The Blood Moon

Lunch

Everett growled at the closed door, daring it to open again with another snide comment from Irene or another controversial revelation from Dean. However, the room remained silent, except for the squeak of Kyra's dry erase marker on the white board. With a huff, the werewolf turned away from the exit and instead took his gaze to where I sat on the floor in a tight ball.

"Sorry, I never got you another chair," he mumbled as he took a tentative step towards me. "Let me help you up. I know the chair we got in here ain't much, but it's better than concrete."

He bent down and stretched out his hand. I looked up and considered his offering for a moment. Part of me held some resentment that I still could not place or understand, but the other part of me was just tired. However, as I leaned further into my sense of pain and exhaustion and deliberated taking his hand for support, I also caught a glimpse of his bare chest.

With his shirt in tatters and his buttons long since popped off and scattered across the floor, little stood between me and the tanned skin of his chest. Dark hair sprouted near the dip in his collar bone and spread down over the expanse of his firm pectorals. From there it culminated into a single strip that ran down the middle of his torso, accentuating the strength present in his abdomen. Then the trail of hair dispersed around his navel, where it then spread down below his waistband. Had it been any other day, that small glimpse of raw, toned flesh would have heated my cheeks and kept a blush on my skin well into the night. However, this time nausea boiled in my stomach and pain stabbed me in the heart.

"I'll do it on my own," I muttered, turning my eyes away so he couldn't see the hurt that dampened them. Not that it mattered. Despite my best efforts to put up a strong front, using what little muscle I had to lift my body off the floor with the help of a nearby filing cabinet, I still felt the pity in his mournful sigh. I eventually landed myself in the chair while he returned to his corner to brood. Kyra, however, continued to study the board with what I assume was willful ignorance.

"Mr. Showalter's testimony supports what Dragan told me earlier today." She stepped away from the timeline and gestured to the notes she had added beneath it. Everett offered a cursory glance, but preferred to keep his attention away from the large letters denoting when I disappeared into Antonov's study.

"And," asked the werewolf without making eye contact with the vampire, "is it time to hear what he shared with you back at his house?"

"Those details are of little importance," she affirmed without hesitation. "What is important is that Ms. Cross was in Dragan's study last night and thus had access to the dagger."

"I think those details are important," grumbled Everett. Part of me agreed with him, but all of me knew that whatever the details were, I didn't want to go over them while he was still in the room. Thankfully, something Kyra said had piqued my interest and it was easy to for me to redirect the focus.

"Dagger?" I asked, squinting my eyes to see if the weapon had been mentioned elsewhere on the timeline. "What dagger?"

"Alpha Zachary was murdered with a silver dagger that belongs to Dragan. Despite his ownership of the weapon, he cannot lie to me and he confirmed that he never left his house the entire night, nor did he order anyone under his control to hunt down the alpha and kill him. However, what he cannot do is vouch for the whereabouts of the dagger during the night."

"You can't pull that out of his head, like you can with other things?" I asked.

"I made Dragan," she answered with ease, "and so I am him in many ways. However, I cannot use knowledge he does not have. If he simply wasn't paying attention to every detail in his study that night, then neither he nor I can know if the dagger was there or not."