I told Ben, “You tell Adam what I said.”

He would. Ben could be creepy and horrible, but he was almost my friend—shared nightmares do that.

“Give him my apologies and tell him I’m going to lie low”—Adam would know that meant stay away from the pack—“until I get a handle on it. Right now, I’m going to get Samuel, so you’re off duty.”

3

I DROVE MY TRUSTY RABBIT TO KGH AND PARKED IN the emergency lot. It was still hours before dawn when I walked into the building.

The trick to going wherever you want unchallenged in a hospital is to walk briskly, nod to the people you know, and ignore the ones you don’t. The nod reassures everyone that you are known, the brisk pace that you have a mission and don’t want to talk. It helped that most of the people in triage knew me.

Through the double doors that led to the inner sanctum, I could hear a baby crying—a sad, tired, miserable sound. I wrinkled my nose at the pervading sour-sharp smell of hospital disinfectant, and winced at the increase in both decibels and scent as I marched through the doors.

A nurse scribbling on a clipboard glanced up at my entrance, and the official look on her face warmed into a relieved smile. I knew her face but not her name.

“Mercy,” she said, having no trouble with mine. “So Doc Cornick finally called you to take him home, did he? About time. I told him he should have gone home hours ago—but he’s pretty stubborn, and a doctor outranks a nurse.” She made it sound like she didn’t think that should be the proper order of things.

I was afraid to speak because I might thrust a hole into whatever house of cards Samuel had constructed to explain why he had to go home early. Finally, I managed a neutral, “He’s better at helping people than asking for help.”

She grinned. “Isn’t that just like a man? Probably hated to admit he trashed that car of his. I swear he loved it like it was a woman.”

I think I just stared at her—her words made no sense to me.

Trashed his car? Did she mean he had a wreck? Samuel had a wreck? I couldn’t picture it. Some werewolves had trouble driving because they could be a little distractible. But not Samuel.

I needed to get to Samuel before I said something stupid.

“I better—”

“He’s just lucky he didn’t get hurt worse,” she said, and turned her eyes back to whatever she was writing. Apparently she could carry on a conversation at the same time, because she continued. “Did he tell you how close he came? The policeman who brought him in said that he almost fell into the water—and that’s the Vernita bridge, you know, the one on Twenty- four out in the Hanford Reach? He’d have died if he made it over—it’s a long way down to the river.”