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. “Anna, 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—”
“They killed her!” Cassidy charged. Okay, so maybe she was still enraged.