I could tell you all about it, Zev suggested.
I saw the ploy for what it was: he wanted me to forget about Chimera, forget about Bethany, forget about anything that might spur me into action. In his ideal world, I probably would have completely ignored the fact that he was caged, lying in wait for the moment he could tear off all of their heads.
Nice try, I said. But no.
I told you I could handle this, Kali, and I meant it.
For a split second, there was something else there, something he wasn’t telling me. I could almost see it, almost pinpoint the reason he wanted me to stay away, but a second later, it was gone.
Frustrated, I replied to his silent sentence out loud. “Yeah, well, you also spent the first twenty-four hours of our acquaintance appearing to me in shadows and stalking my dreams. Forgive me if I’m skeptical.”
His response came in images, not words, and I got the distinct sense that up until I’d shifted from my human form, he hadn’t been able to make himself heard more clearly—which meant there was a good chance that as soon as I shifted back, I’d lose the connection. Lose this.
I’d lose the boost that being bitten had given my already unnatural abilities—and the thirst.
I was used to watching my abilities slip away, leaving me vulnerable and human and raw. I was used to missing things, people, having a purpose, but this time, it would be worse.
Because this time, when I shifted, I’d lose Zev and the ability to save him.
Eighteen hours and twenty-four minutes.
I was on the clock—but I still couldn’t make myself focus only on Zev, not with Bethany’s mother’s words echoing in the recesses of my mind.
It’s not safe in that house. It’s never safe.
It was probably nothing. The woman had lost a child—how could any place feel safe after something like that? Bethany was probably fine—or, at least, as fine as she’d been when I’d left her—but given that she was almost as embroiled in this mess as I was, I couldn’t ignore the possibility that she might not be.
If her mother was here, Bethany was home alone—and I’d already had firsthand experience with the way the men in suits handled loose ends.
She’s fine, I told myself. If they were going to hurt her, they would have done it already.
In my head, Zev sighed. You’re going back there, aren’t you?
I chewed lightly on my bottom lip. Maybe.
That was the problem with caring about people—you had too much to lose.
I glanced down at my watch again, more out of habit than anything else, and then made a split-second decision. Bethany’s house was a good ten miles away, but there was nothing saying I had to run there on foot. I’d go by, eyeball the house, make sure that Chimera hadn’t sent anyone to pay Beth a visit—and then I’d find a way to get what I needed out of the mangled remains of Paul Davis’s phone.
Scanning the cars in the parking lot, my eyes came to rest on my father’s.
Hey, Zev? I said, sounding—to me, at least—oddly like Skylar. Any chance you know how to hot-wire a car?
I might have felt bad about stealing my father’s car, had he ever acknowledged the fact that I was old enough to drive—and had been for over a year. But sixteen and seventeen were just numbers to him, and we’d never been much for celebrating birthdays. Given that, I figured that just this once, he could rely on public transportation—or walk the five miles separating the university from our house.
All’s fair in love and war—and black ops.
Ignoring the quiet trill of guilt trying to sound off in my brain, I parked the car a couple of blocks away from Bethany’s house, figuring that if Chimera hadn’t figured out who I was yet, the last thing I needed to do was hand them my father’s license plate number on a silver platter. Closing the car door behind me, I started jogging toward Bethany’s house, making an effort at slowing the unnaturally fast pace my body wanted to take.
I wasn’t used to having to hold back, and it took the strain of pretending to be human to an all-new level.
My body wanted to run.
It wanted to blur.
It wanted to feed—
But I most emphatically wasn’t going to think about that. The last thing I needed was for the neighbors to see me running by at an inhuman blur.
So I held back. I paced myself. And then I heard the scream.
Go. Quickly.
I stopped holding back, stopped thinking. One second, I was running, and the next I was there, and everything in between was fuzzy and indefinite in my mind. This time, when I heard the scream, I recognized its owner.
Not Bethany. Skylar.
That, more than the whisper of Zev’s own hunt-lust in the corners of my mind, pushed me forward. I didn’t have many friends—I wasn’t entirely sure I had any—but Skylar was the closest thing I’d had to one in a very long time.