Page 62 of Cold Sacrifice

I blew out a breath and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me right now.”

Zach leaned forward from the back seat. “Aren’t you claustrophobic, Kait?”

I swallowed. “I guess I am, a little.”

“That’s what’s wrong with you.” He leaned back and went silent.

“We’ll catch her,” Jared told me. “You don’t have to go into the ground.” He squeezed my leg. “You don’t have to do that, wolf.”

But I wasn’t about to let fear turn me into something I’d be ashamed of. “Yeah,” I said. “I really do.”

Sam and Remy pulled in beside us when we reached the restaurant, and together, the five of us walked inside to eat.

It was the first time I’d gone into a dine-in restaurant with the four of them at the same time, but when people paused eating their lunches to stare at us, I didn’t think anything of it. There wasn’t a man with me who didn’t warrant a few stares.

But some of the stares weren’t just curious or interested or wistful. We were halfway through our meal when a tall woman left her table, despite one of the three women with her attempting to pull her back, and marched toward us.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “I just want to finish my meal.”

“We should’ve eaten cheeseburgers in the car,” Remy said, but he was smiling. Probably hoping for a scene.

We sat in the middle of the room because we’d needed a long table with plenty of space for all of us and the truckload of food we’d ordered, and even though we were inside a restaurant full of humans, I felt somewhat exposed.

I was already a little angry by the time the woman stopped at the end of our table and glared at me. “Do you know,” she said, “that some maniac killed nine people just a few blocks from where you’re calmly eating your lunch?”

“Go back to your table,” I told her.

“You were the one on TV,” she said, her face flushed. “You promised that you and your…” She sneered at the men before putting her stare back on me. “Your crew would protect us. Even though they tried to make us believe we didn’t see what happened, that we’d forget, we know. And you’re not protecting us. People are dying, and here you sit, eating steak with your buddies.”

“Sherry,” one of her friends called. “Sherry. Please.”

I softened, because I understood something that just made me sad. When Avis Vine had been running around the city killing humans, this woman had been affected. The vampires had killed someone she loved, and then the fact that vampires had been responsible for it had been swept under the rug. “I’m sorry you lost someone,” I said. “We’ll find the one responsible for killing those nine people this morning. We’ll do our best to protect you.”

“But you’re sitting there eating,” she said, her voice breaking. “And laughing and talking and acting like people aren’t dying. That people don’t keep dying, and like they haven’t been telling us we’re wrong about what we know. What we saw. That our world is no longer safe.”

“It’s never been safe,” Sam told her, but quietly.

“But I didn’t know that,” she whispered. “Not the way I know it now.”

“Who did you lose, Sherry?” I asked gently.

The anger went out of her and she wilted. “My daughter,” she said. “Her name was Becky and she was twenty-three years old. They tore her apart.”

She went back to her table, then, because maybe she realized that no matter what we did, it wasn’t going to bring Becky back.

“I think they’d feel better if the truth came out,” Remy said. “If we stopped lying to them and let them know that there are monsters all around them.”

None of us wanted to sit there and finish our food. Five minutes later, we were back in our cars. Rick called before we left the parking lot.

“Are you ready for me?” I asked.

“No, not yet, but there’s been a disturbance reported in Long Shadow cemetery. A couple of hikers called in to say they’d stumbled upon two dead wolves. Actual wolves. They had to walk about a quarter of a mile to get a cell signal. When they went back, the wolves were gone. They said the ground was wet with blood. Jared might want to check it out in case they’re his.”

“I’ll let him know,” I said. “What officers do you have going up there?”

“I wanted to let Jared know first,” he said. “When I’m finished here, I’ll go have a look around so I can write up the report.”

“Thanks, Rick,” I said, and turned to Jared as I ended the call. “Someone called in to report two dead wolves in Long Shadow,” I told him. “They were in their wolf form when they were found.”