Chapter 37: The Beta Needs a Time-Out

Day 1 of Quarantine:

× 11:52 PM ×

"The kid wasn't responding to the heavy meds or the therapy. Just out of control. Can't re-learn the rules one by one."

"What'd the parents say?"

"Dead," Magnus muttered on the other line. "He killed 'em the other night. Broke his mother's neck. Slashed his father's throat when he tried to grab his gun. Left him bleeding to death in bed. Too far gone."

"Right." Jenson sat back in his swivel chair, alone with his thoughts in the dark, imagining the bloody rampage the young werewolf allegedly caused. "At least they weren't resting in pieces this time."

"But you know it's not gonna be his last kill."

"Yeah, if he's completely out of it." Jenson pulled a face. His uncle's new clean-up guys couldn't seem to handle the other part of the job. So now Magnus wanted him to finish it up.

He would, out of a willingness to fulfill his duties as their clan's second-in-command. But he was stuck in this wretched building—in quarantine with Jessiah—and under constant monitoring.

An unexpected hassle would be an accurate description of his situation right now. They didn't give him or Jessi much choice. But, like her, he would rather stay here in familiar territory than in a military-run quarantine facility almost two hours away with a bunch of sick strangers in the next rooms.

Rules, rules, rules... Just one of the cons of having to assimilate into modern civilization. "I can't. My hands are tied."

"Use the least monitored fire exit," Magnus mumbled after a long pause.

"There are cams all over this building. Plus security staff on shifts. 24/7 monitoring." Jenson pinched the bridge of his nose. He would gladly break loose out of this temporary prison he and his assistant got stuck in, but then he could go to jail for breaking mandates during a public health emergency.

Once word got out, it could end his career in a matter of months. All these years of hard work, late nights, the relentless schmoozing, and...

"When's the soonest you can get out of there?" Magnus sounded impatient now.

"I was hoping Monday morning, but we both tested positive. If we get real sick, they'll take us straight to the ER." Jenson leaned on his desk while his brain weighed the worst-case scenarios. "There were cops outside, doing contact tracing."

It wouldn't surprise him if some jarheads were out there now, locking down this part of the city. Good enough reason to waive his privileges and obligations as the Beta. But he sincerely hoped this would all be over in a few days and that nothing worse would happen to him or Jessi.

"You won't get sick," his uncle replied over the phone.

"How d'you know?"

"If you've been taking your meds every day, 90 percent certain you won't have more than mild symptoms," Magnus droned on, his tone matter-of-factly now. "It's a good enough prophylaxis. They did tests—the research team."

Did he mean the research team working for the pharmaceutical lab that made their wolfsbane medications? "What tests?" Jenson scowled.

"121 subjects. Varied age groups. They didn't even up the regular dose for the control group in the second test. Double-blinded."

"When?" Did that mean he certainly wasn't going to end up in a hospital? What about Jessiah?

"They completed the second batch of trials last month. Promising results."

"The subjects were all purebloods?"

"During the first trials—no. Those snobs couldn't care less. Then the number of cases in the cities shot up. Got them all nervous. At least 50 of them volunteered for the second trial."

"Huh. So it's mostly half-bloods?" Jenson tugged at his hair. Comforting to know that half-bloods like him and Darren wouldn't die from an epidemic caused by complete idiots who didn't give a shit about animals and their environment.

"Yeah." Magnus let out a sigh on the other end. "Only three experienced moderate symptoms. They weren't in the best shape to begin with. One died mid-trial; he had an opioid addiction and didn't tell the researchers."

Well, talk about an outlier. But Magnus sounded confident enough about the validity of the results. The tests must be legit.

"Sounds good." Jenson glanced behind and pressed his phone to his ear, making sure their conversation remained private and he was the only one awake.

Jessiah had probably fallen asleep an hour ago after they had a late dinner.

"Where exactly is the kid hiding?"

"Not that far from his parents' house, I assume. They live near a trail."

"His tracker's not workin' anymore? So it's a three now?"

Magnus didn't explicitly say that the rogue kid's fate was sealed. Just that the upgraded meds and stringent therapy didn't work. It seemed the 17-year-old was just born a psychopath who grew up to be a killer.

Who in their right mind would just murder their sleeping parents in cold blood?

"Yeah. He took the thing out. Threw it in their backyard. The second I heard the parents were dead, I knew it was him." Magnus clicked his tongue. "Kid's probably hidin' out in the woods. He knows he's being hunted."

"And he hasn't contacted anyone else since?"

"None so far."

"Right." Jenson massaged his temple. Their current topic instantly reminded him of their clear-cut system when it came to getting everyone in line. As in everyone with werewolf blood in them. Especially the ones who couldn't control their urges before and/or during a full moon.

Their simple three-point scale:

1: Slight intimidation/upgraded medication.

2: Moderate disciplining plus heavier meds/coercion into temporary confinement and therapy.

3: Beyond help/permanent confinement/death sentence.

Every case should be handled in a cloak-and-dagger manner. But not everyone knew how to finish up the difficult ones the way he did...which was why Magnus called him whenever another slew of werewolf violence-related corpses turned up.

Sometimes the newbie halflings and a few rogue purebloods just couldn't help themselves. The more people they killed, the sooner they turned into mindless cannibals, ruthless murderers, or both. Apparently, their newest number three wasn't into human flesh yet. Or so they thought.

"Some people are born just to serve a single purpose. Then someone's gotta bury them and eventually forget their existence," Magnus used to say.

"Call DJ." Jenson frowned. "He's been sitting on his ass all day playing video games. Won't even step out of his house to get tested."

Maybe Darren was in the mood to do something worthwhile. Make himself useful for once. Well, he seemed bored. Maybe he'd like to make it up to his brother-in-law somehow. Darren should have time for catching that rogue that might end up being a full-fledged serial killer on the loose.

It could expose their clan's well-kept secrets to the rest of the world...all of their worst skeletons in the closet, basically. "He could use a distraction," Jenson muttered when Magnus didn't say anything.

Darren still felt guilty and depressed about Ramona and their baby's death. Maybe a little side job would get his noggin off things.

"He's not taking my calls," Magnus replied. "Evie's worried about him again."

"I'll talk to him."

"Call me then."

"Yeah." Jenson glanced behind before Magnus hung up on him.

A thud made him stare at the door to the adjacent room—the makeshift bedroom Jessi was using for the meantime. Total silence filled the dim space around him until the weird noise repeated. It was a louder thud this time.

Was she awake? Eavesdropping? Listening in on his conversation on the phone?

After they had a chat about Mykaela over dinner, the fact that she was friends with Jessiah left him in utter shock for an hour or so. But Jessi didn't seem to know who Magnus was to Mykaela.

Jenson didn't ask about a lot of personal information, but Jessi did say that Mykaela was currently living in New York with her fiancé—an Italian businessman named "Lorenzio Tomassini."

No need to do lots of research. The Tomassinis were a mafia clan, as far as he knew. Maybe it was the reason the hacker had a hard time finding her exact address.

When another muffled thud interrupted his thoughts, Jenson got up from the chair, curiously waiting for more noises while he held his breath. He stood next to the door where the thumps came from and imagined his assistant standing right behind it.

With caution, he twisted the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked. Then he pulled the door open. Only to be greeted by a messy-haired woman in a white shirt and small gym shorts.

Speechless and alone, Jessi stood still in front of him, her eyes half-closed. Her long hair hid half of her cheeks, and her breathing sounded quiet—static like her entire body. Then she giggled. The next second, the look on her face went serious again.

What's she doing?

He stood before her and frowned. She looked like she gradually realized she got drunk. But she wasn't soused. They didn't have any alcoholic drinks tonight. No. She looked more like...a half-asleep zombie.

For ten seconds or so, he just watched her as she stood in silence before him, her posture slouching a bit, her lips partly open. "Hey." Jenson peered into her face. He backed off when she didn't respond or move an inch.

"I don't know. He's not... No. No." She moaned for a few seconds. Then another time.

Was she in pain? He stepped closer to her. Using the brightness of his phone screen, he inspected her from head to toe. Nothing unusual about how she looked. No bleeding nose, labored intakes of breath, strange rashes, or anything.

"Just... It's a... No. It's a secret," she murmured without blinking, still. She was staring at him but not really seeing him. Her muted voice sounded breathy, her gaze vacuous. Her partial consciousness seemed to ignore his voice and his presence altogether.

He stood close to her while watching her every move, waiting for more confirmation that she was sleepwalking or something.

Were hallucinations a side effect of the crushed pill he poured in the juice? Shit.

He should have asked Magnus. "Jess? You okay?" Jenson stepped aside and leaned against the wooden jamb. He used a hushed voice, patiently waiting for her to take another few steps to get past the doorway.

She didn't respond. No words. No shake of the head or faint nods. Dead eyes. Just lifeless. They stared past the dark space in front of her. She barely even moved. She just stood by the door, blankly staring at the corner walls of his dark office.

"Jessiah..." he whispered after what felt like a minute of just waiting and staring at her. Clearly she wasn't fully awake. He wanted to snap her out of it, but he hesitated to touch her.

His mom used to sleepwalk like this. Well, more of sleeptalk. Just sleeptalking nonsense in the middle of the night. But Jessi was apparently doing both. And it wasn't a good idea to startle someone awake in the middle of a sleepwalking episode—that he knew for sure.

His mom's episodes often got triggered by stress, exhaustion, days of anxiety buildup, or all of the above. Maybe it was the same for Jessi?

A surprising discovery, of course, but he couldn't blame her brain for reacting this way. It had been a pretty intense, eventful, and stressful weekend for her so far. Same for him.

"No. No. But it's not fair..." Jessi took a step backward and let out a sigh, then distractedly itched her thigh with slow strokes, her words slurred and almost incoherent.

What was she dreaming about? Who was she talking to in her dream?

"Is it like..." Her hand on her thigh stopped moving and her eyes looked closed now. But her voice stayed loud enough for him to understand her mumbled words. "It's not my fault. I didn't... No."

Heck. Still dreaming heavily. He looked around, then studied her stiff figure by the door again. This might go on till dawn if he didn't guide her back to bed. After sighing to himself, he leaned in to inhale all of her scent.

Her hair and skin smelled of shampoo and vanilla-scented lotion, but he also caught the scent of anxiety-induced sweat. Her warm breaths reached his face, but she didn't snore or anything. Jessi just stood quietly with her tousled hair partly hiding her face, ignoring him completely.

"Jess, let's go back to bed. Yeah?" He gently touched her shoulders, then slowly turned her around. He'd been in similar situations before.

No need to panic. She was just sleepwalking. She wasn't gonna do anything bad or drastic.

Using his arm, he carefully led her back to the divan, where her blanket lay sprawled out on the cushion cover. "Back to bed now."

"Mm-hmm," was her response seconds later. "But you can't see..." She took three steps closer to her temporary bed while his arm touched her upper back. "No. You can't leave. Not...uh...not allowed."

He held back a grin, imagining what she could be dreaming about right now. Must be about them being stuck in quarantine.

She must be so tired or stressed to be sleepwalking like this, but he didn't want to wake her up. It might scare her to find herself alone with him in a small, dark room while he wore nothing but boxers, with her barefoot and only wearing her bedtime clothes.

With slow, careful steps, he guided her back to the divan until she was inches away from her wrinkled blanket. He froze beside her when she turned around and leaned over. To stop her from falling face-first on the carpet, he stepped back to stand in front of her again and block the way.

"Bye." Jessi slowly bent her knees and leaned forward till her nose touched his bare chest. Her soft lips brushed against the skin below his collarbone.

He held in a laugh and covered his mouth with his palm. He shouldn't be laughing, but it just made him crack up. "Jessiah, go back to bed now," he whispered after he pulled away.

Her eyes stayed half-shut while her cold fingers touched his forearm, as if she was groping for his hand.

A sigh of relief escaped him when she finally sat down on the divan, then rested on her back. Jenson smiled. He listened to her unconscious mumbling as he gingerly pulled the yellow blanket from under her legs to cover her up.

Watching her sleep on her side with her back facing him, he listened closely to make sure her breathing was steady. He had to be sure she wouldn't get out of bed again.

A minute or so later, he backtracked to the door and locked the metal knob as noiselessly as he could. It should keep her from sleepwalking out of his office while he slept on the couch like a log. She could end up somewhere unsafe—and even injured—if he didn't do anything.

While suppressing a smile, he walked towards his small bed in the corner and checked his phone for new messages.

None.

Well, time to call a friend. That rogue kid could be committing another heinous crime now if they waited for other people to finish the job. Darren shouldn't be too busy.