“If anything goes wrong, blame Robert,” he said with a wicked grin. “He likes you too much to argue.”
Mariella laughed and pushed him away playfully. “Go hurry your boy up,” she said. “Catch up as soon as you can.”
He nodded at her and she disappeared into the darkness with Robert by her side. Logan opened the side door of the van and Hail nearly tumbled out.
“I was using that,” Hail said plaintively.
“For what?”
“For leaning.”
“Leaning time is over, come on, what do you have ready.”
“Mariella’s,” Hail said, tossing her pack out to Logan. “Robert’s. Yours. Finishing up mine now. Think I should grab the jackets?”
“Nah,” Logan said. “It’s a nice warm night out here on the lake.”
Hail grabbed the jackets and the remaining backpacks and shut the door. He wore his and handed Logan’s to him. Logan carried Mariella’s and Hail carried Robert’s, and they split the jackets between them.
“Why do you do that?” Hail asked.
“Do what?” Logan said innocently.
“Tell me the opposite of the right thing to do. Give me the wrong answers.”
Logan shrugged and grinned. “Guess I just want to see if you’re smart enough to figure it out.”
“What if I wasn’t, and it was something important, like a life and death scenario?”
“Then I guess you’d be screwed,” Logan said. “Take it as a lesson, Hail. Don’t listen to a god damn thing I say.”
Hail laughed, and Logan relaxed. His relaxation was short-lived. Halfway to the lake, their pendants began to vibrate.
Chapter Eleven
Logan was off like a shot and Hail struggled to keep up as he mashed the button on his pendant.
“What’s going on?” He asked.
“Get here now!” Mariella shouted. “There’s a whole…shit!”
The line went dead, and Hail pushed himself to run faster. His increased heart rate and the panic he’d heard in Mariella’s voice overwhelmed his defenses, and he found himself shifting as he ran. He passed Logan, then suddenly Logan was ahead of him again, a shimmering black mass of fur and claws. They raced together toward the sounds of destruction, crashing through the trees without bothering to be quiet. They burst into a clearing just in time to see a large, leather-clad man hit Mariella in the mouth with the butt of his gun. Hail looked around for Robert and found him slumped over unconscious, chained to a log. A fire burned, reflecting off of a ring of motorcycles, and three other men pointed guns at Hail and Logan. Hail raised his hands and shifted into his human form. Logan did the same.
“Well, lookie here,” the man standing over Mariella said. “Looks like we got ourselves a whole pack! What do you think, boys… hundred grand sound good?”
The other men chuckled darkly as they kept their guns leveled at Logan and Hail’s chests.
“What does he mean by that?” Hail whispered.
“Don’t know, shut up,” Logan said. The fear in his voice sent a shock of panic through Hail’s system. He wouldn’t have expected Logan to be afraid of anything or anybody.
“You boys better step forward,” the man said. “These three have real itchy trigger fingers.”
“Behind me,” Hail hissed without moving his lips. “Bomb in the pocket.”
“No gas masks,” Logan murmured.
“Hold your damn breath then,” Hail hissed.
They were slowly moving forward as they talked, and Logan subtly fell behind Hail. Hail felt him unzip the backpack, and his heart pounded. They were less than a yard away from the men now.
“Hurry up,” Hail breathed.
“It’s stuck,” Logan hissed back. “How much shit did you pack in here?!”
“Enough!” One of the men shouted. Hail focused on his face. He looked dirty and mean, with a silvery scar across the side of his face and his lips twisted into a snaggle-toothed sneer. “Stop right there. Toss the bags over.”
“Last chance,” Hail murmured as he tossed Robert’s pack.
“Got it. On three.”
“What are you whispering about? I said throw the damn bags!”
“Three.”
Hail held his breath as Logan lobbed the sphere overhead. It landed in the fire and exploded, filling the clearing with dark, oily purple smoke which burned everywhere it touched. Hail shifted, knowing that his beast body would be better equipped to withstand the onslaught, and ducked low to retrieve Robert’s bag. He rolled across the clearing to the log, and broke the chains with his bare hands. A sharp corner sliced him and it burned, smoking and hissing like nothing he’d ever felt before. Silver chains. These guys were serious. He glanced up just long enough to see Logan running into the trees with Mariella in his arms, then he followed. In all, it had taken less than ten seconds, but Hail’s lungs still felt as if they were going to burst.
The second he was on the other side of the purple haze, he gulped in great mouthfuls of air. He didn’t stop running until he caught up with Logan at the van, who was settling Mariella onto one of the cots. She was paralyzed, but breathing. Robert was in a similar state, and Hail set him on the bunk opposite her.
“I’ll take the van so I can keep an eye on them,” Hail said. “You should take the truck.”
“Nobody’s taking anything,” Logan snarled. He pulled the two real handguns off the wall and loaded them. “Not while those scumbags are still breathing.”
“We…we aren’t supposed to be killing anyone,” Hail reminded him. “You can’t kill anyone, Logan, that’s not right.”
“Tell that to them,” Logan snapped. “You have no idea what those guys’ll do to us when they catch us.”
“Do you?” Hail asked.
“Yes!” Logan’s blazing eyes sliced through the air, burning holes into Hail’s. Hail met his gaze steadily.
“What did they do to you, Logan?” Hail asked quietly.
“Get out of my way,” Logan said.
“Not if you’re going to go back and murder those people.”
“It’s not murder. It’s self-defense. Get the hell out of my way.”
“No.”
Logan shifted in the blink of an eye and charged, knocking Hail out of the van. Hail tumbled head over heels down a small hill into a narrow ditch, hitting his head on the way down. He groaned and crawled to his feet just in time to see Logan sprinting away through the woods. He looked back and forth from Logan to the two vulnerable people in the van. He had to make a decision, and none of the options were good. He stood frozen for a full minute, unable to decide, before finally growling and slamming the doors shut. He locked the van and enabled the alarm, then ran off after Logan.
He heard four gunshots, and ran faster. When he reached the clearing it was dark; the bomb had apparently put the fire out. Logan stood in the center of the clearing as hazy purple tendrils blew around his knees in the breeze. Hail walked up behind him slowly. He looked down at the fallen bikers. They were twisted, contorted in agony, their skin a brilliant purple. Each had a bullet hole in the center of their forehead.
“Logan?”
“Didn’t shoot them dead,” Logan said. “Guess riot bomb plus fire equals human death.”
“You didn’t know,” Hail said.
“Would have done it if I had,” Logan shrugged. “Could have saved the ammo.”
“So why’d you shoot them if they were dead already?”
Logan didn’t answer. Instead, he uncapped each motorcycle’s gas tank, then kicked the bikes over so the gasoline spilled through the clearing.
“Get back to the van,” Logan said absently. “Won’t have a lot of time to get out of the woods.”
“What about you?” Hail asked nervously.
“I’ll catch up,” Logan said carelessly. “Leave the truck keys in the ignition. Head south. I’ll catch up.”
Hail didn’t move. This seemed like one of those times when Logan was telling him to do the wrong
thing, but he didn’t know what else to do.
“Come on, Logan, leave it,” he pleaded. “There’s no reason to….”
“No reason?” Logan scoffed. “Evidence. Evidence is the number one reason. Number two, do you know how bad corpses stink? And god knows what’s in those bombs, we could paralyze every scavanger for twenty miles. Get back to the damn van, Hail.”
Hail took a few steps backwards, but stopped when he got to the trees.
“Fine,” Logan said. “Die in a fire.”
He flicked a zippo lighter and dropped it in the pool of gasoline, then spun on his heel and started to run. Hail followed him. Something exploded when they were halfway to the van, and sparks began to ignite the trees and grasses around them. By the time they’d each jumped behind a wheel, full-grown flames were licking their ankles. They peeled out, racing to the paved road, as the prairie fire spread behind them. The flames gorged on the dry summer stalks, whipping into a gluttonous frenzy as it consumed the evidence and everything else from the paved road to the still water. Cursing, Hail smashed the button on his pendant.
“What?” Logan replied.
“What if there were shifters around that lake?” Hail asked. “You just killed everything in there!”
“There weren’t,” Logan said shortly. “The hunters were frustrated and hungry for cash. They hadn’t seen a shifter in weeks. There was nothing in that thicket but us and them.”
“You don’t know that for sure.”
“I’m sure enough!”
Logan broke the connection, and Hail mashed the button again. He didn’t respond. Hail cursed him again, then glanced in the mirror. Robert had fallen to the floor in the mad dash to escape the fire, and Mariella’s nose was pressed hard into the wall.
“Sorry, guys,” he said. “Let’s hope that stuff wears off soon.”
He hit the button again, with no response. He kept pressing it. Logan was stubborn, and it was a full ten minutes before he answered.
“Damn it, what? I’m trying to drive!”
“Mariella and Robert are in bad shape. I’m pulling over to secure them.”
“No, you aren’t, because the minute you stop the fire’ll be on top of you.”
“She’s gonna break her neck.”
Logan swore. “Fine,” he said. “Follow me. I’ll pull off as soon as it’s safe.”
Sirens began to sound in the distance, and Hail gripped the wheel hard. If they were found near that location, they would be suspects in arson furst, and murder eventually. They could have just let it look like the men died in a fire, but no, Logan had to go put bullets in their heads for no damn reason. Hail slammed a fist on the wheel in frustration. There was literally no reason for that. Logan had just put a big fat question mark in the middle of an otherwise perfectly reasonable scenario. Drunken bikers, fight breaks out, bike gets knocked over and spills its guts, bonfire starts prairie fire. Tragic accident. Add bullets to that scenario, and you have mass murder and arson. Fury boiled in Hail’s chest at Logan’s recklessness for another fifteen minutes. They’d outrun the fire and the sirens, and Logan pulled off onto a wide shoulder. Hail parked behind him and jumped out of the cab.
When he opened the doors, he found Robert curled up under the bunk, snoring and drooling. Mariella was rubbing her eyes hard.
“Hey,” he said gently. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck,” she said bitterly. “Whose brilliant idea was it to use the bomb?”
“Mine,” Hail said with a wince. “Didn’t think we’d have time to get four shots off before they did.”
She glared at him for a moment. “You have a point,” she said, still glaring. “Now how do I feel better?”
“Chocolate, water, and a nap,” he told her. “Your body’s drained. Little bit of shock.”
“Gimme,” she said, cradling her head in her hands.
Hail pulled a chocolate bar out of their rations and opened it for her, then did the same with a bottle of water. After that, he dragged Robert out from under the bunk and placed him back on it, securing him this time with the harness belt that he’d neglected to use before. Mariella watched him work.
“Where’s Logan?” She asked.
“Driving the truck,” Hail told her. “Don’t know why he isn’t back here, he parked before I did. Things went sideways back there.”
“Yeah,” she said regretfully. “Who’d have thought the hunters would be the same place we were going?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Hail said darkly, tightening the harness. “The hunters died when the bomb hit. I don’t know why they did and you guys didn’t, probably a shifter thing, but they’re dead. Then Logan shot them in the head. Then he lit them on fire.”
“He’s got issues with hunters,” Mariella acknowledged with a shrug. “I figured he’d do something like that.”
“Well now we have issues with the law,” Hail pointed out forcefully. “Logan left bullets at the scene, they’re going to be looking anywhere for anyone who was there that night.”
“And?” She said, meeting his gaze evenly.
“What do you mean, and? We were there!”
“Yeah. We were there in the middle of the wilderness in the middle of the night with no cameras. We split before the sirens started. Nobody saw us, nobody’s gonna see us. We’re gonna head south. It’s about to get colder, people are gonna be migrating. We follow the migration south, we’ll find our people. Relax. We’re incognito, remember?”
Chapter Twelve
Mariella felt better after her snack, and insisted that she didn’t need a nap. She slid out of the van and walked over to the truck, pulling the door open as she reached it.
“I’m driving,” she said. “Go ride with Hail.”
“I’ll ride with you,” Logan said. “I’m not going back there.”
“Yeah, you are. What did I tell you about getting along with our coworkers?”
“You want me to get along with him, you’ll let me ride with you. Sanctimonious asshole thinks he knows everything.”
“So go educate him,” she said impatiently. “I have a headache, and I do not want to spend the next however many hours next to your cranky ass. Get going.”
“I’ll be quiet,” Logan said. “You won’t even know I’m here.”
“Yeah, I’m just going to ignore the dark cloud of emo grime sitting next to me,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Get gone before I taze your ass.”
Logan glared and stepped out of the truck.
“If I kill him, it’s on you,” he said.
“If you kill him, we’re out of a job, and I kill you.”
Logan opened his mouth, then closed it again, crossing his arms.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “Now go make nice with homeboy before I put you both in time out.”
“Yes, mother,” Logan grumbled, turning to walk away.
“Damn straight,” she said. She hopped up into the cab and slammed the door. Logan stuck his tongue out of her, and she returned the gesture, then grinned. Logan shook his head and walked away with a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. He sighed heavily, then climbed into the passenger’s seat. Hail didn’t say a word as he started the van and pulled out after Mariella. They rode in silence for a long time, and for the first time in his life Logan felt the need to make himself understood. He’d never cared before what anyone thought, and he told himself he still didn’t. He told himself that Hail needed to understand for his own sake, so he could be a productive member of the team and make it home alive. After all, he had a home to go to. You don’t just throw that away. Not if you can help it, anyway.
“They needed to die,” Logan said.
“Mhm.”
“Seriously. They’re killers. They find shifters and kill them, then turn them in for cash. I’ve never heard it as high as twenty-five grand a head, but people pay a lot of money to have us exterminated.”
“Okay.”
“What is the proble
m? You think I liked killing those people? You think I want blood on my hands?”
Hail shrugged.
“God damn it Hail, say something!”
“What do you want me to say?” Hail snapped. “That you were totally in the right? Thank you, oh mighty savior, for killing a bunch of dead people.”
“Yes! Dead people! Why is it a problem for you? Nobody can trace these bullets, your ass isn’t on the line, so what’s the problem?”
“The problem is you couldn’t just let it be. When you saw that they were dead, you didn’t just leave them alone, you had to get your revenge anyway. What was the point of that?”
Logan ground his teeth and glared at the tail lights of the truck in front of him.
“See, this, this right here, is my problem!” Hail exploded. “You did something insane, and you can’t even tell me why. Your reactions are all over the place, and you deliberately make no sense. Like that morning at Broderick’s. What the hell was that? Do you even know? Or do you just run around being antagonistic for no god damn reason?”
“You want a reason? I’ll give you a reason. Those assholes didn’t deserve to die whole. They didn’t deserve to die at all! They deserved to be strung up and tortured for eight months, that’s what they deserved, and you’re mad at me for putting a bullet in their heads? But what do I expect. You with your perfect, sheltered little life, you have no idea what goes on out here, why should I expect you to get that?”
Logan crossed his arms and slumped low in the seat, biting his tongue. He’d said too much. He waited for Hail to start screaming at him again, ached for it, just so he could scream back. A pressure against his ribs screamed to be set free, but he couldn’t keep on that tangent. His brain darted around, searching for everything he knew about Hail, every moment that they’d spent together, to find something. Anything that he could sink his teeth into, anything that he could brandish as a weapon against the swirling, black pain inside.
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