A Vanilla Autopsy, part two

“Dawson said one of the Sons was in custody.” Cooper glared through the windshield at passing headlights. “I confirmed it. His name is Wendell Merit. They call him ‘Squirrel.’ They could only keep him for twenty-four hours since no one actually saw him do anything and Arvin’s lawyer showed up to keep him quiet.”

Jeanette turned to him in the gloom of the setting sun. She had thrown on a worn leather jacket and loose high-top sneakers before they left the apartment.

“What?” Cooper asked, distracted.

“I killed your friend. Doesn’t that bother you?”

Cooper gritted his teeth. “Yeah. It bothers the hell out of me. It bothers me that I came to you for help instead of killing you. But you’re the only chance Steffy has. Dawson gave his life to make this happen. Do you see?”

“Interesting way of looking at it.”

“Yeah? How do you look at it?” he asked as he drove. “How do you live with yourself when you can kill someone with no remorse? You didn’t even know those men. They had families. You’re no better than the Sons, or the Streeters, or any of them.”

“I know what I am and where I belong in this world.”

“Oh, yeah? Where’s that?”

“Just above you on the food chain.” An uncomfortable silence reigned in the car. She spoke again. “It’s not an easy place to be. Humans used to be so tenacious, hunting us down. Now your greatest weapon is the speed of information. And there’s so damn many of you. You were right back at the apartment. I don’t have a choice.”

Cooper’s head hurt from the meth and the knowledge of what he was doing. He rubbed at his eyes.

“Look, I’ve got Merit’s address. There were only a few others that escaped during the shootout. Maybe Merit can lead us to them. Get us to Arvin, himself.”

“Drive on, Detective,” she sighed. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we ‘save’ your little girl.”

Cooper followed the interstate fifteen miles out of the city. Merit’s address was a mobile home in the center of a growing web of rusted out automobiles, appliances, and fifty-gallon drums. Cooper parked the car on the far side of a mountain of detritus. Thick woods surrounded the junkyard, cutting it off from the sparse farmland outside the city.

Arc lights on telephone poles lit the approach to Merit’s home, bathing the front yard in a bright white glow. There were plenty of shadows cast by the abandoned relics of industrialization. Cooper plotted out a path between them.

“Let’s go,” Jeanette said as she slid out the door. Cooper did likewise and they crouched in the shadow of the rubble heap. The lights were on in Merit’s trailer. The pair flitted between mounds of oxidizing metal until they were only fifty feet from the front door.

“All right, look,” Cooper whispered. “Let’s not go in all Underworld like. We need—Shit!”

With a loud blast, a storm of fragmented metal blew around them. Cooper ducked and heard the sound of a pump-action shotgun being cocked. He drew his 9mm backup pistol from the holster in his waistband and looked up. Jeanette was gone. Branches in the woods near the side of the trailer swayed where she had passed.

“God damn it.” If she killed Merit before he gave up info on the rest of the Sons, she’d screw her whole revenge plan. And then what? What about Steffy?

Cooper peeked around the side of the heap. A tall, thin skinhead in the doorway of the trailer raised his shotgun. Cooper ducked to the other side as the blast rained down on the scrap metal. He fired a few shots above the skinhead, puckering the trailer’s dirty white siding with holes. The man skittered back inside.

Cooper fired a few more shots towards the door as he advanced to the side of the trailer. Somewhere, off in the distance, a dog barked. Any minute now, someone was going to call the cops. No amount of sympathy from fellow detectives would be able to save his ass if that happened.

“Merit!” He yelled from outside the door. “Put that fucking gun down! We just want to talk!”

“Then why are you shooting?” a nervous voice called from inside the trailer.

“I didn’t hit you, did I?” Cooper risked a quick glance inside. He saw Merit on the other side of the living room. He leveled the shotgun at Cooper from the pass-through in the kitchen. Merit inched towards the back door leading outside. Cooper jerked back.

“You don’t want to go out there,” he called. “I got the worst kind of backup waiting for you.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Cooper heard the sound of breaking wood and squealing metal, a roar he remembered that turned his spine to ice. The shotgun discharged. Merit screamed. Cooper took a deep breath and charged in.

The beast towered over Merit. Even hunched over, it had to be seven feet tall. The fluorescent ceiling light in the kitchen reflected off of that golden fur. For a moment, the awful beauty of the monstrosity again awed Cooper.

She held the barrel of the shotgun in one clawed hand. Merit stared at the smoking hole in her gut as it wrenched closed. Jeanette ripped the gun from his shaking hands and tossed it to Cooper’s feet. She roared into Merit’s face, spittle spraying his flesh, her mouth open wide enough for him to count her dripping teeth.

As Cooper approached, covering Merit with his pistol, the skinhead sank to his knees as tears streamed down his face. The stench of fear wafted from him as his bowels and bladder released. Jeanette drove him to the floor with a harsh growl and glared at his weakness. Merit crawled towards Cooper.

“Please,” he blubbered. “Please….”

Jeanette gripped him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. Her teeth hovered dangerously close to his face.

“Jeanette!” Cooper yelled. The wolf head turned towards him, the claws of her free hand flexed. She shifted anxiously on canine paws where her feet once were. Recognition filtered into her yellow eyes—the memory of an objective.

Cooper stepped closer. He could smell her strange animal musk beneath Merit’s stench. This close, she gave off an aural of feral power like the bears and gorillas he had seen at the zoo with Steffy. He lowered the 9mm and focused his attention on Merit.

The weeping man clenched his eyes shut and whimpered. Cooper estimated him to be in his twenties. Swastikas and Nazi dagger tattoos adorned his neck and upper arms.

Merit shook in Jeanette’s grip. He shrieked, he laughed, he cried. He didn’t seem to notice Cooper anymore.

“Merit!” Cooper yelled. “Shut up!” He stepped uneasily in front of the pinned man. Jeanette’s long arm stretched behind him. He heard the bellows of her lungs and felt her hot breath clouding out. The details of her arm, her hand, would be forever burned in his mind. The wiry strands of fur, the muscles beneath her flesh, the wicked curve of her talons and knotting of tendons—but he had no time to analyze, no time to let his mind wrap around the utter, horrifying reality of her.

“Do you want to live?” he asked Merit. The man nodded weakly at him. “Then you need to help us. I want the names and addresses of all the Sons that survived that shoot out.”

“Arvin…Arvin will kill me!”

“No, he won’t. You have my word. Nothing to say? Fine. I’m just going to walk out the front door and cover my ears.”

Jeanette’s muzzle lowered towards Merit, her jaw open wide.

“Wait!” Merit screamed. “All right! Jesus! Just get it off of me!”

She let go and Merit slid to the floor. Jeanette crouched in front of him. Her head still came up to the level of Cooper’s chest as he leaned against the wall.

“They’re not in the city,” Merit said through hands held up to cover his face. “They’re at the farm.”

“What the hell’s that?” Cooper asked.

“Arvin’s safe house. Where we meet when things get too hot.”

“Where is it?”

Merit began to talk. “Aren’t you gonna’ write it down?”

“No.” Cooper pulled a pair of handcuffs from his jacket. “You’re going to take us there.”

***

Jeanette emerged from behind the trailer, pulling her jacket on. Fully clothed and human again, she opened the passenger side door and got in. Cooper handed her Merit’s shotgun.

“Keep him covered.” He nodded towards the back seat where Merit sat glumly, his hands cuffed in his lap.

“Arvin’s farm is another forty miles from here,” Jeanette said.

Cooper nodded. “We’ll finish this tonight. Then, you do your part and you’re free.” He started the car and drove back to the interstate.

After a few minutes, Merit spoke. “Why are you helping that?” He indicated Jeanette.

“Deal’s a deal, Squirrel,” Cooper mused. “What? Did you and your Nazi brothers decide to liberate the white world from the clutches of evil?”

Jeanette scoffed. “Tell him, Merit. Tell him why Arvin wanted us dead.”

Merit lowered his head.

“Fine. I’ll tell him.” Jeanette kept her eyes and the shotgun on Merit as she talked. “A few months ago, Arvin sent one of his boys as an envoy. I don’t know how they found out about us. Seems like a lot of people have learned to do their homework, lately. They wanted to cut a deal. They’d share power and give up some of their neighborhoods to us if we turned them.”

“No shit,” Cooper breathed. He looked in the rear view. “Killing each other with guns wasn’t enough, huh?”

“We would have ruled that city,” Merit said.

“Needless to say,” Jeanette went on, “We were already pissed that someone found out about us. There was no way in Hell we were about to give these fools what they wanted.”

Cooper grinned. “So, if the Aryan Sons couldn’t have it, no one could. Is that it, Merit?”

The man glared at him from the back seat.

“Didn’t take them long to find out how to put us down for good,” Jeanette said.

“Good thing the cops showed up.” Cooper looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“Normally, I wouldn’t agree with that,” she replied.

“What kind of firepower are we talking about, Merit?” Cooper asked.

“Name it, we’ve got it.”

“Lucky us.”

They drove on in silence. The distance to Arvin’s farm melted away. Then, Merit asked, “What are you going to do with me?”

“I’m going to kill you,” Jeanette said as if she were announcing a party to a child. “It’s on my list of chores, Merit. I simply must get it done.”

Cooper looked angrily at her. “Nice.”

“So little time, “ she sighed.

Merit was breathing hard and shallow. “Can’t you just let me go? I’ve told you where to find them.” “

My people didn’t start this, Merit,” she said. “You should have made sure I was dead.”

“Jeanette,” Cooper began. “Maybe…maybe he doesn’t have to …”

“What, Cooper?” she asked. “Cold feet? ‘We finish this tonight.’ Remember? ‘Then you do your part and you’re free.’”

Cooper shook his head, annoyed. “Where is this damn place, anyway?”

“There.” Jeanette pointed to a muddy, dirt road stretching into the woods on the left. Cooper slowed and made the turn. The sedan struggled down the unpaved path, which seemed to stretch forever into the gloom.

Cooper killed the lights. The road was still illuminated, the glow growing brighter. He heard another growl over the car’s engine.

“What the hell?”

“Shit!” Jeanette shouted. Too late, she pointed to Cooper’s left. He turned in time to see the bright headlights of a tow truck hurtling towards them from a side path.

The wrecker slammed into them. Cooper’s head impacted with the doorframe. There was a bright jolt of pain before he faded into the dark. The sounds of breaking glass, shrieking metal, and screaming engines followed him into the black.

The dark was sporadic, claiming him in flashes: the open passenger door… Jeanette’s luminous eyes fading into the dark woods… Merit screaming “Get me out of here!”…Rough hands gripping Cooper’s shoulders, dragging him through the broken-out window…“Come here, fucker!”

***

He was tied to a chair, and he knew that wasn’t good. Cigarette smoke stung his nostrils. The left side of his face felt bloated and stiff. His head still vibrated from the impact and he couldn’t hear out of his left ear. He let out a short groan.

“He’s awake,” said a gruff voice.

“Why don’t you get him some water, Ox?” It was the mild voice of someone’s grandfather.

“We should kill him.” That one, though…that one was Merit.

Cooper tried to open his eyes. Only the right one opened all the way. The glare of the overhead fluorescents made him wince. He was seated in the middle of a farmhouse kitchen. Black and white checkerboard linoleum stared up at him. Seated nearby, at a small metal-rimmed table, an old man in a plaid bathrobe sat staring thoughtfully at him. Occasionally, he dipped his cigarette towards an aluminum foil ashtray and flicked it. The light reflected off of his thick, plastic-rimmed glasses. Merit stood behind him, nervously fingering his shotgun. Cooper tasted blood and felt it trickle out of the side of his swollen mouth.

“You look a fright, son,” the old man said. “Squirrel, clean that off him.”

Merit grabbed a dishtowel and wiped angrily at Cooper’s face. Cooper shouted and drew back from the pain. Merit threw the towel at him and stalked back.

“Arvin,” Cooper said. The old man nodded.

“Detective Cooper,” he said. “Some water?”

The thing called Ox stepped in front of Cooper with a glass that seemed to be hiding in the folds of his mammoth fist. Cooper stared incredulously up at the beast. He estimated that Ox was pushing seven feet, possibly four hundred pounds. His bald head gleamed except where it bore tattoos similar to Merit’s.

“Jesus…”Cooper breathed. Ox grabbed his chin, forced his mouth open, and poured the water in.

Cooper choked and sputtered as Ox set the glass on the table and thumped to Arvin’s other side.

“You’re a very foolish man, Mr. Cooper,” Arvin said. “You’ve given up so much: your name, your integrity as a police detective, and now your life. Why?”

“It’s that wolf bitch,” Merit squeaked. “I heard them. They’ve got some kind of bargain. We should kill him. Now.”

“Squirrel,” Arvin whined. “I want to hear it from him.” He turned to Cooper. “Why, son? Why cast your lot with that beast?”

Cooper managed to smirk through one side of his face. “Cut me a fucking break, Arvin. I’m tired of hearing this self-righteous bullshit. You’re a racist hypocrite leading a small-minded, frightened bunch of white boys that got kicked out of the sand box. You couldn’t have the nice toys so you took up the cross and the guns and headed out to rid the world of evil. That’s funny.”

Arvin blinked, surprised. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He slapped his knee. “This boy’s got us figured out. You know, it’s a good thing you’re here, what with your moral high ground and all, to set us straight. Breakin’ into people’s homes, kidnapping them. Good work, Detective. Ox!”

Ox turned around and opened a drawer. He rubbed his thick chin thoughtfully as he gazed into the depths of the drawer. He grinned, reached down, withdrew an eight-inch carving knife, and turned towards Cooper.

“No,” Cooper said as Ox stomped towards him.

“Now, Mr. Cooper,” Arvin said. “I am growing impatient with your insults and negativity.”

“No!” Cooper struggled with the ropes pinning his arms behind him. Ox grabbed him by the neck and squeezed.

“That monster bitch is somewhere out there in the woods. I know what she wants, but I want to know why you’re here.” Arvin stood up. Ox placed the tip of the knife against Cooper’s left shoulder. “And you will tell me.”

Cooper tried not to scream as he felt the first inch of the blade enter his flesh. Ox pushed slowly, a serene look on his face. He grinned blissfully when Cooper finally shrieked. Ox left the blade in Cooper. It quivered there, anchored by the four inches buried in his shoulder.

“Motherfucker!” Cooper raged through gritted teeth. Tears of pain tracked down his face.

Arvin drew Cooper’s Magnum from beneath his robe. He aimed it at Cooper’s forehead.

“Look what we found on you. Am I mistaken, or is this loaded with silver rounds?” he asked. “What’s going on here, Cooper? Are you using this creature to further your own ends, like Merit says?”

“You got no fucking idea,” he gasped.

A gunshot thundered from outside. It was followed by several more, a feral snarl, a scream. The clatter of footsteps on the porch preceded the front door banging open. One of Arvin’s followers, a splash of red across his white t-shirt, wedged himself in the hallway outside the kitchen. He sank, shaking, to one knee and covered the door with his hunting rifle.

“She got Jamie!” he screamed.

“Did you hit her?” Arvin asked.

“Don’t know,” the boy said. “I don’t think so. She was too fast.”

Merit racked his shotgun and leveled it at Cooper. Arvin tilted the barrel up with the Magnum.

“No. Ox, you and Merit take him down to the den. Then, I want you back up here.”

Ox grabbed the back of the chair in one hand and dragged Cooper towards a thin door in the kitchen wall. Merit fumbled it open and Ox thumped Cooper down into a finished basement.

It was lined with wood paneling over which were draped vintage and reproduction Nazi flags. There were couches, chairs, a bar in the corner. Swastikas, helmets, and daggers seemed to fill the empty space. A few table lamps cast a dim amber illumination around the room. Cooper craned his neck around and saw the latest grisly additions to the décor. Nine heads had been crudely mounted on wooden trophy plaques and hung on the walls. They were men and women; black, white, Latino, Asian; old and young.

“Don’t worry,” Ox growled. “By the end of the night, your girlfriend will be up there too.” He playfully flicked the handle of the carving knife. Cooper howled in pain.

“Let’s go.” Ox shoved Merit up the stairs and followed. Cooper heard the men talking in the kitchen above, and then it was quiet except for an occasional mumble.

“Circling the wagons,” Cooper thought. “I’m not dying here. Steffy is not going to die because of these assholes.’

He stared at the handle protruding from the blood-crusted rip in his jacket. If he leaned in….

Cooper grunted in agony as his teeth clamped around the wooden grip.

“Do it you fucking pansy!” his mind screamed at him.

He whimpered as the blade came out, cutting him at a new angle, widening the rift in his flesh. Saliva, tears, and blood mingled and ran down the front of his jacket as he worked the knife out the last few inches.

Exhausted, he let go of the knife. It clattered to the floor. He felt cold and dizzy. He knew shock was setting in.

“Almost there,” he told himself. “Almost.” He rocked, left to right, until he tipped the chair over onto its side. The knife was behind him, couldn’t be far away. He shifted, jerked, until his grasping fingers were nicked on the sharp blade. He had it!

He ground the blade against the ropes binding his hands. Thread by thread, he felt them give way.

The lights went out. Voices floated in the dark upstairs.

“Shit….”

“She killed the power.”

“Flashlights…get the lantern.”

There was an explosion of glass, a heavy thud somewhere on the floor above him. Cooper sawed frantically at the rope.

“She’s in the house!” A gunshot. “Damn it!”

Cooper’s hands were free. He shrugged off the ropes around his arms and chest, attacked the ones around his feet.

“Merit, get back here!”

“Forget him. Let him go.”

“Fuck!” Boom-boom. A scream. A roar.

“Downstairs!” Arvin yelled. The door at the top of the stairs opened, spilling down pale splashes of light. Cooper had a brief glance of the room, enough to dive behind a long, dangling flag. He heard the sound of the door being bolted. He held his breath and peered around the edge of the flag, gripping the knife close as Arvin and Ox backed down the stairs. Arvin held an old camp lantern in one hand, Cooper’s Magnum in the other. Ox was in front of him, holding a heavy rifle with a flashlight cupped beneath it. There was no sign of Merit or the other boy.

“Cooper,” Arvin began. He turned towards the empty chair entwined with bloody ropes. Ox looked over and grunted.

“He’s down here,” Arvin reassured him.

Cooper waited, shaking and sick, as Arvin passed by the flag. Ox backed towards him, his eyes on the stairs. Cooper made his move.

He threw himself onto Ox’s back and jammed the knife deep into his neck. Ox spun and the flag twisted around them like a bloodstained shroud. Ox bleated as Cooper yelled and twisted the knife. Blood spurted out, covering their faces as Ox flailed madly.

The giant staggered into Arvin. The old man lost his grip on the lantern. It crashed to the floor, spilling burning fuel onto the carpet.

Ox and Cooper fell to the ground as Arvin scampered to the stairs. Ox rolled through the flames, oblivious to their searing touch. Cooper, bound to Ox by the smoldering flag, struggled to free himself.

Arvin fired from the base of the stairs. The round kicked up pieces of burning carpet next to Cooper’s head. Arvin crept up the stairs, taking aim again.

Ox lay still on the burning floor. Cooper thrashed wildly, kicking free of the flag. He rolled over the corpse and grabbed for the rifle.

The door at the top of the stairs was ripped from its hinges. Jeanette towered in the opening, roaring in anger. Arvin pointed the Magnum at her chest.

BOOM! The top of Arvin’s head splattered against the paneled wall. His wide-eyed corpse slid down the stairs to where Cooper leaned against the handrail. He lowered the smoking rifle and collapsed to his knees.

The smoke of the burning room and loss of blood made his vision dim. He realized he was lying across Arvin. The dead man stared up at him. Cooper twisted around and saw the wolf thing creeping down the stairs towards him. The fire was reflected in her eyes. She snapped her jaws uneasily. Cooper couldn’t read the intentions of the beast as she hovered over him. His trembling hand pried the Magnum from Arvin’s grip.

He felt Jeanette’s claws clamp around his shoulders. She dragged him up the steps. The other skinhead’s body was in the kitchen; torn, bloody, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling. Smoke crept up from the stairwell as Jeanette heaved Cooper over her shoulder. He could see the weak break of day glowing through the windows.

She carried him outside, past more bodies, to a haphazard parking lot of pick-up trucks and rusting muscle cars. He felt her change as she carried him. Then, he was sitting in the cold mud against a car. The chilling rain stung his exposed flesh. Jeanette was kneeling before him, half clothed. She put her jacket over him and dug a set of keys out of her pocket.

“Found these,” she said as she unlocked the door. Cooper could see the blood that had dried on her hands, under her nails, like crusty deep-red gloves. She hefted him into the back seat and stretched him out. He could still smell the animal on her.

“We should go,” he mumbled.

“Stay here, Cooper,” she said. “I’m almost done.” She closed the door and he slept.

***

Cooper struggled out of the darkness. He fumbled with the door and staggered out of the car. The rain had turned to a light mist. He slogged through the mud of the parking area, gripping his torn shoulder, and stopped.

She had found him. Jeanette had Merit on his knees. He held himself up, head bowed, as if worshipping her. Jeanette had the barrel of the shotgun a few inches from the top of his head. Snot and tears dripped from his face, mixing with the mud he cowered in.

Suddenly, Cooper was weary. Not just of fighting and killing, but of the entire world and all of reality. He was weary of gods that doomed children to painful deaths, of gangs killing each other over territorial pissings, of hate and revenge and hope, monsters that acted like people, people that acted like monsters. Suddenly, he was weary of himself.

“It’s almost over, Merit,” she cooed as if trying to calm him. “Payback.” Merit sobbed and tried to sink into the ground.

“Jeanette!” Cooper called as he trudged towards her. “Let him go.”

“What?” The word was bladed and icy. Cooper shook his head and gestured at the bodies, the burning house.

“Haven’t we killed enough people yet?”

“No, Cooper, we haven’t.”

He stopped, just next to her. “Let him go. No one would believe anything he said.”

“You would. Your friends at all those places with three letter names would. There’s too much evidence already. And I can’t rest until the murderers of my pack are answered for. All of them.”

Cooper hung his head and stared down at Merit.

“No.” He shook his head again and drew the Magnum. He leveled it with her predatory eyes. “No more.”

“Really?” she asked calmly. “This was part of the deal, Cooper: All of them for your child. Now you’re backing out. If you stop me, kill me, your own daughter dies. Would you trade her for him?” She nodded towards Merit.

There was a hole in Cooper’s chest. He hadn’t noticed it before. Now, though, it seemed to be sucking all feeling, all thought, into its empty, cold darkness.

“Go back to the car, Cooper,” she said quietly.

The Magnum wavered in his hand, then lowered. Staring at the ground, he pulled himself away from the pair. His legs moved through heavy, chilling realization of himself. He stopped at the car door. The shotgun thundered behind him.

Mechanically, he opened the door and crept behind the wheel. A few moments later, Jeanette entered from the passenger side. Cooper glanced blankly past her face to where he saw Merit’s legs sprawled in the mud.

He knew she was looking at him, but he couldn’t meet her gaze.

“You okay to drive?” she asked. He nodded. “Then let’s get this over with,” she said.

***

It was past nine in the morning when they reached the hospital. They had stopped at a hotel to clean up and tend to Cooper’s wounds.

As Cooper opened the door to his daughter’s room, Nicole looked up from Steffy. She rose from the bedside chair as Cooper entered. Jeanette followed him.

They met at the foot of the bed. Nicole’s face ignited with fury. She slapped Cooper. He stared at her.

Nicole’s eyes raged unspoken questions at him. “Where have you been while your daughter is dying? Who the hell is this woman?” She slapped him again. She raised her hand a third time and Cooper caught it.

“Go for a walk,” he said. “We’ll talk about this later.”

She tore her hand from his grip. Casting a deadly glance at Jeanette, she took her purse and stalked from the room.

“Happy little family,” Jeanette mused. “You know, Cooper, I’ve heard that most married folks tend to get divorced after their child has been in the hospital.”

“Why don’t you just do what you’re here for?”

Jeanette walked slowly to Steffy’s side. She looked down at the child nestled in her cocoon of technology and pain. Steffy’s brown hair clung to her head in tight curls. Her little face was pale and drawn. Behind darkened lids, her eyes moved in chemically induced nightmares.

“Cooper….”

“Do it,” he gritted.

“When she comes to you later, begging you to end it, are you going to be tough enough to put one of those magic bullets in her head?”

Cooper rubbed his eyes with a trembling hand. He felt sick, but said nothing.

“All right,” Jeanette said. She gently picked up Steffy’s arm, pulling the IV to one side. She leaned down, settling her mouth on the girl’s upper arm. She bit, wincing at the taste of the sick blood. The little girl whined in pain, but it was no stranger, not enough to draw her from her troubled sleep.

Jeanette spat the blood into the wastebasket and wiped her mouth. Cooper walked to the other side of the bed and held Steffy’s hand while staring down into her face.

“The next moon is a week away. The change will start quickly but at least she’ll grow normally until she hits puberty. Her ageing will slow down then. She’ll still look twenty when she’s fifty. She won’t be able to control the wolf at first. Eventually, she’ll be able to change whenever she wants. She and the wolf will become…similar. Until then, keep her locked up, away from people. Know the moon.”

Cooper remained silent, rubbing Steffy’s hand. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small key on a ring. He tossed it towards Jeanette.

“Safe deposit box. Metro bank. All the evidence is there,” he said.

She looked the key over, spun it around her finger. She cast one more glance towards the bed and turned to the door. “Good luck, Cooper.” She left.

Cooper looked to the monitor as Steffy’s vitals slowly climbed. The bite on her arm was nearly healed already. He held his breath when her eyes opened.