Chapter 99

Grace

Eason and I locked eyes as I entered the conference room. The food was mostly gone. He had another popsicle in his mouth. There were papers everywhere. Amira was on the other side of the table with her laptop.

"I could--"

"I'm not running," I said.

Amira glanced between me and Eason as he looked at me. His skepticism was written all over his face, but he said nothing.

I approached the table. "This... attack has nothing to do with our heritage, really. It's about the patent."

Eason turned back to his laptop, not saying anything as he went back to typing. It felt dismissive, and it irritated me, but I held it back.

"I talked to Gabriel," I said. "About Blood Moon. I think he'll be able to give us more insight into what Blood Moon might do next and how best to manage the situation."

Eason said nothing still, but it didn't feel like he was ignoring me.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

Eason met my gaze. "I think I've said everything I needed to."

I grit my teeth. "You seem like you have a lot more to say."

"Eat," he said tersely. He shoved a platter towards me. "Before you pass out again."

He looked across the table at Amira. "If you could get the dispatch list sent out ASAP. I'm almost done with the rest."

"What dispatch list?"

He glanced at me before sliding a sheet over.

"This is everywhere Blood Moon attacked when Dad was alpha."

My eyes burned. My chest felt tight, and the bite of food I put in my mouth tasted like ash, regret, and shame. I said nothing as I read the list, hearing Eason's voice ring in my ear.

You ran.

I had nothing to add to Eason's plan about how to prepare for Blood Moon's subsequent attacks. I hadn't even known that the police patrolled certain areas of the city regularly, like the water plants, partially because of the attacks from before.

It hadn't been luck that had caught those Blood Moon operatives. It had been planning, whose planning I didn't know.

The ride home was lonely. Eason didn't ride with me. He hadn't even looked at me since I came back. Margaret had left before me, as had Seraphina. I didn't know how Eason was getting home, and I hadn't had a chance to ask the way he burned out of the building, like he had no intention of ever talking to me again. Amira was picked up right outside of Wolfe Medical.

I got home, warmed up leftovers, and wondered if Eason was staying elsewhere and when Charles would be back. I could have really used the distraction, but there was no hope for it.

I put Cecil and Richard to bed before settling in the living room with a tumbler of whiskey. I turned on the television and sipped.

Every channel seemed to be covering Blood Moon's interest in Mooncrest. They'd even got a snippet of me yelling at Marvin earlier, along with statements from the other people who had been on Blood Moon's list.

"What do you think? I think the Ravens are the best candidate on the list."

"You really shouldn't watch garbage before bed," Margaret said, coming to sit beside me with a mug. She was dressed for bed with a face mask on. "It'll melt your brain."

I said nothing, watching the news, letting it all wash through my mind. Then, it turned off.

I turned to look at Margaret. "You have something to say too?"

"How much have you changed, Grace?" Margaret asked. "When you were in undergrad, all you did was get into petty fights."

"Petty?"

"I think punching someone who called you a homewrecker because you slept with their boyfriend at a party is petty at the least."

I scoffed. "She had it coming, and how was I supposed to know they were dating?"

"You still didn't have to punch her. Then, if it wasn't girlfriends, it was wanna-be boyfriends or that professor you almost fought over your paper?"

I crossed my arms. "I was... an angry college student."

"You never back down from a fight, no matter how stupid it made you look."

My lips twitched, and I picked up my whiskey tumbler. She took it from me and set it aside.

"I am not dealing with drunk emotional Grace tonight."

I rolled my eyes. "This isn't a fight, Margaret. This is war..."

I shook my head. "I told Eason that I... that I wasn't going to run, and he's still--"

"Looking at you like you're a liar and a coward."

I nodded.

"Well, you are."

I turned on her. "I--"

"You want to run," Margaret said, staring at me. "I can see it in your face."

"But I'm not--"

"Because you don't have a choice. Eason is far smarter than you, dear. More importantly, he knows you better than anyone. Just because you found out that running is just likely to make the situation worse and still get you killed doesn't mean that you don't want to run. It means staying is the easier option."

Margaret gestured to the table. "You've burned bridges with Eason so many times, and it's always Eason who rebuilds it."

"That's not true!"

"See. Liar."

"Did you send him Festival gifts? Birthday gifts after you basically kicked him out of his family home for Devin?"

My face heated. "I didn't know where he lived."

She cocked an eyebrow. "He sent you gifts, didn't he? For you and the kids? Good ones, too... with return address included. You even give him a call?"

I set my jaw. "What does that have to do with this?"

"I'm explaining to you why your brother isn't going to put any investment in you anymore. You've taken him for granted, and he's tired, and rightfully so. You're going to have to prove yourself worth the effort. He's going through a lot of changes with the shift and everything, and his instincts are bringing feelings he usually would ignore to the forefront... mostly about the alpha he grew up with other than your mother: you."

I shook my head. "I don't know how to deal with what he's feeling."

"That mean you don't try? Have a little empathy," Margaret scoffed. "And grow a spine."

"You keep saying that, but as far as I can see, I have plenty of spine."

"Doing what you want and living to regret it isn't having a spine, Grace. Doing what's hard, what needs to be done, is having a spine. Calling this terrorist attack a war, as if war isn't just a large-scale fight, is just a cop-out from saying you're scared and you don't want the responsibility. Blood Moon can only get away with shit like his because the States make more money with them terrorizing people than stopping them."

She sighed. "I didn't realize you knew so little about the world you live in, but that's the truth. You have to make keeping Mooncrest safe worth the dollars the States, specifically the President, gets leaving you in danger as a deterrent for anyone else with bright ideas."

"And how exactly do I do that?"

"Eventually? The longevity drug will do that, but you have to get it through patent and get Fenris off your ass."

"Eventually isn't going to keep Mooncrest standing."

"No, but if you eminently tell them to fuck off and imminently make them fuck off, then you don't have to worry about it."

"The police don't have the force to do that."

"The Enforcers do."

I bit my lip as I heard Eason's voice in my head again.

Rather than even seeing that everyone here is trying to support you, rather than giving a damn about anyone else's fears but your own, you'd rather run. Again.

But there was nowhere to run. Even if the Enforcers could help, would that be enough?

"Maybe."

Margaret rolled her eyes and drank as my phone rang.

I answered it, hoping it was Charles, but the voice on the other side was unfamiliar.

"Alpha Wolfe, I'm reporting in from the Wolfe Medical warehouse on Waft St. as ordered. We've interrupted an arson attempt in progress. We'll hold them with the water plant attackers."

I couldn't remember if the Waft St. warehouse was on the original list or something that Eason had added due to the situation.

"Thank you," I said, clenching my jaw as I thought about the list of ideas Eason had compiled and given to me earlier.

"There's one more thing before you go," I said. "Start preparing for a curfew to go into effect tomorrow."

"I'm just an office, alpha. You'd have to speak with the chief about that."

My face burned. "Of course. Thank you."

I hung up and swallowed, looking at the phone. I got up and went up the stairs until I reached Eason's room. I knocked once and heard nothing. Then, the door opened, and he leaned in the doorway, his hair plastered to his face, half naked in just his boxers. His eyes were glowing in the shadows of his face.

For a moment, I was struck as if I had been thrown back in time to those days after Mom had died. He'd been feverish then, too. Dad thought he'd just caught something while he was on campus.

He blinked at me, and a low rumbling sound came from his chest.

I understood it enough to know that he was asking me what I wanted.

"I want to set a curfew and make an announcement at City Hall tomorrow about it and Blood Moon."

Another rumble.

"I'm going to tell them to fuck off."