I knew I had already explained this to him once, but come on, he was three. Explaining things more than once happened a lot. Granted, he always listened, but it never hurt to remind him.
My heart seemed to still in my chest when I heard voices from the first floor. I swallowed tightly, my eyes pinned on the door. I didn't know what I was going to do if they decided to search the house. With the scratches and bruises covering my body, there would be no way to deny I'd been involved in what had happened downstairs.
I glanced at Sy. Luckily, he was immersed in watching some cartoon on the tablet Rad had given him. Lu stood by the door, his head angled as if he was listening in on the conversation downstairs.
When he suddenly stiffened and glanced at me, my heart climbed into my throat. Lu pushed away from the door and hurried over to a section of the wall. He grabbed a hanger attached to the wall and turned it.
My jaw dropped when a section of the wall swung open. Lu snapped his fingers, pointed to the opening, and then made a gesture with his hand.
It took me about two seconds to figure out what he wanted.
I jumped up and grabbed Sy, pulling him toward the hidden space. "Come on," I whispered to him as I took his tablet and set it on the bed. "We have to hide."
"Bad men?"
I didn't know for sure, but I nodded. "You can't make a sound."
As soon as Sy and I were inside, Lu held a finger to his lips and then shut the door. I moved Sy as far away from the opening as I could manage. It was a small space, no bigger than a closet so we couldn't go far.
I quickly pressed my hand over Sy's mouth when I heard a knock on the attic door. A moment later, several sets of footsteps echoed from the main room.
"Lu," I heard Ze'ev state, "those idiots downstairs swear there's a man and child up here. These deputies need to look around."
I didn't hear Lu reply, but I didn't expect to. He didn't talk.
After a few moments someone said, "Yeah, Sheriff, those guys are blowing smoke. There's no one up here but some guy watching an action flick on a tablet. Yeah, I'll tell him."
"What's wrong, Deputy?" Ze'ev asked.
"The sheriff wants everyone to go downstairs. He needs to see your identification and run your record."
Ze'ev snorted. "Don't run it in Texas."
"You got problems in Texas?" the deputy asked.
"Nothing a cold beer and a few less assholes wouldn't cure."
"Any warrants?"
"Not that I know of and I've never been arrested there. Just had to break up a few fights."
I had no idea why Ze'ev was telling this guy all of this. If I'd had trouble with the law somewhere, I'd never mention it to another lawman.
Was he trying to get into trouble?
Chapter Five
~ Radalf ~
I kept my arms crossed and buried my clenched fists in them to keep the sheriff and his deputies from seeing them. I wanted to plant them in their smug little faces.
I wanted to kill the men that had attacked Ajag even more, but they had been taken away by the sheriff's men. Sometimes skating the fine line between the shifter world and the human world sucked. If they hadn't been human they would already be dead.
It galled me to no end that I couldn't serve them the justice they so richly deserved, but Ze'ev had been against it. There was a logical part of me that understood his reasons, but an even bigger part—most likely the shifter part—simply wanted revenge for the wrongs they had done to Ajag.
"Are you sure they didn't take anything?"
I rolled my eyes. That was like the tenth time the sheriff had asked that. I don't know how many times Ze'ev and Jackson had to explain that the men had broken into the house with the intent to steal, but had been caught before they could take anything for the man to accept it.
