I hadn’t spent all that much time with him in his werewolf form, but neither had he. It was so new that it was impossible to predict how the creature would react in any given situation. I imagined that coming outside to find your sort-of-girlfriend unconscious in the arms of a romantic rival wasn’t ideal.
I felt arms scoop beneath me again and I was lifted off the ground. I was still feeling too weak to open my eyes but could detect that I was now inside a building as the artificial lights penetrated my eyelids. I was put down onto a horizontal surface and felt hands on my face, jarring me awake.
“I’m fine, I’m okay,” I complained. I started to sit up but felt restrained by an arm pushing me back down. I opened my eyes and saw that it was Brielle.
“Don’t rush,” she urged. “What happened out there?”
“I fainted, it’s not a big deal,” I said, batting her hands away and sitting up.
“What did he do to you?” Miller snarled. He was pacing the small doctor’s examination room with his arms folded. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were still adjusting, or if his stubble looked longer. His eyes were darker though, there was no mistaking that. I wasn’t sure if Miller was currently one hundred percent in his human form.
“Nothing, I just fainted, and he caught me. He’s the reason I didn’t hit my head on the ground, he’s a hero!” I said, lifting up my hands in a faux cheer. It didn’t seem that Miller was on board with singing Ryder’s praises, so I put my hands down. “Where is he now?”
“Gone, I… I asked him to leave,” Miller said.
“Asked? Or threatened?” I replied. Effie and Kate burst into the room before Miller could reply and were followed by a slow-moving Jeff who was shuffling through the doorway.
“Sadie! Are you okay? I heard you swooned into the arms of a dreamboat outside, is that right? Dang, how come you get all the stud action round here?” Kate laughed. “I would give my left arm to fall into the hands of the local eye candy. Maybe I should just start collapsing in random places around town, see who catches me.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound nuts at all,” Effie laughed. “Dude, if you start going full bunny-boiler on the guys round here then it reflects badly on me too. Men will assume I’m as high maintenance as my sister and then we will both die alone, casting spells in our house and knitting pajamas for cats.”
“Hello?” I said, waving my arms. “First off, you are both giving off a very ‘high maintenance’ energy, so you can hardly blame Kate,” I laughed. “Secondly, we are supposed to be dropping off an envelope full of cash in the next half an hour. We haven’t got time to sit around chit-chatting.”
Everyone looked up at the wall clock in Brielle’s office and then turned back to me. Miller’s eyes seemed to have returned to their original color and he was no longer growling under his breath. Jeff pulled an envelope out of his cardigan and waved it about in front of us, it was chunky as if stuffed full of money.
“I’m ready when you are,” Jeff sighed.
I jumped off the examination bed a little too enthusiastically and had to steady myself by grabbing onto Effie’s arm, a move that didn’t go unnoticed by Miller. What had Ryder been coming over to say? It felt as if the image of him was stuck in my mind and I couldn’t shake it loose. Kate was a mind reader, there was no way she didn’t know what I was imagining.
“Sadie, this is a bad idea,” Miller said.
“If we want to make any progress with this whole thing then we need to get to the bottom of the blackmailer,” I replied. “Someone is taking Jeff’s money; we have to put a stop to that.”
I summoned all the strength I could muster and marched out of the room; Miller so close behind I could smell his cologne. Effie and Kate were either side of Jeff like bookends, he seemed more than happy to listen to their rapid-fire anecdotes about the Furby adventures they’d had since the parcel arrived.
I wondered if Miller was so close in case I fainted again. It would be really bad luck to black out for a third time this week. At least I could blame the first one on that mystery gas cannister, I had no explanation for what had happened outside the doctor’s office.
I was sucking air hard as we hiked up the cliffside. Miller didn’t even look slightly out of breath, which was annoying, I didn’t have as much experience walking around the islands as he did. I wished that I had Kate’s ability to read minds, even just for a second, so that I could know what Miller was thinking.
“What is the usual procedure?” Miller asked Jeff once we got to the cliff top.
“I shimmy down the path there,” Jeff said, pointing to a jagged ledge barely wide enough for a squirrel. “Drop the envelope in the alcove bit of the rock, then get out of sight as quickly as I can. It isn’t quite as narrow as it looks, Sadie dear.”
He could clearly read the look of utter horror on my face at the thought of it.
“I think we do everything as normal,” Miller announced. “Jeff makes the drop and leaves, then we hide in wait. We are still early enough that this could work.”
“If you say so,” I winced. My eyebrows were almost touching my hairline in disbelief, my confidence had been lost at some point between the
