I stepped aside. Chris chose his moment, waiting until Peter started another round of the walls, before slipping forward to shoot through the bars with barely a pause to aim.
Pandemonium.
The walls shook as screams rent the air, and I thought Peter would bring the barn down around us. I couldn’t believe the cage could hold that much pure, molten rage. The silver-haired wulfan moved as a blur, his claws striking sparks off the metal and shredding the heavy planks that lined it. It seemed to go on and on. He faltered, at first a missed strike with claws, then a misstep that sent him careening into the wall. So slowly it wrenched at my heart, he lost control of his limbs until he could only writhe on the floor. Finally, he lay panting, lips sliding to cover his teeth, eyes blazing with impotent fury.
I blinked back the moisture in my eyes. Was it better to die than to go through this? Was Peter trapped inside that animal body, aware of what transpired, or was he truly gone? I turned at a sniff beside me. Garrett rubbed his face, glanced at me, and then looked away again.
Chris’s eyes also looked reddened as he placed the gun on the table beside the red box. He opened an overhead cupboard and shuffled things around, extracting and pulling on gloves and a mask. He hit the recessed button that unlocked the door and cranked on the long handle to rotate the latches out of the steel plate, before slipping in to check on Peter’s vitals.
“Hand me that blanket.”
I looked to where he pointed and retrieved the blanket thrown across the chair. Chris covered Peter with a tenderness that almost undid me, tucking the cloth around his still form. The drugged wulfan breathed heavily, but evenly.
“I’ll watch him for a while,” Garrett offered, pulling the chair closer to the open door. “You guys go get something to eat.”
My stomach twisted; food was so not on the agenda.
“Don’t touch him without protection,” Chris said, peeling his gloves off and throwing them and his mask into a plastic Ziploc bag before sealing it. Garrett didn’t meet his eyes but nodded.
I stared through the bars at Peter until Chris’s hand landed on my shoulder and he guided me out the door. “Garrett needs time with him.” His voice was hoarse. “He blames himself for this.”
The admission shocked me, and it didn’t fit with what I’d pegged for Garrett. Yet I remembered his reaction when he’d admitted they were gone and the looks I’d seen on his face since. I realized I’d blamed Garrett for Peter and Josh getting away. What right did I have to blame him? I might not like him, but Sam had said he was a good enforcer. It isn’t his fault. He thought they were safe in the house.
“It wasn’t his fault,” I admitted.
“Josh said they were playing the game and the dog needed to go out. They decided to take him for a walk in the backyard. He doesn’t remember anything else. At some point, their wulves took over.”
They took the dog for a walk. If this was anyone’s fault, it was mine.
Chris opened the back door to the house and Keen barreled out, dancing at my feet. When I hesitated, he swung it wider. “Come on, Liam. I brought fried chicken from town.”
I shook my head, unable to get Peter out of it. “Not hungry.”
“Who said that was a request?” Chris grabbed me by the arm and pulled me through the door. “Your body might be fighting an infection. Eating is mandatory.”
I could smell the chicken, and we found Josh and Sam in the kitchen heating it up in the microwave. Josh moved as though his body hurt, and he refused to meet our eyes. But I was happy to see him functioning at all. Sam’s eyes scanned my face as we entered, and her lips tightened before she gestured to a chair.
“Sit. We’ve got things ready to go.”
I almost tripped over Havoc, who lay stretched out on the floor, taking up a substantial piece of real estate. The pup appeared to be out cold. I envied his oblivion.
“Maybe I should take him home with me for now.” Guilt consumed me, because if they hadn’t gone out to walk Havoc, Peter might be sitting at the table right now.
“No,” Chris said.
“He’s ours now.” Josh spoke the first clear words I’d heard from him. “Why do you want him back?”
He carried his plate and put it on the table before sitting. With big sunken circles around his eyes and the skin tight over his cheekbones, he looked as though he’d walked through hell.
I glanced to Chris. “You have bigger things to worry about.”
“Don’t blame this on Havoc,” Josh said, frowning. “We could have just let him out but decided a walk would be nice.” He rubbed his face. “I remember Havoc took off, like he smelled something, and we went after him. After that, it all goes black.”
Chris’s eyebrows rose. “So you remember Havoc chasing something?” When Josh nodded, he looked at me. “Hunt reflex. Could have triggered the wulf in them.”
“The remnants of their clothing might offer a clue,” Sam suggested. “I could go and look—”
“That can wait,” Chris said. “Where they went and what they chased is not that important.”
A muscle jumped in Josh’s jaw as he handed me the coleslaw. “Anyway, you can’t have Havoc back. He’s our dog now.”
“Yeah, even sleeps on the bed.” Chris grimaced, but his face relaxed a bit. “We need a bigger bed. And due to the activity at one end of Havoc or the other, we’re getting rid of some annoying knickknacks we picked up over the years.”
I glanced around, noticing the lower shelves in the hall and the open ones in the kitchen alcove now stood empty. “Keen ate my entire collection of action figures,” I said, helping myself to a few spoonfuls of coleslaw.
Josh winced. “Those might have been worth something.”
“Not anymore.”
