I pulled Jenny in with me and shut the door quickly. Glancing sidelong at Ben, she huddled near the wall, arms crossed, slouching.

Ben said, "This is keeping your head low? Avoiding confrontation?"

"What was I supposed to do?" I touched her shoulder, trying to peel her off the wall. "Jenny, this is Ben. He's one of the good guys."

"Gee, thanks," Ben muttered wryly.

"Ben, this is Jenny."

"Hi," he said. She managed a brief smile.

"Jenny, you need anything? Will you be okay while I make some calls?"

She shook her head. "It smells wrong, it's not like pack in here."

"Different pack. Different territory." I hadn't thought of Ben's condo as territory before—this tiny little pocket of Denver that didn't belong to Carl. I liked the image.

"It's weird."

"You don't have to stay." And when she went back to Carl, she'd smell like me. She'd smell like a different pack, and Carl would know. God knew what he'd do about it.

"No, no—I'll stay. I need to figure things out."

"That's the spirit. Do you want to see if maybe you can get some sleep? Things might look better in the morning."

"You can have the sofa," Ben said, patting the leather cushion next to him. "It's a great napping sofa. I'll get some blankets."

"That okay?" I asked her.

"It's up to you," she said.

"No, see, that's exactly the kind of thing you have to get over. If you're going to do this, you have to make some decisions. Otherwise, you'll let anyone who happens to come along walk all over you."

She looked away. "Yeah. Okay."

Ben gave her blankets and a pillow, and Jenny curled up on the sofa, hugging a blanket around her, and fell asleep in seconds, like this was the first real, relaxed sleep she'd had in weeks. Months, maybe.

We retreated to the bedroom.

Ben sat on the bed and watched me pace back and forth while I talked.

"I shouldn't be doing this. This is ridiculous. I can't protect her. I should never have brought her here."

"You realize you look like an animal in a cage?"

That always happened when I was nervous. I sat down with a huff.

"The pack's not any of my business. Not anymore. Why am I even getting involved?"

His lips curled in a half grin, like he wasn't convinced by my arguments. Like he was about to say something snarky. "You've just given a dozen reasons why you shouldn't have brought her here. So why did you?"

I shrugged. "It felt like the right thing to do? The wolf side wants to keep her safe." I whined and squeezed my hands over my head, like I could push some sense into my brain. "You'd think after this long the wolf side would stop surprising me."

"She's like you were, isn't she?"

I wanted to argue. I couldn't possibly have been that bad, that helpless. Honestly, though, I remembered. Those early weeks, my first time meeting the pack, surrounded by wolves, I'd only wanted to know what I had to do to keep from getting hurt, from making them angry. I'd been the most submissive one in the room, to keep Carl happy, to make sure he protected me.

"Yeah. And if it weren't for the show and T. J. and leaving, I'd still be like that. She said that's why Carl turned her. He wanted someone like that again."

"Jesus." For a long moment we sat quietly, letting the doom settle over us. Then he said, "I want you to take the gun. Keep it with you. We'll worry about the permit later."

"Ben—"

"He'll come after you, sooner or later. You have to be able to stop him. And don't just keep it in the glove box in the car. Get a purse, carry it with you."

I drew a deep, frustrated breath. "Guns aren't always the answer."

"Not always. Sometimes, they are." He offered a galling smile.

"Who's the alpha wolf here?"

"Don't packs usually have two alphas?"

He was getting cheeky. I kind of liked it. I squeezed his hand and kissed him. "Thanks. I have to go make some calls."

Jenny slept for ten hours. The next day, she had the look of a fugitive—sunken eyes, permanent frown. But she held herself a little straighter, and she wasn't crying.

I knew of a couple of places where lycanthropes lived and didn't have packs. There were werewolves there who'd look after her. They could help her find a job, get her on her feet. I'd waited until morning to call them, but I made one call before dawn. I knew at least one vampire who could find a place in her household for a wayward cub.

I'd developed this network of friends without even realizing it. Ahmed, an amiable old werewolf, and Alette, a surprisingly humane vampire, in Washington, D.C., both offered to take her in, if I could get her out there. Ahmed gave me a couple of more names, lycanthropes in Los Angeles and Seattle who would help her, if she wanted to go there instead. He said that problems like this came up fairly often, but a few people had found a way to deal with it. Battered lycanthrope shelters. Who'd have guessed?

At last, here was a problem I could fix. Here was someone I could well and truly help. When Jenny woke up around lunchtime, I presented her with a page full of names and phone numbers.

"Do you want to go to Seattle, L.A., or Washington, D.C.?"

She looked at the page warily. "What?"

I tried to sound kind. "If you don't want Carl to be able to get to you, you have to leave town. I have contacts. The ones in D.C., I know them and trust them. They gave me these other contacts, so they're good. You can go, and you won't be alone. The people there are friends, they'll help you."

She stared at the table, and at the glass of orange juice that was all she'd wanted for her late breakfast. The finality of it must have sounded startling. I couldn't imagine what was going on in her head, with so much to think about.

"It's what I did," I said. "I left. Things'll be easier—they'll seem clearer when Carl isn't around."

She swallowed, and still her voice cracked. "This woman in Washington, the vampire—you said she's nice?"

"Yeah, she is. Maybe a little snooty, but aren't they all? She likes taking care of people."

"I think I'd like to go there," Jenny said. "To stay with her."

Alette was female, and wasn't a werewolf. I wasn't surprised Jenny made that choice. "Then we'll get it all set up. See? It's easy."

She sniffed, and I was afraid she'd start crying again. I didn't want her to start crying again. She was going to get me started. But she smiled, for the first time she smiled, a thin and shy expression.

"Thanks," she said. "Everything people say about you—Becky said you'd help."

"I'm happy to," I said, and I was. It felt like winning, and I didn't have to fight anyone, and no one had to die.

Over the next few days, we set everything up. In that time, I wouldn't let her leave the condo, and I wouldn't leave her alone. Ben or I stayed with her the whole time. Usually me. Ben made her nervous, and I couldn't blame her. I was constantly looking out the window, checking the streets, jumping whenever the phone rang. I expected Carl to show up any minute. He didn't.

Ben cleaned a couple of handguns and wore gloves while he loaded them with silver bullets.

I bought Jenny's plane ticket, gave her some extra clothes, and put her on the phone with Alette so the two could get acquainted. Jenny's expression was constantly numb, almost shocky, like she'd survived a disaster. She'd given herself over to strangers and had succumbed to fatalism. For my part, I wouldn't be happy until she was on the plane and away.

The best I could do was walk her to security. We lingered at the end of the line snaking its way to the metal detectors and X-ray machines.

"You have my phone number. Call me if you need anything, anything at all. If it doesn't work with Alette, we'll find something else. You have a lot of choices, okay? Everything’ll look better when you get to a new place."