Chapter 1

Landon--

Eight Weeks Ago

I stepped back from the wall, wiping my forehead. I just have to source some furniture and stuff before I’m done with my… holding pen? Prison? I want it to be nicer than a prison, but not too much nicer. Cora will have to be in here for a while, probably, while I figure out what the hell to do with her afterward. I just need to get her out from under the cops so they’ll think she ran. I’ll figure everything else out from there.

I painted the walls a grayish white– who knew there were so many colors that just fucking mean white?? – and the bathroom has a basic white shower and tiles. I painted the walls in there the same color as those out here. I doubt she’ll need anything other than a bed and maybe a couple of books. I got a nice, sturdy door for the entrance and installed it so that it locks from the outside. I had to hire somebody to make sure there was ventilation and lights and plumbing, but he was happy enough to do all of it for me when I told him I was setting it up for an ailing family member. Can’t have windows when your demented granny might climb out of them, I said. I hate the smell of lies, but humans seem like they aren’t bothered by it at all. Sometimes they’ll be able to sense them, but most of the time, lies sail right over their heads.

Once I got the bulk of the rooms done by the guy, I let him go and did the rest myself. I could hang drywall easily enough, after a few videos to learn from. I fucked up a few times along the way, of course, but it all came out good enough. The overall impression is shabby but serviceable, which is more than Cora deserves at this point. The most important part is to let the fumes out– I’m not actually trying to kill her, after all– and cover my “secret door” so I can get her down here without Logan knowing where she is.

I feel a brief pang of guilt at the thought that Logan will probably be pissed when he finds out and set my paint roller down while I think it all through again. Cora is just going to keep throwing her work friends at us until somebody gets more incriminating footage. Hard to think of anything more incriminating than what she already published, but even more of the same would be a disaster. Logan and Emory are going crazy trying to bury the pups in a tide of bigger news, and anything else will make it harder. Without Cora there to keep stirring the pot, everything else will die down. Once we’ve all relaxed a bit, I’ll tell Logan what I did and he’ll be in the right frame of mind to see that I’m right. Most of the time, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission with him.

I’m going to pack most of her belongings so it’ll look like she left of her own will. I got some cold medicine that always knocks me out, so it should work on a skinny little human… I’ll just grab her stuff, grab her, and toss everything in my SUV. Easy enough. The cops will think that she ran to avoid jail time, Logan won’t have to lie to them because he won’t know that I have her, and everybody can go back to their normal lives. Well, our normal lives didn’t have Emory in them before, but I think that’s an improvement.

With my guilt lightened, I cleaned up the paint supplies and searched up ways to make a seamless door. No point in having a secret door if you can see hinges or whatever in a random spot on the wall, after all. I’m thinking I’ll make a rock wall to cover it– the bookcase hidden door is played out, and I’m not much of a reader. I’ve never been able to sit still long enough. Cora is, though. Should I bring her books with us or buy her some new ones? I bet something new to read would help with the inevitable boredom. Maybe if her… stay… is painless enough, she’ll actually cooperate with me at the end of it. I bet she’d have some great ideas on what to do next. She’s a calculating snake, for sure.

The thought of Cora making the plans instead of me lightens my step for the rest of the day. I hate dealing with logistics and plots. I’d much rather take each day as it comes and smooth over any roughened feathers afterward. Thinking ahead for obvious things is easy enough– I eat healthy and work out, get the amount of sleep I should, most of the time, and wear condoms every time– but trying to puzzle out cause and effect is boring and hard when there are so many variables. How the fuck would I know what other people are going to do?

No, Cora will be able to handle that. If I can get her on my side, somehow... Once I explain the situation from the shifters’ point of view, I’m sure she’ll understand better. It’s not like we’re in the 1950s or anything, racism is obviously wrong and once she sees the problem, she’ll correct herself. People are almost always good, individually, and I can’t imagine that she’d be okay with living on the wrong side of history on this. She’s just caught up in her fear of our wolves right now. It’s understandable. We’re badass predators and she’s uncomfortable being prey when she’s used to preying on people herself.

That thought gives me pause. Good people don’t blackmail guys like Cora has been doing. Blackmail has been a significant part of her income for more than a decade now, and that doesn’t bode well for her character. I’ll have to work hard to rehabilitate her. With a start, I realize that my mind has trailed off and the video about secret doors is loading into another video about mansions in Florida. I missed it. I shake my head, turn up the volume, and start the previous video over. I need to get this figured out. If Logan gets mad enough at me to kick me out, at least I can pay for my own apartment with a construction job after this.