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I wiggled free of him and stood. “Don’t. Don’t tell me to calm down. Just tell me what’s worse.”
He cleared his throat. “The demon didn’t appear on film. At least, not how we saw it.”
It took a second for that to skink in. If the demon didn’t show up on film, then it was just us werewolves, a fey, and a bunch of dead cops. “What do you mean?”
“It’s better if you see.” He rewound the news, stopping in the middle of the fight.
The video was a little grainy, but I could make out something moving in the middle of a ring of snarling wolves. I moved closer to the TV as the demon swiped at Kelly. The demon’s motion turned it toward the camera and I stopped breathing for a second. The camera hadn’t been close enough to pick up the red eyes, but I should’ve been able to see its skin color. Its nails. And its proportions that were anything but human.
Except, the thing in the center of circle, surrounded by wolves, didn’t look like a demon. If I didn’t know—if I hadn’t been there myself—I wouldn’t have known it was a monster. From the video, it looked like a hunched over man. If you looked close enough, you could tell because it didn’t move like a human, but I doubted anyone was looking that closely.
I closed my eyes and sank back down on the couch. “So what now?”
“Your dad and Michael are with the police. They’re trying to get it sorted, but…”
I buried my face in my hands. “This is so messed up.”
“It is.”
“What’s everyone saying online?”
“It’s bad. You don’t want to check.”
He had to say that. Now all I wanted to do was look.
“Since you didn’t shift there’s a lot of speculation whether you’re a Were, but because you grew up human, your records are out there. Maybe someone from your old school will talk or they’ll match your photos, but it’s only a matter of time before the media gets your name. And when they do…”
“I’m going to be hounded.” Forget “Freaky Tessa.” This was going to be a whole new level of crazy.
“Cosette too, but she’s MIA. We’re not sure when—or if—she’s coming back.”
She’d be back. She had to be. We needed her, especially if she was that good against demons. I didn’t know anyone else who could whip weapons out of thin air mid-battle.
“Lots of theories about the vials and the explosions. They know it wasn’t us who killed the cops, and the footage shows the body getting sucked into the ground—but we’ve still got problems.” He leaned back against the couch. “The local cops are freaking out because the FBI came down and now… It’s like they just learned the X-Files are real.”
This was too much. My mind was blown. I pulled my knees to my chest and held them as I watched the soundless TV. “So, what now?”
“Donovan, the Seven, and the rest of the alphas are in the conference room. They’re talking to every pack alpha they can get on the phone, discussing options. So, it’s going to be a while before anything gets decided. Until then, everyone’s confined to campus.” He sighed. “Which is probably a good thing. Your dad had a problem getting here. Apparently there’s a mob at the gates.”
“I don’t know how it’s possible, but everything keeps getting worse.”
Dastien tucked me against his side as I reclined on the couch. He turned the volume back on, and we sat there listening to their crazy commentary. Most of it was painfully wrong. I was half-convinced I should call in and correct them, but that was probably the worst idea in the history of bad ideas.
It kept bothering me that there were people at our gates. Would they go home at night? And if not, would Luciana still attack? How could we protect them when we could barely protect our own? And we couldn’t have cops on campus if we were at war with the evil bitch.
A war that they weren’t remotely equipped to fight.
Someone knocked on the door.
“Come in,” I said without asking who it was.
“Teresa?”
Oh no. Claudia.
I raced to the door. She was wearing clothes that didn’t really fit—not her usual skirt and peasant shirt. Her hair popped out of her braid and her eyes were rimmed with red.
She already knew.
