Chapter Eleven #3
I rose unhurriedly to my feet, swiping Malik’s gun off the ground when something fell behind a counter.
After my initial flinch, I sighed in relief. “It’s alright,” I called out. “You’re safe.”
The human girl peeked over the counter before ducking back down. “Are… are they dead?”
I began to inch forward. “They are. What’s your name?” I shoved the gun into my waistband and put my hands in the air in a placating manner.
“Are you… a cop?” she whispered.
“No. But they’re waiting outside for us.” I plastered on a smile. “Look, you probably have a lot of questions. That’s why I’m here… I’m going to help you make sense of all of this. But the important thing to know is that those monsters can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Hurt me?” The girl finally slid around the edge of the counter, pushing herself to her feet. Her face was fuller than in the photo on the missing person flyer. Her hair was noticeably thicker and…
I paused.
There through her brunette curls—a bite mark at the base of her neck.
“Oh no,” I whispered.
Her hand shot up to cover the bite, and a smile slithered onto her face. “Oh no? You said you’re here to help me. But you’ve ruined everything.” She pointed behind me. “You killed my pack.”
“Your family is worried about—”
“My pack was my family.”
My shoulders sagged, her words heavy and wrong. “I can’t save you if you talk like that,” I said lowly.
She laughed as if possessed by a demon of the Moon Goddess, but tears filled her eyes. “You can’t save me. You—”
A bullet went straight through her forehead, the force of it propelling her back until her body crashed onto the floor in a lifeless heap.
Footsteps sounded from behind me, marking the end of our five minutes.
“Joey.” Agent Hill pushed past me, dropping to his knees and immediately checking the girl for a pulse. His gaze darted to my face, then to the gun I still held in my hand. “What happened?”
“Look at the other side of her neck.”
Agent Hill reached over the dead girl, brushing her curls to the side, and he groaned once he found the bite.
“There was nothing we could’ve done.”
He shook his head, holstering his gun slowly, as if a million thoughts ran through his head. “You don’t know that,” he grated out.
“You see the bite mark, don’t you?”
Hill’s head snapped to where I stood. “She wasn’t a werewolf yet, Joey. We could’ve tried saving her.”
My eyes drifted to the body on the floor.
The poor agent was pathetically hopeful. He rose with his shoulders back and arms loose at his sides. “Li’s reopened blood studies—”
“Transfusions?” I scoffed. Transfusions as a cure for lycanthropy and vampirism were as delusional as Dorothy’s trust in the wizard.
The victims were never strong enough. The science was never magical enough.
“That’s how you planned to fix that?” I gestured toward the body with my gun. “It’s a curse. Not a fucking disease.”
Hill didn’t shrink in the face of my objections. He’d probably heard them countless times before—from people not brainwashed by the Bureau’s bullshit.
“The full moon is in two days, Agent. She was going to change. And I could not let—”
All the strength in my hand disappeared, and my gun clanged on the floor. Hill’s head snapped toward the sound.
He looked up from the gun. “Are you okay?”
A searing pain shot up my arm, making stars dance before my eyes.
I thought I’d be able to hold back my scream, but it was too late. I was already crying.
Hill rushed to me right as I dropped to the floor. “What’s wrong, Joey? Hey, answer me. What’s wrong?”
“My… right… arm,” I stammered.
He pulled at the arm I cradled and pushed up my sleeve to scan for injuries.
“Joey, I don’t see anything.” He turned over my hand.
“Tell me where—” His words caught in his throat.
His fingers flew to the zipper at my collarbone and pulled it down.
He ignored my pleas and removed my jacket despite my screams.
It felt like the fabric had fused to my skin.
“Jesus,” Hill whispered.
Trying to catch a breath, I inhaled through my clenched teeth. I forced my eyes open and looked down.
Dark veins crawled underneath my skin, burning like venomous spiders. They traveled up my arm and across my clavicle, leading straight to where my heart throbbed.
“I’ve seen this before.” Hill glanced at the dead girl’s body before furrowing his brow. “You’ve violated your blood pact.”
My chest tightened as I swallowed another scream. The Moon Goddess was wrong—I didn’t break my fucking oath. But the searing pain coursing through my body didn’t end.
Hill’s eyes flicked to mine. “There’s nothing I can do, Joey. You have to wait it out.”
I stared at him through the tears. I was going to die. “But… Marcus,” I cried. “How long?” My heart pounded against my ribcage, threatening to rip through my chest.
Hill picked my jacket up from the floor and dusted it off. “Just be thankful it wasn’t Marcus on the receiving end of your bullet.”
His ominous words provided some conceptual relief, but none of it would’ve matter if the burning didn’t stop. Because the gun still had bullets, and I wasn’t afraid to use it—
“Hill,” Viper called, making me jump. “Backup’s on the way.”
She was standing by the werewolf I’d eliminated, and I hadn’t even heard her come in. I hadn’t heard… Malik come in.
He was standing between Viper and Hill with only streaks of blood on his otherwise cleaned-off face. But his eyes were wide and dark, as if he were ready to bathe in more.
Hill glanced over his shoulder at Malik as he helped me back into my jacket. “You two, get out of here. We’ll handle this.” He faced me, and his expression softened. “Can you stand?”
I nodded, and he helped me to my feet. Malik crept toward me and draped my arm around his neck. I hissed through the pain. He gave a head nod to Hill and Viper without saying a word.
We passed Tobias as he was covering the omega’s body with a tarp. But even then, Malik kept silent. And he remained so until he sat next to me in the driver’s seat of his car.
“Do you need help with your seatbelt?” he snapped, slamming his door.
I lowered my head to swipe a lingering tear from my cheek. “I got it.”
Malik grew tired of watching me struggle.
With a huff, he pulled the seat belt across my chest. He snapped it into place before choking all life from the steering wheel in front of him.
“Tell me Hill doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, Joey.
Tell me you did not form a blood oath with fucking werewolves. ”
I sighed, still cradling my arm, but relief creeped over me as the pain subsided with each passing second. “Or I can tell you the truth.”
Malik slammed down on the steering wheel, making me jump. “Have you lost your damn mind?” he barked.
The right words evaded my lips. I stared at the blood splatter ruining my yoga pants. “No one was supposed to find out.”
“Oh, that makes it so much better.” He pulled off his jacket and pelted it onto the back seat. “The very essence of our tattoo goes against what you did.”
“That’s not true. The bond is between me and Marcus. He’s our ally, you know that.”
“Then what did you do to piss off the bond, Joey? Besides getting rid of a bitch slightly more delusional than you?”
My ears burned. Malik had asked an acceptable question, and I didn’t have an answer.
“Marcus is fighting with us to end the uprising,” I said instead, voice strained.
Malik stared straight out the windshield, pulling at his goatee. “You couldn’t commit to us, but you throw your soul away for a fucking dog you’ve only known for a few weeks. Make it make sense, Joanna.”
He pressed the ignition button, and the car hummed to life. He closed his eyes to calm himself, allowing me the opportunity to study the way his face had turned red, sweat beading around his hairline.
My eyes stung. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t break up with me, Malik. You made me fall in love with you and then gave up on me the moment shit got hard.”
“You never loved me,” he declared, his eyes snapping to mine.
“You loved that I challenge authority. That I’m strong and don’t give a fuck that people hate me.
You loved that between hunts, I kept your bed warm—that you could fuck me instead of cry when we failed saving a human and not worry about me judging you. ”
He leaned in close, his eyes boring into mine with bitterness.
“We all have shit we’re dealing with, Joanna, and I was fine waiting until you decided you were ready to let yourself be happy.” Leaning back against his seat, he released a heavy breath. “But unlike that furry fuck, I would never trick you into choosing me the way I chose you.”
My mouth had grown dry. I shifted in my seat, turning to gaze out the passenger window so Malik wouldn’t see me blinking like an idiot. An apology sat heavy on my tongue as I peeled the layers of his… confession. He’d never been that honest with me, that vulnerable.
I thought he broke my heart… All the while, I’d broken his long before.
I massaged the last twinge of pain from my palm. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.
He chortled, flinging a loose loc out of his face. “Spare me, Little Red,” he sneered, shifting gears.
My heart beat a mile a minute. But this time, it wasn’t because of pain. My next move teetered on the brink of idiocy or genius, and only the result would reveal which it was.
“I think I need to tell you something.” I took a deep breath, steeling myself for his reaction.
And then I told Malik about the party.
◆◆◆
What do you mean ‘we’, Joanna? And why aren’t you answering your phone?
When I told Malik about the supermoon party the day before, we’d only just made it down the street before he forced the car to a stop. He hung on every detail, his brow twitching whenever I mentioned Latoya’s name. And when I first mentioned Silas, the vein in his forehead nearly burst.
Because the hunter I’m with will say something stupid, and you’ll probably try to kill him, Marcus.