Bayou Blues (27 page)

“Good. I want him to come.”

“You know it likely won’t be him that comes, right? It’ll probably be the cops. And then we’re back to square one. Which is sharing a shitty jail cell with my brother.”

“It
will
be him.” I felt certain of this. I couldn’t imagine, given how much Deerling had to hide, that he’d let just any cop show up at his doorstep where they might trip over his dirty little secrets.

Who had been there when we were arrested? Anderson, the sheriff and another handful of men, some of whom I’d seen during my time at the station. Josie, the female deputy, hadn’t been among them. I had a good feeling about her, especially after our chat in the diner. There had to be other cops around like her who weren’t corrupt.

Deerling couldn’t take the chance one of those good cops might stumble onto what he was most likely hiding in the church.

“How can you be sure? You exist in this insane little bubble of absolute certainty. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

I smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“You
would
think that was a compliment, wouldn’t you?”

We parked in the lot of the closed drive-thru. The street was as abandoned as it had been the first night we drove into town, but still we cut the lights and sat quietly for a moment.

Wilder turned in his seat, his arm slipping behind my headrest. I was suddenly all too aware of how close he was and how little space there was between us. My breath came out in a stuttering exhalation. This sort of feeling should be illegal. People wrote poems about the quiver in my belly right now. Wars were started because of the way I felt sitting next to him in a car, his thumb pressing against the back of my neck.

I wanted to devour him.

I wanted to run away from him and never look back.

This man was so,
so
dangerous for me.

Instead I avoided his penetrating stare, knowing the combination of his eyes and lips and smell might be the last nudge I needed to do something I hadn’t thought myself capable of doing.

The air all around us felt hot and damp.

He’d been gearing up to speak, I could tell by the way he positioned himself, but he was hesitating for some reason. Heat rose, flushing my cheeks. If he didn’t say anything soon, I was going to get out and walk to the damned church.

“Why risk it?” His voice came out hoarse, hushed. He cleared his throat.

Why? Because it would be so deliciously bad for me. Like eating a whole cheesecake in one sitting.

Right, yeah, he wasn’t talking about what I thought he was talking about. Apparently not everyone’s mind went straight to the gutter at the drop of a hat.

“All we have is the video he sent us,” I began. “It’s proof of assault. It strongly suggests an intent to kill, but it’s not enough. Conspiracy of a plan, but nothing concrete. I need to hear him admit it. If we give him to Cain and he vanishes, he’ll be a martyr. People will assume it was us—”

“It will be us.”

“You know what I mean. Us with a capital U. Werewolves en masse are going to be held accountable for him disappearing. They’ll assume Hank killed that woman and that the pack held Deerling responsible for threatening us. Instead of seeing him as a monster, it will prove his point in the public’s eyes. It will erase any progress we’ve made, all the goodwill.”

“Why should we care what the normies think, huh? We did fine without their stamp of approval for decades. They can’t dictate what we do.” He shifted back in his seat and stared out the window. I could tell he didn’t believe his own words. It
did
matter.

“If they think we’re senseless killers, they’ll kill us. Not the way Deerling has been. Mass exterminations. I’m not just talking about us being downgraded as citizens, losing the right to vote, to own homes, all that. I’m talking about a world where people can hunt us without retribution. You want to be part of a society where people can buy licenses to go werewolf shooting on a full moon? I don’t.”

“This guy doesn’t have that kind of power.” The ideas were starting to sink in, though. I saw how people were reacting to vampires, and how the debate raged about whether or not they deserved human rights since they were dead. It was a big, messy situation. And no one was arguing that vamps had once been human. What about shifters? Our DNA was fundamentally different. We carried a specific gene that allowed us to shift if we were bitten by another werewolf. Only those who carried the gene could become wolves.

It should have made us less scary, but I saw things going the other way.

If our genetic code was different, how much of a stretch would it be to say we were closer to wolf than human, regardless of our form? This situation had become so much more than I’d ever expected it to. I thought we’d come here and save Hank and make our way home again, unchanged.

Now I was worried about the future of every werewolf, not just the ones in my pack. Tensions all over the country were running high since we’d been revealed. Deerling might be the poster child of a whole movement, and I didn’t want to be responsible for setting that ball rolling.

“Before we make him disappear, people need to know.”

“And if it doesn’t work? Because it probably won’t work, you know.”

“Gee, thanks. Your vote of confidence is really making me feel good over here.”

“If I was trying to make you feel good, you’d know it.” He paused. I blushed. “I’m trying to talk some sense into you.”

I let out a rough laugh. “You must not have a lot of experience with McQueens.”

“The learning curve is steep. I’m figuring it out fast.”

“Listen.” I turned towards him, allowing myself to look at him dead-on finally. “You don’t have to come. If you want to go to the station and wait for Hank with Cash and Matt, I understand. We came here to help your brother, and I know you want to see him get home safe. I’m giving you an out.”

“You’re giving yourself an out. You don’t want to be responsible for anyone else.”

I shook my head firmly. “If that’s what you think, you haven’t been paying attention. I want to be responsible for
everyone
. And I can’t put that on you. You can save Hank and go home feeling accomplished. I can’t leave here unless I know my whole pack is going to be okay.”

He stared at me for so long I worried I might have said something terribly wrong. The air between us felt alive, electric, and the way he looked at me made my skin burn in a way no magic ever had.

Just when I thought he was going to speak, he kissed me.

It happened so quickly his lips were already on mine before I knew he’d moved. He cupped the back of my head with both hands, and I gasped into his open mouth. When his tongue grazed my lower lip, I braced my hand against his chest, but instead of pushing him back I balled his cotton T-shirt into my palm.

My whole body shuddered from the intensity of just one kiss. Blood pounded in my ears, and my skin broke out in goose bumps. I let myself kiss him for one long, slow, hungry moment, then shoved him back. Wrenched free of his grip, I was left panting, putting both hands on the dash so I wasn’t tempted to touch him again.

He licked his swollen lips and took a shaky breath.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“Uh-huh.” Words were too much right then. I couldn’t tell him it was okay. It wasn’t okay. He had crossed the line, but I had smudged it out with my toe. No one was faultless in this, and just knowing that made me feel guilty.

“Actually I’m not.”

I looked at him, holding tight to the dash. I would not, could not touch him. “We can’t.”

He shook his head. “We can. And we will. Because as nice a guy as Cash is, he’s not supposed to be
your
guy, and we both know it.” Wilder’s hands shook when he started the car and turned us away from town, towards the church. “And if you think I’m going to let a lady who kisses like that walk into certain death alone, you’ve got another thing coming, understand?”

The church lot was empty, but we parked on the side of the highway and walked back. I was careful to stay a few paces ahead of Wilder, which was easier said than done considering his longer legs and my terrible secondhand shoes.

But if I was next to him, I’d be worried about accidentally touching him. And if he was in the lead, I’d probably be staring at his butt instead of thinking about what we had to do next. Now I was just thinking about not thinking about his butt.

So much better.

As we crossed into the parking lot, the smell of gardenia and magnolias hung over us like a sweet umbrella. I was never going to be able to enjoy those flowers again as long as I lived.

We skirted around the outside perimeter, and I made sure to step on every wolfsbane plant I could find. Purple blossoms were mashed into the cedar shavings around the bushes. When I was satisfied by my small act of rebellion, I grabbed the biggest rock I could carry—which was pretty big considering I could hoist my own body weight—and made a beeline for the church.

Wilder, who had held back to this point, whispered, “Isn’t it a regulation that churches need to be open to the public twenty-four-seven or something? Maybe we should try the door?”

“I’ve never heard that rule.” I kept going and got to the entrance, eyeing the floor-to-ceiling glass. My reflection glinted back at me, and the girl in the window looked a little insane.

I threw the rock at the front door, which shattered in such a triumphant, glorious way I wanted to repeat the process on every window in the whole place. It crumbled apart like a stunt window in a movie, glimmering cubes of glass falling in a heap, like diamonds.

After wading through them, I grabbed the handle for the second door and tugged. It opened without resistance.

“You were right. Unlocked.” I held it open for him, and after he took a moment to make sure I knew he thought I was nuts, he went inside. No alarm sounded, which was a surprising disappointment to me.

Bits of glass trailed us like guilty bread crumbs as we moved through the lobby and into the main congregation room.

Jesus stared down at us from the cross, the gaudy gold sun glimmering behind him, haloing his limp body in a grotesque way. The sun might be the church’s symbol, but I was disgusted by the implication of the idol. It seemed to suggest God was rejoicing in the death of his son, and I couldn’t look at it for long without wanting to climb up and tear it down with my bare hands.

I really didn’t like these people.

Wilder and I walked up to the front pulpit area where a lectern stood, waiting for Timothy to take his place for Sunday worship. On the left was a door marked
Exit
and another matching door on the right with a printed sign that read
Employees Only
.

Bingo.

I glanced behind us, up to a big glass control room overlooking the whole scene. Several video cameras were positioned around the room, to televise Deerling’s weekly sermons. I’d seen links for the feeds on their website. It wasn’t uncommon for local churches to share the Word on Sundays for folks who couldn’t make it down to an actual church but still wanted to feel like good little Christians.

The Church of Morning was no different. They had fans all over the country who weren’t able to come to Franklinton in person. It made sense, given how big the church was. The money had to be coming from somewhere, and a sucker was born every minute who would give their cash to a charming leader.

Before we went to see what was in Deerling’s chamber of horrors—which I prayed I wasn’t wrong about—we’d need to be sure the cameras were rolling. Alarm or no alarm, we were short on time, and we had to make the most of every second.

“See if you can find access to the control room up there.” I moved along the side wall, hoping a staircase would pop out that I hadn’t noticed before. Wilder beat me to it.

Between the two of us it would have been easier to learn to fly an airplane than to get the AV turned on. A degree in electrical engineering would have helped us a bit, but even then I wasn’t sure anyone could decipher what all the knobs and dials and switches did.

We accidentally turned on all the lights, then dimmed them, then shut off the lights in the room we were in. By the time we finally found the switch for the cameras, we had wasted so much time I thought we might have to abandon the plan altogether. I never thought I’d be bested by a bunch of switches.

Four overhead monitors turned on, showing different views of the pulpit area and a reverse angle facing the crowd. An empty hiss of white noise told me the sound was working, there just wasn’t anything for it to pick up.

Now all we needed was the broadcast button.

I scoured the board until I found a row of metal tabs, each with a label beneath it written on masking tape.

Local Access
.

East Coast
.

West Coast
.

Satellite
.

Web
.

I flicked them all on, and with each one a small green light turned on.

We were, as far as I could tell, live on air. Of course, if this all went terribly wrong, I was handing over proof of our criminal activity to the whole world, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

Back downstairs we headed right for the
Employees Only
door. I started doing visualization exercises in my head, telling myself I was prepared for anything as long as it wasn’t disappointment.

The door was locked, which gave me my first thrill of hope since we’d arrived. The front door and control room were both unlocked—showing an incredible amount of trust or naivety, I wasn’t sure which. But if this room was locked, it meant there was something behind it worth hiding.

Wilder forced the door open with his shoulder before I had a chance to make my move. It swung inward hard, bouncing off a wall and slamming shut again, but the damage to the doorframe meant it didn’t close all the way. We nudged it open and stood at the precipice of a darkened stairwell going down.

I led the way, my eyes adjusting to the darkness slowly, so I could make out shapes but nothing too specific. Fumbling along the wall, I found a light switch and flipped it, just as I bumped into a low wooden table.