Chapter 21
“You sure you don’t need some help with the cooking?” Jayden asked, even though Selena knew it was a waste of time. She’d only known Zane for about two weeks, but she’d already picked up on the fact that he was one stubborn Brit.
“No, I don’t need help,” Zane growled, managing the thirty or so burgers on the grill with only his right arm, the other still a little sore from the fight he’d gotten in last Sunday. “The food is almost ready, so go play volleyball with the others. Or go pet Tuffie and Kat if you want. Just go away and stop distracting me.”
Jayden looked like he was about to insist, so Selena hooked her arm in his and dragged him away from the line of grills and tables groaning under the weight of all the food that had already been set out and closer to the volleyball courts and the people playing and laughing over there. Jayden had said it himself the other day. Zane was doing a lot better now. His arm still wasn’t working, but he’d had some kind of epiphany during the fight at the high school. It was like he’d concluded that his injury wasn’t going to define him. It was one of the reasons he’d volunteered to cook today.
They stopped by the sand-filled volleyball pit, watching the combination of kids, teens, and adults run around trying to smash a poor little ball that had never done a thing to them. Ruben and Marguerite were out there giggling their heads off with a bunch of younger kids as the adult members of the Pack let them play the game any way they wanted, even if that meant kicking the ball, which Selena was pretty sure wasn’t in the formal rule book.
Scott, Becca, and Marguerite’s parents were chatting with a small pack of beta werewolves on the sideline of the game. Becca had spent a good portion of the day looking around curiously, no doubt trying to figure out which people were werewolves and which ones weren’t. Every once in a while, her friend would subtly point in someone’s direction, silently lifting an eyebrow. Selena would only laugh and refuse to indicate one way or the other.
While the weather was chilly today, the SWAT compound was packed with people having an incredibly good time, even though it wasn’t hard at all to find signs of the recent battle there. New bricks had been laid along the front of the armory, and nearly all the various bullet holes in the admin building had been patched. But there were still a lot of scorch marks all over the place, because it was apparently too cold right now to paint. Nobody seemed to care about any of that, though. If she had to guess, she’d say it was because the damage was a reminder to everyone that they’d won. It hadn’t been a pretty win, with everything tied up in a nice pretty bow, but everyone was safe and unharmed. They’d confirmed the wolfsbane vaccination worked, there were a lot less hunters in the world than there had been before, and while no one had found Curtis yet, they would soon. His face was plastered over every news outlet and social media platform in the world.
Even Jayden’s friend, Ray, was doing fantastic. He’d wanted to come to the cookout, but his doctor shut that idea down. Now that Deputy Chief Mason was acting chief of police, Ray wouldn’t be retiring anytime soon, something that pleased Jayden immensely.
“Food’s ready, people!” Zane called out.
The game ceased immediately, and everyone ran for the tables to grab something to eat. Plates piled high, they disappeared inside the training building where tables and chairs had been set up. Selena waved and hugged people as they passed, still working hard to learn everyone’s name. She and Jayden ended up at a table with Gage, Mac, Zane, and some of the other Pack werewolves.
“Is everything getting back to normal in your classroom?” Mac asked as she loaded her fork with barbecue chicken.
“Pretty much.” Selena had been planning to go with a single cheeseburger, but when she’d seen the fish and chips—Zane’s specialty—she couldn’t help grabbing those, too. Her appetite was crazy since she’d become a werewolf. “Some of the kids are still having a hard time walking into a classroom where there’s been a shooting, but the counselors are helping with that.”
She didn’t mention the part about how some things were much easier now than they’d been before. Gang activity was at an all-time low at the school, now that so many gangbangers were dead or in prison. Then there was the matter of her reputation. After word had gotten out about her beating up those gangbangers at that party and how she’d faced down Ernesto, classroom management wasn’t an issue for her anymore. Nobody wanted to get on her bad side.
“How about with you?” Gage’s dark-haired wife prompted gently. “You doing okay walking into that room?”
A big, strong arm slipped around her, and she looked over at Jayden to see him regarding her warmly. They’d had this same talk earlier in the week when she’d stayed over at his place, which she did every night now. He’d been worried about how she was handling Ernesto’s death.
“That’s a work in progress, too, but it’s going well,” she admitted. “Cooper introduced me to a friend of his—Dr. Delacroix—and I’ve been talking it over with her. I guess I had a lot of anger issues tied up along with my brother’s death. Finding out how he died and that the person responsible for it is dead, too, seems to have helped me. As hard as that is to understand.”
Mac shook her head. “It’s not that hard to understand at all.”
In a way, letting go of all that anger was helping her control the omega wolf, too. Her eyes had even glowed green for the first time last night when she and Jayden had made love.
“Did anyone have a problem with the story you gave about how Ernesto died?” Diego asked from the end of the table, his voice soft so no one around them would hear. Well, no one who wasn’t a werewolf at least.
“I said his throat got slashed with some broken glass during the fight,” Jayden said. “I’m not sure the ME bought it, but no one tried to second-guess us.”
As they ate, the conversation centered around more family-friendly topics, like how well Tuffie and Kat were getting along these days, or how cool it had been for the Ritz to offer Lana and Max a free suite there this weekend since their previous plans had been ruined by the hunters. The newlyweds were headed there right after the cookout.
“Still no word on where the hell Curtis disappeared to?” Jayden asked. “It’s hard to believe no one has seen him yet. The guy isn’t that good at blending into a crowd. I thought they’d catch him by now.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Gage said, grabbing a handful of fries from his plate. “I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t want to get any hopes up, but in addition to cloning the SIM card on Curtis’s cell, Becker also installed a parental snooping app. We hadn’t gotten anything out of it since Curtis disappeared, but it popped up this morning long enough for our former chief to send and receive a text message. The phone disappeared again immediately after that, but Becker was able to grab the phone’s location and the two texts. Curtis was arranging a meeting location.”
Everyone around the table sat there in stunned silence.
“Where is it?” Rachel asked urgently, a forkful of potato salad halfway to her mouth. “Please tell me that he’s here in Dallas?”
Gage shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. He’s in LA. He requested a pickup from someone. Whoever it was told him to go to the Griffith Observatory.”
More silence reigned.
“What are we going to do?” Jayden asked. “Turn the info over to the marshals or the FBI?”
“I was thinking we’d send some people out there to look around and see what they can find,” Gage said softly. “If he went to the effort of going all the way to California, it’s probably because that’s where the other hunters are.”
“I’ll go,” Zane offered. “I’ve done undercover work before, and I know a few people out there who owe me some favors.”
