get hurt. What if he was shot with silver again? What if that’s why he’s taking so long to come back?”
“She’s got a point, you know,” Nick said, nudging Dillon’s arm until he stopped returning my angry stare. “Maybe one of us should go check it out.”
“We’re both assigned to her. We can’t abandon our post.”
“Then let’s go together and take a look. We’ll stick close to the cabins. If they’re searching out in the woods, well, we’ll just come back here and wait like Chaz said to,” I offered.
Dillon frowned severely at me, the smooth brown skin of his brow wrinkling into a scowl. I wasn’t intimidated. He knew I was right; something could have happened, and if it involved silver again, it would take a human—like me—to do something about it.
“Fine,” he snarled, shoving away from the table so hard it pressed into Nick’s ribs, knocking the wind out of the other Were. “If he’s not in the cabins we’re coming straight back here.”
“That’s fine,” I readily agreed, rushing to the door. His arm snaked out to stop me before I could bolt outside.
“Stay right by us. We can’t protect you if you run off.”
As much as I wanted to roll my eyes at him and say something sarcastic, I went for the civil approach instead. “All right. Lead the way.”
Dillon glowered at me briefly before twisting around and heading outside, his smooth, swift gait requiring me to practically jog to keep up. Nick was chuckling at us, bringing up the rear.
We didn’t get very far before a trio of the geekiest looking guys I’d ever seen rushed out of the shadows between two cabins to come to a jerky halt in front of us. They all had T-shirts with odd computer or gaming references that could’ve come straight out of Arnold’s wardrobe. In fact, I could’ve sworn I’d seen a smaller, less faded version of the “/ATTACK GAZEBO” T-shirt that strained over the bulge of the bigger, hairier one’s distended stomach on Arnold’s skinny frame just last week. The two others had thick glasses that gave them owlish stares, distorting their narrowed eyes. The one in the lead was a couple inches shorter than me, wiry, and practically vibrating with excitement.
I might have laughed if they hadn’t been wielding bows with silver-tipped arrows aimed with deadly precision at the Weres on either side of me.
“Come with us,” the shortest one said, his voice pitched low and menacing. It might have been more frightening if he hadn’t paused, lowering his weaponry to pull an inhaler from his jeans and take a deep pull. He coughed, cleared his throat, then resumed speaking in a normal tone. “You’re ours now, newbs!”
“They’re not newbs, dude,” rumbled the overweight one, rolling his eyes.
The third, tallest and skinniest, put in a few words. “Are you sure? I hear the girl ganked some fangs a few months ago. Wouldn’t try to take her in a PVP round without major backup. Maybe we should’ve—”
“Doc, shut up.” The first guy ran his hand over his face, then lifted his weapons again, gesturing for us to move. “Let’s go.”
Unwilling to risk injury from silver shot, the two men at my side hastily complied with the order. I, on the other hand, was too confused by their strange jargon and overblown entrance to do what the short one said right away.
“Uh, excuse me, but who the hell are you guys, and what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“No questions right now. Move it!” he demanded, taking a step closer to me.
I did what he said this time, skittering back as he herded me closer to my bodyguards. They didn’t take us far—we went straight back to the cabin I’d been sharing with Chaz.
Once inside, they did a fair job of tying up Dillon and Nick with some heavy chains one of them had been lugging along in a backpack. Though the pair’s eyes gleamed with luminescence and both upper and lower fangs were visible when they lifted their lips in silent snarls, the threat those silver arrows presented was too much for them to risk defying those strange geeks right away. As soon as they were trussed up, the bigger guy pushed them into the cramped kitchenette and made them sit on the floor, back to back. He then hooked their chains together using what appeared to be carabiners—D-shaped rings with a spring catch, like the ones I’d seen my brother Damien pack with his mountain-climbing gear.