Heart's Redemption (MxM)

Chapter 38 ~ Sam

As Ian sets his phone down and turns to face me, I can tell something is wrong. A moment before he was blushing adorably, but now his face is unhealthily pale.

"What is it?" I ask, lifting myself and crawling forward to sit on the edge of the bed. "Bad news?"

"You could say that," he says, coming to sit beside me. He lets out a long breath, scrubbing his hands over the stubble covering his lower face and jaw, and then leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Somehow, in the time it took us to fool around, 'Detective Hunter' tracked down Raven Wheeler's boyfriend, and got the name of the person who called her home."

"Who?" I ask.

"Inez. He said...it was Inez."

"Wait...what?" I struggle to understand. Sure, her 'memory loss' story was suspicious, but she'd seemed as genuinely freaked out as the rest of us.

"It makes sense," Ian says. His voice has a dull tone and he stares at the floor between his knees, unblinking. "If seven Shifters have to die, it makes sense the Walkers would prefer they be strangers and outcasts—folk with few connections, who no one will miss."

He sighs, studying the pattern in the blue and white carpet under the bed.

"Inez didn't invite me here on account of some open-armed, bear-folk community ethos," he goes on. "She invited me here to kill me."

"But you have lots of friends," I argue. "They'd come looking for you, right?"

"Maybe," he allows, "but Inez doesn't know that. She only knows what I told her in the few emails we exchanged: that I don't have any close family anymore, and that...that I was having a hard time after losing my dad."

"And...all the other deaths looked like...suicides," I say quietly, "except for Raven."

"I've been thinking about that," he says. "I think maybe it was meant to look like that, too. Maybe we interrupted Inez's plan, finding the car when we did."

"What plan?"

"I don't know," he shrugs. "But probably something more solid than 'I don't remember where I was for a week.'"

"What do we do now?" I ask, unable to hide the nervous tremble in my voice. "Do you think the Walkers are all in on it?"

"I guess we'll find out," he says, getting to his feet with another sigh. "Pack your things. We need to be ready to run. I'll text Carlos, too. Tell him to get his and Toni's stuff in my truck."

He stands and grabs his phone, tapping out a quick message while I pull on my clothes and throw my few possessions in my pack. I feel a tiny, nonsensical twinge of jealousy when the little 'swoosh' sound announces the text is sent.

I've never had a phone, and once I get some money it's the first thing I plan to buy. That way, Ian can send me messages.

With our things packed, we leave our room and descend the stairs to the first level. The lodge is creepily quiet. Up until I got my private tour of the basement, I'd thought it was charming—in its own rustic, earthbound way. Now I'd rather stay at the Overlook Hotel.

Outside, there's no sign of the others—or of a tow-truck. The silence of the landscape impresses me with the remoteness of this place, and of how far we are from any kind of help.

"Shit," Ian swears. "I was hoping Toni and Carlos would be out here already. I'd rather wait outside."

"What should we do?" I ask.

"Play it cool," he says. "Act like everything's fine. Maybe it will be."

He doesn't sound convinced.