Breed

Chapter Thirty-two

"So what's the plan?" Mahmoud asked from the phone.

"Planning was never my strong suit."

"You're stalking towards a volunteer police officer's home."

"I need to know why he was following me. I got away because my powers let me. Just about anyone else- yourself included- wouldn't be so lucky. I can't just let him try again."

"Just... be careful. I know that's... hard for you."

"Yeah, yeah."

There was light in the living room. From the way it flickered it was clearly a television.

Rox prowled around to the rear of the home. There was a door looking in on a study with a computer. There wasn't a bolt, but there was a lock on the knob. She tried it, but it wasn't open. She jiggled the handle, and the lock slid. The door opened.

She stepped inside the study. The door in from inside the home was ajar. She approached it with soft steps, and peered through the opening. She couldn't see if there was anyone on the couch watching the television. She pushed the door so it was flush with the frame, without closing it. Then she turned on the light.

"I'm in," Rox said into her headset.

"Anything you need from me?"

"Just monitor that police band. If he's not a total moron he'll call for back-up before confronting me."

"And if he is a moron."

"Gun'll jam, and I'll feed it to him sideways and in reverse."

"Ow. And I thought you had his gun."

She looked at the walls of his study. There were several pictures of him hunting, showing off rifles. And even one framed picture of just an old west style revolver. "He's got more. Probably lots more."

She started rifling through the drawers in his desk. She wasn't sure what she was looking for. If he was a member of the KKK or some equivalent group that had it in for transhumans, he wasn't likely to keep a receipt for dues, or a signed picture of him and the other dragons.

She pressed a few keys on the keyboard, and the monitor came back to life. She opened a browser window, and navigated to his history. It was empty, not a visit to single web page. But there was one other possibility. She started typing in the search bar, and the autocomplete filled in several suggestions. The first few were internet retailers or porn. But then she came across one that she didn't recognize, and followed it. It took her to a message board belonging to the Human Purity League.

She found a local board for Whatcom county. Stickied to the top was a suggestion to board members to ingratiate themselves with local emergency services, police, fire, EMS, by volunteering, so that when the inevitable breed war happened, they would be in a position to get help for 'their kind.'

Another post followed a man who said he'd been stalking transhumans. Other board members were egging him on, pushing him towards doing more than just follow people around. Her hands clutched into fists unconsciously as she read. It was damaging evidence, but not damning. All she was doing was pissing herself off more.

What she needed, she needed from the horse's mouth, even if in this case the horse was a jackass.

"Everything okay?" Mahmoud asked.

"Not really."

"What are you going to do?"

"I just need to have a talk. Stay on the line, though, just in case I need you." She pushed open the door into the main room. She crossed the room with wrathful purpose. The chair was empty save for an old gray tabby curled up in a large man's butt groove.

Then she heard keys in the front door, and dropped to her knee. "No, he was working that protest," a woman said into her phone as she pushed the door inside. Around the edge of the couch Rox could see the woman's service revolver in its holster, and a blue policeman's uniform. "One of those freaks attacked him."

She strode across the carpet, and Rox had to crawl along the edge of the couch to stay out of site. "They 'fixed' him up to cover their tracks, but god only knows what they really did to him, internally. Poor guy. Who knows if he's even human anymore. Doctors don't know when he's going to wake up. That's where I am, Dowell's place; feeding his cat, getting some personal items."

She stopped to pet the cat. "Hi boots. Muff? Mittens," she said, and nodded. "Want some food?" The cat looked up at her for a moment, before putting her head back down and ignoring her. "Yeah, so you're about as interested as the rest of the men in my life."

The policewoman walked into the other room, and started opening cabinets, until she found a bag of food. Upon hearing the bag rustling, Mittens stretched, stood, and slowly wandered into the kitchen. The cop was making enough room Rox snuck back into the study. She heard the policewoman talking to the cat as she closed the door. "And just like the other men in my life, the moment I cook for you, then I exist again."

She left out of the study.

"How much of that did you hear?"

"Enough to know that woman has trouble with the opposite sex. And maybe cats, too."

"But about the cop."

"He's at the hospital. So where does that leave you?"

"Trailing her back to the hospital," Rox said.