none of the outer cabins had been attacked. “They’ll be moved into temporary housing until we can be sure it’s safe for them to return.”
A sensible precaution.
“Do we know how he got through the shield?” Ice demanded.
“We’re assuming he had enough Pantera blood to slip through the magic,” Parish said. The barrier was intended to protect the puma shifters from the outside world, but it wasn’t a foolproof form of security. As they were painfully discovering. “We don’t know if he was injected with or blood or altered with DNA to become a hybrid.”
Ice grimaced, assuming the Healers would use the bits and pieces left of the intruder to determine if he was a born Pantera, or if he’d been injected with their blood. “It was a risky play,” he said. “They couldn’t know we would be meeting at that precise time. Not unless there’s a spy in the Wildlands.”
Parish shrugged. “The Headquarters might not have been the target. Suicide bombers usually go for maximum carnage. He could have been headed for the communal center, hoping we were gathered for dinner, or even the clinic where we keep our most vulnerable. But after he was shot he might have been forced to blow up the nearest object before he bled out.”
Ice frowned, slowly replaying the incident in his mind. The man had run out of the thick vegetation of the wetlands, seeming to head straight toward them. But the pathway circled the Headquarters and ended at the communal center. That could easily have been his destination.
“But why strike at all?” he murmured, asking the question that had been preying on his mind while he was searching for intruders.
Parish frowned, as if he hadn’t had time to consider what had prompted the attack. “We’ve done damage to them. I’m sure they want some revenge.”
“Maybe.”
Parish easily sensed Ice’s hesitation. “What are you thinking?”
Ice struggled to pinpoint his vague sense they were missing something.
Something important.
“It could be a lone nut job wanting revenge,” he slowly murmured.
“Or?” Parish prompted when Ice hesitated.
“Or a distraction,” Ice at last said.
Parish’s eyes abruptly narrowed. “You’re right. We need to prepare…” The words trailed away as Parish glanced toward the crowd of shell-shocked Pantera. “Shit.” He gave a frustrated shake of his head. “I don’t even know what we need to prepare for.”
Ice grimaced. What could he say? None of them knew what might be coming next.
They stood in mutual silence, both lost in their dark thoughts when Indy came to a skidding halt next to Parish.
The tiny female with short, midnight black hair and dark blue eyes looked like a biker pixie doll. She was one of the lab rats who’d escaped from the Benson labs and had been conducting a vigilante war against the humans when Angel found her.
“I need your help,” she bluntly commanded.
Indy had the same social skills as Ice.
Precisely none.
Parish instantly turned to face her. “Tell me.”
“Karen is missing.”
Ice frowned. It took him a minute to recall the pretty woman who’d been with Indy when the Pantera had found the rats in New Orleans. She’d been a brood mare for the humans, which meant she’d been inseminated, by force, with Pantera semen to produce hybrids. She had one son, Caleb, with her in the Wildlands, but Ice seemed to recall that he’d heard she had other children who had been taken from her at birth.
“Where is she supposed to be?” Parish demanded.
“She was at the clinic when the explosion went off,” Indy said. “No one remembers seeing her after that.”
Parish frowned. “Could she have gone home?”
Indy looked at him in disbelief. “No way in hell. If there were injuries, she wouldn’t have left the clinic even if she was ready to collapse.”
“Take me to the last place she was seen,” Parish ordered Indy before he was glancing over his shoulder at Ice. “Come with me.”
Ice instantly fell into step with Parish as Indy headed toward the long building that was bustling with activity.
“She has an office in the clinic,” Indy told them, leading them toward the nearest door.
On a normal day, the healing center was a place of peace, with cherry-paneled walls and hand-woven rugs that had little semblance to a human hospital. Tonight, however, the peace had been replaced with a sizzling energy as the Healers worked together to cure the wounded and soothe those traumatized by the attack.
Avoiding the treatment rooms, Indy moved toward the long corridor where there was a line of offices. She opened the door at the end,