Chapter 73: Inseparable

Nash

Watching Daphne leave made me feel sick. I mean really, physically sick. My head started to throb, and I had a moment where I was sure I was going to throw up. I sat on the edge of my bunk with the garbage can between my knees for almost an hour. I never take medicine, but when I was confident that I could actually keep it down, I swallowed some headache pills. Then I walked over to Daphne’s side of the room, and laid down on her purple comforter. It was stupid, I know, but it made me feel better, smelling the sweet fragrance of her shampoo on her pillow.

Sleep never came. I lay awake, watching the window slowly grow brighter, until finally it was dawn. Then I pulled out my phone and called Josiah Salvador.

“Good goddess, man, do you ever sleep?” Josiah growled over the phone.

“No.”

“Right.” I heard a shuffle, and the creak and groan of a mattress. He was probably rolling out of bed. “What’s up?”

“What’s King’s?”

There was a telling pause. “King’s? Not sure what you mean.”

“Don’t bullshit me, man. I got intell that this werebear is a trained assassin.”

“S.hit.” There was another sound, like he had sat back down on the mattress.

“What’s King’s?” I repeated the question.

“It’s an underground assassin-for-hire agency,” Josiah admitted. “Not that I’ve had any personal interaction with them, but I’ve heard of them. They sometimes recruit from the shifter community. If this bear is from King’s…well, that’s very bad news. How the hell did you get that information anyway?”

“So… we have a trained assissin were-bear on the loose in a human community. And, by the way, I talked to this Cody woman, and I’m telling you, she’s not right in the head.” We had only passed a couple of sentences, but I could tell immediately that she had some screws loose. “We can’t just walk away from this,” I reasoned. “People are going to die. Innocent people. Someone has to stop her.”

“I agree with you, in general, but this has to be handled very carefully, Nash. You can’t just go in there guns blazing without knowing what kind of hornets nest you are getting yourself into. First of all, if you kill a bear, especially a female one, there is going to be massive backlash from the were-bear community. I mean, they are practically an endangered species, if you get what I mean. Secondly, if she’s with King’s, and you kill her, you could bring down a whole swarm of assassins on your head. From what I hear, they are a tight bunch, kind of like the mafia, you know? Once you are in it, you are in it for life, and they watch each other’s backs.”

I wasn’t afraid of King’s, or were-bears, but I did realize that if I acted rashly, it could cause consequences not only for me, but also for Josiah and his pack, if it somehow came back around that we were friends, and that he’d hired me for the investigation. Worse still, it could come back on Daphne, and her family. I wasn't going to do anything that might endanger her any more than I already had.

“Look, Nash. I know you want to fix this. And I agree, knowing what I know now, we can’t just leave this up to the local police to work out. But you let me handle it. I’ll track down some elders from the bear community and aprise them of the situation. In the meantime, you better get the hell out of dodge.”

I grunted and pushed myself off from Daphne’s bed, only to fall back into the chair beside her desk, as my legs were feeling strangely weak. “Yeah, you do that. My source also said they were going to try to get a message to King’s.”

Josiah let out a low whistle. “That must be some source, if they got a direct line to Kings.”

I kept my mouth closed, because the truth was, I had no idea. Until yesterday, Daphne was just a pretty college girl and my innocent little roommate. I’d known next to nothing about her, and I still knew nothing…except that she was from a powerful alpha family. I wanted to ask Josiah if he knew a pack led by two-alpha brothers, but that would instantly out my source, so I would have to do some digging on my own.

In the mean time, it was time to bug out. I pushed myself to my feet, ignored the shaky feeling in my quads, and pulled my bag out from under my bed. It wasn’t like I needed to pack. I grabbed my bedroll off the bunk, and took one last look around. There was nothing else I needed. The philosophy books had been on the shelf in the room when I moved in. I’d already read the bear guidebook cover to cover, and, given that I was dealing with a supernatural bear, what I had learned would be of little use to me.

I looked over at Daphne’s side of the room. A part of me itched to take something from her things, some little thing I could hold on to, to keep her close to me. The need felt dangerously sentimental and weak.

I walked out the door and closed it firmly behind me.

I hadn't left anything behind for Daphne, either.

Not even my name.