Page 84 of Bound

“Are they firing you?” He tapped his valves, and I could see him silently doing the math. What were the odds the freaky werewolf teacher would lunge for his throat in broad daylight with the whole marching band there warming up on lip slurs in the background?

“No.” I narrowed my eyes. “And please tell me you studied for your Shakespeare quiz.”

Jeremy was the best horn player in the band and lived in the trailer park south of town. He struggled with attendance when school had to compete with extra work hours he picked up to pay for the meds his dad needed for a chronic heart condition. More than once, I’d dropped off groceries anonymously outside their door late at night. Music was the one thing about Jeremy’s life that was uncomplicated, except that by state law he had to pass his classes in order to stay eligible to participate. As a junior, he was just starting college applications, and I was damn sure going to see that he got to fulfill his dream of becoming a band director even if Dallas had to hire him on as a server while he commuted and took classes part time.

“The news about your brother is all over school,” Jeremy said.

I shook my head. “This isn’t something you and I can discuss. I’ll see you in class tomorrow—”

But Jeremy said, “Do you remember last year when Darius got sick and you sent him down to the health center?”

I froze. Crap. Crap. Crap.

“They sent him back with a note that he was fine. You called the front office and told them he had to go back. I overheard you out in the hall arguing with them.”

My pulse picked up. I knew where this was going.

“That night Darius got taken into emergency surgery for a burst appendix. Maybe it was a freak coincidence, or maybe you could smell something wrong they couldn’t.”

A whistle blew out on the field.

“What the government is trying to do, the National Database Act, the raids, the testing…” The band was warming up. Jeremy made no move to join them. “People are all for it now because it’s leeches and… shit, I probably shouldn’t call them that.”

“No,” I said quietly. “You shouldn’t.” I thought of the countless slurs we had for vampires. Fang-head. Bloodsucker. Undead. Prickhead. Leech. How many times had I referred to a vampire as it instead of acknowledging that every last one of them was a person, some of them teachers and paramedics, doctors and musicians, that they had brothers they argued with, liked barbecue from The Spoke, listened to the same music I did, read the same books, were people? Blood Wars or not, I’d known better.

The whistle blew again. The band was lined up by section, going through drills. When I looked back, Jeremy was gone.

* * *

The TV in the corner of the hospital waiting room was set to a home decorating show, couples arguing over showroom-ready kitchens they were going to have to gut and redo from the ground up because the cabinets were white instead of eggshell, the countertops were granite, not quartz, and the center island (which I kind of wanted) absolutely had to go.

Topher: Any news? Sorry I got called in.

West: Not on the Lacey front. Hayden’s band had a Zoom meeting. Nothing was said officially, but they told her they don’t give a crap about the rumors. They’re behind her 100%. They’re donating the proceeds from their gig this weekend to a program that supports low-income students so they can receive private music lessons through their local schools.

Topher: I’ll make a donation from you and me when I get home tonight.

There was a sharp click as the door was buzzed open at the end of the hall. A nurse in dark blue scrubs, booties and a face mask hurried by, not bothering to look at us. After scrapping the plan to have Lacey deliver in Austin, she and Dallas had decided on the main hospital here in Lindley County.

“I don’t like this,” August said in a low voice. His face was pale and drawn. Faint purple smudges shadowed his eyes, his autoimmune condition flaring like it always did just before the full moon. “We’re outed now. Call me paranoid, but what’s to stop someone from grabbing her out of the nursery—”

“Well, for starters, there’s Mom standing guard outside the delivery room door,” Cal said mildly, pocketing his phone. “Simon is back there with Juliet in case we need access to any restricted areas of the hospital. Brody and London are monitoring the stairwells. River got here before Lacey and Dallas arrived to sweep the place and make sure it was safe.” Cal nodded over to the far wall by the nurse’s station where our youngest brother stood like a dark wraith against the industrial white walls, listening in. “We’re all here and we’re not leaving until Lacey and the baby are discharged. Nothing’s going to happen.”

“If they draw her blood, or the baby’s—”

“We’re a week from the full moon. Female shifters carry such a low viral load, the lycan virus shouldn’t be detectable right now.”

A knot formed in my throat. “Ethan and Hayden are with Dad?”

Cal swirled the paper cup of black coffee he’d gotten from the machine out in the hall. It smelled like burnt tires mixed with cotton candy. Cal, clearly having had worse from various staff rooms where he’d been on shift, didn’t seem bothered.

“Dad still hasn’t shifted back,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “The medical team in Dallas did a complete work up. Blood panels. Scans. Physically, he’s unharmed. Mom and I thought maybe once we brought him back to the ranch, that once he was in a more familiar environment and felt secure…”

Cal glanced up at the television, where news had cut to coverage of the late-night evacuation on campus.

“Information on the prison still hasn’t leaked,” I murmured.

“They won’t want the details made public. We didn’t have time to take computers or equipment—all we cared about was getting people out. This will provide their researchers with an incredible amount of data, what kind of restraints to use on shapeshifters. The silver panels in the walls. The lighting they used to control the vampire prisoners. My guess is, they’ll take what they learn there and use it to create biological weapons.”