Chapter 47 Duck!
“I already told you,” Grace said for what felt like the hundredth time, exhaustion making her voice flat. “I came home and found a wild animal attacking people in the house. A wolf. It must have broken in through a window or something.”
The police officer standing across from her gave her a look that suggested he wasn’t entirely convinced. He was older, maybe late forties, with grey threading through his dark hair and the kind of weathered face that came from years of hearing lies.
Another one stood by the door, with his arms crossed, he was younger, should be in his early thirties. He kept watching her and it made Grace uncomfortable.
“A wolf,” the older one repeated, his tone carefully neutral.
“Yes,” Grace said, keeping her story consistent. “A huge wolf. It had already attacked Uncle Matteo and Enzo by the time I got there. I walked in and it was just chaos, there was blood everywhere. The wolf was still there, standing over them.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. She had walked in to find wolves. Maddox and Enzo in their shifted forms, were tearing into each other with teeth and claws while Uncle Matteo bled out on the floor.
But she couldn’t tell them that now, could she? How could she possibly explain that? Who would believe her if she told the truth?
So, Grace just left out the part where the wolves were people she knew. Where one of them was her best friend and the other was a boy she’d slept with, where they were werewolves, not wild animals.
‘This police man wouldn’t just keep looking at me like I’m crazy if I said that, he would literally refer me to a psychiatrist.’
“And you didn’t see where the wolf went?” The policeman asked, making notes on a small pad.
“No. I mean, I assume it ran when it heard the sirens. You guys showed up pretty fast.”
The police man nodded slowly. “Several neighbors reported seeing a large canine running through the area around the time we arrived. Knocked over trash cans, damaged some lawns. Animal control is still looking for it.”
‘Oh, you wouldn’t find it, it would be a full man walking past you and you wouldn’t even blink.’
Grace found it amusing, but still said nothing, just maintained eye contact and tried to look as truthful as possible. The story aligned with what the police had found at the scene. A massive wolf that had somehow gotten into the house, attacked the occupants and fled when help arrived.
The physical evidence supported it too. The claw marks. The bite patterns. The sheer violence of the attack suggested an animal rather than a human perpetrator.
“Tell me about your relationship with the victims,” The policeman said, switching tracks. “Matteo Reed. How did you know him?”
“He’s my friend’s uncle,” Grace said. “Maddox. I’ve been staying with them for a few days.”
“And why were you staying there?”
Grace hesitated. How much should she say? How much could she say without raising more questions she couldn’t answer?
“My parents moved away suddenly,” she said finally. “Family emergency. Uncle Matteo offered to let me stay with them until things got sorted out.”
The policeman made another note, “And Lorenzo Torres? What’s your relationship with him?”
Grace felt her face flush slightly. “I go to the same school as his cousin, we’re friends.”
“Friends with him or the cousin?”
“With him.”
“Why not the cousin?”
Grace gave him a strange look, “I’m just friends with him.”
“Just friends?” The younger policeman suddenly said, his eyes were sharp, watching her reaction.
‘Why is he suddenly speaking now? Please just go back to watching like a creep and don’t make this harder for me.’
“Yes. Just friends.”
“So you don’t know why he was at the house tonight?” The older policeman continued.
Grace shook her head. “I have no idea. I wasn’t there when he arrived.”
That at least was true. Grace had no idea why Enzo had shown up at Uncle Matteo’s house. Whether he’d come looking for her or for Maddox or for some other reason entirely.
The policeman studied her for a long moment, then flipped his notebook closed. “Alright, Miss Ainsley. That’s all for now. But we’ll likely have more questions as the investigation continues, please don’t leave town without informing us first.”
“Am I a suspect?” Grace asked quietly.
The policeman’s expression softened slightly, “Right now, you’re a witness. The evidence suggests an animal attack, which means you’re not in any trouble. But we need to keep all our options open until we know exactly what happened.”
He stood, tucking his notebook into his jacket pocket. “Get some rest. And if you remember anything else, anything at all that might be relevant, give me a call.” He handed her a business card with his contact information. “Also… whenever he wakes up…”
Grace took it, her fingers trembling slightly as she tucked it into her pocket.
“Thank you,” she managed to say.
The policeman paused at the door, close to his colleague who held open the door. “I’m sorry about Matteo Reed. I understand you’re somewhat close to him, losing someone like that is never easy.”
Then they were gone, the door closing softly behind them.
Grace sat alone in the hospital room, the silence pressing in on her from all sides. Her eyes went to the bed where Enzo lay unconscious, hooked up to machines that beeped softly, monitoring his vitals.
The doctors had said he’d lost a massive amount of blood. That his injuries should have been fatal and it was a miracle he was even alive at all.
Grace knew it wasn’t a miracle. It was werewolf healing. The same thing that had probably saved Maddox from the wounds Enzo had inflicted, that would erase the evidence of their fight long before any doctor could document it properly.
But Enzo’s healing seemed slower than it should be. He’d been unconscious since the paramedics brought him in, his body using all its resources to repair the damage instead of waking up.
Grace had been sitting beside his bed for hours now, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, the pale cast to his skin that suggested he was still struggling.
The police had questioned her here rather than at the station because she’d refused to leave Enzo’s side. She told them she needed to make sure he was okay, needed to be there when he woke up.
They’d allowed it, probably because her presence made her seem like a concerned friend rather than a potential suspect.
Now that they were gone, Grace found herself falling into silence. Her mind was too full and chaotic, to form coherent thoughts. Everything from the past few hours kept replaying in fragments.
Uncle Matteo’s body. The blood. Maddox’s wolf form. The look in his eyes when she’d stepped back. Enzo’s hand inside Matteo’s chest. The sirens. The fear. The lies she’d told the police.
And underneath it all, the persistent question: what really happened?
Grace found herself glancing at Enzo more frequently, studying his face in repose. He looked different when unconscious. Younger. More vulnerable. The confident, almost arrogant boy she knew was gone and almost replaced by someone who looked fragile, human, and breakable.
It was strange seeing him like this, weak and helpless for the first time since she’d known him.
Grace’s hand moved almost of its own accord, reaching out toward his face. Her fingers hovered just above his skin, not quite touching, caught in the space between wanting contact and being afraid of what that contact might mean.
Her hand lingered there, trembling slightly. She could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, could see the faint movement of his eyes beneath closed lids that suggested he might be dreaming.
‘What am I even doing?’
Grace didn’t have an answer. Didn’t know why she wanted to touch him or why the urge was so strong it made her chest ache.
Maybe it was because Enzo represented something she didn’t understand. A mystery wrapped in secrets wrapped in danger. Maybe it was because she felt a strange pull towards him, whatever that meant.
Or maybe she was just so desperate for connection, for someone to anchor her in this nightmare, that even a boy who might be a murderer looked like safety.
Before Grace could pull her hand back and retreat to the safe distance of her chair, Enzo’s eyes suddenly snapped open.
His hand shot out faster than Grace could track, his fingers closing around her wrist with bruising force. For a moment, their eyes met. His eyes were still glowing a faint gold, the wolf clearly close to the surface.
Then, before Grace could speak or protest or even process what was happening, Enzo pulled.
Grace’s body moved without her permission, yanked forward and up. Enzo twisted, using her momentum to pull her onto the bed, onto him, his arms wrapping around her waist to hold her in place.
“What are you—” Grace started.
The window exploded.
Glass shattered inward in a spray of glittering fragments. Something whistled past Grace’s head, so close she felt the displacement of air against her cheek.
A bullet.
A bullet that would have hit her directly in the head if she’d still been sitting in that chair.
Enzo was already moving, rolling them both off the bed and onto the floor on the far side. His body covered hers, pressing her flat against the cold linoleum, his weight holding her down.
“Keep your head down,” Enzo muttered, his voice rough with pain and effort. “Don’t move.”
Grace’s heart was pounding so hard she thought it might break through her ribs. Her breathing came in short, panicked gasps that she couldn’t control.
‘Someone just shot at me.’
‘Someone just tried to kill me.’
‘Someone is trying to kill me. What is it about my life that suddenly seems appealing to dangerous people?’
Grace's thoughts were on speed, thinking and trying to process whatever was happening as another window shattered, this one in the bathroom attached to the hospital room. More bullets, the sound of gunfire muffled by what must be a silencer.
It was professional and calculated. This wasn’t some random attack or crime of passion.
This was an assassination attempt.
“Stay down,” Enzo said again, his arms tightening around Grace. “Whatever happens, don’t lift your head. Don’t give them a target.”
“Who’s shooting at us?” Grace managed to ask, her voice coming out as barely more than a whisper.
“I don’t know,” Enzo said, and Grace could hear the truth in his voice. “But they’re using silver bullets. I can smell it.”
Silver bullets. The kind that could kill werewolves.
Which meant whoever was shooting knew what Enzo was. Knew about the supernatural world and was specifically targeting them with weapons designed to bypass werewolf healing.
Grace pressed herself as flat as she could against the floor, Enzo’s body a warm, solid weight above her. She could feel his heart racing, could feel tension in every line of his body.
More glass shattered. The machines monitoring Enzo’s vitals sparked and died as bullets tore through them. The mattress on the bed erupted in small explosions of stuffing as rounds punched through it.
The shooter was being thorough. Making sure there was nowhere to hide, no corner of the room that was safe.
Grace had begun to hyperventilate, Enzo noticed this and quietly pressed his forehead to hers as he tried to get her breathing to slow down.
Grace welcomed it and shut her eyes, trying to focus on Enzo and not the onslaught of bullets that tore into the now ruined hospital room.