My phone dings, and I grapple with it, seeing an incoming message from Gideon.
My mom thinks we are ducking
fucking*
Come again?
Lol that’s EXACTLY what she thinks is going on
Be serious. Why would she think that?
I am. She’s always thought we had a thing.
That look she gave us after your face was all sexed up healthy… she thinks she knows what’s going on. That’s why she didn’t ask.
Every time we come home, some crazy shit happens
It’s OK. Mom doesn’t care
Don’t you?
Care? Not as much as you do apparently.
Dude
You’re such a prude
We can talk more tomorrow. I want to go home to our girl. Leave by 7a?
Sure thing
That’s just wonderful.
My mind races, anxiety pressing against my lungs.
Now the woman who is the closest thing I have to a real mom thinks I'm in a sexual relationship with her only child. I can only imagine what my father would say if Sarah shared her theory.
Things are already tangled enough, but I can’t help feeling like this mess is just getting started. After thrashing around in the sheets for what feels like hours, I fall into an uneasy sleep. Even as I drift off, I’m mindful of the nightmares all around me.
Thank the gods none of them know Sheena exists.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
QUAID
Istare at the ashes of what used to be a barn and consider stomping through the mess. After weeks of hunting, we finally closed in on a truly vile group of shifters, only to find someone else got to them first. Now we’re at a literal dead end. The few bones that survived the fire are too badly damaged to be of any use to my trackers.
An ugly suspicion swirls low in my stomach.
This was no accident.
While some of the dry grass around the perimeter is scorched, someone obviously went to a lot of trouble to make sure the flames didn’t spread. My boss won’t be happy to hear there’s another party involved, especially one that appears to be even more powerful than these dead shifters.
A member of my team curses from somewhere behind me, but I don't bother looking to see who it is. I understand their frustration. We failed to put the traffickers down. It doesn’t matter that they ended up dead, anyway. Hunter hands didn’t end their lives; a failure is a failure.
That's our singular purpose, but I lost sight of it once during my first assignment. A dumb kid, I got sucked in too deep, forgetting the rules I was raised by. I botched the entire mission. She’s the sole blemish on my spotless record, a bruise that never quite heals. Most of the time, I can forget my failure, but then something like this happens, and the pain of remembering takes my breath away.
