Kitty and the Midnight Hour

We pulled up in front of Meg and Carl's house. He got off. I stayed on. I didn't want to do this.

T.J. crossed his arms. 'This was your idea, remember?'

'He's gonna kill me.'

'Come on.' He grabbed me behind the neck and pulled. I stumbled off the bike and let him guide me up the driveway, like I was some kind of truant.

He opened the front door and maneuvered me inside.

Carl and Meg were in the kitchen, parked at the breakfast bar like they'd been waiting for us. T.J. had probably called ahead. Meg had been leaning with her elbows on the countertop; Carl had his back to the counter. Both of them straightened. With them in front of me and T.J. behind me, I suddenly felt like I was at a tribunal. I shrugged away from T.J.'s hand. The least I could do was stand on my own feet.

Carl stood before me with his arms crossed, glaring down at me. 'You haven't quit the show. What do you have to say for yourself?'

I thought I'd finished with that when I moved out of my parents' house. I shrugged. 'I got a raise.'

He cocked his hand back to strike, and I ducked. We both froze midmotion. He stood with his fist in the air, and I bowed my back, my knees ready to give, cowering. Then he relaxed, and I did the same, straightening slowly, waiting for him to change his mind and hit me anyway.

This was so fucked up. But all Wolf wanted to do was put her tail between her legs and whine until he told us he loved us again.

His hands opened and closed into fists at his side. 'Can't you say anything without trying to get a rise out of people?'

'No.'

Carl moved away to stalk up and down the length of the kitchen. Meg, arms crossed, glared at me. I cringed and tried to look contrite, but she wasn't having it.

Nothing to do but plow ahead, now that I was here. What was it some weird philosophy professor had said to me once? What's the worst thing that can happen? You'll die. And we don't know that's bad…

Ah, so that was why I'd changed my major to English.

I wasn't here to talk about me. 'The police came to talk to me—'

'What?' T.J. said, gripping my shoulder. Carl and Meg both moved toward me.

I ducked and turned, getting away from T.J.'s grasp and fleeing to the living room, putting the sofa between them and me.

'Just listen. You have to listen to me, dammit!' The sofa wasn't discouraging them. T.J. was coming around it from one side, Meg from the other. Carl looked like he was planning on going straight over. I backed against the wall, wondering if I could jump over him.

I had to talk fast. 'A detective called me. They've got a serial killer—mauling deaths. At first they thought it was an animal, a feral dog or something. But now they think it's one of us. They asked me for help. They—they took me to a crime scene today.' My breathing came fast. Talking about it, I remembered the scene, what it looked like, the way it smelled. The memory was doing something to me, waking that other part of me. My skin was hot; I rubbed my face. 'I saw the body. I smelled it… I know… they're right. It's a werewolf, but I didn't recognize him. There's—it's a rogue, in our… in your territory.'

Pressed against the wall, I slid to the floor, holding my face in my hands. I couldn't talk anymore. I remembered the smell, and it was making me sick. Wolf remembered, and it woke her up. Made her hungry. I held on to the feeling of my limbs, my human limbs and the shape of my body.

Then T.J. was kneeling beside me, putting his arms around me, lending me his strength. 'Keep it together,' he whispered into my hair. 'That's a girl.'

I hugged him as hard as I could. I settled down somehow, until I was calm enough to breathe normally, and I didn't feel like I was going to burst my skin anymore.

T.J. let me pull away from him. I huddled miserably on the floor. Carl looked like he was going to march over to me. Meg held him back, touching his arm. She stared at me, like she'd never seen me before.

'Why did you agree to talk to them?' she said.

'Don't you think it would have looked a little suspicious if I'd told them to fuck off?'

'What could they have done about it if you had?'

'I couldn't do that. I've got a reputation—'

'That's your problem.'

I ran a hand over my hair, which was coming out of its braid and needed washing. This wasn't getting anywhere. How did I word this without seeming like I was questioning them, or ordering them around? 'The pack should take care of this, shouldn't it?'

Carl glared. 'If there was a rogue in town, don't you think I'd know about it?'

'I don't know. Maybe he's got a good hiding place. I mean, if you knew about him, he wouldn't be a rogue.'

Meg blocked my exit around that end of the sofa. 'You told them it was a werewolf that did this? You told them that was what you smelled?'

'Yeah.'

Her shoulders were bunched, like hackles rising. She wasn't being the good cop anymore. 'You should have lied. You should have told them you didn't know what it was.'

Easy for her to say. I didn't lie well. Especially to cops. 'They have tests for that kind of thing now. They would have found out eventually. I'm lucky they're not assuming that I did it.'

'You're an easy target,' Carl said, turning on me. 'How many times do I have to tell you to quit the show?'

'Two hundred markets,' I countered, raising an eye-brow. I could almost see him working out the math of how much money that was.

T.J. said to Carl, 'If there's a rogue in town killing people, the cops can't handle it. We have to. If we don't want them paying more attention to us, we have to make the problem go away.'

That was exactly what I'd been trying to say. I owed him a steak dinner.

I said, 'This detective knows just enough to identify the problem, but not enough to do anything about it. T.J.'s right.'

Carl paced, back and forth, back and forth, like he was caged. His jaw was tight. 'Do you know anything else about this rogue besides how he smells?'

'No,' I said.

T.J. said, 'We could go looking. Find out where these deaths have happened. If he's marking a territory, we'll find him. I could do it on my own if you want—'

Meg said, 'You're wrong. There's no rogue.'

Of course she'd side with Carl. She kept glaring at me, and I didn't like the look in her eyes: cold, predatory.

'We have to do something,' I said, ignoring Meg at my peril.

'Nobody's going to do anything until I say so,' Carl said.

'When is that going to be?' T.J. crouched like he was getting ready to pounce.

Carl glared. 'When I say so.'

'And in the meantime he kills again.'

Glaring down at him, Carl stepped close to T.J. His fists tightened. 'Are you challenging me?'

For a minute I thought it was going to happen, right then and there. It wouldn't take much for an argument between an alpha male and his second to degenerate into an all-out fight. That was part of why T.J. sided with Carl most of the time. The least little dissension could be misinterpreted.

When T.J. didn't back down, but met Carl's gaze without flinching, I thought they would fight. Then T.J. slumped, his back bowing and his head drooping.

'No,' he said.

Carl tipped his chin up with the victory. 'Then it's settled. We wait. This is my pack, my territory. I'll take care of it.' He grabbed my shirt and hauled me to my feet. 'And you will not talk to the police again.'