Page 173 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

They numbed it, stitched fast, and wrapped both injuries tight. I flexed my fingers when they told me to. It hurt like hell, but everything still moved. Good enough.

A few feet away the other team kept working on Naomi. Chest compressions. The defibrillator. Someone shouted for epinephrine. The effort dragged on longer than it should have before the lead paramedic finally sat back on his heels and shook his head.

“Time of death, 14:47.”

The words landed heavy. No one spoke for a moment.

Across the warehouse, officers cuffed Lia and walked her toward a waiting cruiser. She didn’t fight. She didn’t cry. She just walked with dead eyes, hands locked behind her back.

A detective approached us with a notebook already open. “Detective Reynolds. I don’t need a full statement tonight. Just the basics for now.”

I kept it short. The abduction. The dart. The warehouse. Lia holding the gun. The shot.

He scribbled notes, glanced at my bandages, and nodded.

“We’ll need a formal statement in a couple days. After you’ve had some rest. Don’t leave town.”

As he walked away, I leaned my head against Jackson’s bare shoulder. The adrenaline was finally starting to crash, leaving my limbs heavy and my thoughts slow. Exhaustion rolled in hard behind it, settling deep in my bones.

Rick was on the phone a few feet away, voice low and urgent.

“Lia lost it. She’s under arrest… Naomi’s dead. They’re taking her to the morgue… I know. Handle it.”

I listened for another second and understood. Pack legal. Someone whose job was to keep shifter problems from becoming human problems.

CSI had already started taping everything off. The officers ushered us clear of the scene. Jackson pressed a kiss to my hair, voice rough against my ear.

“We’re going home.”

A few minutes later, we were in Jackson’s SUV. I sat in the passenger seat while Rick and Jason took the back. Jackson drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on my thigh, like he needed the constant contact just to stay steady.

The silence lasted less than a minute.

I looked at him. “How did you find me?”

“The bond. One second everything was normal in that meeting. The next I felt your fear. Then… nothing. Just emptiness. Like you were gone. Scared the shit out of me. I ran out so fast I don’t even remember standing up.”

I squeezed his hand on my thigh.

He glanced down at the silver mating bracelet on my wrist. “There is a tracker in it. When the signal started moving fast and you were supposed to be on foot, I knew someone had taken you.”

Rick leaned forward from the back seat. “We happened to be walking by when he tore out of the packhouse. He didn’t even slow down, so we jumped in the car. The tracker gave us a one-mile radius. Took a bit to narrow it down to the right warehouse. Jackson was losing his shit. Thank fuck you came back online through the bond when you did.”

I turned the bracelet slowly on my wrist, the metal cool against my skin.

“You put a tracker in my mating bracelet?”

“Yes.” His voice was unapologetic. “I wasn’t taking chances.”

I should have been annoyed. Instead I just leaned my head back against the seat and let out a tired breath. “Good call.”

The city lights blurred past the window as we drove home. Naomi was dead. Lia was in custody. My shoulder throbbed and exhaustion weighed heavily on me.

But one thought refused to leave.

Lia said Thomas made her do it.

Chapter 47: The New Alpha