Phillipe

by Becca Fanning

  There were two men stationed outside the door. They weren’t obviously armed, but Phillipe knew they would have some sort of guns on them. He shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered up as casual as he could.

  “Evening,” he said as he approached them. “Hope you’re not expecting trouble tonight.”

  “Wait, who are you?”

  “Oh, I’m Brigid’s boyfriend. I’m picking her up, we’re catching a movie. I know I’m a little early, but Louis won’t mind me sitting in on the pack meeting.” He reached for the door.

  “Stop.” The two men exchanged looks. “I’ll take him in.”

  Phillipe had been in the hospital when the warehouse had gotten hit three years earlier, but he’d heard the stories from his clan mates and from Patrick. He could imagine that scene had been similar to the one he was witnessing now.

  There were men and women with guns all over the room, many of them wearing black vests. The pack had been separated into groups. The children were all together at one side of the room, two women stood over them with guns. He doubted anyone would hurt them, but the threat was supposed to be enough to keep the adults in line. The rest were separated into four groups, split by gender and age – younger men, older men, younger women, older women – there was no way to separate them by shifter and human on the new moon, not unless someone shifted. He guessed they’d all be told not to shift. Wolves were a lot more dangerous than humans.

  As he came in, two more armed men approached them. “Who’s this?”

  “Yeah, boss said no one comes in.”

  “Says his girlfriend is in here. Didn’t think we could turn him away without causing a scene. This was easier. We can put him with the others.”

  “That’s not what the boss said.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  They all looked up at the newcomer, and the first said, “Kent brought this guy in. I was just questioning him on why.”

  “I said no one comes in.”

  “Says he was here to pick up his girlfriend. This was easier than causing a scene at the door,” Kent explained again.

  “I left you at the door so things like this wouldn’t happen. I assumed you could take care of it. I guess I was wrong.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll get back out there. No one else is getting in here tonight, I promise.”

  “Good. Make sure of it.” He turned his attention to Phillipe. “Who are you?”

  “Look, my girlfriend is a member of the pack. I was supposed to pick her up after the meeting but I was off work early. I’ve sat in on pack meetings before, sometimes I help with the young ones. What’s going on?”

  “So, you’re a human, willingly dating these shifter scum?”

  “Scum? Wait. Are you with the Human Order?”

  He laughed. “Just figuring that out now? You’re big, but you’re not too bright, are you?”

  A young woman came running up. “Sir, we need you for a minute.”

  “Fine. Since he works with the young ones sometimes, put him over with the kids. Maybe he can keep them quiet. And keep an eye on him. I’ll want to talk to him in a minute.”

  Phillipe was escorted over to the children where he hunkered down. As soon as everyone was looking the other way, he started whispering to the kids. “I’m a friend of Brigid O’Leary,” he said. “Help is coming. Do any of you know where the safe room is?”

  “I do. I’m old enough to shift but I’m small for my age, so they threw me in here with the little ones. I was waiting for the chance to move them but I didn’t know how to get away from the guns.”

  “I’ll take care of that. You just get the kids downstairs. Do you all understand? I know you’re afraid but you have to run when we say so.”

  Kids were clinging to each other, and some were crying, but most of them were nodding. The older ones pulled the younger ones close. They waited.

  Finally a man came over and told Phillipe to stand up. “The boss wants to see you.”

  “Sure. I don’t know what this is all about, though. I’m not a shifter.”

  “He’ll tell you himself.”

  “There you are. We were interrupted earlier. I’m Jean-Claude, the leader of the Human Order in New Orleans. As you can see, you’ve walked in at a bad time. We’re in the process of running these freaks out of our city. But you’re not one of them, so you and I have something to talk about.”

  “All right, talk.”

  “You’re dating a werewolf?”

  “Didn’t know she was a werewolf when I fell in love with her,” he lied.

  “But you didn’t walk out when you found out, either.”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t seem like a big deal to me.”

  “Well, it’s a big deal to us. People like you, traitors like you, are bolstering their numbers. You should be with a human, and you should be helping us rid the world of these monsters.”

  “Look, these kids aren’t monsters, they’re children.” He gestured at the kids huddled behind him. “Let me at least take the kids out of here. They’re terrified.”

  “So are their parents. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I know exactly who you are, and what you ordered your people to do three years ago. Too bad you don’t know who I am.”

  “What are you…”

  “Yeah, you should have asked that earlier.”

  It was the new moon, and that meant shifters were at their most human. A lot of young shifters couldn’t shift on a new moon. Phillipe was not young, and he was pissed. He pushed the bear out with all the force of will he could muster and felt the change rip through him. He didn’t shrink the way wolves did, he grew. Everyone stumbled back away from him as fur and claws erupted from his skin. He roared, in pain and anger, and landed on all fours. He slapped away as many guns as he could reach.

  Jean-Claude scrambled back and then took off at a run, firing wildly over his shoulder. He was yelling for back up but the men and women around the room seemed stunned for a minute, and that minute was all the pack needed.

  From outside the building came the sound of sirens. Phillipe had enough time to think, Good job, Patrick. Good idea, calling the cops, before his attention shifted to a man running at him with a pistol. He swatted the weapon away, probably breaking the man’s arm in the process. His scream made Phillipe happy. It didn’t take much to make the man run in the direction Phillipe wanted him to go, the direction of the front door.

  The wolves were even better at herding their prey and soon the Human Order were either lying on the floor, or grouped in one lump around their leader. Unfortunately, bringing them together allowed them to regroup mentally as well. “You have guns, shoot them!” Jean-Claude shouted.

  The wolves backed off, growling, as the guns were levelled in their direction.

  Phillipe bunched on his haunches and sprang forward with a burst of speed and a snarling bellow. He bowled through the group, scattering them to the ground. They broke and ran for the door as Jean-Claude screamed after them.

  He should be paying more attention to the shifters than his men, Phillipe thought as the wolves expertly closed in around the man.

  But Jean-Claude wasn’t going down without a fight. He pulled a gun from his belt and pointed it at one of the wolves. “I’m walking out of here or I start firing,” he said.

  The wolves made a path and he started backing calmly towards the door, his gun still pointed at the wolves that followed him. He was expecting everyone to clear the way, so he was startled when he backed into something large, warm, and furry.

  In the time it took him to figure out what he’d backed into, the wolves had scattered away from the gun. Jean-Claude tried to bring the gun around to point it at Phillipe, but the bear had longer reach and faster reflexes, and the gun clattered to the ground.

  Phillipe bellowed in Jean-Claude’s face.

  “Get out of my way!” he screamed back.

  Phillipe kn
ocked him to the ground and put a paw on his chest with just enough pressure to hold him there and there he stayed until the cops swarmed in.

  Three cops surrounded Phillipe, guns drawn. One of them grabbed his radio. “Boss, there’s a bear in here.”

  “A werebear?” The question crackled over the speaker.

  “A fucking seven-hundred-pound grizzly bear.”

  “Probably a shifter. What’s he doing?”

  “He’s got a man pinned to the ground.”

  “Tell him you need to arrest the man.”

  “Talk to it?!”

  “It’s a human somewhere in all that fur.”

  “If you say so.” He looked at his companions, but they both shook their heads. “Uh, Bear, we need to arrest that man you’ve got there. Could you, uh, let him up?”

  Phillipe sneezed and took a step back, then sat and waited. Around him, wolves were shifting back. Someone had dragged out the bins of extra clothes. Michelle came over with a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. “Hey. You can change back now. It’s safe.”

  Phillipe nodded and focused on being human again. Shifting to bear took a lot of effort on the new moon. Shifting back was like sliding on a pair of slippers. He gave his head a shake and quickly pulled on the offered clothes. Michelle, thankfully, had turned her back to him to give him some privacy.

  “I guess you heard,” he said.

  “About you and Brigid? Yeah, I caught wind of it. You decent?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, we all have to go and talk to the cops once we’re human and dressed.”

  “I can do that. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Hey Phillipe? Thanks for coming down so fast.”

  “If I get any tickets from traffic cams, Louis can pay them.”

  Chapter 13

  The hall was a mess. There was broken glass and furniture everywhere. People were sitting in little groups, talking in hushed voices. The police were going around, asking questions and taking notes. A few paramedics wandered from group to group, making sure everyone was all right.

  Phillipe was also walking around the hall, his eyes moving from face to face. His gaze swung over Remy and the rest of the clan, standing off to one side and speaking to the police about their involvement. He recognized some of the pack, but not many of them, and the one face he was looking for was the one face he couldn’t find.

  The last time he and Brigid had spoken, things hadn’t gone so well. She’d been angry, and rightly so. So angry he was certain there was no way for him to patch things up. He’d messed up the only good thing in this whole damn city and was ready to walk away – but first he had to make sure Brigid was all right. The need to see her, to make sure the Human Order hadn’t hurt her was boiling in him, and he was glad it was the new moon and that he’d been furry not long before or his control would have been much worse.

  He found Michelle near the kitchen. She was sitting with a younger girl who was bawling.

  “Hey,” he said gently, sitting down beside them.

  “Hey,” Michelle said.

  “That was some fight.”

  Michelle nodded.

  “Look, I’m trying not to freak out here, but I can’t find Brigid anywhere. Did they take people away? Do I need to go find her?”

  Michelle shook her head. “Brigid is in the hospital. The ambulance picked her up before dinner.”

  “What? Why?”

  “She wasn’t taking her meds or something. I don’t know much. Mom was on the phone with Dad and then before she could tell me what was going, on all this happened. Didn’t you know she was on medication?”

  “No, she never told me,” he said. Suddenly the needles and the phone calls and the money all made sense. Not drugs after all, at least not illegal ones. She was sick and she never told me. Why did she let me think the worst? Why did I think the worst about her, again?

  “Which hospital?”

  “I was going to go see her this evening, if you can wait a bit. I have to stay with Julie until her parents can take her home.”

  Every instinct was screaming at him to run to the hospital now, but he nodded. “Yeah. I’ll wait and go with you.”

  The cops were done with the other bears, so Phillipe wandered over that way. Remy had his arm around Tara and Brock was on the phone, probably with Gia.

  “You’re not on the phone?” he said to Jules. “Did Kaylee dump your sorry ass?”

  “No. She’s at Brock’s with Gia. When you sent Patrick to fetch us, Remy thought the ladies would all be safer together. Behind the Tandell gate.”

  “Smart.”

  “Kaylee will want words with me, I’m sure. I’m just waiting for Brock to wave that fancy phone at me.” He was jesting but the words lacked their usual spark.

  Jane was leaning against the wall, quietly observing. When she noted Phillipe looking at her, she nodded. “Smart thinking, calling us.”

  “Took you guys long enough to show up.” He turned to Remy. “So, you’ve got friends on the force. Any idea how they pulled all this off?”

  “Seems that because the wolves are more communal it was easier for the Human Order to infiltrate them.”

  “You can’t pretend to be a shifter,” Jules said.

  “The wolves let their human spouses, and human children, even the adult and teen ones, come for dinner on the full moons,” Phillipe explained. “Which means some of those humans may have brought in members of the Human Order unknowingly.”

  “Their most successful plant was a young man named Victor – he was dating one of the human daughters of a member of the pack. They hit the pack at the new moon because it would be harder for the younger wolves to shift, leaving them vulnerable and forcing the older ones to comply to protect them.”

  “So why hit us?” Jane asked.

  “Wait, they hit you guys too?”

  “They somehow knew that we had a new moon meeting this month, too. What they didn’t know was that you and Patrick had gotten permission to miss the meetings.” Remy was watching Phillipe. “I’m guessing you told Brigid about it at some point. Or they’re watching us, too. Neither would surprise me.”

  “It’s brilliant really,” Brock said as he joined them. “They hit the pack first, got them out of the way. They’re bigger, more communal, and they’ve come to our rescue before. Then they hit us on the same night, just hours later, before we can come rescue them.”

  “Only it didn’t work,” Remy said. “They weren’t counting on Patrick and Phillipe. Phillipe’s play to stall for time slowed things down here and Patrick raised the alarm so we were getting ready for a fight when they arrived at the warehouse.”

  Phillipe groaned. “We’re moving warehouses again, aren’t we?”

  “Most likely.”

  Tara piped up. “We should move more often anyways, or have multiple locations. It came up at the meeting.”

  “Great. Okay, so you guys had a fight at the warehouse?”

  “But they didn’t take us by surprise, and we’re all older, experienced shifters. We had no trouble with the new moon. Patrick called the cops and we came straight over here. We met the cops and worked with them to take the Human Order down safely.”

  “Well, I for one am glad you arrived when you did. This could have been a lot worse.”

  “Where is Brigid?” Jane asked.

  “Hospital,” Phillipe said simply, not trusting himself to say more.

  Of course, Remy wasn’t going to let it go at that. “Is she all right? I hadn’t heard that anyone was seriously injured tonight.”

  “No, she was in the hospital before this happened. Some sort of problem with her meds? I’m not even sure. She never really talked to me about it.”

  Remy put a hand on his arm. “You were only dating a couple of months. That’s not a lot of time.”

  “Remy, I lived next door to them as a child. Christopher is the one who got me out of the fucking cage in my basement and got me to your father when I was twelve
. I’ve known Brigid since she was born, basically, and I didn’t know she was sick.”

  Jane stood away from the wall. “Your parents locked you in a cage?”

  “Yeah, they did, and no, I don’t want to talk about it. You guys tease me about Patrick and I laugh and shrug it off because you don’t understand. Patrick and I were friends before either of us started shifting. We were friends before I even knew shifters existed. His family has been more family to me than my own, when I needed them most. So, you go ahead and laugh and make your gay jokes, it doesn’t matter. I’ve put up with people not understanding my entire life. He’s family.”

  Jane and Jules looked ashamed, Brock and Tara looked shocked. He didn’t even dare look at Remy. Instead he turned away and walked back towards Michelle.

  “Hey, there you are. Are you ready to go?”

  “Yeah. I can drive.”

  “Good, because I came here with Mom.”

  On the drive Phillipe said, “So why does Brigid need medication?”

  “Didn’t Brigid tell you about it?”

  “No.”

  Michelle pursed her lips. “Maybe you should wait and talk to her about it.”

  “She didn’t want to tell me before.”

  “Look, she should be the one to tell you. Okay? I don’t want her to think I’m betraying her trust. I don’t think it’s a huge deal, but she sees it as a flaw, a weakness. If she wanted you to know, she would have told you.”

  He sighed. “Fine.”

  It was late, well past midnight, so it wasn’t too difficult to find a parking spot in the visitors’ lot, but it was a bit of a walk to the hospital. Michelle talked them both past the info desk and the nurse’s station. Phillipe could feel his nerves building the closer they got to Brigid’s room.

  “You should go in first,” he said. “I’ll wait. I’m not sure if she wants to talk to me.”

  Michelle nodded and went in. Over the sounds of monitors beeping and nurses talking down the hallway, he could hear their hushed voices inside the room. He leaned against the wall just next to the door and waited.

  Michelle came out a short while later and smiled at him. “Your turn. She’s doing okay but don’t keep her too long. I don’t know how long I can keep the doctors from kicking us out of here.”