CHAPTER 10
Sunlight was both the bane of Zack’s existence and the sweetest treat in all the world. He’d nabbed a pair of Roger’s sunglasses, which made an incredible dent in the brightness. The balcony was a wonderful place to stretch out, though he’d picked lying on the cold concrete over one of the couches. The wind made wearing a hoodie pleasant, and he didn’t have to wear one of his collars since he wasn’t leaving the suite.
“All right, next part of the story,” Blake said as she munched on a tortilla chip. After a few texts, she’d arrived with takeout and coffee. She was perhaps Zack’s favorite person. “You got to the hotel, and then what?”
Zack groaned and put his arm over his head. “Could we stop?”
“Nope,” Kit said sweetly. They nudged Zack with their foot. “Someone turns into an incredible ass when he’s drunk.”
Kit and Blake had been the ones to decorate his room with get-well presents after Cal’s attack. Blake had brought him coffee from her aunt’s shop on multiple occasions, and Kit had sat with him and watched movies and hadn’t said shit when he’d sporadically cried in the first couple of weeks. The three of them had a group chat where they tossed memes back and forth.
If anyone was allowed to tease him for overdoing it, it was them.
And in the light of day, the previous night’s drinking and ragey behavior made Zack’s stomach churn. Ignoring everything in favor of the way the sunlight warmed his face was easier.But is that the way you become dead to the world? Just shoving away the pain?He lifted his arm off his face and said, “I was an asshole. And currently, my head is pounding, my taste buds are only accepting grease and coffee, and all I want to do is sleep, but we have to go out tonight. I. Am. Never. Drinking. Again.”
“Okay, but what happened?” Blake plucked a chip from a bag.
“Zack and I took a tour of the suite, and then he went hunting for more alcohol. Got his hands on a bottle of vodka before Roger literally picked him up and carried him off to the bedroom,” Kit said. “I am almost surprised he didn’t vomit all over Roger’s back.”
“I wasn’t going to vomit.” Zack rolled over onto his stomach and repositioned the pillow that had been under his head. They had all cheated and brought some of the inside couch pillows out to the balcony to make the space more comfortable. “It all stayed in.”
“Until this morning,” Kit teased.
“I don’t miss hangovers,” Blake said. “Shifter constitution has its bonuses.”
“Someone could’ve tried to cut me off last night,” Zack complained.
Kit snorted. “Dude, you were in a psycho-hunter mindset until you got a few drinks in you. Then you at least had moments where you weren’t angry.”
Zack sat up quickly, which was a mistake. He managed to keep his lunch of tacos and chips from coming back up, but only barely. His hangover was diminishing but not gone. “You getthat those ‘donors’ last night didn’t have the mental capacity to be willing, right?”
Blake dropped her chip. “What? What are you talking about?”
“They came from Steward’s Garden. I’ve read up on the place,” Zack said, not bothering to hide the venom from his voice. He didn’t have to with these two, even if Kit was still wearing their red collar when they didn’t have to. “I’m pretty sure it’s a hotspot for human trafficking. And they had these gray armbands that were clearly magical and these blank expressions. It looked like mind control to me.”
“Oh my God, really?” Blake asked, horrified.
Kit set aside their taco. “Okay, I didn’t look close, and I don’t know shit about magic, all right?”
“Ido,” Zack said.
“It’s not like I could do anything,” Kit said.
“People thinking they’re powerless is why this kind of shit persists!” Zack slapped his hand against the concrete underneath him. It stung, and he waved his hand, trying to shake off the pain.
“Maybe the system persists because of the overbearing power of the ones in control,” Blake murmured. When Zack glanced her way, she pushed her sunglasses up. Over the last two months, she’d grown more confident. Instead of keeping her long dyed-purple hair over her face, she had her hair tuck into a messy bun and let it grow out to show natural brown. The long scars that ran across her face would always be obvious, but she wasn’t hiding them as much anymore.
Unlike Kit, she wasn’t a born shifter. She’d been attacked and contracted lycanthropy. She and Zack had bonded over researching more about werewolves and even a little about the packs of Chicago.
She leaned forward and spoke. “Consider how messed up America is. Rich white people have ruthlessly steered this country into countless atrocities, and some of them arestillat it, no matter how much the public says no. They put the system in place that benefits them and don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else. And they won’t relinquish an ounce of that power, even if it would create them greater fortunes and save the goddamn world. They have this self-fulfilling bullshit belief that the only way to feel powerful is to stand on others.
“Now, consider that the weakest supernatural is literally stronger than the above-average human. That vampires live forever and can twist a human’s desires to their whims. That the fey can charm and bewitch them and fucking vanish from our realm instead of facing justice. That a werewolf can go on a murder spree in their wolf form, and no mortal authority would be the wiser because humans don’t believe in the supernatural. You can’t be surprised that the systems they’ve created don’t even consider humans. They are predators, and just like how humans don’t consider the feelings of the cow in the herd, the supernatural see their food and nothing else.”
“Peoplecare,” Zack said defensively.
“Individualscare,” Blake countered. “Just like how individual supernaturals don’t like every aspect of their systems either.”
She’s right. And I hate that she’s right. There has to be a way to make change.
