Harlon was his name; the older of the two scouts, pacing around me like a cat playing with its prey. Yet, even with the gleam of intrigue lighting his eyes and his lack of scruples about tying a person up and threatening their life, he was just a kid. A tall, cocky prick of a kid who had never been put in his place, and I was itching to do it.
“Cal, check the cupboards for food,” Harlon said, and my eyes shifted to the footsteps I could hear in the kitchen, though I couldn’t see the boy he was giving orders to. It was as though the way the light shined on him reflected differently, playing tricks on my eyes, like he wasn’t even there. But he was, walking right by me, every footstep told me so.
As Harlon riffled through my boxes, I dreaded what he’d find in the bottom one. “What is all of this crap,” he said, tossing my notebook, novels, and JJ’s collection of oddly shaped pinecones I couldn’t bear to get rid of to the floor. “What are you, a squirrel? Don’t you have anything good?”
I rolled my eyes, unable to answer the way I wanted to with my mouth gagged. I growled at him for good measure and tried to stay focused on the task at hand; they’d done a shit job of tying my hands behind me in the chair. I was almost out of my bindings, just a few minutes more was all I needed. Apparently, they’d never tied up a woman before, or if they had, she must not have had small wrists.
“Seriously, I thought we hit pay dirt when we saw that pedestrian bridge down the road. If this is all you people got—preserves and . . . what is it, a kid sketch?” he scoffed at another one of Thea’s drawings, and I hoped he continued to bluster and throw a tantrum because it was buying me more time.
Gaze darting into the kitchen, I watched as the cupboards opened and shut. I remembered Cal’s profile as it flashed in the moonlight outside before everything went black. He was smaller and younger than Harlon, but I wasn’t fooled by his size. He’d been raised a thug, probably by Harlon himself. I wouldn’t put it past Cal, even if he was barely in his teens, to do something horrible. I wriggled my wrists slowly, trying not to move my arms and shoulders too much, since that would give me away. I could feel the large rope sliding over my thumb joint.
“Did you just move into this dump?” Harlon said, rising to his feet, and my eyes darted to him. “Where’s the rest of your stuff? Where are your weapons? I know you have more.” He pointed to my holster, now empty of my pistol and extra magazine.
I mumbled a response because it was all I could do.
“Say what?” Harlon stepped closer, nearly tripping on the notebook he’d discarded, and he yanked the gag from my mouth. “What were you saying, and it better not be a smart-ass comment, or I’ll gag you again.”
“I said, yes. I was just moving in. I don’t have any weapons here. I’m a deputy, I don’t keep them in my house.”
“Where the hell are they then?” he said, shoving the barrel of my own gun into my temple. He pressed it right into the wound that burned and felt cold and wet with blood.
I winced. “At the station.” Just a few more seconds . . . I wriggled my hands a little bit more.
“Where’s the station?” he gritted out. “And feel free to tell me how to get there, while you’re at it.”
I glared at him, wondering if this of all possible ends was my lot—to get shot by a kid whose balls had just dropped. I hated to think that all I’d been through led to this final moment, even if I wasn’t afraid to die.
“Speak up,” he growled, and pressed the end of the gun into my temple so hard I screeched. “Or I—”
Something crashed in the wind outside, and Harlon straightened. His yellow-green eyes widened before his features twisted with anger. “You stupid bitch—is someone else here?” He pressed the gun into my head again, but relented and headed to the sliding glass door, more worried about who might be outside than what I could do in here.
“No one else is here,” I managed, feeling the fresh blood from the wound he’d reopened dripping down my cheek. “It’s probably the wind.”
I could hear the rustling of leaves outside, and I could feel the cold breeze coming in from the cracked door behind me. If I was lucky, it was actually Bear this time, though I wasn’t sure he would know to do anything.
“Cal, watch her,” Harlon ordered, and quietly he slid the sliding glass door open enough to walk through. “If she does anything stupid, shoot her.”
Cal flitted into existence in the kitchen again, a bag of what few food items I had in a pile on the counter behind him. A gun was shoved into the waistband of his pants.
I jiggled my wrists as best I could as tears burned the backs of my eyes. I was so close, I just needed . . . a few more . . . seconds.
“What the fuck—” Harlon yowled outside, followed by the snarl of an angry wolf, just as my hands pulled free from their bindings. There was the pop of a gunshot, and while Cal panicked in the kitchen, slowly beginning to register that I was free, I lunged for the bottom box—the one Harlon had been so close to opening—for the other Glock and bullets that were inside.
As my knees hit the ground, the front door flung open and Ross barreled inside.
“Ross!” I shook my head. He shouldn’t be here.
“Kat—” he said as Harlon’s shrieks from the backyard filled the air. Ross reached for my arm before I could warn him.
I saw the shimmer of light play against Cal’s profile before the gun in his hands flickered to existence, aimed at the back of Ross’s head.
Ross froze and his palms flew up.
“I’ll blow your head off if you move!” Cal warned above the snarling and screaming outside. Then suddenly, everything went quiet.
“Don’t hurt him,” I demanded, but my voice thinned with panic.
Growling resonated behind me, and I heard the clack of wolf claws on the hardwood floor as Luna slunk in. Her bloodstained teeth bared as she stopped beside me and lowered her head in warning.
Cal’s eyes shifted from me to somewhere behind me, where I assumed Beau was standing. “Call off your wolf,” he bit out, “Or I swear I’ll shoot him.” Cal inched closer, his thumb worrying the grip of the pistol in his little hand. He knew how to hold a gun, but the uncertainty in his eyes made me think he didn’t want to use it, not unless he absolutely had to.
Fight or die. That’s what they’d been taught, and I knew Cal wouldn’t go down without a fight. Because if he didn’t answer to me, he would have to answer to the group he had to go back to.
“You know you don’t want to hurt him,” I said, and though I tried to sound steady, I was anything but.
Ross’s eyes were locked on me, but I refused to meet his gaze. I couldn’t bring myself to look anywhere other than at Cal, watching every twitch of his lip and every furtive shift of his gaze.
“Where’s Harlon,” Cal demanded, though I could hear the slight wobble of his voice. “Where is he!” But Cal knew that Harlon was dead, or he’d wish he were if he still breathed.
“He’s outside and probably needs help,” I told him. “We can’t help him if we’re in here.” I prayed Beau wouldn’t contradict me, because the last thing I wanted Cal to feel was more desperate than he already was.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” he said, his dark eyes four sizes bigger with fear. “You killed him, and now I have to go back—do you know what they’ll do to me? Do you know—”
“You don’t have to go back, kid,” Ross said carefully. “You don’t have to go back, you can stay here. But if you want to stay here, where it’s safe, you have to put the gun down.”
Luna snarled and inched closer. “Get that wolf away!” Cal shouted. “Get it away, I’m warning you!”
“Beau,” I said without tearing my gaze from Cal; I didn’t dare look away, worried what he’d do if I blinked for even a second. “Take Luna outside.”
“Do it,” Ross conceded, and with a final growl, Luna backed away and retreated to the backyard.
The frightened teen in front of me wasn’t a killer—he was a protégé, a young impressionable mind—and I knew if we had a few minutes longer, we could all get out of this alive.
“Where is your group?” I asked him. “Wherever they are, they don’t have to know what happened here. You can hide here—you can stay and they will never know.”
“They’ll come looking,” he said, as if my promises of protection and a better life were empty and pointless. “They’ll come looking because that’s what they do. They hunt you down until you join them, or you die.” His voice cracked.
“Just put the gun down,” Ross urged, his palms still out in front of him. He was calm and more gathered than I would’ve thought possible. But it wasn’t the first time he’d been held at gunpoint. “We’ll figure it out. I’m the law here—we’ll keep you safe, just like she said. You don’t have to—”
But the instant the kid closed his eyes and shook his head—the moment I realized fear had won out and his finger was moving to the trigger—my mind and body reacted before I realized what I was doing.
Energy crackled in the air around me. The hair on my body stood on end. A hum filled me.
Feeling—not thinking. Sophie’s words circled through my head as I reached up and pulled a surge of electricity toward me. With a rush of raw, charged power, a bright, blinding light filled the room, my fingertips burned, and a bolt of lightning broke through the ceiling and right into Cal.
He fell, and with the surge of adrenaline whirring through me and my heart hammering in my chest, I crumpled to my knees too. Breathe, Kat—just . . . breathe.
My fingertips dug into the ground as I willed myself to calm down. My limbs felt like limp noodles, spent on a coiling energy I hadn’t realized was lying in wait all this time. And as the reality of what I’d done settled in, I looked up and froze with horror. Ross was unconscious beside Cal on the ground, surrounded by smoke.
“Ross,” I rasped.
I heard footsteps and heaving breath behind me as Beau ran inside, and I scrambled to my feet. A burn marred the side of his face where the electricity had jumped from Cal’s body to his.
“Ross!” I shouted, running over to him. “Ross—wake up, Ross.” I fell to my knees beside him. I hovered at first, processing just how bad what I’d done might actually be, then lifted his heavy torso into my arms, frantically feeling his neck for a pulse. “Ross—wake up, Ross.”
I’d killed him. He wasn’t a Re-gen. He wasn’t an experiment. He was a man, and I’d struck him down with a megaton of voltage as if from heaven itself.
I forced myself to calm down and take a deep breath before I lost my wits completely. “Beau!” I choked out, and with trembling fingers, I felt for Ross’s pulse again. It was there, just below the surface, but it was weak.
“Beau! Get help—run and get help!” I told him. As certain as I was that Ross had a pulse, I wasn’t sure for how long. I glanced back at him.
Beau stood by the door staring, still and horrified with shock.
“Beau! Run!” I cried, and pulled Ross closer into me. He’d come to save me, and I might’ve killed him instead. “Ross,” I pleaded, gripping him tighter. Not like this—I couldn’t lose him too, and this time it would undeniably be my fault.
My head shook. “No,” I told myself. “No. No. No . . .” It wasn’t possible. Ross couldn’t be gone; I needed him. And as that realization sank in, tears filled my eyes—the horror no longer keeping them at bay.