by Selina Woods
“I’m trying to get the bullet out,” he replied, cranky, forceps buried in her wound. “Get out of here.”
Leaving him to work on her, I grabbed a clean shirt, then strode out to confront Ramsey and Caesar. “All right,” I said, pulling the shirt on over my head. “Caesar will go with me. Will you stay with the kids, and—”
I gestured toward the room I’d just left.
“Yeah,” Ramsey answered. “You’re needed out there more than you are here. I’ll be here.”
Their tears dried, but their expressions still scared and worried, Tony and Albert stared up at me as I approached them. “Logan, you have to stay,” Tony argued.
“I can’t, kid. I need to see this through.”
I tousled their dark hair, and then with Caesar, I went to the elevator. “I’ll get back as quick as I can,” I told them.
Caesar drove us back toward downtown along the empty turnpike, dark smoke still curling into the sky among the broken skyscrapers. “We should drive around the city,” Caesar suggested, “check the neighborhoods.”
My eyes staring straight ahead, my mind on Kiana and my bleak future if she didn’t make it, I barely heard what he said. She has to live, she just has to.
“Logan?”
“Yeah,” I replied, taking a deep breath. “Let’s get back to the fires first. Get Gray.”
“All right.”
The residents of my old neighborhood had ganged together to fight the fires and put them out, smoke still curling upward from the embers. Their faces covered in soot and ash, many others piled the corpses of the slain enforcers in the middle of the street. Seeing me getting out of the car, Gray and Redley walked over.
“Is she—” Gray began, the question in his eyes.
“Still alive,” I answered, my mind shying from the fears that Kiana would still die.
“She’s a tough one, youngster,” Redley said gruffly. “She’ll make it.”
I nodded, surveying the activity as the people continued to pour water onto the still hot structures, their expressions tight and grim. Others came to us to shake our hands, to thank us, to speak of a new hope of a brighter future.
“I, for one, hope you’ll be our leader, Logan,” said a wolf shifter whom I knew from the neighborhood, but couldn’t immediately recall his name. “We need you.”
“Right now, I need to visit the rest of the town,” I replied. “See how successful we truly are.”
“What should we do with the dead bodies?” he asked, jerking his thumb at the pile.
“Feed them to the alligators.”
With Caesar driving again, Gray and Redley in the rear seat, we drove up and down the city’s length. Citizens patrolled the streets with their rifles, the dead enforcers littering the pavement. Caesar pulled to the curb to permit me to get out in each neighborhood, where I’d talk with the triumphant humans and shifters.
“We killed three of them,” I’d be told in one area, or, “We got four,” in another, and I’d listen to their stories of how the people surprised the enforcers in their businesses and shot them down.
As we continued to drive around, seeing folks loading the corpses into trucks to haul to the swamps, I kept a running tally in my head. “Thus far,” I said to my companions, “we’ve killed not quite three hundred.”
“Less than we had hoped for,” Gray replied.
“Think the others will see the wisdom in escaping?” Caesar asked. “Running?”
“Where will they go?” I answered. “Risk the alligators and snakes? My gut says they’ll regroup and come after me.”
“You didn’t ask my opinion,” Redley commented dryly, “but I agree. They won’t be run out. They’ll recruit others, maybe even the night hunters. If they kill you, youngster, they may think they can keep the city in their hands.”
“Even with every citizen gunning for them?” Gray asked. ‘They should have better sense.”
“You’re assuming they have sense,” Redley retorted.
“Back to the penthouse?” Caesar asked me.
“Yeah.”
The guards reported all was quiet as I got out of the car in front of the building. “No enforcers within a ten-block radius,” I was told.
“Great,” I replied, passing through them. “Keep up the good work.”
Tony and Albert raced across the floor to me and cannoned into my waist, and for a moment, I thought it was because Kiana had died while I was gone. Panic struck me harder than they did, their babbles at me incoherent, and I glanced over their heads to Ramsey for confirmation that Kiana lived or had died.
He nodded, giving me the thumbs-up sign. “She’s resting,” he told me. “Robert gave her painkillers, so she’ll be out of it for a while.”
The incredible relief that spread through me had me shaking as I gently pried the boys from my waist. “Hey, I told you she’d be okay,” I said, trying to find a smile, but knowing it most likely didn’t look right.
“The healer said she lost so much blood.” Tony wiped the tears from his face as Albert continued to cry.
“But she’s gonna be all right,” I told them.
Ramsey had evidently ordered food, and my stomach rumbled for the first time in a long while. As the others circled the table loaded with stuff, I knew I couldn’t eat until I looked in on Kiana. With Tony and Albert tagging at my heels, I went into the bedroom. Robert sat in an armchair, dozing, while Kiana lay on her stomach, covered with a blanket.
Her face was still frightfully pale, but her breathing slow and even. I caressed her cheek with my fingers, but she didn’t wake, though Robert did.
“I got the bullet out and stitched her up,” he said around a yawn. “I don’t think her scapula was broken, cracked perhaps. But with rest, I think she’ll make a full recovery.”
“Can we sit here with her?” Albert asked.
“If it’s all right with Robert,” I replied, still gazing down at Kiana.
“As long as they don’t get boisterous and wake her up.”
Without the nervous anxiety over Kiana to keep me on edge, the need for food and sleep crept over me. I’d only slept a few hours in the last three days and eaten not nearly enough. Returning to the sitting room, I picked up a plate and filled it with roast beef, chicken, bread, and some cheese. Joining Redley on the couch, who devoured his food with gusto, I ate mine more slowly.
“We’re still at war,” Ramsey commented. “But we have a chance to win this.”
“So you think the surviving enforcers will keep fighting?” I asked, my mouth full.
“I do. They’re arrogant enough to believe they can overcome any obstacles.” Ramsey toyed with the food on his plate. “Now, they mean business, and will start killing innocents.”
“But the innocents have guns and will kill them, too,” Redley snapped. “And we have to get out there and fight with them.”
My eyes gritty and my body tired beyond belief, I said, “I’ll sleep for a few hours. Then go back out just after dark.”
“And risk the night hunters?” Caesar shook his head. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.”
“The enforcers will risk them,” I replied, stubborn. “They’ll start burning down homes, killing folks as they sleep.”
“Logan is right,” Gray said. “We can count on our fighters to protect their own, but we should also be out there to keep an eye on things.”
“Maybe it’s time to put some of these guys here in the field,” Ramsey said thoughtfully. “Have a number of guards go to certain areas of town and clean out any night hunters or enforcers they find.”
“Have you gotten any rest?” I asked him.
“A little,” he answered with a small grin.
“Then why don’t we all get some sleep,” I said. “Right after dark, we’ll head out again.”
Kiana was awake when I tiptoed into the bedroom a few hours later, my eyes still gritty. Yet I felt refreshed after the food and sleep, better able to spend another night out in the city hunting predators
. Tony was busy feeding Kiana spoonfuls of what looked like broth while Robert watched approvingly.
She still lay on her stomach but managed a tiny smile for me while Tony moved out of the way so I could kiss her. “Hi,” I murmured, crouching beside the bed so I could be on her level. “You look good for having been shot this morning.”
“Ready to get back to the game,” she whispered.
“You don’t look that good.” I grinned. “Sorry. We’re heading out to make sure the enforcers aren’t making pests of themselves.”
“Be careful.”
I kissed her again, then stood up. “I will.”
Leaving her in the care of Robert and her brothers, my heart felt lighter as I joined Caesar, Gray, and Redley at the elevator. “Where’s Ramsey?”
“Sending some of the troops out,” Gray replied. “There’ll still be plenty of guards to keep a watch here.”
Ramsey waited for us downstairs with two cars idling outside. “We should split up,” he advised. “Cover more ground. Logan, here’s a rifle; it might be better than a handgun right now.”
“Thanks. Do we have any word from the streets?”
“Not so far. But I have heard some gunshots in the distance, so we know they’re out there causing problems.”
“Then let’s go put an end to their shit.”
I got into a car with Caesar and Gray while Ramsey drove Redley and a guard in another. Fires glowed on the horizon, dim circles of orange-red that had me gritting my teeth in anger. “Let’s hope our firebugs got shot in the act of setting those blazes.”
Off the turnpike, Ramey went in one direction while Caesar drove in another, yet we saw no enforcers or night hunters upon reaching the city’s heart. However, we were forced to come to a halt upon encountering a roadblock of nose-to-nose vehicles, armed civilians pointing their rifles at us.
Without sticking my head through the window in case they viewed it as a threat, I yelled, “I’m Logan; let us through.”
The rifles immediately came down and the cars were pulled back enough to permit us entry. Once inside, Caesar parked, and we all got out. The leader of the road gang was none other than Jordan, who greeted me with a handshake and a grim smile.
“Glad to see you,” he told me. “We still have packs of enforcers running amok and trying to throw their little bombs.”
“Are there other roadblocks?” I asked him, observing the alert stance of the shifters. Several lions and wolves on four legs prowled restlessly, sniffing the still night air.
“Yeah, all over. We’re trying to contain the bad guys, but we can’t be everywhere at once. The entire city is on alert, ready to kill them if they can.”
“Have they joined forces with the night hunters?” Gray asked.
Jordan nodded. “We think so. If they have, they’re back up to almost the strength they were since the fights this morning.”
“Then keep up the battle until we’ve won,” I said. “There are still more of us than there are of them.”
“The problem is,” Jordan went on, “they aren’t coming out in force. They hit a place, or try to shoot someone, then vanish into the shadows.”
“They aren’t the only ones who can kill from hiding,” I snapped. “I’ll go into every one of their holes and drag them out, bleeding and screaming. Let’s go.”
The three of us piled back into the car, and Caesar drove us on while I pondered how to draw the enemy from hiding. “Perhaps its time to bring out the bait,” I commented, seeing nothing in the darkness we drove through. “End this once and for all.”
“How?” Gray asked. “You can’t just announce you’ll be in a certain place at a certain time.”
“Except that they do know where you live,” Caesar remarked. “Maybe we can organize enough fighters around your building, have them in hiding. Let the enforcers come to you.”
“That would put Kiana and her brothers at risk,” I replied.
“We can get them out ahead of time,” he said. “If the bad guys want you bad enough, they might just storm the place.”
“With the rifle-toting guards all over?” Gray sounded skeptical.
“And we’d never know when they might try it,” I went on. “We could have people there for days and nothing would happen.”
“I don’t agree,” Caesar said. “They have to kill you fast in order to regain their previous authority. If they don’t squash this rebellion fast, the citizens will eventually run them out.”
I snorted. “So I just lurk in my tower and wait to be attacked?”
“Something like that.”
Just then, shadows charged from the darkness ahead of the car, flaming bottles in their hands. “Look out!” I yelled.
Caesar braked to a shuddering halt and put the sedan into reverse. Even as the car retreated, the enforcers threw their bombs, the glass shattering over the hood, the windshield. The liquid inside them erupted into flames that spread over the vehicle, reaching for us like hungry fingers.
“Get out,” I screamed, opening the door and lunging out. “Now.”
The car was going too fast for me to land on my feet, and I rolled several times across the asphalt before finally stopping. Getting to my feet, I glanced first at the flames raging across the car that had slammed into the curb to a halt. Caesar was already out, and Gray stumbled from it, running to get clear before the licking flames reached the tank.
The blaze ignited the fuel in it, and the resulting explosion knocked Gray from his feet. He went sprawling, his shirt on fire.
“Roll, dammit,” I yelled to him, too far away to reach him. “Roll.”
Caesar was closer and sprinted to him, forcing Gray onto his back to quash the flames. Shooting a glance at the enforcers, I realized we no longer had our guns as they were inside the burning car, now destroyed. The four thugs stepped from the shadows and into the light caused by the fire, their hands empty, and I instantly shifted forms.
Roaring, snarling, I charged them, my blood hot for a fight. They, too, shifted, and I faced two lions and two wolves. From the bellows behind me, Caesar and Gray also raced into battle. Striking with razor-sharp claws, I ripped into a lion, throwing him off his feet by sheer weight and the force of my charge.
Even as one of the wolves jumped on my back, biting at my neck, I sank my fangs into the lion’s belly. He screamed, his paws slashing at my face and flanks, but I ignored his efforts and focused on ripping open his entrails. On his back, he was helpless to do much against my superior weight and my fury, his teeth trying to get past my mane to my jugular.
Seizing hold of his guts, I leaped backward, sending the wolf flying, and yanked the lion’s innards with me. From my peripheral vision, Gray and Caesar battled the other lion while the second wolf danced around, trying to get a bite in.
Leaving my victim rolling helplessly in agony, I spun and pounced on my wolf, snapping his spine at the same time I crushed his neck with my fangs. Tossing his corpse aside, I watched as the lion enforcer went down with Gray atop him, his powerful jaws closed on the other’s throat, suffocating him. Caesar quickly killed the other wolf with a single bound, his heavy weight crushing the wolf’s chest as his teeth opened his throat.
Long minutes passed before the shifter in Gray’s fangs died, his struggles slowly weakening until he lay still. Gray released the corpse and shook his head briskly. “Should we finish that one off?” he asked, his eyes on the enforcer whose guts lay strewn across the pavement.
“Let him die slowly,” I replied with a contemptuous sniff. “We need to hunt down a few more of these peckerheads.”
Loping on four legs, we headed on down the street, the fire fading behind us. “We can run around all night and not kill any more,” Gray pointed out from my right. “What if there was a way to lead a bunch of them to slaughter?”
“I don’t see how,” I answered, using all my senses to find trouble before it found me. “Even if we could, we can’t get the word out to our guys.”
�
�This business of running them down in twos and threes will not work out,” Caesar added. “We’re too scattered, and so are they.”
“We don’t have much choice.”
Ahead of us, headlights blazing, a truck spun around a corner and veered straight toward us. Instantly, we dashed off the street behind a pile of rubble from a partially collapsed structure, safe from both gunfire and the potential threat of being run down.
The truck screeched to a stop, and several voices yelled out. “Logan! That you?”
I recognized Jordan’s voice and leaped to the top of the heap. “Yeah.”
His rifle in his hand, he raced forward. “We’ve been looking for you,” he gasped. “There’s a convoy of vehicles heading for the beach. We’re afraid it’s the enforcers gathered to attack your penthouse.”
“Shit!” I scrambled down the side of the rubble and leaped into the back of the truck. “Get me there fast.”
Gray and Caesar also jumped inside as Jordan got back into the cab. The driver hit the accelerator hard enough to tumble all of us in a heap, but I got my balance back and leaned over the side to speak through the open window, my heart pounding. “We need more people. Kiana is helpless in there.”
“We have a group on the way,” he told me, but his eyes were grim as he stared into mine. “I’m scared we may be too late.”
“Tell the driver to hit it.”
If I were to stay in the truck’s bed, I needed hands to grab a hold of something. Shifting into my human half, I seized a tight grip on the edge, Caesar and Gray copying me. Lurching back and forth as the driver screeched the truck around corners, he reached the turnpike. I’m certain he topped a hundred miles an hour, speeding down the empty highway, the headlights cutting through the dark like a knife.
He slowed down enough to maneuver around the corners again, and the big building came into sight. The guards aimed their rifles as he screamed toward them, and I stood up in the back, my head and shoulders over the cab. “Don’t shoot!” I yelled. “It’s Logan.”
The rifles thankfully came down again, and I felt relief that the caravan of enforcers hadn’t arrived yet. Even so, before the truck came to a halt, I heard the sounds of engines revving, growing louder as they got closer. We had beaten them by mere minutes.