Her head whipped around and she snarled at him. “Shut up.”
But that split second was enough for Arthur to come to his senses. He darted around her and ran for the door.
The absolute worst thing he could possibly have done—run from a predator.
Now there was no stopping her, though Jeremy still tried.
Hailey gave chase, slipped right through Jeremy’s fingers and knocked him over. The chair broke apart and the legs snapped off, allowing Jeremy to get to his feet.
Just in time to watch Hailey kill a madman.
Hailey tackled Arthur to the ground. He hadn’t even made it to the door. She sank her teeth and claws into him, just enough to get a grip. She didn’t want to kill him yet, only toss him around a little.
Jeremy saw her intent. He knew what would happen if he didn’t do something. For her sake, he tried to pull her off Arthur. He might as well have tried to move a rock. Hailey reared and shook him off without ever pausing in her attack. When she dropped back to all fours, she did it with all her weight, right on top of Arthur’s chest, knocking the breath out of him.
Her claws tore at his clothes, scoring skin, but still not enough to truly injure. She grabbed onto his arm and tossed her head. Arthur followed like a rag doll, sliding a couple of feet away from the door. Jeremy heard his arm break with a snap. And then Hailey was on him again.
Only this time some last dreg of self-preservation made Arthur swing his arm. Those sharp steel claws cut across Hailey’s neck and shoulder. She reared and fell away sideways, landing on her paws. She shook her head and Jeremy knew there was no more helping Arthur. If he tried to get between Hailey and her prey, she would kill him too, on principle.
“Hailey…”
Jeremy had never heard a sound like the one she made then. It was pure animal, instinct and the drive to kill. Bloodlust like nothing a human being could ever feel. Not like this.
Arthur was scrambling for the door again and Hailey allowed him to get out. Head canted low, she followed slowly, stalking, letting him think he was getting somewhere. She was toying with him. Jeremy followed, hoping to hell no one came around to see this.
His fears on that score at least were unnecessary. They were on the outskirts of English Village and there was nothing around except storage houses. No one would be coming. No one would see Arthur Glenn’s demon turn on him.
He was desperate now, headed for town and people. But in his panic he forgot the most important thing. He was nobody.
“Somebody killed those people,” Hailey growled at Jeremy.
Jeremy’s mind turned cold. Images of ravaged bodies, teenagers torn and bloody, pale and still in death filled his mind’s eye. Families who would never know what happened to their loved ones; families who would never get justice. This was for them, as much as for Hailey.
Jeremy took a risk and sent a short compulsion into Arthur’s mind. One-way road, one message out, but nothing back in. He sent a thought, nothing more. To remind Arthur what he was—invisible. Even if he found people, no one would help him; no one would even see him. Jeremy quelled Arthur’s will to run, but inertia still kept him going.
When he rounded a corner to get out of sight, Hailey jumped onto a barrel and from there up to the roof of a house. She stalked him from up there, the better able to view her surroundings.
Jeremy followed more slowly, staying with her in her mind, looking through her eyes. He smelled the fear Arthur exuded like an invisible trail. It made him so easy to track.
He stopped on a crossroad, indecision about to become his downfall.
Hailey rolled onto her back briefly then rolled back to her paws, keeping low to the roof. It wouldn’t be long now. Jeremy came in sight of Arthur and picked a barrel to perch on. He made himself known by clearing his throat but his face was a death mask, never letting Arthur see how much he hated him. For everything he’d done, and then some. Jeremy hoped there was a hell and that the man would burn there for all eternity.
“You!” Arthur snarled. “It’s all your fault!”
Jeremy didn’t even bother reacting, just calmly held Arthur’s gaze.
Arthur charged him with a maddened yell and Hailey launched off that roof and bore him to the ground with the full force of her impact. This time she didn’t pull any punches. Or claws. When she ripped into him, flesh and bone gave way. Arthur’s screams were quickly silenced when she pierced his lung but he suffered for a long time before Hailey allowed him to die.
Even after his heart stopped beating Hailey stood over him, her nose to the back of his neck as if waiting to see if he would rise again. When she lost patience, she took his neck in her jaws and snapped it just to be sure.
Jeremy watched it all with the eye of a detached observer. He felt nothing to see Arthur die. And when Arthur was dead he felt neither anger nor relief.
A man was dead; a murderer and psychopath. The world was better for it and tomorrow the sun would rise brighter and warmer.
But today wasn’t over yet.
“Finished,” Hailey said, and the sheer weariness in her mind-voice brought Jeremy to his feet. He split his focus between watching her body and looking into her thoughts, already going to her with his heart in his throat.
As the adrenaline drained out of her, Hailey swayed on her paws. She was visibly shaking, tripping as she left her kill for other beasts and headed toward Jeremy. She was whining softly. They weren’t sounds she was used to making but they said far more than words ever could. She couldn’t even get halfway before her legs gave out and she had to lie down.
Jeremy was with her before she even touched the ground, hardly daring to breathe. “Hailey?” Her eyes were darting left and right as if she was dreaming. When he looked through her, the world twisted and spun. Her eyes wanted to roll back in her head. She was so weak, and so cold…
“Patches gone,” she kept thinking. It made no sense to him, but it had to be bad. When he slid his hand beneath her head, he felt her burning up. Her nose was hot and completely dry. Was that bad? She wasn’t a dog, but still…
“Hailey, I need you to tell me what to do. Do you want to change back? Can you change back?”
“Time…”
That was a question. “What? Who cares what time it is?” Her eyes rolled back briefly. “Hailey! Stay with me. Talk to me. What do I do?”
She didn’t stir.
“Pixie, I need you to get Amelia here now.”
“She’s on her way.”
Hailey’s paw touched his knee and slid off. She tried again and managed to keep it there but he felt the effort it took her. Jeremy covered her paw with his hand to take the strain for her. “Stay with me, baby.”
“What do I do?” he asked Amelia.
“Keep her conscious,” came the curt reply. She was racing toward them, the scientist’s logical mind warring with a sister’s frightened heart.
“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. You hear me? Hailey! You can do this, just listen to my voice.”
“So … tired.”
“Don’t you dare leave me now. Talk to me. What’s my name? Where did you go to school? Hailey!”
“I’m sorry.”
“No!” He let go of her paw and shifted to cradle her head on his lap. He stroked her fur hard to get her to focus. “I found you across a galaxy. I can find you wherever you run to. I’ll drag you back here one way or another, so just do us both a favor and stay with me, damn it!”
*
The world swayed, rocking Hailey like a cradle. It was soothing. She was too tired to shiver anymore. The sun warmed her, and Jeremy’s voice was like a lullaby. There was no more pain. Her eyes wanted to close.
“So tired…”
Amelia? On her way? What was the time?
“Who cares?”
Time meant nothing now. Breathe in, breathe out. Let it go. Jeremy was scared; she could scent it. His hands shook as he stroked her fur. It was stained with blood but he didn’t seem to mind that. He�
��d seen her kill someone, and he wasn’t running away.
Why wasn’t he?
Too late. Far too late for anything. Hailey understood so much more now and she would never get a chance to do anything about it.
Jeremy was with her. She loved him.
She wanted to cry.
But leopards don’t cry.
Angels standing over her. Her guardian; her avenger. Jeremy. And another one. Beautiful glowing creature with pale hair, blazing in the dusk. Is this it? Where would they take her? Not good enough for heaven. Not anymore. Hell, then?
Voices. Yelling. Whispering. Singing to her. Beautiful songs made of heartbreak and sorrow. A lullaby to sleep forever and dream of strange things.
Like people changing into animals and weird worlds where they didn’t have washing machines.
Thoughts growing hazy. Was it getting dark already? So much to say; so much to live for now.
Too late. Fading … Fading…
So this was what dying felt like…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
September 2nd, 3032
She dreamed she was running. On all fours as the leopard, running so fast across the meadow that everything was a blur except the majestic mountain range to her right. And she wasn’t tired at all. It felt like heaven. Hailey raised her head to the sky, closed her eyes against the bright sun, and just … breathed.
It was the light that teased her awake. Her eyelids fluttered open and she squinted up at the sky. The sun wasn’t directly above her, but it was bright enough that gazing up at the blue felt like looking into eternity.
Was she dead? Was this heaven?
Hailey turned her head to look around. Two feet from her bed sat Hunt, smirking at her.
Definitely not heaven.
“Are you going to call me an idiot again?” she said, annoyed at how weak and scratchy her voice sounded. “Because I think I can take you now.”
Hunt got up with all the grace of a sixty-eight-year-old arthritic. “I’ll give you this, you got guts,” he said and poured a glass of water.
When he offered it to her, Hailey didn’t move to take it. “Poison?”
He rolled his eyes. “Vitamin-enriched water. Amelia said you need to drink this for at least a week until you get your strength back.”
“Instead of food?” That was so not going to happen.
“Just drink it, will you?”
She crossed her arms, refusing to take the glass.
“Don’t make me force it down your throat.”
Because he looked like he would do it, and probably enjoy it, Hailey took the glass. “Where is Amelia, anyway?”
“She’s with my mate and children.”
“Everything okay with them?” Not that she cared. The shifter was an asshole and as far as she was concerned, he could just drop dead. But maybe his mate wasn’t so bad. And children definitely needed a mother and a father. Even if the father was an asshole.
“Dara’s still weak,” he said, and she could hear in his voice just how much that worried him. She almost felt bad for him. “The labor was hard on her and she lost a lot of blood. She’s here now. Amelia’s keeping a close eye on her.”
“And the hell spawn – I mean children?”
He glared. “My son and daughter are just fine. They’re with their mother. Where I should be, instead of babysitting a pain in the ass like you.”
“So why are you here? Go. Really. I can take care of myself just fine.”
“Yeah, and you got a stellar track record to prove it,” he muttered.
It was Hailey’s turn to glare. “Don’t make me get up to kick you out.” Her hands were whole, her arms worked, she didn’t have any broken ribs, and it felt like she still had use of her legs. All in all, she seemed to be in one piece. But she was so damn tired. Her arm was weak just from holding a glass of water.
“Don’t provoke me, female. I’m trying to mend bridges here. And I’m not exactly known for my goodwill.”
“What bridges? What, are you high or something?”
He sat back down with a frustrated sigh, and rubbed his face. When he’d finished whatever ritual he needed to perform to face her again, he said, “It’s like this. Amelia is busy with my family, Pixie went on walkabout to give Jeremy some space, and your new boyfriend has been talking to officials and giving interviews for the last two weeks. They’re throwing parties and shit for the new hero of Torrey, and if you ask me—”
“Which I didn’t.”
“—he’s enjoying it just a little too much. And seeing as that is all the family and social circle you have, and I owe Amelia for looking after my family, I’m stuck here with you until someone comes around to replace me.”
There was dead silence after his speech.
Then Hailey tilted her head at him. “Are you always so talkative and incomprehensible?”
“It’s part of my charm,” he retorted.
Hailey snorted. “Like you actually have any.”
She knew he was snooping around in her head again because in true telepath fashion he cut straight to what she was most likely to pay attention to. “You’ve been out of it for two and a half weeks. Your heart stopped twice during that time and if it weren’t for your sister and all this fancy machinery, you would be dead now.”
I died twice? Creepy.
“By some miracle, you managed to pull out almost completely unscathed. Congratulations. Everyone else can’t say the same. Yes, the virus did its job. You can shift all you want and it won’t kill you. But just so you know, it’ll feel like dying the first hundred times or so.”
Yeah, she was intimately familiar with that particular brand of pain. “So I died twice, and came back from the dead stronger. Good deal in my book.”
“And that’s all you really care about, isn’t it?”
“Watch your tone.”
“Do you even give a damn that your sister hasn’t slept more than three hours a night since your little escapade? Or that you’re the reason that Pixie and her brother, who under normal circumstances would die for each other, currently aren’t talking? Or hey, how about that your recently dead admirer followed you here and brutally murdered an innocent woman?”
The glass shattered in her hand, shards digging into her palm. What she still had hold of, she hurled at his head. She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t even begin to find words harsh enough to toss at him. The monitor next to the bed started beeping like crazy, probably because her heart was racing and she wasn’t breathing fast enough to keep up with it. Her teeth were clenched so hard that her jaw muscles ached and her eyes stung with tears.
Hunt’s shoulders slumped and he hung his head. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. I know you had nothing to do with the guy.”
Funny thing was, he actually sounded sincere. But her heart rate still wasn’t going down.
Hunt looked up at her. His eyes flashed to the screen and back to her. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You have to know that much. He was crazy. You couldn’t have stopped it from happening.”
That was it? His big consolation speech? You’re not to blame because you’re clueless? God, she wanted to hurt him so badly. She wanted the psycho back alive so she could rip him apart again. And she wanted to take her time. “Get out,” she managed to growl.
He looked as if he was about to argue but changed his mind. “Good-bye, Hailey,” he said as he walked out the door.
When he was gone, Hailey brushed the glass shards off her bed with an angry swipe of her arm, curled up in a ball, and had herself a good cry. Her hand was bleeding but she didn’t feel the pain. She cried for all those people who wouldn’t be coming back to their families because of one sick man with an obsession. She cried for the nightmares and sleepless nights, for the life she’d had and for the one that might have been. She cried for herself, and Amelia, and the relationship they could have had.
But most of all she cried because she could. While no one was around, she could let herself hurt
without hurting others anymore.
She cried so long that she ran out of tears. Though sobs still made her shudder, her eyes were all dried out. Amelia had put her in a room with a glass roof. Hailey could see when the sky above her darkened as evening approached. The sun’s dying rays painted the tiny clouds deep purple and red against the pale blue and it looked to Hailey like blood.
Would she never be rid of it?
For the first time in her life she felt completely and utterly alone. And the sick thing about it was that a small part of her thought she deserved it. She removed a stalker; got rid of a murderer.
She had killed a man.
Hellcat didn’t understand her remorse. The leopard was content now, free of her cage. She remembered a man; how he’d invaded her territory and threatened her mate. Her memory was selective, apparently. Hellcat got rid of a threat. That was all she cared about. Her den was safe and so was everyone in it, and that was as it should be.
Little by little, Hailey felt herself begin to agree with her. It gave her a measure of relief to let go of the guilt, but her human side stubbornly held on to the remorse. Hailey hoped it would fade in time. Maybe when she stopped seeing blood every time she closed her eyes she could let it go and move on.
She wanted Jeremy. Where was he?
Giving interviews and attending parties, Hunt had said. Hailey hadn’t really expected him to sit by her bedside all this time but some concern for her welfare would have been nice. If nothing else, she had saved his life.
He’d told her he loved her. She vaguely remembered him telling her that as she lay dying. And before, in her dream, too. Did he think she wouldn’t remember?
“Jer?” she called tentatively, then waited in pensive silence for an answer.
Nothing.
If souls could ache, Hailey’s did. She craned her neck to look at the monitor. All vitals showed stable; her internal injuries were mended. Hailey felt weak, but from all appearances she was healthy. Except that, from all appearances, she’d been in a coma for two and a half weeks. That really sucked. It meant her body would need time to recover, a process she wasn’t looking forward to in the least. But hey, with the regenerative agent working properly, she could probably cut down on recovery time significantly.
Blood Trails Page 29