Meg nodded and walked into A Little Bite.
Not just Lizzy, the Lizzy.
Ruth was the one who had realized the terra indigene had a verbal hierarchy they used when talking about humans, a way of indicating the degree of interaction with an individual. Ruth had been the Ruthie when she’d been a customer at Howling Good Reads, but since she’d started working in the Courtyard, she was just Ruthie. Meg was Meg, the Meg, or our Meg depending on who was talking to her or about her.
And humans the Others didn’t like had “that” added to their names.
Simon came in behind her and gave her a gentle nudge, which made her realize she’d stopped moving while she pondered name distinctions.
As she walked up the hallway that led from the back door to the front of the shop, she pictured the customer area of A Little Bite with its tables and the counter where Tess worked. She pictured Sam sitting at one of the tables. She hadn’t seen Lizzy yet, so she recalled a training image of a young girl. Now she had some idea of what to expect.
Then she heard a young female voice say, “Bad dog!” She heard the whap of two things connecting, followed by a yelp. And then Skippy bolted down the hallway and almost knocked her over in his haste to escape.
“You should deal with that,” Simon said, giving her another nudge. He turned and went out the back door with Skippy.
Deal with what? How many things had she dealt with because Simon assumed that she could? And how many things had she dealt with because she didn’t want Simon to know that she couldn’t?
Something to think about another day.
Shaking her head, Meg walked into the coffee shop’s front room.
“I’m making grilled cheese sandwiches,” Tess said. “You’re the referee. You can tell Miss Lizzy over there that Boo Bear does not get his own sandwich. He’ll have to settle for a bite of hers.”
Since Tess’s hair was green and curling, Meg didn’t argue and she didn’t ask. But she wondered why no one had mentioned that a member of the Beargard was visiting the Courtyard.
Sam, who had been standing near the counter, grabbed Meg’s hand and whispered loudly, “She whacked Skippy. With a bear.”
The pup sounded impressed. Meg felt confused.
Unable to recall any training image that would match what Sam had said, she whispered, “Come on, let’s introduce ourselves.” Holding his hand, she walked up to the table where the girl watched them. “I’m Meg. This is Sam. Can we sit with you?”
The girl nodded. “I’m Lizzy. This is Boo Bear.”
Looking at Boo Bear, Meg understood why he wasn’t going to get his own sandwich. She just hoped Lizzy understood the difference between Boo Bear and a real bear.
Tess came over and set two plates on the table. Both held a grilled cheese sandwich cut in half and a sprig of red grapes. “I’m bringing yours,” she told Meg. Then she looked at Lizzy and Sam. “Sit down. Eat. Try not to cause a riot.”
Was that supposed to be amusing? Meg wondered.
Sam sat on the edge of a chair, one foot on the floor in case he needed to make a quick escape. He picked up one half of his sandwich and took a bite, all the while watching the girl and bear.
Meg took a seat and thanked Tess when the third plate of food and three glasses of water were placed on the table. For a minute, she savored the experience of eating—the taste and texture of toasted bread and melted cheese, the crisp sweetness of the grapes.
After she’d eaten half the sandwich, she focused on the girl. What to say? What to do? What if something bad had happened?
Of course something bad happened, Meg thought. Lizzy is here, alone. Sort of. The police should be the ones who ask about that. But I need to say something.
Then she knew exactly what to say because she’d had a similar experience a few months ago.
“How did you like riding the train?” Meg asked. She addressed the question to Lizzy, but it felt like she was talking to the team of Lizzy and Boo Bear.
Lizzy took a bite of her sandwich before pressing the toast and grilled cheese against the spot where Boo Bear’s mouth would be. When she raised the sandwich to take another bite, Meg tried to ignore the toast crumbs and dollop of cheese clinging to the fur.
“It was okay,” Lizzy said. “Boo Bear was scared for a while because there was a bad man on the train. But the Wolf police chased him away.”
Meg blinked. “The what?”
While sandwiches were devoured, the story of Nathan scaring off the bad man segued to Sam talking about the Wolf Team movie he’d watched recently. At first Meg wondered if the story would be too scary for a human Lizzy’s age. After all, watching those movies scared her. However, after a few minutes of listening to the two children arguing about who was stronger—the Wolf Team or a group of girls who sounded more like tiny Elementals than young humans with special powers—Meg wasn’t sure if the term “bloodthirsty” should be applied to the youngster who preferred eating his meat raw.
He had his mobile phone, house keys, wallet, and police ID. Since he couldn’t figure out what he’d left at the Courtyard that needed to be retrieved so urgently, Monty focused on his partner.
“What are you and Ruth going to do?” Monty asked, referring to the forced move from the new apartment.
“Store some of our stuff with my folks and some in Ruthie’s parents’ house. And hope we can find another place quickly,” Kowalski replied. “Narrow-minded, shortsighted . . .” He stopped.
Monty waited a beat. “Are you talking about your soon-to-be-ex-landlord or your parents?”
Kowalski didn’t reply until they stopped at a traffic light. “My folks will help because we’re family and that’s what families do. But they aren’t happy about why I’m being shown the door. When my brother said he wouldn’t want to live in the same building with Wolf lovers, my parents didn’t say a thing. That amounts to tacit agreement. And with all the news about troubled girls committing suicide, and with the terra indigene being blamed for so many of those halfway houses closing because the administrators were afraid to keep them open, well, that’s another reason not to side with monsters, no matter what they look like. And then having the surviving girls taken to undisclosed locations . . . There can only be one reason for that, right?”
“Most people aren’t going to want to admit that the monsters in this case not only look human but are human.” Monty hesitated but decided he needed to ask, needed to know. “Karl, do you want a transfer?”
Kowalski made the left turn on to Main Street, then turned again to pull into the Courtyard’s delivery area.
“No, sir, I don’t,” he said. “And Ruthie doesn’t want to walk away from her job in the Courtyard. We both believe that if push comes to shove, the kind of interaction we have with the Others now could help Lakeside remain a human-controlled city instead of turning into a cage like Talulah Falls. So we’ll stick.”
“And hope that your parents will come around to your way of thinking?”
“That’s not likely. But they haven’t said—yet—that they won’t be at Ruthie’s and my wedding next month.”
Monty heard the bitter resignation in his partner’s voice and regretted the rift growing in families. What would happen in the city if the allure of the Humans First and Last movement caused a rift between police officers? Would stations polarize to the point where you couldn’t count on your own for assistance?
“Come on,” Monty said as he opened his door. “Let’s find out what ruffled Wolfgard’s fur.”
They used the back door at Howling Good Reads. Nothing unusual in the stock room, except a noticeable lack of stock. But there was a crowd at the archway leading into A Little Bite.