by Sadie Moss
I wasn’t in charge. Of any of this. The predator that had lain dormant inside my body for years, fed and nurtured by whatever concoction of drugs the Strand doctors had given me, had finally torn her way free. And she was in control now.
Everything appeared different through the eyes of my wolf. Colors, shapes—nothing looked familiar. Scents had become sharper, sounds more pronounced, as though the world itself was assaulting me with sensations. The pain of my shift had faded, but my body felt foreign, like it was no longer my own.
Then new sounds filtered into my ears. Raised voices from the front seat, and the harsh breathing of the man behind me.
No. The man attempting to sneak up on me.
I turned swiftly, the movement awkward in the confined space that seemed to have shrunk when I shifted. The man had his hand outstretched and his thumb poised on the plunger of the syringe. With a growl, I grabbed his forearm between my teeth, whipping my head sharply to the side and yanking him off balance.
He yelled and stumbled across the gently rocking ambulance floor, almost tripping over the corpse of the woman lying in a pool of blood near the back doors. The needle fell from his grasp, sliding across the blood-slicked floor.
“Fuck. Fuck!”
His eyes darted back and forth in his broad face, searching for some escape as he cradled his injured arm to his chest, his other hand groping blindly on the wall beside him for a weapon. He didn’t seem to care about the driver’s directive not to kill me any more than McGowan had.
“Sanders!” the man in the driver’s seat called. “Initiate takedown protocol!”
“You initiate takedown protocol!” he shrieked, his voice rising with each word as beads of sweat trailed down his face. “There’s a giant fucking wolf back here. She killed McGowan! Fucking help me!”
“Goddamn it! Go.” The driver jerked his head at the man in the front passenger seat, who unclipped his seat belt.
Shit. I couldn’t let them box me in.
As the man slipped between the seats into the back of the ambulance, I sprang into action. The one in front of me had finally wrapped his shaking fingers around a gun, but before he could drag it from the rack and fire, I was on him, teeth tearing at muscle and flesh. He screamed and jerked, his limbs flailing uselessly as he tried to fight me off. When he finally went limp, I threw his body aside.
Blood coated my muzzle and fur as I spun around, facing the new threat. This man’s light blond hair shone like a stalk of wheat in the sun, an almost unreal hue to my new wolf eyes, as he stared in horror at the carnage around us.
Almost too late, he shook himself, rousing from his shock just as I lunged toward him. This man was faster than the others. He threw himself to the side, dodging my heavy paws and snapping teeth. I slammed into the back of the passenger seat, rattling the entire thing before I righted myself and shook out my fur.
When I turned around, the barrel of a gun was aimed at my head, mere inches away from my face.
“Don’t. Fucking. Move,” he commanded as he backed away slowly, shoving the gurney aside to put more space between him and me. “You got that? You understand me, wolf?”
The man couldn’t have been older than thirty, and his breath came in shaky pants as he gripped the gun so hard his knuckles turned white.
“Orazio? You got this? Everything under control?”
The driver raised his voice from the front, craning his neck to look over his shoulder. The vehicle wobbled unsteadily, and he jerked the wheel to correct our course.
“Yeah.” The golden-haired man blinked sweat out of his eyes, licking his lips nervously. “Yeah, I’ve got this. She won’t do anything stupid.”
He braced his legs wide to keep his balance as we sped down the highway, keeping the gun in his left hand trained on me. I stared at him, my predator’s eyes taking in every sign of weakness, cataloguing every possible opening. He was of average height, but I could almost look him straight in the eyes as we squared off in the confines of the wide ambulance.
How big was I? All the wolf shifters I’d seen so far were larger than wild wolves, but I seemed even more massive than I remembered them being.
“Orazio! There’s a tranq gun on the wall near the back door,” the driver called.
“I don’t fucking know, man. I think we should just waste her. We’ll tell ’em it was an accident.”
Wild fear gleamed in the man’s eyes, and I saw his finger twitch on the trigger. He didn’t care one bit about finding the tranquilizer gun or preserving me for Strand. He just wanted to live through this.
So did I.
His finger squeezed tighter as he moved the gun incrementally to the right, trying to line up the perfect shot right between my eyes. The vehicle jerked again as the driver turned back to look, and the blond man’s arm dipped. In a flash, I threw myself forward. A gunshot rang out like a thunderclap in the small space, and a piercing pain tore through my side a half second before my massive body slammed into his.
The man grunted as we hit the blood-slicked floor of the ambulance and struggled frantically to slide out from under me. He freed his arm, raising the gun again, but I batted it away with a large paw. Another shot rang out, followed by a pained grunt, but I hardly registered it as my jaws closed around his throat. I felt his neck snap between my teeth, and his body stiffened and jerked before going limp.
As I crouched over his prone form, I realized his dark shirt was soaked with both his blood… and mine. The first shot he’d fired had hit me in the side, and blood pulsed from the wound, making me dizzy. I let out a plaintive whine, shaking my head against the pain and the sedatives still trying to overtake my system.
I couldn’t rest. I couldn’t stop. There was still one more. The driver—
The ambulance shuddered suddenly, rocking back and forth. I staggered away from the blond man, looking toward the front as I regained my footing.
The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, blood trickling from a bullet hole in the back of his head.
Oh fuck.
Oh no.
The man had dark skin and considerable bulk, and the weight of his body on the wheel was the only thing keeping it from turning of its own accord.
I glanced out the window quickly, fear closing my throat. We were on a stretch of highway that was straight and narrow, a two lane road bordered by wide ditches and thick woods on either side. But without someone controlling the large vehicle, it was only a matter of seconds before we drifted into one of the ravines on the side of the road.
A loud groan filled my ears as the ambulance listed to the right, hitting the rumble strips on the side of the road before shifting away again. My heart rose in my throat, and I loped toward the front seats, the wound in my side making my gait uneven.
Shit!
There was nothing I could do in this form except watch the landscape outside zoom toward me, the yellow and white stripes on the gray-black road racing by in a steady stream. I couldn’t get out of here, and I couldn’t stop the runaway ambulance.
I watched, helpless, as death bore down on me.
Chapter Three
All those hours I’d spent searching inside myself for the wolf I wasn’t sure existed hadn’t prepared me for how overwhelming the shift would be—how complete. The animal had overtaken my body and mind, and even as my wolf whined plaintively, begging me to find a way out of this, she refused to cede control.
Please. You’ve done enough. You need to let me take over. Please!
I strained to force my wolf down, pushing for the shift with all my might as the wheels rolled over the rumble strips again, and the vehicle trembled and rocked. My paws slipped on the puddles of blood spreading slowly across the grungy metal floor.
A sudden realization penetrated my swirling mind as I stared in dread out the front windshield: I would never see Noah, Rhys, Jackson, or West again. Never see the four shifters who had stormed into my life in a hail of gunfire and saved me from a life I hadn’t even known I needed rescuing fro
m. The ones who had shown me what it meant to truly be alive, who’d taught me the meaning of family in a way that woman Strand had paid to masquerade as my mother never could.
The thought pierced my heart, hurting almost worse than the bullet that had pierced my side.
No!
That couldn’t happen. I had to get back to them.
I needed to see Rhys’s beautiful, tortured blue eyes. Hear Jackson’s laugh. Feel Noah’s arms wrapped around me, sheltering me from everything awful in the world. I needed to taste West’s lips on mine again.
My wolf let out a deep-throated howl, as if she missed them just as much as I did. As though her call could bring them back to us, somehow reuniting our little pack.
The ambulance veered across the yellow line, drifting toward the other side of the road as it rocked unsteadily. Icy fear flooded my veins.
Please, I begged her, my snout wrinkling in a snarl as I fought with everything I had in me. Please, let go!
And finally, she did.
I doubled over as the shift wracked my body once again, sweeping through me like a seismic quake. My agonized howl morphed into a ragged scream as my limbs reformed in a human shape, and I fell to my hands and knees, one hand reaching up to clutch at the bleeding hole in my side. A small piece of metal protruded from it, and with a groan, I pulled it out. The shift had forced the bullet from the wound.
The scent of blood wasn’t as strong in this form, but the smell of it made my stomach revolt anyway. Retching and gagging, I forced myself to crawl through the sticky red pools toward the front seat. Hazy gray light edged my vision, and my limbs shook so much they could barely support my weight, but I clenched my jaw, my focus narrowing to a single objective.
Reach the driver.
Using the beat-up leather seat, I hauled myself up to stand, and when I looked out the windshield, my heart stopped.
I was out of time.
The ambulance barreled toward a curve in the road like a runaway train, and a shot of adrenaline forced my exhausted body into action. I yanked the driver’s upper body off the wheel, shoving him to the side.
But he was too fucking big, and I was too fucking small. I couldn’t get his weight to shift off the gas pedal.
“Damn it!”
Giving up on moving him, I jerked the wheel with one hand, trying to follow the curve of the road. But I overcorrected. I’d never driven any car before, let alone one this massive.
The wheel turned too fast, and the front tires veered sharply to the right. The back of the ambulance swung around in a wide arc, spinning me in a dizzying circle as the large vehicle tipped onto its side.
We hit the shallow ditch and rolled.
Time seemed to bend and stretch as the ambulance tumbled over the uneven ground. Metal grated and screeched. The steering wheel was ripped from my hand as my body hurtled toward the ceiling then back to the floor. All the breath was forced from my body by the impact, and something snapped in my arm, sending sharp pain tearing through me.
I didn’t know where I was, what was happening. It was like being at the epicenter of an explosion—nothing but sound and light and horrible, crushing force.
Then, with a sudden, sharp jolt, everything stopped.
Around me, the world went still and silent, and I wondered for a moment if I was already dead.
Then my lungs dragged in a painful gulp of air, as though I were a diver resurfacing after too much time underwater. Pain blazed through my body, coming from too many sources to pinpoint any of them.
My nostrils burned from the pungent scent of gasoline. The medical cabinet had spilled its contents everywhere, and the clipboard from behind the driver’s seat lay near my face. Everywhere I looked, I saw red. The ambulance was upside down, and the lifeless bodies of the people I’d killed had been tossed around like broken dolls, painting the interior in sweeping slashes of blood.
I retched again, my body too weak to even heave properly.
I should’ve stayed a wolf. She was stronger than me. Maybe she could’ve lived through this.
My eyelids fluttered, my gaze sliding out of focus. But as it did, two words on the stained paper in front of me caught my attention.
Sariah Walker.
Choking back my pain and nausea, I pressed up onto the elbow of the arm that wasn’t broken, peering down at the wavering writing on the spreadsheet.
It was a roster. A list of Strand test subjects.
And there was her name, written in black and white and smeared with red, alongside the words Patient #298. Salt Lake City, Utah.
My lips quivered, emotion overwhelming me. She was still alive. She must be.
I had to get out of here—I had to tell Rhys.
Never mind that I was naked and nearly broken. Never mind that I had no idea where Rhys was, or how to get to him even if I did know. I’d watched him move heaven and earth to try to reach his sister, and if she was still alive, I would do everything I could to help him get her out.
But first, I had to live.
Dragging myself on my good arm, I pulled my battered body over the slick surface of the vehicle’s ceiling, making my way toward the broken window by the passenger door. The hood had popped open, hanging down over the windshield, and somewhere in the engine a fire had started. I had a sudden flashback of Jackson flicking a lighter open and torching the van we’d driven to Vegas in. The memory urged me to move faster despite the pain that nearly blinded me. I knew all too well how quickly the entire ambulance could go up if the gas fumes ignited.
A fallen tree branch had pierced the passenger side window, shattering the glass. I forced my body through the tight space that remained, trying to lift myself enough to avoid the shards that stuck out from the side of the frame. But they dragged against my skin anyway, drawing new cuts on my ravaged skin.
Finally, I hauled myself free of the ambulance. One arm hung limply by my side, swollen and bruised, and the wound in my side kept me from standing up straight. But I clambered to my feet, stumbling away from the smoking, blazing vehicle. It was painted black, not the usual red and white of an ambulance. The scents of blood and gasoline mingled in my nostrils, so strong I felt like they were seeping into my skin.
I couldn’t stay near the wreck. I couldn’t allow Strand to find me again, to take me back to Austin or who-knew-where. If I could get into the forest, maybe I could shift again—allow myself to rest and heal in wolf form. A cold spring breeze gusted through the trees, chilling my damp skin, and I wrapped my good arm around myself, wishing for the thick pelt of my wolf.
Just as I reached the tree line, a familiar whooshing sound came from behind me—and even at this distance, I felt the heat that blasted outward as the makeshift ambulance ignited, crackling flames sweeping over it. A wave of sorrow nearly bowled me over, and I leaned against the trunk of a tree to stay upright.
Mom…
But she wasn’t my mom anymore. She never had been. And the truth was, she’d been dead long before the ambulance caught fire. Before it crashed. But the finality of it, the destruction of even her corpse, made me mourn for something that was never real.
Keeping my good hand pressed to the wound at my side, I forced myself to turn away and move deeper into the woods. Rocks and twigs dug into my feet, but I hardly noticed that slight pain.
One foot in front of the other.
Just put one foot in front of the other.
But the mantra wasn’t enough to counteract everything my body had been through. My feet dragged more and more, shuffling over the rough ground until finally, my knees buckled. I landed in a heap, dirt and leaves sticking to my blood-slicked skin. I kept my hand pressed tight to the wound in my side, though the bleeding had slowed.
My wolf had crawled back down deep inside me, as traumatized as I was. I willed the shift to come again, prayed for it, begged for it—but she refused to return.
Lying on my side, I curled up into a tight ball, shivering and shaking. A fuzzy gray light filled the edge
s of my vision, and my head hurt too much to keep my eyelids open. So I let them drift shut, allowing the quiet sounds of the forest and my shallow breathing to fill my senses.
I wouldn’t die out here. I wouldn’t.
I would just rest.
For a little while.
Chapter Four
I clung to the trunk of a tree with my good arm, staring back toward the road. Flames licked across the overturned vehicle, melting the tires that still spun in lazy circles.
There wasn’t time. I had to run. I had to disappear into the woods.
But my body refused to move, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the inferno before me. Then a sharp cry came from inside the ambulance, and my heart seized in my chest.
Someone was alive in there.
I hadn’t killed everyone. Someone was still alive, trapped inside, burning to death.
The cry came again, louder this time and distinctly feminine.
“Sariah,” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure how I knew it was her trapped inside the wreck, but I did, without a doubt. I was sure of it.
Without even thinking, I started to stagger back toward the blaze, but before I got halfway there, my foot landed on something cold and metallic. With a loud snap, the sharp teeth of a bear trap sprang up, impaling my calf. I pitched forward, catching myself on my broken arm and screaming in agony as the bones cracked.
Moaning and gasping, I rolled onto my back, staring up toward the dark sky to find a pair of cool green eyes gazing down at me.
“That’s how you take down a wild animal.”
Nils grinned cruelly, dusting off his hands in satisfaction. He crouched over me, pulling a wicked looking carving knife from a sheath at his side. It gleamed in the light of the fire that consumed the ambulance.
Inside it, Sariah’s screams had died. She had died. I’d failed her.
“Scruuuuubs!”
Noah’s voice reached my ears, a faint call from a great distance.
I shook my head, staring up at the leering blond giant in horror.