“Too scared to face me up close?” I called, forcing the knot of anxiety from my chest. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft, Lake.”
Lake snorted and bared her teeth in a wicked grin, and then she was off the fence, shotgun on the ground, running toward me. I started running toward her, too, but barely got three steps before she crashed into me and tackled me to the ground.
“Hey, bruised ribs here,” I said.
“Oh, you yellow-bellied crybaby,” Lake replied. “Did poor wittle Bwyn fall and go boom again?”
“For the last time, I didn’t fall out of that tree—you pushed me.”
“Snitch,” she said amiably.
“Mutt,” I replied, and then I threw myself at and into her, hugging her hard.
Besides Katie, Lake was the only female born in Callum’s territory in the past hundred years. Maybe longer, depending on how old Sora was. Lake and her dad didn’t come to our neck of the woods very often, and for whatever reason, Callum never forced their hand, so growing up, Lake and I had developed a relationship that I suspect is similar to what happens to humans who go to summer camp. When we were together, we were inseparable. From sunup to sundown, if you found one of us, you found the other. Devon was my best friend, but when Lake was in town, our duo became an easy trio: the human, the purebred, and the female Were, freaks all.
Lake, ever unaware of her own strength, squeezed too hard as she returned my hug, but despite the hug-with-a-vengeance, my ribs didn’t so much as twinge, and I took that as an omen that maybe coming here hadn’t been a mistake on Ali’s part. Maybe I just needed time to regroup.
Come up with a plan.
After another long moment, I pushed Lake back, and even though I could never have broken her grip of my own accord, she let loose of me immediately. The two of us sat up, and I surveyed her, comparing her appearance and mine out of habit. I was wearing jeans, a sweater, and boots. Lake was barefoot and the only reason she was wearing even a tank top and boy shorts was that she’d outgrown streaking when she was about seven.
Except for that one time the summer when we were twelve, but that was completely beside the point.
“Aren’t you cold?” I asked her.
Lake grinned. “Nope.”
On the heels of the coldest spring we’d had in years, Lake was sun-kissed and tanned, color in her cheeks, highlights in her hair. I couldn’t imagine her ever letting someone else beat her, no matter the cause.
As if she sensed where my thoughts were going, Lake set about distracting me. “How much you wanna bet I can put a bullet through that guy’s Coke?” She gestured back toward the Wayfarer, and I noticed that a new group of people had taken a seat in one of the booths. From this distance, I could barely make them out through the dusty window, but I didn’t doubt for a second that Lake’s view of them was much clearer.
“No deal,” I told Lake. I’d learned not to bet with her—about anything—by the time we were eight.
Except for that one time the summer when we were twelve, but again—completely beside the point.
“Besides,” I said, “Matilda’s over by the fence.” I’d never actually met Lake’s favorite shotgun, but I’d heard enough stories to make an educated guess.
“She’s fickle, is Matilda,” Lake admitted. “But boy, can the old girl get the job done.”
“What’d this guy do anyway?”
As a general rule, Lake didn’t shoot people without a reason—or some assurance that they would heal almost as soon as she shot them.
“Jerk cheated on his girlfriend,” Lake replied. “And stiffed me on my tip the last time through.”
Lake had been waiting tables at the Wayfarer since she was about twelve. Anyone who’d been to the restaurant more than once knew that you didn’t play pool with Mitch’s daughter expecting to win and you didn’t skimp on her tip. I’d never been here before, and even I knew that. I also knew that if you had a secret, you didn’t come to the Wayfarer in the first place. There were no secrets with Lake Mitchell. None.
“So you asked for permissions, broke the conditions, and Callum had you beaten, huh?”
My first instinct was to pull back, but before my upper lip had worked itself even halfway into a good snarl, I let it go, the tension melting off my face. Lake was Lake. She couldn’t help asking. It probably would have sucked more if she hadn’t, but that didn’t change the fact that if and when I said a word about any of this to anyone, it would be on my terms, not theirs.
The next time Callum’s name crossed my lips, it would be because I wanted to say it, not because someone had asked.