Page 28 of Cursed to Be Mine
She laughs weakly, but when neither of us do, she stops on a cough. “I don’t…”
“Just take it,” I say, taking it from Henry and holding it out. “You don’t have to use it, but I want you to be safe.” When she still doesn’t move, I ask, “Or would you rather carry a gun?”
Her eyes widen as she shakes her head.
“Let’s roll out!” Derek shouts across the room, and as one, we all move towards the stairs.
I push the spray into Scarlett’s hand. “Just put it in your pocket. You won’t have to use it tonight because we’re on recon, but I want you to have it just in case. Now come on. We’ll fill you in on everything in the car.”
“But…”
“Move, Scarlett.”
Dutifully, silently she follows Detective Howard and I out to his van and then climbs in.
Adrenaline shoots through my veins, buzzing through my limbs as I close the passenger door behind me.
After waiting all day, it’s finally time to hunt.
May God guide our bullets.
May He rid the scum from our city.
May He protect my daughter.
Amen.
Eight
HER
I turn to glance at Scarlett sitting behind the driver’s seat, not wanting to use the mirror. I don’t know how big of a surface that monster –hallucinationneeds, but I’m not going to risk freaking out in front of Detective Henry Howard. As friendly as we are, he reports everything back to Derek, and if Derek thinks I’m tagged, being used by the witches to spy on the WALL, he’ll kill me as a mercy. If he thinks I’m cursed…I wouldn’t put it past him to dissect me. Knowledge is power. It’s why we don’t always hunt to kill. Sometimes we hunt to capture. What the WALL does with them afterwards, I don’t know, but I can guess.
Derek’s hatred for them is the only well-known fact about him. He lost his wife and daughter to sups. Daniel was just a baby, so he doesn’t remember them outside of flashes of smiles and laughter. But Derek… their memories haunt him every day.
“The goal is to grab a werewolf tonight,” I tellScarlett. “Detective Howard here tagged one –”
“You’re a cop?” she asks, her eyes flicking to the back of his head.
“Yes. So you can trust that these monsters are real.”
She glances back at me, a bit more fear in her eyes.
Good. She understands the gravity of this situation.
“As I was saying, Detective Howard here tagged one when it came to pick up a body in the morgue. It was killed by a witch.”
“Was beingkilled,” he cuts in. “Its body was dead, but its soul wasn’t.” He turns right onto Highway One, the convoy of vehicles splitting off to their own destinations to cover more ground. Vampires are fast. Werewolves are faster. And most of the terrain requires us to travel on foot. We would have no hope of catching them if we didn’t split and set up traps.
“What do you mean, his soul wasn’t dead? Like he was a ghost?” Scarlett asks.
“Yes. But the witches had him trapped so they could continue to torture him.”
Her round cheeks pale, and I wonder if all of this is too much for her blood sugar. Although Scarlett doesn’t have diabetes yet, will tonight trigger them?No. She’ll be fine. She’s not getting out of the van.
I continue, “You’ll know the werewolves better as the Death Hunt.”
“The gang?”
