“You do realize that’s not going to happen, right? The last time you tried to get me to do that I ended up having to save you.”
I could almost hear him grinding his teeth in frustration. “This isn't the same thing, though.”
“It's not? This is just as dangerous as before. And, besides, I need to see this through. This is my family drama that you got pulled into, my family drama that needs to get sorted out, my family drama–”
“Okay, okay,” he said, cutting me off. “I get it, alright? You want to see the end of it just as badly as I do. Fair enough.”
“Besides, you'll be there with me, right? You'll protect me.”
He sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, I will.”
With our view around the next turn blocked by a heavy, snow-encrusted boulder, Jake took the turn slow and easy. Downshifting, he pumped the brakes as a black Lincoln Town Car came into view, its exhaust pluming out of the back like smoke from a dragon's mouth. He brought the pickup to a halt about twenty feet behind it, and flashed his lights on and off.
I swallowed hard, my mouth dry as the desert back home, and ran my tongue over my front teeth. My heart thumped hard in my chest, like I'd just finished a marathon. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for me to come along, after all.
“Ready?” Jake asked as he reached behind the bench seat and pulled out the white, plastic-wrapped brick of filthy loot we'd chased all over two states for.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice higher than I'd expected. I coughed, clearing my throat. “Yeah.” That was better.
“Well,” he said, opening his door, “let's get this over with, then.”
I climbed out the other side and met him around front, my arms wrapped around me.
We watched as Trigger got out of the black Town Car, still wearing all black like when we saw him at the little diner in Yellow Rose. He stood there like a blemish on the perfectly white and green landscape, a scar on the face of the earth.
“Nice weather we're having,” Trigger said, his breath pluming around him. “I think it warmed up a couple degrees since yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jake asked. “Been enjoying your stay in the mountains?”
Trigger looked around, taking in the landscape all around him. “Ain't bad,” he rasped. “Still prefer the city and all, and the cold hurts my throat a little, but it's pretty enough. Don't see Eve with you. Ever manage to find the slippery little lady, or did she sneak through your grasp?”
“We found her,” I said. “And she's safe. That's all I care about.”
“Ah, family,” Trigger said, smiling wide as he walked a few steps closer, his dress shoes crunching in a little bit of snow and pine needles that littered the ground. “Family makes you realize how much you can love someone, or hate someone. Am I right?”
Neither Jake nor I responded. Instead, I just shifted my weight from one foot to the other, my heart still racing, the anxiety from our little meeting still filling me. There was something just wrong about this. Wrong about how nonchalant Trigger was being, like we were in a movie where you kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Does this mean we're done with the small talk, then?” Trigger asked, stepping closer.
“Guess so,” Jake replied evenly.
“I presume that bundle in your hand is what belongs to me?”
“Sure is,” Jake said, holding up the package of drugs. “Before I toss it over to you, though, this means we’re done, right? The women are off the hook?”
Trigger nodded and held up his hands to catch. “As agreed.”
Jake tossed him the package. It sailed through the air like a fat, square snowball that was worth five figures. Trigger caught it.
“Seems a little heavy, you ask me.”
“Figured we could pay you back with interest,” I replied.
If Trigger was worried about it being the real deal or a fake, his face didn't betray it. With his eyes on us he opened the top of the package, wet the tip of his pinkie with his tongue, and dipped it in. He nodded as he dabbed a little of the white powder on his tongue. “Ain't the same stuff. You know that, right? Still good, probably better, but definitely isn't the same.”
“Had to make do,” Jake replied. “Figured it wouldn't be a problem.”
“Oh, no,” Trigger said in that colder than death raspy voice of his. “Exact opposite. We'd stepped on that shit we fronted to Kevin so many times it was probably worth half of what we were charging him. This, though, it's the real deal.”
Jake shifted a little, and I heard his knuckles pop. “You mean you killed the kid over barely nothing?”
I put a hand on Jake's arm. “Jake,” I mumbled. “We should just get out of here.”
“Hey, hey, Jake. He knew the deal. If he didn't like the details of it, he shouldn't have taken it. No one put a gun to his head.” Trigger paused, smiled. “At least not until after he came up empty-handed.”
“You're a real piece of shit, Trigger,” Jake said through clenched teeth. “You know that?”
The hitman gave another one of his mirthless smiles. “That was what the nuns told me. Did you all exchange letters?”
“Jake, just let it go. We're done. He got what he wants, we got what we want. We're free now.”
Jake's shoulders, which had been bunched up tight like he was ready to spring into action, began to relax. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Listen to the lady,” Trigger said. “She knows what she's talking about. Well, kind of.”
And just like that, the hitman reached into his coat and drew his pistol.
Chapter Fifty-two – Jake
I knew I shouldn't have trusted him, that I should have just put a bullet in his head the first moment I saw him. Dealing with men like Trigger Thomas is like handling snakes. You're going to get bit, not because of anything you do wrong, or anything you screw up. No, sometimes a snake will just bite you because that's what a snake does. It tries to sink its fangs into anything that moves. And, unfortunately, you’re the one that’s moving.
Now, as I was staring down the barrel of Trigger's big, chromed automatic pistol, I knew what a snake handler felt like.
“Did you really think you were just going to get to walk away from this, Jake? Elise? Are you really that stupid?”
“We gave you what you wanted. We had a deal!” I said as I stepped forward and pulled Elise behind me.
“You did, and I commend you on that. What do you want, though? A shiny star next to your name for today’s class?”
True to his namesake, he pulled the trigger, the clap of the hitting my eardrums as it echoed off the mountains on all sides of us. Guess I should have seen that coming, what with his name and all.
In all my years going through the service and in Homicide, I'd never been shot. Hell, I pulled my gun in LA maybe twice, fired it only once. And now, here I was, lying in the snow, my blood seeping out of me as I collapsed, my legs worthless.
“Jake!” Elise screamed as I tumbled into the snow, blood pouring from my gut.
I felt nothing at first. Nothing at all. Then suddenly, pain spread through me like a wildfire catching on some dry chaparral in the hills of LA. I put a hand to my stomach, pulled it back and saw the dark crimson staining my fingers. I coughed a little as I tried to move my legs.
Nothing. The bullet must have gone in through my gut and hit my spine, cutting off control of my lower body.
I coughed again and groaned. Pain clouded my mind, blocking everything else out. I dropped my head back into the snow. This was bad. This was real bad. I could heal faster than any human alive. But fast enough to stop this murderous asshole before he moved onto Elise? I needed to do something.
“You son of a bitch!” Elise screamed as she knelt over me. “You fucking bastard!”
“Shame,” Trigger said. “You seemed so well-spoken and polite when I first met you, Elise.”
“Jake,” Elise cried, her tears trickling down her cheeks and falling on my neck, “can y
ou move? Talk to me, Jake!” She stroked my hair as another tear fell on me like a spring raindrop.
Snow crunched as Trigger came closer, his gun down at his thigh, tapping out a strange rhythm like the drums of war. “Wouldn't worry too much about him, Elise. Now, give him a kiss good-bye and close your eyes.”
She sniffled hard, her hands going down to my side. She took a deep breath and shook her head as her hands continued to move. “I've got this, babe,” she whispered as she found what she was looking for. “Don't worry.”
“Elise,” I whispered in a raspy voice eerily similar to Trigger's, “don't. He'll just–”
But it was too late. She'd already drawn my pistol from its holster and was up on her feet.
“Oh, ho ho ho!” Trigger said, his pistol still hanging down at his side. “Little Janey's got a gun now, does she? How impressive.”
Again, I tried to move my legs. Nothing, just pain in my gut, pain in my side. Pain everywhere.
I thought back to a time when I'd been talking to Peter, about how our shifting can sometimes speed up healing. I hadn't ever had a chance to try it myself, especially not on something like a bullet wound. But my mate was in danger.
At this point, what did I really have to lose?
“Just take your drugs, get back in your car, and go.”
“Gonna shoot me? Is that it?”
As they spoke, I pushed my shift. I pushed it more intensely than I ever had in my entire life, ever since I’d first realized my ability.
“You got what you came for, Trigger. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to us?”
“Can’t just let your sister get away with what she did, Elise. If we did, we’d all look like fools on the street. Think the cartels wouldn’t start moving in faster and harder once they heard about it? Or the bikers? Those Skull and Bones guys would be laughing all the way to Denver.”
Pain rippled through my body. The pain was worse than even the wound to my gut.
It was like every part of my body was trying to separate from every other part at once. We normally took our time shifting to avoid this, but right now I had no choice. It was like I’d taken a thousand-year break from the gym, then decided to use every machine in the building all in one day after I’d already run an ultra-marathon. I cried out, my body trembling as I arched my back, my hands contorted and twisted, my muscles spasming. I could no longer feel the bullet wound as my whole body felt like cleavers were being dug into it.
“Jesus Christ!” Trigger yelled. “What the fuck is he doing? What the hell’s wrong with him?”
Hair burst through my skin, and my bones shattered and began to reknit themselves into their wolf shapes. I flopped on the ground.
“What the hell is going on?” the hitman yelled again.
And then I heard my gun fire.
Chapter Fifty-three – Elise
“What the hell is going on?” Trigger shouted, stepping back as he swung the gun first towards Jake, then back to me.
I didn’t think, I didn’t feel. I just pulled. Jake’s pistol leapt in my hand from the recoil, and I stumbled back in surprise that I’d actually fired the gun.
“Girl’s got some balls!” Trigger shouted as the bullet went over his shoulder, snapping a twig with a flurry of falling needles in the distance. Eyes saucer-like with confusion but his mouth pressed into a thin line, he turned the gun back to me. “Guess I was wrong. You do have it in you.”
Beside me on the snow, Jake growled loudly, like a chainsaw stuck in a furry body. He ripped free of his clothes. Trigger fired his pistol at me, the bullet going wide. He stumbled back as he spun towards the oncoming wolf. “Jesus Christ!”
“Jake!” I screamed, the gun in my hand suddenly heavier than before. I went to circle behind Trigger, but I slipped on the ice, my feet flying out from beneath me. My body felt heavy all of a sudden, sluggish. And there was pain, like I’d cracked my head on the road when I went down.
Jake bound across the snow like a streak of darkness, his tail straight out behind him, his jaws open and dripping with saliva. Trigger fired again as he stumbled back, tangling himself in his long coat.
Blood splattered on the snow, joining the gore that Jake had already left behind. He jumped right, then left, closing the gap between him and the fallen man that was still firing his gun. He lunged for Trigger’s throat, lips curled back from his fangs.
Trigger threw his arm up to protect himself, stuffed it in Jake’s maw, and screamed as Jake bit down hard, snapping the bone. A loud crack filled the air like a tree limb breaking from a trunk during a storm, and Trigger screamed louder.
My heart in my throat and my head throbbing, I tried to climb to my feet, but agony shot through me, dropping me to my knees. I gritted my teeth and fought through the pain, struggling to rise again. “Jake!” I screamed, my speech drunkenly slurred.
Jake growled louder and lunged for Trigger’s throat. There was a sudden flash of darkness, a splash of crimson. Then the Denver Mafia hitman stopped struggling.
I tried to step forward, but as I did, the world began to fade. Slowly at first, just around the edges. But then the blackness began to spread, eating up all sides of my vision. I dropped to my knees. I ran a hand through my hair and realized I was missing my Beanie. Blinking slowly, I pulled my hand away and looked at it.
“Blood?” I asked, staring dazedly at it. “Blood?”
And then it was like someone pulled a switch and just turned off the sun.
Chapter Fifty-four – Jake
“Jake?” Elise asked as her eyes fluttered open. “Where am I?”
“The hospital in Grand Junction,” I said as I brushed her black curls from her face.
“What? How did I get here?”
“You’ve been out for a while. Remember, we were out shooting, and that bullet ricocheted?”
“That’s…what?”
I shushed her and gave her a wink. “We were up doing some shooting around Yellow Rose, remember? And one of the bullets ricocheted off a tree log we hadn’t seen in the snow. You’re okay, though, it just grazed you. Had a pretty nasty concussion and lost some blood, but that was it, babe.”
I’d nearly torn Trigger’s lifeless body to pieces when I saw Elise crumpled on the road, blood pooling around her head. But as soon as I realized she was breathing and that the bullet had just been a flesh wound, I came back to my senses. Naked, I tore apart my old clothes and bandaged her up as well as I could, my Marines training in field medicine coming back in a flash. Then I’d pulled on my extra clothes from my bag and raced her to Yellow Rose, where a nurse practitioner made sure she was stabilized and helped me get her up to Grand Junction for better facilities.
Before I got to Yellow Rose, though, I called Peter so I could get some help cleaning up the mess I’d made. The guys put the drugs in the trunk of Trigger’s Town Car and collected the casings from my sidearm. Figured whoever was going to come along and find the body would assume a pack of coyotes had gotten hungry. It wasn’t like a giant wolf would make any sense in that narrative. And, with the drugs they’d find in the trunk, maybe the Feds would start asking some serious questions about Trigger Thomas’ connections to the Florentino family. Maybe even what he was doing up in Yellow Rose, so close to where the Skull and Bones bikers were known to operate. The last part was a long shot, but a man can always hope.
Most importantly, though, Trigger had gotten what he deserved. Justice had been delivered, even if it had been through me, my teeth closing down around Trigger’s neck. He reaped what he sowed.
“Yeah,” Elise finally said, licking her dry and cracked lips. “Okay. I think I remember.”
I smiled. “You want some water, babe?”
She nodded, and I brought the little water cup’s straw to her mouth. She sipped a little bit of the water, then shook her head so I’d take it away. “Everything fine?” she croaked through her parched throat. “With all the things?”
I chuckled and nodded. “Yeah. Everyt
hing’s fine. Except your hair. They had to take some of that so they could stitch it up.”
She groaned. “My hair?”
“Hardly noticeable. But listen, I’m going to go find a nurse and let them know you’re awake, okay?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
I turned and went to the door.
“Hey, Jake?” she called weakly.
I stopped, my hand already on the doorknob. “Yeah, babe?”
“I wanted to…I wanted to tell you that…”
“It’s okay,” I said with a smile. “I know already. I love you, too.”
Her eyes lit up as she smiled weakly. “Yeah. That.”
I winked again and stepped out into the hallway.
I hunted down the nurses and let them know Elise was conscious, then headed out into the waiting room to find Peter. He’d come up after arranging everything for me at the scene and had been by my side the whole time as I’d waited for her to awaken. Just like an older brother, or a best friend.
“She’s awake, Cap,” I said as I collapsed into the chair next to him. “Finally.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Good to hear, Jake. Good to hear.”
“Had me worried for a little while.”
“Knew she was tough when you talked about her. This just proves it.”
“Gotta be if she’s going to put up with my shit, I guess.”
“You two connected, then?” he asked with a little knowing smile.
I grinned broadly. “Yeah, I guess we did. She’s talking about moving up to Enchanted Rock. I think we’re moving in together.”
Peter smiled as he leaned forward and tossed the fishing magazine he’d been flipping through on the table in front of him. He cleared his throat and settled back in his chair, his face going back to that neutral state I was so used to seeing all the time.
Something was on his mind, something he didn’t know how to approach me with. “Spit it out, Cap. You want to ask a question, don’t you?”
“Not a question. A favor. I decided to bring you in on something while you were helping Elise find her sister, but then all this happened. Now that Elise is out of the woods, though…”
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