Hit List

She frowned, and then nodded.

I held her hand tight for another moment, then let go and gave her the stern look she needed. “Then get up, get dressed, get your gear, and let’s go catch the bastard.”

“I can’t . . .”

“You were stabbed four times, but thanks to the lycanthropy you’re well. Hospital beds are for sick people; you’re not sick. Get the fuck up, get dressed, and help us catch the monster that tried to kill you.”

She looked startled.

Mr. Karlton behind me said, “Language,” as if it were automatic.

I didn’t apologize, as earlier had been about him and Socrates, and now was about Laila and me. “Do you want to catch the guy that did this to you?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice a little breathy.

“Then get up and let’s do it.”

She looked at me, startled almost, and then the ghost of a smile touched her face. “You mean it?”

“Hell yes, I mean it. Get dressed, we’ve got bad guys to catch.”

She grinned at me, sudden and wonderful with the tears still wet on her cheeks. Robert caught my attention across the bed, still holding his sister’s hand. He mouthed, Thank you.

Some days it’s not about catching the bad guys. Some days it’s about helping the good guys feel better. It had taken me a few years to realize that the second part of the job was every bit as important as the first.

31

SOCRATES STAYED WITH Laila to explain to her and her family what it might mean for her to be a werewolf. I went to get her clean clothes from the motel. Nicky was at my back and we were within sight of the big outer doors when someone called, “Anita.” I knew that voice.

“Damn it,” I said under my breath, and turned around to see Olaf. He was striding toward me with Bernardo hurrying to catch up. There probably weren’t many people that made six-foot-one Bernardo have to trot to keep up. The nurses watched Bernardo openly, admiring the view as he went past. They watched Olaf with sideways eye flicks, as if afraid to stare. Some of the looks were nervous—he was a very big guy—and some were the kind a woman gives an attractive man, just a little less bold than with Bernardo, as if even though they had no words for it, they sensed something different about Olaf. If they only knew his idea of sex, they’d have been running the other way, but like most serial killers he didn’t look like a monster most of the time. He had that predator energy toned way down as he came toward us. He also had a bright blue wrist cast on his right arm. Fuck.

Nicky and Lisandro moved to either side of me, and a little ahead. It was to give us all room to maneuver and to put them first in line if it was a fight. They were my bodyguards in their day jobs, but hiding behind Edward was one thing; hiding behind anyone else might be enough to make Olaf put me in the girl box, and once he thought of me as just another girl who needed men to protect her, I would become just another potential victim in his eyes.

I did what I had to do: I stepped in front of them. Nicky didn’t argue, just stepped back and let me lead. Domino hesitated, but with Nicky moved back, I was up even with him, so it was good enough. I wasn’t cowering behind either of them.

But Lisandro saw what I’d done, and he gave me that extra step in front. He and Nicky were secure in their manhood; they’d let me stand in front, because neither of them had anything left to prove to anyone. I liked that about both of them.

I wasn’t so sure of the big man standing in front of us. He should have been as secure as they were, but he wasn’t. It wasn’t just being a shapeshifter that made them secure, or Olaf insecure. I stood there staring at the big man, and knew if he’d really been my friend there were questions I’d have asked him, but we weren’t friends. Real friends trust that you won’t kidnap, torture, and rape them, and I really didn’t know that about Olaf. It put a real crimp in the idea of being buddies with him.

Bernardo had caught up, and said, his words a little too fast, “Is someone else in the hospital?” He was standing so he faced us both but was still vaguely in the middle of us, without actually crossing that line.

“We’re here visiting Marshal Karlton,” I said, but kept my attention on Olaf.

“The one that’s got lycanthropy,” Bernardo said.

“Yeah,” I said.

Olaf just stared at me with those dark deep-set eyes like two caves in his face, with a glimmer in his eyes like a distant light in the dark.

“How’s she dealing with losing her badge?” Bernardo asked, and there was a hint that he really cared about that question.

All the preternatural branch marshals lived with the idea that we could be next. When you hunted shapeshifters, death was just one of the things you risked.

“They can’t technically take her badge yet,” I said.

Bernardo frowned. “Most marshals give it up when they come back positive.”

“But they don’t have to,” I said.

It was Olaf who said, “You told her to come hunting with us.” His voice was lower than normal, a rumbling in his chest, as if some emotion were dragging his voice down.

“Yep,” I said, and fought the urge to put my hand nearer any of my weapons. He hadn’t done a damn thing to threaten me. He was just standing there, looking at me. For him, it wasn’t even a bad look, just intense.

“I do not want another woman on this hunt, only you.”

“It’s not your call who comes. The warrants are mine and Edward’s. He’s got Newman with him now.”

“The boy has to learn,” Olaf said, “but the girl will be a werewolf in a month’s time. Training her is a waste of effort.”

He was right, as far as it went. “She needs this, Otto,” I said, remembering just in time that his official name was Otto Jefferies. Marshal Otto Jefferies.

“She will slow us down,” he said. He kept staring at me, but it was eye contact. I couldn’t accuse him of staring at my breasts or anything. I normally like eye contact, I give great eye contact, but there was something about Olaf’s attention that made holding his gaze feel like work, as if his eyes were weight that I had to hold up just to stay standing there. If he’d been a vampire I’d have accused him of doing some vampire mind shit that I hadn’t heard of, but it wasn’t that. It was just him. Just the weight of his personality and our growing shared history. Shit.

“Maybe, but she’s still coming.”

“Why?” he asked, and I think it was a real question. A real attempt to understand what I was doing and why, so it deserved a real answer.

“This has really shaken her confidence, and she feels like a monster already. Her father wouldn’t even touch her hand, as if just that would contaminate him.” I shook my head and didn’t try to keep the anger off my face.

“Why do you care about her? She is a stranger to you.”

“I’m not sure I can explain it to you,” I said.

“Once I would have thought you meant I was too stupid to understand, but I know you do not think me stupid.”

“No,” I said, “I never think that.”

“Then explain to me why you care.”

“We’re supposed to take care of each other, Otto.” I spread my hands wide, almost a shrug, showing that I just didn’t know how to say it better than that.

“If they are an asset in the field, you want them healthy so they can give you backup. That is common sense, but the new marshal will not be helpful. She is traumatized, and that slows most people down. She will make bad decisions.”

“You don’t know that,” I said.

He gave an arrogant smile. “I do know that.”

“You don’t know Karlton. You don’t what she’ll be like in the field now.”