I tiptoe through the hall and stop outside the kitchen when I hear voices.
"This is fucked!"
The back door opens, I peer through the doorway to see Violet, Liam, Jean and Casper walk in. Liam carries a burlap sack over his shoulder that lands with a heavy thud on the kitchen floor. My stomach sinks with the realization of what is in the sack.
Jean's face twists with contained rage as he stares down at it.
"What the fuck do we do now?"
"This is fucked!" Kyle shouts again.
From her spot in the sink where she's scrubbing her hands with jerky movements, Violet gives him a reproachful look. "Kyle, panicking won't solve our problem."
Casper, standing next to her, now wearing a pair of jeans with his chest bare, takes a towel from a rack and begins to wipe grime off his skin. But the dark, drying stains of Dave's blood stubbornly remain, speckled stark against his icy-blonde hair and tanned skin.
"He was going to mark her and…worse. I came just in time," he says without any flicker of remorse.
"And you kill him?" Kyle spits out, looking around as if nobody is panicking enough.
"Yes," comes the clipped reply.
I glance at my still trembling hands, Kyle had held. It's stained with dirt like the rest of my clothes but nothing else. On my neck, I can still feel the phantom pressure of Dave's murderous grip, the only reminder I was attacked by a beast and came out untouched. The cold dread returns, but this time mixed with a horrifying gratitude. Casper saved me.
He tore a man apart to save me.
And from the way Jean and Liam are looking at Kyle, it seems like something they would do too.
My stomach surges with nausea but I push it away.
"Arielle is now family," Liam says as if that's a universal answer to murder.
Violet shuts off the faucet, her voice shaky. "This is bad regardless. Dave's father is one of your Betas."
Liam walks over and places a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'll talk to him. I'm Alpha so he'll listen to me."
"And if he doesn't? We killed his son for a human," Jean says with an unnervingly calmness, I don't like.
"We can't afford another pack war. It will ruin us," Violet warns. Liam sighs heavily, pushing a hand through his already messy hair. He looks fifty years older than he did that morning.
"We need to do something about her," Casper speaks up, his voice flat. "She saw me. By now, she knows what we are, and others will come for her. So we should keep her someplace secure."
"By secure, you mean the basement?" Kyle glares at him.
"We're not locking her up, Cas," Jean snaps, stepping forward, his voice a low growl.
"She's human. Her entire existence here is a threat to everything we've worked hard for. Dad made a mistake bringing her here."
"No, he didn't. This isn't our first foster kid, we're careful. You were the one who shifted in front of her. She knows what we are because of you," Kyle shoots back with anger I didn't think he's capable of.
"Let's not forget, you introduced her to Dave. You invited them here," Jean scowls, his rage still contained.
Casper growls. "He's mated already. I didn't know he would try to hurt her."
"He's your friend, you know exactly what he's capable of."
"Boys settle down." But Violet's voice barely breaks through the angry tension. Just like the time at the truck, where their sibling quarrel seemed to run deeper.
Jean and Casper lock eyes with deep unfathomable hatred.
Liam's voice manages to rise above them. "Let's stop pointing fingers, it won't help."
But the boys continue to glare at each other.
"Casper is always finding ways to fuck over this family."
"I seem to be the only one ready to protect it."
Jeans laughs coldly. "Protect it? Who do you think protected this place when you left to go 'find yourself' in the city? Who stepped up when you abandoned us? We were fine before you came back. Nobody needed you then and nobody needs you now because all you do is ruin everything."
"Watch your fucking mouth, Jean," Casper growls, his fists clenching, that dark and destructive shadow stirring behind his gray gaze.
"Or what?"
Kyle rolls his eyes impatiently, stepping in between them. "We're getting off topic people! There's a dead guy in our kitchen and a frightened human…" he points toward the doorway and freezes when our eyes meet "...eavesdropping on us."
I freeze as all eyes turn on me. Without meaning to, I'm immediately struck by their similarities. All of them except for Casper. His icy-blonde hair and darkening gray eyes stick out oddly as if separating him from the rest of the family.
I let out a breath and move into the doorway. Liam sighs heavily.
"How long have you been standing there?" Jean demands, shifting his angry eyes to me.
And my anger blooms in my chest because I'm the last person that deserves his terrible attitude especially after the night I've had.
"Long enough to know I'm leaving first thing in the morning," I don't bother to hide my frown as I step into the kitchen, walking brazenly to where they stand like large mountains of angry muscle.
"You're not going anywhere," Caspers says, folding his arms. Under any other circumstance that may have made me pause to second guess myself or worry about his anger but his infuriating tone of command pushes me on.
"Last I checked, I'm not a prisoner here. Liam said I can leave if I want."
Kyle butts in. "Well the circumstances have changed, Arielle."
Like hell if I care.
"I'm not staying in a house with monsters." The words are out of my mouth before I consider their implications. The temperature in the room drops and my mouth snaps shut, fear finally pushing through the anger and I'm suddenly aware that I'm the smallest, the weakest and could be killed and no one would ever know.
"You're going to the basement," Casper announces.
"No the fuck she's not," Kyle grits out, taking a protective stance beside me despite my words and making my heart give a weird jolt. "If anyone needs to go down there and get chained up it's you."
Casper glares murderously at Kyle but it barely fazes him.
"Kyle is right. There were a million other ways to disarm Dave without killing him," Jean agrees. "Yet you lost it and killed him. I wonder how you expect to lead a pack when you lack control."
"Enough! You boys shut the hell up!" Liam roars, his voice sweeping through the room like a wave and shocking everyone into silence. He points one large finger at Casper. "Arielle is one of us. She's in my house, under my roof. As long as I'm still Alpha you do not order her to the basement. Got that?"
Casper glares at him, his expression unreadable and for a moment I think he'll fight him too but his head slowly lowers and he gives Liam one single reluctant nod and looks away.
The silence that follows is loaded and suffocating. I watch them stare at each other not knowing what to say. The illusion of the perfect family I saw in the past few weeks fall away, leaving so many holes.
Like he receives an unspoken command, Casper walks over to the sack, picks it like its nothing, slings it over his shoulder and storms out the back door, slamming it shut. The sound of his footsteps echo down the steps and fade into the night.