Both the bears watched Eloise flee the office without expression, then Axel frowned down at the phone as he swiped. Benedict watched where she'd gone, straining to hear anything, and his muscles vibrated with the effort of remaining in his chair. His lion only wanted to chase her, to comfort her, to dispose of whatever pained her.
But she needed to know who among the hyenas betrayed her. So he sat in the office even as a yowl bounced off the metal door from outside and his lion snarled in sympathy. Kaiser frowned as he sat forward. "Is she okay?"
"Yes." Benedict didn't take his eyes off the phone. He concentrated on remaining calm. "If her control slips, it's best if she's outside. Alone."
He only guessed that was the case.
Axel grunted, then offered the phone back to Benedict. "These two definitely. Didn't see the others."
Benedict sent the photo to his phone, so he'd remember it, then paused as he started to stand. Eloise reappeared in the doorway and Axel eased back a step, closer to Kaiser. Eloise wore the sunglasses and concealed most of her face with a scarf, but nothing could hide the floating cloud of hair around her head.
The grolar bear blinked. "Your, uh —"
"I know." Her voice carried an edge. "I might have damaged some of your logs. Out back. I apologize."
Kaiser raised his hands. "Damage as many as you want, darlin'. We have a new shipment coming in next week."
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, but disappeared when Benedict held out her phone. "Do you recognize them, Eloise?"
A strange high-pitched, eerie noise welled up in her chest and hurt his ears. Her fingers tightened around it until the plastic cracked, but she didn't seem to notice. She stared at it until her lips curled back in a snarl.
"I take it you know them," Axel said, sharing a look with his fellow bear.
Benedict held his breath as he pried the phone out of her hand. Her skin took on a greenish-bluish tinge, and her hair tangled itself into serpent-sized groups. Just like a damn medusa statue. "Babe. Take a breath."
Nothing. He touched her arm, let his palm rest against her until the ice under her skin thawed. She blinked, then looked back at him. "The one on the left is Lorraine, Val's daughter. The other one is Heba, Val's niece."
Then silence. Benedict didn't release her arm as he faced Kaiser and nodded. "Thank you for your assistance. We'll let you know how things ... turn out."
He wanted to get her out of there before Eloise cracked completely. Regardless of whether she hurt him or the bears or just herself, he needed to keep her moving. He didn't know what happened to gorgons when they were enraged to the point of madness, but it looked as though Eloise was one cross word away from being stone herself. Benedict nudged her toward the door, also nodding to the grim polar bear as Axel followed them out of the office.
Axel studied Eloise as she stalked to the front door, every movement jerky and stiff. Benedict put her phone away and paused at the door, another thought occurring to him as he surveyed the weight machines and boxing ring. "Would you allow others to work out here? A lion, perhaps?"
The giant bear smirked, "Sure, little buddy. We'll take it easy on you."
Benedict straightened his shoulders and scowled at the dick. "I'm a precision weapon, not a bunker-buster. I meant my brother Atticus. He needs a place to work out and fight our own kind without ending up in rank fights. You guys could set up a hell of a training facility if you wanted to."
Axel's ice blue eyes got a faraway look, and he frowned and rubbed his jaw. "Maybe. Send Atticus over. We'll beat the shit out of him for you."
"Good." Benedict linked his arm with Eloise's and led her outside. No telling what went on in her head, if Val's daughter was the one who stole the money and betrayed her. He ached to embrace her, to hold her head to his shoulder and reassure her that everything would be fine. They stood next to the car as she stared into the city, every angle in her face hard and unyielding. He took a deep breath; she needed to do it for herself, or she would never conquer the monster part of herself she so feared. So he unlocked the car. "Where are we going now?"
"City General," she said, the words barely more than a hiss.
He didn't question her as she got in the car, nor did he say anything as they drove through the city to the massive hospital only a few blocks from work. An ambulance raced past them and careened into the emergency room entrance. Benedict parked and reached for her hand. "Eloise. Come back. What are you going to do?"
Only her profile was visible as she glared at the hospital. "I have to know if Cal was part of it. If he's faking."
"Cal wouldn't —" Benedict knew the heir to the jackal pack, and he was as straightforward as a scavenger could be.
"We'll find out." She shoved the door open and strode toward the hospital.
Benedict cursed under his breath, dialing Edgar as he jogged to catch up. "We're at the hospital. It was the hyenas."
A long pause, then Edgar exhaled. "So we're going to war with the hyenas?"
"Maybe not." But neither of them believed any doubt remained. He would never let Val Szdoka take advantage of Eloise or harm her in any way, and Val Szdoka would not take kindly to the Chase pride's interference. So war it might be. "But prep Logan. If he's not in, I'm still with her."
"You'd go against Logan's orders, if he told you to stay out of it." His older brother sounded pained. Benedict barely caught the receptionist telling Eloise Cal's room number, his fancy shoes slipping on the polished linoleum. Edgar pronounced each word precisely in the static of the phone. "You would leave the pride for her."
And for the first time in his life, Benedict didn't have to think twice about disobeying an order. "Absolutely. Shit, I gotta go."
He hung up and sprinted for the elevator, almost losing his hand in the doors as they closed. Eloise, standing inside, just watched him with a blank expression under her sunglasses and her supernatural hair hovering as she disappeared from his view. He took the stairs three at time but lost her on the fourth floor, phone clenched in his hand as he searched. The crashing sounds were a dead giveaway, though. When he skidded into the doorway of the luxury room, he found Eloise standing over Cal, beating his mottled chest with her fists.
A thin man lurched up from where his chair landed across the room and advanced on her, a knife in his hand, and Benedict growled. The man paused but didn't drop the knife, shooting Benedict a hateful look over his shoulder. "Have you come to finish him off?"
Eloise grabbed Cal's shoulders, trying to rouse him. "Stop faking it. Open your eyes. Open your eyes!"
The thin man, features almost identical to Cal's, bared his teeth with a keening sound. "He won't. He won't ever open his eyes."
"Liar," she snapped, turning to confront him. She ripped off her sunglasses. "He was in on it, he and Lacey decided —"
"Don't say that bitch's name in front of me!" The thin man lunged forward, knife ready, and Benedict jumped.
Cold blasted out of Eloise in a rolling wave, knocking Benedict back a step even with a glancing blow, and his limbs tingled. But the skinny dude, Cal's relative — he took the brunt of whatever it was she did. He froze, stuck to the floor.
And as Benedict stared at him and then Eloise as she struggled to breathe, realization dawned. A gorgon. "Medusa," he said. The numbness settled in his hands and a terrifying possibility seized his chest. "Did you just — is he petrified?"
Her mercury eyes lifted to his, and nothing registered in them. No fear, no remorse, no familiarity. Nothing. A chill shot down his spine and the world grew dark around the edges.