Cipher

helplessly on the ground, a husk of a body with a mind that would never be whole again. Dead, except for the technicalities.

“Patrick, could I use your gun? Mine’s too loud.”

Silence, until Andrew rasped, “Give her the gun or do it yourself, McNamara.”

Patrick moved toward her. Wary, slow, his eyes filled with worry and, almost worse, a quiet assessment. Alec had done that endlessly in the first days after she’d shredded through Andrew’s attackers. Watched her the same way he’d watched Julio upon his arrival, studying him for strengths and weaknesses, quantifying his usefulness—and his danger.

Living through it once had been enough. Kat quietly slipped the others free of her shields and retreated into herself until she’d have time to rebuild them properly. Then she held out a hand.

“Kat…” Patrick almost sounded pained. “You don’t have to—”

“I already did.” She kept her hand out until Patrick reluctantly handed over one of his guns. Letting him finish what she’d started wouldn’t wash the blood from her hands. Nothing would.

No, this she deserved to feel. Every gut-wrenching moment of it, a suitable punishment—and a necessary reminder.

So she took careful aim and ended Gilbert’s suffering with a bullet between the eyes.

The gun didn’t make a sound. Neither did Gilbert’s head, really, or if it did, she couldn’t hear it over the pounding in her ears. It seemed wrong, somehow, like a human life shouldn’t be that easily extinguished. It should be louder. More horrifying.

God, it was quiet. So quiet that Kat wanted to hug Anna when she spoke, if only for breaking the silence. “I know a guy, a cleaner. I can call him.”

“The party might not be over,” Miguel interjected. “There was someone else in the woods. A lookout, I guess. Definitely not really there.”

Andrew sighed wearily. “Astral projection?”

“That’d be my guess.”

“Then we need to get gone.” He rose to his full height. “Kat and I will take the collar and head back.

Can the rest of you stay until Anna’s guy shows up to take care of the mess?”

No one protested. Patrick took his gun back with a shallow smile and tucked it into its holster, then turned to say something to Anna, as if the matter was already settled. Maybe they all had faith that she and Andrew could handle any threat.

Maybe none of them wanted to climb into a car with her.

Kat pushed the thought away and moved to retrieve the box. With the metal lid torn, it was easy to open, to lift the collar and charm and clutch them in her numb fingers. Adrenaline had faded, leaving the night chilly for a shapeshifter and damn near freezing for her. “I’m ready to go,” she told Andrew, unwilling to lift her gaze higher than his chin.

He didn’t speak. Instead, he picked her up and walked toward the SUV.

It was stupid, and weak, and she let him do it. She let him do it because it gave her the chance to close her eyes and rebuild her mental protections. Andrew was there, his faint relief drowned in worry, but she resisted the urge to build her shields around him. To cling to him as a distraction from her own thoughts.

She wrapped herself in layer after layer of icy steel, until her fortifications were solid. Until her mind was her own.

Not a pretty place to be. Gilbert’s last seconds replayed over and over again, the terror in his animal noises, the utter vacancy of his eyes. She knew suffering. She’d felt it a hundred times, a thousand times, all the ways humans could hurt themselves and each other. With all the pain in the world, the last thing she should do was add to it.

But she’d made her choice. Not the first time, either. The last time had been to protect Andrew, and the aftermath felt burned into the back of her eyes in jolting, overlapping memories. Nick driving her away from the city. Jackson trying to talk her down. Andrew’s blood had been everywhere, on her dress, in her hair.

Last time, he’d damn near died under her hands. This time he was whole. Strong and unshaken. So she found it painfully amusing that her body reacted in the same way. When Andrew set her down, she barely had time to shove the collar into his hands before she staggered two steps away and threw up everything she’d eaten that day.

At least she hadn’t puked on Anna’s pretty silver sports car.

Chapter Twelve

He’d almost gotten her killed.

No, that wasn’t fair or quite right. It wasn’t strictly his fault she’d almost been kidnapped, stolen away to serve whatever heinous uses this goddamned cult had dreamed up. Not his fault, but he was responsible.

It probably wasn’t what Alec had in mind when he’d told him to step up to the plate.

Andrew kept his attention strictly on the road. He had to make sure they weren’t followed, that they had a fighting chance of making it to Michelle before the cult caught up with them. But driving in silence afforded him the advantage of hiding—his fear, worry and, most of all, his self-recrimination. Kat wouldn’t have it. She’d chalk it up to guilt and tell him to knock it off.

Maybe someday he would.

The drive back to New Orleans was desolate, a never-ending exchange of one two-lane road after another, followed by interminable stretches of interstate. Through it all, he pushed down worry in favor of focus. There’d never been anything he couldn’t do if he tried hard enough, and this was one more thing on the list: keep Kat safe and destroy the collar. He could do it because he had to, because the alternatives were unthinkable.

He headed home, toward the building he shared with Julio, the official base of their council operations now. Home was also work, though it still seemed odd to think of it that way.

No wonder he’d let the alpha-bastard shit take over his life.

He drove slowly down the street toward the building, hesitating when he saw a familiar truck. “Are Jackson and Mac back in town?”

“No, they’re still in Colo—shit.” She sat up straighter and smoothed a nervous hand over her hair.

“Alec called Jackson. He must have.”

“The question is when.” Not that it mattered, and this was a million times better anyway. “You think Jackson can get rid of this thing for us?”

“Maybe.” Her smile looked tired and feeble. “After he’s done yelling at me for not calling him.”

“Yelling at us, you mean.”

“He might take pity on you, mostly because Mackenzie won’t.” Kat shot Andrew a look that was almost sympathetic as she reached for the door handle. “Manly shapeshifters who don’t ask for help make her cranky.”

As it turned out, they both looked cranky. When Andrew and Kat walked in, Jackson met them near the door with his arms crossed over his chest. “You two having a nice night?”

Kat’s spine stiffened as a shred of life returned to her otherwise exhausted face. “Swell. I thought you were still out west.”

“We were, until we got wind of a crazy party no one bothered to invite us to.”

“There wasn’t time.” Though the truth of the words was undeniable, Andrew couldn’t keep the apology from his voice. “God knows, we could have used you out there.”

Some of Jackson’s anger faded into obvious concern. “What’s going on? You may as well tell me.”

So Kat did, laying it out without embellishment or emotion, though she seemed willing enough to gloss over the fact that she’d been shot. Throughout the explanation, Mackenzie’s gaze kept flicking to Andrew, her face growing increasingly worried with every word.

When Kat finished, Jackson ground his teeth and shook his head. “I don’t even have time to yell at you.