Taken by storm(56)
Violent death? I couldn’t help looking toward Lake—and Griffin. I thought he drowned.
Since those weren’t words I could say out loud—or even think to anyone else in the room—I turned my attention to a topic that Callum might actually be able to shed some light on.
“Think this will stop them from coming after Maddy?” I didn’t specify who they were. I didn’t have to.
“Do you recall what, precisely, the proposition was that the Senate passed?”
I got the distinct impression that Callum wasn’t asking because he didn’t remember.
I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a test. “They voted to intervene if the Rabid became an exposure risk,” I said.
“No,” Callum corrected, “they voted to intervene if the girl became an exposure risk.”
I’d spent my formative years skirting Callum’s orders and looking for loopholes. I knew how to speak the truth without really telling it better than anyone I knew.
“The girl,” I said slowly, “isn’t a risk.”
“No,” Callum agreed. “She’s not.”
“So the Senate can’t use the Winchester attack to justify coming here,” I continued. “And since neither you nor I will give them access to our lands …”
Maddy was safe—at least from them, which meant one less thing to worry about for me. I just wished Callum had known something more about Shadows—how much of their original personalities they retained, how likely it was that Maddy had raised two, how exactly one might go about fighting a Shadow, besides trying to get at it through its living twin.
For a moment, I let myself consider the implications. If Griffin wasn’t telling the truth, if Lake was wrong about him …
“How many female Weres are there besides Lake who have a dead twin?” I needed to know. There were so few natural-born females that if the number was bigger than zero, it wouldn’t be bigger by much.
Callum didn’t get the chance to answer my question. The line went suddenly dead. I tried to redial, but three things stopped me dead in my tracks.
The lights started flickering.
The door to the cheap motel room we’d rented slammed shut.
And Griffin disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
IN AN INSTANT, CHASE WAS BY MY SIDE AND LAKE WAS at Maddy’s. Caroline slipped effortlessly into the shadows, her back pressed up against the corner of the room, her eagle eyes sharp.
Something dark and primal crept over Jed’s eyes.
For a second, there was silence, and then I heard laughter—a deep, throaty chuckle that sounded absolutely nothing like Griffin.
Not Griffin.
Caroline went to draw a weapon, but I met her eyes, and she read the order in mine. Blades and bullets might pass straight through this predator, but the rest of us in this room weren’t immune. The last thing we needed was someone going down to friendly fire.
Lake, try to find Griffin. I kept my words short and to the point. Wherever he went, whatever just happened, get him back.
I stepped sideways, appraising the room, feeling the air on my skin and trying to pinpoint the origin of the laughter.
Nowhere. Everywhere.
To my left, cracks spread along the surface of the mirror, giving it the gossamer appearance of a spiderweb.
Then it shattered.
Jed lunged to his left. A blade of glass flew into the wall behind him, grazing his back.
There were too many of us in this room. Too many targets, too much glass.
Run, my instincts whispered, from the most ancient part of my brain. Run, and it will chase you.
The thought came out of nowhere. I’d spent enough time worrying—and trying not to worry—about Griffin that I hadn’t thought much about the alternative, yet now I knew beyond knowing that if I ran, this thing would follow.
A hand clamped over my arm. Chase. He didn’t want me going anywhere. Our eyes locked, and we stood there, staring at each other, neither one of us willing to give.
On the far side of the room, cracks began spreading along the surface of the window. They spiraled outward, and then there was a whoosh of air, and glass exploded inward. The shards rained down, embedding themselves in skin—mine, the others’—tiny, razor-sharp, incessant.
If we stayed here, this thing might pick us off one by one. We couldn’t see it, couldn’t touch it, couldn’t fight back. Short of decapitation, Lake and Chase would survive, but Caroline and Jed were a different story.
Maddy’s baby was a different story.
Griff’s close, Bryn, but he can’t break through. Lake’s words were punctuated by the rumbling sound of the dresser, vibrating against the floor. Whoever or whatever this is, it’s shutting him out.