by Kelly Meding
Pulled out of the Break. Came back together.
I hit my knees in the gravel, arms pinwheeling for balance before I went face-first into sharp stone. A persistent throb between my eyes thanked me for the distance traveled. I blinked around the roof, grateful to not find myself staring down the barrel of someone's gun. The sounds of the city and stink of the river seemed far away up here, six stories off the ground.
Keeping low, I crept to the south side of the building. The factory next door was quiet, empty, half the east wall collapsing inward in a heap of stone and brick. Not an ideal spot for hiding. I went to the other side to check out the stone building on the north. It was one story shorter, its angle more directly facing the Terminal Station.
A body dressed in brown to blend into the roof colors was crouched near the ledge, a sniper's rifle propped and aimed, at least forty feet from my position. All they had to do was look a few degrees to their left, and they'd see me. The rest of that roof was empty, except for the small shed that had to be stairwell access. No one else, no Tybalt.
I could take out the sniper easily from here with a bullet to the brain. The problem with that solution was if someone else was guarding Tybalt, the noise would alert them and anyone else Vale had lurking about. Teleporting over would leave me disoriented for a few seconds after I rematerialized, and if the sniper noticed before I righted myself, I was dead.
I glanced at the Terminal Station, wishing I knew how the battle was progressing. All I saw were vague shadows moving behind glass.
I had to chance getting down there. The roof was smooth cement, instead of gravel, which would cut down on the noise. I chose a spot on the side of the stairwell access opposite the sniper's position. Even if they heard me, they wouldn't be able to see me right away.
Teleport number two left me with an actual headache, as well as a little bit of dizziness. I hadn't eaten in twelve hours or slept decently in twenty-four. This was going to bite me in the ass in a big way later, but I had to chance it. I leaned against the metal shed wall, grateful I'd landed on the side with the door, and listened. No detectable movement from the sniper.
I pressed my ear to the metal door. Silence, as far as I could tell. I gripped the cool knob in my left hand, then pulled a gun with my right. Turned the knob a degree, then another. It didn't squeal or squeak. I twisted it a bit at a time until it would move no further.
Please.
I pulled the door by degrees, scared the hinges would squeak and alert the sniper. Far enough so I could release the knob. A little more gave me a space of six inches to peer into the gloomy stairwell.
And into a pair of familiar brown eyes that narrowed in suspicion before widening in surprise. I didn't have to shush him because duct tape covered his mouth. I opened the door enough to slip inside. His ankles were bound. His arms were likewise taped behind his back, right above the place where his left arm ended. I checked the stairwell quickly, but saw no one lurking. Knelt next to him and put the gun down long enough to peel the duct tape away from his mouth.
He made a disgusted noise, then whispered, "Autumn."
"We know. How many here?"
"Just her."
Well that evened the odds nicely. Time to take Autumn out, then get us back down to the Terminal Station so Marcus could kill Vale.
I slipped a serrated knife from my boot and reached behind Tybalt to cut his arms free. Pressed the blade to the tape. The stairwell got instantly brighter, and my stomach tightened with dread.
"Evy!"
Tybalt's warning came as my hair was brutally yanked from behind. My scalp was on fire. The knife slipped. I fell backward, stumbling in the direction my head was being pulled. Out into sunlight. I swung inward with the knife. It sank into flesh, and a woman screamed.
She shoved me into the ledge. My head cracked off solid stone, and I hit the cement roof like a sack of wet sand. My mind reeled, but I was very aware of the woman glaring down at me with a bloody knife in her hand.
Autumn.
"You shouldn't have done that, Evy," she snarled, then lunged.
Chapter Twenty-two
6:55 a.m.
Autumn was fucking strong. Intellectually, I knew that, because all Therians, in their human forms, are strong—stronger than the average human. I'm not the average human, and I've trained in hand-to-hand combat with were-cats, but the she-fox hadn't just had her brain scrambled by a brick wall.
I avoided her lunge with a quick tumble to my right. I came up on my knees, another knife in my hand. She tackled before I could get my weapon up. Her body slammed me back-first against the cement roof. Fire raced up my spine from the hard hit. She pounded my hand into the hard surface until the battered muscles released the knife on their own.
Certain I'd regret it later, I found my very active tap to the Break. She scooped my fallen knife, poised it over my throat. I felt into the Break, disappearing at the same moment cold heat sliced at my neck. She yelled.
I yanked hard to stay close, to pull out of the Break on the other side of the stair access. A mallet beat behind my eyes, threatening to liquefy my brain. Blood oozed from a painful spot on my throat. It wasn't gushing, so I ignored the wound and struggled to stand. The roof tilted. I palmed my second gun, aware I'd left the other in the stairwell, and stepped around the side of the shed.
No Autumn.
Tybalt shouted.
Oh shit, I'd left him defenseless.
I bolted, then skidded to a stop.
Tybalt must have shimmied his way to the first dropped knife while she-fox and I duked it out, because his arms were free. Autumn was straddling his waist, pressing down against his one-handed grip, the second knife she'd gotten from me pointed straight down at his chest.
I aimed for her head.
She ducked at the exact moment I squeezed the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the stone. It gave Tybalt the upper hand though. He shoved her away, toward me. Autumn used the momentum to roll into a crouch. I followed through the gun's sight, waiting for her to clear Tybalt before I squeezed the trigger again. She flung the knife as I fired.
We both screamed.
Agony speared my gut, low and to the side. Nerveless fingers dropped the gun, and it skittered away. Instant shock sent me to my knees. My left hand coiled around the hilt the knife. At least three inches had gone in.
Movement in front of me stole my blurring vision from the wound. My bullet had caught Autumn in the left shoulder, and she screamed with a furious, unholy chittering noise that must have come from the fox inside of her. Tybalt sawed through the tape around his ankles. He twisted around to his knees.
Desperation brightened Autumn's eyes.
I saw it—the gun, at equal distance from all of us.
Autumn lunged first. I tried, but the pain in my hip turned the effort into a face-plant on the hard ground, and I shrieked as the knife shifted position.
Tybalt must have changed his mind on the gun, because I watched them engage in a sideways scuffle from my spot on the ground. The pair of them punching and rolling around. He got a few solid whacks in with the business end of his artificial arm attachment. Blood spurted from her nose.
I gave the knife in my gut a yank. First I felt the cold. Then the searing pain. I pressed my palm over the wound to stop the blood flow—it wasn't a fatal wound, but damn if it didn't hurt like hell. I scooted toward the gun. Just a few feet away.
Thud. Thump. Scrape.
Something squealed, a sound like a phone alarm. Not from my phone, though, and Tybalt had probably been relieved of his.
"Damn it!" That was Autumn.
My fingertips brushed the gun's stock. I scooted again. Wrapped my fingers around it.
Tybalt made a noise that sent ice down my spine.
I lurched up into a sitting position, immediately dizzy, one hand beneath the other to brace my unsteady grip. I'd missed their fight, but the outcome was horribly clear when I blinked them into focus.
Autumn had taken posse
ssion of the serrated knife, and it was planted to the hilt in Tybalt's chest. He was on the ground, her crouching above, dripping blood onto him from her nose and mouth. She snarled once, then scrambled away. I fired twice, missing both times, as she disappeared around the other side of the stairwell shed.
Let her run, the fucking coward.
I crawled to Tybalt's side, careful to keep my grip on the gun. Couldn't lose it again. He was trying to get a look at the wound, but couldn't manage to raise his head to the required angle. His eyes were wide, shocked, and he breathed in shallow gasps through his mouth.
"Don't you fucking move," I said.
"How bad?"
"Bad enough, so don't make it worse."
The knife was nearly centered, just below his sternum, which meant potential lung puncture. He wasn't foaming up blood though, and that gave me hope. I had to get him off this roof and to—
"No hospital," he wheezed. "Watchtower."
"Tybalt—"
"No."
As weak as his body was becoming, his eyes and voice meant business. The question of hospitals came up often when someone was wounded. Hospitals meant police, and police meant questions we couldn't answer.
"Autumn?" he said.
"On it. Don't go anywhere."
He crossed his eyes at me. I squeezed his hand, then lurched to my feet. Felt instantly sick to my stomach. Every joint ached and my skin felt scraped raw. I do not recommend fist fights with Therians, now or ever.
Autumn was back in her sniper spot—albeit trying to position the rifle with one bad shoulder. As I raised my own gun to take aim, she squeezed off a round. Fear seized my insides. God, who did she shoot?
I steadied the gun with my left hand, took a slow breath, and aimed at the back of Autumn's head. Squeezed the trigger. I was no marksman and I was wounded. The bullet struck her in the neck. She slumped to the ground, completely boneless. I limped across the roof and kicked the rifle away from her hands.
She blinked up at me, expression totally blank.
"Why?" I asked. "Was it fucking worth it? Turning against us?"
"Change is necessary." She struggled to get the words out. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
As much as I wanted her to suffer, I didn't have time to enjoy a slow, painful death. I put another bullet in her, right between the eyes.
With the immediate threat neutralized, I pulled my phone out with shaking, unsteady fingers. By some miracle, it had a cracked screen but the damn thing still worked. I sent a concise text to Kismet, because I didn't know who else: East of ferry, Ty bad shape. Medical stat.
I left Autumn and her rifle and returned to Tybalt's side. He was struggling to stay awake, to stay here. "Listen to me, pal, you have to fight a while longer, okay?" I said. "No checking out, not over this mosquito bite."
He pulled a face.
"I'm going to teleport us down to the ground, so it's easier to get you help. Remember what that's like?"
He made another face. I'd teleported him once, months ago, and he hadn't been a big fan of the experience. Today he didn't have a choice.
I carefully pressed my palms on his shoulders, then scooted so my thighs touched his leg. As much contact as I could manage for this. The Break was harder to find because I was so damned tired. My concentration was fried. And it always hurt extra when I was wounded.
"You're lucky I love you," I said.
Tybalt found my left wrist and squeezed.
The teleport was a special kind of excruciating—partly from the previous two teleports, partly from my injuries, and definitely because I had extra weight along. Bringing someone with me taxed my body more than teleporting alone, and using the Break always comes at a price. By the time I realized we'd safely rematerialized on the broken sidewalk east of the ferry port, someone was already shouting my name.
I tried to speak, to shout back, and ended up lolling sideways onto the ground. My body hurt all over, a constant throb that was harshest in my head. My hip was on fire. The cut on my throat felt like it was bleeding more heavily, and it hadn't seemed that deep before.
Rough fingers curled around mine. Tybalt's hand.
I held on tight.
Things got fuzzy for a while. Lots of voices talked around me. I struggled to identify them. Astrid. Kyle. Marcus, thank God. Elder Rojay.
Kismet.
What's Gina doing here?
Sudden movement made my stomach clench. I wanted to be violently ill, but my gorge never rose. I held on until the movement stopped, only to be replaced by a steadier motion.
Car.
Oh good. Home. Bed.
I wanted to sleep for a month, but I couldn't. Not until I knew Tybalt was okay. He had to be okay. "Tybalt." Getting that word out hurt my throat.
"He's in another car." Kyle. He sounded close. "Relax, okay? You did good."
"Vale?"
"Which piece?"
I think I smiled. I'd have cheered if I had the energy.
"John's fine, too," Kyle said. "He'll be back with his family very soon."
More good news. Wyatt would be thrilled. Then he'd get pissed at me for coming home wounded again. The man should have been used to it by now, but no.
I allowed the motion of the car to rock me to sleep, and I didn't wake up again until Wyatt's voice and heat surrounded me. He touched my face, whispered in my ear, was everywhere, and I basked in how wonderful it was. The antiseptic odors of the infirmary placed my location before I peeled my eyelids apart. Wyatt hovered above me, his relief plain, but still unable to mask the bitter frustration at having to worry over my near-death yet again.
"Hey, beautiful," he said. "There's my kick-ass warrior."
"Got her ass kicked," I rasped. My throat itched like crazy as my healing ability took over. The wound in my gut ached, the itch of healing on the cusp of becoming real, not quite there yet because of the depth of the wound. The headache was hiding behind a haze of drugs that made my tongue feel thick, my brain fuzzy.
"You did good this morning. Autumn was given orders to shoot Marcus from her position if Vale lost."
"Then Tybalt."
"Yeah."
"How is he?"
Wyatt's eyes shuttered. "In surgery. Dr. Vansis is doing what he can."
"It's bad."
"Yeah, it's pretty bad."
He brushed his lips over my cheek. "Thank you for bringing John home."
"Didn't Marcus technically do that?"
"Yes, he did," said the man in question. Marcus hobbled over to my bed, leaning hard onto a crutch. White bandages swathed his chest and abdomen, and long claw marks scored his left cheek. He looked worn out and wrung dry, but very much alive.
"Should you be up?" I asked.
"Probably not, but I'm an impatient patient. Thank you, Evangeline, for finding Tybalt. Vale was a formidable opponent, and twice I forwent a killing blow in order to buy you time. The tactic paid off."
"Maybe."
Marcus frowned. "We brought Tybalt home, as we intended. The Prince of Cats is quite strong. He'll pull through this."
"Anyone else hurt?"
"Astrid took a bullet protecting Elder Rojay from a sniper round. She's resting, awaiting her turn with Dr. Vansis."
Astrid was shot because I was too damned slow in taking Autumn down. Perfect. "Where was she hit?"
"Lower back."
"God, we're a mess. Tell me Kyle, at least, wasn't injured."
"Kyle wasn't injured."
I looked at Wyatt. "Is he telling the truth?"
"Yes, Kyle's fine," Wyatt replied. "Marcus, on the other hand, has a chest that looks like raw hamburger, and if he passes out from blood loss I'm not hauling his heavy ass onto a bed."
Marcus grunted, then slumped down into the plastic chair that Wyatt had probably been using while waiting for me to wake up. The verbal exchange was one of the most normal they'd had since Wyatt was infected. It actually bordered on friendly, which they'd always been until their warring
genes made them snap and hiss at each other on a regular basis.
"What time is it?" I asked.
Wyatt checked his phone. "A little after nine."
Tybalt had been holding on for two hours, and that gave me hope. "Hey, what happened to Vale's posse?"
"Elder Rojay is taking them to the Assembly for trial and punishment," Marcus said. "Their roles in the events of the last few days will be evaluated during this morning's meeting."
"Are they going to pick a new Felia Elder?"
"Perhaps. Much has happened in the last twenty-four hours."
"No kidding."
I was getting tired of laying there like a salami, so I made Wyatt into my personal pillow. He scooted onto the bed behind me and helped me into a sitting position. Pain shot through my abdomen, followed by a deep throb with the vaguest hint of itching. Healing always took longer to start when I'd overextended my Gift, and boy had I overextended today.
He brushed my hair behind my ear, then rested in his chin on my shoulder. A perfect heat all around me. "Still not used to this short hair of yours," he whispered.
"Me, either."
A shuffle-creak, shuffle-creak beyond the curtain got my attention. Low voices murmured. I couldn't figure it out, but Marcus perked up, head snapping in the direction of the noise. He tried to rise, grimaced, and stayed put.
Below the fall of the curtain, two pairs of feet appeared, one sneakered and one slippered. The slippered feet stood between the front wheels of a walker, and I started grinning before the curtain was drawn back.
Milo held the sides of the walker in a white-knuckled grip, his arms trembling with the stress. He wore loose pajamas that hid the bruises giving him pain even as he stood there, in front of us, on his own two feet. Kismet hovered next to him, grinning like a proud mama whose cub had taken his first steps.
"Should you be up?" Marcus asked.
"Doc's orders," Milo replied. His voice carried the strain of standing. A line of sweat trickled down the side of his face. "Circulation or something."
"He isn't supposed to be up for long," Kismet said.
"Walked to the bathroom a few hours ago. Surely an announcement was made." Milo's mock outrage and returned sense of humor was a beautiful thing.