CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.

I danced from foot to foot while Lucas found a waitress he could hand two twenties to before we left. I didn't care if he paid, I just needed to leave. Maybe Viktor had cracked, or maybe this dinner was a ruse to get me away from home-or maybe Grandfather'd discovered how to tap into cellular service and had had Gideon prank-call me. It could be a false alarm, but I doubted it.

Lucas caught up with me when I was halfway to his truck. We hopped inside. "Who's Gideon?"

"He's injured."

"It didn't sound like he told you that. I only heard a groan."

d.a.m.n weres and their good hearing. I tried to think of a way to explain Gideon's injuries. "He's handicapped."

"Oh. s.h.i.t." The truck hit the freeway, and Lucas pressed the gas.

The tires only lost traction twice, and Lucas's heavier truck found it again faster than my Chevy would have. He parked near my apartment, and together we ran toward my place. "Edie, I smell blood."

"Please-go." I didn't know what Lucas would find, but right now I didn't have anything to hide. In an instant, he ran ahead.

I stopped to wonder why he hadn't had to open my door when I reached it myself, already unlocked and open. I walked into my dark apartment. I heard movement in the darkness beyond.

"Gideon?" I stood in the short hallway. Hands grabbed me and pulled me sideways into my hall closet.

I tried to scream, but a hand covered my mouth, and I felt cold metal on my cheek. I made some noises, but nothing came through, my lips were pressed into someone's salty palm. I started thrashing, until I realized that whoever was holding me was only keeping me still. I calmed down and felt around with my hands, found skin that had wires braided in. The salt and cold resolved into something I knew-Gideon's hand.

I sagged with relief and he let me go.

"What happened?" I whispered. I could hear the struggles out in the apartment beyond. The red ON light of my webcam gleamed from Gideon's shoulder. I saw it bob as he shrugged, unable to tell me. We were beyond yes/no questions again.

There was a low animal sound from my living room. Then flesh hit flesh, and a wild squealing began. I cracked open the closet door and stepped out.

In the dim glow from the parking lot that seeped into my apartment, I could see Lucas wrestling with someone. I hit the hallway light switch, and something or someone in my living room hissed.

"Don't hurt her!" I cried out as I saw who.

Lucas had Veronica pinned. She was thrashing beneath him, muttering strange words, completely wild. He was strong this close to the moon, and she was weak, being newly made. But if she'd fed on whatever it was that'd made the bloodstain they were rolling in-she might have the advantage of him eventually. He would tire, and she didn't care if he died.

"Veronica. Veronica! Snap out of it!" I knelt down, snapping my fingers to get her to look at me. I didn't dare slap her; I'd get a hand full of teeth. "Veronica-you used to be Veronica. Don't you remember?"

"She's wild-we should-" Lucas said, pressing down on her even tighter.

"No!" My purse was in his truck, with my phone and Sike's number and my badge that might have helped. "Just try not to hurt her, okay? I'll be right back."

To get up I planted a hand into my carpeting, felt it stick in something dark and cold. I wiped it on my jeans as I ran for my open door.

A graceful female form appeared, blocking my path. She held a collar in one hand, a coat in the other. Sike.

"Well, this was unexpected." Sike picked her way in, stepping lightly around the bloodstains on the floor.

"Something you didn't plan for? Unlikely," I said, but thank goodness she was here. Maybe she would be able to make some sense of this mess. I willed myself not to dust off my bloodstained knees.

"Cross my heart and swear to die," Sike said, unconvincingly. She reached a hand out to Veronica, where Lucas still had her pinned to the floor. "Unhand my sister," she told Lucas, and he looked to me before responding.

"You know her?"

"Too well."

He released Veronica slowly, ready for her to pounce at him. Sike blocked her way.

"I'm from her. Shhh, now. I'm from her." Sike rubbed her hands over Veronica's head like she was petting a cat, and the newly born vampire responded like one, bending toward her. "They're all mad for a few nights," Sike said, by way of explanation. "It's quite the change, or so I've been told." She ran her hand through Veronica's short hair, kneading the other woman's neck. Sike brought Veronica's head to her chest, cooing at her as one might at a newborn child, and slipped the coat and collar on in one fluid motion, buckling the collar tight. "Smells like wolf in here," she said, and glared at Lucas.

"Not me," he said, rocking up to a stand. "It's why I rushed in." Lucas stepped and moved around Sike and Veronica, never showing them his back. Then he glanced into my kitchen. "And that would explain it."

I stood and followed. There was a man on my kitchen floor, shadowed by my counter. A white guy wearing a blue tracksuit with a hood. Gnawed. Dead. "Did you know him?" Lucas asked me.

"I've never seen him before in my life. Why is he here?" I hissed, trying not to sound hysterical.

"I don't know who he is, but I know what she fed on," Sike said, bringing Veronica up to a stand. She left bloodstained indentions on my carpet in the shape of her high heels, like tiny hoofprints. "We're going. Where's the gimp?"

I almost ran my hands through my hair, which would've carried blood and worse with them. "He's in the closet. But you can't take him if he doesn't want to go."

Lucas turned toward me with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't keep him in there. He was hiding there from her," I explained, realizing as I did so that it only made me sound more insane. "Gideon-" I called out, and he slid open my hall closet door.

He was wearing my bathrobe, the webcam looking out from where he'd cut a hole into the shoulder. And his fingers were still metal twigs, reclaimed from my toaster oven.

"What. Is. That," Lucas asked.

"Long story." I said. "Gideon-do you want to go with her?"

"What did you do to him?" Sike asked, looking him up and down.

I ignored her. "Gideon, it's up to you. Honest." I knew I wanted him to want to go with her, but I wouldn't send anyone with her who didn't want to go. Gideon turned to look at Sike. Then he nodded.

"All right then. Would all the circus freaks in the room please follow me?" Sike held Veronica up and began pulling the woman toward my door.

"Aren't you going to do anything about him?" I said, pointing toward my kitchen floor. My voice rose with each syllable. I was having to fight hard to keep it down.

"Not my problem. Ask your new boyfriend for help."

"Wait-what about what-" I looked from her to Lucas, not sure how much I should confide. "What about what I texted you about?"

Sike also glanced back in Lucas's direction. "I'll call you later." Then she escorted Veronica out the door. Gideon followed her, my bathrobe fluttering in the night.

I stood there, looking at a corpse in my kitchen and a bloodstain on my floor, with a man-no, werewolf-I hardly knew.

"Are you sure you don't know him?" Lucas asked. He leaned down and tossed the corpse for his wallet and keys, like someone familiar with the ch.o.r.e. He pulled the man's hoodie down so I could get a closer look.

I knelt down. "Still no idea who he is."

"I bet you have a strong stomach-but you might want to look away," Lucas warned. I didn't. He reached up, put his hand into the corpse's mouth, and yanked down on the jaw. I heard it pop as it dislocated, and then a wet snapping sound as tendons and muscles inside tore free. Once the jaw hung loose, he ran a finger along the teeth.

"What are you doing?"

"He has fillings. I don't. Weres don't get cavities-the moon heals all when you transform, even teeth. So he was made less than a moon ago."

"He's a were?"

"Was." Lucas touched the blood and then put it up to his nose. "I can't scent his pack, though. Which is strange."

Dren had said as much about the women who'd been chasing me. Lucas wiped the man's blood on his thigh. "This would have been his first moon, if he'd lived to see it." Lucas rocked up to his feet and offered me a gore-covered hand. "This violence is fresh. If you'd left dinner any sooner, or not come out at all-" He didn't have to finish his thought.

I looked around my kitchen. It was thrashed-not just the aftermath of a fight but completely tossed, high shelves emptied of their contents, a spout of flour from a torn bag still trickling white powder onto my floor. Lucas followed my gaze.

"He wasn't just out to get you. Clearly, you weren't hiding in your cabinets." He turned toward me. "What were you hiding in here?"

"Nothing," I said. It was even the truth.

There was a plaintive meow from my bedroom, and I ran back.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.

"Minnie?"

There was another sad meow, from behind my dresser. I walked over to it and crouched down. It'd been shoved away from the wall as whoever had tossed my room had looked behind it. Minnie was back there, wedged in, hiding and unhappy.

"Oh, Minnie-" If anything had happened to her, that'd be it. I'd be through.

Lucas followed behind me and whistled from my doorway at the mess. All the drawers were out of my dresser, my underwear and bras strewn across the floor. I a.s.sumed the were had done that-and it'd been Veronica who'd taken my closet door off its hinges when she'd woken up. I scruffed Minnie and pulled her out of hiding, holding her to my chest.

Lucas pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "You should pack. I'm calling you a cleaner."

"A cleaner's not going to cut this," I said, squeezing Minnie tight.

"My pack's cleaner. He understands. I'll be out there, measuring your carpet." Lucas tilted his head toward my living room and left the door.

I should have asked some questions, like Where are we going? or For how long? But I stumbled around my bedroom in a state of shock. The mattress of my bed was pushed sideways and knifed open, stuffing poking out, looking like subcutaneous fat pushing out of skin.

The dark wood box Anna's knife had been in was shattered into large splinters on my floor. The knife was still in my locker at work. That was the only thing I could imagine the were had been looking for. A vampire-thing. So much for Lucas's a.s.sertions that weres and vampires were completely distinct.

I almost tripped over Asher's silver bracelet. I picked it up, put it on, and went for my closet door-I had an overnight bag inside.

Minnie's cat carrier was at the top of my closet. I put her into it, grabbed enough clothing off my floor for overnight and walked out into my living room. Lucas was walking around my living room in a very precise way, sending multiple texts. I stood in the hallway, watching him pace.

"Minnie can come, right?"

"I'm not sure if Marguerite will approve."

And this would be when I found out he had a jealous werewolf girlfriend. "Who's that?"

"My cat." He glanced over at my disbelieving face. "What, you think werewolves can't have pets? Plenty of people have dogs and cats that live together." His phone chirped, and he looked at it before nodding to me. "My cleaner will be here soon. Leave the door open for him. Of course you can bring her. Let's go."

All the locks on the door were busted in. I had no choice but to leave it open. Me and Minnie followed Lucas out the front door, and we all got into his truck.

"Where are we going?" I asked, once I had Minnie's carrier settled on my lap.

"My place. Just for a while. My cleaner's fast." I was thinking about this, and maybe he took my silence for fear, as he continued. "You couldn't stay there. Not with all the blood."

"Yeah. I'd totally lose my deposit."

He snorted. We took a turn, and Minnie growled.

"I feel awful putting her through this." G.o.d only knew how long she'd been hiding behind my dresser.

"Doesn't it occur to you to be mad? Your vampire friend just got you into a lot of trouble."

"Yeah, only somehow all the things attacking me are weres."

"True." His hands wrung the steering wheel. It occurred to me that a vampire couldn't get into my place without permission, but a were could. Lucas went on. "He didn't smell like Viktor. Which doesn't mean Viktor's off the hook."

"No, it just means I don't really know who's attacking me," I said. He was silent after that.

The buildings outside pa.s.sed by like fence posts in the dark. After an uncomfortable silence, I spoke. "Won't you miss your fights tonight?"

"I've been there every night for the past two weeks. I think I can skip one."

Minnie's fear had subsided to a low growl by the time we got to Lucas's home. It was a huge, sprawling two-story-the kind of place you a.s.sumed would have a pool behind it, and it did, I realized, as we went up the driveway and around. There was a smaller home in the back, and when we got out of the truck, I realized that's where Lucas was leading us. I picked up the carrier and my overnight bag and followed him inside.

"My uncle is-was-a contractor. The main house is his. Helen lives there now, with Fenris Jr. This one is mine." He tossed his keys on the counter and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I have to make some more calls. You can take the first bedroom down the hall. There's a bathroom the next door past it, with a shower."