Truce and Lies

Grant: wreckage

Daylight splashed on the ceiling before Pat and Mike tumbled into the room.

"Get your things," Pat told us, grabbing the flip phone from the couch. "We have to go."

"We don't have things," Aidan said and took my hand.

"Good, come on, there are blood packs in the car."

We followed them out into a jet-black car and dark tinted windows. Mike and Pat hopped in the front and we slid into the back seat.

"Cooler's at your feet," Pat told me. "If you're burned."

"I think I'm fine," I said, making a show of checking my arms. "What happened? What's going on?"

"We got the call to get out of Chicago; Lin finally gave us more information," Mike explained without actually saying anything. "We're going to meet up with the caravan out so that we can get Conor before heading back to Montana."

I could barely believe it. This trip was going to be much more productive than I had hoped.

"Anything else happen?" Aidan inquired. "Don't get me wrong; I'll be glad to go back to Montana. But you two were gone for hours."

Pat pulled out onto the road, zipping through traffic. "We had to get blood for the trip, wolf."

The way she said it made me believe I wouldn't like the origin of the blood. I was glad I didn't drink any.

The road trip was silent. Aidan held my hand and stared out the window, watching the city fade into the suburban area into rural areas. The countryside was cold and dead looking, with winter just around the corner. I could see the healing scars on his neck and I frowned, wishing that they would heal better than they were. I needed to be careful with him, even if he wanted me to trust him more. Aidan was reckless.

"Oh no," Mike whispered.

At first, I couldn't tell to what he was referring, but as Pat gunned the car down the old bumpy road, I noticed smoke on the horizon. Aidan gripped my hand tighter and the car peeled onto the driveway and stopped. The house I assumed we were going to was just rubble. I jumped out without thinking and Aidan joined me as we looked around.

"Grant, are you stupid? You'll burn!" Mike shouted from inside the car.

I turned in a daze. "I'll be fine."

"Is Conor...?" Aidan whispered. "Oh god."

"Do you smell him?" I asked.

"Hard to tell," he replied and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath in. "No idea."

The house had been torn apart. There was a wall still standing with a propane tank that hadn't gone off. I could smell blood and smoke and dust.

Another car pulled down the drive and stopped suddenly in front of us. We should have moved, but both of us were in such a state we let the people jump out and point guns at us: hunters. Aidan pushed me behind him, and squared off with the hunters

"Goddamnit Grant Danube, if you don't just waltz your dumbass into the trouble everything that I turn around," said a familiar female voice. Tish holstered her gun to the other hunters protests. She rolled her eyes. "Put your guns away." She eyed us for a moment. "What the hell?"

"Surprise," I said weakly stepping around Aidan and thinking quickly of some lie. "The cure partially worked."

"Um, okay," she scoffed. "So explain yourselves. Why are you at this crime scene?"

She turned to the rest of the hunters who hadn't put their guns away at all. "Seriously? Go secure the perimeter or something useful. And find me the body."