“If you give actual answers, I won’t have to ask you millions of questions.”
“You’ve definitely exceeded two.” He accepted the water the waitress placed on the table with a nod.
Olivia stared at the massive burger with pure delight. She took a bite and groaned at the delicious flavors tickling her taste buds.
He sat back, watching her with an odd look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” She dabbed her mouth with a napkin and swallowed. “If you’re not going to eat, you could talk?”
He ate a french fry.
If he wasn’t in the mood to talk, she’d eat. “I’m starving. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hungry in my entire life.” She shrugged and took another large bite of her burger.
He grinned. “You’re getting ready for tomorrow night.”
She swallowed, taking a long pull off her chocolate milk shake. “Yum. What’s tomorrow night? Oh, the moon.” She ate a french fry, her enthusiasm dampened. As much as she was enjoying what was happening between the two of them, there was that whole other thing. Being a werewolf. Being a monster. That was her life now. “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”
He gave a vague, nod-shake of his head. “Nothing you can’t handle.”
“Are you saying I’m tough?” She ate two fries and picked up her burger. Even his compliments didn’t ease the knot of apprehension in her gut.
“Yes.”
She smiled slightly, her mind spinning again. Upset or not, it wasn’t affecting her appetite. Her plate was empty and she accepted the offer of apple pie and ice cream without batting an eye.
Mal opted for coffee, black, his gaze bouncing around the room. He was agitated. From the images she’d glimpsed in his memories, there was an obvious cause. His pack. Their betrayal. That he might need them now would be hard to accept. She was having a hard time with it, and she didn’t even know them—not personally.
“There’s a pay phone. Are we calling them?” she asked.
He focused on his coffee cup.
“They’re your pack,” she whispered. “I feel it.”
“They think I’m dead.”
She studied the hard set of his jaw, the tightness bracketing his mouth and eyes. They’d hurt him deeply, but he was too proud to say as much. “So does Chase,” she murmured. Her brother. His pack. “Thinks I’m dead, I mean. Maybe we should run away together? Someplace sunny and tropical? Do werewolves do okay in tropical climates? Or would the Others follow us?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “What is it about silence that scares you?”
She opened her mouth then closed it, refusing to take the bait. She could be quiet. But her wolf chose that moment to argue. Her wolf said Mal liked hearing her voice, that it chased away the hurt in his heart.
“I think you should call them,” she said. “Let them know you’re alive.”
Mal stared at her for so long she worried she’d crossed some line. It was hard to accept they’d only known each other for two days—still harder to accept that in another twenty-four hours her world would never be the same.
Chapter Seven
Mal stared at the pay phone, torn between tearing it off the wall and just ripping the receiver free. For all he knew, it didn’t
work anyway. He picked up the handset. Dial tone. He glanced at Olivia in their booth. She was staring around the diner, battered and bruised and beautiful.
Calling Finn would get them out of here.
Calling Finn would make her safe.
Finn needed to know there was an Other in his home, listening to everything they did and said.
And, as unlikely as it was, maybe her odd interaction with Cyrus could provide insight into the Others.