Oath Sworn - K.N. Banet Page 0,26

as wide-eyed as she was staring at me.

“This wasn’t how I thought our night would go,” I said, trying to smirk. “Run off and pack a bag. I have a few suitcases in my closet. Use one of those and put the Switch in your go-bag. You can play on it while I drive.”

“How are you so calm?” she demanded, seeming even more shocked by my quick bounce into what we needed to do next.

“Because freaking out and crying isn’t something I can do right now. I know what world I belong to, and that means I don’t get to pause and think about things like this until I know we’re safe. I have to be strong for you and direct you or this is never going to work.” Oh, I wanted to. There was violence in the supernatural world, and there was no escaping it, but there were types of violence. A werecat territorial fight wasn’t fatal. There were too few of us for it to be that way. It was brutal, but never to the death. This…I didn’t have it in my heart to tell Carey this was the first time I had ever killed anyone with the intent to kill them and that I wanted to fall apart just as much as she did. I was a monster, but this was the first time I had truly lived up to the reputation.

She nodded, trying to stand. I attempted to help her as she slipped in the blood covering my hardwood floors. I didn’t move as she walked back into my bedroom. I had my own things to deal with for a moment while she packed.

Grabbing my first aid kit, I looked over my injuries. I dried them with a towel nearby and somehow not soaked in blood. Werecats bleed slowly, something I was eternally grateful for in that moment, so it wasn’t hard to stop the bleeding. I grabbed a suture kit and looked at my thigh, seeing to the worst of my injuries, hopefully. There were scratches all over my back that I couldn’t do anything about, but I could deal with my legs.

My shoulder burned with every movement too, but I sutured three deep injuries on my left thigh, then two on my right. I had training in it, and more than enough practice at doing it to myself. I was done before Carey and pushed myself to stand as she brought out her go-bag and put it on the couch, which was five feet off its previous spot.

I let the destruction sink in, sighing as I realized this was going to have my bar shut down for weeks, if not months. If I could even come back at all.

Pushing that aside, I went into the bathroom, wiped off as much blood as I could, then followed Carey into the bedroom. I threw on something to wear, then began emptying my drawers, grabbing whatever I could to pack. I took my big suitcase and began to fill it, probably taking too much, but if I was going to end up covered in blood at every turn, I needed spares.

“Carey, can you find my cellphone?” I asked. I needed to text a few people and let them know that we were attacked. It was time to go deeper into hiding, and people needed to know that so that they didn’t worry when they came here and found this. Which reminded me that I needed to tell the wolves to come clean up their own. The council would do it because it was their fault.

Once the cellphone was in my hand, I shoved it into my pocket. I would call everyone from the road.

The last things I needed to grab were weapons. I took the gun off the floor, thankful for the unintentional gift the werewolf had given me. I also had a silver dagger, a gift from Hasan, who had decided when I left that I needed some way to defend myself. Finally, in my closet there was an aluminum baseball bat. I threw all three weapons into my gym bag, then proceeded to help Carey finish.

We had to leave this carnage behind and disappear. I wasn’t even sure where to begin.

6

Chapter Six

Carey and I were on the road within twenty minutes of me getting off my floor. It wasn’t particularly fast, but it was the best we could do. I was limping and she was scared. There was only so much two girls could do