Pocket Apocalypse
Page 52

I frowned. “Do you mean ‘how come I’m in Australia,’ or ‘how come I’m not in the quarantine shack with everyone else’?” I was reasonably sure they meant the second, but I wanted the conversation to be a conversation, not an interrogation. We were outnumbered, and I didn’t know what Riley might have said to them on his way out of the house. We needed them to think that we were equals, rather than recasting us into predators and prey.
“How about both?” The owner of the voice pushed her way through the crowd to the front. She was a short, skinny woman with dark brown hair and a face like a fashion model, complete with lipstick, elaborate eye makeup, and enough foundation that I wasn’t sure of her skin tone. She was probably Caucasian, based on the shape of her face, but I could have been wrong. “What makes you think you can solve our problems for us? You’re not even here two days before you’re a werewolf and Cooper’s dead? Sounds to me like you should get right back on the plane!”
An ugly murmur spread through the crowd. This wasn’t good. I took a breath, looking for my courage. It seemed to have stayed in the room, and so I went for the next best thing: my sense of duty. “I’m not a werewolf,” I said. “I’ve been checked by a medical professional, and the consensus is that I am not infected.” Mentioning the mice wouldn’t do any of us any good, and it might confuse the matter. “Just in case the doctor was wrong, I’ve allowed myself to be treated with an anti-lycanthropy tincture. In addition, I’ll be returning to quarantine each night, and will be locked in until morning. This will continue until the twenty-eight-day incubation period has passed.” Unless I transformed after all, in which case a bullet to my skull would take care of the rest of my problems.
The crowd glared and muttered. I took a deep breath, glancing down at Jett, who seemed perfectly comfortable with her head on Raina’s leg. I looked back to the crowd.
“Cooper’s death was an accident. The werewolves attacked while we were gathering aconite flowers to make the treatment that we’ll be offering to anyone who has been or happens to be bitten. I tried to save him. I failed.”
Shelby stepped forward. “He’s telling the truth,” she said. “When my father and I found Alex and Cooper, they were both collapsed in the medical station, blood and flower petals everywhere. Cooper’s wounds had been cleaned and irrigated to reduce infection, and the bleeding had been slowed. It was clear that Alex tried to intervene. He failed. Can you really blame him for failing when he was injured and standing up against impossible odds?”
The crowd muttered more. The mood seemed to be lifting, turning away from anger and toward the easier to manage combination of mistrust and fear. Anything that kept them from breaking out the torches and pitchforks was okay by me.
“Cooper was a good man,” I said, and I didn’t have to force the wobble in my voice; it came naturally and almost against my will. Showing weakness could go either way when I was facing a potential angry mob. “Maybe he could have gotten away if he hadn’t stayed to help me shoot the thing. Maybe not. We’re never going to know. But I can promise you this: I will be staying here, and fighting beside you all, until we manage to remove this threat from your community. I will do everything in my power to make things right for you.”
The crowd quieted further. This time, their muttering was barely distinguishable as words. Raina finally stood, dislodging Jett’s head with a gentle nudge, and turned to face the people who’d come to confront us. She shoved her Gameboy into her pocket, almost as an afterthought, and crossed her arms as she demanded, “Well? Are you lot happy now, or do you need to see me hobble him?”
I gave her an alarmed look. If she decided to try, I was going to have my first full-on fight with a member of the Tanner family since the night when Shelby had drawn a gun on my cousin in the kitchen of my grandparents’ house.
The crowd muttered and, for the most part, looked down or away—anywhere but at the girl who was now facing them all down. Shelby reached over and took my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. I squeezed her palm lightly, and just held on. Whatever was going to happen now, it was already done; all we were waiting for was the shape of it.
One by one, the people who’d come here to accuse me of somehow betraying them by being bitten turned and walked back toward the path separating this little isolation facility from the main house. The woman with the dark brown hair was the last to go, shooting glares over her shoulder at us all the while, until finally even she disappeared from view.
Raina blew out a breath, sagging. “You don’t do anything by halves, do you?” she demanded, dropping her arms as she turned to me. “Can’t just see a werewolf, no, you have to go and get yourself bitten by one. Can’t just bring in an outside expert, nope, it has to be a snake woman with three university degrees that Dad can’t pretend don’t exist. Are you even a person, or are you a walking force for chaos?”
“My baby sister’s the force for chaos,” I said automatically. (Specifying which baby sister I meant would have been redundant: compared to me, they were both proof that entropy always wins.) “Dr. Jalali was just the closest medical professional who didn’t need to worry about catching lycanthropy.”
“Only that wasn’t a factor, because you’re clean,” said Raina, a slight sneer in her voice.
“Yes,” I said firmly.
“You don’t have to be a snot, Raina,” said Shelby. She still hadn’t released my hand. “You know Alex didn’t do anything wrong. There’s no point in acting like he did, unless you’re trying to get Dad on your side for something.”
“Everyone else is going to act like he did something wrong,” said Raina. She sounded much calmer now: she just sounded tired, too, like she couldn’t believe she had to explain this to us. “He’s your imported werewolf expert, he’s the man who’s going to save us all, and what’s the first thing he does? Runs out and gets himself bit, like some amateur with trumped-up credentials trying to impress his girlfriend. Doesn’t build faith in his skills, and doesn’t build faith in your ability to assess the situation, either.”
“But that’s not all, is it?” Shelby frowned. “You’ve been prickly since I got home. What’s wrong, Raina?”