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so that we can meet."
    "Or so they can follow Amalie's orders to kill you."
    He nodded. "Also possible."
    "So what do you want to do? Hang out and hope they come back?"
    "No," he said without hesitation. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. After a few beats, he opened them again. The silver had receded to a thin line around the iris. "No, they may not return today or at all."
    "We could always come back later and bug the place."
    "We could."
    He didn't sound very on-board with that idea. He grabbed the bag of trash and started rifling through it, sending up stronger odors of old food and rot. I took a step back, curious, but trusting him. He produced a few squeeze packs of mustard. Ripped one open. Spent a good solid minute using that mustard to write his cell phone number on the wall above the blanket pile, very careful to not smear any of the characters.
    I guess when you traveled without pen and paper, you left notes any way you could.
    "Think they'll know who it's from?" I asked when he didn't sign his name.
    "They'll smell me here."
    Living around Therians for the last few months kept that from sounding as strange as it ought to. "We should go then."
    He followed me out with no small amount of regret. He wanted to find those three Lupa boys before they hurt someone else, but he also wanted to find them for himself. They were blood now, whether they liked it or not. And Wyatt never turned his back on family. He'd lost his real family to violence eleven years ago, and now he clung to the few personal relationships he managed to create. He'd never forgive himself if they were killed by one of our many enemies.
    Or by one of our few allies.
    #
    We didn't return to the Watchtower until around seven pm, having spent the rest of the afternoon wandering aimlessly around the city. We did manage a decent sit-down dinner at a tiny Italian bistro that had seven tables, a short bar, and a funky smell that was either old cheese or dirty socks. But the food was decent, not a single person besides our waiter bothered us, and it almost felt like a real date.
    Almost.
    Wyatt was distant the entire meal, and I knew it was because of the Lupa pups. And I didn't even mind it, because I'd texted Gina Kismet while he was in the bathroom. She was at the Watchtower preparing phase one of Operation: Trust Me. Phase two was my job, and I got to it as soon as we arrived by separating myself from Wyatt with the excuse that I wanted to check on Milo's head. He bought it and headed off to Operations.
    Kismet met me inside the empty storefront that we'd chosen earlier in the week. It was down the corridor near the gym area, across the hall, tucked back in the corner near the under-construction department store which would one day become an obstacle course training center—if the Watchtower was around long enough for it to be finished. Our location had once been a bank branch center, so it had a fantastic little safety deposit box area in the back, complete with steel walls and a prison-bar door that we'd fashioned an exterior lock for.
    It was empty of the old safety deposit box lockers, which gave us a space that was about ten feet by fifteen feet, with smooth walls and a solid cement floor. Kismet had put a small cot mattress inside, as well as a few folded blankets, and she'd sprayed the room down with lavender-scented air freshener. Lavender was, according to Astrid, something of a Therian aphrodisiac, so I figured what the hell?
    "How was he today?" Kismet asked as I inspected her handiwork.
    "Focused. We may have a way of getting the pups to contact him, so I think he's also hopeful."
    "That's good. He'll take it insanely hard if they're killed or captured before he finds them."
    "I know."
    Kismet was Wyatt's oldest friend, nine years and counting, and they knew each other in and out. They'd also betrayed each other several times in the last few months, only to reconcile and become friends again. It was one of the oddest