After she knocks, Smith opens the door. She pauses. She doesn't move. She just stands there, staring ahead. Confused, I peek in the gap under her bicep, and then I stagger back in fear.

On the other side of the door, Petey is not, as I first suspected, making out with Cheekbones’s and Smith’s mother. He is not, as I secondly suspected, even doing something with another person that would warrant a scandalized reaction. In fact, the only thing he's doing is activating my fight-or-flight response, which is followed through by an incoherent noise.

Eventually, the noise becomes sounds. These sounds become words. These words become:

“WhY aRe YoU shIrTLESS?!" I holler. Each word gets progressively shriller in decibels. I squeeze my way past a frozen Smith. "Nobody wants to see that. You're even scaring the cop! Are you going to take responsibility if she decides to call the police? Are you? Are you, huh?!"

"You took your sweet time." Petey, glares from where he's sprawled over a leather couch, half split apart. By the looks of it, some of the stitches at his waist have ripped right out of his skin. I force myself to calm myself down. "Do you know what happened? As soon as they dragged me through the front door, my ass fell off."

"Good riddance," I say automatically. "You don't deserve ass."

Petey snaps. "Not a good riddance," he bellows, slapping his hand on his thigh. "I need ass. You, on the other hand, do not. Do your job with your head instead of your libido."

"Hey," I say, more viciously than I thought I would. "Snickerdoodle Snookums did his best. You're always so ungrateful, Petey."

"I literally can't move or feel my legs because his stitching didn't hold up." Bare-chested, Petey tries to thread the wire back into his body by hand. He ends up stabbing himself in one abdominal. He scowls. "I have my rights to a proper revival and without any exterior problems. You didn't have the right or the permission to outsource. You want to argue about this?"

"Ungrateful," I repeat, less vigorously, looking around. The whole decor of this place is a mix of the old juxtaposed with a brand new flatscreen TV and tons of pictures of smiling, toothy werewolf kids on the walls. The Alpha Mom is nowhere to be seen. "It was his first time putting someone back together. You can't expect it to be perfect."

"That seems more like it's your problem, not mine," Petey retorts. He holds up the wire and wriggles it in my direction. " Now get over here and fix me."

"I can't." I roll my eyes. "Because of you, I got arrested. Look!" I turn around and wriggle my cuffed hands.

Smith doesn't say anything. She spins me back around. She moves me specifically to the side. Confused, I stare at her, only to realize that she's moved me to a place where I don't obstruct her view of Petey's petrifying pair of pectorals in person.

“Are you serious? " I demand, a little louder, but she doesn't blink. Well, moving on. "Seriously, Petey, the other police officer almost ripped my head off about you. How did you get out of them?”

"What," Petey says blandly. He's not at all fazed by the effect he has on Smith, almost as if he's used to mesmerizing people with his nipples alone. "The cuffs?" He looks at me with my arms still bound behind my back as if he hadn't even noticed. He snorts. "Really? This your first time?”

"I-?" I blink. I fluster. Are necromancers supposed to be good at breaking out of cuffs or something? I can feel my face redden in indignation. "No, it isn't. I've been arrested before!"

"Are you sure?" Petey drawls out, snickering. "The way I see it, this is definitely your first real time. Congrats." He glances at Smith, who gives a start and stiffens like she hadn't been trying to hypnotize herself into the swirls of Petey's luscious chest hair. "You're my cousin's first."

"Is the Alpha here," chokes out Smith, a little too fast, and also a little too loud. She sounds like she's wheezing and is dying of suffocation. "I have to talk to," her voice is strangled when Petey sits up straighter, "h-her."

"In the kitchen," Petey says, pointing around the corner. "Susie said she's baking some cookies?" He's barely finished his sentence-question before Smith's already practically flown to the kitchen.

Soon as she leaves, I whirl on Petey.

"Susie?" I hiss. "You know her mom's first name? Whatever happened to no interracial mixing? How'd you get her first name?"

"From one guardian to another, Susie had a lot to say about your behavior." Petey gives me a disappointed look. "And I found out her name by asking." He waves me closer. "We exchanged pleasantries and had a conversation. That's what adults do, you know." He waves me closer again.

Stubbornly, I don't budge, setting my jaw.

Petey sighs. "I pick the lock. You stitch me up. Deal?"

Peevish, I shuffle backwards to present him with my cuffs, trying not to act as indignant as I feel. "Why'd you go and tell her that you're my guardian? That's cold, man."

"Werewolves are one person for one life. I might not think much of yours, but even I'm trying to look out for you in my own way, okay?" Petey unlocks the cuffs with a quick wire-picking, and then presents it to me. Sullen-faced, I sit on the edge of the couch, and begin to thread. "Don't sulk."

"I'm not sulking," I say, sulking.

It's at that moment that we hear the snarls and growls coming from the kitchen.

A moment passes.

"Can you help me find out what Cheekbones's first name is?" I ask.

Petey gives me a look. "You've been making out with him and you don't even know his first name? Do I need to teach you how to date like a normal human being?"

"We've been making out so long, I'm afraid to ask," I say.

"Do you even know the sister's name?" Petey asks.

Smith sticks her head from out of the kitchen. She looks everywhere except at Petey's exposed chest. "Alpha wants to know if you want something to drink."

"Water," Petey and I echo.

Smith's head disappears and she returns with two tall drinks of water, and two glasses of water.

"What's your name?" Petey asks casually, casanova of the hour, as I side-eye the attractive men uneasily.

"Stacey," Smith says, just as I take a sip.

I spit out my drink.