Mercy Thompson 01-05 - THE MERCY THOMPSON COLLECTION

“Like the new wolves do? He’d have been better off?” I’d been so happy that he’d been different.
    â€œThen he’d have lived until our father caught up with him—but you would have died along with the people in the hospital where you found him. This is better, Mercedes. But do not trust him, too much.”
    â€œDo you have any suggestions how I can help him?”
    â€œThe first is to convince the wolf to allow Samuel back in the driver’s seat, if only for a short period of time.”
    â€œHe wants to survive,” I told them both. “That’s why he took over from Samuel in the first place. If that means letting Samuel back in, he’ll do it.” I sounded much more convinced of that than I felt, but Sam sighed and gave me a tired, faint whine.
    â€œAnd then you have to convince Samuel that he wants to survive.”
    â€œAnd if I can’t? If the wolf lets Samuel out, and he still wants to kill himself?”
    â€œThen the wolf will have to fight for control again—or my brother dies.” Charles let out a breath of air. “All things die, Mercedes. Some just take longer than others.”

7

    I TOOK SAM WITH ME TO THE BOOKSTORE THAT NIGHT, which was inconvenient.
    I suppose we both could have stayed home, but I wanted in to look at Phin’s bookstore. The woman had been searching for something; maybe I could figure out what it had been. Maybe I’d find Phin there, happy and healthy. Maybe I wouldn’t sit home all night, worrying about things I couldn’t change.
    I couldn’t leave Sam by himself, not after my little talk with Charles. But he wasn’t the best partner to bring with me to break into the store.
    People would overlook a woman wandering around the Uptown mall in Richland even after most of the stores were closed. It wasn’t that late, a little after nine at night. The crime rate is relatively low in Richland—and most of what crime there is tends to be committed by gang members or teenagers. Sam . . .
    I imagined the hypothetical conversation as I drove down the interstate.
    Officer : “Tell me, did you see anything unusual last night?”
    Random witness : “There was this big white dog. Huge. And really white, stood out in the darkness like a beacon.”
    Yep. Sam made matters more difficult. So I would just act like I knew what I was doing and hope no one ever called the police to investigate.
    â€œI don’t know what I hope to discover in the bookstore,” I said. “There is hardly going to be a note telling me where Phin is, right? Still, it’s a start. If we don’t find anything, maybe we’ll go break into his apartment. It’s better than sitting around at home, right?”
    And the pack was meeting at Adam’s house that night. I knew why he’d called the meeting. He wanted to find out who’d been playing games with me. He’d called me to tell me what he was doing—and asked me to stay away because he hadn’t had a chance to show me how to defend myself from pack members crawling around in my head.
    I should have gone over anyway, confronted my enemies. But it was different when all your enemies could do was kill you.
    â€œI don’t want to stay home knowing how much of a coward I am,” I told Sam. “I should have gone to Adam’s when I saw them all arrive.”
    He grunted.
    â€œBut the thought of them being able to make me do something I would never . . .”
    I was pretty sure that it hadn’t just been lack of opportunity that kept Adam from teaching me how to protect myself. He’d said that if he’d known what was happening at the time when whoever it was started influencing me, he could have discovered their identity. I think he planned on trying to force a confession tonight—and if he couldn’t, he would wait until they tried it again. If that was his motivation, I approved in spirit, but at the same time, I really didn’t want to wait around until someone tried to make me do their bidding again.
    I parked in the corner of the Uptown parking lot where an all-night restaurant was located. There weren’t a lot of cars there but enough that the Rabbit didn’t stand out.
    I opened Sam’s door and he sniffed the air carefully.
    â€œAre you scenting for the fae woman who was here today?” I asked.
    He didn’t give me any kind of answer, just shook himself and