“Well—you just can’t is why not.”

She shrugged. “Who are you going to tell? Who’d even believe you?”

Bev pictured herself explaining that she didn’t jump because a woman claiming to be a werewolf told her the future (after jumping over a roof ) and saw Antonia had a point.

“Nobody’d believe me, either,” she added, almost as if (ludicrous thought!) she was trying to make Bev feel better.

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t Change.”

“You mean you don’t—” Bev groped in the air, trying to find the words. “You don’t get furry and howl at the moon and steal babies?”

“Babies! Monkey babies? Ugh! Do you have any idea how awful you guys taste? I’d rather eat shit than an omnivore.”

Bev, stuck in a job she hated, was nevertheless finding her background in social work quite handy about now. There was a pattern to Antonia’s outbursts. In fact, the snarkier and louder she got, the more painful the subject under discussion was.

She tried again. “So what you’re saying is, you never turn into a wolf. Never. But you’re a werewolf.”

Antonia’s lips nearly disappeared, she was pressing them together so tightly. “Yss,” she mumbled. “Tht’s trr.”

“But then…how do you know you’re—”

“Because my mom’s a werewolf, okay? And her dam, and her dam, and her dam, going back about eighty generations, okay? I’m a right line descendant of the She Wolf Rayet, and my dad being a monkey doesn’t change that. I am so a werewolf, I am, I am, I am!” She smacked her fist on the ledge for emphasis, and Bev was astounded to see a chunk of concrete fly off in the distance.

“Well, okay,” she said, trying to soothe the younger woman. “Nobody said you weren’t, all right?”

“You did,” she sniffled.

“No, I just questioned the logic of running around blurting it out to monkeys. Dammit! Now you’ve got me using that odious word.”

“Sorry,” she said, but she seemed to be cheering up. “It’s a sore spot, I admit. There are lots of hybrids in the pack—my alpha sired one, for Rayet’s sake. They can all Change. Everybody can Change but me. And monkeys.”

“So did they—did your friends kick—ask you to leave? Because you don’t, uh, do the Change?”

“You mean, did my pack boot my ass because I’m a freak?” She smiled a little. “No. I came west because I—I saw something.”

“Was it me?” Bev asked eagerly.

“No, it wasn’t you, greedy monkey. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you. Giving you the 4-1-1 was sort of a side trip. I’m really on my way to Minneapolis.”

“What’s in Minneapolis?”