Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

“I need help,” I said, even before the door closed behind me. “I need—”

An older white man sitting at the counter said, “Robbie? Hey! Holy shit, you’re back! Where have you been?”

Jesus fucking Christ.

Everyone smiled at me as the man stood with a grunt. Their smiles faded as I took a step away from him. “Are you bleeding?” the man asked as he squinted at me. “Did it heal already?” He shook his head. “Shape-shifters. I’ll never get over it. Well, that isn’t exactly true. I did get over it when the pack paid for the motel room to get fixed after that whole mess with the Omegas. And that crazy hunter woman who loved God a little too much. And the bar exploding.” He paused, considering. “A lot of shit happens with shape-shifters, huh? Crazy.”

Before I could even begin to process that, an alarm began to blare.

I covered my ears as I winced. It sounded like an old tornado warning system, and it was everywhere. The people in the diner stood quickly, and I was shocked when the older man in front of me pulled out a gun. “Saddle up, boys,” he said. “I haven’t had a drink since I found out about werewolves, and I ain’t gonna start now. I’m ready to kick some ass and take some names.” He cocked the gun.

Who the fuck were these people?

“We need to wait for the Alpha, Will,” a woman said. She was wearing a waitress uniform. She was black and plump, her hair hanging in thick dreads on her shoulders, and I was shocked into a stupor when she flashed violet eyes at me. “He’ll know what to do. Ox knows everything.”

The man with the gun—Will, apparently—snorted. “I hear you, Dominique. But who knows what’s going on now? Best to shoot first and ask questions later.” He laughed, as if he wasn’t standing near an Omega. “Besides. The Alphas said we have to be on guard. And Ox knows what he’s talking about. His momma taught him that, god rest her soul. Men! Follow me!”

I barely had time to step out of the way before the diner emptied, the others following Will outside. They all clapped me on the shoulder as they rushed by. One flashed his eyes at me. It was another fucking Omega.

I was left alone with the waitress.

She eyed me warily. “You came back.”

“Omega,” I growled at her.

She took a step back, wringing her hands. “Okay. I get it. Jessie said that you were—”

I started to walk toward her when the alarm grew louder. It pounded in my head. I bent over, trying to block it out, but it was no use. By the time I stood back upright, the Omega was gone, the door that led back to the kitchen swinging on its hinges.

I ran out of the diner, hitting the sidewalk.

People rushed around me as the alarm continued to blare.

I watched as windows were shuttered in the businesses up and down the street. People inside pulled down metal grates, and even from a distance, I could feel the burn of silver as it reflected in the sunlight. The grates had silver built into them, as if the entire fucking town knew about wolves and their weaknesses.

Aside from the diner behind me, only one other place wasn’t being closed up.

A shop across the street. It looked like a mechanic’s. One of the garage doors was wide open. Maybe there’d be a phone inside I could use. I didn’t know who I was going to call, but it felt like the only option.

I wouldn’t realize my mistake until later.

I ignored the sign above the garage and the single name on it.

I ducked into an alley as that old truck reappeared down the main thoroughfare. The woman from before was hanging out of it, driving at a crawl, shouting my name. She had a phone to her ear. “No,” she was saying, “I don’t know where he—Rico, I swear to god, if you yell at me one more time, I’m going to break up with you, and you will never find someone as good as me as long as you live, you hear me? Send the wolves. They can sniff him out—”

She drove right by me, still yelling into the phone.

I stepped out from the shadows of the alley. The street was almost empty now, the businesses all closed up. I looked up and down the road. No pack. No wolves.

I took off across the street, waiting for someone to shout my name, tell me to stop.

No one did.

The garage was empty and smelled of oil and metal and wolves. A car sat up on one of the lifts. An SUV had its hood up, sunlight filtering in through the skylights overhead. There were three doors inside the garage. One looked like it led out to the back. Another led to the front of the garage and what seemed to be a waiting room.

The third door led to a small office with an ancient desk, and a newer computer. The keys on the keyboard had smudges of oil on them. The screen of the monitor was dark.

Next to it was a phone, the cord spilling off the side of the desk.