Priscilla raised an eyebrow. “Say that again?”
“You’re probably right,” Melanie repeated. “If this is gonna help us have a fair shot of getting Cora back safely, then I should volunteer.”
Ignoring the rest of her statement, Priscilla said, “Can I get you to repeat that first part again, only this time in writing?”
Melanie groaned loudly. “Nobody thinks you’re funny, Priscilla.”
“Cora thinks I’m hilarious, actually.”
“Cora also thinks wearing socks with sandals is okay.”
Dana cleared her throat and interjected. “Can we maybe not joke about Cora until we know she’s okay?”
“She’s gonna be fine, because I’m turning myself over,” Melanie said.
“Not this again,” Dana said sternly.
“There’s no other option. We can take as many silver objects as we want, but all we’re gonna do is get our asses kicked. Until a day ago, half of you didn’t know or care about me. But you do care about Cora. It’s a fair trade.”
“Stop,” Dana said pitifully. She sounded genuinely hurt by Melanie’s rant. It was fairly obvious to everyone else, but it never occurred to me that she might have a crush on her. Poor Dana, though. Melanie was straight, as far as I knew.
“You got a better plan?” Melanie asked. “Come up with one, and we’ll go with it.”
The two stared each other down for almost a whole ten seconds without saying a word. The only thing that developed was a layer of tears over Dana’s eyes. She was hurt, and before she burst into tears in front of us all, she stormed off. As she got to the top of the stairs, Melanie groaned and called, “Dana!” Dana didn’t respond, and ran into a room and slammed the door shut.
Dana was overly sensitive, but she still hated it when people saw her cry. She talked about how embarrassing it was because her face flushed and her nose ran. Poor kid was too emotional for her own good.
Melanie took a few steps out of the living room and headed after Dana up the stairs, but Max stopped her. “Don’t worry about her,” he said. “She’ll be fine. We gotta stay focused.” Melanie immediately stopped in her tracks and then returned to our circle. I think she really wanted to talk to Dana but knew Cora’s life was currently the bigger problem.
It was strange. I’d swear Melanie actually returned her feelings. While it may have seemed out of left field, it would at least be an improvement over the last person she was into, who was the actual swine of the earth, Travis. I did not miss that buffoon one bit. Normally, it’s not the best idea to wish death on someone, but that parasite had it coming. Him, and Kat. I’d never see them as anything but literal scum for what they did to Kerry.
Max picked up the conversation as if Dana’s outburst never interrupted them. “You’re not turning yourself over to this guy, Melanie. At least not permanently.”
“Is that a plan I smell?” I asked.
“One thrown together in twenty seconds with a 50/50 shot of working, yeah.”
“You should be an admiral,” Priscilla joked.
Max groaned and did his best to continue, despite his irritants with Priscilla. “We’re only going to let him think he’s got you,” he said to Melanie.
“What?” Melanie asked. “How in the hell do we trick him into thinking he’s got me?” I was glad she said it because that’s exactly what I was wondering. He either had her or he didn’t. There wasn’t much wiggle room.
“We do the trade, we get Cora someplace safe…and then we fight.”
It looked like someone had let the air out of Melanie’s tires, because her entire body dropped and her face grew grim. “We’ll all die,” she said.
Max shook his head. “No. We won’t.” He was defiant and confident. I didn’t know about the rest of them, but I believed him. If he said we would fight and win, I felt like we would. “We’re werewolves,” Max said as his eyes flickered over to me. “We created them and we can end them.”
A hush took over our circle. No one wanted to argue against him.
“Priscilla, you’re gonna be in charge of the silver,” Max said.
Her eyes widened. “Why the human?”
“Because you’re human. Over half of us here are better off going against them outside of our regular form, which leaves Melanie who can’t touch anything in front of us without getting hurt. Moral of the story is, the rest of us can fight in ways that you can’t.”
“Ever heard of gloves?” She ignored almost his entire speech and focused on that minor detail instead.
Max let out a heavy breath. “You’ll need this silver to have a shot of surviving.”
Priscilla leaned in close to me and whispered, “Doesn’t inspire much hope, does he?”
“He’s right,” I whispered back to her. “You’re an easy target because you’re human, but they’re not gonna want to mess with silver.”
“Melanie just held it in her hand and was fine.”
“She said it was like being burned. Imagine that inside your chest, your head, your stomach.”
Priscilla thought on it and then nodded. “Okay, I get it.”
“Now, Melanie, you said he showed you this place, right?” Max asked.
Melanie folded her arms and answered, “Only in my mind. Mostly how to get there and what the exterior looks like.”
“Is there any hidden way we can get onto the property?”
She shrugged. “It’s mostly gated off with everything in the backyard. There’s hedge mazes and some kind of cemetery, but I don’t think it leads off the property. You gotta come through the front.”
Max was disappointed, but not deterred. “Then we’ll go through the entrance.”
I felt for the guy. If this went wrong, his girlfriend could die. Or, the family she trusted him with could die and that could tear a hole in
