It was one of those large heavy-duty pickups. With the headlights, I couldn’t make out a color or see the driver. Just before the exit swerved entirely off the freeway, Raff twisted the wheel of his sedan and drove over the white separation lines, pulling back onto the freeway. The truck wasn’t as maneuverable, but it managed to follow us before it got stuck on the exit ramp.
Raff swore.
“Who are they?” I asked, the question automatic though of course he didn’t know any more than I did.
Raff was too focused on driving to speculate. There was so much water on the road that despite the lack of traffic, visibility was low from all the water being kicked up by car tires. Most drivers were keeping at the speed limit in the name of safety.
Raff managed to get into a center lane and keep ahead of the truck for half a mile before it came roaring up behind us again. This time, instead of coming at us from the side, the truck continued to bear down on us until it was right on our tail, its headlights glaring into the mirrors so brightly that it was nearly blinding.
“Hold on,” Raff said.
He took a deep breath, and then, as we approached the next exit, he slammed the wheel to the right. He cut off an SUV in the slow lane and zipped off onto the exit ramp. I glanced behind us. The truck had managed to get over, but it was further back down the ramp.
As we came to the stop at the end of the ramp, Raff ignored the red light and turned right so fast it felt like the car was going to flip over. The truck was gaining speed as we left the exit ramp. It wouldn’t take long for it to catch up, even if a little traffic got in its way. Raff immediately took the next possible right and then a left back to a main street.
There was no sign of the truck, but he kept driving around aimlessly for another twenty minutes to make sure we’d well and truly lost our pursuers.
When it seemed safe, he pulled into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant and drove around the building to park in the back.
He put the car in park, and I could see his muscles turn to jelly as he leaned back and tried to catch his breath.
“That was messed up,” he finally said. “Are you okay?”
&
nbsp; “Super freaked out, but yeah, I’m okay.”
Except that every time another car pulled into the lot, my heart skipped until I saw that it wasn’t the truck.
“I think it was red,” Raff said after we’d both gone still only to have a small gray Honda pull in and park near us.
“I couldn’t tell,” I said. “I tried, but it was hard to see.”
Not having so much as a color, much less a make or model, would make it harder to avoid.
“How about we go inside, get something to drink, and wait for a while. That way, if they’re stalking the freeway entrances, we can hopefully wait them out.”
I nodded. There was no way for the truck driver to know where or when we’d try to get back on the freeway, but if they were trolling around looking, I definitely felt safer being in a well-lit public space.
Raff ordered us sodas and an order of fries while I choose a booth near the back, away from the windows visible from the street. If the truck was still looking for us, there was no sense in making it easy.
“What the heck was that?” I asked when Raff arrived at the table with a tray of food.
My heart rate began to slow and the buzzing in my veins ceased, but I was still on edge.
“They must have followed us from the orchard,” Raff said.
“Who?”
He shook his head. He didn’t know.
“The hunters?”
I knew we were both thinking it. They knew where the orchard was and one of their tactics in the past had been parking outside its gates and following us in order to attack us in small groups.
“Maybe.”
He sighed heavily and took a sip of his drink. Mine was lemon-lime soda, and I sipped at it, letting the bubbles help calm my nerves.
“Who else could it be?”
I certainly couldn’t think of anyone else who’d try to run us off the road.
“No idea.”
We sat for a while, carefully watching both doors even though, at this hour, there wasn’t a lot of business and the few employees spent their time in the back kitchen rather than at the counter. Slowly, the adrenaline faded.
I ate the salty, crunchy fries with ketchup. Raff halfheartedly ate one, but mostly drank his soda and stared blankly. After the fries were gone, I bused the tray and hit the restroom.
I slid back into the booth.
“I’m going to find a route home,” I said, pulling out my phone.
Raff was studying the smooth beige surface of the table like it was a map.
“Raff?”
“I may have done something ethically dubious,” he said, a wry smile tugging at his lips.
There was something about that mischievous smile that made my insides feel gooey.
“That’s not like you.”
Raff was super by-the-book. Our pack may not have the same strict rules as the Portland Pack, but Raff followed what rules there were like gospel.
“No, but I saw an opportunity, and I took the risk.”
He reached into his coat and produced a small stack of torn envelopes, setting them on the table.
I reached for the first one and inspected it. It was a power bill addressed to John, Marianne’s now-dead hunter brother. It had a yellow forwarding sticker on it and had originally been sent to their house. I sucked in a breath.
“You took Marianne’s mail.”
Raff nodded. “She had it piled on top of the dresser. This little stack was actually wedged partly behind the dresser, like it had been nearly pushed off. I snatched it when you were both distracted.”
“Raff,” I said, impressed. “You devilish dog.”
“Hey, I did it in the name of justice.”
I half-rolled my eyes. “Now you sound like a comic book superhero. All you did was swipe some mail. Which I’m pretty sure is a felony, or something.”
“It’s not. Not when it’s already delivered.”
Raff didn’t sound sure about that, but it also didn’t matter. Even if Marianne did notice the missing letters—and given the massive pile of papers on her dresser, I highly doubted she would—it wasn’t like she could call the cops.
That thought made me feel that weird slosh of guilt in my middle again, as did seeing John’s name. He might have been a murderous monster hunter, but he’d been Marianne’s brother, and now he was dead. It didn’t matter that he’d been evil. She had loved him, and he was gone.
“Does Sasha know?” I asked, setting the bill down.
“I didn’t want Jean to flip out. She was so adamant there was nothing to see, but if Marianne does have inside info, it’s coming from somewhere. Jean told me she hasn’t used the phone and hasn’t had any access to the internet.”
“That Jean knows of,” I said. Raff crunched up his brow. “She can’t watch her every second when she’s out of her room. She may have gotten hold of a phone or tablet or something.”
“Maybe.” Raff sounded doubtful and flipped through the stack of letters.
All of them had the yellow forwarding sticker except one. It had been addressed to Marianne at the orchard. I snatched it up. The return address was the Church of Original Grace, with an address in north Seattle. The envelope had been addressed by hand and was postmarked the week of the full moon.
“Jean said she got solicitations for donations from her church,” Raff said.
I pulled out the letter. It was a single, printed page on the church’s letterhead.
The letter read, “Dearest Marianne, It has been a while since you last attended services. Please let us know that you are well.”
There was a paragraph break, and the rest seemed to be a standard form letter asking for money.
It continued, “As you know, the Church of Original Grace is committed to good works projects in our community. We strive to make the world a better place, and we call on all members of our congregation to chip in and help. If you can give, no amount is too small to help fund the work of the Lord. Please consider making a small donation at this time. Drink of His bounty, and He will free you.”
It was unsigned.
I passed the letter to Raff, who read it quickly and then frowned at me. “Is that a thing people say in church? About drinking His bounty?”
I shrugged. My parents had dragged me to church a lot when I was really little. When my sister first got sick, they became fanatical about it, but as the years dragged on and Casey’s illness worsened, they had slowly backed off. Not due to a lack of faith so much as a lack of time and energy to go. By the time I was a teenager, we’d become Christmas and Easter church goers, and I had only gone to appease my parents and avoid the inevitable fight if I refused.
“I think they all have their own sayings, or whatever,” I said.
Raff picked up the envelope and waved it. “Or it was a message.”
“It was a message. It’s asking her to come back to church and to bring her checkbook,” I said, tapping the paper. “It’s very clear.”
“No, I mean, it’s dated the week of the full moon. It probably arrived around the time that Linda, Rob, and Tracy drank the poison.” Raff read the letter a second time. “What if this is telling Marianne to drink it, too?”
“But she didn’t have the potion.” Now that the adrenaline had faded, my body was starting to feel the late hour, and my brain was getting fuzzy. I wanted to go home and crawl into bed. “How could she drink something she didn’t have?”
“If it was the hunters, then they no doubt hoped the potion would be more wide-spread. They expected a lot of us to buy it and have it. Maybe they wanted to tell her to drink up if she came across any.”
“I don’t know. That might be pushing it. Maybe it’s just a letter telling her to get her butt back to church.”
“And maybe that truck was just driven by the world’s worst driver,” Raff said.
He had a point. Whoever was in that truck had wanted to run us off to the side of the freeway, and probably do a lot worse.
I flipped through
the rest of the small stack. Two more bills, both also addressed to John, and a credit card offer. Nothing of interest.
“Why not just send some of the potion to her?” I asked, thinking out loud. “Because then we all might have been suspicious. Having members of our pack find it on their own made it feel like a genuine potion. However Rob and Linda came across it, it was on their own. Maybe they found the Underground Market.” I shrugged. “But I bet the hunters expected a lot more self-hate among our kind and expected whomever found it first to tell everyone so we’d all drink it. Luckily, that wasn’t the case.”
He shot me a pointed look.
I put my hands up. “I don’t hate myself.” He stared. “Or being a werewolf,” I grudgingly admitted.
Because it was true. This past month had taught me how to hone some of my abilities. I still wasn’t in love with the shifting part, but I was hoping to work up to that.
Raff’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Really?”
“Really,” I said, shifting uncomfortably under the heat of his gaze. “Can we get out of here yet?”
Raff gathered up the mail and shoved it back into his coat.
“I think it’s been long enough.” Raff slid out of the booth. “Let’s try to get home alive.”
Chapter 16
It took us a little over an hour to get home, using as many side routes as possible to avoid the freeway whenever we could. There was no sign of the truck, thankfully. We’d lost them.
I still triple checked the locks on the doors and windows before I went up to bed.
The next morning, I slept late before getting dressed in leggings and an oversized t-shirt and heading downstairs. Raff was still snoring in his room. He’d left Marianne’s letters on the kitchen table, so while coffee was percolating, I picked them up and read through them again. The bills for John were nothing special. The letter from the church still read like nothing to me, and I could see why Jean had thought it innocuous enough to hand over.
If it had come with a vial of green liquid, it would have been another story. Of course, then it probably never would have reached Marianne. I read the letter again. Other than the first lines, it felt like the sort of donation request that would be sent out to all members of their congregation. The line “Drink of His bounty,” could have been entirely innocent and we were reading too much into it.
Wicked Moon (The Reluctant Werewolf Chronicles Book 2) Page 11