Page 23 of Scarred Resolve

“Somewhere in Alaska, a werecat lost him or herself to the curse,” I said, stating the obvious to break the silence.

“And humans discovered it,” Subira said, leaning forward and not looking at the camera anymore. She was staring intently at the screen, the glow hitting her eyes in just that way to make me realize they were her werecat eyes.

“The BSA doesn’t want this to be public information any more than we do,” I said, running a hand through my hair to push it out of my face.

“Are you sure?” she asked, her face disturbingly bland. I was used to Subira with a touch of humor, affection, or even wrath, but void of all of that, it scared me more than her fury ever would.

“She’s right to trust them in that,” Heath said, his tone speaking to his years of experience as a werewolf Alpha and a public face of his people to the human world. “Having sat in those meetings myself, it’s a very strict protocol, and the information is heavily restricted, even to those who need to deal with the problem. The fact that they let Jacky leave with the intel is probably due to Jacky. No emails, no phone calls. This sort of intel is collected and stored with only a handful of peopleallowed to manage it. The meeting was probably held in a secure room in the BSA that most of its own people don’t even know exists.”

“Two stories underground with a full layer of concrete between us and the building above,” I confirmed. “Right?”

“That’s the one,” Heath confirmed, nodding. He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “How did you leave with the USB?”

“They insulted my intelligence and trustworthiness. I got snappy, and with Niko’s help, we laid down the law about how we were going to be treated and how much interference we were willing to deal with.”

“Which is none. I told the BSA and Callahan that if I catch a werewolf trying to behelpful, I will send them home in a bag,” Niko growled.

“So, they gave us the USB, which I presume is all of their current intel, and let us leave. We’ll handle this,” I finished. “They know we’re telling you three and a handful of others.” I waved at the screen. “They know there’s going to be a task force on this. Just not one of theirs… or Callahan’s.”

“Good job,” Zuri said simply. “Now, we need to discuss our plan of action. With the werecat in the Americas, that places it in Jacky’s realm of the world.”

“It would be stupid to send Jacky out to kill this thing, even with Niko’s help,” Jabari growled over Subira at his sister.

“Of course, but Hisao needs to stay close to Mischa for her own safety, so they are immediately out of the picture. We’re here with Mother building a house, which can’t be postponed. We need this finished, and we’ve barely broken ground because you’ve been an ass about what we are going to build. Niko is capable. He’s strong. He’s smart. He’s a great addition to help Jacky.”

“It’s just a house. We can leave it,” Jabari snapped.

“It’s our mother’s house, and we’re currently in a cave nowhere near the center of her territory. And I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being away from my son every time something happens, and I certainly won’t drag a toddler on this mission. I trust our younger siblings, and I won’t mess with Jacky’s position in the world by forcing her to stay off this mission. We can’t, under any circumstance, project that weakness.”

Before Jabari could respond, Subira lifted a hand.

“There’s no reason to believe that Jacky, with proper support, can’t be a valued member of this.” She lowered her hand slowly, but when Jabari opened his mouth, she lifted that hand again. “If there were a werecat in that region that required you or Zuri, then I would know about it. To ease you, I will also ask Hasan about who he knows might be in that area, if it’s any of the oldest werecats that we would never send our children. Yes, this will be dangerous, but it would be dangerous for any of us. I don’t intend on sending out only Niko and Jacky, though. There needs to be a third. Three is a good number for this hunting party. Then I will feel completely confident.”

We all waited for Subira to continue that. She was looking at the picture still, tilting her head to the side in interest.

“Are there any more pictures of this? Any way we can judge the size?” she asked.

“Uh…” I searched through the pictures. There were hundreds of them, and only the top fifteen or twenty weren’t buried in folders. The choice images to show the meeting, it seemed. I found a folder dedicated to the prints and found two images that were exactly what we needed. Someone had smartly measured the prints.

Thank you to whoever took these pictures…

“Do you want the normal print or the…”

“The normal print would be the back leg. The disfigured print would be the front legs or arms, depending on how this werecat had adapted to its final form,” Subira supplied me. “Can I see both in comparison?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said softly as I did just that for her, putting the images side by side. They were massive. She studied them, along with Zuri and Jabari. We all waited on them. They were the experts, the eldest.

“I want to say a male,” Zuri said finally, frowning at it. “I don’t know the terrain up there very well, though. It could be a deep print due to the moisture of the soil or a recent rain or the snow melted.”

“It’s not big enough to be anyone Hasan and I would need to handle ourselves,” Subira added.

“It’s definitely not someone like Father and me. Possibly male, but not like us. Do we have any record of the werecats in that region? That would help us narrow it down.” Jabari crossed his arms and leaned back, and I tried not to take his furious expression personally. It wasn’t. This had nothing to do with me, only to be dropped into my lap at a time when the family was dealing with enough on our plates as it was. This was exactly the last thing any of us would have wanted to be dealing with.

However, I was the one who could answer his question.

“Oh. I haven’t had the chance to pull up my information on the werecats that far north yet. I know there’s a handful in the Yukon. I know there are a few in Alaska. I need a moment to hunt down my list.” The list. It was almost stupid to keep, but since I was young, I couldn’t recall every werecat I ever met like my siblings could. They met other werecats over the years, heard their names through the grapevines, and even helped them or fought them. I barely knew anyone, and when I did invite werecats to visit me, not every werecat had come.

“She might not know this one. It’s important to remember a lot of werecats moved into the Americas to intentionally disappear,” Zuri commented. Niko nodded.

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