Intrusion by Dean Murray Page A

could have been
construed as cheating. She was part of the pack, there was no
doubting that, but she was a normal human, so in theory she was
even lower on the food chain than I was. Only the fact that Alec
was quite literally willing to kill to protect his sister allowed
her to be something more than an errand girl.
    "Hi, Jess. How are things?"
    "Honestly? I think I might go
frickin stir crazy if I have to stay cooped up at the estate much
longer. I just talked to Alec and he said if I could find someone
willing to go with me, that I could go into town. Are you up for
it?"
    "Careful, neither Donovan nor your dad would be
thrilled to hear you saying that kind of stuff."
    The response was habit, habit and an attempt to
buy some time to think. Rachel was younger than the rest of us, but
she wasn't a dummy. She'd had plenty of time to get a handle on the
politics and positioning that were an inherent part of pack
life.
    Those two things would have made her cautious
all by themselves, but she also had a firm understanding of just
how much Alec had stuck his neck out on her behalf. It made her
very careful not to do things that would cause him
trouble.
    "Please. It's not like I'm really saying
anything for them to get excited about." James had taught me pseudo
swear words as a way to nettle Isaac. I knew it, and I knew I
shouldn't be using them just to spite Isaac, but sometimes I
couldn't help myself. He was so proper, and there really were
occasions that called for expressions that had a bit more oomph to
them than the dry, proper stuff that Donovan, Rachel and Alec's
butler and surrogate father, was so fond of.
    Rachel rocked back slightly on her
heels and then looked up and met my eyes. "You're not planning on
telling Isaac, are you?"
    I'd thought about not telling her
the truth, but I had few enough allies in this crazy house. I
couldn't afford to piss one of them off.
    "Not if I can avoid it. If I tell him I'm
leaving he'll come along, but it's him I need to get away from the
most."
    Rachel's sigh was a heavy thing. "I know this
is tough for you, Jess, but Isaac really is a great guy. He's just
trying to look out for you."
    "I know. Part of me is thankful that he's
running interference with Jasmin and the rest, but it's just too
creepy to see him looking at me all of the time."
    "Okay. I'll go with you, but we're
only going to Sanctuary. It's safe enough even though the shopping
utterly sucks. Oh, also I'm bringing my homework."
    I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth.
Rachel had the kind of cheery, bright personality that you couldn't
help but respond to in kind.
    A few minutes later we were in my
SUV, headed at a leisurely pace into the biggest city I remembered
ever actually being in. The thought just begged to be
asked.
    "Hey, Rach. Have I ever been to a real
city?"
    "Depends on what you call real.
We've been to Vegas a few times. As far as shopping goes, it's
about as good as anywhere else you're going to find in the
States."
    "Never a really big city though? New York, DC,
LA?"
    I caught her headshake out of the
corner of my eye. "No. At least not the first two. Everything east
of the Mississippi is off limits, so I know you've never been to
either of those two. You might have been to LA, but if so it was
one of the pseudo-secret missions. Alec occasionally sends people
off to manage some deal or another, and usually I don't know much
more than that they were gone for a few days."
    Hmm, that was something new. My world had been
limited to the estate and one trip into town ever since I could
remember. With everything being off limits, I'd never actually
stopped to think about there being different levels of
forbidden.
    "What's the deal with the east?"
    Rachel paused for a second, waiting until I'd
finished pulling into the parking spot across from the
park.
    "It's a combination of two things really. The
east has the highest population density in the entire country. When
you put that many people into such a small