Page 105 of Taming the Beasts

“Why? You flirt with other people like Grudge even though you have boyfriends.”

“I do not. I swear I don’t, guys. Kebe is a freaking liar!”

“But I...”

“Would you please stop talking for five seconds!” I wanted to leap across the table and strangle her.

“But you’re trashing my character. I have every right to defend my honor.”

“Your honor? What honor? You’re a murderer!”

“You’ve said that a couple of times.” She put her hands up like she was the most innocent person in the world. And looked around at my boyfriends for validation. “Who exactly have I murdered?”

“All of Bennett’s contacts!”

“Wait, what?” Bennett said.

Crap.I hadn’t meant for it to come out this way. “Bennett, I’m so sorry. But I have terrible news. I was talking to Grudge...”

Bennett just shook his head.

“Because he’s my friend. And I was telling him about Ray being missing. He found an article about how it’s not just Ray that’s gone missing. There’s also an archaeologist. Named Patrick...”

“Patrick Anderson?”

I nodded. There was still a small piece of me that was hoping it was a different Patrick. But that confirmed it.

Bennett’s face fell.

“That’s your other friend you reached out to, right?”

“Yeah. Are you...are you sure Patrick is missing too?”

I could see the hurt on his face. But I couldn’t comfort him right now. I needed him to believe me and lock Kebe up. “I’m sure. And Kebe did it.” I pointed my finger at her. “I know she did. She doesn’t act anything like a vampire. She disappeared from my house early Saturday morning at 3 am. Not in a blurry way. In an actual disappearing sort of way. Right after Ray sent you that text saying he needed to call you. And authorities think Patrick disappeared around the same time. They both knew about the coin. And Kebe teleported to Egypt and murdered them to hide whatever horrible thing the coin actually does.”

“I told you,” Kebe said calmly. “I was talking to King at that time.”

“No, you said you weren’t doing anything. And then you changed your story when I pressed it. Because you’re guilty AF.”

She just shook her head. “I’m really sorry about your friends. Truly. But even if I did go to Egypt, which I did not, how could I have done all of that so quickly?”

“Who said it was quick?” I glared at her. I hadn’t mentioned the fact that she’d only been gone for an hour and a half.

“I’ve been all over town the last few days. Everyone in Crooked Point has seen me. And I knew nothing about Bennett’s friends. I had no reason to hurt them. I want to take the cure just as badly as all of you do.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

“Well, there’s facts and then there’s fiction. I think all this supernatural stuff has gotten into your head a bit. We’re not living in a fantasy world.”

She was acting like I’d lost my mind. “You guys believe me, don’t you?”

Kebe didn’t give them a chance to respond. “Look, if I really could teleport, wouldn’t I have just gone into your vault and taken the coin, used it, and left town already? No supernatural creature can simply disappear and reappear somewhere else. I’m here because I’m a vampire and I want to help my fellow vampire Callum as much as I want to help myself. And I think it’s great that it can help you guys too. Truly. It must be so hard being cats. I can’t even imagine.”

And now she was just back to being rude!

“And if you really don’t believe me, just log on to your MyFanatics account and talk to King. He’ll corroborate my whereabouts on Friday night. I promise I was just sitting in Zoey’s bedroom talking to him. It was very innocent. Unlike what Zoey used to do with him. He told me all about the kinky things he’d make you do in front of the screen.” There was a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.

Yeah, this bitch wanted to be slapped.