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“Fine.”
He took the handcuffs, flipped the woozy cat over, pulled his arms over, and locked them on the cat’s now-human wrists. The handcuffs were a shapeshifter edition: Each band was lined with silver spikes. Trying to snap the chain by pulling the cuffs apart drove the spikes into the skin. Silver burned like fire. He was sure the cat would stay put.
Derek tilted his head. The jackal lay on his back in a puddle of his own blood, trussed up like a hog, wrists and ankles tied together. The wound on his chest looked deep, but Julie had missed the heart. Knowing her, on purpose. He would heal.
Derek tilted his head and looked at the remaining wolf. He knew his eyes glowed, reflecting the moonlight.
“We were at a bar,” the wolf said. “Eli and Nathan are new to the city, so I took them to the Steel Horse. A guy came up to us and asked if we were up for making a quick five hundred bucks.”
There was no such thing as a quick $500, especially not in Atlanta after dark.
“He gave us the address of this house. We’re supposed to go in and sniff out a rock.” The wolf lifted his hands, holding them apart, fingers almost touching. “About this big. Glows in the moonlight. We went into the house and smelled the blood. We were trying to decide what to do when you showed up.”
“Four hours ago someone killed the human family who lived in this house for that rock,” Derek said. “Husband, wife, two kids.”
“I didn’t know,” the wolf said, his voice pleading. “I swear I didn’t know. You’ve got to believe me.”
Julie squinted at the house. “Is that the Iveses’ house?”
He’d hoped she wouldn’t recognize it, but she had just been there two weeks ago, buying a knife with Kate. He nodded. There was nothing else to do.
Her eyes went wide. “All of them?”
He nodded again.
She clamped her hand over her mouth. He put his arm around her before he knew he’d done it. She stuck her face into his shredded T-shirt.
He hugged her gently and wished he could make it better.
The world was a fucked-up place. A girl like Julie shouldn’t know people who had been violently murdered. He shouldn’t know them. Instead they met in front of a slaughterhouse. He’d killed five people tonight, and she’d opened a man’s chest with her tomahawk.
“What were you supposed to do with the rock?” he asked, still holding Julie.
“Take it to Pillar Rock,” the wolf said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Go down this street until you run into Manticore. Turn left, go two blocks. You’ll see a white building with a green roof. That’s the Pack safe house for this quadrant of the city. Tell them what happened and call your alpha.”
“Should I call their alphas, too?” he asked.
“No. Just call Desandra. She’ll handle it. Tell her I consider the matter closed.” Knowing Desandra, she would enjoy informing the other alphas that their new members had stepped in it.
The wolf exhaled, turned, and sprinted down the street at fifty miles per hour. In ten minutes the pickup team would swarm the area.
Julie pulled away from him. Her eyes were red. She never sobbed when she cried. She used to, but something had happened in the last year, and now she cried like that, without moving or making a sound. It was worse somehow.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Did you find out who killed the Iveses?”
He nodded again.
“Are they dead?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” she said, sudden viciousness in her voice. She sidestepped him and went into the house.
He knew this was it, all of the grief she would show. He’d seen her go through things like that before. Julie had spent three years on the street, where people lived by animal rules, and she’d learned them well: Never show a weakness; never show pain. The vulnerable get eaten. She would break down later when she was alone, but neither he nor anyone else would ever see it.
