Page 18 of Destined Predator
Thatsorrygutted him. Like the kid thought pain was a crime. “You got nothing to be sorry for,” Casey whispered, fierce and low. “You’re my job to protect. That’s all.”
Why—?Mom.Casey understood. Robin was sensitive at the best of times, and he, maybe more than the others, understood the toll it had taken on Casey to find their mother dead. “We’ll have you out of there in a second, okay?” he assured his baby brother.
He glanced over his shoulder to Rhett. “Seen enough?”
“Shit.” Rhett looked ill. He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. “This is a steel-spring trap. They’re supposed to be humane.” He gave a hollow laugh. “I’m so sorry, kid. When it caught you, were you wolf or human?”
“Coywolf,” came from at least five people.
“Does it make a difference?” Anne demanded. “Like, would you ask a woman what she was wearing if some creep attacked her?”
“Anne,” Casey reproached.
“Sor-ry. Just, I’m kinda concerned, you know?” she replied.
“Do you have a key? If not, how do we open this?” Casey demanded of Rhett.
“What?” Rhett looked up from the trap.
“You were planning on calling the Game and Fish Department to see about getting some traps for ‘those goddamned predatory animals’. Ben heard you.” Casey folded his arms.
“I never did, and these aren’t the traps they’d set. I know how to open these, though. My grandpa showed me when I was a kid. We need metal bars to lever the sides apart. Let me check the truck—”
Casey debated going with him, in case he bolted, but Rhett was soon back and, working together with the metal stakes he’d brought, he and Rhett pried the jaws of the trap open.
“Thank God,” Casey muttered, lifting Robin bodily from the jagged-toothed metal circle and hugging him while Rhett placed a metal bar in the trap to make it spring closed again. Warm blood soaked through Casey’s shirt and he didn’t care. The weight of his brother against him was proof—proof that this time he’d gotten there in time. The snap was sickening. Casey held Robin tighter and wasn’t surprised to feel the others’ arms around the pair of them, too. Rhett finished wrapping up the trap in a sack.
“This is nothing to do with me,” he said.
The rough edge in Rhett’s voice almost sounded like guilt. Casey caught it and filed it away.
“Why did you say it was?” Emil asked Casey.
“An animal attacked that guy from the supermarket last night. The Edwards’ nephew. I figure this…was connected,” Casey finished.
“I was at the hospital with him all night.” Rhett eyed him. “I took him home, then went to find you.”
“Why—? Don’t tell me you thought Casey attacked Greg Manning!” Lacey gasped. “Of course he didn’t!”
The others joined in, their voices deafening.
“All right!” Rhett threw his hands up. “Wow. Talk about ride or die.”
“Better not be die,” said Robin, bending double with the pain. “I was walking, a little distracted, and it sprang on me.”
“You’re safe now, and I’ll take you to the hospital,” Rhett said.
“No hospital.” Casey shook his head. “He’ll be fine. We all know first aid, and he’ll heal as soon as he shifts. We don’t get infections.”
“What can I do?” Rhett looked around the group who were helping Robin into the car. “You believe me that I didn’t set this, right? But this is on my land. I don’t understand how it got here, but…”
“So you have to make sure there’s no more of ’em. Because I bet there are.” Casey closed the rear door of the car, once Robin was lying safely on the back seat, and turned to Rhett.
“Then you’d lose your money.” Rhett narrowed his eyes. “I oughta punch you out for suggesting I’d do this!”
“Or your men, for not running it by the boss.” Casey knew it was a serious slur to make against a rancher, that he wasn’t in control of his hands. And, talking—or thinking—of hands, Rhett’s clenched into fists.
“You know what, you’re on,” he said.
