She walked out of the bathroom to see Tanner sitting on the couch, flipping through the channels. His hair was still damp from the shower, and he was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt.
“Why do you keep watching that stuff?” she asked. “You know it’s only going to make you mad.”
“I’m hoping to hear something about Cam.”
He continued flipping through channels, ignoring the ones that were talking about him, Spencer, Diaz, or Clayne. There’d been more than enough news coverage on them, and Zarina could understand why Tanner didn’t want to hear any more of it. Most of the media outlets were making him and the others out to be monsters, even after the details of what Ryan and the Asian gang had done with their fighting cage had come out. Few seemed to care that Ryan had been the real monster. They only wanted to talk about the guys with the claws and fangs.
That was why they were hiding out in this hotel an hour north of Seattle. Right after the raid, they’d talked about crossing the border into Canada, but they’d decided to stay where they were for the time being so she could be close to help Bryce and Spencer, and Tanner could keep up with what was going on with Cam. Both of them had been hoping all this would blow over, but it looked like things were getting worse.
Zarina sat down on the couch beside Tanner, praying they wouldn’t see anything about Cam but knowing they almost certainly would. Cam’s part in the raid, as well as Tate’s and Chase’s, had already come out. They hadn’t received the same attention as Tanner and the others, but the press kept poking around and found out that Cam was Tanner’s brother. Then the digging had really started.
She tensed as Tanner stopped on a local channel showing a photo of his brother in his Seattle PD uniform. A moment later, they showed a video clip from earlier that morning of Cam walking out of the police station as cameras flashed in his face, reporters shoving and jostling to get a word from him.
“Damn,” Tanner muttered, sinking back on the couch, his shoulders slouching like the weight of the world was on them. “I knew it was going to be bad, but I’d hoped he could somehow avoid being suspended.”
She rested her arm on the back of the couch and ran her fingers through his thick hair. “Cam knew what he was getting into when he decided to help us. I can guarantee he doesn’t regret his decision for a second.”
Tanner looked at her doubtfully. “Maybe. But what about Chase? It’s one thing for my brother to destroy his career for me, but a cop from Maine who I’d never even met before? You don’t think he regrets his decision to come out here to Washington and get involved in this crap?”
Zarina sighed. Tanner had blamed himself for everything that had happened at The Cage since they’d gotten to the hotel, which was stupid. None of it was his fault.
“Give Chase some credit, Tanner. He came to help because Tate asked him to. Once a person learns about shifters and hybrids and how the world really works, it’s difficult for them to go back to their old lives. When he and Tate left a few days ago, he didn’t seem the least bit upset. In fact, I get the feeling he’d been looking for a change anyway. I have no doubt we’ll be seeing him working at the DCO soon.”
“Okay, maybe so. How about Diaz then? Do you think the DCO is going to be able to hide him now that the army knows he’s a shifter?”
Zarina winced. That one was going to be tougher. While Spencer and the preppers had slipped back into their mountain camp, and Clayne, Danica, Tate, and Chase had all disappeared to some safe house in the middle of nowhere, Diaz had gone back to Fort Campbell to accept whatever the army was going to throw at him. She liked to think the DCO would be able to cover it up, but she didn’t know for sure. The knowledge that there were shifters like Diaz in the world was already bringing out a lot of ugliness in people. Zarina had no idea where it was going to end.
“Somehow, Diaz is going to be okay,” she told Tanner. “Landon and Ivy aren’t going to abandon him, even if they have to go break the guy out of a military prison. And if Landon decides he needs our help to do it, that’s what we’ll do. Because that’s what they did for us.”
Tanner wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, pressing a kiss to her hair. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
She laughed. “No, but feel free to keep telling me. I’m sure it will sink in at some point.”
He grinned, but his amusement quickly faded. “Okay, let’s assume you’re right and that Cam and everyone else will make it out of this okay. What about us? I know you want to stay close to Wenatchee in case Bryce or Spencer have a setback, but we can’t stay here forever.”
He was right. The longer they stayed at the hotel, the greater the odds were that someone would figure out Tanner was here. Bryce and Spencer were both doing fine, so there was really no need to stay. Bryce was currently in a nearby hospital under a fake name, recovering from the gunshot wounds he’d sustained, while Spencer had awakened this morning. Zarina wouldn’t be sure until she got a sample of his DNA into a lab, but from everything Lillie told her when she’d
