the fresh palmiers on a plate and sat next to me.
I mouthed the word Amelia to him. We’d been together long enough he knew all the important people in my pack life, even if he hadn’t met any of them. He placed a comforting hand on my thigh, giving me a squeeze of encouragement. Of all the people from the pack I talked with, Amelia was the one who often brought out the worst in me.
I flipped through channels until I found CNN, and I knew right away why Amelia was so worried.
A pretty blonde news anchor was posing in a serious way while a brunette woman with a smart, polished bob glowered back at her. I pulled out one earbud to better hear the TV.
“—don’t think you realize how dangerous these creatures are.”
“Are you claiming the werewolf community has done something to validate the threats they’re receiving?”
“Community.” The brunette made a noise of disgust. “We can’t talk about them like they’re people. These are monsters, plain and simple, and my group won’t stand to see them in schools, in churches, in our safe spaces.”
Cash’s hand went still, and I sucked in a breath. Maureen Cranston. I knew her shrewish, hateful face. She was the leader of the Coalition for a Pure America. Somehow they’d managed to make overt racism popular again, because it was okay to openly hate a werewolf.
I chewed on my fingernail until I remembered Amelia was still on the phone. “What’s this bitch up to now?” I spat.
Amelia sighed, and I realized my faux pas right away. Bitch. The word held a lot more weight to werewolves and wasn’t meant to be used flippantly. In fairness to me, Maureen was trying to ruin the lives of everyone I held near and dear.
The split screen changed three ways, and the familiar face of Tyler Nowakowski appeared. He was handsome in a generic way, with dark brown hair and thick, expressive eyebrows. His lean face looked more tan than usual, and I wondered what their team had been up to.
Tyler, along with his partner Emilio La Roy, were the two other parts of the special FBI unit Secret worked with to promote understanding and harmony between humans and supernaturals. They were considered the experts, so they tended to get a lot of screen time when issues like this popped up. Tyler and Emilio did, that is. Secret didn’t make the best impression with the media and had been pulled from interview duty indefinitely.
She’d called Piers Morgan a douchebag during a live broadcast.
Tyler, better trained to deal with insufferable d-bags, replied with a smooth, calm tone. “What Ms. Cranston fails to realize is these threats are far more serious than just words. We cannot allow this kind of aggression to persist against fellow citizens.”
“If CAPA has their way, they won’t be citizens much longer,” Maureen bit back.
Tyler was struggling to maintain his cool, governmental expression. G-men couldn’t be seen as aggressive or feeling in any way. Yet another reason my hotheaded sister wasn’t the poster child for the FBI.
Emilio tended to be the best of all of them when it came to being unflappable. I swear he was part robot, programmed by the government to be the perfect fed.
“Ms. Cranston, prejudice isn’t a valid reason to rewrite the Constitution of the United States. You can’t simply recall the citizenship of Americans because you don’t approve of their race.”
“Are you calling me a racist?” Maureen snapped.
“Oh, Jesus, is she serious?” Cash got up, scrubbing his hand over his face before giving the TV the finger. He and I rarely discussed the racism issue, but I knew he was frustrated about the word being used in reference to white, upper-class businessmen like my uncle.
Cash was a black kid from Louisiana. Until three years ago, he knew more about racism than anyone else in the country. Now his white girlfriend had to deal with more off-color, cruel remarks and media attention than he did. I wasn’t sure if he was annoyed on my behalf or angry because my people were now the center of a hatred whirlwind. It wasn’t the kind of conversation that would end well, so we avoided the topic altogether. But things like this made it difficult, and the tension hanging in the air was so thick I could almost taste it.
“Does CAPA support the threats of the Church of Morning?” Tyler sneered at the name of the church.
On the bottom of the screen the news bar declared Church