10. Chapter Ten

Idid exactly as I told Dirk I would, sleeping in my office. Oliver checked on me before he left, but I told him I would lock up. I locked up all the doors, then to my office, continuing to hide from the world and my own trees.

At dawn, I went downstairs, holding a folder, and saw Dirk driving up. He drove around and parked at the back. I walked back there, watching him jump out in fresh clothes, something I didn't share. I didn't change, not wanting to walk home to do it. I didn't trust my forest anymore, and that was the first thing I had to fix.

"Are you ready?" I asked as he stepped closer. Holding out the folder, he took it without a word, flipping it open to see what I was giving him.

"I'm ready," he agreed. "And you can call on me any time to come out and sweep the area if you want me to."

"That would be…very nice," I said, sighing. "I'm going to need to give you a raise."

"Yeah." He nodded. "Yeah, you are," he said with that casual "fucking deal with it" tone. It made me crack a smile. We both started laughing, the first time I had honestly laughed since the day before.

"Let's go," I ordered, wiping my eyes. I led him into the trees and took the trail. I couldn't forget following the scents of the trespassers. I should have approached them while I had the chance. I'd known it was fucking fishy and played it too safe. Now I was paying for it.

Dirk stopped before I did, tsking.

"Here." He held up a photo and moved around in a circle. "Yeah, it's somewhere here. Did they ever go too far off the trail?"

"I…" I couldn't remember.

Shrugging at my inability to give a response, he put the folder down and kept the one photo in his hands, then walked deeper into the brush and cursed.

"Got it," he called out. "It's still on. Hey, motherfuckers, found you." He waved in front of something. "Nice little high-tech piece of equipment. Don't try billing us for this."

"Does it have audio?" I asked, watching him reach into a bush.

"No, but I bet someone can read lips, and they'll figure out what I said." He pulled out something I had never seen before. The camera thing was no bigger than a watch face or a quarter and only half an inch deep. "They crammed everything in here. Watch battery, tiny camera, like for a cell phone, and the ability to send information somewhere. It's not supposed to work for longer than a couple weeks, I bet, then someone comes in and picks it up to dispose of."

"Have you ever seen anything like it before?"

"No, but humans and supernaturals are always trying to push the boundaries of surveillance tech. I've found things just as interesting."

"So, do we just destroy it? Or…" I had no experience in this.

"Send it to Davor, normally," he said, flipping it over in his hand. "That's what Niko usually did, even when they weren't talking."

I frowned. "They often don't talk?"

Dirk put the little camera in his pocket and sighed.

"For about three months every year. The month before the anniversary, the month of the anniversary, and the month after the anniversary."

"And he goes to Hasan's to hide during the anniversary month."

"Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's one of the family, right?" Dirk's sarcasm didn't go unnoticed, but I didn't call him out. "He's never really been mean to me, but you…Yeah, he fucking hates you."

"I don't need the reminder. Seems you got lucky, though. Niko's adopted son and my employee, and he's not an asshole. That's a damn miracle."

"Human and young. He's known me since I was a kid," Dirk reminded me. "But…he's one of the reasons I would never be a werecat. Well, they're all why I don't want to be a werecat."

We kept walking as I thought about his words. It was clear Dirk wasn't interested in being a werecat. I didn't know my family had a part in shaping that opinion. Now that he said it, it made all too much sense.

"Yeah, if I had met the entire family before it happened, I wouldn't have been interested, either," I agreed.

"I mean…who wants to live like that? Alone." Dirk slowly shook his head, walking next to me as we kept on the trail. "No…I want to forge my own path, and I don't want to be alone like that. You're different. You haven't been ancient for long, but they all have issues with change. Funny, because they do it once a month, you know? And they're all alone and honestly like it."

"We have the entire family," I countered—a large family in werecat terms.

"Yeah?" Dirk laughed. "And the one member of the family who has a lover, a real mate? Hasan, the oldest of all of you, sees her maybe once a decade if that. Niko has seen her a handful of times his entire life, and he loves her like a mother. Can you honestly say that's a way to live? Can you imagine living like that with Heath? I know that's already a complicated situation, but go with the example, please."

"I…I can't," I agreed, relenting. "And I've never met her."

"Yeah. Until you showed back up in their lives a few years ago, they didn't talk nearly this often. You've breathed some life into them, but really, they all fuck off to their own corners of the world and do their own things. Look at Zuri. She's been gone for months, and there's no getting her back until she's ready. One day, I bet you'll have the same urge. You'll get up, decide to go for a run, and that urge won't stop. You'll come back in a few years, but by then, everything will be different. That's distinctly a werecat thing. It's just so damn lonely to me."

"Did Niko ever do that to you?" I asked softly, looking up at him.

He was right. I had already done it, just differently. I had fallen prey to the need to be alone, disappearing from the lives of my family the best I could for over six years. It had felt right, and I had been mildly content with the loneliness. If it wasn't for Heath and his family crash landing into my life and my territory, I would have easily gone back to that life.

"No, which is why I think Niko is too much of a wolf. I…" Dirk stopped as if he realized he was about to say too much. "Let's get back to work."

"Okay," I said softly, letting him end the conversation. Dirk saw too much. I already knew that, but he was wise to be so prickly.

We found three more cameras and the large, live video feed to my house. All in all, there had been five little pieces of tech scattered in my woods. Every time we found another one, a sick feeling rolled through me, and I succeeded in crushing it. I had to fix this, and to fix it, I had to hold it together. I had to.

"Why am I worried there's more?" I asked softly, focusing on something other than that nasty feeling.

"There might be, but we're at the end. I can do another walkthrough, though. I caught two they didn't even need." Dirk seemed unconcerned. "I think I got them all, but we'll find out, won't we?"

"Don't say it like that. You'll have me too paranoid to go home."

"You want my recommendation?" He eyed me. "Get a driveway. Make some official paths and use those exclusively for a while. Really wear them in. Make this place more official and put a fence around some of it. Barbed wire is all you need. If you make it even remotely harder for them to sneak in, they'll be less likely to try."

"Does Niko use a fence?"

"Everyone uses a fence," he said, shaking his head at my reluctance. "I don't know how you've survived this long. I really don't."

"By not knowing anyone. I didn't even tell people I was Changed by Hasan for over a decade. He didn't introduce me to anyone outside the family those first few years, then I pretended as if I didn't know anything once I was out."

"You don't know anything," he said with a huff.

"And here I thought we were getting closer."

"Yeah, well, someone has to keep you on your toes," he said, finally smiling. "If I'm going to be your head of security, I have lots of experience living with Niko, and he taught me everything about staying safe in our world. You're all paranoid in your own ways. Look, those are just suggestions off the top of my head. I can reach out to Karl, Niko's current head of security. I grew up with him hovering when Niko wasn't around. He'll be able to give me more advice. I bet Heath and Landon have some things they could add, too. But…you don't do well with change. We all saw that play out when Kick Shot was being rebuilt. So…"

I closed my eyes. He was right. At the mention of Heath and Landon being involved in this, I realized I never texted Heath back, never said if I could make it to dinner, which I had completely forgotten about. I didn't even have my phone on me anymore. I left it in my office.

"What you're saying is I should take your advice and try to just deal with it because it's better for me in the end."

I normally hated having too much—too much security, too much change—but for a clear moment, one I didn't voice, I wanted them to put up fifty-foot walls around my house if they had to. Anything they needed to do, I would deal with.

"Yeah," he said softly. "I…get it. No one wants someone else running their life, but when lives are on the line, I get up, and I fucking do something about it."

"We're a sad pair," I said, chuckling. "Yeah. Yeah, whatever you come up with, I'll try. I can't keep getting caught off guard like this."

"I'll call Landon and—"

"I haven't told them yet," I said quickly. "Let me talk to Heath first. I'll drive over in a couple of hours, and you can tag along to talk about new security."

"I mean, the bar's security is great. Heath's company did a great job with that, and I know you have control of it. I've never been to your house…"

"Hasan recommended someone to do it," I explained. "Look, let's get inside and just chill out while I contact Heath."

He waved for me to lead the way. I chuckled. Sometimes, his behavior was so at odds. He was definitely rebelling against the life Niko had wanted for him, but oddly, he was very good at it.

He wants to do it his way, and his opinions on werecats are…well-informed.

He sat down on a stool behind the bar as I went to grab my phone. Heath hadn't reached out, and I wrote it off as him assuming I got busy. It happened, and he wasn't exactly a pushy or overbearing sort of man who needed to know every little thing all the time. It was one of the reasons I appreciated him so much. We lived our lives and found a way to do that together sometimes, but we didn't take each other's lives over, something my fiancé, Shane, and I had done. We had become each other's world to the point where nothing else and no one else mattered. It had been romantic but overwhelming to consider now that I wasn't a human, and my brain didn't work the same way. Heath just wanted a place in my life and wanted to give me a place in his.

When I got back downstairs, Dirk was sipping a drink.

"A bit early for that, maybe?" I said lightly as I sat across from him.

"We're dealing with a world-changing event, and now I have a job that fucking terrifies me, but no one else can do it, so I'm going to do a little breakfast drinking," he countered. "Just the one to take the edge off."

"You're a little young for that, aren't you?"

He gave me a flat stare. "You were getting married, then became a werecat at my age. One early morning drink on the first day of a new job I'm technically unqualified for, is not something you get to get on to me for."

"Touché," I said softly, looking at my phone. My hand froze, and I looked back up at him. "You knew about Shane?"

"Who doesn't," he muttered before taking a long swallow of whatever he had made himself.

I shook my head, realizing my life was family gossip. How I didn't already know that was beyond me. I probably knew, but it never sank in. Dirk was having a strange effect on me, making things clearer for me than they had been my entire damn time as a werecat.

I hit call for Heath, knowing he was probably eating breakfast or getting out of the shower. It rang three times before he picked up.

"Jacky, good morning," he said in a voice I could only describe as confused and a little husky. The huskiness reminded me of evenings when I knew he was the happiest to see me.

"You're on speaker. Can you and Landon come over to Kick Shot, or we can head over to you? Dirk and I need to talk to you."

"Is this an emergency?" he asked, the huskiness gone.

"Yeah. It's why I didn't get back to you last night." I took a deep breath. "You'll be doing the werecats of the world a very big favor if you help me with this."

"I don't like the sound of that. Come over. You sound like you haven't slept. Maybe a change of pace, a new space, may help clear your head."

"Yeah…I've been at the bar all night," I said. "We'll be right over."

"Change your clothes," he ordered softly.

"How did you know?"

"I know you," he said simply. "Drive safe."

"Will do," I promised. I looked up at Dirk. "I'll go change."

"I'll be waiting. Want to take my truck? It's nice and new, not a disaster like your Nissan."

"Sure." This helpful Dirk was very strange.

Maybe it's because I won't force him to go home…or he pities me. Also, how did he throw an insult into that offer?