GIRLS, CRYING, WOLVES
Dinner was a little uncomfortable. I hadn't been to an actual family dinner in years. Sometimes in the Center Raquel or Charlotte ate with me; when they didn't I took my food into Central Processing, but it wasn't like Lish could exactly sit down at a table with me.
No crying at the dinner table. No thinking about Lish.
Stacey and Luke sat on the opposite end of the table, and every time I glanced up, Stacey was darting looks at me that hovered between terrified and furious. I could barely even make eye contact with either one of them, not now that I knew what would have happened if they had been caught by IPCA.
David was on the phone in the other room all through dinner, but when we were nearly done eating he came in, and sat down heavily in his chair, a relieved and weary smile on his face. He turned toward me.
“We did it.”
“Did what?” I asked.
“I didn't want to say anything until everyone was safe, but your Canada tip was enough. I have an old friend who's a CPM, Canadian Paranormal Monitor. They always maintained a degree of separation from IPCA because they were uncomfortable with an international organization having rights to their citizens. He'd been tracking IPCA activity, and with your info he found all the werewolves.”
I sat back in my chair. “All of them? And they got the trackers off?”
David nodded happily. Stacey's eyes had gone wide; I couldn't read her expression.
“Where are they going to go?” They couldn't go back to their old lives--IPCA had records on all of them. They'd be retagged in no time.
“Some of them are going to be folded in as CPMs, hidden right under IPCA's nose. Another busload just arrived in town so we can get them new identities and then help them settle somewhere.”
“Here?” Stacey whispered. “What about--”
The doorbell rang. Stacey turned toward the entry, her face as white as a sheet.
Lend, puzzled, got up to answer the door. After a few seconds he came back in. With Charlotte.
“Charlotte!” I said, shocked. Stacey stood up and burst into tears, throwing her arms around Charlotte's neck.
“I'm so sorry!” Stacey sobbed, burying her face in Charlotte's shoulder. “I never should have said those things--never should have--I'm sorry.”
Tears spilled down my former tutor's face, too, and she pulled Stacey in closer and stroked her hair. “It's okay. Really, it's okay. I'm sorry, too.”
That's when it clicked, why Stacey looked so familiar. This, then, was the family member Charlotte had attacked and felt so guilty about she'd tried to kill herself.
David and Arianna stood; Lend and I followed them out to give the sisters some privacy. Guilt twisted, sharp and gnawing in my stomach. I knew none of it was my fault. I hadn't turned Charlotte into a monster, hadn't made her bite her sister. I hadn't personally separated them when they needed each other the most. But then again, I'd helped IPCA every step of the way.