The two employees (henchmen, if you want to be totally honest) of Jack Crawford looked over the recently sent text message.
‘N.A. is to miss school in the morning. Harm must be done to him tonight.’
"I know we've done some pretty questionable things for him, but does Crawford really expect us to kill a kid?" one man asked the other.
"No dummy. Remember the briefing he gave us before we drove down here? This Nate Anderson is 18 and will be a Senior when school starts in the morning. The boss just wants us to ruff him up enough so he misses the first day," explained the other.
"I can live with that, but how do we find him in the crowds at that picnic?"
"We don't. We're going to stake out his house and wait for him to come home."
"Can two werepanthers handle a werewolf?" the first man wondered.
"We can, with these," answered the other, while checking his holstered gun. "A bullet in either, or both legs, will certainly carry out Crawford's order."
MEANWHILE...
"HOW DARE THAT MISERABLE BASTARD! I'LL KILL HIM WITH MY BARE PAWS!" the shouting began from backstage at the Moon Lake Labor Day Picnic.
Thankfully, only the band currently playing on stage heard the commotion but surprisingly, it wasn't Benton Knight who was doing all the screaming but Doctor Frances Twist as her wife Samantha, their son Ben, and his boyfriend Alex Ramsey tried to secure and calm down the ranting woman.
"The privacy, let alone the sanctity of my office has been compromised beyond belief! If my other patients find out... How many of them are at risk?" Frances demanded to know.
"Truthfully? We don't know," admitted Tachibana no Akane, as she addressed those before her. "We discovered the situation while... investigating another matter concerning Jack Crawford," she added, not wanting to mention the involvement of two white furred weretigers from China. "However, any information that could be used against Benton Knight was all that Crawford was after. Yet I must admit, I'm surprised at how calm you are at the moment," confessed Tachibana, while staring at the former werepanther representative and his wife Amanda.
"Perhaps with Doctor Twist and everyone else's help I have grown and matured, but trust me Tachibana no Akane," began Benton as calmly as he could, "if Jack Crawford was within my reach at this moment, you would need a jigsaw puzzle expert to reassemble him when I was done."
Tachibana simply nodded her head in acknowledgement, noticing that Benton's fists were clenched to the point where his fingernails were starting to draw blood from his palms.
"You'd have to get in line behind me first," snarled Frances, who was doing her best to try to calm down, despite the situation.
"Now honey," began Samantha.
"Please Sam, don't honey me," replied Frances, knowing that her wife hated the masculine short form of her first name. "The people I see and treat put their trust in me to help them with their problems. If anything said within the confines of my practice is ever made public, their lives and my own might be ruined."
"A serious point that will be brought up at the Elders' Council inquiry tomorrow morning," said Akane.
"I'll have to call my office manager and have Rudy reschedule everything that was on the agenda for tomorrow, let alone find a new security company and system while having the place swept for other potential leaks," realized Frances.
"Because of the nature of the situation, Tachibana Security can handle that for you at cost," offered Daisuke Tachibana, who had been standing near his grandmother the whole time, just in case he was needed.
"Thank you," said Frances, in the closest thing to her normal voice since Akane broke the news to them.
"I understand your concerns and frustrations, but let us handle this," advised the Skulk leader and head of the Elders' Council, something to which both Frances and Benton readily agreed publicly.
However... A Code Omega never worked against Crawford, but there must be some way to get that bastard and his bitch out of my fur once and for all without getting into any trouble with the Elders or the law, thought Benton, while his wife moved closer trying to comfort him.
ELSEWHERE...
As the trio had fun, Eric Anderson and his ladies Frieda Knight and Spencer Lawson started hearing the news about what happened when reporter Ella Alyn confronted Kendra Adaeze-Crawford.
"Just one punch," they heard one picnic goer comment.
"Serves the bitch right. I tried working for Jack Crawford before and got nothing but a pain in the ass for my troubles," said someone else.
"Well, if I could afford it, I wouldn't mind fucking that hot wife of his," said someone else.
"Sounds like we missed all the real fun," observed Spencer.
"It will be the headline of the Gazette tomorrow morning, but Ella doesn't confront anyone without having thoroughly verified her facts first," replied Frieda, since her uncle was the paper's editor-in-chief and owner.
"Well, even before I became a were, I always thought there was something weird about Kenya when Nate was seeing her, but I never suspected that," admitted Eric, talking about his older brother and events before Thanksgiving of last year.
"Doesn't matter," said Spencer, pressing her body closer to Eric. "I loved you even before you became a werepanther darling," before nibbling at his right ear.
"I may have been a little late to the party, but I've certainly made up for lost time since then," added Frieda, nuzzling Eric's left ear while reaching behind him to caress what she could reach of Spencer's rear end.
"Ladies, you keep this up and..." began Eric, when both of his girlfriends discretely moved a hand forward to cup the front of his pants.
"Good," said Frieda, while smiling at her lovers. "Spencer and I both decided that, since our private time together will be greatly reduced once school resumes tomorrow, we're going out with a bang today."
"I'm all for that," happily agreed Eric, while putting an arm around each woman's waist. "Just tell me when and where," he growled, before giving each a smooch.