by Selina Woods
Skyler picked up a rifle from the truck bed. “Show me how to use this, Ragnor.”
I glanced at Jonas, who offered me a quick nod of approval, then took it from her. “First, you remove the safety catch,” I explained, showing her how to flick it on and off. “If the safety is on, the gun won’t shoot.”
I demonstrated by turning it on, then pulled the trigger, only to have nothing at all happen. Skyler nodded. “Got it.”
I showed her how to load the magazines, aim while sighting down the barrel, and shoot. Naturally, I didn’t fire any rounds, as that would disrupt our search and have my rebels come running to see what was wrong.
I handed her an extra magazine. “Keep that in your pocket in case you run out of ammo. And remember to brace yourself, as these things have a kick worse than a mule and you are a little bitty thing.”
Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, Skyler shoved the magazine into her hip pocket, and I fought not to laugh at the sight. By the snorting noises from behind me, I suspected Jonas, too, tried unsuccessfully to hide his humor. With it on her shoulder, the rifle appeared bigger than she was.
She scowled at the pair of us. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, baby,” I replied, choking back my amusement.
Calling us a vile name, she climbed nimbly up to the top of the cab and sat down, cross-legged with the rifle across her lap. “Where did she learn such language?” I asked the air in general.
“From you,” Jonas replied dryly.
The hours crawled by as my small rebel army advanced across the city with no sign that Kanata had been near here. The sun would set in about four hours, when I would need to disband my people to rest and recover. I couldn’t run them twenty-four hours a day and certainly needed to let my body rest if I was to be any good for anyone.
Gunfire erupted from behind a structure up ahead and to my left, forcing Jericho to duck behind a pile of rubble and his guards to return fire. While it sounded like only one rifle, I struck the top of the cab, yelling, “Go, Barney.”
He speeded up and rocked Skyler backward. I caught her before she rolled off into the bed with the heavy rifle in her arms. Other shifters and wolves ran toward the source of the gunshots, creeping around rusted out cars with their guns aimed. Hitting the brakes sharply, Barney put the truck in park and leaped out.
“I don’t see nothing,” yelled a human who searched the region the shots had come from.
“Where is he?” shouted another.
Still in the back of the truck and with the elevated view, I gazed around and saw nothing at all. “That doesn’t make sense,” I began.
I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Turning my head quickly, I found an enforcer cocking his arm back to throw something from the street we had just passed. Expecting a grenade, I yelled, “Incoming!” and threw myself to the bed of the truck with Skyler under me. Jonas, too, had dropped to his belly beside us, his eyes wide.
Rather than the detonation I thought was coming, I heard a solid whoomp sound and then a metallic hissing. More followed in rapid succession, and I peeked over the edge of the truck. Smoke, or what I thought was smoke, poured through the street and drifted toward the tightly grouped rebels still searching for the gunman.
“It’s tear gas!” someone yelled as the smoke hit them.
The cloud enveloped the truck. Instantly, my eyes burned with fire, flooding in self-defense, my throat and lungs feeling as though they had been ripped with red hot prongs. Coughing, choking, I stumbled, blinded and gasping for breath, out of the truck. Reaching back in, I found Skyler in the same condition, unable to see or breathe, and pulled her and her rifle out. Dimly, I heard Jonas hacking, felt rather than saw him slide out of the bed.
I pushed Skyler down to the pavement. “Get—below it.”
From all sides came gunshots. I heard yells and shouts, both of pain and fury that we had been caught so easily. Bullets peppered the truck, ricocheting off the asphalt with sharp whines, but I suspected the gas hid us from their sights even as it made us helpless targets. My rage rose, and I shifted forms, charging, stumbling, running to the knot of coughing, choking rebels.
“Get inside the building,” I roared. “Shut the doors and windows.”
Inside the swirling mist, I peered through watering eyes and coughed my lungs out but herded my people into safety. I knew that other shifters and humans would hear the gunfire and come running, and hoped they found the enforcers who threw the gas canisters.
Rapid firing came from outside the mist, informing me my troops had engaged Kanata’s. Lunging out of the cloud, finally free of it, I blinked through the burning pain and my tears to see some of my troops also trying to escape the gas. And the enforcers taking aim at them. Swiping my paw across my eyes helped me to see a little better, but I was made nearly helpless by the incessant coughing by my outraged lungs.
Gunfire from my rear forced me to turn, expecting that I was being shot at.
It was Skyler.
Her rifle to her shoulder, she fired round after round at the enforcers who had their backs turned to her in order to shoot down my defenseless people. I heard grunts and a few screams of pain as the enforcers fell upon the piles of rubble they had hidden behind. For just having learned to shoot a semi-automatic rifle, her aim was terrific.
Joined by the troops from streets to either side, Skyler advanced in a wide sweep, and together they gunned down any enforcer who sought to fight back or still shoot at the rebels in the dispersing mist. The light humid breeze blew the rest of the gas away, leaving traces of its odor behind and rebels who fought to breathe, to see through pain-wracked eyes.
“I couldn’t stop her.”
Jonas stumbled, tripping, to land in a heap near my paws, his eyes swollen and red, tears streaming down his cheeks. “She—she got up,” he gasped, coughing, “and—and yelled for the others—down the streets.”
“She led them into battle,” I continued for him, seeing Skyler direct the healthy troops to assist those struck hard by the gas. At her command, shifters and humans set up a guard perimeter as water bottles were passed from hand to hand to wash eyes, faces, gulp down to soothe throats. I grinned despite my agony. “She’s amazing.”
Jonas choked on his laughter, spitting onto the pavement. “Her first shot knocked her on her ass,” he gasped. “Then she—then she figured out how to brace herself.”
Nigel and Gibson, approached, the lightning bolt tattoos stark on their reddened cheeks. “You were the target, Ragnor.” Nigel collapsed next to Jonas while Gibson bent over with his hands on his knees, hacking and spitting. “There was a group of enforcers sneaking up behind you, but Skyler’s fast action scared them away. She shot one, and the rest bolted while the other enforcers were to kill as many as possible before running.”
“Sorry, Ragnor,” Gibson told me, his head still hanging. “We were no good at protecting you.”
“I’m going to guess that our spy is at work again,” I replied, drawing a deep, cleansing breath for the first time. “Pointed out exactly where I’d be in the column.”
“That’s our presumption, too,” Nigel answered.
I gazed around at the collection of rebels getting to their feet with the help of their companions, others still standing guard while wolves and their minders trotted in from the flanks. Within minutes, the entirety of my army had gathered, vehicles driving in to park with even more jumping out.
“We have got to find out who this spy is,” I grumbled, shaking my mane and standing. “He’s proving to be quite the nuisance.”
Barney, his rifle in hand, ran up to us, his expression tense, concerned. “Is everyone all right?”
“Minor injuries,” I replied, glancing at him, observing he did not have the reddened and swollen eyes as the rest of us did. “Where’d you go?”
He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. “Tried to outflank the shooter,” he said, “I went around the building. One of the enforcers pinned me down with g
unfire until Skyler chased them off.”
As though hearing her name, Skyler ambled toward us, her rifle cradled in her arms, her golden brown hair blowing lightly in the breeze. I grinned, with appreciation, not humor, as she looked beautiful and dangerous and sexy as hell. “This isn’t naptime, boys,” she declared, gazing at Jonas, Nigel, and Gibson, who still sat on the pavement.
“Just how did you escape the gas?’ Nigel asked, peering at her only slightly reddened face.
She jerked her chin toward me. “Ragnor pushed me down beneath it,” she replied with a grin. “It thinned out enough that when I got up, it wasn’t more than a small problem.”
“You saved many an ass today, baby,” I told her. “Mine included.”
Skyler glanced over her shoulder. “Those that got hit really bad are not fit for fighting.” Her eyes scanned me, Nigel, Jonas, and Gibson. “Nor are you fellas.”
“She’s right,” Jonas agreed, groaning his way to his feet with Barney’s helping hand under his arm. “I feel sick.”
I did as well; my belly churned with nausea, and my head ached, but I didn’t say so. “We’ll disperse for today,” I said, shifting into my human self. “Have everyone get food and rest, most of all, stay hidden from view, and we’ll start again tomorrow.”
Skyler nodded, and, obviously enjoying her new role as a fighter and leader, headed back to the crowd. I watched her delicious ass for a while, then sighed. “She’s not the self-conscious and timid girl she used to be.”
Jonas shook his head. “Nope. She’s a real lion now.”
Nigel put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, I have a few ideas on how to find the spy,” he said, gazing around at us all. “After they disperse, maybe we can meet up near my place. There’s a bar next door, and the owners fled to stay with relatives until this is all over.”
“I’m for it,” I replied. “Think the food inside is still good?”
“Yeah. It’s called the Broken Antler, and it’s on the corner of Fifth and Main, not far from here. Easy to find.”
I met Jonas’s and Barney’s eyes, who both nodded agreement. “We taking my truck?” Barney asked.
“You two can,” I answered, still watching Skyler and my rebels, who dispersed like the tear gas of less than twenty minutes ago. “I want to make sure my people are safe and gone into hiding. We meet there in an hour?”
“I’m coming with you,” Jonas told me.
“I need to get gas in my truck, so I’ll catch up,” Barney added, then trotted back to his abandoned vehicle.
With Jonas, Nigel, and Gibson with me, I walked toward Skyler as she assisted a human who still seemed blinded by the gas. She spoke softly to him, and then a big wolf shifter took him by the arm. “I’ll look after him,” the wolf rumbled. “I know a place close by where he can recover.”
“Thank you.”
Skyler watched as the two walked down the street to vanish behind a pile of rubble and an overturned bus, then turned to me. “What now?”
“Hopefully food, rest, and a plan to find our little rat.”
With my soldiers melting into the buildings and alleys like smoke, within minutes we five were the only ones left. “We’re too exposed out here,” I said, heading down the nearest dark alley. “Nigel, lead the way.”
Keeping bulletproof cover between us and any unseen enforcers, we slipped through the narrow lanes between former skyscrapers, ducking behind rubble, watching and listening for any hint of danger. The streets outside remained vacant and silent, yet we occasionally heard the noise of engines as Kanata’s people roamed the city.
The Broken Antler stood on the corner, a tidy-looking place that appeared prosperous despite the bad times. On the way, Nigel told us it was operated by deer shifters and the owner left to help the rebellion with food supplies after sending his family to safety.
But when I went to cross the street toward it, Nigel’s hand on my arm stopped me. “Don’t,” he said, his tone low.
“What’s up?”
“I think we should stay in hiding for a bit,” he said. “Watch the place. Just in case.”
“In case of what?” Skyler asked, clearly confused. “It’s time for the meeting, and I’m hungry.”
Rather than answer, Nigel gazed into my eyes. “Just for a little while.”
Something in his expression brought me to agreeing before my mouth could protest. “All right. Let’s get back into this alley.”
The alley running between two structures gave excellent cover as a pair of wrecked cars and rubble blocked us from view from everywhere except right above us. We crouched behind the obstructions, peering at the empty bar while my belly rumbled with hunger. Time passed slowly until well past the hour we had set to get there, and I grew restless, impatient.
Nigel held up a warning hand. “Just a little while longer, please.”
Another ten minutes crawled by. I opened my mouth to announce we were going in when a big passenger van crept slowly up the street from our right. It passed us by, but there was no doubt it held no fewer than twenty gangsters in it. It rolled to a halt not far from the bar, and its doors slid open.
Enforcers poured from it, rags stuffed into the necks of bottles. But unlike brazen attack on the concert hall the previous night, they silently surrounded the bar after blocking the doors with rubble. “Shit,” I growled under my breath. “If we were in there—”
“We’d not be coming out,” Nigel finished for me, his face tight and grim.
Almost as one, the enforcers threw their flaming bottles through the windows and between the bars, shattering glass, then ran to the van and leaped in. Flames ripped through the late afternoon as the van roared away, tires squealing. Black smoke boiled up into the hot, humid air as something inside the bar exploded. Fire burst from the windows, blackening the siding, burning through the roof until it caved it.
Even from where I crouched behind the rubble, the searing heat scorched my face, crisping my skin. My stomach ached with the terrible knowledge Nigel forced me to see. Jonas, cursing, sank to the ground to sit with his back to the broken cement pile and covered his face with his hands.
“No,” Skyler whispered, her pale, delicate features drawn in horror. “It’s Barney, isn’t it? He’s the traitor.”
Chapter Eleven
“I didn’t want to make accusations until I had proof.”
Nigel sat opposite me in a booth in a temporarily abandoned restaurant while Jonas, beside me, rested his face in his folded arms. Skyler cooked for us in the kitchen as Gibson stood watch by a window. I had once been hungry, and the smells wafting from the kitchen should have helped regain my appetite but didn’t.
“I reckon we have it now,” I answered, my tone glum. “I never would have suspected Barney.”
“That made him the perfect mole,” Nigel answered, drinking the beer we found in the refrigerator in the kitchen.
I gulped my own, the liquid soothing my sore throat. “How did you know?”
“Suspected,” Nigel reminded me. “A few little things he did or said, and it wasn’t until he escaped the gas by trying to outflank the shooter that it clicked.”
“How so?” I asked, eyeing Jonas sidelong, who hadn’t moved or drunk his beer.
“There was no fighting or gunfire from where he said he was pinned down. My proof also came when he didn’t show up at the bar.”
“Shit fire and save matches,” I groaned, scrubbing my face with my hands. “What the fuck do we do now?”
“We kill him.”
Jonas spoke for the first time, lifting his face from his arms, his expression a mixture hurt, bleakness, anger, and grief. “We have no choice. He’s my best friend, and he must have been spying for Kanata since before you came along, Ragnor.”
“You sure?”
He grimaced. “He couldn’t have suddenly switched sides, and until he beat up that enforcer, he had always gotten along well with Kanata.”
“Do you think that could be when he turned?�
� I asked. “To save himself and his family after beating that guy up?”
“No.” Jonas sighed. “By then, he had the protection of all of us, an entire army. That’s why I believe he’s been a traitor all along. In the past year, small things would go wrong with our plans, but nothing made me think of a snitch. Just bad luck.”
I gazed at him with sympathy. “You can’t be involved in taking him down, Jonas.”
He glared at me. “I have every right to help take him down,” he growled. “He betrayed me, our friendship, my absolute trust in him. I will kill him myself.”
I caught Nigel’s eye, who then gave a quick shake of his head. “Jonas is right, Ragnor. He should be there when we execute him.”
“I will have a hand in his execution. You can’t stop me.”
Emerging from the kitchen with a huge tray, Skyler set plates of grilled steaks and fries in front of us, then called to Gibson. “Come and eat while it’s hot.”
Gibson pulled a table close to the booth where we sat and collected two chairs for himself and Skyler. I dug into the food as my appetite returned, relishing not just Skyler’s cooking, but the needed protein in the steak. I ate ravenously, then noticed Jonas wasn’t eating. I nudged him with my elbow. “Come on, dude. Eat.”
He pushed his steak toward me. “I’m not hungry.”
Knowing that arguing with him was futile, I devoured his steak after my own, then chowed down on the fries. “We should stay the night here,” Skyler suggested, dining with better manners than I did. “There are cots in the back, and we’re safe.”
“I agree,” Nigel said, taking a long drink from his beer. “Kanata and Barney may think we’re dead, that you’re dead, Ragnor. So how can we use that to our advantage?”
“Set a trap?” I ventured, my mouth full. “Make it seem as though our forces are leaderless and demoralized?”
“That may bring him from hiding,” Gibson agreed, “if he sees no one actively hunting him anymore. But bringing him into the open where we can kill him won’t be easy.”
“We need bait.”