Page 6 of Mortal Shift
“Listen,” I said, “I don’t know what you’ve got going on here, but—”
“Shut up,” he snapped, glaring at me. Normally, if someone spoke to me like that I’d tell them exactly what they could do, but for some reason I found myself nodding and averting my eyes. Maybe I’d finally acquired some sort of sense. Seemed unlikely, after all this time, though.
“What are you going to do?” Jax asked. Cole scowled.
“Only you two have seen her, right?” Cole said eventually. The other two guys shared a look and nodded. Cole nodded to himself, then glared at them. “Then you didn’t see anything. She was never here, got it?”
“Wait.” Jax sounded stunned. “You’re going to lie about meeting your mate?”
“She’s not my mate. She’s a fucking human. Shifters don’t imprint on fucking humans.”
“But her name… It’s Cali. The same letter…” Jax protested, but Cole kept glaring at him until he ducked his head. “Yeah, you’re right. Just some sort of mistake, is all.”
“Exactly,” Cole said. “One you won’t mention to anyone. Clear?”
“Clear,” Jax agreed, and Cole jerked his head to Shane.
“Yeah,” Shane said quickly. “Clear. Totally. My lips are sealed.”
“See that they stay that way. And you.” He turned his smoldering green eyes on me, and my heart skipped a beat before I forcibly reminded myself he was some sort of super strong freak, and an arrogant prick. “You’re going to go home, and you’re never going to tell anyone you were here.”
His tone put my back up and it was on the tip of my tongue to argue, despite the fact that wasexactlywhat I wanted right now, just to spite him. Then I remembered my newfound sense of self preservation, and settled for glaring at him.
“Fine.”
“Fine,” he repeated. “Get out of here. Now.”
“Gladly.” I barged past him, my shoulder slamming into his, and felt his glare boring into the back of my neck as I hurried down the hallway, and straight for the door.
I burst out into the cool night air, sucked in a deep breath, and turned for home, the bare flesh of my shoulder still tingling.
Chapter Three
When the following morning rolled round, I put the three guys and the party from my mind. They’d been drunk and they didn’t want me there, and they thought it’d be funny to come up with all that stuff to scare me off. And any other day, it wouldn’t have freaked me out.
Anyway, I should be grateful, because my hormones had clearly been out of control with king asshole, and who only knew what I’d have done with him if I’d started drinking while I was in that state of mind?
By the time I was dressed, the three of them were well and truly banished to the back of my mind. I had far more important things to worry about. First things first: I needed to speak to the hospital, and find out where my mom was. Then I could work out how I was going to get them to release her. As for how I was going to keep her from repeating what she’d done last night…well, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. She’d almost killed herself. I’dlether almost kill herself. How the hell had I fucked up that bad? And how the hell was I going to keep from doing it again?
For one moment—one brief, short-lived moment—I wondered if maybe she was in the best place, where she could get some real help, with someone who was qualified to know what she was going through. And then I banished that thought, because there was no-one better qualified to understand what she was going through than the person who’d watched her go through it every night for the last decade.
I grabbed my cell and keys, and headed for the door. I’d get better answers out of the hospital in person—I doubted they’d be willing to tell me anything over the phone.
A car was outside my means right now—keeping this small, rundown apartment took every penny of my resources, and it wasn’t like my mom could work—which meant I was stuck taking the bus to the hospital.
…And then taking it back again when, after a two hour wait to see the doctors, they point blank refused to let me see my mom, or tell me anything other than that she was physically fine and had been transferred to a secure facility where they were ‘assessing’ her, whatever that was supposed to mean. They gave me the name of the place, and warned me I couldn’t go without an appointment. Which was fine, because I fully intended to persuade them to give me one. And if they wouldn’t, I’d just have to camp outside until they did.
It was early afternoon by the time I made it home, and I was already keying the number of the Spring Garden Mental Hospital into my phone as I let myself back into my apartment. I heeled the door shut behind me, looked up from my phone, and yelped.
A large, powerfully build middle-aged man was sitting on my sofa, regarding me through flat eyes.
“Who… who are you?” I demanded, my tone shaky as I backed toward the door. The man’s nostrils flared in a way that set the back of my neck tingling. “What are you doing in my home?”
“Home.” He looked around and sniffed, this time with an unmistakable look of derision on his face. “That’s one word for it, I suppose.”
My mouth popped open, and then I snapped it shut again long enough to glare at him. “Well, since you’re here illegally, I don’t really much care what you think of it. Get the hell out before I call the cops.”
