Hand clenching his blanket closed, he edged past her. “Ask me if I care.”
Ivy gathered herself to come back with a remark, but then he reached for a piling to pull himself out and the blanket slipped to show the burn marks. Horrified, she met my gaze.
Unaware that she had seen, Nick clutched his things close and made his meticulous way to a nearby cinder-block building, following the blue-lettered sign that promised showers. The dockmaster ambled out of his office, plastic token in his hand. While the man gave Nick a bar of soap and a sympathetic touch on his shoulder, Jenks made his slow way to us.
Nick’s gaunt, battered silhouette vanished around the corner, bare feet popping against the cement. Turning, I found Ivy beside the captain’s chair. “My God, what did they do to him?” she whispered.
Like I could talk?
Jenks came to an awkward, scuffling halt on the dock above us, squinting as he looked at the island. “We don’t have time for him to shower,” he said, adjusting his clan cap, his Band-Aid gone. He had turned the cap inside out so the emblem was hidden, and it looked good on him. Probably start a new trend.
“He is not getting into Kisten’s van smelling like that.” Ivy’s gaze went to the tarp hiding the gear. “What do you want to do with these?”
Jenks looked at me for direction, and I huffed. “Bring ’em,” he said. “Marshal will want them back. Though I suggest we keep them until we’re clear.”
“Marshal?” Ivy questioned.
Grinning, Jenks resettled the tarp in the limited floor space and started moving the equipment onto it. “A local witch Rachel sweet-talked into letting us rent his equipment. Nice guy. He and Rachel have a date when this is over.”
I whined, and Jenks laughed. Ivy wasn’t amused, and she pushed off from the captain’s chair, saying nothing and avoiding my gaze as she helped stack the gear into the sling of the tarp. Between her vampire strength and Jenks’s pixy stamina, they lifted the tarp with all the equipment onto the dock, the watching people none the wiser for what was in it.
While I sat on the dock and watched, Jenks and Ivy wiped the boat free of fingerprints under the pretense of cleaning it. Snapping the weather tarps into place as they went, they worked their way from the bow to the stern, eliminating every shred of easily traced evidence that we had been in it. Jenks was the last to leave, vaulting to the dock to land beside me in a show of athletic grace that made Ivy’s eyes widen in appreciation.
“Got your people legs, I see,” she murmured, then grabbed one end of the tarp. Jenks grinned, and looking as if the rolled up tarp weighed no more than a cooler, the two of them headed for the van. I trailed behind, sullen and bad tempered. I had been up nearly twenty-four hours, and I was tired and hungry. If one of them tried to put a leash on me, I was going to take that someone down.Jenks quickened his pace after they reached the gravel parking lot, in a good mood despite having missed his afternoon nap. “How did you know we might show up here?” he said as he dropped his end of the bundle and slid the side door to the van open with a harsh scraping sound.
“Dad!” Jax shrilled, exploding out to make circles about us. “How did it go? Where’s Nick? Did you see him? Is he dead? Oh wow! Ms. Morgan is a wolf!”
“Ah,” Jenks said, “we got him. He’s in the shower. He stinks.”
I went to jump into the van, stopping when Rex took one look at me, swelled into an orange puffball, and vanished in a streak of common sense under the front seat. Poor kitty. Thinks I’m going to eat her.
“Hey, Ms. Morgan!” the little pixy said, landing on my head until I flicked my ears at him. “Nick is going to be mad. Wait until you see what Ivy brought.”
Jenks frowned. “That’s Ms. Tamwood, son,” he said, unloading the tarp into the van.
Jax flitted into the van, darting among the belongings we’d shoved in pell-mell earlier. The small pixy flitted to the floor and in a high voice tried to coax Rex out, using himself as bait. I sat in the sun and watched, mildly concerned that no one was stopping him. I wanted a pair of shorts and a shirt so I could change too, but I was in a hurry and figured I could change in the van behind the curtain. Jax had turned his efforts to get Rex out to obnoxious clicks and whistles, and it hurt my head.
Ivy yanked open the driver’s side door and got in, leaving it ajar to let the cool afternoon breeze shift the tips of her hair. “You want to take Nick to Canada before you head home, or are you going to just cut him loose?”
I made a sick face, but seeing as I was a wolf, it probably looked like I was going to hawk up a bird. It wasn’t that simple anymore, but I had to change before I could explain. The van smelled like witch, pixy, and Ivy, and I didn’t want to get in until I had to. I could see my suitcase, but opening it was a different matter.
Jenks stepped into the van, lurching for Jax and missing. Mumbling almost aloud, he began arranging things so we’d all fit, all the while keeping a tight watch on his son.
“What is it, Rachel?” Ivy asked warily, watching me through the rearview mirror. “You don’t look happy for someone who just finished a run, even if it was pro bono.”
Jenks dropped my suitcase onto a box and opened it up. “It went great,” he said, his youthful face eager as he sifted through my things. “By the seat of our pants, the way Rache works best.”
“I hate it when you work like that,” Ivy said, but I felt better that Jenks, at least, was thinking about me not having hands.
“They caught us, but Rachel worked out a deal to fight their alpha for Nick.” Jenks held up a pair of my panties so everyone could see. “I’ve never seen a Were go wolf that fast. It was incredible, Ivy. Almost as fast as Rachel’s magic.”
I felt a spike of worry, remembering their savagery when they were bound under a common cause and one Were. It still had me on edge. Ivy went still, then turned in her seat to look at him. My tail swished in an apology, and a faint wrinkle showed in her brow. “Deal?”
Jenks nodded, hesitating between the long-sleeve T-shirt and the skimpier tank top. “If she pinned their alpha, we got Nick. I didn’t see it all ’cause I was looking for crap for brains, but the sound of the fight brought in a real wolf pack. The alpha Rachel was fighting ran away. I say that means Rachel won.” I breathed easier when he put the tank top back. “Wasn’t her fault their alpha got chewed by real wolves.”
Ivy took a breath in thought, holding it. I met her eyes, knowing she had figured out the real problem, and I winced. A quick shot of adrenaline shivered through me. “They know who you are?” Ivy said, her gaze following mine to the island behind us.
Hearing the concern in her voice, Jenks straightened until his head brushed the ceiling. “Aw, hell,” he said. “We can’t go home. They’ll follow us, even if we don’t have Nick. Damn it all to Disneyland! Where’s crap for brains? Jax! What did you two steal, anyway? How are we going to convince four Were packs that we don’t have it or that Nick told us where it is?”
Jax was gone. I’d seen him zip out of the van three pixy heartbeats after his dad had started using Disney’s name in vain. Angry, Jenks jumped into the parking lot and headed for the showers, arms moving and face red. “Hey! Crap for brains!” he shouted.
I rose, stretching, before I loped after Jenks. He skidded to a halt when I stopped in front of him and leaned into his legs to try to tell him it was okay, that we’d find a way around this latest problem. Jenks peered down at me, his shoulders stiff. “I’ll be nice,” he said, his jaw tight. “But we’re leaving, and we’re leaving now. We’ve got to get under the leaves and hope spiders spin webs above us before they start looking.”
I wasn’t sure how spiders fitted into his equation, but I padded back to the van while he pounded on the shower door. Ivy got the engine going, and when I jumped into the front passenger seat, she leaned over to crack the window for me. The dusky scent of incense slipped over me, familiar and rich with undertones only my subconscious had been aware of before. Comforting.
The thump of a metal door closing pulled my attention to the lot. Jenks slipped into the van, clearly upset. Fifteen feet behind him I saw Nick, beard gone and hair dripping, spotting his gray sweats. He was moving better, head up and looking around. I had been right that the shoes were too small; he was still barefoot, the sneakers dangling from two fingers.
“You’re too good to him, Rachel,” Ivy said softly. “You should be spitting mad, and you aren’t. He’s a liar and a thief. And he hurt you. Please,” she whispered. “Think about what you’re doing?”
Don’t worry about it, I thought, enduring the indignity of thumping my tail in an effort to convey I wasn’t going to let Nick back into my life. But when the memory of his battered body and his will to remain silent against drugs and pain returned to me, I had a hard time staying angry with him.
Eighteen
“G ood God,” I whispered, sitting on the van’s cot and looking at my legs, horrified. They were hairy—not wolf hairy, but an I-couldn’t-find-my-razor-the-last-six-months hairy. Utterly grossed out, I took a peek at my armpit, jerking away. Oh, that’s just…nasty.“You okay, Rachel?” came Ivy’s voice from the front of the moving van, and I snatched up my long-sleeve black shirt and covered myself, though a heavy curtain was between me and the rest of the world passing at an awkward start-and-stop thirty-five miles an hour.