what he’d get if he put an easy target in front of a heavily injured wolf.
“We have to stop this.” Panic made my voice sound higher than I’d expected it to. I wasn’t hysterical yet, but if they let Hank do what I thought they were going to, shit was going to hit the fan in an epic way. I felt wholly responsible for this mess, even if there was no way I could have seen it coming.
Just as Hank lunged for the girl, lights snapped on behind us. The mixed scent of gardenia and magnolia had been so suffocating I hadn’t smelled anyone approach. As I turned, a flashlight beam aimed directly in my eyes forced me to lift my hand to protect myself.
“All right, y’all. Show’s over.” The voice was thick with a Southern accent that didn’t belong to Louisiana. More Texas by way of a John Wayne movie.
When the light lowered and I blinked away the bright spots in my vision, I was facing a middle-aged man wearing a beige button-down uniform shirt and a black baseball cap emblazoned with the Louisiana State Sheriff department logo. The cap shielded his eyes from me, but he was chewing on something—gum or tobacco I couldn’t tell—and behind him four deputies were itching to draw their weapons on us.
“This is private property,” he announced, and a thin smile spread across his lips. “And trespassers will be prosecuted.”
“Can’t you see what’s going on?” I shouted, frustrated beyond the point of civility. I pointed towards the church, but when I looked, Hank and the girl were gone. Her clothes remained in a heap on the floor, but she had vanished.
That couldn’t possibly be good.
“All I see is two folks getting arrested,” the sheriff told me. “Now we can do this easy or we can do it hard. Whatever you want.”
I glanced at Wilder.
I could tell he wanted to go the hard way. Ultimately we compromised.
Wilder punched a deputy and got tased.
We got arrested anyway.
Chapter Seventeen
I once watched a movie where someone said only guilty people can sleep in jail.
I would challenge whoever wrote that movie to stay awake for over twenty-four hours and then be offered a cot.
While it might not have been the most comfortable sleep of my life, I’d had worse. I’d slept inside a tree for four years. There weren’t a hell of a lot of places I couldn’t get a little shut-eye. I woke up stiff and groggy, and for a few seconds I didn’t remember where I was, so the surroundings were alarming.
Right.
Jail.
Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I got to my feet and did a quick stretch to work the kinks out of my body. No one else was in the cramped cell with me, not that there would have been room for another person. My solitude made me immediately nervous for Wilder.
The walls were made of concrete, so I wasn’t able to look through into any other areas. There was a toilet on the back wall and the small cot I’d slept on, but nothing else to distinguish the room. It was probably their drunk tank.
I knocked on the tiny window of the door, hoping someone was near enough to hear me. After a few minutes ticked by, a new wave of nerves came over me. Werewolves were not designed for small spaces. I started to feel trapped, and nothing but an open door was going to make me feel any better.
Just as my heart started to beat wildly, a key rattled in the door. I had to resist the urge to make a run for it the second it opened. That was a sure-fire way to ensure I’d be locked in here for another couple days with no sign of sunlight or fresh air.
The door opened, and a young, female deputy stood at the entrance. She was holding a cup of coffee so fresh steam was still rising from it.
“Miss McQueen.”
Since I hadn’t been all that forthcoming with information when they’d brought us in, I supposed they’d found Wilder’s bike and gone through the contents. That’s where I’d left my wallet. Of course they’d fingerprinted us, but I didn’t have a criminal record. I couldn’t speak for Wilder, but something told me the Shaw brothers had a history with the law.
“Where’s my friend?” I asked. “The guy I was brought in with.”
She held the coffee cup out to me, but I shook my head. Taking food from these people was about as smart as Persephone