JUST NOT THE GOOD ONES. 7 page

“Parents are in Europe. Bailey’s made contact with Jackson,” Ski Mask said. He sounded young, too.

“Then who’s she?” the gravelly voiced guy demanded.

Suddenly a gun was pointed in Lydia’s face. A real gun. A gun that could kill her. She could feel her eyes crossing as she stared at the barrel with the same gut-churning horror as if he were holding a rattlesnake. She didn’t know if she was still breathing. She didn’t know anything. She could barely remember how to think.

He was wearing Latex gloves. No fingerprints left behind. Nothing left behind, except, possibly, a dead girl.

“You make one sound,” Ski Mask warned her. “Understand?”

She tried to move her head, but she was paralyzed with fear. He touched the tip of the gun against her forehead. She went completely cold, head to toe, as if someone had just dumped her in a frozen river.

“Understand?”

All she could do was lie there.

“What the hell are we going to do with her?” Gravelly Voice said. He came into the room. He, too, was wearing a mask. And Latex gloves.

“Is there anyone else in the house?” Ski Mask asked her. “Tell me the truth or I’ll blow you away.”

Lydia lay petrified, still unable to speak.

• • •

After shedding himself of Stiles, Derek had made the shift and charged through the woods. He stayed well hidden, slinking through a copse of trees as he came within sight of some people partying at a fire ring. They were drinking and laughing, just a bunch of kids messing around, savoring the freedom of a Friday night. The pungent odors of sweat, smoke, and alcohol created a near-impenetrable layer of smells, and he scented no trace of either the Alpha or Scott.

Frustrated, he moved on, loping through the woods. He stayed low, racing along, until he smelled traces of Scott and the Alpha. His hackles rose, and he let out a growl that almost rose into a howl, but at the last instant, he suppressed it. Both sets of traces were old, and hadn’t mingled. At different times, each of them had been there. But neither tonight. Scott might find it bitterly ironic to know that he had crossed the Alpha’s path before the Alpha had changed his life forever.

And then Derek touched down on the spot where he had found his sister’s body. In fury, he showed his teeth and threw back his head, forcing down another howl, this one of rage. He bit down on his arm to stop himself, almost welcoming the deep pain he felt.

As the wound began to heal, he moved on, searching for Scott, following another smoke trail until he came to another fire. This one was unattended. He smelled humans very clearly. There had been two. One, he didn’t recognize, but the other was that surly lacrosse player, the one he’d dug his nails into when he’d been so sick and the kid had been so insulting.

Jackson.

In his anger, Derek shifted back to human form. He’d been dying of wolfsbane poisoning when he’d lashed out at Jackson, grabbing him by the back of the neck. He hadn’t meant to dig his nails into him. But now Jackson bore Derek’s mark, and the Alpha would know him by it. It had been such a stupid thing to do.

I couldn’t help it, he reminded himself as he walked the perimeter of the fire. He didn’t like the smell of the other man who had been there with Jackson. Jackson had been afraid of him. Derek could smell it.

There was something half burned in the fire, what looked like a photocopy of a newspaper article. Derek fished it out. It bore the smell of the stranger:

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 723