Was this what it was like for all those who are werewolf born?
A beastly Paul stood before us on both hind legs, his stature reaching well over eight feet, his brown, hairy chest and shoulders wider than a refrigerator. His ears were tall and pointed, buried deep in a massive mane of hair resembling a gothic lion. His stare was absolutely insane looking, and his eyes were so light they were bordering on translucent. It was like he had no pupils, just two white holes for a gaze.
I had never seen a werewolf this large nor this menacing, and I knew a methodical sociopath was lying underneath the fur, making it even more terrifying.
He spread both arms out wide and unsheathed his claws as a roar exploded from deep within his chest. Lyle wasted no time, raising his rifle at Paul and firing repeatedly. Paul flinched every time he was hit in the chest and the arms, but kept moving toward us like the bullets flying at him were mere pebbles he had to swat away.
Paul picked up speed and came running directly toward Lyle, backhanding him viciously across the face. The hit was so hard, Lyle was thrown fifty feet away from us, crash landing into a parked vehicle and then collapsing to the ground. He wasn’t dead, but he was knocked for a loop.
Suddenly, Paul was looming toward me, his white eyes electric with excitement, like I was a big meal he was ready to devour in one bite. I cowered before him, knowing my life was now dependent on whether he chose to end it. He was too big, too muscular, too fast. I didn’t stand a chance.
“Get the hell away from her!” Max shouted from the other side of Paul. Paul spun around and growled, facing Max who looked two feet tall in comparison to the massive beastly shape opposing him. Max removed his flannel jacket and let it slide to the ground by his feet, and very confidently he said, “You want a fight? Let’s make it a little more even.”
Max shot me a look that suggested I run, and then he cried out in pain as he pulled his shirt off over his head and let it collect next to his jacket on the ground.
Max was turning into a werewolf, and they were going to fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Paul actually waited for Max to complete his transformation, swaying side to side on his hind legs as his claws were ready and waiting to pierce Max’s flesh. Paul was itching for a fight, but he wanted to decimate Max while the two were on almost equal footing.
But was it even close to being equal? Max was taking his werewolf form, but he was still half the size of Paul. Paul didn’t even look like a werewolf, but more of a monster with werewolf-like features. His ears were tiny, but his chest was enormous and ripped with muscles. He looked more mutated than anything.
Max shifted into his beastly form, his hair was chocolate brown, and his eyes a light shade of blue. He was terrifying, yet oddly beautiful, and I wondered in that moment if this was the last time I was going to see him alive. I should have taken in the sight of his human form, memorized his face and the way he trembled my name, before I potentially lost it all forever.
The two stared each other down, jaws dropped, claws present, teeth pointed, throats hissing, each waiting for the other to make the first move. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was about to watch two werewolves try to kill each other.
A hand grabbed my left shoulder from behind and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was Lyle, telling me, “Run, girl.” He then aimed his gun at Paul and fired, and as soon as the bullet ripped through his flesh, Max pounced onto him, and the two tumbled to the ground, growling like rabid animals.
Lyle backed away as he reloaded his weapon while he held the bullet in between his teeth. “Go!” he yelled.
Max and Paul were viciously rolling around in the middle of the road as I ran passed them to get to Brinly. She was still tied up on the ground and I had to cut her loose before something terrible happened to her. I dropped to my knees, untied her hands and legs, and helped her get to her feet, but she had been tied up for so long, she had a hard time standing and grasped onto my shoulder to give herself balance.
“Where’s Lincoln?” she cried out.
“We’re going to get him,” I told her.
Brinly caught sight of a hanging Lincoln against a darkened sky and exclaimed, “Oh, God!”
“It’s all right, Brinly, we’ll get him.”
“Paul’s not going to stop,” she trembled. “He’s lost his mind. He’s been on steroids for months now, it’s probably why his brain is so fried.”
“Is that what he injected himself with?”
So, not only were we dealing with a werewolf born psychotic, but now he was fighting with roid rage on top of it. Things couldn’t get any worse.
Just then, we heard the sound of a vehicle starting up. It was the truck controlling the crane, and the crane seemed to be lowering Lincoln to the fire.
“Who the hell did that?” I asked.
I was wrong, things could definitely get worse.
“Lincoln!” Brinly screamed at the top of her lungs. He was being lowered very slowly, but the fire was maybe six stories beneath him and with flames that big, it wouldn’t take long before he began to experience agonizing pain. We had to stop that crane from lowering him any further.
I grabbed Brinly by both shoulders to keep her attention away from Lincoln so she could focus on my words. “I’ll go to the roof and you get in the truck and move the crane so I can cut him down, okay?”
“No, I should be the one to pull him down,” she insisted.
“You’re still trying to even work your legs. I can do this, trust me. Just get to the truck and don’t worry about me, all right?”
She nodded with tears in her eyes, and I knew she was just as terrified as I was.
I scanned the building beside Lincoln, trying to figure out the best way to get to the roof. Were there elevators inside or just a staircase, and which would get me to the top the fastest? It was going to be a long jog up those stairs, but at least I’d be able to go at my own pace, versus me riding an elevator.
Thankfully, I spotted a fire escape mounted to the side of the building that ran up all six stories, and let out a breath of relief. This would be a much faster route and I could keep an eye on everything that was going on with Paul.
Brinly and I both took off in our respective directions, with me headed for the building and her to the construction truck, and just as my feet hit the cement of the sidewalk, I heard her scream. I turned back and saw a werewolf—Corbin—positioned on the roof of the truck, blocking her from opening the door. He was growling and howling and digging his claws into the vehicle, ready to attack.
“Lyle!” I shouted. He was in the distance trying to chase after Paul and Max, who were still going at it, tumbling and clawing down the street, but he heard my voice almost instantly, and as soon as he turned his gaze in our direction he saw Corbin and bolted toward us. Within an instant, he was firing the gun, and Corbin dashed off of the truck to avoid the bullets.
“Get Lincoln!” Brinly yelled at me. I didn’t want to leave her to face Corbin alone, but the time to rescue Lincoln was wasting away quickly. “Go!” she demanded. I quickly got the hell out of there and went running to the apartment building, taking off with so much speed, I nearly tripped over my own feet.
The fire escape was a series of horizontal platforms running up alongside the building. Unfortunately, there was no step for me to get onto the first level, just a retractable ladder that was secured to the side of the railing. I pulled on it hard, yanking it until it was broken free, and it slid down to the cement in front of me as the steel scraped against more steel. Once I got that down, I climbed up it so fast, I was out of breath by the time I reached the first level of the fire escape.
The steel grating beneath my feet felt weak and shifted the entire fire escape every time I moved. It felt like the screws keeping this thing together were about to bust. I ran up the first series of stairs, reached the top of the platform, and then would have to turn right to go up another series. It was a long, exhausting labyrinth of shaky
steps.
I could hear gunfire and screaming, and I looked down to see Brinly racing to the construction truck as Lyle did his best to occupy Corbin with gunfire. It was enough of a diversion to let Brinly hop into the truck and slam the door shut behind her. She got in. She made it.
But now I was worried about Lyle. He was standing out there in the open with a gun that had to be running low on ammunition by now.
Brinly just needed to get control of the crane and move Lincoln’s body away from the fire.
Suddenly, she was screaming again, and I stopped to look back. Corbin had ditched his fight with Lyle and was coming after Brinly, charging at the vehicle, using the entire weight of his huge beastly frame. The truck swayed back and forth, ready to tip over, but Lyle fired his gun directly at Corbin and forced him to bounce away.
Suddenly, the crane stopped lowering Lincoln, but unfortunately, it was before it had been steered closer to the building for me to easily grab him. Brinly must not have known the correct controls to do it, or perhaps was afraid Corbin would harm her before she could save Lincoln, because she abruptly turned off the truck without following through with our initial plan.
I checked to make sure she was all right and saw her urgently exiting the truck. She looked straight up at me and yelled, “Run, Cora! He’s coming after you!”
Me? He was coming after me? Oh, shit.
I saw the dark fur of Corbin sprinting across the pavement, heading right toward the very fire escape that I stood on. I almost pissed my pants on sight. If he couldn’t stop Brinly, it looked like he was going to try to stop me.
Lyle and Brinly were screaming as I dashed up the steps. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but I could tell they were trying to get to me as fast as they could, or at least before Corbin did. I was so panicked, wondering how close Corbin was, that I tripped on every step going up the fire escape.
I had to keep going.
Faster, faster, faster! I told myself over and over again. Keep climbing, don’t ever stop.
I reached the top of the ladder, crawled off of it, and poured onto the rooftop, wriggling across the rocks and dirty tiling like I was a soldier under barbed wire, just to make sure I was always moving. In my mind, if I stopped for even a second, I was that much closer to getting devoured by Corbin.
I got to my feet and ran across the roof as fast as I could toward a hanging Lincoln, fifty feet away from me. I ran, ran, ran and didn’t look back, all the while wondering why Corbin hadn’t caught up to me yet. Where was he? Why was I getting closer to Lincoln with no consequence?
There was sudden breeze of cold air pushing against the back of my neck and throwing my hair forward, and I stopped when I realized a dark mass had literally leapt over my head and landed in front of me.
It was Corbin.
Lincoln was to my left, still hanging from the crane, but close enough for me to reach out and grab. But Corbin was also there, slowly creeping to me as globs of saliva and blood dripped from his white as bone teeth. I didn’t know what to do and I had nothing to fight Corbin with, not even a damn sharp stick.
I attempted to dodge to my left toward Lincoln but Corbin jolted forward and hissed, and I lost all balance and fell on my ass. I crawled like a backward crab to keep distance between us, but Corbin grew bolder, moving toward me faster and faster, his mouth expanding even wider. He was going to eat me, but he wanted to toy with me first.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang off, hitting Corbin straight in the chest, immediately followed by another. It was Lyle’s doing.
Brinly burst out of nowhere, running at Corbin, carrying a broken drainpipe in her hand, whacking it against him over and over again until his body was bending forward like a folding chair. She was a woman possessed, hitting Corbin’s chest, his arms, the back of his neck, and then eventually, she bashed the pipe against his skull. Once he was disoriented, Brinly opened her arms wide and charged at him, using her entire body to move him to the edge of the building. Once she had him right where she wanted him, she viciously shoved her boot against his abdomen and watched as he flailed and then fell off the roof.
There was one long, animal like wail as he helplessly fell from the ledge and into the fiery pits he and Paul had built for Lincoln. His large form was immediately swallowed by the orange flames, and he disintegrated like a piece of paper.
For a man who hardly spoke a word during his life, he sure did make a lot of noise in death.
Brinly dropped the pipe and did her best to catch her breath, and when her eyes turned to mine, they were completely yellow and the pupils one thin slit running vertically down the center. Brinly had tapped into a part of herself that took even her by surprise, and it was obviously enough to give her the strength she needed to kill Corbin.
The three of us worked to cut Lincoln down from the ropes and get him back on the roof, and as soon as he was free, he collapsed into Brinly’s arms and she held him close to her chest and refused to let go. There were tears of relief and joy, and plenty of kisses. We had saved Lincoln, he was alive, and none of us had to die to accomplish this.
Kat, Travis, and Corbin were all taken down and out of the way.
There was just one more to go.
One more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Brinly knelt on her knees in front of Lincoln with her forehead pressed to his and tears streaming down her cheeks. His chocolate brown eyes softened as he gazed up at her and trembled, “You’re all right… I was afraid…”
“I’m fine,” she wept. “I thought I lost you for a second.”
“Me too,” he admitted.
There was a loud roar emanating from the street below us, followed by what seemed to be a large metallic object being thrown into a vehicle. Lyle quickly yelled, “I have to get back to him! I have to!” and ran away without a response, running down the fire escape as quickly as he could.
I rushed to the ledge to see what was happening and saw that the fight had moved down the street. Paul was stalking Max, picking up an actual motorcycle like it was a beach ball and tossing it at Max, who weakly jumped out of its path. Max looked determined, but exhausted. I was too far to see if he had any wounds, but the sluggish way he crept from one side of the street to the other seemed indicant that he was badly banged up.
When he had garnered some energy, Max leapt onto Paul, opening his mouth wide to take a chunk out of him, but Paul sunk his claws into Max’s back, causing him to roar, and then threw him into the concrete walls of a nearby department store. The toss was so violent and so fast that bits and pieces of bricks exploded from the walls and collected around Max’s momentarily incapacitated body. But Max kept getting up, and kept getting thrown.
I could feel the bile rising in my throat. “He’s going to kill him,” I trembled, and then looked over my shoulder to Lincoln and Brinly. “He’s gotta get out of there. Somebody… somebody has to do something.”
I had experienced fear before, but standing in the distance watching someone I love be slowly killed was a far worse pain and fear than I had experienced before. I had just lost Melanie, I couldn’t do this again. Not so soon.
I was ready to go down there and fight Paul myself, even if it meant me dying.
Lincoln struggled to get to his feet as Brinly held onto him, and through a strained voice said, “I’ll go down there. He shouldn’t be left to do this alone.”
“You’re in no shape for that,” Brinly said, pushing him back down to the floor as gently as she could. “You’re pumped full of enough wolfsbane to put most into a coma. You go out there and you’ll die.”
“Paul is stronger than him. He won’t kill him on his own.”
“I know,” Brinly said very calmly. She closed her eyes, took an inward breath and said, “That’s why I’m going down there instead.”
“Brinly, no.” Lincoln adamantly disagreed with this, so much so that he had gained enough strength to crawl to his knees to try to stop her.
“I can’t f
ight what I am anymore, Lincoln, and I never should have to begin with, especially when they need my help.” Brinly quickly looked over at me and a smile grew from the corner of her mouth. “I can’t be afraid anymore.”
I swallowed deeply and asked, “Are you sure?”
Two gunshots from Lyle’s gun rang out in the distance.
“I’m his only match,” she explained. “After everything he’s done to me, I should be the one to kill him.”
I didn’t want her dying, but if there was a chance she could help Max in defeating Paul, I wasn’t going to fight it. She was, after all, a werewolf born just like he was. Perhaps she did have the strength needed to take him down.
Brinly slipped off her heels and jacket and made a pile of her belongings on the rooftop, inhaled deeply, shut her eyes, and when they popped open again they were a deeper, more intense shade of yellow than what I had seen just moments earlier. Her hand rose in the air as the fingers elongated and bent, very quickly turning into paws. I could see she was in anguish, but she stifled the cries as best as she could. Even though her eyes were now animalistic, there was still so much fear and pain in them. She wanted to be brave, but she was still so terrified of what would happen to her once she changed.
I was, too.
I panicked, taking a step back, unsure if I was safe beside her. She had never turned before, and despite her impressive self-control, I had no idea if that carried over to her once she was no longer in her human form. Would she know not to attack me?
As her body shifted, she climbed onto the ledge of the rooftop, threw both arms out like they were wings, somberly looked at me over her shoulder and then jumped. I screamed and ran to the edge as fast as I could, certain I would find her body in a splat on the cement. But there she was, six stories down on all fours, a magnificent raven haired werewolf, fully transformed and running toward the fight that was still taking place on the street.
Brinly did it.
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