Brooks had to fight not to let out a howl, not having the heart to tell Ray that his life had never been at risk.
Ray’s eyes started to slip closed, and Brooks felt a moment of panic. Then he heard his friend’s heart continuing to beat, and he relaxed a little. Ray was still holding on.
By the time the paramedics came in with the gurney a few seconds later, Ray was completely unconscious. Trey nodded at Brooks as if to reassure him the old guy was going to make it. Brooks wasn’t so sure, but he nodded in return, then followed the paramedics so he could ride with them to the hospital.
He needed to be there with Ray.
Just in case.
* * *
“I can’t believe the chief of police tried to kill you,” Ruben said as he used a broom to sweep up another pile of glass. “And at a frigging wedding! How fucked up is that?”
“Language,” Selena murmured, not looking away from the poster she was repositioning on the wall. When it was straight, she shoved a few tacks into the corners to keep it there. Once done, she looked around, sighing at all the work left to do.
The windows had been replaced, the bullet holes in the wall patched, and the blood cleaned up, but that was it. Broken glass was still scattered everywhere, the chair/desk combos pushed against one wall, the literacy posters either lying on the floor or torn apart. What a mess. If Eva hadn’t called earlier to confirm everything was set for classes to restart tomorrow, Selena would have thought the room needed another week of work. But she guessed they expected her to do most of the cleanup. Shocking—not.
She hadn’t been sure if she was ready to come back, especially after the way she’d lost it last night. But after waking up in Jayden’s bed after a solid seven hours sleep, she realized her kids needed her. It was time to get back to her job, her passion.
Fortunately, she had Ruben there to help her clean up, even though she still had no idea how he’d known she’d be here. But within minutes of her getting to the school, he’d shown up at the door, holding the key to the janitor’s closet and asking what she needed him to do. She supposed it was his way of repaying her for saving his life. She was just glad to see he was out of the hospital.
“Were you scared?” Ruben asked suddenly, and she glanced over to see him regarding her curiously. “When those men were shooting at you at the SWAT compound, I mean.”
Selena’s thoughts drifted back to last night’s events. The evening had started out almost magical. Dancing, laughing, meeting all the other werewolves, and coming to realize how many others like her were out there. But then the shooting had started, and everything had gone insane.
“I was scared,” she admitted slowly. “But not for myself.”
“Officer Brooks?” Ruben asked, his knowing expression somewhat out of place on his otherwise youthful face. “You were worried about him getting hurt?”
She smiled, hearing someone call Jayden that. He wasn’t Officer Brooks to her. He was simply Jayden. Ruben was right, though. She’d been worried about him getting hurt. Actually, that was an understatement. When Jayden had been shot, she’d nearly lost her mind to the degree that she had a hard time remembering the details of what had happened right afterward. The only thing she remembered clearly was Jayden running out of the reception tent and trying to follow him. Zane had slowed her for a few moments, until her fear had pushed her shift to the point that nobody, not even another werewolf, could slow her down as she’d raced out of the tent after the man who was more important to her than anything else in the world.
“I know he’s a cop. And that he’s strong and really good at his job,” she said. “But knowing that doesn’t make me worry any less about him. The idea of him getting hurt…” She shook her head. “It’s hard to even think about.”
“Are you two going to get married?” Ruben asked, not looking up from the pile of glass he was scooping up and dumping into a metal trash can.
Selena laughed. Leave it to a kid like Ruben to dismiss the silly stuff about having only known Jayden for a week, or how you shouldn’t rush into any important decision, or how true love takes time. He knew how much she cared about Jayden and wondered aloud when the wedding might be.
“Maybe,” she admitted. “We haven’t actually discussed it, but I really like him, and I think he likes me just as much. I can see us being together.”
Ruben smiled. “That’s cool.”
Then he went back to sweeping up glass, like everything she’d just said was obvious. In some ways, maybe it was.
“What about you and Marguerite?” Selena asked as she moved over and pulled a chair/desk out of the pile along the wall and slid it across the floor that Ruben had already cleaned. “What’s going on with you two?”
He laughed. “I don’t think we’re ready to get married yet. I mean, we haven’t gone on our first date yet.”
Selena made a face. “Very funny. I meant when you guys are going out and where you’re going.”
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I’m not too sure. She got in trouble when her mom and dad found out she’d been at a party at a gang hangout. Her parents also know I OD’d there, so I don’t think they’re going to be down with us going out together.”
It was Selena’s turn to shrug. “That simply means you need to win over her parents.”
“Yeah, but how do I do that?”
Selena grabbed another chair/desk combo and slid it across the floor. “Find out what kind of food her parents like, get a big bag of takeout, then put on the nicest clothes you own and show up at their door on a Friday night. Have your first date with Marguerite and her parents. And if you have to, do the same thing every week until her parents realize they can trust you to be around their daughter.”
He winced. “That could get really expensive.”
