Tanner was still trying to convince himself of that when a pair of black-garbed mercenaries stepped out from the next cabin ahead of him, dragging an unconscious woman between them. Tanner smelled the blood before he even saw the red streak running down her face.
Growling, he lunged at the men in full-on shifter mode. It felt like he was moving through molasses as he crashed into them, only realizing as they all went flying that the girl was Lillie, not Zarina. A part of him felt horrible for being relieved it wasn’t Zarina, but he pushed that guilt aside as he fought to save the younger girl.
One of the men came up with a .40-caliber pistol in his hand. Tanner knocked it aside and slashed the man across the face as hard as he could. The guy shouted in pain, and Tanner’s inner beast roared in approval.
He spun for the second man, scrambling over Lillie’s unconscious form in the process. But as he closed one clawed hand around the man’s weapon and the other around the guy’s throat, something thumped into his back. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him forward, but it stung like a son of a bitch.
The man twisted away from his grip and punched him in the face as he fell against him, but Tanner couldn’t feel a thing. Then his whole body went limp, and he was on the ground, doing everything in his power to get back to his feet despite the tranquilizer dart. When that didn’t work, he tried to sit up, but that wasn’t possible either. His whole body was one solid chunk of lead now, and none of his parts would do what he told them. Breathing was even getting to be a chore.
A man suddenly leaned over him, his face a blur. But Tanner didn’t need to see the man to know who it was.
“Ryan?” he rasped.
Tanner tried to force his numb mind to focus, to come up with some rational reason for his old friend to be here. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
“Damn,” Ryan said. “I’d always thought you were a little screwed up, but I guess I underestimated just how fucked up you are. You really are a freak, aren’t you?”
Tanner tried to tell the other man to go to hell, but he didn’t have the energy to even speak now.
Ryan turned and looked at Lillie. “Get her up and back to the vehicles. I don’t know what we can do with her, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”
Tanner’s eyes locked on the .40-caliber he’d knocked out of the man’s hand earlier, lying on the ground nearby. Gritting his teeth, he strained to reach over and pick it up. It took all his strength to get the weapon pointed toward the blond man scooping Lillie off the ground, but the guy merely slapped the weapon aside and threw the girl over his shoulder like she was a sack of Christmas presents.
“What about Everett?” the man asked, motioning with his chin at the guy Tanner had slashed. He was still rolling around with blood pouring between the hands he had clapped over the shredded remains of his face.
Ryan looked over casually, as if just noticing the man. “Don’t worry about it, Anton. I’ll take care of him.”
The blond man hesitated but then shrugged and headed toward the woods.
“Once you get her tucked away, come back and help me drag this big bastard through the woods,” Ryan called after him. “He’s going to weigh a metric ton.”
Anton grunted and disappeared, leaving Tanner lying there paralyzed and nearly unconscious with Ryan and the injured man.
Ryan gazed down at Tanner for a long moment, then shook his head. “That tranquilizer has been in you for at least five minutes and you’re still conscious? What the hell are you?”
Tanner couldn’t tell the asshole who used to be his friend that he’d been hit three times, but he enjoyed the displeasure his continued consciousness brought the man. There was still shooting going on all around the camp. Maybe if Tanner was able to stay awake a while longer, Malcolm or one of the preppers would stumble over them.
Ryan must have heard the shooting, too, and thought the same thing Tanner had. “Guess I’ll need to start dragging your ass to the truck myself.”
The man on the ground—Everett—groaned again, maybe trying to remind his boss that he was still there. Ryan frowned at the man in annoyance, then pulled out a .45 and put three rounds point-blank into the man’s chest without blinking an eye.
He looked at Tanner. “Don’t worry. You’re too valuable to shoot.”
Smirking, Ryan lifted a heavy, booted foot and kicked Tanner in the face, leaving nothing but stars followed by darkness.
Chapter 13
Tate let Chase deal with the doctor while he focused on leading them into the woods and away from the people after them. His gut instinct had been to head for their vehicle parked north of the house a mile down Highway 11, but he’d immediately dropped the idea. The bad guys had followed them here and would certainly know exactly where they’d parked. They were smart enough to make sure the Oxford County cruiser wouldn’t be of any use to them on the off chance he and Chase got past them and back to the vehicle.
Unless they wanted to try and swim their way to freedom, that left them with no other choice but to skirt the edge of the lake and head due south through the woods until they reached Highway 114. If they were lucky, they’d be able to flag down a vehicle and get the hell out of there before the people hunting them even realized they’d left the house.
Their chances weren’t as horrible as it
