The Breaking

bastard’s toying with us.”

Gunari’s eyes drifted to Liam. The Full Blood squatted on his haunches with his elbows perched upon his knees, grinning wider than a jack-o’-lantern at the Amriany.

“I’ll give a five second head start,” Liam snarled. “That’s only sportin’, eh?”

Of the Half Breeds that Paige had spotted when she first climbed out of the SUV, only one was still standing. Another was doing its best to crawl despite having caught a significant amount of gunfire. Liam’s coat was slick with blood that may or may not have been his own, and Minh had already shaken off wounds given to her by Amriany steel as well as Nadya’s MAC-10. In addition to that, Half Breeds crept in from farther down the street and from the far end of the field. As they drew closer, the sound of panting breaths and anxious yelps drifted upon the stagnant air.

“One …” Liam said.

“Head for the street,” Paige snapped as she began jogging in that direction.

“Two …”

A few choppy commands in a foreign tongue were enough to steer Nadya toward the street. Gunari scooped up Milosh and looped the smaller man’s one remaining arm across the back of his shoulders so he could be dragged away from the SUV.

“Three …”

As all the shapeshifters waited impatiently, Paige and the Amriany made it to the street. Paige rushed over to a car that sat just off the shoulder of the road. She circled around, pulled the driver’s door open and checked inside. Judging by the shredded interior, dented door panels, and shattered glass, the driver had probably been twisted into one of the Half Breeds attacking them. She had never seen werewolves created that quickly, but now wasn’t the time to think that over.

Liam’s voice grew into a thundering roar that exploded from a body swollen into a mass of muscle nearly twice as large as it had been a moment ago. “Four …”

“Come on!” Paige shouted. “The keys are in the ignition. Let’s go !” She didn’t waste any more time or breath on the others. If Gunari or Nadya weren’t going to get in the car she’d found, they deserved whatever they got. The Amriany piled into the Mazda by the time Paige had settled in to the driver’s seat.

“Five!”

Paige started the car, slammed her foot down on the gas pedal and cranked the steering wheel to get the car pointed in the opposite direction. Packs of Half Breeds emerged from behind the few buildings along the side of the road and were quickly joined by more werewolves that tore through the little town in her rearview mirror.

“How come your Dick Jango didn’t see any of this ?” Paige asked while steering toward the building with the big garage door they’d passed on their way from the airport.

“It’s Dikh Chakano. And …now you want to criticize?” Gunari roared in an accent that thickened with every agitated syllable.

She jerked the wheel to the left and sped toward a group of Half Breeds that had raced around the garage. “Where is everyone? Where’s the panic? Where’s the chaos?” she asked while ramming the two lead werewolves with the Mazda’s front bumper “Where’s the freaking cops?”

“No time to worry about that,” Gunari said. “Just get us to the plane. What about your arm?”

Milosh forced a breath through gritted teeth. “My arm is all right. We can save it.” His shirt was soaked through with blood. Nadya had pulled the belt from around his waist and used it to tie a tourniquet around the short stump of his left arm. There was barely enough left to fill the sleeve of a T-shirt.

“I’m talking about your arm, Paige,” Gunari said. “You were attacked by the female Weshruuv.”

“The Full Blood?”

“Yes. She cut you with claws that had to have gone down to the bone and then licked the wound. She wanted to turn you.”

“Speaking of turning …” It was a clumsy transition, but served its purpose when accompanied by a hard swerve to the right so she could drive off-road and avoid a blockade of encroaching Half Breeds. Liam’s massive ebon frame approached from behind and to the right, forcing her to turn sharply again.

The Full Blood trotted to the street and then alongside the Mazda.

He actually trotted.

In her years of being a Skinner, Paige had never thought she’d see something like that.

“Are you listening to me?” Gunari asked.

After faking Liam out with a quick swerve to the left, she steered in the other direction and hit the gas to speed around the back side of the airport. “No!” she snapped.

“I asked you if the Weshruuv bit through to the bone. Tell me if she did or didn’t.”

“Save it for the plane.”

“No,” Gunari snapped as he lifted his .44 to point it at Paige’s temple. “Tell me right now. If you’ve been turned, it’s better for everyone if you die now.”

“While I’m driving?”

“Yes.”

When Paige blinked, her vision was obscured for a fraction of a second. That was enough time for her to catch a remembered glimpse of Minh’s narrow snout as it formed the words, Enjoy your Breaking, Skinner.

“Tell me,” Gunari insisted.

“She didn’t get through to bone,” Paige said while holding her arm out to him. “See for yourself. She did want to turn me, just like it seemed they turned the rest of this town. The only one we need to worry about now is Milosh.”

She gunned the engine to power through a turn that brought the Mazda’s front end all the way around to face the fenced-in corner of the little airport. The closest pack of Half Breeds made it to the car, only to be forced back by Nadya’s MAC-10. Bullets thumped against their bodies while some of the rounds sparked against the pavement and ricocheted into another werewolf’s face. Some of the creatures stumbled and a few of them yelped, but the pack collected itself and kept moving.

“Last reload,” Nadya said as she slapped a fresh magazine into her weapon.

“We just need to make it to the plane,” Gunari insisted. “There’s medicine, ammunition, and bigger guns there.”

“Maybe you should have brought that stuff along in the first place,” Paige chided. “Could have come in handy right about now.”

Firing out his window, he replied, “Now I see why your partner was so quick to hand himself over to the police. Talking to them must be much more pleasant.”

The airport was close enough for them to smell the engine fumes. Behind them, Half Breeds swarmed through Atoka. The scars on Paige’s palms were alive with fiery pain that she had to ignore. She’d been there when Liam laid siege to Kansas City and this was already so much worse. No matter how badly she wanted to charge into the thick of it, she knew that would only add more bodies to the pile.

As she got close enough to spot the Gulfstream, werewolves darted in from the far side of the airstrip, leapt over the chain-link fence surrounding the airport, and even stampeded through the little hangar and offices. Paige gripped the wheel and lowered her head as if she meant to butt it against the wall of thick fur and solid muscle closing ranks in front of her.

“Can you get reinforcements from the Skinners?” Gunari asked.

“I …don’t know,” Paige told him through gritted teeth. “Just get to the weapons in that plane and clear a path to get the hell out of here. We’ll worry about the rest later.”

Lunging from the backseat, Nadya said, “How could you not know ? We can’t let Drina die for nothing!”

“We don’t even know if we will escape,” Gunari cut in. He nodded toward the Gulfstream and said, “Get us as close as you can. Do you think you can fend them off long enough for at least one of us to get inside?”

A row of seven Half Breeds fanned out to block the Mazda’s path. They were the newer brand of terror, displaying longer claws and tusks that curved out to frame their faces in sharpened bone.

“Sure,” Paige said.