I frowned at The Gateway Arch keychain. Dad had gotten it during our first and only visit to the monument. He had let me pick it and said, “For our car.” I was the only one ever interested in helping him work on it after he got it. Leo had already left home, and Daniella and Lucia didn’t care about getting their hands greasy or spending hours polishing metal to a perfect shine. More than anything, I’d loved spending time with Dad.
Mom laid a hand on my shoulder.
I glanced up.
“In the past year,” she said, “you’ve surprised me with your decisions and everything you’ve done to pull yourself out of a dark place. You’re a big girl now, Antonietta. And big girls make their own decisions.”
Aw, that was nice. It sounded like Mom finally trusted me.
Should I tell her about Jacob Knight’s involvement?
Nah, that would just undo a very nice moment.
Mom smiled. “I’d like you to come for lunch one day this week. I’ll cook you creamy tortellini.”
Yum, my favorite!
“Just take care,” Mom added, “and don’t get tangled up with Jake Knight again, m-kay?”
I DROVE THE CAMARO with the top down, enjoying the way the engine roared and the wind blew in my hair. When I approached the police department, I prolonged the inevitable and took a few laps around the block, enjoying myself a little more.
Finally, I parked in a spill-over lot and crossed the street, almost turning tail a couple of times, though the image of that severed finger quickly set me back on track. I was glad I could work on this with Tom. He would have my back and wouldn’t try to take advantage of me. I wouldn’t want to work with anyone else in the police department. Too many crooked cops.
A small white van sat in front of the door, a logo that read “Vinnie’s Donuts” stamped on the side.
A woman was digging in the back, stacking several boxes on top of each other. Despite my nice breakfast at Mom’s, a donut sounded pretty good, preferably a chocolate sprinkle one. Maybe Tom would give me one.
To my dismay, when I walked in, the first person I saw was Jake Knight. He was talking to a uniformed police woman and noticed me before I had a chance to scurry back outside. Immediately, he apologized to the officer and marched in my direction.
Dammit! I wished I knew what he drove, so I could avoid him. The woman with the donuts walked past me headed for the front desk. She deposited her load on a far corner of the counter and walked back out at a clipped pace. She gave me a dirty look when she noticed me watching her.
Disgruntled much?! She probably hated donuts and any donut-vores that gave her dreamy eyes as if she were some sort of candy fairy.
“What are you doing here?” Jake asked sarcastically. “Come to ask about your break-in?”
“None of your business,” I answered like a twelve-year-old, but hey, he’d started it.
He was wearing an aviator jacket with a plain white T-shirt inside. His jeans were well-worn and molded to his muscular thighs like soft butter molds to toast. Hot damn!
A couple of female officers walked by and blatantly checked out his derrière, reminding me of high school all over again.
“Yeah, guess it isn’t any of my business,” he said.
Just as he started to leave, Detective Tom Freeman walked out of his office and waved. I gave him a smile. Jake glanced back over his shoulder and glared at the detective.
Then, the donuts exploded.
Chapter 16
The world rumbled, and I flew off my feet and slammed against the wall behind me. The back of my head hit with a thunk, and stars exploded in my vision. I collapsed to the floor like a puppet. Something heavy fell on top of me. Heat enveloped me, making me feel as if my skin would peel off and melt away into a puddle. My ears rang.
Cries of pain filled the air. I shifted, sending a stab of agony down my spine. I pushed at whatever was on top of me. A person. Jake. I could tell by his unmistakable scent.
I touched something wet and thick. I struggled to open my eyes against the heat. I barely managed. Jake was unconscious.
Everything around us was destruction. A twisted chair lay on top of Jake. I pushed it off with some effort. It rolled out of the way with a clank. Above us, ceiling tiles hung loose, exposing thick pipes and short-circuiting cables torn by the explosion. Light flickered.
Someone lay on their stomach a few feet away, the police woman who’d been talking to Jake. Her clothes were scorched, and a ragged hole oozed blood on her side. I clenched my eyes shut and pushed Jake off me, halfway wiggling from under his heavy frame.
The back of my head and spine screamed in pain, but as I assessed myself, I found no other injuries. Jake, on the other hand. My stomach did a flip at the sight of his back. I pressed a hand to my mouth. His aviator jacket and T-shirt were riddled with holes, and so was his back. He looked as if he’d been hit with a shotgun. There was a bigger wound in his right hamstring. Blood dribbled from it, rapidly staining his jeans crimson. God, he had taken the brunt of the explosion, which had saved my life.
With his werewolf powers, he would heal but not if he didn’t get medical attention. Now!
I glanced around at all the chaos, the bodies. A numb stupor threatened to take hold of me. I tore my eyes away from the destruction and forced myself to focus on Jake.
“Hey.” I caressed the side of his face. “Jake, wake up.”
My throat felt raw. I winced as the heat that blazed by the front desk flared up, igniting the ceiling.
“Jake!” I shook him.
He moaned and blinked his eyes open.
Oh, thank God. “We have to get out of here. C’mon, help me.”
I rolled him over onto his back. He gritted his teeth in pain and growled.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I repeated nonsensically.
Hooking my hands under his armpits, I tried pulling him to a sitting position, but he was too heavy. His boots slipped on a fallen ceiling tile as he attempted to help me. I tried harder, leaning into him, my cheek pressed to his.
“C’mon, you can get up,” I whispered in his ear. “You can do it.”
He bent his knees and pushed up. I pushed, too, helping him get close to the wall for support.
“Freeman,” Jake rasped.
“I know.” My heart twisted, hoping against all hope that Tom was all right. “First, let’s get you out of here.”
I coughed and closed my eyes against the acrid smoke. We started walking, Jake’s arm across my shoulders. My back throbbed with the added weight. The fire behind us flared higher. I felt it on my back, like a giant rake trying to strip me down to the bone. The smell of burning hair pierced through my senses.
The exit sign glowed on the wall along with a flashing emergency light. Charred furniture blocked the door, which seemed miles away. We would never make it. Jake lost his footing, and we staggered forward and fell.
“Crawl,” I said, but I knew it was useless. He could barely move.
He gave me a push. “Get out of here, Toni.”
“No, I won’t leave you.”
The ceiling tiles above us crackled as they burned. My eyelids fluttered, then closed. My chest moved shallowly. I rested my head on the floor and coughed weakly. This was it.
Crap, I hadn’t even started helping, and it had all gone to shit already. No good deed goes unpunished—not even ones that hadn’t begun yet.
The front door burst open. Flames whooshed towards it. Jake and I huddled close together as they licked the air above us. I covered my face with both hands. My exposed skin sizzled, and I moaned in pain.
Firefighters rushed in, pulling at a hose and spraying water. Two men wearing masks rushed in and pulled us out, our feet dragging behind us. I was out first, then Jake. Others came to help. They grabbed our feet, lifted us off the ground, and deposited us across the street on a patch of grass.
Paramedics rushed to us, pressed oxygen masks to our faces. Healers moved their hands over our bodies,
and the pain subsided a little.
I lifted a hand towards the burning building. “The others,” I mumbled behind the mask.
“We’ll help them, honey,” the paramedic said. “You did good. You did good. Now just breathe.”
As if I’d just woken up from a tracking trance, everything before me turned dark, and I couldn’t hear or see anything anymore.
Chapter 17
I wanted to know who the hell had taken my clothes off and left me in a hospital gown with a huge slit down my ass. Really? Wasn’t it enough to have burned half to death but they also had to strip me of my dignity and undies in the process? At least my phone and car keys had survived and sat on the night table.
Standing next to a tall bed with railings, I fumbled with the strings behind my back, trying to tie them in a way that would cover both butt cheeks. I needed to get out of this sterile room and find Jake and Tom and... all those officers who had been busy at work, the woman Jake had been talking to.
My hands trembled. I couldn’t tie a simple knot. I growled in frustration and stared at my fingers. They looked different, covered in newly healed skin. I’d been lucky, the healer doctor had said. She’d had to give me morphine for the pain while she worked on me for over an hour, restoring the skin on my forearms and hands, but the injuries had been superficial enough to only need an outpatient procedure. My back felt strange too, same as my fingers, but the pain was gone. I could still smell burning hair all around me. I would need a haircut, for sure.
Lucky, she’d said, which made me wonder... what did that mean for the others?
Determined to get some questions answered, I reached toward my back again, fumbling for the strings. I’d finally grabbed hold of them when the door to my room swung open. Jake stood at the threshold. His silver eyes held mine for a long moment, then he let out a pent-up breath and walked in.
He wore a gown just like mine and stood barefoot. He had been worse off than me, but he seemed fully healed, too. Oh, the benefits of being a werewolf. I envied him that.
He closed the door behind him and approached. Without a word, he came around and tied the strings at my back. He was probably getting a full view of my backside, but I didn’t care. Not at the moment.
When he finished and walked back around, I said, “You all right?”
He made a sound in the back of his throat and nodded once.
“Freeman?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I came to check on you first. Let’s go find out.”
Jake and I walked out of my room and headed toward the nurses’ station, our bare feet slapping on the linoleum floor.
One of the nurses glanced up from her computer and frowned at us. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“Werewolf.” Jake pointed at his chest as a way of explanation.
The nurse raised her eyebrows and nodded as if saying “okay, fine,” then glanced at me. “And what about you?”
“We need to know where Tom Freeman is. Is he on this floor?” I glanced down the long corridor as if I expected an arrow to appear in midair, pointing us toward the detective’s room.
The nurse frowned at us. “Is he a relative of yours?”
“Listen,” Jake said, leaning over the counter and staring her down, “we were in that explosion with him. I think that gives us the right to ask how he is.”
It really didn’t, but it kinda made sense. The nurse thought so too because she sighed and tapped a few keys into her computer.
“Tom Freeman,” she read. “He’s in the intensive care unit on the second floor. Doctors and healers are working on him. He’s scheduled for a second surgery tomorrow.” She glanced up. “His injuries must have been substantial.”
“Will he recover?” My voice quivered.
“You’ll have to talk directly to his doctors and healers to find out more.”
“What about the other people in the station?” Jake asked.
The nurse sighed. “Names?”
Jake shrugged.
She gave us an unapologetic head-shake. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t know.”
We thanked her and walked back to my room. I sat on the bed, feeling confused and unsure of what to do next.
Jake remained by the door, a hand on the handle. I blinked at him, vaguely wondering why he was just standing there, looking uncomfortable, and I didn’t think it was just the unflattering gown.
At last, he blurted out, “Thank you.”
I cocked my head, frowning and, of all things, wondering if he was wearing anything under the gown.
“You know... for helping me... back at the station.”
I shook my head and struggled to focus on what he’d just said. Then the penny dropped. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I think I do.”
“No, you don’t. I would have done that for anyone, even a stranger.”
“Oh.” He lowered his gaze and started backing out of the room.
“Jake, I... I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Look, I hope you feel better soon. I can tell you’re still...” he waved a hand around his head as if suggesting I wasn’t all there at the moment. “Anyway, I’ll see you around.”
“Are you leaving?”
He nodded. “There isn’t much time left for Stephen. That explosion... I’m sure it was Fiore and her people. They want to delay the police effort, throw them for a loop. The detectives were closing in on them. Now, they’ll be occupied with this mess. I have to find him before it’s too late.” He turned to go, the gown fluttering around his muscular calves.
“Wait!”
He glanced over his shoulder, a muscle jumping in his jaw, his eyes all pupil, dark like onyx.
“Um, I didn’t go to the station to... ask about the break-in.” I paused to let that sink in.
When it did, one of his thick eyebrows rose. “I see.”
His mouth stretched in a smile that made me feel tingly all over. His demeanor, which had been stiff and guarded, relaxed a bit, giving me a flashback to the tenderness I knew him capable of. He extended a hand in my direction, palm up.
“Come with me?” he said, his timbre soft and hopeful.
“Like this?” I gestured towards my hospital gown, then his.
He shrugged as if he didn’t have a care in the world, and why should he? The moment he got outside, he could shift and thick, beautiful gray fur would cover him. Though not if I went with him, I supposed.
I returned his shrug, grabbed my phone and keys, and took his hand. His fingers tightened around mine. They were warm in my freezing hand and felt delicious. His temperature ran a little high all the time, a werewolf thing. It immediately reminded me of the many nights I’d spent in the heat of his arms.
God, was this a mistake? Would he ruin my life again?
For an instant, the urge to pull back came over me. I could wait to talk to Tom. He would get better soon, wouldn’t he? Or maybe I could talk to someone else at the police department who would hire me for the job, and provide the protection I needed. But who could I trust? Tom was the only one I knew. Besides, the time wasted trying to find someone else could make the difference between getting Stephen back in one piece and never seeing him again.
There was no time.
So when Jake gently tugged on my hand, I went with him, and we padded down the hall, our asses hanging out in the air.
Chapter 18
From the hospital, Jake and I Ubered to the police station. Yellow tape surrounded the entire building, and there were no signs of activity.
Only a handful of hours ago, it must have been a madhouse of firefighters, detectives, bomb squad personnel, reporters, and gawkers. Now, with twilight falling quickly, the place felt like a spook house.
A few cars remained in the spill-over parking lot, including my Camaro. I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of it.
“Where’s your ride?” I asked Jake, glancing around.
“Around the
corner, but I have to get a spare key. I don’t know what happened to mine. I’ll get it later.”
From there, I drove to Jake’s office, where he changed into jeans, a Y-neck shirt, a black moto jacket, and biker boots with buckles on the sides and a heel that added an inch to his height—not that he needed it. He also picked up a duffel bag with a change of clothes and some necessities. Apparently, like me, he’d made the place his home, and we were neighbors in more ways than one.
Afterward, we drove to Rosalina’s. I called her on the way there to tell her to expect visitors and quickly explained what had happened.
Twenty minutes later, we sat in her living room. I’d changed into comfortable jeans and tank top, glad to be rid of the stupid buttless gown. I sat cross-legged on the love seat, and Jake occupied the large sofa across from me, while Rosalina sat to the side in an armchair, her large green eyes going back and forth between us.
She still seemed in shock at the events and at the fact that Jacob Knight was in her condo and not even yelling at anyone—not something either one of us could have foreseen.
After rescuing me from the streets, Rosalina also rescued me from the hole Jake left in my life. I’d lost count of how many nights I’d spent sobbing and cursing Jake’s name while she comforted me and came up with creative insults to make me laugh. Cunning canine, bloody bitch, lousy lycanthrope. She loved alliteration.
“Toni, I understand you’re in pain,” she’d said once. “You love him, and there’s nothing wrong with that. All our lives they teach us to give, to nurture, to put ourselves last, but I’m telling you that this notion is all wrong. I’m not saying you shouldn’t love, just that you should love yourself a little bit more. Men can be real assholes.”
“Jake isn’t like that,” I blubbered.
“Still, he left you without an explanation, and now look at you. You’re falling apart, but you still have a life to live. For yourself, whether or not he’s here. And you have to choose to live better than this because you’d better believe he’s out there having fun and not bawling his eyes out to a friend.”
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