Blood Moon (27 page)

“I’m a cop,” I reminded him. “So are you,
and so is my father. Do you really think he’d drug me, kidnap me,
assault
me, and then just let me go the next day?”

With a sigh that signaled David’s defeat, he
sat on the end of the bed, pressing his face into his hands as he
rested his elbows on his knees. “No, I suppose not.”

I knelt on the floor in front of him,
coaxing his face from his hands and forcing his eyes to mine. “I
get that you were scared, and I’m truly sorry for having put you
and my parents through that, but I’m fine. Really.”

Reaching out, he cradled my face in his
right hand, and I leaned into his touch. “I’m sorry,” he said, and
I quickly cut him off.

“You have nothing to be sorry about. I never
should have left the scene last night. It was stupid.”

David didn’t argue with me, instead pulling
me to my feet and onto his lap. His hand rested just above my knee,
his thumb moving over the exposed skin there and causing goosebumps
to ripple up my legs.

“You say nothing happened,” he whispered,
his lips brushing my bare shoulder lightly, “and I believe you.
But, Brooke, if I see him hanging around…” His sentence hung,
threat unfinished, and I nodded slowly.

“I know. I don’t…
plan
on seeing him
again.” I couldn’t promise that Nick wouldn’t pop up unannounced
again, and David knew that, but my response satisfied him for the
time being. Remnants of our argument still lingered between us, but
he seemed just as willing as me to put it all behind us. Maybe even
more so.

This conversation was far from over, and I
knew Nick wasn’t just going to walk away from whatever this was—not
any time soon, anyway—but I accepted this one small victory.

G
oing to the lab
for a tox screen wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time. I hated
needles. The thought of sharp metal piercing my skin made me
unbearably nauseous. Add to that the fact they wanted to draw blood
from my body? We were lucky I didn’t pass the hell out. David was
great, though. He sat with me and kept me as distracted as
possible. Too bad the woman drawing my blood was incompetent and
missed the vein several times before she succeeded. It took
everything in my power to keep my newly acquired violent streak
from showing, and she was lucky I didn’t attempt to toss her across
the room.

Something told me I would have accomplished
this with a mere flick of my wrist.

Afterward, David and I headed to the
station. I worried about showing up, knowing that I likely scared
my coworkers as well. Relief definitely thickened the air as we
stepped onto our floor, but no one mentioned my disappearing act.
It seemed as though O’Malley wanted to, but one look from David and
he clammed right up, looking through a case file instead. Anything
he might have said would probably have been harmless fun, but I
sensed David wasn’t ready to make light of any of this just
yet.

Which was completely understandable.

Back at my desk, David handed me my phone.
The screen was shattered, the cracks spider-webbing from the upper
right corner and down the length of the phone. Served me right for
tossing it to the ground as I ran from the abandoned club. I
remembered how strong the conflict was before I dropped it, and how
I’d tried to fight it. But something in me won out over
rationality. I still didn’t understand it. I had never been as
impulsive as these past two weeks. My ability to keep a level head
and fully assess a situation were some of my finer attributes, but
somewhere along the way, impatience and irrationality had pushed
them aside.

Because I went unexplainably MIA last night,
I tried to catch up on what was uncovered at the club. I could feel
the watchful eye of my father from his corner office, which was
actually even more distracting than my own inability to focus. It
got so bad that I had to ask Keaton and O’Malley to repeat
themselves a couple of times each before I just decided to read
their findings. Even this wasn’t an easy task, though, and I wound
up reading and rereading everything several times in an attempt to
absorb the information. I probably shouldn’t have been here, to be
honest. Clearly I wasn’t going to be any help to the case like
this.

Having been watching me like a hawk, David
picked up on this and suggested we go grab a bite to eat, maybe
stop by the abandoned club, and he’d give me a walk-through and
briefing. I jumped at the opportunity, hoping that escaping the
concerned stares of my peers might help.

Of course, my dad took a little
convincing.

He was worried that something might happen
again, but I assured him that I wouldn’t leave David’s side. The
fact that it was early afternoon helped ease his worry a little as
well, and he reached into his bottom desk drawer, pulling out my
gun and badge. A pang of guilt paralyzed me momentarily, and as he
placed the cool metal Glock in my hand, an image shot forward from
the dark depths of my memory.

The edges of this vision—like every other
one I had since waking up this morning—were somewhat hazy and
dreamlike, and I saw my gun and badge on the ground, the dirt
around them disturbed. Then a dark nose appeared, and the sound of
sniffing filled my head. Sensory recall kicked in, and the smell of
dirt and dead leaves caught me off guard. I had this happen before,
but it was never so intense as to render me momentarily
disoriented. Perhaps it was due to my increased sense of smell, but
I took a confused step back, hitting the doorframe of my dad’s
office, and I shook my head in an effort to clear it.

What the hell was that?

There was no time to question what I just
saw any further, noticing the concerned looks both my father and
David gave me. Apologizing, I fastened my gun and badge to my belt
with repeated assurances that everything would be fine, and then
David and I were off.

Within an hour, David and I were rolling
into the Warehouse District of Phoenix. There was no need for the
entire team to come along; this was just for me to better
understand what was found last night—which, as David explained it,
didn’t sound like a whole hell of a lot. The rest of our coworkers
stayed behind to keep investigating the information they had.

The familiar stench of death and rot hung in
the cool autumn air as I stepped out of the car, and I forced
myself to push past it as we advanced on the yellow tape that
blocked off the entrance. Inside, not much changed aside from the
smell of Luminol now mingling with the blood I’d smelled the night
before.

As we looked around, David explained the
findings. Blood sources from several victims were found, and the
lab was currently running the results through the system to find
out exactly how many and if they could get any hits. The problem
with that was, unless these people were previously in our system,
we wouldn’t have any luck. I didn’t need David or the CSU to tell
me that some of these people might not be around for questioning
anymore; I could smell that there was a lot of blood. In an even
more bizarre twist, I didn’t need David to tell me that the blood
came from several different people. I could smell it. I sniffed
again, trying hard to ignore the smell of rot and focusing on the
unique copper notes of each blood type.

Yup. Four…maybe five different sources were
dominant, and there were even more underlying the more potent
smells. Now to see what the lab had to say.

At first, the fact that I used my sense of
smell like this didn’t faze me. Why? I suppose I’d grown used to it
as it heightened over the weeks. But, the more I thought about it,
the more I started to question everything Nick told me only a few
hours ago.

No. It’s ridiculous. Werewolves?
I
couldn’t believe I even entertained the thought for a second.

I forced my head back in the game, but it
didn’t stay there as we stepped back outside. We exited the alley,
David’s protective hand on the small of my back as he led me to the
car. Ever the gentleman—or maybe because he was afraid I might
bolt—he opened my door for me and waited for me to get in. I was
about to, stepping one leg into the car, but before I slid into the
seat, I froze, looking off to the left as the breeze brought with
it a familiar scent.

Mine.

“Brooke?”

Something deep down—that unexplainable
feeling I had lately—pulled my attention in that direction. It only
took a second for me to realize that it was where I ran the night
before.

“Brooke?” David repeated, placing his hand
over mine on the top of the car door.

Jarred from the instinct to follow my own
invisible trail, I turned to him. “Sorry.” I made another move to
get into the car, but every fiber of my being rebelled against what
logic told me I had to do. “Hey,” I said, nervous that David would
refuse what I knew was a ridiculous request. “Do we have to head
back right this second?” David’s right brow arched in question,
prodding me silently to continue. “It’s just…I’d like to see.”

The second he sighed, I knew he understood
my vague request. I feared his refusal, but he surprised me,
stepping back and allowing me the chance to walk the path he did
last night. We walked together side by side, and after a block,
David grabbed my hand. Everything looked a little different with
the sun out, but when I looked around, I recognized it as the area
I discarded my phone. This was where he realized something was
wrong.

We walked further, following my fading
scent—at least, I was. It definitely wasn’t a strong trail, but I
recognized it. I followed it, my eyes searching, nose sniffing,
ears straining to hear… Once again, I was forced back to Nick’s
explanation for all of this, and once again, I brushed it off as
impossible. Ridiculous.

In just over an hour, we’re at the edge of
the city. Nothing but desert for miles. David seemed nervous beside
me, his worry written all over his face and emanating off his body,
infusing the air I breathed. When he looked down at me, it was like
he was reliving my disappearance. I gently squeezed his hand, and
he relaxed slightly. Another breeze picked up as we stepped through
the light brush, and it frustrated me when my scent disappeared…I
inhaled again—deeper—and my eyes fluttered slightly.

No. Not disappeared. It just…changed. Not
only had it changed, but as I inhaled another breath, I picked up
something else. Something more than familiar. In fact, the other
smell I registered was one that surrounded me all morning. A smell
that lingered on my skin even now, despite my shower.

Nick.

Not wanting to revisit our argument from
earlier, I failed to mention this revelation to David. Instead, I
continued forward, eyes scanning every square inch as I walked. The
only way to describe what flew through my head was a vivid
slideshow of images flashing between patches of extreme darkness,
almost like a strobe light effect. It was unsettling, and a cold
sweat traveled across my entire body, prickling.

There’d been a lot of foot traffic on these
trails, but what stood out to me most were the spaced out,
bare
footprints amongst all the shoe treads. They were
spaced far enough apart to indicate the person—me, I suspected
based on the recent flashes in my mind—was running. I didn’t recall
being chased, but the adrenaline that coursed through my body—that
currently
coursed through my body as I relived all of
this—would prove otherwise. I dug deeper into the memory, feeling
the cold earth on my feet, the low, thin branches whipping at my
face and arms, and I knew without a doubt that I wasn’t running
from
anything. I was running
toward
it.

I stopped, forcing David to do the same, and
I glanced toward the ground, confused at first.

“We suspect this is where you disappeared,”
David whispered, his voice soft and broken.

The detective in me needed a closer look at
the tracks, and I knelt down. It was the last of my bare
footprints. Beyond that, it looked like something—me—collapsed,
disturbing the dirt, grass, and dried up desert plants on the
ground. Another step forward, and I saw fresh tracks…fresh
wolf
tracks.

No,
I told myself, imagining a wolf
ripping its way out of my body. I felt the tension of my skin
before it gave way, heard the snarl…
It’s impossible. This is
just a coincidence. Wild animals prowl these areas all the
time.
I looked to the right and saw rabbit footprints, forcing
the logic to overrule what I refused to believe.
See. Wild
animals are everywhere.

My stomach growled, and I started
salivating. I made the connection to the fact that I only had a
small, extremely unsatisfying breakfast bagel. It wasn’t until I
started thinking about the rabbit that I even realized I was
hungry. This disturbed me, but I continued to chalk it up as mere
coincidence.

Still kneeling, my gaze drifted over the
desert floor. Another wolf’s tracks joined the ones I was following
with my eyes a moment ago, and it was hard to deny what Nick told
me this morning as his scent surrounded me. As
our
scents
surrounded me.

“We saw the wolf tracks amongst your torn
clothing and assumed the worst,” David continued as I stood up and
moved toward a big rock. Another scent was present, and it took me
a moment to place it…

Leather. I distinctly smelled leather.

There, at the base of this rock was a scrap
of it. I picked up the brown, supple material, recognizing it as a
piece of my jacket. I grew instantly annoyed. This was the second
jacket in as many weeks that I’d ruined. What were the odds?

Even though I would have loved nothing more
than to dwell on this particular detail and forget about all of the
weird shit that was becoming harder and harder to ignore, I
couldn’t. I clenched the fabric in my hand and continued to look
around, wanting to make
logical
sense of everything that
happened last night.