She’d made mistakes when she’d taken Lizzy to see the ponies. She had no reason to believe the other little girls would react the same way and want to ride the Elementals’ steeds, but she wasn’t going to take that chance.

They heard Jake cawing.

“Sounds like I have a delivery.” Meg stood. “Thanks, Henry. I like the box.”

She hurried out of the studio, ran the length of the yard, dashed out the gate, and rushed into the back room of the Liaison’s Office. She reached the front counter in time to see the deliveryman getting back into his truck. The packages and her clipboard, with the information filled in, were on the counter.

She took the packages into the sorting room, then turned on the radio. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been listening to the weather report when she realized that Tess had come in.

Meg tipped her head to indicate Tess’s coiling green and red hair. “You’re feeling tense.”

“So are you.” Tess looked pointedly at Meg’s arm, where her fingers were digging into skin. “Are you feeling prickles?”

More than that. Worse than that. “I haven’t made a cut in a few days.”

“It won’t tell us anything.”

“It could tell us if we’ll survive.”

Tess gave her a long look. “No, I don’t think it will this time.”

•••

Simon led Captain Burke and Agent O’Sullivan upstairs to HGR’s second floor. “Vlad is checking e-mails, so we’ll talk in the office where he can hear us. Unless we should wait for Lieutenant Montgomery?” He felt restless and didn’t want to wait. You could dig a den in the earth to escape a bad storm or hide from fire if you couldn’t outrun it. But you could drown in that same den if the storm brought a flood or if the packed earth collapsed and trapped you inside. Shifters like him weren’t the target of the storms, but they were going to get hit just the same.

“No, the lieutenant needs some time with his family,” Burke replied. “I’ll relay the information to him once he gets everyone settled in the duplex.”

How could he tell these humans that he would try to save some but he couldn’t risk trying to save others who belonged to the same pack?

<The Sanguinati and Wolfgard arrived in Bennett,> Vlad said.

<Any word from Stavros?> Simon asked.

<No.> Vlad closed down the e-mail program.

Simon studied Burke. “The Courtyard will be a safe place during the storms. If Lieutenant Montgomery’s pack is denning too far away, he might not be able to bring them here in time.”

“My duplex isn’t that far away. Besides, you’ve already taken in more people than you can comfortably fit,” Burke said.