“I didn’t,” I stated. “You just admitted to it.”
He growled and spat. “Whatever.”
I gripped his arm tighter. “Whydid you start the fires?” I pressed.
Something flickered in his eyes. He looked around, then lowered his voice. “Listen,” he began seriously. “I had to do it, alright?”
I narrowed my eyes. If he didn’t start giving me some straight answers soon, I was going to get pissed. Well,morepissed. “Why?”
His eyes darkened with fear. “Something lives in that building.” My face twisted into a snarl, and he quickly raised his hands in defense. “No, man, not an animal. I would never do that. This was something else.”
“What, then?” I growled.
The man pulled his jacket off one shoulder and tugged his shirt to the side. My eyes widened at the soiled bandages underneath. With a grimace, he peeled them back, revealing four long gashes in his flesh, still red and angry. They looked like they had only just stopped bleeding.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Thatthingattacked me,” he cried. “It just came at me out of nowhere. The worst part is, it looks human, but it’s not.”
As he spoke, cold dread gathered in my stomach like ice. He took my stunned silence as an invitation to continue.
“It looked like a young guy, same as me, but then it freaked out and – somethinghappenedand its arms turned into something, like, like a werewolf or something!”
“Like a bear,” I muttered.
“Yes!” He threw his hands in the air. “Yes, like a bear! That’s it, exactly!”
I didn’t know whether to feel angry or sick, but as difficult as it was, I couldn’t lose my cool just yet.
“So you’re saying,” I began. “That a bear shifter attacked you.”
“Yes! That’s the word.” The man nodded his head vigorously. His eyes shone, in delight that someone actually believed his story. “I can’t believe you know about them. People talk about them, you know, but I didn’t think they were actually real.”
I forced my mouth not to curve into a snarl.They’re real, all right. And you’re staring right at one.
“But I had to get rid of it, you know? I couldn’t just let this thing walk the streets, it’s dangerous, right?” he continued.
I gritted my teeth. I had to play along. I’d need all the facts I could get out of him. “Yeah.”
Encouraged by my reassurance, he went on. “So then, I held back and made sure it went back into the building – I guess that’s its cave, or whatever. After it went to sleep, I torched the place.”
My bear roared in anger. It was clawing its way to the surface, rising like bile. “And?”
“Well, I had to make sure it was gone, but I didn’t actually want to go in and check. It might still be there and all. So I had to torch it again, just in case I got the job done.”
“I see,” I grunted.You scum.
I couldn’t contain my fury anymore. I grabbed him by his good arm and wrenched him to his feet.
“Hey! What gives?” he cried.
I said nothing as I hauled him back to the fire truck. His eyes went wide as he realized his wounds and story didn’t inspire any sympathy from me. Nick and the other guys ran over when they saw me.
“Who is that?” someone asked.
I growled and handed him over. Two of the guys who helped put out the fire grabbed him. “The arsonist,” I growled. “Admitted to both fires.”
He thrashed in their arms. “No, I swear!”
