by Paige Tyler
Zane sat in front of one of the monitors, calmly talking to someone on a cell phone in his soft British accent. No doubt whoever was holding the kids hostage. That assumption was confirmed a moment later when Zane urged the person on the other end to put down the weapon and come out of the school on his own. Zane was one of the best hostage negotiators in the entire police department. If anyone could talk someone into giving himself up, it would be him.
Gage took his eyes off the drawing of the floor plan of the school on the whiteboard to glance at Brooks. Tall with dark hair and brown eyes, he wasn’t only the commander of the SWAT team, but the alpha of their pack of alphas as well. “You’re here. Good.” He gestured toward the concerned-looking man and woman sitting near the opposite wall. “This is Eva Gilbert, the principal of the school, and Hugh Kennedy, the vice principal. Senior Corporal Jayden Brooks.”
Brooks gave them another nod. This time, they returned it.
“What’s the situation?” Brooks asked, turning back to Gage.
His commander jerked his thumb at the television monitor closest to him. “Pablo Garza, the kid with the gun, recently joined a local gang and showed up today to recruit some of his classmates. Fortunately, a teacher saw him flash a weapon when he got on campus and called 911 before he even stepped foot in the classroom. We were able to establish communications with him just in time to keep him from shooting his teacher, Selena Rosa, in the head. Since then, he’s dropped all the window shades and locked the only door into the room. He’s threatening to kill everyone, starting with Ms. Rosa. Pablo seems to have a real issue with her. Probably because she won’t back down from his threats.”
Thanks to the team’s resident tech guru, Eric Becker, they’d gotten multiple camera views inside the classroom from three direct angles. Pablo was standing in the middle of the room by himself, armed with what looked like a Desert Eagle .50 caliber automatic that he swung back and forth from one side of the group of students huddled against the wall to the other, making them cower in fear.
Zane once again calmly tried to convince Pablo to give himself up. That must have been the breaking point for the kid, because he took the cell phone away from his ear and slammed it against the wall, shattering it.
“Dammit!” Zane tossed his own phone onto the table, then reached out and flipped the switch on a box near the TV, filling the RV with screams, shouts, and sobbing from the classroom. “Pablo already shot out the school intercom, so now all we have is the audio feed Becker rigged up. It’s only one way, though, so the kid can’t hear me. Not that it matters. Pablo isn’t interested in negotiating. He doesn’t want anything beyond proving he’s tough. The way he sees it, the best way to do that is to stay in there and kill a few people, even if it means he dies in the process.”
The screams and sobs only seemed to push Pablo closer to the edge. He cursed in Spanish, screaming that he was going to kill everyone in the room, starting with the teacher and ending with a kid named Ruben.
Someone stepped away from the group near the wall, one hand out in front of her in a placating gesture. She was so petite, Brooks thought she was a student at first, but when she deliberately put herself between Pablo and the other kids, he looked more closely and realized she was the teacher.
As a werewolf, Brooks had excellent vision, but he stepped nearer to the monitor to get a better look at Selena Rosa anyway. Now really wasn’t the time for this, especially considering the danger she was in, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice how beautiful she was. Even though she was slender, she had some serious curves beneath the black slacks and red sweater she wore, and while her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, something told him it’d probably reach halfway down her back when it was loose.
But, he thought again, now wasn’t the time. That kid Pablo was half a minute away from pulling the trigger and killing her. The reality of that suddenly had Brooks’s inner wolf howling to get out, and he balled his hands into fists at his side to keep his claws from coming out.
“Brooks, move your team into position,” Gage said, yanking Brooks’s attention away from the monitor and Selena, who was still trying to talk sense into Pablo. “Three of you go through the windows, while the other two take the door.”
“Roger that,” Brooks said.
The principal jumped to her feet, her dark eyes filled with fear. “There has to be another way. Going in there could get those students killed!”
Gage pinned her with a hard look. “And not going in there could get them killed, too. Our goal is to make sure no one ends up that way today.” He looked at Brooks. “Go.”
Brooks was halfway to the door when Zane got to his feet.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “Those kids along the wall are going to go barmy when the glass starts breaking, and you could use an extra body.”
Brooks threw a quick glance Gage’s way, hoping for Zane’s sake their boss would say yes. But Gage shook his head. “I want you in here on the monitors feeding Brooks and his team details as they go in. They’ll need that more than another body going through the door.”
Zane opened his mouth like he wanted to argue but closed it again. Jaw tight, he nodded and turned back to the TV monitor, but not before Brooks saw the anguish in his dark eyes. The bullet laced with synthetic wolfsbane he’d taken to the arm courtesy of the hunters during the attack a few weeks ago had left him all but disabled, and knowing he couldn’t help the team because of it was ripping Zane’s guts out.
If the regret on Gage’s face was any indication, their alpha was having just as hard a time with Zane’s injury. Unfortunately, it wasn’t likely to get better anytime soon.
But while he felt their pain, Brooks forced himself to compartmentalize it. A teacher and a classroom full of kids were depending on him to do his job. If he didn’t, somebody innocent was going to die, and there was no way in hell he was going to let that happen.
* * *
“Go!”
Brooks shouted the order before the echo of the gunshot from inside the classroom faded. He prayed Trey and the other guys on the roof had gotten their ropes in position, or this hostage rescue operation was about to go really bad, really fast. The plan had been to wait for Zane to let them know when Pablo was facing away from the door, because it would give them the element of surprise, but now that was off the table. No matter how much he tried to focus, Brooks couldn’t keep the horrible image of the beautiful dark-haired teacher lying dead on the floor a few feet away out of his mind. A growl slipped from his throat as his fangs extended. Anger he hadn’t experienced since his first change boiled over inside him, threatening to consume him, and he kicked in the door of the classroom so hard, it split down the middle.
He charged into the room, Connor at his heels. To his right, the students were still huddled against the back wall, wide-eyed looks on their faces. Selena stood protectively in front of them, her gaze locked on Pablo as he pointed his gun at her. While she was putting up a good front, Brooks knew she had to be terrified.
The windows on the far side of the room suddenly exploded as Diego, Trey, and Remy rappelled in, hitting the floor in a spray of shattered glass. Trey and Remy rushed toward the students, seeking to get as many of them down on the floor as possible, while Diego trained his weapon on Pablo, shouting for him to drop the gun.
But Pablo’s finger was already squeezing the trigger.
Brooks snarled and launched himself at the teacher. Even as he left his feet, he knew he was too late. The boom as the huge .50 caliber gun went off was overwhelming, drowning out every other sound in the room.
He slammed into Selena, sending her flying through the air. A bullet buzzed past his head as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, praying he’d be able to roll when they hit the floor, or he’d break every bone in her small, perfect body.
But then a bullet punched him in the lower back, and the pain
from it made coordinated movement nearly impossible. The best he could do was twist a little, coming down on his left shoulder and arm instead of directly on top of her, then sliding across the floor and through a row of desks.
As they came to a stop, he felt something wet spread across his stomach. Fear ripped through him as he realized the bullet had gone right through his tactical vest and him, too.
There was a loud popping sound behind him as an M4 went off. It was immediately followed by a shout of pain. Screams filled the room, but they were quickly followed by sobs of relief, and Brooks knew Diego had gotten Pablo. The kid was still alive, but Brooks couldn’t find it in him to care at the moment. All he could do was worry that the bullet that had gone through him had hit Selena.
He shoved the desk beside him out of the way, sending it sailing across the room. Then he carefully rolled her over as gently as he could. His heart stopped when he saw the blood on her sweater, only to start beating again when he realized it was his, not hers.
He opened his mouth to ask if she was okay, but then he stopped himself. Selena might not have gotten hit with that bullet, but something was obviously wrong. Her breathing was coming fast and shallow, her skin was pale, and her eyes were glazed and unfocused. His gut told him it was more than simply shock. Had she broken or torn something when he’d tackled her to the floor?
Brooks slipped his arms under her, picking her up as gently as he could as he got to his feet. As he headed for the door, he caught sight of Trey treating a bullet wound in Pablo’s right shoulder. They’d bring the kid out soon, and he wanted to have Selena in an ambulance and long gone by then.
He moved as fast as he could down the locker-lined hallways, making sure not to jostle her too much. When she let out a soft moan, he glanced down and almost stumbled into a wall locker as he found himself captivated by her beautiful, dark eyes. He stopped, leaning in a little to tell her she was going to be okay and that she was safe, but the moment he got close, her scent hit him full force, and he forgot whatever he’d been about to say.
He didn’t even realize he’d stopped walking until a paramedic clapped him on the shoulder. “We got her from here.”
Brooks looked up in surprise to see that the paramedic and her partner had rolled a gurney up to him. He’d worked with Fletcher and Barnes before, so he knew they were good at their jobs. He couldn’t help but stare at them in confusion, though. How long had he been standing there lost in Selena’s eyes?
At the paramedics’ urging, Brooks gently placed Selena on the gurney, but when he tried to pull back, her right arm had somehow found its way around his neck and refused to let go. Their eyes locked again, and for a moment, time seemed to stop.
Until the female paramedic gently took Selena’s arm from around his neck and carefully placed it on the gurney beside her.
By the time Brooks recovered, Fletcher and Barnes had already shoved the gurney down the hallway and out the door, asking Selena where she’d been shot as they went.
He hurried after them so he could tell them Selena hadn’t been hit but got outside in time to see the doors of the ambulance slam shut and the female paramedic hauling ass around to the driver’s side door. The ambulance pulled away just as he reached it, lights and sirens coming on and the tires squawking on the asphalt of the parking lot.
For one crazy moment, he had an incredibly powerful urge to shift into his wolf form and chase after the vehicle so he could be with the woman whose scent still filled his nose.
What the hell was up with him? He couldn’t shift in broad daylight in front of a couple hundred people, not to mention all the reporters and camera crews that had shown up. As he watched the bright red emergency vehicle disappear around the corner, he wondered what it was about Selena Rosa that had him so rattled.
He was still trying to figure that out when Diego and Remy brought Pablo out and put him in another ambulance. He absently noted the short discussion with one of the paramedics but didn’t bother to listen in as Remy hopped in back to ride to the hospital with the teen.
“You okay?”
Brooks jumped. Shit. He hadn’t even heard or smelled Trey come up behind him.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he murmured.
Maybe he should jump in his SUV and follow the ambulance to make sure Selena got to the hospital okay.
“Good, huh?” Trey said, walked around to stand in front of him, hazel eyes thoughtful. “So, that blood on your shirt and running down your arm isn’t a big deal?”
Frowning, Brooks glanced at his arm. Damn, Trey was right. His arm was bleeding. He had a hole the size of his little finger drilled right through the inside of his right forearm up near his elbow. Unlike the one that had hit his stomach, this bullet didn’t look like it had gone through and through.
One of the team’s two medics, Trey grabbed his arm, probing and squeezing with well-practiced fingers, then grunted. “The bullet is still in there, wedged between the radius and the ulna. You honestly didn’t feel it?”
Brooks shook his head. “I guess not.” Even as he said the words, his arm began to burn and tingle. “But I’m definitely feeling it now. Can you get it out?”
While werewolves could recover from just about any wound, except one to the head or the heart, foreign debris inside the body slowed down the healing process, not to mention hurt like hell.
“Yeah, I can get it out,” Trey said. “Good thing the paramedics didn’t see this, or you’d be taking a ride to the hospital along with the teacher and our gangbanger.”
“The paramedics must have thought all the blood on me was from the teacher. They never looked at me twice.”
“Thank God for small favors.” Trey regarded him curiously. “You sure you’re okay? Your eyes are a little glassy. Plus, it’s weird that you couldn’t feel the bullet in there until I mentioned it.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Brooks said.
But as they headed for the operations truck, Brooks wasn’t so sure about that. Why hadn’t he felt that bullet in his arm? And why the hell had he been standing in the middle of the school parking lot for who knew how long watching an ambulance disappear down the street?
He didn’t have an answer to either of those questions, and right then, he couldn’t waste any more time on them. After Trey got the bullet out, he needed to help get witness statements. Even though Pablo’d had a gun and was going to use it, this situation was going to get messy. They needed to make sure everything had been done by the book.
That didn’t stop him from looking back at the road the ambulance had driven down. Selena was probably halfway to the hospital by now, yet he still had this crazy urge to run all the way there to check on her.
Chapter 3
“Dr. Pham wants to keep you for observation for a few hours.” The blond nurse tucked the blanket around Selena, covering up the hideous hospital gown they’d given her to replace the blood-soaked clothes she’d shown up in, then added, “Maybe overnight.”
Selena sat up in bed and pushed the blankets down, not even trying to hide her agitation. “Why would I need to stay here overnight? I’m fine. Heck, I’ve never felt better in my life.”
In fact, she felt more energized and alive than she could ever remember. But the nurse—Melinda—merely arched a brow and gave her a dubious look before glancing pointedly at the bank of monitors on the cart beside the bed. The instruments were beeping and blinking, which meant absolutely nothing to Selena but apparently everything to the nurse.
“Ms. Rosa, your heart rate is still dangerously elevated, and so is your blood pressure,” Melinda said, sighing like she was talking to a kid. “Your temperature is insanely high, you’re soaking wet with sweat, your oxygen saturation is so far above normal our equipment can’t even read it, and you haven’t stopped shaking since you were brought in.”
Selena clasped her hands together, trying to stop the worst of the tr
embling the nurse was talking about. Even though everything the nurse said was probably true, she had a crazy urge to argue with her. She hated it when people told her what to do, where to go, or how she should feel in any given situation. Pushing back came as natural to her as breathing. But in this case, she realized there was something else going on.
Simply put, she was terrified.
She’d been scared when Pablo had started waving that gun around in the classroom and even more freaked when the gangbanger had taken a shot at Ruben. But then the whole classroom had exploded around her, men with guns crashing in through the door and windows, a huge body slamming into her just as Pablo had tried to kill her.
She remembered that moment like it was trapped in time.
But while she’d been afraid, she’d been angry, too—furious even. The idea that Pablo had come into her classroom, her private sanctuary from the whole ugly gang world out there, and tried to hurt her and the students she loved made her want to scream.
Then, when the big cop had tackled her to the floor, everything had gotten hazy. All kinds of unfamiliar sensations and raw emotions had assaulted her, overwhelming and terrifying her. Something had happened to her in that classroom, and it scared her that she couldn’t understand what it was.
“Am I going to be okay?” she whispered.
The nurse’s expression softened, perhaps sensing how agitated Selena was right then. “You’ll be okay. The doctor is a little worried you might have a concussion from getting tackled by that police officer. From the way you described him, it sounded like he was huge.”
Huge? Now that was one hell of an understatement.