She let herself into the apartment, her left shoulder still in pain. It had lessened somewhat from its earlier excruciating level and was now mostly a dull throb. But it was still hot. Hot to the touch of her hand as well as throbbing with heat. She vaguely remembered a warm sensation from her arm wound the other day, so it must be a side effect of the anti-healing gunk.

She had planned to let herself in quietly, expecting Mom and Gavin to be asleep, but the lights were on and Mom, Gavin, and Scotty sat in her living room.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Mom jumped up from the couch, concern etched in her fine features. “Ryenne, what happened to you?”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.” She tried to convey to her mom with her eyes that she didn’t want to talk about it in front of Scotty and that she would eventually heal as normal. She had gotten at least some of that gunk out of her wound.

But her mom didn’t get the message. “Sweetie, you’re bleeding. Are you okay?” She put her hand to Ryenne’s shoulder and Ryenne winced.

Her mom stripped off the long-sleeved shirt and looked at the wound. “This is a bad one, darling, and I see that sappy stuff again. We need to wash it out.”

Scotty and Gavin rose.

“Sappy stuff?” Scotty asked. “What are you talking about?”

“We think it’s a material the Fangs are using to slow the natural healing properties of a shifter,” her mother said.

Scotty frowned. “We’ve come across this stuff in multiple crime scenes now but I thought it only worked on shifters.”

Her mother’s face showed horror. I’m so sorry, she mouthed to Ryenne.

Ryenne let her mother drag her to the kitchen sink where her mother proceeded to wash out the wound with soap and water. She gritted her teeth through the pain the rubbing and dabbing caused her.

Turning to Scotty, she said, “I was turned in Paris.”

He recoiled. “What? You’re a shifter?”

“Yeah, not by choice,” she ground out between clenched teeth.

He backed up until he hit the side of the couch.

“Scotty, you’ve known me for years.” Annoyance was obvious in her tone. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to hurt anyone. Except Fangs,” she muttered.

“Right,” he said quietly, his eyes darting around. “Right, I’ve known you for years. You protect people against rogues. Not all shifters are rogues.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said. “Of course she’s not a rogue. She just went up against one of them. A Fang.”

He went to the kitchen and pulled down the bottle of Patrón she saved for special occasions. This probably qualified. He poured her a shot of the tequila and handed it to her. She slugged it back while her mother patted dry her wound.

“I’m guessing you didn’t win, but did Tess tell you anything?” Gavin asked.

Ryenne shook her head. “And the bitch was so smug.”

“Ryenne!” her mother said.

Ryenne sighed. “Sorry, Mom. Tess wouldn’t tell me anything but she must know where Mr. Lord is. She said she wanted nothing to do with Mom. If that’s the case, then why did she and her brothers try to kidnap her?”

“Wait a minute,” Scotty said, coming forward. “You went after the people who tried to kidnap your mom?” Frustration overtook the fear on his face.

“Of course, she did,” Gavin said. “Don’t you know her by now?”

“I should,” Scotty admitted. “I thought you were smarter than that, Ryenne.”

“Well, I’m still trying to deal with this wolf inside me.”

“So you’re a wolf,” Scotty said.

The warmth from the tequila was spreading through Ryenne and the pain was lessening. She stormed out of the kitchen to her bedroom to find another long-sleeved shirt to put on. She didn’t like everyone staring at her and her wound, like they had to fear a wounded animal.

“So why are you here?” she asked Scotty when she’d returned to the living room.

“Oh right,” he said, visibly shaking everything else off. “We found two dead Fangs near the Brooklyn Bridge and I wanted you to take a look at the scene.”

“They’re Fangs for sure?” she asked.

“Tattoos and everything.”

“Are they in your database?”

“One of them is. He’s got a rap sheet as long as a rogue snake. The other is new to us and maybe from out of state.”

“Why do you want me to come to the scene?” she asked.

“Because the other day when we mentioned the sap, you looked like you knew something and wouldn’t share,” he explained. “And now I know for sure you do, since it’s been used on you. We found it again in both of these shifters’ wounds, so we thought you might recognize these guys or might pick up on something we wouldn’t because you have experience with the Fangs.”

She nodded, patted her back to reassure herself her dagger was there, and said, “Let’s go.”

“You’re going now?” her mom asked. “But you just got home, it’s the middle of the night, and you’re wounded.”

“Mom, you washed the stuff out. It will heal and it already feels better.”

Gavin crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Willow, we’re not going to convince her to stay. I’ll stay here with you and she’ll be fine; she’ll be with Scotty.”

Her mom nodded, and Ryenne and Scotty left.

***

The drive downtown was awkward and mostly silent. At this time of night, there wasn’t as much traffic as there would’ve been a few hours earlier and Scotty was able to zip down the West Side Highway and across Canal Street to the East Side.

Ryenne spent that time thinking over her confrontation with Tess. It wasn’t just the smugness that bothered Ryenne. She didn’t appreciate being called a baby, but she had acted like one. Just like in Paris, she had gone off without a strong plan and tried to correct for it along the way. She had thought just being a shifter would be enough, but in some ways, she was a baby. She was still learning about her powers, learning how to control herself, and learning how to fight with these new skills. And she had put herself up against an older rogue, who was part of a family of shifters, so had probably grown up in a pack. Like Lucien. Tess was only five or so years older than Ryenne, chronologically, but had had much longer to get used to being a shifter.

And not only had Ryenne put herself up against one established shifter. She had planned on going after all three. It was all so stupid.

She just hoped Lucien wouldn’t hear about her stupidity. But it was probably a pipe dream. He was staying with Gavin now. Gavin had probably called to fill him in as soon as Ryenne left the apartment.

Ryenne clearly had a lot to learn and a lot to regret.

Scotty, on the other hand, probably spent the drive afraid of what Ryenne might do, based on his occasional sidelong glances at her.

Finally, she couldn’t take the silence anymore and had beaten herself up emotionally long enough. “Look, Scotty. I’m the same person I’ve always been, I just have these new abilities I’m still trying to figure out. But I promise I won’t hurt you or anyone else I know and care about.”

He heaved out a sigh. “I know. I’m really sorry. I’ve never been close to a shifter before and I’m freaked out by... by you. Someone I’ve been close to for a long time, someone I had a relationship with, suddenly being a shifter. Being someone I sometimes have to go after.”

“Come on, Scotty. Not all shifters are criminals. Just as not all criminals are shifters. In your job, you face plenty of dangerous humans every day.”

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. I guess knowing you will help me get over my prejudices.” He shot her a glance. “If I remember correctly, up until a few months ago, you shared some of my prejudices.”

She nodded, too. “Yes, and meeting Lucien changed all that for me. I had more personal reasons, though, as you’re well aware. Any update on my dad?”

“The case is long cold. No evidence of your father was ever found other than the pool of blood. I’m sorry, Ryenne. I really wish I could help you put this to rest.”

She put a hand on his, where it lay on the seat between them, and he pulled it away.

“Sorry,” he said, face reddening. “I’m on edge. This is the second set of dead shifters we’ve found with that shit in their wounds, and it looks like we could have a rogue serial killer on our hands.”

She understood the pressure he was under, but it hurt her to know he now feared her, despite their former intimacy.

With that note between them hanging in the air, he pulled off the East River Drive and drove for about a mile under the Brooklyn Bridge and south along the East River. The area was dark and desolate at this time of night. There was no activity on the water and only a few twinkling lights from either the Brooklyn side or Manhattan behind her.

Scotty parked the car next to a police van and a bunch of unmarked cars. The scene in front of her was like something out of a movie. There were lights set up and people in coveralls and booties and masks crawling around the scene.

Scotty brought Ryenne into the circle of light. “The scene has already been processed, so we can get close enough for you to see their faces.”

She shuddered.

Both men had a massive stab wound to the abdomen and both had their heads turned to the side at an extreme angle.

“Yeah,” Scotty confirmed. “Their necks were broken.”

“And there was the sappy substance in their stomach wounds?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Seems like overkill,” she said.

“Looks like they’re making a statement,” Scotty said.

One pant leg of each man was hitched up, making the Fang tattoo visible.

Nick came over then and nodded to Ryenne. “The M.E. is about to take the bodies away. You got here just in time. We’ve come up with two theories. Either the Fangs are cleaning house and these guys pissed off the boss, or there’s another rogue group in town trying to muscle in on the Fangs’ turf.”

“Obviously, we’re hoping for the first scenario,” Scotty added. “Ryenne, go ahead and take a look at these guys and let us know if you recognize them.”

The first guy was older; she would have placed him in his forties. He had graying hair and a thick body.

“His name is Brian Carpenter,” Nick said, reading from his notepad.

“Never seen him before.”

“This is Juan Gonzalez,” Nick said.

She moved her attention to the second guy. He was younger, probably in his thirties. Dark hair, dark skin.

“I’ve seen this one before,” she said, pointing at Gonzalez.

“You know him?” Scotty asked.

“I wouldn’t say I know him. I’ve seen him but I can’t remember where. Possibly just out and about. If you give me a picture, I’ll have Gavin look through our case files and see if we encountered him at some point on a case. Sorry I can’t be more help.”

“Thanks for coming down here,” Nick said.

“I’ll take you home,” Scotty said. “At least you can get some sleep with what’s left of this night.”

They drove back again mostly in silence, but it was less awkward now. Scotty must have gotten used to the idea of her as a shifter. She hadn’t done anything shifter-like in front of him.

Her arm hurt a lot less and she looked forward to a couple of hours of sleep before bringing her mom to work the next day.

***

The next morning, mere hours later, Ryenne and Gavin accompanied her mother to work, and then went to the office.

Ryenne sensed no sign of any of the O’Briens, so maybe her trip last night hadn’t been a total waste.

Lucien wasn’t at the office when they got there. “Did he leave a note?” Ryenne asked.

They didn’t see any stray pieces of paper lying around.

Gavin checked his phone. “Oh, he sent me a text a little while ago. He’s gone out to run some errands. He’ll be back later.”

Ryenne’s heart fell into her stomach. She had hoped to see him today. She had hoped to apologize yet again. And she’d hoped maybe this time he’d accept her apology.

Gavin woke up his computer and a message popped up. “There’s something here from Nick.”

“It’s probably the name and photo of one of the dead Fangs from last night,” Ryenne explained. “Can you check him against our case files?”

His fingers started flying over the keyboard.

Ryenne went to her own computer and continued the client report she’d been working on the day before. “Should I be worried or happy we have no other cases at the moment?”

Gavin shrugged. “We had to push cases off while you were in Paris. That can sometimes hurt a business. Maybe we need to increase our advertising.”

It was worth considering, but Ryenne felt like she had too much on her plate as it was. “Can we afford to continue like this?” she asked.

“For a couple more weeks, I think,” he said. “We did have that one big case right after you got back from Kenya. It’s been floating us for now.”

And there were ongoing things that mostly required Gavin’s computer skills which brought in money on a monthly basis. She realized once again that without Gavin, she’d be nowhere.

“His name doesn’t pop up in any of our files,” he said. “Let’s see this photo. Oh... hey, I know him.”

“You do?” She got up and went over to his desk to stare again at the unnaturally bright face in the forensic lights.

“Not know him, exactly,” Gavin said. “But I saw him.”

“When?”

He snapped his fingers in rapid succession. One of his thinking tics. “At the Empire State Building. While waiting for your mom.”

“He was there the day they tried to kidnap her?” Ryenne asked, grabbing his arm.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“But you saw him near the Empire State Building, not near the restaurant or near the shop they dragged her into.”

“Right,” he said.

Was Juan Gonzalez working with the O’Briens? Or was it a coincidence? When it came to the Fangs, she didn’t want to believe anything was a coincidence. “What was he doing there?” she wondered aloud.

“He looked kind of like me,” Gavin said.

Ryenne’s eyebrows jumped up. “He looks nothing like you.”

“No, I mean he was acting like me, trying to go unnoticed, like he was waiting for someone and didn’t want to be seen.”

So, he could have been working with the O’Briens. “But why was he at the Empire State Building? If he was working with them, he’d know they never intended on Mom getting anywhere near that building.”

“Maybe he wasn’t working with the O’Briens,” Gavin suggested.

“Then what was he doing there?”

Gavin shrugged, still staring at the photo, his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to get answers from a dead man.

“Did they send the picture of the other guy? Brian Carpenter?” she asked.

“It’s not here,” he said. “I’ll email back and ask them to send it.”

“Yeah, maybe you saw him there, too.” Ryenne wasn’t sure what it meant that even one of them was there. But if both of them had been there, it definitely wasn’t a coincidence they were at the Empire State Building at the exact moment some Fangs attempted to kidnap Mom. And it probably also wasn’t coincidence that those two Fangs ended up dead. She didn’t know what it meant yet, but she would.