I was crying silent, frustrated tears and couldn’t talk. Couldn’t explain why I wanted him to go away, and why he couldn’t, because I needed a friend.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, pressing my shoulder to guide me to the car. I shuffled forward. He opened the back door and steered me inside, like I was a child or an invalid.
Cormac drove. He eyed me in the rearview mirror. “Anyone you want me to beat up?”
I laughed, a tight and painful sound. I gasped for a breath, thinking I might start hyperventilating. I said, “Can I get back to you on that?”
Ben sat with me in the back. “Personally, I like the sound of ‘punitive damages’ much better.”
“That’s because you get a percentage,” Cormac said. Ben gave an unapologetic shrug.
I steadied my breathing. I was calming down a little. Maybe. “How bad is it?”
“How bad is what?” Ben said.
“Have the lynch mobs started? Torches and pitchforks? Repressive legislation?”
“Too early to tell,” he said. “The talking heads are still mulling it over. They probably need to replay the broadcast for another twelve hours before people get really sick of it.”
“Talking heads?”
“Every network. Every cable news network. I think the Sci Fi Channel is running a marathon of The Howling.”
That wasn’t going to help my cause. Wasn’t anyone in the least bit offended that I’d been kidnapped?
“And your mother called. She wants you to call back.”
“Are you serious?” My voice squealed. “What did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything, she just called.”
“Did she watch it?”
“I don’t know. Call her back if you want to know.”
I pressed my face to the cool glass of the window. Maybe if I slept, I’d wake up to find everything was all right. “Ben, what am I going to do?”
“I’d suggest heading to the hotel and getting some sleep.”
“I mean big picture. My life, my job, the hearings—”
“Not much you can do about that right now. We’ll see about pressing charges in the morning.”
That would be up to Ben. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t have control anymore, and I hated that. My attempt to turn their brutal exposé into my own show had been a flailing burst of desperation. Had it worked? Had it garnered any sympathy? And I wasn’t talking about sympathy for the plight of soon-to-be oppressed werewolves and supernatural beings everywhere. I wanted sympathy for me personally—so that the public would skewer them instead of me. Selfish bitch.
This night wasn’t even near over, and the ball was so far out of my court I couldn’t see it anymore.
“Ben, let me borrow your phone.” He handed it over.
Cormac turned a half smile. “Look at that, she really is calling her mom at four in the morning.”
Except that I wasn’t. I was calling Alette. I’d almost forgotten to include Leo in that skewering.
No one answered. I checked the flip phone’s monitor for coverage, which was fine. It just kept ringing, and ringing.
I took a deep breath, shut the phone off, and gave it back to Ben.
I said, “One of Alette’s minions helped Flemming and Duke. He’s the one who got me into the cell.”