“Are you going to be part of this interrogation?” Hazel asked, giving Gabriella a look for touching her drink.
I nodded. “I am. It’s Brandon, Kaleb, Asher, and me.”
“Not scary at all,” Hazel grumbled back, before swigging back the rest of the coffee. “We shall see you later then.”Gabriella gave me a wave before they both slipped out. I sighed, not looking forward to the meeting later.
The meeting was at noon. Brandon asked Lucia questions about what happened and if there was anything we needed to know. She cried as she spoke, shaking as she told her story. I had seen the scene and knew she wasn’t lying about it. There were bodies, and I’d even found a woman around her age, just a little further away from where we found her. I was guessing it was her friend she spoke about.
We learned that four vampire hunters had arrived. There were only maybe ten of them in the pack, so it didn’t take long for them to get control and take everyone out. Lucia running as fast and as quickly as she could was the only way she survived. The only question I had was: how did she survive? She clearly had been attacked. Had they thought she was dead and figured the cold would finish her off?
After Kaleb took her out into the hall, Brandon sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“She’s telling the truth,” he said with another sigh. “And I have no idea how we are going to do this. The pack is going to have a hard time accepting her with how tense and uneasy everyone is.”
Brandon tried hard to get the pack to accept change, but we all knew it wouldn’t happen overnight. This change was going to take years.
“You don’t want to set her up like you did Hazel and Gabriella?” Asher asked, leaning back in his chair.
Brandon shook his head. “That didn’t go so well for the girls like we thought it would. If we set her up, we have no idea what will happen. We need to make sure she’s protected.”
An idea formed. “She can stay with me,” I offered.
Both of them looked at me. “Do you have space?”
I didn’t, but I had a feeling that Hazel and Gabriella wouldn’t hate the idea. They were already spending a lot of time with her, and I knew that they would be the two to understand what Lucia was going through. “I have space, and it’s just until we get things figured out. I’m sure after a couple of weeks, we can see what other options we have.”
“Well, if you’re offering. I’ll talk with Jade and see about looking for a place for her in the next couple of weeks. Maybe she and Nora had something in mind that would work.”
I left and called Gabriella. The phone rang a few times before she finally answered it. “Hey.”
“Hey, I just got done with the meeting for Lucia.”
“And?”
“They are letting her stay, and I offered up the house for the meantime, until we can figure something else out.”
“Wait, you offered her to stay with you? Like, stay in the house with all of us?”
“Yeah, I figured you guys were wanting to keep an eye on her anyway, so two birds with one stone.” I rubbed at my head, starting to wonder how we were going to do this. I didn’t exactly have a spare bedroom for her. But we could all talk about it when everyone got home.
“We can figure everything out when you guys get home.”
I was sitting in the living room when they arrived home. Lucia looked showered and rested now. Her blue eyes scanned around the house as she took it in. “Wow.”
“The kitchen is that way,” Hazel explained. “And the bathroom and bedrooms are that way.”
“Speaking of bedrooms,” Gabriella walked toward me. “How exactly are we going to do this? We don’t have another bedroom to put her in.”
“I can give up my room, and I can stay in the living room. She can have my room then.”
Gabriella scrunched up her nose. “This is your house, Westley. You shouldn’t be sleeping in a living room. One of us can share a room with her.”
“Are you sure? She might want her own space.”
Gabriella chewed on her lower lip as Hazel showed Lucia the kitchen and dining room.
“Well, what if I just stay in your room for the time being?”
