Page 100 of Shifter Situations

The live people.

“No,” Briggs said to Trouble as they walked into the room I was in. “They would have left a paper trail somewhere. That’s just the kind of shit they did.”

“Like printing out your past text messages and hanging them on the walls?” I asked, pointing at a bulletin board.

“Wow. Do you need me to up my crazy? Am I missing the mark somewhere?”

The wolf rubbed at his forehead with his middle finger. “You’re just crazy enough for me, Barbie. No need to raise the volume.”

“Are you sure?” She covered her mouth as she giggled. “Because I could like, I don’t know, keep a vial of blood around my neck or collect—”

She raised her hands in surrender when Briggs glared at her.

“What? I’m just saying… You make a tasty snack, and it’d be right there whenever I felt parched.”

“No.”

“We could start celebrating weekly anniversaries?”

“No.”

“We could get one of those photo album things and start taking pictures of our milestones together?”

She stretched her hand out, pretending to take a picture as she dreamily stated, “Burning down our first building together.”

Briggs snorted. “What are you going to do with pictures like that? Line the hallways with memories of all the illegal shit we do?”

“Actually.” She tapped her chin.

“No. That was a joke.”

“But there’s so much empty wall space.”

While they continued their banter, I started combing through the office. I checked all the usual places. There was a whole drawer of charts in a filing cabinet, each one labeled with a number instead of a name.

The files documented Katie’s and Anna’s observations from the tests they were running on the captives. There was no way of knowing which chart belonged to which experiment, and the only identifier was whether the person was male or female.

It looked like they were testing dosage amounts and multiple smaller injections versus one large injection. It appeared as if they were trying to hold off the ensuing madness for as long as possible.

I stacked the charts on the desk and moved to the desk. Sloane and Briggs flipped through all the books on the shelves behind me, finding nothing but a bracelet that made the wolf gasp.

“This is Ripley’s. I bet that’s why she wanted to come back.”

The drawers of the desk were filled with bullshit—snacks, a stapler, two hundred pens, and a smashed burner phone. I added the flip phone to the stack of charts and kept looking.

I dropped to my knees, feeling around under the desk, and found… Something. I leaned over, pulling the taped folder off the underside of the top drawer.

I opened it and immediately regretted it.

It was blackmail.

Shit that Katie was keeping on Anna, from what I was seeing, but that wasn’t the most interesting part.

What really captured my attention were some pictures paper-clipped together and more text message conversations. They were all between Anna and Katie, but one was burning holes in my eyes.

“Guys,” I called out. “I think I found something. But, Briggs, don’t get mad at me for bringing up some past shit.”

“Okay,” he agreed.