Page 81 of Bayou Blues (Genie McQueen 1)

g? Raising a whole generation of willing sacrifices? What was he going to do to them?

This whole thing kept getting more and more twisted.

“Your children aren’t monsters.”

“They will be. Eventually.”

I wondered about his wife. She probably didn’t carry the gene, but their unborn child might. It wasn’t a sure thing, like any hereditary genetic condition. The redheaded kids, though, if their mother was a wolf, they all had the gene for sure. I thought about the little girl, and it no longer mattered that she had watched them take me. She had a good reason to be fucked up.

And I wanted to save them.

“We’ve talked enough,” Deerling announced. “McGraw, hand me the weapon.”

The sheriff considered holding on to it, I could tell from his uneasy expression and the tight grasp he had on the weapon. But in the end his devotion to Dear Leader was too much. He gave Deerling the gun.

Timothy shot him in the head.

Red mist hovered in the air as the sheriff fell to the floor. It rained down on him like a sign of the apocalypse.

Deerling leveled the gun at me.

“Guns aren’t your style.” I was panicked now. If he’d stuck with his original plan to make torture-porn of my death for Callum’s viewing displeasure, I would have had more time to come up with a way out. He would have slipped up. Something.

But Wilder and McGraw had proven there was no way to dodge a bullet.

“I could have had fun with you, you know? You remind me of her. The one who did this to me. I’ll say that for you bitches, you know how to make things wild.”

“I’m tickled.” My gaze darted around the room, fixing on the cameras in a silent plea for help. I’m so sorry.

“Another time, I might have kept you.”

I resisted the urge to say I’d rather die. He could help me out with that. Instead I settled for the sad truth. “Yeah, another time and we could have shown you how to live with it. We could have helped you. Pack is family.”

“I don’t want your family.” He pulled back the hammer on the gun, and I closed my eyes, saying a quiet prayer to the gaudy gold Jesus overhead.

“Good. Her family doesn’t want you.” The voice was so deep and boomed from everywhere, I briefly thought God himself had come down to save me.

I would settle for my uncle.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Deerling swung around, gun searching for Callum, but the space behind him was empty. The voice he’d heard had come from everywhere. I realized after a moment it wasn’t really my uncle; his voice was being piped through the speakers in the church. From where or by whom I had no idea.

When he realized he’d been fooled, Deerling spun back towards me, gun raised. A loud pop made me scream. I waited for the pain to come or the force to knock me back, anything that might indicate I was hit. Instead the whole scene froze in place. Someone was wailing, and it took me a long time to realize it was me.

The shot rang in my ears, and the smell of gunpowder filled the room.

Deerling staggered, the pistol falling from his hand.

He teetered like a drunk and braced himself against a pew, turning to face me. His cheek was missing, bloody sinew and teeth exposed in a macabre grin. When he tried to speak, blood spilled from his lips down the front of his shirt, and he collapsed onto his knees.

My scream died on my lips.

At the back of the church, near the entrance, Deputy Josie Dwyer stood, her gun still raised and her eyes wide with clear surprise over what she’d just done.

“Jesus,” she muttered. “Ma’am, are you okay?”

“A-ambulance.” I stumbled to the floor, my wobbly legs folding under me so I was suddenly on my butt in a pool of Wilder’s blood. The moment I understood the immediate danger was over, my hands were on him, taking over from his, pressing his wound. “You’re going to be okay.” I didn’t know if it was a lie or a wish. “Call an ambulance.”

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