Page 133 of Forget Me Not

“Hopefully, I’ll be home soon,” Ray told him. The elevator started up again. Ray took a deep breath, hating the worry he’d put in Cal’s voice, but happy to hear him. “You’re the only choice, Forget-Me-Not.”

He hung up before Cal could answer.

Near the bottom of the stairs, he stopped, staying around the corner and out of sight of anyone who might get off the elevator. The doors opened without much noise, although gears or pieces of metal ground together within the machinery itself.

The two were in nicer shoes than Ray would have expected for saboteurs or hired muscle hanging out in a filthy, abandoned building. They made noise as they moved out of the vestibule area in front of the elevator. One of them held back while the other opened the first apartment door—the one in charge, then, making the other one do the dirty work. Or the one ready with a weapon while the other searched.

Ray’s phone vibrated in his pocket. The second person did a quick circuit of that apartment, swearing once in a deep voice when he slipped in something and bumped into the wall.

“It’s on my foot,” he whined.

“It won’t do shit to your shoes or your clothes, except maybe make them smell.” The other person had a level voice, not soothing, but almost calm. The beam from a flashlight bounced around on the ceiling and against the wall opposite Ray. The lookoutandthe one in charge.

The light came back toward the entrance to the staircase. Ray leaned away, but he must have done something to reveal his presence because the one in charge raised his voice to speak again.

“Who’s there?” The question was almost idle. “You been living in this place? Well, the time has come for you to get packing. I’ll tell you what. You come out now and run along, and we won’t bother to press any charges about you being here, or whatever damage you caused with all that noise. But you have to come out now.”

The mock-friendly tone was familiar. Ray had last heard it in Guerrero’s.

He could leap. The wolf could run faster than humans would see in the dark. Ray could have the man by the throat before he could say those words again. This time, the words might work.

That left the other human, who might have a gun, who might shoot Ray, who, by then, would be the wild werewolf they all feared. Penn and Strider would still be trapped and hurt, to be hunted down or victims of the fire or building collapse.

Ray would never hurt Cal. Cal believed that. Ray did not. But he also couldn’t allow these two to reach Penn.

“I’ll come out when I’m done taking pictures,” Ray answered in the sort of shit-eating tone that Penn would have used. Well, he tried. Something made the words shake. He realized it was a growl only when one of the humans at the other end of the hall whispered, “Oh shit.”

Ray didn’t think it was the one who mattered, the one who was capable of making, or allowed to make, the decisions.

“Is that you, Detective Branigan?” The human in charge might have been afraid, or at least worried, but he made the same attempt to be friendly as before. “Can’t imagine what you’d be doing here in your condition. Did you come alone? Maybe call in some help?” Ray said nothing. Neither of the humans moved. The first one whispered to the other one, “Get back down there. Anyone shows up, tell them it was a prank, whatever. Go.” Ray wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear it or not, but when he kept silent, the first one spoke again over the sound of the elevator doors opening, loud and clearly wanting Ray to listen. “I don’t think any backup is going to make it here. Not in time, anyway. Not to help you.”

If he was going to taunt a werewolf while alone and in the dark, even with a flashlight, Ray had to assume he was armed.

“Have you been following me?” The human was surprised and possibly flattered. “I don’t know that you’ve got me for anything but saying hello, asking some polite questions. Anyway, the word of an emotionally compromised were probably won’t hold up much. How are you even standing, by the way? People have been wondering.”

Ray had been wondering too.

But though Ray might have been ‘emotionally compromised,’ the human was still keeping to his end of the hallway. “Quite a racket you made just now. You know, I heard about you. That the magic had to be strong because you wouldn’t leave the matter alone if it failed. That you’re relentless, even if not the fastest. But trespassing in a dangerously unsafe building? That seems reckless, not to mention risky, even for a were. But then, a whole building falling on you might be what it takes.”

Ray curled his lip but didn’t interrupt the human.

“I don’t suppose, before that happens, that you’d like to tell me how you’ve made it this long. There are people who’d love to know. Guessing it did something though, didn’t it? The magic? Aside from scrambling your brain, that is.”

The growl slipped out again.

The human paused to swallow but continued. “Whatever you broke upstairs can’t have helped any. Too bad no one will have heard that and come to investigate. Not with that concert going on. Everyone just a short distance away, but distracted. Oh. Ishethere?”

His tone was suddenly less friendly. The human had teeth now, or thought he did. “Your fairy,” he added, in case Ray thought the man had been speaking about someone else. “I bet he’s close. It’s not a long run, for a wolf. What, two, three blocks? You’d find him in no time. And in that crowd? Be abadtime for things to start happening. Shame we didn’t know he’d be attending. Might have done this all in one night. No one would have paid any attention to a little fire with their village block party getting bloody.”

The roaring in Ray’s ears made him shut his eyes and clench his hands into fists, barely noticing the claws and the sting of pain. Hebreathed, as if Calvin were there, as though a fragile, delicate hand was pressed to his and a soft voice was telling him to be calm.

When he could, Ray opened his eyes. “What is it that’s going to happen?”

The beam of light twitched, veering in a different direction for a second, as if the human hadn’t expected Ray to actually answer.

His breathing picked up, out there in the dark. He was more scared than he wanted to let on. “The thing you’ve been itching to do for days now, I bet.”

Ray dropped his head and narrowed his eyes, waiting.

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