I stared at him. The little pinpricks of light were brighter now.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” Robbie demanded. “He has a place here. And a goddamn future to think of.”
“You really think that someone can tell an Alpha what to do?” Mark asked. “Especially a new Alpha?”
“It’s not right—”
A loud truck approached the house at the end of the lane.
Robbie narrowed his eyes. And moved toward the window.
The rest of us didn’t move. Because somehow, we knew.
“Humans,” Robbie said. “Three of them. They don’t have guns. Though I think one guy is carrying a hammer. For some reason. We need to act—”
“Sit down,” I said lightly.
Robbie looked startled.
I thought, for a moment, he wouldn’t.
He did, though. He didn’t look away from me.
Tanner, Chris, and Rico burst through the door, eyes wide and frantic. Rico, of course, held a hammer high above his head, wielding it like he was about to crush some skulls.
“Where’s the thing we need to kill?” Tanner growled, eyes darting around the room.
“I know karate,” Chris said. “I took it for three months when I was ten.”
“I have a hammer,” Rico said.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. But I thought they were ours. I glanced at Mark. “You felt them?”
He was looking at them with something akin to awe. “But they’re all human.”
“Hey,” I said, punching his arm. “So am I.”
“That’s different.” He shook his head. “You were because of Joe. That wasn’t a surprise. They’re here because of you. And everything we feel is because of you.”
Before I could even process what that meant, Elizabeth hopped down from the couch and approached the others. She pressed her nose into their hands, each in turn, one after the other.
I was reminded of the sound my mother made the night she’d found out the truth. The little sound of oh, shocked and breathy, when Thomas had touched her for the first time.
I knew what Elizabeth was doing.
She was acknowledging them.
Because somehow, in the short weeks since our world had gone to hell, Tanner, Chris, and Rico had become part of our pack.
And I didn’t know how.
THE TEXTS were getting more sporadic. Sometimes they came in the middle of the night. Sometimes a whole week would go by. I carried my phone everywhere, waiting.
Once, I sent a message first.
things are changing. i don’t know what to do
At three in the morning, he replied.