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“Get up!” I said.
Nicky grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. He said, “We have an audience.”
“We’re being filmed, Petra,” Ethan said.
I looked for TV crews, but it was cell phones, smartphones, filming the scene, or as much as the police would let them. The state cops who had still been in the area had appeared like magic to help manage the crowd.
Leduc came toward us yelling, “You were supposed to keep this from happening!”
“You kicked them out, remember,” I said.
“We could have kept this from happening if we’d been here,” Ethan said.
Our mild-mannered Ethan saying anything meant he was as upset as the rest of us. He’d spent hours talking to Bobby, and now it was all for nothing. Leduc pushed into Ethan the way he had with Milligan and Custer earlier, shoving his bulk in against the slenderer man.
“Well, now he’s not going anywhere except the morgue, thanks to you not being here.”
I’d had enough, or maybe I just wanted a target I didn’t care about to aim all my rage and frustration at. Whatever the case, I pushed between them, forcing Leduc back from Ethan, and yelled, “It’s your damn jail, and you’ve had two of your deputies shoot at your prisoner. What kind of fucked-up shit show are you running here, Duke?”
He drove all that weight and extra height into me, actually forced me backward with his bulk. I pushed back with my hands so I touched him first. You don’t do that when tempers are this hot, not unless you want a real fight. He shoved me hard, and I was off balance, so I stumbled. Then I went for him. Nicky caught me, one arm across my shoulders keeping me back.
I screamed, “Let me go!” and he had to do it.
Milligan and Custer grabbed me. Newman and Edward grabbed Leduc.
Custer yelled, “Boss!”
I struggled, but I didn’t fight them. I had that much control left. I yelled, “You were supposed to be watching over Bobby. You want to blame someone, seems like there’s a fuck ton of blame to go around!”
“I told you I took Troy to see a lawyer—that’s why I wasn’t here,” he said, and he wasn’t yelling now.
He was getting himself under control enough that Edward stepped away from him. Newman stayed on his other arm, but more like patting him on the back than holding him, though I don’t think the audience that had pointed their phones at us were fooled.
“Why? He hasn’t been charged officially yet.”
“He’s not going to be charged, or he wasn’t. Bobby didn’t want him to be charged. Now that Bobby is dead, I don’t know what will happen with Troy.”
I didn’t want to get calm. I wanted to stay angry, because it had felt better than so many other emotions that were there just below the surface. I didn’t want to feel any of them. I fed my anger and called it sweet names so it wouldn’t leave me alone with the rest of the things I was feeling.
Edward said, “Anita, you’re bleeding.”
I frowned at him as if he were speaking a different language. He nodded down at my thigh. I looked where he motioned and saw the blood and the fresh claw marks in the cloth. My first thought was So what? One more scar. It didn’t even hurt yet, which probably meant it was worse than I thought or I was still in shock. Then I remembered that I’d gotten wounded because I’d pushed Edward out of the way. I had lycanthropy already, couldn’t hurt me any more. I looked at Edward’s thigh, but the blood on him was lower, closer to the knee, because he was taller, I guess.
“I thought I saved you,” I said.
“You saved me from maybe being crippled for life.”
“Or maybe not,” I said.
“Don’t second-guess yourself, Anita. You put yourself in harm’s way for me. That’s what I’ll remember.”
“You’ll have to get tested.”
“I know.”
We looked at each other.
“Did any of my blood get in your wound?” I asked.
