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“Apparently,” Remus grumbled. “I assume you remember Hannah Locke.”
Iris and I grimaced at the same time. “I do,” I replied slowly, dread creeping from my gut to my throat. So far, outside of Hannah being a general nuisance, the situation hadn’t bitten me in the tail. Yet. I really hoped that wasn’t about to change. “Why?”
“Her parents called me a few minutes ago. Apparently, Hannah went out last night and still hasn’t come back — which isn’t entirely unlike her, but they assure me their daughter always texts or calls to let them know who she’s with if she doesn’t come home. But she isn’t picking up her phone. It goes straight to voicemail.”
Iris rolled her eyes. “Maybe she’s just over at a guy’s house and doesn’t want to be interrupted,” she grumbled.
I snorted, giving Iris a wry look. “Sounds a bit familiar,” I said, knowing well that Iris’s phone had also been turned off when she had disappeared. “I’ve been working with her father. I can go over and talk to him if you want.”
“I would appreciate that,” Remus murmured. “I already have my hands full with this Billy business. I might send Nic over to help Bane, I don’t know. I’ll update you when I do.”
“Good luck,” I told Remus, hanging up after a moment. I gave Iris a look. “I’m going to go and get that out of the way, I think. I assume you and Bella will be fine here?”
She sighed and shrugged. “Yeah, we’ll be fine,” she muttered.
“I know you’d rather come with me,” I said, already standing. I straightened my shirt. “And honestly, I’d rather you come with me, too. You’re far better at noticing the little things, but…” I trailed off and looked towards the stairs. “We can’t leave her alone. She clearly likes you best.” I looked back at Iris and raised a brow. “And I know you aren’t a fan of Hannah. I at least have some rapport with her father.”
Iris gave another sigh, but her lips were already quirking upwards. “Yeah, yeah. I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just not used to other people doing my job for me.”
“I’m not doing your job for you, Iris. I’m doing thiswithyou. There’s a difference.”
Iris said nothing, studying me thoughtfully. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn a smile flickered across her face before she shoved it back down. “Well, off you go then. And bring us back something for dinner. Please.”
I laughed. “Of course.”
23
IRIS
Remus’ Safe House
Travis County, Texas
Istared at the door, even though the sound of a vehicle pulling away had long since faded. I knew, logically, that this was something Eli had to look into. I also knew that I wouldn’t be of much help right now, and perhaps more importantly, we couldn’t leave Bella alone. She’d had more trauma in the past few days than most adults did over their entire lives — and even if she hadn’t, she was still a three-year-old.
I sighed and shook my head, knowing here was no use grumbling about it now. Eli and Remus were off, and I was here.
After a moment, I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the time. Bella had been asleep for almost two hours at this point, and some of the mommy blogs I’d read indicated anything more than that would give her trouble sleeping at night. I didn’t know how true that was, but I’d sort of been thrown into the deep end with Bella. Growing up, I never even babysat, after all. I’d had plenty of foster siblings, but they weren’t usually so young that I was asked to take care of them. On the occasions I was asked, I did the bare minimum, always afraid I was going to mess something up — or worse, messthemup — and find myself in more trouble with my foster families. In retrospect, it had probably made my own situation worse, but…hindsight is 20/20, and all that.
I paused. Part of me thought that two-hour rule only applied to children who hadn’t just been experimented on or watched their parents…Well, it applied to children who’d been experiencing a much morenormalupbringing. I didn’t think I could expect her to behave like your average three-year-old, and yet…
I rubbed my face and headed up the stairs, carefully letting myself into Bella’s room. To my surprise, the little girl was already awake, sitting up in her bed.
“Hi there,” I said quietly, walking over to sit next to her. “How long have you been up?”
She gave me a long look before she finally shrugged.
I gave her a soft smile. “You know, you can come downstairs if you wake up early from a nap. You don’t have to wait up here next time.” I had no idea how long she’d been awake, but I was starting to suspect she probably thought she had to stay in her room. She hadn’t even moved from her bed, much less played with any of the toys Fiona had sent along for her.
I looked at them for a moment longer before turning back to Bella. “Well, nap time is over. What would you like to do?” It was probably a bit too optimistic of me, expecting she might answer again, but…if I didn’t ask, maybe she never would. I hoped she didn’t think I didn’twanther to speak, or that Iwantedher silence.
Even during our escape, I couldn’t recall her saying much. She’d been crying, certainly, but she hadn’t said much. Perhaps her parents had taught her to be quiet so the guards couldn’t use anything she said against her — or maybe they had scared her so badly, she simply stopped saying things so they wouldn’t hurt her, or her parents. I’d probably never know, but…I at least hoped that by talking to her, she knew she didn’thaveto be quiet. If she wanted to, then she wanted to, but…
I shook my head. I was probably overthinking this too much. I smiled back at Bella. “It’s a little too early for dinner. We could go back outside, if you’d like. Or we could read one of your story books. Were there any you wanted to hear again?” When Bella just shrugged, I continued. “That’s okay. What about…hm, I see Candyland over there. Want to play that?”
Bella paused this time, her mouth moving a little. She tipped her head in my direction, but there was clear interest in her eyes this time. I smiled and stood, offering her a hand out of bed. Scooping her up, I paused only long enough to pick up the colorful box before heading back downstairs. Bella still had her wolf with her, and I set the plushie down on the coffee table before opening the game.
“Have you ever played before?” I asked, starting to pull out the board and the pieces. It had been…oh, ages since I’d played myself. It was probably one of the first games I played with my parents, though — or at least, it was the first game I could remember playing with them. Though my mother had been a member of the local Sugpiaq tribe, my father wasn’t. He’d grown up in Anchorage; he left his family and the coastal Riverstone Pack behind to be with my mother.
