Chapter 21

“I was out with my sister. She was given something. The doctors don’t know what, but it causes internal bleeding, hemorrhaging all over. They’re giving her blood transfusions. With her body’s natural healing abilities, she’s stable. But a young guy died of the same symptoms,” Holden explains.

“I’m sorry your sister is sick,” Detective Howard says, sounding awkward.

“Would you still be sorry if you knew she’s queer? Or would you rather she’d been the one to die?” Holden asks. He’s still pissed at Detective Howard. He’s a dick, even if he does care about his family.

“You’re both gay? What do your parents think about that?” Detective Howard asks.

“None of your damn business,” Holden snaps. He doesn’t even want to think about his parents. He certainly isn’t going to talk about them with Detective Howard.

“Howard,” Seth’s voce calls as he walks into the room, and Holden’s glad to see him.

“What?” Detective Howard glares at Seth as he comes over.

“Don’t harass him. Do you want to get reported again?” Seth’s growl makes it pretty clear he’s thinking about more than reporting Detective Howard.

“I wasn’t harassing him. You gays are so touchy. I was just asking him some questions,” Detective Howard complains.

“Damn us gays, being so touchy. What do you think it is? All the sucking dick? Or watchingGlee?” Holden asks, rolling his eyes.

“Maybe it’s watching Sex and the City,” Seth suggests back.

“You know each other?” Detective Howard asks, looking between them.

“I’m helping with Detective Grant’s case,” Holden says, not sure how much Holden would want people at work to know.

“And he’s a friend. So I suggest you should show him some respect,” Seth says firmly.

“And I suggest you tell me if someone is attacking shifters,” Howard snaps back.

“You want to hear about my case, I suggest you be a little nicer to my witness,” Seth says firmly. He looks like he’d like nothing better than to hit Detective Howard, which would be fun to see, but would probably get him into trouble. Holden doesn’t want that. So he decides to end things.

“Did you come to get me for something?” Holden asks, ignoring Detective Howard, focusing on Seth.

“I have something on the tape to show you. We found a guy bumping into Dawn. You can’t see if he slips her anything, but I want to see if you recognize him.” Seth still looks tense with anger, but it looks like he might drop it if Detective Howard keeps his mouth shut.

“Okay. Let’s go.” Holden gets up, ready to leave the room.

“I want to know if you find out for sure this guy’s going after shifters,” Detective Howard says as they’re about to leave. Seth just looks at him.

“Come on, Seth. I have kids,” Howard groans.

“Going to play nice?” Seth asks. Holden thinks he knows Seth well enough to know he’d tell Howard if his kids were at risk, no matter what. He’s just proving a point here.

“I’ll play nice. Christ!” he agrees.

“I’ll let you know when I know more,” Seth says, and then he heads out of the room. Holden follows him, taking a second to check out Seth’s ass before he catches up.

“We’re already running the guy’s face through facial recognition, in case it’s him and he has a record,” Seth says as he leads Holden into a room with a bunch of computers and a man tapping away at a keyboard.

Holden is shown an average-looking man on a screen. The image is a little blurred, but Holden recognizes Dawn also on the screen.

“Wait, I think I’ve seen him before, a long time ago. There was a protest Dawn and I went to against mistreatment of shifters in schools. He was part of a counter-protest.” Holden is sure he’s right. He remembers how angry the man looked, the hatred on his face.

“I’ll look into that. If you want to go home or see Dawn, I can handle it from now, but I’ll be in touch,” Seth offers.

“I do want to check in on Dawn. Can you call me tonight to let me know how it’s going?”

Seth nods. “Of course. I’ll call you.”

Holden gets a taxi back to the hospital and grabs some snacks from the hospital restaurant for him and Dawn. She’s awake and smiling when he walks in, and they hug before he sits down. Holden feels comforted by her scent.

“The doctors have had a breakthrough, they think they’ve found the chemicals in my system causing the bleeding. They’re starting work on neutralizing them,” Dawn says happily.

Holden is so relieved, he gets up and hugs Dawn again. “That’s such good news,”

“I don’t know if it’s just psychological, but I feel a little better, less weak. It’s great having some kind of answer.” Dawn smiles.