Page 87 of Defiance
Or had been.
Now they all sat with their hands palm down on the table.
“State your names and borough,” Paul snapped, not lowering his gun.
They were all local.
Which Paul knew anyway. Cole had seen the information back at the training centre.
“Why are you here?” one of the men asked. He looked to be late twenties or early thirties. His voice was steady but Cole caught the faint tremor in one of his hands.
Understandable.
Paul trained his gun on him as he answered. “We have reason to believe members of the CEG are operating in this area.”
“This is Cox pack territory. Members of that pack live all around here, on this street even. Surely the CEG would be stupid to do anything here.”
Paul shrugged. “You would think.”
Four more HRU members came into the living room, guns out.
Paul nodded to them. “Search upstairs, including the attic.”
No one at the table so much as blinked.
As the thud of footsteps sounded on the stairs, Paul turned to Rich. “We’ll search the rest of the downstairs. You two.” He jabbed a finger at Cole and Smith. “You guard these four. No one leaves without my authorisation. If they try, shoot them.”
With Paul still within earshot, Smith said, “Use your senses. What do they tell you?” He gave Cole a pointed look when Cole frowned. “I’m training you,” he mouthed.
Oh, okay.
Keep up appearances, Cole.
Cole breathed in, trying to separate the myriad scents surrounding them. “Apart from these four, there’s faint traces of other humans. But no shifters have been here recently apart from us.”
Smith grinned. “Good. What else?”
“Someone smoked weed earlier. And they had pizza for tea.”
“What can you hear?” Smith nudged him towards the woman, putting a finger to his lips. She smiled up at him.
Cole smiled back as he said, “Those new HRU guys are directly above us.” He paused. “Now they’re coming back down the stairs. And Paul and Rich have just gone outside.” The back door shut at the other end of the house as four sets of feet sounded on the stairs coming down. They disappeared out the front door without stopping or saying anything.
Smith cocked his head, listening. Then lowered his gun. “We have a minute, maybe two, before Paul comes back in.” He motioned to Cole. “Cole McKillan formerly Moreton.”
The four around the table quickly introduced themselves. “We’ve heard a lot about you,” the woman, Val, said. “You escaped yet chose to return. To the McKillan pack of all packs. Why?”
“This needs to stop.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You think we haven’t been trying?”
“I have no idea.” Not even Jacob knew what went on high up in the CEG. “I just wanted to help. No one should be forced to join a fucking pack if they don’t want to.”
“No, they shouldn’t.”
“There’s more people like me out there, and more shifters who feel like we do.”
“You’re asking us to trust them? Trust shifters who once allied with those in power now.”
