Page 80 of Moody as a Minotaur

“Leaving now will put a target on my back. Staying is safer.”

“If they get in touch with you,” Levi said, “and I don’t know how they could, when you don’t have your phone anymore. But if they email or whatever, just say that the experience frightened you and you decided to return to Willow Lake with us. You’re young. They’ll believe it.”

They stared at one another for a long moment before Fin dropped his gaze and nodded. He didn’t look happy, but I didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was coming with us.

“Finally,” Gord said. “Can we get the hell out of here now?”

I agreed completely.

28

ROOMMATES FOR ANOTHER NIGHT

LEVI

Once again, we were at the Willow Lake Inn—er, I mean Sanctuary. The young people we’d brought with us from the city had already gone up to their rooms, and only us Willow Lakers remained in the foyer. Parker had gone up with Finley to let his grandmother know what had happened.

He’d also been desperate for a shower to wash the blood off, so I suspected he’d be doing that now too. I’d wanted to drag him right back to my place and take care of him there, but we’d had to stop here first to drop off the university students. For all I knew, Parker would be staying here for the night too. My insides twisted at the thought of sleeping across town from him tonight, but I’d deal with it.

“Some of the kids you brought wanted to bunk together,” Gage said, “which works out well since wedon’t have rooms enough for everyone to have their own yet.”

“I’m not surprised. They clung to one another the whole trip back.” I nodded. I took a bite of the warm porridge Jake had made for me a few minutes earlier. The oats were helping to balance the magic I’d spent shifting tonight, but I wouldn’t feel fully balanced until I saw Parker again.

“Besides, it’s only one night.” Gage glanced at the stairs leading to the rooms. “We’ll get them back to their supe communities tomorrow, after the SC interviews them.”

“What about the human?” I asked him. “He’s in danger too.”

“He’s connected to supes. His sister is married into the same community as his girlfriend.”

Okay. That was good.

“Did you know Finley was a supe?” I asked. “Parker had looked shocked when he found out and I hadn’t sensed anything from him.”

“No.” The demon shook his head. “His talisman worked well.”

“Yeah. It saved him.”

The hunters hadn’t identified him as a supe, but I didn’t doubt for a second that Finley would have tried to get those kids out on his own. It could have been so much worse if Parker and I hadn’t beenthere, because I suspected they would have been caught and there would have been a whole lot more bloodshed.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure why that hadn’t happened anyway.

We probably wouldn’t have escaped without everyone working together. Finley with the water pipe that got us going. The fire mage with their control over the lights and the diversion. The shifters with their determination to fight their captors. But, despite all those hair-raising moments, my mind kept returning to the moment when Parker had fired his gun. The sound ricocheted through my head on repeat. And every time, I relived the heart-wrenching moment afterward, when I hadn’t known who’d fired and if Parker was okay.

“So did yours.” Gage’s gaze dropped to the place where I was rubbing my chest to ease my suffocating anxiety. My protection tattoo just happened to be in the same spot.

“Yeah,” I agreed, not bothering to mention my stress. There was a good chance he knew all about it already. Demons were like that.

“Good. Nelson and Teague are back now too.” Gage watched the two supes walk over to join our group. I hadn’t realized until now that they’d been so far behind us. “Did you let the SC know that we’ve confirmed our suspicions about the hunters?”

“The campus security guards had already talked to them before we could, so they knew. No one else has been detained yet.” Nelson frowned. “When I checked out the place after you left with the kids, no one was there. There was just a weird fight cage in the middle of a large room.”

“Yeah. That’s where they took us,” I said. “I think they were going to pit the supes against one another like some kind of supernatural fight club. I don’t want to know whatthey would have done to them after that.” We could all speculate, though. Those hunters hadn’t seen the supes as people. They wouldn’t have cared if any of them were hurt or killed. They probably would have reveled in it. I shuddered. “Are Kyle and that professor with the SC now?”

Nelson nodded. “They were turned over within an hour of you detaining them.”

I let out a shaky breath. That was something, at least. Tammy was still out there, but I doubted she had the resources to do much on her own. And if she started spouting off about magic and monsters to the average person, they’d think she was a conspiracy theorist.

Except there had been a lot of other people in that underground room. They might have connections.