The thrill that rushes through me as he leans in makes me shiver. It’s been so damn long. His gaze falls to my lips before he tilts his head and kisses me. It’s a soft whisper of a touch that hardens quickly as he opens my mouth with his, brushing his tongue along the seam. My mouth tingles and my heart starts to race. He’s holding my left hand against my chest so I know he can feel the effect he’s having. His other hand stays low on my back, but doesn’t quite dip to my ass.
I stroke the hair at the nape of his neck with my right hand as I kiss him back. It all feels so good, so right. I want more, I need more. It doesn’t even matter that I’m freaking out inside my head a little that this is Justin. The guy I’ve worked with for the past five years who knows pretty much everything there is to know about me. I can tell this is going to go down in flames, but I want it too badly to care.
I break the kiss, breathless and keyed-up. “Take me home, Justin.”
“Are you sure?” he sounds just as breathless.
“Didn’t your mother ever tell you about gift horses?” I ask, holding back a sigh. We aren’t going to fall into bed together after all. He’s too hesitant, and that makes me hesitate too. This thing between us is doomed.
“I want this, Misty, I do,” he says, a frown creasing his forehead. “But I don’t want it to be something we do and forget about after. I can’t do this if you don’t want more.”
I sigh, breaking out of his grasp. Same story, different guy. Why do they always want more? I mean, I’m clearly an asshole who can’t commit. What’s so damn attractive about that?
“Why do you like me, Justin?”
He looks shocked by the question, and he doesn’t answer straight away.
“I know it’s more than what I look like, but I don’t get what it is that makes guys so damn crazy over me. If I want to get laid I have to go out to bars and find complete strangers who want nothing more than a quick lay. It’s never amazing, but it scratches the itch. That’s all I want, Justin. I’m so fucking horny and I haven’t had a cock inside me in five fucking years!”
I storm off, and he chases after me, calling out my name. I ignore it. I’m in the mood to lock him out of the motel room. Then he shouts loudly and I wonder what the fuck he’s doing. I stop, turning to glare at him. The fear in his gaze stops me.
“Walk toward me, quickly,” he hisses, motioning to me.
I hear the rumble of the gator behind me and move. Justin pulls me behind him. We watch the lethal predator as it snaps its jaws. Fuck. They move so fast. We don’t stand a chance if it decides it wants us for dinner. Justin pushes me back, murmuring, “Run, Misty.”
I stare at him, as he leans down slowly to pick up a tree branch. He’s going to provoke it. I know it and I can’t stop him. I tug on his arm.
“Run with me, idiot.”
He gives out a low laugh. “Run, now.”
I back away, cursing under my breath. My muddled mind tries to come up with something I can do to help. Damn it. Why did I get so drunk? I can’t let Justin become gator food just because he’s trying to save me from the same fate.
I rush back into the restaurant, yelling gator, and grab a fire extinguisher off the wall. Waiters try to stop me from going back out there. I shove them out of the way as if I’m a gladiator. Nothing’s going to stop me from doing everything in my power to save Justin.
I run back outside, freezing when I see Justin lying prone on the ground. The gator has his arm in his mouth. He’s out cold. I can’t believe this is happening. It can’t happen. I rush toward them and whack the gator over the head with the extinguisher. There’s an almighty crack and he lets go of Justin. I breathe out a sob, hitting him again before I can lose my nerve. He stares at me as he retreats into the river.
I burst into tears, dropping the extinguisher and falling to my knees beside Justin. I should call an ambulance, but I don’t. I call Ty, and I ask him to bring Sam.
I just pray to god that Justin is still alive when they get here.
Twenty-Three
Sam
Dad just fell asleep when some idiot starts banging on the door. I rush down the stairs and open it, glowering harder when I see who it is. Tyler. The guy who took my place as Misty’s best friend in college. The guy who actually managed to get her to agree to a date. What an asshole.
“The fuck do you want?”
“Misty needs us. Now.” He takes off, heading to his car which is parked haphazardly on the street.
I curse under my breath as I follow, locking the door behind me. His car takes off and I rush to mine to keep up, getting moving as quickly as possible. The way he rushed off after telling me to follow makes my anger rise. I know there’s a reason he didn’t tell me what was going on, but mostly I’m pissed because I don’t know what’s going on and I’m going to have to wait to find out.
Must be serious, I realize as I drive into the night, catching up to Ty’s shitty car almost instantly. My stomach begins to churn. If anything happens to Misty, I’ll nail whoever hurt her to the wall and torture the fucker until he eventually dies. Then I’ll probably torture him some more.
“Fuck off with this shit,” I curse as Ty lets a red light stop him.
If I knew where we were going I’d overtake the guy. All I can do is mash my horn and swear under my breath. He moves when the light turns amber and I still want to fucking overtake him, but thankfully he slows and indicates that he’s going to park so I know we’re almost there.
He pulls in to the side of the road near the Italian restaurant. There are gawkers hanging out of the door there, and Misty is sitting on the sidewalk, next to that guy she said was her boyfriend. He looks like he’s had his ass handed to him by something bigger and uglier.
Shit. I can see blood on the sidewalk.
I park badly and rush across to her side. When she looks up I can see she’s crying.
“Sam,” she whispers, wiping at her cheek. “I think it’s too late.”
Ty is already checking on the guy. “He’s alive, barely.”
“Can you do it?” Misty asks, her gaze on Ty.
He looks at me. “It’s a two man job, really.”
What the fuck is he talking about? I frown at him as Misty tugs on my shirt.
“Sam, please. You have to help save him.”
Save him? Oh shit. She means for us to induct him? I stare at her. This guy means that much to her?
“It’s not a guarantee he’ll survive,” I tell her, keeping my voice low.
“It’s too late for anything else,” Ty puts in, his expression grim.
“He tried to distract a gator to let me escape,” she tells me, her eyes pleading. “If there’s a chance, we have to try.”
I don’t waste time telling her how shady this is all going to look if he doesn’t survive the turn, and I don’t think about what this means for me. I just lift him and carry him to my car. Ty opens the back door and we put him inside.
“We need to get to the swamp,” I tell Ty, motioning to him to get moving.
Misty hugs me briefly before she gets in my car. She sobs a little, still clearly upset.
I hold her tight for those few seconds, knowing I’d do anything she ever asked of me. This is a walk in the park compared to half of what I’d do for her. So what if she’s in love with some other guy? So what if that guy is the one I’m supposed to induct into the shifter world so she doesn’t have to lose him? I shut everything else out as I get behind the wheel of my charger.
“Belt up. This might get bumpy.”
She does so, wipes at her eyes and sniffles a little. I want to offer some kind of comfort, but I don’t know how so I settle for getting us to the swamp as quickly as possible.
Twenty-Four
Misty
The swamp is where the gators go for all of their rituals. Inducting a human is one of those rituals, and I only know about it because Sam answered every single last one of my questions whenever I asked them. I try not to think of how badly this
could go wrong. There are too many possible outcomes, and only one of them is acceptable.
I should have known I was risking Justin’s life dragging him into a murder investigation. This is all on me. Oh God, Justin. Please don’t die.
“He’s a good guy,” Sam says suddenly, as we’re turning down the bumpy track to the swamp. “Kind of crazy, I mean, but he risked himself to save you. Can’t fault that.”
I burst into a fresh round of tears. “I know he’s a good guy, you asshole.”
“I just feel like we got off on the wrong foot before.”
I shake my head as he pulls in to the hollow that’s used as a parking lot. Ty pulls in a few seconds later in his beat up old convertible. “Can we just get this done, please?”
He leaves the keys in the ignition and looks at me. “The first part of this we stay human for. The second, we shift. You need to drive away. Go back to your motel, get some sleep. It’s going to take all night, maybe some of the day tomorrow too.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I’d imagined I’d be able to watch. To make sure Justin is really okay. Shit. I start to tremble at the thought of leaving. “Promise you’ll take care of him.”
“We will.” He reaches out and hugs my head, kissing my temple. “I promise, Flash.”
He leaves the car and Ty helps him lift Justin out the back. I move to the driver’s seat without getting out, knowing my legs are too shaky right now to walk on. I sit there and watch them walk off into the darkness, feeling hollowed out inside.
I lock the doors and start the engine only after they’re gone from sight. Sam never lets anyone drive his car. He worked so damn hard restoring this thing. He gave me the keys without a second thought, and he’s going to have to ride back with Ty, a guy he can’t stand. All to help me. Not to mention Ty came running, bringing Sam the instant I called him, no questions asked.
What did I do to deserve such amazing friends? I’ve barely been back in town for two seconds and they’ve got my back already. I cry so much on the way back to the motel that I have to stop a couple times to sob on the side of the road.
I know one thing for certain. Neither of those men have anything to do with the murders. I’ll prove that beyond a shadow of doubt even if it kills me.
Twenty-Five
Tyler
It’s going to be a long night. We manage to start before Justin takes his last breath. He comes back a second after the life drains from him. I turn my gaze to Sam who blows out a sigh, shaking his head as he raises his gaze to mine. That’s when it fully dawns on me what we’re doing here. We’re not just bringing Misty’s friend back from verge of death. We’re bonding our own gator sides together alongside his. We’re becoming a congregation. A family.
There’s something solidly comforting about that, when it should be disconcerting.
“Okay, now what?” Sam asks.
“Now, we shift.” The thought of finally allowing it to happen eases the tension in my whole body. This is a safe place to shift. I should have come here weeks ago.
“Do we wait for him?” He asks, as he takes off his shirt.
Justin shakes a little, still not conscious. His body is beginning to go through its first shift. It’ll take a while, and our gators will ignore it until he becomes one of us. They’ll decide if our bond makes it, or breaks. That’s the peril of inducting a stranger. This ritual wasn’t made for this situation. It’s not ideal.
“No,” I say, shedding my clothes as quickly as he sheds his. “He’ll take a while. He’s safe here now that he’s on the road to becoming one of us.”
Sam nods, and it’s clear he’s thinking about something that’s bothering him. I don’t stop to ask what that something is. I relax into my shift, feeling my muscles tighten and my bones crack. It’s an odd kind of bliss that washes over me as I prepare to fall into the abyss of my change.
“Hey, Tyler. Your dick is bigger than I thought it would be,” Sam tells me, making me snort.
He grins before he falls to the ground and morphs into a gator in a blur of motion. I feel it happen to me a second later. Then my vision changes. I get ready to black out.
Doesn’t happen. Holy fucking shit. This is what it’s like to be a gator? I can see Sam flicking his tail as he moves toward the swamp. I can see Justin’s prone body blurring and shaking. He’s going to change pretty quickly, and his clothes are going to be ripped to shreds in the process.
I guess we’ll be bringing him back to town naked. Probably should have thought of that. Too late now.
He shifts suddenly, his clothes torn from his body as he becomes fully reptilian. He looks around before following Sam into the swamp. I guess we’re all going for a swim then.
The rumbling noise within my chest feels strange, but good as I follow them in. This is so damn weird. I snap my jaws open and closed just to know what it feels like. My whole body seems to reverberate when I close my mouth sharply. I sink into the muddy water of the swamp and begin to move, seeking out prey. There’s a hunger present within me that can’t be sated by food. It can only be satisfied by the hunt. Eating is secondary. I’m seeking more than that.
I hope I remember this feeling when I shift back. It worries me that it doesn’t matter how well fed I am, or my gator is. It will always hunger for the hunt.
Twenty-Six
Misty
I can’t sleep, and I’m all cried out. I pace and lie down and pace some more and then I sit on the edge of the bed, tapping my feet off the ground as I try to settle for waiting around when I’m used to going out and demanding answers. I eventually end up back in research mode, trying to distract my thoughts from Justin’s fate. The more time that passes without hearing from Ty, the more certain I am that he made it through the change. It would have been over before now if he hadn’t made it.
I keep telling myself that as I try to work out where each of my main suspects were on the nights of the murders. Narrowing down the suspect pool seems like the best approach. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as snooping around social media pages, though that does help for some of them.
The new deputy is way up there on my list. While he has a presence on social media, it’s on the quiet side. Mercy has a couple of solid alibis. He doesn’t have any. He works day shift and he doesn’t seem to get up to much at night.
I only realize the time when I hear a phone beeping. I check mine and discover it’s just past nine am. However, it’s not my phone that’s making the noise. I get up and pick up Justin’s, which I’m surprised to find he left beside his bed.
He has a new message from James. His brother, if I’m not wrong.
So, bro, have you banged Misty yet?
I’m just raising my eyebrow at that little comment, when another comes through.
Because I’m ready to jump the next flight over there to take a shot if you haven’t.
He’s clearly ragging on his brother for not making a move. I’m used to Just describing him as a pain in the ass.
I think about texting him back, to mess with him, but I hesitate. I don’t know that Justin’s okay yet.
I put the phone down. Putting my nose back to the grindstone would be the sensible option. My stomach grumbles at that idea, so I head for the shower to make myself a bit more presentable before I go search out breakfast.
I grumble at my phone when I see there still isn’t a message from Ty. How long does it take to turn a human into a shifter anyway? Probably a while, I guess, trying to be less impatient and more realistic.
I walk out to Sam’s car and drive it to the cafe across from the police station, hoping to catch a glimpse of the new deputy.
The place is practically empty as I sit and place an order for eggs and toast with a large side of coffee. I don’t see the deputy around. I see a female in the uniform, but she’s wearing a seriously fucked-off expression so I nix the idea of walking over there to enquire about her colleague. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t buy that I have a crush on him besides, and it’s not
like I can spill my real reason for asking dumb questions about the guy. She’s human. She probably thinks the animal attacks have been caused by stupid people leaving their doors open at night.
My server looks as weary as I feel and doesn’t engage in conversation other than to take my order.
I send an email to the local TV station, asking about the chances of an interview with Mercy, explaining that I’m doing a home town series and that she’s been a big influence on my chosen career path. It feels kind of messed up to even think about work right now, but I need every distraction I can get until I know Justin’s okay.
I eat half of my breakfast before I even realize it, my gaze drifting constantly to my phone.
This is driving me crazy. I have to go back to the swamp. What’s taking so damn long?
I pay my bill and leave, driving towards the swamp, ready and willing to wait there all day if I have to.
It takes maybe fifteen minutes to drive out at a less reckless speed than Sam drove last night. Ty’s car is still there, reassuring me that something’s still happening at the swamp. I start wishing I brought a book about an hour into my wait. I wind up downloading an app on my phone and starting to read just before my battery gives up the ghost.
“Damn it,” I curse, putting it back into my purse and tapping my hands off the steering wheel.
I’m this close to getting out of the car and creeping along the path, when I see Sam’s blond head coming toward me and I release a shaky breath.
When he comes into view, looking a little more crumpled and dirty than he did last night, I hold my breath until I see Tyler walking with Justin beside him. My heart leaps as I rush out of the car.
“It worked,” I cry out, tears springing forth when I see Justin’s face.
“It did,” Ty confirms, smiling wryly as I throw my arms around Justin’s neck.
Flashing Her Gators Page 7