When he answered, his voice held laughter. “Even my mom isn’t this worried about me.”
“Yeah, well, your mom isn’t here dealing with vampire and werewolf politics. Some of these guys have their eye on you.”
“Yeah, I’ve spotted them lurking around. I get to feeling like I’m in a spy movie.”
“Tell me about it. But they haven’t approached you—haven’t tried to draw you in?”
“No—just the straight-up human government people have been doing that.”
“Good. Okay.”
“I’ll be careful, Kitty. I promise,” he said, and we signed off.
If anybody could take care of himself, it was Tyler.
I still had to deliver my keynote address at the conference tomorrow. I had a million things I could say—that was part of the problem. I wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. On the other hand, part of me wanted to run straight to the conference, get on a PA system, and tell everyone to stay in their rooms and lock their doors. That might have been an overreaction. Then again … I felt like I had to warn people. We fought a battle last night, I spent the morning sowing chaos …
I returned to the conference at noon, after an argument with Ben and Cormac. I was too visible, they said. I shouldn’t go because the conference made me too much of a target. I argued back, that going would prove that we hadn’t been scared off. When that didn’t work, I said if I went to the conference—on my own, even—we could use me as bait to draw out our enemies. That suggestion didn’t go over so well.
Then one of the werewolves from last night—one of Solomon’s, not the one who spoke but the one who’d kept to the shadows—showed up at Ned’s gate asking for help. We called Caleb, Ben waited with him, and Cormac and I went back to the conference because I wondered how many werewolves—who didn’t know where we were staying, for example—might show up there hoping to find me. Not because they wanted to hurt me, but because they needed help.
We let Andy drive us this time, for speed. The protestors were still out front, loud as ever, their voices like the crashing of waves. Andy dropped us off at the side entrance to avoid them. I didn’t even want to look at them.
Side by side, Cormac and I marched to the lobby. My nerves felt like they trembled; I wanted to growl.
“You should have stayed back at Ned’s,” I said. “All these lycanthropes, and you don’t have any way to defend yourself—you’d be safer.”
“Didn’t know you cared,” he said.
I stopped. “I care.”
He wouldn’t look at me, and I didn’t know what to say after that. I sighed. “I know you hate it when we get all overprotective, but—”
“No.” He shook his head, gaze downturned. “It’s just I’m used to being the one taking care of everyone else. I—sometimes I think I’d be better off if I moved away. Different city, different state. If I wasn’t around anymore and you didn’t have to worry. But … that would be worse, wouldn’t it? We’d all still worry but we wouldn’t be there to check up on each other.”
“Yeah,” I said.
He gave a curt nod and continued down the hallway. I hurried to follow.
The first person I saw in the lobby was Luis. As nice as he was on the eyes, I didn’t want to deal with his flirting right now. I had to get the first word in, warn him what was happening—and convince him to take it seriously—before he could start batting his eyes and kissing my hand.
“Luis, I need to talk to you—”
“Kitty! I need your help,” he said. He wasn’t smiling.
“What is it?”
“It’s Essi—Esperanza. She’s in the middle of it, and I can’t get her to let it be. The protestors—they know who she is because of her work with the conference. If she gets stuck—I don’t know if she has a way out. She won’t listen to her crabby
little brother but maybe she’ll listen to you.”
That wasn’t even the disaster I was expecting. “Let’s go,” I said, taking his arm to push him forward, leading the way.
We couldn’t see a way out of the lobby’s front doors—a crowd of people was blocking them. The local fire marshal was going to get involved if this kept up. We’d have a hard time even getting to the front doors—the crowd was getting larger.
“Back around,” I said, and took off in a run, back for the side entrance.
“Kitty!” Cormac called.