Duh.
“Kids learn the most interesting lessons. Mark and several of his cousins talked about learning how important memorizing their multiplication table is. They’re so smart.” They’d only decided it was a good idea because Mr. Stein had spent five minutes arguing over what twelve times eleven was and they never wanted to be that frustrating to anyone else.
“Thanks.”
Ha.
That had him stepping back and I could breathe.
As she had to admit defeat on the first cart, I almost asked Emeric to move to the side so I could start working on repacking the nightmare, but he went still again.
Not good.
“Come stand over by me.” Why? Um. “I don’t want us to get in her way.”
It was grasping at straws but it was the best I could do in the moment. The cashier just gave me her customer service smile which probably meant she thought I was insane, but Mr. Stein went still as well.
Very still.
Emeric still.
Good grief.
What was he besides annoying?
“Why is the…boy afraid?”
How was I supposed to answer that?
Did he know about Emeric’s genetic history?
I was doing my best to think of a useless response, but as Emeric shifted closer to me again, he whispered softly. “He’s a shifter.”
But not a wolf?
Did that explain his utter lack of personal boundaries?
“What are you?” Mr. Stein’s head popped up in front of mine as the cashier’s eyes got wide. “You need to learn how to answer questions.”
Really?
“Someone smells weird.” Emeric seemed to have decided to answer instead of letting me just fuck with Mr. Stein. “I don’t like it.”
Well, if that was what we were going with, I did my best to keep my response unspecific but slightly helpful. “Emeric just moved to the area from out of state and it’s been a bit stressful.”
I wasn’t sure what else I could say without being too open around strangers and humans, but he nodded slowly and started studying the people around us. “Tune out everything but the smell. Focus on that and you’ll find the memory. Your brain remembers all of them. You just need to find it.”
He was technically more helpful than I expected, but he had Emeric’s hand reaching out to take mine in a death grip. “We need Braun.”
Chapter 12
Braun
We have a problem.
The first text hadn’t been helpful but it’d gotten my ass in gear and I was out the door before the second one had come through.
Emeric smelled someone familiar in Aldi. He’s scared but we’re safe for the time being.
