Page 5 of Jacob Michaels is Trouble

“It’ll be okay, babe.” I rubbed his back gently as he held me. “It’ll be okay. We’ll talk to Oma. We’ll figure something out. Maybe there’s—”

“Well,” Jason interrupted again, “you guys lucked out. There’s not a single thing in either of these guys’ pockets. Unless their wallets fell out while they were still in the water, I guess. But the odds of that happening to both of them would be pretty low, so I’m guessing they don’t have I.D. with them.”

“Could you give us a second?” I barked.

“Sure.” Jason stood and gave an exaggerated smile and nod of his head. “Let’s take our time dealing with the evidence of your crime here.”

“Rob was defending us.” Lucas managed to mumble loudly into my neck.

God, I hoped his mouth wasn’t covered in puke.

“It was self-defense.” I clarified.

“If they’d been shot, sure.” Jason shrugged, bending down again to one of the bodies. “These guys look like they’ve been tortured. Unless you want to show the cops your little laser hands there, give ‘em a display, I don’t think they’re going to believe this was self-defense, Rob.”

Whether I liked it or not, Jason was right. The scene did not scream “self-defense,” and there was no way that the police would believe in magic. Or that the bite on Lucas was from a werewolf—if it was still there when we talked to them. Also, if I started shooting fire out of my hands, the cops would probably just shoot me and ask questions later.

“Fine.” I relented. “Now what?”

Jason was yanking something out of one of the bodies’ hands.

“Well,” Jason sighed, “this is part of your boyfriend’s shirt.”

He held a scrap of cloth towards us. Lucas pulled away from my neck and let go of me slowly. We both just stared at the scrap of fabric in Jason’s hand; both of us aware that it was indeed part of Lucas’ shirt.

“I’m betting there’s other forensic evidence here,” Jason added, then smiled. “I sound like I should be on one of those procedural cop shows or something, huh?”

“Why are you here, Jason?” I demanded.

“Right now, I’m helping you decide how to cover up murder.” Jason spat. “At least, that’s the way the cops will see it. After that, we can get back to our little talk about what the fuck is going on with you and the bullshit that hovers over you like a nuclear cloud.”

Swallowing hard, I refused to respond.

“So,” Jason tossed the cloth, which Lucas caught, examined for a moment, then shoved into his pocket, “I’m going to take your two friends here and dump them. The pack lands are full of wooded areas. These guys don’t have I.D.; I don’t know who they are, no one but us three knows what happened here—I don’t think anyone is going to find out about this anytime soon. In fact, no one may ever come looking for these guys. They don’t exactly look like they were the deacons of their churches, so maybe no one will even miss them.”

“How kind.” I frowned.

“Kinder than what you did.” Jason retorted. “Why don’t you take your boyfriend home and kiss his boo-boos for him? We’ll talk later.”

“Listen here, you piece of—” Jason smiled wickedly as I started to move towards him again.

“Rob.” Lucas jerked at my hand firmly. “Let’s just go. Please. You guys can fight later.”

Turning to Lucas, I saw the desperation in his eyes, his desire to get off of the peninsula and into the car in front of the heater to warm up, and forget about our night. At least, the best he could after having been bitten by a werewolf. I wanted to tell Lucas that Jason would probably just screw us over if we left him with the dead bodies, but then I remembered that Lucas knew things. If he felt safe leaving Jason and the bodies alone, he must have known how things would turn out. The fact that it didn’t worry him made me feel less nervous about leaving.

“Fine.” I replied gently to Lucas, then over my shoulder: “We’ll fight later.”

“Bet your ass.” Jason snickered.

My hand was raised in a one-finger salute over my shoulder as I let Lucas lead me away from the shore of the Maumee. Jason’s flashlight beam bobbled in the distance as Lucas and I walked away quickly, putting distance between us and the biggest clusterfuck imaginable. Getting Lucas into the car and turning on the heat for him was all I cared about at that moment. That, and getting back home so we could get clean and put on dry clothes.