202 Grace: Intruder Alert
202 Grace: Intruder Alert
“Now,” I repeat, my voice dropping to that deadly serious tone I’ve learned makes even the most stubborn child comply.
Then, slowly, I peek out the side of the blinds to see who’s at our door.
Okay, my excuse makes me sound like I’m twelve instead of a solid eighteen, but give me a break, here. I’m running on fumes and the vague memory of energy.
“Your trust isn’t my concern.”
“Yeah, Grace is real short. I’m gonna be taller than her soon. Probably next week.”
Sara delivers a swift elbow to his ribs, making him yelp. “Read the room!” she whispers fiercely. “She’s going to kill him with the frying pan.”
“It isn’t a special frying pan, you dingus.”
Standing on the metal steps of the camper is a Lycan. Not just any Lycan–one of the ones who was here earlier, with the scarred face and permanent scowl. He doesn’t like me, and he doesn’t approve of the kids.
Reasonable Ron strikes again, but somehow he’s more irritating than the other two.
Her little brother rubs at his chest, looking thoroughly offended and also unimpressed. “Yeah, well, it isn’t Rapunzel’s frying pan, so I don’t think it’s going to work.”
Seriously, though, who gave him permission to use my first name? We’re strangers. He should at least call me “Miss Harper“.
My head throbs even harder. “No, thank you.”
“Don’t even think about it,” I warn him. “The Lycan King’s children are in here.” I was mad earlier when Caine claimed the children, but now their identity as his kids is useful. And, since this Lycan was there when the claim happened, he won’t doubt my words.
I grip the frying pan tighter.
“Aren’t you gonna answer it?” Jer asks curiously, still watching me from his spot on the dinette bench.
15-10
202 Grace: Intruder Alert
Ron herds the younger siblings while Bun stares at me from over his shoulder, curiously drooling but strangely silent.
“Still not opening it. What if you’re here to kidnap them? I can’t trust you.”
Sadie continues her manic barking by the door, though the urgency seems different than when I first came rushing back.
Rude.
“If you want to get specific, it’s cast iron. Cast iron is heavy. Whatever Grace is using is just those cheap nonstick pans you get for like, ten dollars.”
Jer snorts. “I know. I’m not a kid. I know things.”
But I don’t think mine works as well, because they retreat with obvious reluctance, shooting glances over their shoulders as they do so.
“No, thank you,” I call through the blinds and window. “We don’t open the door for
strangers.”
Maybe lunch outside in a cool breeze?
“Come on, Grace. Open the door.”
The knock comes again and Sadie launches into another frantic round of guard–barking, making my already pounding head throb harder.
I grip the skillet tighter, my knuckles aching and arms trembling. Partly from
exhaustion, partly from the rush of adrenaline still making its way through my system, and a lot because what the fuck, I am so sick of this insanity and how I don’t get a chance to sit down and relax.
“But-” Jer starts.
“Stop Sarasplaining.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m going to break down this door,” he snaps. “Open the fucking door, human.”
Meanwhile, Sadie’s still fucking barking and this Lycan idiot is still at the door and- My eyebrows rocket toward my hairline.
202 Grace: Intruder Alert
“Well–she’s a special case.”
“Language,” Sara and I say at the same time.
Even if he doesn’t like them.
“Cringe,” Jer mutters from behind me. “Does he think he’s some sort of bad–ass?”
“Forty seconds.”
“If you don’t open the door, I’m breaking it down.”
“You can’t say you’re not a kid when you can’t even reach the top shelf,” Sara says with supreme disdain.
But no, I don’t get family movies or pretty picnic lunches. I get chased through my old pack lands and strangers knocking on my camper.door.
Holding the frying pan up sounds easy, but it doesn’t take long for the weight to start wearing on my wrist. It’s an eye–opening example of precisely how weak I am.
2
“Grace Harper?” the stranger at the door continues, his irritation obviously still on the
rise.
“Grace? Grace Harper?” The voice outside carries a rough edge of irritation now. It’s male, deep, and both generic and vaguely familiar.
“Shut up,” I hiss, waving the pan in a frantic shooing motion toward the livin area. “All of you, get back. Now.”
om
Seriously, there are so many damn rules to this whole parenting gig, and I think I’ve already broken, like, ten of them. Maybe twenty. Or a hundred, give or take.
“Correcting your stupidity isn’t Sarasplaining!”
Seriously. Is a movie night too much to ask for?
“Shut up, Jeridiot. Kids don’t grow that fast.”
“Some supers don’t like humans very much,” Ron explains calmly, continuing the madness.
Wow. I’ve been demoted from a presumptive use of my first name to just being addressed by my species.
202 Grace: Intruder Alert
It’s so awkward I’m not even sure if I should be angry. Seriously, who goes around calling people human? I feel like I should be offended, but it just comes off…
Is it appropriate to tell children to shut up? Pretty sure it isn’t.
“Grace can’t reach the top shelf,” Jer points out.
If I wasn’t focused on the door and being ready to smash a head in with this frying pan, I’d shoot the kid in question a look. He’s literally a child. Not even close to adult size
yet.
But vaguely familiar could mean anyone; I don’t recognize every Blue Mountain pack voice. Just the ones I run into all the time.
“Suhspain!”
I drop to my knees on the dinette bench and scoot awkwardly across it until I make it to the window. My legs still feel like jelly and I keep smacking elbows and feet against different things, but I’m intent on keeping my frying pan up and ready in case a head needs clobbered in.
“That’s it,” the Lycan snarls, and the camper shudders as something large and solid slams against the door. 3)
“You have one minute to open this door, or I’m breaking it down.”
“Shut up!” I snap, and they–thankfully–do.
“Maybe it just means she’s a kid like us.”
Our eyes meet through the window–his narrowed, mine wide–and a flush of awkwardness washes over me. I let the blinds fall back into place, then realize how ridiculous it is to pretend he isn’t there when he literally saw me peeking,
I stole it from Caine.
“Not all adults are tall,” Ron points out.
