If the party hadn’t seemed so important at the time, her brother would still be alive.
She was only barely aware of Jonas rising to his feet and moving away from her. Seconds later she could hear the sound of his voice as he spoke to someone.
She was shaking as she fought to push back the memory of her brother’s death. How he’d stared at her, his dark eyes bleak and filled with hopelessness. And helplessness, as he told her how sorry he was.
He was sorry? Why had he been sorry? It had been her fault.
The Coyote had laughed at him. Standing behind her brother, that big knife against Mark’s throat, he’d laughed at Mark, then told him what they were going to do to her after he was dead.
She had begged them not to hurt Mark. She didn’t care if they killed her. She didn’t care, as long as they just let him go.
“Don’t cry, Gypsy,” he told her as that Coyote, Grody, had laughed at him. “Don’t cry, and be brave, Peanut. Do you hear me? Don’t cry. Be brave, Peanut.”
She had heard him, but still, she had watched that knife bring blood and she had screamed. Screamed and begged, Please don’t hurt him.
The knife had bitten into Mark’s throat, blood welling at the side of his neck, and then there was a long, bright red line of dark scarlet that began to flow with sickening speed as the Coyote released his body. Mark had fallen to the ground as though in slow motion, boneless, his gaze locked with hers, dimming, then finally staring back at her with a blank look of sorrow.
She jerked, her eyes flying open as she realized she had let them close.
She just wanted to go to sleep.
She wanted to sleep for a very, very long time. Long enough that maybe her mom and dad would forgive her. Maybe her baby sister, who loved Mark just as much as Gypsy did, wouldn’t hate her forever.
But every time she closed her eyes she could see that moment when Mark had died. That second when his blood had spilled down the front of his white shirt.
“Your parents will be here soon.” Jonas spoke from beside her once again. “My team has just loaded them into the heli-jet.”
They would be here soon.
They would be so angry with her.
Oh God, what if they didn’t let her go home? What if they didn’t even want her anymore?
“They’ll hate me. Momma and Daddy will never forgive me for this,” she told herself, unaware she was speaking aloud, that her words were breaking the heart of the new director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs. “They won’t even want me to come home now. How could they ever want to live with me after this?”
Where would she go?
She was only fifteen, and no one would want the girl who had helped Coyotes murder her brother. Because everyone loved Mark.
He was everyone’s best friend.
How could anyone ever love the awful person who had enabled those filthy animals to kill him?
“How could they ever want me to be home?” she whispered again, laying her head against the wall beside her and staring into the darkness once again.
Maybe if she was very, very still, if she tried hard enough, she could just disappear into that darkness and never have to exist ever again.
“I promise you, Gypsy, your parents won’t blame you,” he lied to her again. “But if that ever happens, I swear to you I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Do you hear me, sweetheart? You have only to contact me, I’ll never desert you.”
She heard the words and he probably meant them. But he was so brave, and just like that Breed with those bright, bright blue eyes who had shot the Coyote, Grody, he was strong, and he knew how to protect everyone.
Even stupid, weak little girls who didn’t know how to stay home instead of risking everyone they loved.
She didn’t deserve his protection.
She didn’t deserve anyone’s protection.
...
Jonas eased back to his seat on the crate and watched her sadly.
“They love Mark so much, just like I do. And I got him killed. It was my fault that the Breed used that knife—”
She broke off, shaking so hard he wondered how she was remaining in one place.
Rising, Jonas moved far enough from her that he could get the reports he knew were coming in.
He wondered if the shock would build in this child until she had her wish and she just went to sleep forever.
Hell, he’d grieve himself if this brave, broken little girl ceased to exist.
And should that happen, at least one Breed would surely suffer for it.
This grieving child would be far more to the Breed society than even she imagined if his hunch was correct.
Jonas turned and met one of the independent contractors who often fought alongside the Breeds, waiting for his report.
“Mercury just called from the McQuade residence,” Simon Quatres reported. “Rogue Breeds hit McQuade’s house at the same time this group ran Khileen’s car off the road. Mercury and his men found video and audio devices in his room and at his workstation in the living room. Grody and his men knew who they were coming for, and where he was. Nothing could have kept this from happening. And if she had been in the house, we’d have never found out in time to get to her.”
A low, all-but-silent little whimper reached his sharp ears then. A cry he was certain the girl was unaware she had even made.
“Where’s that f**king doctor?” he questioned Lawe as the enforcer moved quickly toward him. “That kid’s going to die of grief if he doesn’t get here soon and give her something.”