by Amelia Jade
He felt out the break, and then grabbed his wrist and began to tug and twist his arm. Bone grated on bone and he broke out into a sweat, clenching his teeth against the pain. As he worked his mouth dropped open and a low sound emerged as he couldn’t quite contain it all. But finally, with one last blackout-inducing noise and vomit-inducing feeling, it set itself back into place.
Hector fell back, lying prone on the ground as he gasped for breath, having held it for far longer than he’d intended, almost to the point of passing out. But it was done now, and he could feel his body trying to start healing it already. The break had been a bad one, and combined with the dislocation his arm was going to be a weak spot in any fights for the next little while, but it would be okay in time.
“Just another chapter in the downfall of Hector Gorchan,” he said to himself, climbing carefully to his feet and looking sadly at the broken bottle. “Off to find more,” he pronounced, heading out into the city and one of the nearby bars that catered to shifters, in hopes of finding something else that would go help restore his buzz.
It didn’t even occur to him to wonder who had attacked him. He simply didn’t care. It could have been any of nearly two dozen shifters who harbored a grudge against him for ruining their time in Cloud Lake. There was no sense in trying to pick up on which of them it might have been.
After all, didn’t he deserve it?
Hector looked around. He had wandered off course into a commercial part of town. There were places open late here, but they weren’t the normal locale of shifters, and likely wouldn’t have any alcohol strong enough for him.
“Not like it’s going to help you with your pity part at all,” he said to himself.
He sniffed in disdain, taking in the scents of the small town for what might be the last time. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized he recognized one of the scents. He’d smelled it before. It was fairly fresh too. Whoever it was, they had passed by recently. Hector took about a millisecond to come to a decision, forcing his body to work overtime as it evaporated the alcohol burning in his system. Then he went hunting for the owner of the scent.
The same owner he’d almost caught the night of the fire…
Chapter Twenty-One
Rachel
Her journey home wasn’t as satisfying as it could have been. With a child in her stomach, the ability to walk off her frustration just wasn’t present anymore. The walk would have been far too long for her, leaving her feet and knees in pain by the time she reached home.
So Rachel got in a cab and fumed the whole way back. The cabby wisely didn’t say anything, keeping to himself the entire time. She paid him and thanked him for the pleasant ride, and then walked up to the unit, taking the stairs cautiously, thanking the people who had assigned the women to units for not putting her in an upper floor.
She only had to pound on the door once before it opened.
“Hi,” she said lamely.
Elle’s face narrowed immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“Can I come in?” she asked, working hard to maintain control of herself so that she didn’t break down on her friend’s doorstep.
The door opened wide instantly and Elle almost pulled Rachel inside. No words were exchanged; none were needed. Her distress must have been obvious, because as soon as the door closed behind them Elle pulled her in to a hug as best they could.
“Tea?” she asked, motioning for Rachel to have a seat on her couch.
“That would be godly.”
Elle moved about in the kitchen, leaving Rachel to herself for the time being. She just sort of lay back into the couch and replayed the events over and over again in her head, trying to come up with a different ending. But she always came back to the one thing she couldn’t change. She was human, and Hector was a shifter. He was welcomed in Cadia, she would not be.
Rachel knew from talking to him that there were humans living there, mates of some of the shifters, brought by happenstance. But that had all happened when Cadia had been at war with one of its rival shifter territories. Things had been different back then, the rules more relaxed, in a way, things constantly changing. Now with the war over the borders were no longer porous, and she wouldn’t be welcomed there, according to Hector.
The only solution was for Hector to remain in Cloud Lake. But how to do that without him breaking the rules? If Andrew had already done all he could, and yet even he couldn’t prevent Hector’s recall order, then how was she, a solitary human with no clout in his world, supposed to change things? It just seemed impossible to her, giving rise to another wave of despair within her.
Rachel lost track of Elle while she was moping around, but when a steaming cup of tea appeared in front of her she was yanked back to reality, the smell of chamomile and something else practically assaulting her senses in a most lovely way. She drew in a long breath through her nose, allowing it to infuse her body while she leaned forward and took the cup into her hand.
“Thank you,” she said to Elle, lifting it in a sort of miniature “cheers” motion.
“Anything for a friend.” Elle sipped on her own tea, sitting back into a comfortable-looking rocking chair.
“Including a pity party?” she asked with a sad smile.
“That’s going to have to wait until—”
Whatever Elle was going to say was cut off by the door opening again. Rachel turned in surprise, carefully not spilling her tea as Laura and Angela marched inside, divesting themselves of jackets and shoes.
“What are you two doing here?” she asked.
Angela looked up and gave her a wink. “We’re here for you, dummy. Everyone needs a support system from time to time, even the mighty Rachel. You think after all you’ve done for us, that we wouldn’t be there for you when you needed us? Come on!”
The other women all smiled and the two newcomers settled carefully into the couch next to her. Rachel accepted the pats on the leg and half-hugs with good nature, and then turned to look at Elle.
“What?” her friend said, eyes twinkling. “You sat on the couch looking miserable for like ten minutes, not saying a word. You need this, and you know it, even if you don’t want to admit it. So just accept that you have friends who care for you, and tell us what’s going on so we can either deal with the situation or insult the person behind their backs.”
Rachel couldn’t help but laugh, like the rest of them. Elle was ruthless when it came to protecting her friends, but just then she was glad to have Elle on her side.
“Thank you,” she said, looking at all of them in turn so that they knew how grateful she was for their presence and friendship.
“Now make with the details,” Angela said.
Rachel snorted. “It’s not that entertaining, I don’t think.”
But she told them anyway. Everything, minus some of the naughtier bits between her and Hector, laying bare what had happened to him, between them, and how he was in major trouble. She finished with the events of earlier that evening and how Hector was trying to distance himself from her, in what she figured was a desire to make her life easier now that he was no longer in it.
“Wait wait wait,” Angela said as she concluded the story. “So you’re telling me that he was gone for two minutes and the embassy went up in flames?”
Rachel nodded. “That’s what he says. There was no fire when he left. He wasn’t gone for long, just enough to walk outside, see the guy hit the girl, chase him, lose him, run back to see if the woman was okay, and then see that the embassy was on fire.”
“That seems…awfully coincidental,” Laura said into the quiet that followed. “Like, even in a wood building fire doesn’t spread that fast. Does it?”
The women looked around. Rachel hadn’t thought to ask anyone that question. “It’s an old building, and like you said, it’s wood. It could be enough. Dry enough that it just went up in a flash? Or maybe there was a big spark that ignited a lot of it in one go?”
No one had an answer to that particular
line of thought.
“Let’s say someone did light the fire,” Elle proposed. “Just assuming that. The question is, why?”
“It’s not like the town doesn’t have any anti-shifter folks in it,” Laura suggested. “We’ve only been here for what, a few months now, and we’ve already seen that. There aren’t many, true, but they do exist. Maybe one of them was watching, saw Hector leave, and took his chance?”
“Maybe,” Rachel said. “Could be.”
“You don’t think so,” Angela stated.
“It doesn’t feel right,” she said. “None of the anti-shifter folks have done more than simply protest at city hall. To go from that to lighting the freaking embassy on fire? That’s a big stretch. Not impossible, mind you, but usually there’s at least a buildup to actual crimes, isn’t there?”
None of the others disagreed, but they didn’t have any actual suggestions either, leaving Rachel right back where she started. With nothing.
“And where’s Hector now?” Laura asked.
“I don’t know. He basically said it would be better if I didn’t see him again. A clean break.” She shook her head, rolling her eyes in frustration. “The big dope. He was trying to make it so I would be angry with him, hate him maybe, so that it would be easier on me when he left. So he’s probably at the embassy, I would assume. Maybe getting drunk? Who knows.”
The other women exchanged looks.
“What?” she asked.
“He cares for you,” Elle stated.
“I know he does,” she said vehemently. “I’m not blind! I care for him too. A lot. But that doesn’t help me fix his situation.”
“True,” Elle replied. “I still think there’s something too coincidental about this fire. Are the shifters not investigating it?”
“No,” she said. “They can’t see a reason for it to be deliberately set, though I think I’m bringing them around to the idea that maybe it was. Hell,” she said with a snort. “They couldn’t even entertain the idea at first that someone had killed the shifter whose body they found, and then used the fire as a cover.”
“What?”
“I’m serious,” she said in response to the looks of surprise she got from all corners. “They literally could not fathom the idea at first. They don’t even know what an autopsy is! I guess when people kill other people there, they just sort of do it up straight, not bothering to hide the fact. So this sort of, of, um, skullduggery—there’s a good word!—doesn’t even compute to them.”
The other women all expressed various signs of disbelief.
“Yeah, tell me about it. Hector is going to the fire department in the morning. Apparently they have a report or something about how the fire was started. Hopefully that will tell us some more, and maybe we can make a case for the fire having been deliberately set. That might overshadow his actions, and maybe he can find a way out of all that to stay in Cloud Lake after all.”
Rachel knew it sounded like a longshot, and that was because it was one. The odds that they could not only prove the fire was deliberately set, but that Hector was set up, were astronomical. But she would keep working at it, keep trying to unravel the mystery of how everything had gone to hell so quickly.
“What do I do now though?” she asked as the conversation eventually died down a little later.
The trio of women looked at each other before glancing at her.
“I think you know the answer to that,” Elle replied.
“I need to go back,” she said.
“You need to go back,” Angela echoed, while Laura nodded along.
“Shit. These cab rides are getting freaking expensive,” she complained.
“It’ll be worth it when you tell him the truth about how you really feel,” Elle told her as they all rose.
“I…what?” she asked, looking back and forth at everyone.
“Why else would you be going back?” Laura asked. “Come on now. Don’t be naïve here. You need to march in there and tell him that he can’t leave, and tell him exactly why. If he feels the same, he’s going to be forced to find a way to fix the situation.”
“That sounds like the plot to a cheesy movie,” she remarked, but Rachel was already putting her shoes on, getting ready to head back out into the night.
“Maybe, but what if it works?” Elle asked with a grin.
Rachel smiled and nodded, but in her head she could only hear one question.
What if it didn’t?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hector
He trailed the scent along the street.
It got stronger as he went, the musky odor of a male human, mixed with the barest hints of chocolate and…and whatever was in his deodorant. It was tough to translate something that his animal side could practically taste into something his human brain, so reliant on sight over its other sense, could interpret.
One thing he did know for certain, human and beast alike, was that this was the same scent of the male who had eluded him the night of the fire. The one who had hit the woman and then managed to escape in his car. Hector hadn’t really thought much of that particular part of the night, beyond the brief time where he’d considered that perhaps the argument had been part of an extremely elaborate setup. The length someone would have had to have gone to frame him had led to him dismissing the option. But now that he had the opportunity to question him, Hector had decided to pursue it, just to eliminate any last “what if” scenarios that occasionally plagued him.
His course led him down a clean, well-maintained alley between two single-story businesses and up to a steel door set into the brick wall. It was a sliding door. Hector approached it and very gently tried to slide it aside.
Nothing happened, though he wasn’t overly surprised. So instead of trying to force his way in, he did something that didn’t come normally to him. He used his brain. Pushing his ear firmly up against the steel he formed a seal, and then plugged his other ear with a finger. Eyes closed he listened, calling upon his animal half to help amplify anything he might hear through the material.
At first there was nothing, but as he listened, noises began to make their way to him. Faint, muffled, and almost unintelligible, but Hector knew exactly what they were. Voices. There were people talking inside, one of whom had to be his mystery person.
“…the…it…but…worked…”
“he…many…gave…yes.”
“…you…need…success…”
The sentences were fragmented and of no use to him, but Hector kept listening anyway.
“What…my bonus?”
There were more loud shouts, but he couldn’t make them out. Whatever was going on inside was deteriorating fast. Hector had to make a choice. Did he go inside despite not knowing what he was up against, or did he wait and see what happened?
His animal spoke, and Hector agreed. He’d been doing enough standing around. It was time to act. He stood up, taking a step back from the door. Then, without any further hesitation, Hector kicked the door down. Or perhaps it would be rather more accurate to say he kicked the door in.
The solid steel panel didn’t crumple and fall out of the way. It ripped clean from its track and flung across the dimly lit room beyond. It impacted a steel pole, sending yellow-orange sparks into the air as it ricocheted several times before coming to an abrupt halt as it imbedded itself into the far well. The metal shivered several times as it vibrated from the impact.
Hector strode inside, his eyes immediately adjusting to the darkness. In the corner to his right he could see the outline of a human cowering under a table. There was a scuffling to his right and he spun, but there was no one there. He took a step in that direction just as farther into the building someone opened a door. Hector had just enough time to see a silhouette of a large body before they threw something on the ground and ducked back through the door, slamming it behind them. He went to pursue, but the object exploded first, sending him reeling backward.
“What the hell!” he snarled as his
senses were assaulted with a vile, putrefying stench.
The aroma quickly filled the room. Hector grabbed the human by the collar as he tried to flee and dragged the two of them back out into the alley and upwind of the door.
“Enough,” he growled as the man tried to slip his grip.
Hector tightened the fingers of his right hand enough to make it clear that the situation was non-negotiable, earning a little hiss of pain from his prisoner. He couldn’t stop staring at the door to the building, now emitting some sort of brownish cloud. There was only one reason that whoever else had been in there would have used something like that, or even had it on hand.
They were covering their tracks from shifters. Which, if he followed the logical path, meant that by simply having such a device upon them, they were expecting any trouble to come from shifters. The stink bomb completely fouled up his senses and any scents he might have picked up in the area. If they hadn’t, Hector could have easily figured out who the second party had been. There were only so many shifters in Cloud Lake. If he’d gotten a whiff of this one, he could have just gone to the embassy and tested it against everyone there.
There was another troubling outcome from all of this, however, one he was still coming to grips with. Someone was up to no good, and it involved the same male who had somehow just happened to have been outside the embassy that night. Hector wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew one thing: It was about time he started asking some questions, and getting some answers.
“Time for some information,” he rumbled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man replied instantly.
Hector rolled his eyes and slammed him rather roughly into the brick wall. “No? I haven’t even asked you a question yet and you’re already denying knowing anything?”
The human didn’t reply. Probably the first wise thing he’d done. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to help him today. He poked him in the chest with his left index finger, careful not to use too much force to reinjure his arm. He doubted the action would, but he wanted it to heal as fast as possible, and it hadn’t been all that long since his mysterious attacker broke it.