“Before?”
“You know why.”
“Ox? What’s going on?”
“Shit,” I muttered. I looked over Marie’s shoulder. Mom was hanging out the diner’s door, watching me with concern on her face.
“Go back inside,” I told her as Marie looked back at her and wiggled her fingers in an obscene wave. Her fingernails were painted blue.
“She smells like you,” Marie said to me. “Did you know that? Like you and wood smoke and autumn leaves. And I know what she smells like now. Scent memory, Ox. It never leaves.”
“Ox,” Mom said.
“Inside,” I snapped at her.
She went inside. I knew she’d be reaching for the phone.
Marie laughed. “Little human has some bite to him. Did the wolves teach you that?”
“This is the territory of the Bennett pack,” I told her. “You don’t belong here.”
“Bennett,” she said. “Bennett. Like that name means anything anymore. Let me tell you about the Bennetts.”
“The fuck is this?”
Gordo was at my side. His face was twisted in anger. His arms were covered by his work shirt, but I knew the tattoos on his skin were starting to shift.
Marie hissed. “Witch.”
“Wolf,” he snarled back. “You got balls, lady, showing your face here. Thomas Bennett is on his way. What do you think he’ll do when he sees you?”
A flicker of fear crossed her face before it disappeared. She smiled again, more fangs than not. “The fallen king? Coming out of hiding? Oh glory be!”
“It’s not hiding when you’re in your own territory,” I said.
“With humans in his pack,” she said. “Low, even for him. Belly dragging across the dirt.”
My hands curled into fists.
Marie grinned at me. “Aren’t you just precious? I could gut you, you know. Right here. Before you could move. Your Alpha has been hidden away long enough. He’s weaker now. Even I can feel it. I could take you and he could do nothing.”
“Try,” I said, and Gordo tensed.
But she didn’t. She took a step back. Looked over her shoulder before turning back. She smiled a little and said, “Say hi to your mom for me, Ox,” and then she was off, down the street until she disappeared.
THEY CAME two nights later.
They were feral. Four of them. Not a pack, as they had no Alpha, but somehow still working together.
They’d made a mistake, though. By showing themselves. Or, at least by Marie showing herself.
Thomas made Mom and me stay at the Bennett house in those days that followed Marie cornering me. I told him Gordo needed to be there too. Thomas didn’t argue. Gordo did. I told him to shut the fuck up. I might have sounded slightly hysterical.
Mom went to work during the day. Carter and Kelly went with her.
Gordo and I went to work. He didn’t let me out of his sight, even when we had to take a longer than normal lunch break so he could strengthen his wards.
Joe stayed home from school. I brought his homework, and he took it from me with steady hands.