Maybe we didn’t know what we were doing. Maybe two kids with an internet connection and a lot of time on their hands couldn’t track a serial killer, even if they knew what to look for better than any police department would.
But maybe we were right.
I had no idea what to do about it. For minutes at a time, maybe hours, I stared at the map. We’d marked kills in every territory, but the most were in Callum’s and the two adjacent territories: those belonging to Odell and Shay. The attacks zigzagged out from some invisible central point, and I cursed the fact that I’d taken algebra instead of geometry this year in school.
Tell me where you are, I said silently.
There was no reply. I hadn’t really expected one.
“You girls hungry?” Keely asked, wrapping back by our booth, the way she did every hour or so to check on us.
I nodded. Lake grunted.
“The usual?” Keely asked, her voice dry.
I shook my head. “Pie?” I asked Lake.
She nodded. “Pie.”
Five minutes later, we had our pie, but this time, Keely didn’t disappear after delivering it. “Do I want to know what you two are up to?” she asked.
“No.”
“Probably not.”
Keely put a hand on her hip. “This about that Rabid?”
“Yup.”
“Sure is.”
Lake and I paused, meeting eyes and wondering how exactly it was that Keely had tricked an honest answer out of us. I, for one, hadn’t had any intention of telling her a thing.
Keely held up a hand. “You know what? I don’t want to know. Lake, you have company. Let me know if you need help disabusing him of any notions.”
I was still stuck on wondering how exactly Keely had pried the truth from our lips, when her words sunk in. Company?
What kind of company?
And that’s when it washed over me: wolf. Foreign. Wrong.
I straightened in my seat, hackles raised. Lake didn’t adjust her posture at all, but underneath the table, I saw her hand move, and for the first time, I noticed that she’d brought Matilda with her this morning.
“Now, why do you have to go and reach for the gun?” the peripheral from yesterday asked her. He was tall and broad, and I deeply suspected that in wolf form, he’d be almost as large as Devon. “And here we’ve been getting along so well.”
Lake smiled, slow and sure, a look that meant she was getting ready to either flirt or attack. I braced myself for either or both.
“You’re just sour because I beat the tar out of you at pool.” Lake smiled, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and in a motion too quick for me to track, whipped out her shotgun, aiming it squarely at the foreign wolf’s nose.
“I thought you said it paid to have friends,” I reminded her.
Lake didn’t blink. “It does. If Tom and I weren’t friends, he might be trying to prove that he’s the stronger wolf, and I might be making the reverse argument with the help of my gun.”
He blinked twice and then laughed, but didn’t sound entirely comfortable. There was an edge in Lake’s voice, one that told him to take her threat seriously. He was male, he was bigger, and he was probably stronger—but she was armed.
I really hoped this wasn’t going to degenerate into a dominance squabble, though in retrospect, it was probably too much to hope that I’d left that behind.
As if sensing my thoughts, the foreign wolf turned his attention to me. “You’re Callum’s Bryn,” he said shortly.
I met his gaze. I refused to look away. I managed not to think about Sora. I managed not to think about the fact that if he wanted to, this man could squash me in a second.
“I used to be,” I replied.
“Hey, buddy. Eyes on me.” Lake was the protective type and the jealous type. I wasn’t sure which had her forcing the foreigner’s eyes back to hers. If he challenged anyone, her posture seemed to be saying, it would be her.
Personally, I wouldn’t have laid money on his odds.
“The alphas have been called,” he said after a long moment, never moving, never taking his gaze from hers. “Stands to reason some of them will be passing through on their way to Callum’s.”
Lake didn’t blink. She didn’t move. She also didn’t cock the trigger of her gun, and her “friend” took that as encouragement. “I thought you’d want to know.”
Lake didn’t reply, but after a long moment, she put down the gun, her suntanned face going ashen white.
“Why’s the Senate going to Ark Valley?” I asked, even though I deeply suspected we had the answer spread out on the table in front of us, marked with Xs and stars.
“Callum called ’em,” the Were replied, taking his eyes from Lake to look back at me.