Death, police, jail. Those things had happened today and would result in danger, which would result in her being connected somehow to a woods and a grave.
She should tell Simon. She would tell Simon. But not tonight. Saying anything now would stir up the Others, and she didn’t want to get everyone riled just because her tongue was prickling again.
Meg braced her hands on the kitchen counter. She didn’t want to make a cut on her tongue. Too easy to make mistakes and do permanent damage. And a cassandra sangue who couldn’t speak clearly wasn’t any use to the people who had traveled to the compounds to buy a look at their future. But sometime soon her tongue was going to bleed and she would see the prophecy waiting to be revealed.
The more time he spent around humans, the more confusing they became. Every other predator the terra indigene had absorbed had a social structure that made sense. But humans!
Simon pulled into the employee parking lot, got out of the BOW, and opened the wooden door that provided access between the employee and customer parking lots.
No sign of Kowalski yet.
They might not eat each other, but humans killed humans all the time. He’d seen that for himself when Lawrence MacDonald had been shot and killed at the stall market when men from the HFL movement attacked their group. While the human pack had grieved, their behavior didn’t change toward the terra indigene. In fact, the deaths of MacDonald and Crystal Crowgard made the bond between the human pack and the Others even stronger.
Were they that accepting of the terra indigene seeing humans as meat because they realized that those who lived in the Courtyard didn’t see them that way anymore? Or were they accepting because they understood that they, too, would be seen as meat by the terra indigene living beyond Lakeside and the connected places of Great Island, Talulah Falls, and the River Road Community?
Simon watched Kowalski and Pete Denby pull into the customer parking lot. He saw Montgomery leave the apartment building and walk as far as the public sidewalk. The lieutenant seemed to be listening for something, but Simon didn’t detect any unusual sounds.
Kowalski opened the back door, pulled out a party-size pizza, and said, “I wasn’t sure if Sam and Skippy were joining you tonight, so I wanted to make sure you’d have plenty. Half is pepperoni and sausage; the other half has veggies.”
Simon took the pizza box. “That’s good. I owe you money.”
“It’s our treat tonight.”
Trying to make up for something other humans did. Trying to help take care of the pack.
Kowalski closed the back door, then hesitated. “Do you have any meat at home? Something frozen?”
“Hunks of bison.”
“Ruthie made a pot roast the other day. Beef. She froze part of it in a couple of containers. A container probably wouldn’t be enough for big appetites like ours, but for the girls, for Meg . . .”
“I’ll ask her. Thank you for the pizza.” Simon went back to the BOW, pausing long enough to close and lock the wooden door between the two parking lots. He wasn’t surprised to hear someone rattle the door—Kowalski, checking to be sure it was locked.
On the way back to the Green Complex, he thought about what was said. Appetites like ours. A Wolf could eat pounds of meat at one time, far more than a human stomach could hold. But Kowalski had made it sound like the difference was between what males and females could consume, not humans and Wolves.
He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he thought it was interesting.
Jimmy sat on the porch, brooding. He’d been on the porch since that cop drove him back here. If Sandee had been out when he returned, he would have packed one carryall, taken his stash of money and the couple of pieces of jewelry she kept hidden, and slipped away and caught a bus to anywhere, free of that bitch and her brats. But she’d been home, whining about food and money until he showed her his fist. He didn’t need to use it—not often, anyway—to make her shut up quick and leave him alone to think.
Nothing wrong with his plan. It should have worked. His crew should have gotten in and out instead of being dead and . . .
He swallowed hard to keep his gorge from rising.
What was wrong with the people in this town, acting like it was normal for those fucking freaks to eat people? That had never happened in Toland! In Toland, regular folks didn’t have to see those Others, didn’t have to worry about being clawed or bitten or worse. This wouldn’t have happened in a big human city, a proper human city. But here the cops were all bent, bought off by the freaks. Even that bastard Burke must be working for the Others. Why else would he be going after a man just looking to take care of his family instead of shooting those freaks? Why else would that Wolf lover Kowalski go after a man who had been tricked into buying . . .
Jimmy pushed that thought away.
Those freaks had known his crew was coming. They’d known before he’d made the final plans. How was that possible?
He became aware of the commotion inside—crybaby Fanny squealing for Mommy, and Clarence . . .
Jimmy flung himself out of the chair and went inside to stop whatever shit the brats were doing, but he halted in the bedroom doorway.
Clarence held a butter knife and was chasing Fanny around the living room, laughing as he jabbed at her face.
“Gonna cut you, bitch,” Clarence said. “Gonna turn you into a scar girl. Then you’ll tell fortunes and make us a pile of money.”
“Mommy!” Fanny screamed.
He’d heard something about scars and girls, but how was he supposed to remember with Fanny screaming like that? And if she kept on like that, how long before one of the fucking cops started pounding on the door?
“Stop it!” he roared. “What is this shit?”
The glee on Clarence’s face that he might “accidentally” cut his sister changed to wariness when Jimmy stepped into the living room. “We’re just playing, Daddy.”
“What’s this about scar girls?” He ignored Fanny, who ran out of the room crying for Sandee, and focused on the boy. “Well?”
“The girls with all the scars. You remember, Daddy. We saw them on TV. The girls who can see the future.”
“Sure, I remember. Why are you teasing Fanny about them?”
“They got one of those girls in the Courtyard. Her name is Meg. She has really short black hair and pals around with the cop bitches.”
A vague memory of being warned away from someone named Meg. Then he remembered more. He’d seen her when that Wolf brat attacked Clarence. His boy had been wounded, had needed a trip to the hospital, but everyone had been looking after some bitch who didn’t have more than a bloody lip.
That was Meg?
A hard rap on the apartment door. Sandee eased out of the kitchen, glanced at him, then hustled to answer it.
Jimmy saw CJ at the door holding a big pizza box. Did CJ think buying a pizza would set things right after the way he’d let the other cops treat his own brother? After the way he’d treated his own brother, showing him those sick pictures of a severed arm, trying to scare him into confessing to something he didn’t do?
No. Not CJ. Burke. Yeah. Burke had it in for him, was trying to set him up. Bastard could have killed his crew and taken all the meat from the butcher shop, could have cut off that arm himself and paid the freak to make sure it ended up in the hands of a man just trying to feed his family. Yeah. Burke had set him up—and CJ was helping to put him away.
Sandee took the pizza box, closed the door, and hurried to the kitchen. Jimmy hurried after her, grabbed both kids by the arms, and hauled them away from the table. He came first. Sometimes they forgot that.