Frost Burned

anyway.
    “Stay quiet and find a good hiding place,” said the 911 operator on the other end of the phone; she’d been giving us all sorts of good advice and updates.
    “We are taking cover in the bathroom,” said Kyle, and gave her the basic layout of the house—which took a while because it was a big house.
    He was steady and cool while we watched the door between his bedroom and the rest of the house. The bathroom afforded us a little protection—the walls were marble slabs, and we weren’t in direct line of sight from the door.
    Kyle kept the phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, and I could hear the operator keeping him up-to-date on what was happening. I had a sudden sick thought that we really didn’t know if we could trust the police. What if the government really was behind it all? What if the police were in on it, too?
    Paranoia: the gift of the survivor and the burden of the overtired, stressed, terrified coyote.
    I thought about the likelihood of the police being under the control of the bad guys and came up with it as being unlikely—but not as unlikely as a group of humans descending on pack HQ and abducting a pack of wolves—including wolves who were not out to the public. Since the latter had happened, it made me feel less paranoid for suspecting the former.
    “Okay,” said the operator. “The police are there and in position, just hang tight and wait for them.”
    As the sounds of rapid-fire orders seeped into our bolt-hole, I became more and more uneasy about trusting the police to be on our side.
    About that time, there was a gentle tap on the bedroom door.
    “Mr. Brooks? This is Kennewick PD, sir. Please put down your weapons. We have the suspects in custody and you are safe.”
    Kyle put his gun down on the floor—then noticed me not doing the same thing. He reached out toward me, and Ben growled. I was not alone in my paranoia—or else Ben was just picking up on how unhappy I was. Wounded and surrounded by the dead and terrified, he wasn’t exactly Mr. Sane right now, either.
    “Give us a moment,” Kyle called out. “Mercy’s pretty freaked-out. She’s had quite a night, and it’s not over. Let me talk her down.”
    There was a pause, then a more familiar voice called, “Mercy, drop the gun. We’re the good guys. We’ll find Adam, but you’ve got to put down the gun and let us in.”
    “Tony?” I called out, not releasing my grip on Kyle’s gun. But my stomach muscles started to loosen. Tony Montenegro worked for the Kennewick police and he was on our side.
    “It’s me,
chica
. Let us do our job.”
    I engaged the safety and put the gun down on the floor next to Kyle’s.
    “Come on,” Kyle said. “They’ll feel better if we’re not near the guns.” And then he murmured, “I’ll feel better, too. Ben, is there anything you can do to look less frightening?”
    Ben dropped his head and tail, hopping on three feet to accompany us to the bedroom door. I wasn’t sure his posture made him look less lethal—and that was before he ruined it by snarling at the bound kidnapper who had awakened at some point and was struggling.
    The bald man froze, and I patted Ben on the head. “Sorry, Ben,” I murmured. “No eating the bad guys when they are tied up, and the police are on the other side of the door.”
    I wasn’t really kidding, though I didn’t know it until I said it. Both Ben and Kyle gave me a thoughtful look.
    “I’m going to have the werewolf lie down next to the wall,” Kyle said loudly. “He’s already been hurt by the guys who took out Adam. I don’t want anyone shooting him by accident.”
    “Everything’s been going smoothly,” said Tony reassuringly. “We’ve got two guys, they surrendered peacefully enough, so no one is too trigger-happy except for Mercy. But lying down by the wall is a good idea.”
    There had been a third man downstairs, I thought. Or maybe one of the two from below had been the man who’d come up to give the men holding Kyle their orders. I listened to Tony explain that the wolf who was in the room was one of the victims and not to be shot. He was being very cautious, but then he’d seen the werewolves before.
    Timber wolves are big and scary. Anyone who has ever seen one in a zoo or in the woods is in no doubt that they are in the presence of an apex predator. Werewolves are bigger and scarier than that. Sometimes they can downplay it, a little body language, a little pack magic, and they can pass for a