Page 64 of Shifter Marked and Claimed

Picking up the laptop the Council had provided us, I checked in for homework then searched for more information regarding Jessica’s death. The news was grim. She’d been home alone at the time of the break-in. Nothing was taken, and the police were calling it a hate crime because of her Hispanic heritage and the abuse she’d suffered. They didn’t go into exact details other than she died because of her injuries, which included a stab wound.

I swallowed hard and glanced at the phone. It was another gift from the Council. When Zoe and I had run, we’d left our phones behind. We hadn’t wanted to give Joey a way to track us. But I remembered the numbers of a few friends who knew Jessica.

“I think I should call Nicki,” I said, standing.

Zoe looked up from her pancake-making task to frown at me.

“We agreed we needed to keep our friends out of this. They’d ask too many questions or worse, tell us to come home.”

“I know. And I still think that will happen, but if Joey’s out there looking for us…”

“You think it was him, don’t you?”

I sighed and sat on the stool by the kitchen island.

“I don’t know. But we have a responsibility to warn everyone close to us, just in case, don’t we?”

She studied me for a minute then looked down at the batter.

“You’re right. We do. What are you going to tell Nicki?”

“That we left town and are hiding out somewhere safe because our cousin is a psycho. That we think he might have killed Jessica in an attempt to find where we are.”

“Hearing, ‘you’re next,’ isn’t going to go over well.”

“Probably not, but I have to try.”

She nodded and watched as I dialed Nicki’s number. It rang several times and went to a generic voicemail, which I found odd. I hung up rather than leaving a message.

“No answer.”

“Try Chloe.”

I dialed her number. She picked up after the second ring.

“Hello?”

“Chloe? It’s Kelsey.”

“Oh my God, Kelsey.” Her voice broke at the end, and she started sniffling. “When you disappeared and stopped answering calls, we thought—you don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Jessica’s dead. She was murdered in her house, Kelsey. Two days ago. Nicki too, last week. First you and your sister went missing then them. The police were here asking questions. If anyone hated you. If our friend group argued with anyone. Where are you, Kelsey? What’s going on?”

“Chloe, take a deep breath. Try to calm down. Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Are your parents home?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Listen carefully. Zoe and I ran because our cousin Joey wanted to sell us. Human trafficking and sex slave stuff. Get it?”

“Shit.”

“The last time we saw him, he said there was a lot of money on the line and we needed to go with him before someone got hurt. I thought he meant us at the time. Now, I’m not so sure.”

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