Bride(67)

“I lived among Humans for one and a half decades. With a Human sister.”

“You’re saying you know what’s wrong with her?” Lowe asks me.

“No, but I’m fairly sure it’s either bacterial or viral, and I know what meds Serena used for each.” They’re all still looking at me skeptically. “Listen, I’m not saying this is foolproof, and I’m no physician, but it’s probably better than moving her while she’s already so weak, or exposing her to someone who might figure out her . . . situation.”

“It seems risky. And there’s no telling what could go wrong.” Mick sighs and shakes his head. “We should take her to Human territory, Lowe. I can do it myself. I’ll be quick about it, and have her back—”

“Do you have the names of the drugs?” Lowe interrupts, looking at me.

“I can write them down for you. You’ll need to go to a Human pharmacy, most of which will be closed by now, and you’d normally need a prescription, but—”

“I don’t need that.”

I grin. “I figured.” I have no doubt that someone like Lowe can slip in and out of other territories undetected.

“Lowe. Misery’s friend was fully Human.” Mick is protesting a lot, which is probably related to how invested he is. Lowe said that he lost his son, and I wonder if that has anything to do with the attachment he’s formed to Ana.

“True,” I say gently, “but any doctor will evaluate her as a fully Human child, too. There is simply no one like Ana. We might as well use Serena as a template.”

“I agree,” Juno intervenes. “We should trust Misery.”

Mick looks on the verge of complaining again, so Lowe clasps his hand around his shoulder. “If this doesn’t work, we will take her to a doctor. Tomorrow.”

He’s back in less than an hour. We’re all waiting for him with Ana, but his eyes meet mine first when he steps inside. His knuckles are dusted with green blood as he hands me the meds, and I’m relieved to find no traces of red.

I make quick work of smashing the pills for Ana, like I used to for Serena before she learned how to gulp them down—an embarrassingly recent development.

“Why so many?” Ana whines.

“Because we don’t know exactly what you have,” I explain. “These will help whether it’s a virus or bacteria, and this other one will lower your fever. Now quit bitching.”

She says the pills taste like poison, which earns me several nasty looks from the peanut gallery. I decide to make myself scarce and go look for Alex, hoping he’s still awake. I’m in luck, because I find him in Lowe’s office. I walk up behind him, curious about what has him so engrossed that he didn’t hear me coming.

“Playing smuggled Human games, and GTA no less, at your boss’s desk. The sheer gall of today’s workforce.”

“Shit a brick!” He almost falls off his chair. “Where are you—You’re so close all of a sudden. I had garlic for lunch and my blood is probably poisonous to you!”

I give him my best disappointed pout. “I missed you, too. We’re intercepting, right?”

He nods, still clutching his chest. “Yes. I’m getting great signal. Emery can’t book a chiropractor appointment without us knowing.”

“Lovely. Anything yet?”

He shakes his head. His nostrils twitch. “You smell different. That’s why I didn’t notice you coming in.”

Uh-oh. “Maybe my vampyric stench is growing on you?”

“No. No, you smell like—”

“By the way, Lowe asked us to work on a project,” I interrupt. It’s a lie. But I don’t think Lowe will mind.

“What?”

It’s something that just occurred to me because of what Ana said. Misha gets to have two parents and I get none. When trying to figure out who told Serena about Ana, we assumed that it couldn’t be her father, because he never believed Maria when she said she was pregnant. But what if that’s not the whole story? “He wants us to get a list of Humans who were part of the Human-Were Bureau, say, ten to five years ago?” It is safer than saying eight. Alex is not stupid. “Lowe is looking for people who would have interacted with Weres in our”—Our?—“in his pack.”

He blinks curiously. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Something came up when we were at Emery’s and he said he’d need to know.” Maybe I’m a better actor than I gave myself credit for.

“Any person who worked for the Bureau? No other criteria?”

I run a hand through my hair, thinking. “Men. Just men.”

“Okay. Yeah, sure.”

“Do you have time to start now?” I smile as fanglessly as I can. “Or are you too busy playing pretend street gangster?”

He flushes a cute shade of green, clears his throat, and we spend the next hour finding very little because of the disorganized mess of the Human archives. We give up when Alex starts yawning.

“Oh my God,” he says after I stand to leave.

“What?”

His eyes are moon-wide. “I got it.”

“Got what?”

“What you smell like.”

Fuck. “Good night, Alex.”