The rest were just savages, beasts who stalked the human race like lions on the veldt or hunted in packs along the fringes of civilization. Except sometimes they didn't stay on the fringes. A bold pack of Prowlers hunting in the city had kil ed Artie and Kate Nordling, one of Mol y's best friends, as wel as a bunch of other people. The authorities had final y caught up with them, and Mol y and her friend Jack Dwyer had taken down their leader while the police dealt with the others.
But there were more out there. No one knew how many, but it was clear that they existed, scattershot, al over the world, in ones and twos and packs of various sizes. Mol y shuddered at the thought of what might happen someday if they were al brought together. Their knowledge of the Prowlers had put both her and Jack on edge, made them suspicious of everything and everyone.
Jack. He was the other reason she did not know how to react to Tim Dunphy's flirting. Al through the horrors back in April, Jack had been at Mol y's side. He had been Artie's best friend since the two of them were very young, and he was the one who had first discovered the truth about the Prowlers. For her safety, Jack and his older sister Courtney, who owned the pub with him, had invited Mol y to live with them and work there.
For safety, she had agreed. Once she was there, even after the crisis was over, Mol y was not about to go home to her drunken, abusive mother and their filthy apartment in Dorchester.
She only had six weeks left to go now before she started classes at Yale in the fal . Not a lot of time, and she wanted to spend it with Jack and Courtney.
She had to wonder if she didn't real y just want to spend that time with Jack. Even wondering fil ed her with horrible guilt. Just a few months earlier her boyfriend had been murdered, and now she felt . . . something, at least, for his best friend. But she could not help it. Jack was her best friend, now. No one had ever known her so wel . Not even Artie.
Which didn't help al eviate her guilt at al .
"Miss?"
Mol y blinked, stopped too quickly and only just managed to keep from letting the dinner tray topple from its perch atop her fingers. She frowned as she glanced at the woman in the booth who had cal ed out to her. Then realization dawned, and Mol y offered an apologetic, self-deprecating grin. The order she was carrying belonged to the three women at that table.
"I'm sorry," she said earnestly as she slipped the plates one by one onto the table. "Just a little preoccupied, I guess."
"No harm done," a diminutive blond piped up from across the booth. "As long as we al get what we ordered. I'm starved."
The other women chuckled, and Mol y joined in.
As she slid the last of the dishes onto the table, she happened to glance over at the bar area. A smal cluster of locals sat at one end, eyes glued to whatever sporting event was on the TV bolted to the wal behind the bar. A few empty stools down from them, however, there sat a man, alone.
Staring at her.
With a quick intake of breath that whistled through her teeth, Mol y turned her attention back to her customers. She forced a smile, al the while feeling the stranger's eyes boring into her from behind.
"Can I get you ladies anything else?" she asked.
One of them asked for an iced tea, but the others practical y ignored Mol y as they dug into their dinners. When she turned around, her gaze ticked involuntarily back to the bar again. The man wore blue jeans and black boots, and a stylishly tight powder-blue T-shirt stretched over a broad, muscular chest. One of his biceps bore a tattoo she could not make out at this distance. His hair was too long and his chin bore several days stubble.
He would have been strikingly handsome if he didn't look so mean, if his eyes didn't burn as he stared at her with a hunger that was almost . . . predatory.
Oh my God, Mol y thought, heart skipping a beat. A horrible thought occurred to her.
Panicked, she glanced anxiously around the pub until she spotted Jack talking to the hostess up front. She dangled the large, round tray at her side as she made a beeline across the restaurant for him. When Courtney was not around, Jack was in charge. But even if his older sister had been there, Mol y would have gone to Jack instead.
When he saw her striding toward him, Jack's conversation faltered.
"Mol y, what is it?" he asked.
Her gaze flicked toward Wendy, who instantly got the message and returned to the tal desk the hostess used to take reservations and assign seating.
Mol y purposely positioned herself in the line of sight between Jack and the man - the predator - at the bar. "Don't look right away," she warned him. "There's a man sitting by himself up at the bar who looks a little like a TV star or something. He's staring at me."
A smal smile twitched at the corners of Jack's mouth. "Can you blame him?"
She grimaced. "Not in a good way, Jack. I get a vibe off him. I can't help wondering if he's
