“Simon? Don’t you dare—”
“I was grizzly. The whole time.”
Carl’s curses echoed long and loud through the phone. “You can’t do that, Simon.”
“I certainly can’t now. I’m alpha of the Griz.”
“Yeah, lucky you,” Carl drawled, clearly not sympathetic. “So if you’re alpha now, you’ve got to deal with the Detroit Flu. I saw that video on the news. We had people changing like that. They were kidnapped and injected with some bad shit. Most died, but a few changed. Like what was on that video.”
Simon’s head snapped up. “They were kidnapped?”
“Yeah. We’ve got a serum. It’s not a cure, but it slows down the process. Enough for someone to adjust. But you’ve got to stop whoever is injecting people with that shit.”
Alyssa was shaking her head and at Simon’s nod, she spoke up. “It can’t be an injection. There’s too many people getting sick. It’s been happening all over Detroit.”
Which is when Simon put it together. “It’s in the water,” he said. “That’s what I smelled.” He looked at Alyssa. “You said there were two outbreaks. That means two times when someone tainted the water.”
“But you smelled it this morning. You just noticed it this morning,” Alyssa said.
Simon nodded, his gut twisting with horror. “Yeah. Which means we’re about to get a third outbreak of the Detroit Flu.”
There was a long pause as everyone considered that possibility. The ramifications were hideous. And then Carl spoke up, his voice weary.
“Look, I don’t understand this science stuff. I’ll email you everything I’ve got. You’ve got to get it to somebody who can handle it. Do you know any shifter-aware doctors?”
“I just got here, Carl. And Nanook wasn’t exactly the note-taking type.”
Alyssa frowned. “Maybe Detective Kennedy would know?”
“You’ll have to figure it out. With the quarantine, I can’t get there to help.”
“What?” Simon’s voice was sharp, and he could hear Carl’s sigh through the line.
“Jesus, turn on the news. The city was put into quarantine a couple hours ago. Nobody in or out. You got national guard blocking everything.” Then he snorted. “You sure picked a great time to go grizzly in Detroit.”
That was the understatement of the year. The city was going to go insane in short order, and shifters would be the most vulnerable to the chaos. Their animal natures were going to react to the tension and without a way to run off the excess emotions, there was going to be some ugly fights. And that’s if they were lucky.
He looked at Alyssa. “Did you know about this?”
She nodded. “I was listening to the news when you got up. I was going to tell you, but we got distracted.” Her cheeks heated at just how they’d gone off course. Fortunately, her words gave a difference explanation. “You were focused on the taint in the water.”
“It has to be it,” he said, though his doubts kept his voice quiet. “Nanook thought it was the wolves.”
“Nanook thought everything was the wolves,” Carl grumbled. “Look, I’ll try to figure stuff out on this end. Can you get the info to the cop?”
Simon nodded. “We’re headed there now.”
“I’ll check back in a couple hours.”
“Yeah—”
“And Simon? Don’t go grizzly again.”
Simon bristled at the tone. He was in control, damn it, and he didn’t need another bear telling him things he already knew. “You’re not my alpha anymore,” he said, his voice low and threatening. “You can’t give me orders—”
“It wasn’t an order, you moron, it was a damned plea. If you lose it, I’m the one who will have to shoot your ugly ass, quarantine or not. I got problems enough here and Becca’s pregnant. I sure as hell am not going to miss the birth of my son just because you can’t remember to keep your hair on the inside.”
Simon frowned, struggling to process all that information at once. Not the fact that Carl would be his hunter, but that Carl had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. Or maybe they were married by now. And though it was the most inconsequential thing in the very long list of things he needed to know right then, somehow it hit him broadside. Marriages and births were incredibly important in the shifter community. Especially within his own clan. And Simon had missed all of that.
