Authors: Jeanette Battista
He had his phone out when they hit Miami Avenue. Lenore was going to lead them back to the Metro station, but Rafe pulled her along down the street, keeping pace with pedestrian traffic while he spoke to whoever was on the other end of the phone.
"I saw her," he said. Lenore had no idea who the
her
in question was, but whoever she was couldn't be good news if Rafe was this freaked out. He listened to the voice on the other end, eyes still scanning their surroundings. "We'll wait for you there." He hung up.
Lenore wanted to ask what the heck was going on, but knew that now was not the best time. She had to content herself with, "Who'd you call?"
"Kess. She's coming to get us." He pulled her into a bustling restaurant and scored seats for them at the counter. "We're to wait for her here."
Lenore caught her breath. Rafe swiveled his stool so he could watch the door. "Now can you tell me what you saw that made you freak out?"
"Hyenas. And my sister." He rubbed his hands on his jeans. "We should never have gone out by ourselves."
She ignored his last statement. That was just stupid talk. They weren't prisoners in the house; they should be able to come and go when and how they wanted to. She was more interested in his sister. "How did you know?"
"I saw two of them when we were at the Village. And I could smell my sister. I think I saw her in the trees as we were leaving." He still wasn't looking at her, instead continuing to watch the people passing outside the window.
Lenore ordered them two sodas. "Well, what's so bad about that? I mean, they aren't supposed to be in Miami, but we were in public, right? There wasn't a whole lot they could do to us." She really wasn't seeing why they had to be at Defcon 4 right now.
Rafe finally looked at her, but he wasn't smiling. He didn't seem to be appreciating her calm and relaxed attitude. "You don't get it, Lenore. Teresa isn't like normal people. Public or not, she could still have tried to hurt us." His face darkened. "Or worse."
"But you're her brother." Lenore didn't understand. She had no similar experience to compare this to. The people in her family liked each other.
The look Rafe gave her told her how naïve he thought she was. "That wouldn't make a difference to her. Trust me on that one."
She took a sip of her Coke and played with the wrapper from the straw, winding it around her fingers for something to do. She had no idea how to deal with any of this stuff; dysfunctional families were territory invasions, and physical attacks were not everyday occurrences where she was from. Not being a were meant she didn't have to worry about these things.
"She's here," Rafe said. Lenore saw him drop some money on the counter to cover the cost of the sodas.
She turned around on her stool and froze. Cormac was getting out of the black car. Terrific. Her brother looked like he wanted to strangle someone and he hadn't decided on who it was going to be. Lenore caught a glimpse of Rafe and he was pale as paper beneath his black hair. Great. He was going to get in trouble for something she had engineered; he hadn't even known about her lying to Kess and Cormac.
Her brother stood before them, practically quivering with rage. In a voice remarkably like her father's, he whipped out, "Get in the car. NOW."
Chapter Twenty-Two
He was seething. He was actually amazed he hadn't set the front seat on fire on the way to pick up his sister and the kid. The fact that they'd both been safe and in one piece hadn't lessened his temper one iota. Cormac looked over at Kess, who was studiously driving and not saying anything, in an effort to avoid looking at the two teenagers in the back seat. It didn't work. He found his eyes watching them through the rear view mirror.
Rafe, at least, looked appropriately contrite. His head was down, his face obscured by his shaggy hair. He wasn't saying anything, hadn't even tried to speak when Cormac had ordered them into the car. His sister on the other hand…
If one could slouch defiantly, she was doing so now. Her face was set in mulish rebellion. She was slung low in her seat, arms crossed in front of her chest. Every time she looked up front, her eyes narrowed in a death glare. If he hadn't been so furious himself, he probably would be laughing at her.
They drove in awkward silence for several minutes. It was too much to hope it would last with his sister in the car.
"Fine," she huffed into the quiet. "You can be mad at me all you want, Mac, but don't be mad at Kess or Rafe. I'm the one who lied about going out today. Rafe didn't know anything about it until we got there!"
Cormac turned around in his seat, glaring at the two of them. Rafe flinched aside, but Lenore just set her jaw and matched his glare with a stellar one of her own. "Then he should have called us right then to get some backup. He knows—him better than anyone—what could have happened."
And almost did
, he amended silently.
"You are just so determined to make this somehow all Rafe's fault, aren't you?"
Rafe spoke for the first time, his voice a hushed whisper. "Lenore, he's right. Just leave it alone."
Cormac raised his eyebrows, surprised that the kid would shoulder the responsibility. As much as he wanted to blame the kid for everything though, he knew the lion's share of it lay with his sister. He listened as she began to argue with the werehyena, then raised his voice to be heard over hers. "Actually, I blame the both of you."
And myself. I should have told her what was going on here, I should have been more aware
. "And we'll talk about it when we get home. But until then, NOT. ANOTHER. WORD. LENORE."
She fumed all the way home. Cormac marveled at how loud her silence could be. When Kess pulled into the driveway, Lenore was out of the car before it even stopped. He was after her in a hot second, following her inside. He left Kess to deal with Rafe since, technically, he was her problem.
Lenore tried to outpace him, but that was never going to happen unless she decided to wear stilts. He caught up to her and steered her into her bedroom, closing the door so that the rest of the house didn't have to listen to the inevitable shouting match sure to come. His family didn't really argue—it was hard to argue with someone like his father; rather they just had really LOUD discussions. He had a feeling this time would be different.
Lenore refused to look at him. She stood in the middle of the room with her back to him, tension in the line of her back and neck. She still had her arms crossed over her chest and she had added a cocked hip, her weight thrown over onto one leg. He waited for her to say something. When she didn't, he walked across the room to stand in front of her. She turned right around so he was looking at her back again.
Cormac sighed, anger flowing out of him with his breath. He didn't want to yell at her, but he needed to make her understand how dangerous the situation was here and how she just couldn't run off whenever she wanted. If she was going to stay here, she needed to know. He couldn't keep her in the dark any longer and he couldn't treat her like a little girl. Not now. But she also couldn't act like a headstrong brat either. They needed to meet in the middle.
"Sit down, Lenore. Please."
She spun to face him. "Oh, am I allowed to talk now? That's nice."
He walked over the chair in the corner and dragged it over so that it was in front of the bed. Then he lightly touched his sister's shoulder, stiff and brittle as a dead branch, and pushed her over to the bed. She dropped down on it gracelessly, her head turned so she didn't have to look at him. He sat down in the chair and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees.
"I'm sorry." He kept his eyes on her, watching for her reaction.
Lenore's eyes met his and he saw that they were glistening, like she was holding back tears. She blinked rapidly to clear them. Cormac smiled at her. Then he shook his head. "Kess was right. I should have told you more of what was going on down here. What happened today was mostly my fault."
Lenore shook her head. "All you told me was to watch out for Rafe. You didn't even tell me why."
"You were actually listening to what I said? That's a relief." He grinned. He couldn't help but tease her.
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I do listen to the words that come out of your mouth once in awhile. And Rafe isn't somebody I need to be worried about, by the way."
Now he frowned. He'd deal with the kid later. "Okay, so if you're going to stay down here, there are going to be some hard and fast rules." He held up a hand at her protest. "AND, I'm going to tell you why.
"I don't know if Rafe told you anything, but I'm going to assume he hasn't said much. His mother wants Miami for her own territory and she's been sending in raiding parties to try and get it. Kess and her people can't keep them all out. It's dangerous out there for you, especially since you aren't a were and don't have our protections. That's why I've been telling you to be careful and that's why Kess and I have tried to go everywhere with you. When we can't that's why we ask that you go out in a large group. Do you understand?"
Lenore's eyes were wide. "Are you and Finn in danger here?"
"Truth?" When she nodded, he took her hand in his. "Yes. All of us are. Until Samara has been taken care of, we all have to be really careful. For you, that means you go everywhere with me, Finn, or Kess. When you are out, you stay in a big group. You don't go anywhere just you and Rafe. You don't go anywhere by yourself."
Lenore grabbed his hand, her grip tight. "Has something happened?"
He nodded, holding her eyes. "We're all fine, but yes. We've had to fight. So now you see why Kess and I are so worried. And why I want you to follow the rules from now on. I promised Mom and Dad that I'd keep you safe, but I need your help to do that."
"Okay." She was pale, but seemed calmer. She released the death grip she had on his hand.
"Okay? I need more from you than an okay, Lenore. I need to know that you understand what I'm telling you. If you want to be treated like an adult, you need to be able to handle what comes with it. Can you do that?"
She nodded. "Yeah." She wiped her eyes. "Yeah, I understand."
He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "I love you, kiddo."
"I love you too." He moved to leave, but she caught his hand again. "I get why you are being so careful. But is the only reason you don't trust Rafe because he's a werehyena? Because if it is, he's not like them."
He kissed her head again. He loved his sister dearly, but right now, Rafe was the only werehyena she'd ever met. She had absolutely nothing to compare him to so her judgment wasn't what it should be. "We'll see." He left to go find Kess and see how she was doing.
Kess walked beside Rafe. "We'll talk in my office," was all she said. She closed the door behind them.
Rafe stopped in front of the large desk, hands in the pockets of his jeans, head down. His hair hung down so she couldn't read the expression on his face. Instead of going around behind the desk, she leaned a hip against the back of the leather loveseat. She didn't want to put him on the defensive by making it seem like an audience. That desk had its own air of authority about it, which was part of why she didn't like it. She'd need to look into getting some new furniture soon.
Her first impulse was to let Rafe off with a warning and cut him loose. He'd been wrong to take off by himself, just him and Lenore, but he'd done the right thing by calling her when trouble was likely. He’d protected himself and Lenore, and got out of a dangerous situation safely.
She went against that impulse and looked at the situation like a clan leader should. If she was going to be head of Miami she had to review all of the possibilities. And one of those was that this was another setup, designed to make her feel just that way towards Rafe. To allow him to get in closer, to find out more information. When she viewed the outing from that angle, the werehyena came out looking much more suspicious.
"So tell me what happened." Kess kept her voice even.
Rafe startled and turned around to face her. "I told you on the phone."
"I want to hear all of it. From the beginning. Go."
Rafe dug the toe of his sneaker into the rug, tracing patterns. "Lenore suggested we go to the museum this morning. I figured she'd already okayed it with Cormac."
"And you didn't think to check with me?" Again, Kess kept her voice neutral, trying to get to the reasoning behind his decision to go.
"You said I was free to come and go as I pleased." His voice was defensive.
Damn. She had said that. She'd given him too much freedom at the outset and now she couldn't exactly complain when he took it. She frowned. "Continue."
"We were walking around and everything was fine. Better than fine." A slight smile crossed his face, disappearing when he looked down at the rug. "Then I smelled my sister and I saw two of her friends hanging around the village. I ran and got Lenore..."
"Wait, so you had gone off by yourself?" Kess couldn't keep the suspicion from her voice.
Rafe's head whipped up from his focus on the carpet. "Yes." Now his voice was hostile.
Kess brought her emotions back under control and tried to temper her voice to a more even tone. No need to alienate him. He hadn't actually done anything wrong and had done several things right. "Then what?"
His voice was tight. "I grabbed Lenore and got us out of there. That's when I called you."
Kess began to pace. At face value, it sounded plausible. Rafe had done the right thing by calling her and by getting Lenore to safety, but there was still those unaccounted for minutes when he'd gone off on his own. Which was followed by other hyenas showing up. It was a little too much like what happened in the Everglades for her comfort.
"And you didn't speak to them when you were alone?" She had to ask. Not that she should expect an honest answer.