Page 135 of The Rut in the Road

He hated havingto use the damn thing, and not just because there was no point, since it wasn’t like Taavi was going to take off after a squirrel or some shit.

But it was humiliating to have to leash his fiancé. Especially since this wasn’t some kinky shit, it was a goddamn hike. But the park had all-dogs-must-be-leashed rules, and Taavi liked the nature smells better in dog form.

Part of him thought that since shifters had to fucking register, they should get something that said they were shifters and could walk around as whatever they wanted, with whatever that was keeping the fucking jackasses out there from shooting them thinking they were wild wolves or bears or whatever.

But he knew better than that.

Some bigoted asshats would shoot thembecausethey were shifters.

Besides, the obvious answer would be some sort of collar, which was almost as bad, if only because it didn’t have to be attached to someone on the other side.

I pulledmy hand back from the end of the leash sitting on Hart’s back seat next to a dog harness that was presumably what Taavi wore instead of a collar. I couldn’t help agreeing with Hart’s dislike of the notion, but I also knew that if shifters were allowed to run leash-less that some people would claim their dog was a shifter just to not have to put a leash on them—andthatwould lead to both more dog-bites of other dogs, people, and other animals and shifters getting an even worse reputation for violence, and nobody needed either of those things.

I’d figured the leash was probably Taavi’s because this was Hart’s car, and I’d wanted a distraction from my own thoughts.

Raj’s request for two backup teams had been denied. He got one, and this spurred a debate about where to send the backup team, since—to Hart’s point—dividing them would only waste half of them and make the other half potentially ineffective.

Everyone had agreed that the Church of Holy Judgment’s core group was most likely to want to protect the church itself—rather than their storage facility—so the backup team had gone with Raj and Drew, who were also more likely to be useful if violence broke out, given that they were both apex predator shifters.

That left me in Hart’s backseat with Cass riding in the front as we headed to the warehouse. Hart did have a warrant so that we could inspect whatever we found there, and my job would be to touch anything that seemed like it might yield any potentially interesting thought-evidence. Or that might help in building a case against Preacher Dale or the members of his congregation who had committed murder.

“Maybe one of the cars will be in there,” Cass said, suddenly.

Hart glanced over at her. “The—oh,thosefucking cars.”

Cass nodded. “I know we got one, but there are two more, and maybe they decided to take them off the streets. So another one doesn’t get pulled over.”

Hart nodded. “That’d be helpful,” he replied. “Which probably means, with our fucking luck, that we’ll find a golf cart from somebody’s stupid Florida vacation.”

Cass laughed.

I tried to ignore the churning in my stomach.

The doors had been padlockedwith heavy chains that had broken the tool meant to cut through them, leading Hart to produce a rather creative string of curses.

Cass had pointed toward a cracked window up a fire escape, which had led to more swearing on Hart’s part, since he’d had to help both Cass and I climb to reach the bottom of the ladder, then jump himself. He’d had to try twice, and had spent the whole time climbing the rest of the fire escape muttering about how ill-prepared we were to be doing this.

They’d had me come up behind both of them, and Hart pulled open the window farther to let Cass climb through.

“Clear,” she called back, keeping her voice fairly low, just in case there was someone—like a lone guard—in the warehouse.

Hart squirmed through next and did a sweep of his own, then came back to hold the window for me. As he helped me clamber inside, Cass gasped a little, her eyes wide and unseeing.

“Shit,” Hart hissed, immediately moving to her side, leaving me to awkwardly clamber over the desk, and I winced when I knocked a small pile of files off the corner.

“Cass, come back to us. C’mon, Cass, don’t fucking do thisright now.” Hart’s voice was tight and insistent.

She gasped again, focused on Hart’s face, and tears immediately started streaming from her wide blue-grey eyes.

She didn’t have to say anything. Both Hart and I knew immediately what that meant. She’d explained to me when we’d first met how her seer abilities worked.

Unless we somehow managed to change our fate, someone was going to die.

“Us or them?” Hart asked tightly.

She just stared.

“Us?” he asked, and more tears ran down her cheeks. My heart, which had already been pounding, raced even faster, and I could feel my hands shaking.