In moments, they were stepping foot on the pavement. 

Tisper was starting to believe Quentin now, about his talented intuitions. She for one would have never found the way back. She'd be curled under a rock somewhere, hiding from the eerie howls on the wind.

Matt let Quentin take the wheel this time. He was too tired to protest. He fell asleep in the backseat, freckled face pressed against the window, but his head occasionally lulling onto Tisper's shoulder now and then.

She didn't ask any more questions. She didn't feel she had to; the wolf laid in the back of the wrangler, minded by Bailey, who fed him bits of chewed jerky and kept pressure on his wounds.

They drove back through the city, to a residential neighborhood where the streets snaked up along the incline of a hill. The houses were small but beautiful—nothing like the ones back home. Those yards were usually cluttered with waste—old rusty things that the metal scrappers and junk collectors couldn't bear to part with.

Here, the only eyesores sullying the green ornate lawns were stone birdbaths and tacky garden gnomes and things that glittered in the light and chimed in the wind.

Quentin pulled in to a house on the corner of the street, where a woman was already standing out front, a tiny infant cupped against her shoulder. She ran, barefoot to the wrangler, before it had even pulled to a complete stop.

"Where is he?" she was asking—yelling almost, dark shadows swelling under her teary eyes. "Where's my husband?"

Quentin put the emergency break on, shoved open the driver door. Then Leo did the same to the back and Tisper was rushed with the relief of the cool night air. She nudged Matt awake and followed out after Izzy and Elizaveta.

Quentin rounded the car, snapped open the hatch, and resting on Bailey's lap was the wounded wolf—asleep, but expiring with the longest, deepest breaths Tisper had ever seen a creature take.

"Oh, oh Dylan," the woman gasped. "Oh, honey."

"He's been stabbed," Quentin explained. "A shallow cut between the cartilage of his ribs. He'll be fine, but he can't turn until he's healed. It's a graze now, but if he changes—"

"I know," the woman said. "I know what happens, I know."

She looked so tired, her hand cupped to her forehead, shaking, just shaking her head. "Oh Jesus, Dylan."

"Someone get him off me," Bailey grumbled, trapped uncomfortably under the weight of the wolf.

"Kamilla," Quentin said. "We need to move him inside. Quickly."

"Of course. Of course." The woman stumbled backward, holding her child tight as it fussed from the raucous. "I'll run inside and open the garage. Thank you," she moved backward blindly, foot behind foot. "Thank you," she sputtered again. Then she turned, hurried in through the front door.

Quentin was fast, lifting the wolf into his arms. It looked heavy and Tisper saw the strain on his face as he struggled with the weight of the beast. But there was an unspoken urgency to move him in the darkness, away from watchful eyes.

The garage doors opened and they all followed behind, into the fire-warm den of the woman's home. It was small, cluttered with toys and clothes and things too large to hide from plain sight. Things like art pieces, stacked against the wall, half-packed boxes piled in the corner and furniture that had yet to be situated.

"I'm sorry for the mess," she said as she laid a blanket down on the floor of the den. Bailey helped to take the wolf from Quentin, lay the wounded beast on top. "We just moved and it's only me and the kids when Dylan's gone. It's impossible to get anything done with a newborn."

"Kamilla." Quentin was knelt by the wolf again, checking the gauze that wrapped its sternum. Then he rose to his feet, wiped his hands on his knees. "There are some questions we need to ask Dylan. Would it be okay if—"

"Of course, of course." She was nodding her head so wildly, some of her curls bounced from the ponytail that bound them. "You look exhausted. Stay as long as you need. I'll go get blankets and set the kettle for tea." She'd started to turn, then paused, suddenly aware of the infant cradled in her arms. "Would you hold him for a moment? He's been colicky, I just can't put him down."

Quentin hesitated, looking like he wanted to pass the burden onto someone else. But Kamilla was already handing him the baby, who stirred, a chubby, fleshy little thing as he was shifted from one set of arms to the other. Quentin held him to his shoulder and the child went still again. The Alpha stood, hand cupping the thing's tiny back, too afraid to move or breathe or beg for someone else to take him away.

"How long will it take?" Tisper sunk in beside Izzy, moving her attention back to the wolf who shuddered with each deep, aching breath.

"Should be better by tomorrow morning," Bailey answered for him when Quentin seemed too distracted by the creature in his hands to pay much mind to anything else.

Tisper slipped out of her shoes and brought her knees up to hug against her chest. "I don't want to wait that long."

Bailey made an irate sound beneath his breath. "Well in that case we'll just snap our fingers and make him conscious again."

"Stop talkin' to her like that." Matt rose form his seat. "What's your fuckin' damage anyway?"

Bailey looked to him with his ever-malicious gaze and cut across the room in a few short paces. With an air of aggression, he took Matt by the neck of his shirt and gouged at him with those razor eyes. "Listen,Taylor Swift. Only reason you're here is because you had the biggest car on the lot. Feel free to take your Southern bell ass back to whatever haystack you square danced out of."

Matt stared back evenly, as evenly as he could, given the four inches Bailey had on him. He said nothing for a moment, then Matt found that smug smile—the one he always seemed to wear right before he was about to have his ass handed to him.

"Sit, boy," he said slowly—rolling over every insulting consonant. Then he served Bailey with a shove.

Bailey staggered back, then surged forward, lunging for Matt. Before he could do much more than shove him back against a wall, a quiet "enough" came from Quentin. Bailey ceased, hands still fisted in the neck of Matt's shirt.

"We're guests in this home," Quentin said, quietly so as not to wake the child. "You'll respect this place."

Bailey didn't look back at Quentin. He held Matt to that heavy, disgusted glint in his dark eyes. Then he brushed Matt's shirt off and straightened out the collar, whispering, "Eat shit, Cowboy."

"Bailey," Quentin ordered. And like a stubborn mutt, too loyal to its master, Bailey turned away and stocked out through the front door.

-

Tisper awoke the next morning to the clatter of pans, the smell of fresh-cooked grub caressing her to life. She had fallen asleep slouched over on Matt, and Izzy dead weight on her arm. She tried to squeeze herself out of the sandwich without waking anyone, then tiptoed from the living room and into the sound of commotion.

Of course, the first person she saw was Quentin, cracking eggs and flipping French toast over an induction stove. Then Kamilla sat at their tiny breakfast table, the baby propped in her arm, feeding from her left breast while she covered them both with a sheer blanket.

But there was a third figure, a person Tisper had never seen before. He was strong-built like Quentin, a military boy by the looks of his heavy boots and buzz-cut blond hair. He smiled and raised his mug to Tisper and drowsy with sleep, she returned it with a small smile of her own.

"Take a seat, honey," Kamilla said to her, "first come, first serve."

"If the others don't wake up soon, you'll be the only one served." Quentin shoved a plate in front of her, made his way back to the stove before she could even thank him. She'd never seen anyone garnish French toast before, but he'd made it look like luxury cuisine.

"Go on, Dylan," Quentin said, cracking another egg, minding another piece of toast.

"Like I was saying, I don't remember much but the feeling," the man explained. "You know how it is with Qamar. Like someone's in your head, telling you something you can't really understand. Like you're hearing her thoughts right? It was like that with Ziya. One second we were asleep, and the next she was in my head. Then at the door of the watch. Coby answered, probably thought it was Qamar. And then they used the guns. Shot these darts, and every time one hit, there was another scream. Our men just writhing on the ground. They had these knives to protect themselves too—silver I guess, by the way those sons of bitches burned. Half of us had turned by the time I was wolf. I jumped a guy who was after Becca and he pulled out that knife. I don't know what happened, I ran. I never run, Quen. Never."

Quentin flipped the burners to low, turned around to lean back against the oven. He crossed his arms and for the first time, Tisper noticed the blood stains checkering his shirt. "Did she say anything at all? Something that might tell us where she's taken them?"

"No. When she was in my head, I could hear her talking about 'taking out the source'. I guess she meant us; she wanted to take away our communication. Instead of sneaking up East, where she knew we had patrols who would hear and feel her coming, she went right through our watch. Took us out first so we couldn't expose her position."

"That's all? You didn't see which direction they went?"

Dylan shook his head and gazed down into his mug with a disheartened exhale. Then, after a moment, he perked.

"There was one thing," he said. "But I don't think you'll like to hear it."

"I think we're beyond that point. Tell me."

"There was someone with them," Dylan said. He looked afraid to meet Quentin's eyes, so he scanned the floor instead. "He hung back by the truck, but I'm sure it was him. Gunner Rowley."

Something about the name seemed to cut into Quentin's nerves. He was distant again to his thoughts, quiet and burdened. Then he let out a scoff. A bitter, humorless kind of laugh. "Of course it was."

Tisper looked to him. She was afraid to ask. But she was also tired of being afraid. "Who's Gunner Rowly?"

Quentin turned around, shoved his spatula beneath the eggs on the pan and flipped them so crudely, the yoke broke and spattered over the countertop.

"He was Anna's doctor."