He jolted back into position, spine to spine with the cop. As he did, the roar of an engine, the screech of tires, the squeal of brakes heralded another arrival.
“We got company!” Detective Ewing shouted.
Great.
Or maybe it was great. Maybe they could use this to their advantage.
The cop must have read his mind. As the car door opened, she yelled, “I’ll take out what I can while we fight our way to the car. It’s the only way out of here. Grab Ellie. Guard my back. You got any rounds left?”
A few. In all the action, it was practically impossible to keep track of how many bullets remained. The Talos half-turned, tossing her his SIG. She had both handguns now, and, like in an old western film, came out guns blazing, firing the pair of weapons, taking down attacker after attacker while he scooped up Ellie and flung her over his shoulder. He matched every step the cop took, keeping his back to hers, guarding them from behind, taking slices from the surging, winged shifters, but keeping them off Ellie and Detective Ewing by the skin of his teeth.
It felt like an eternity, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. He heard the cop shout, “Get in the car!” She dove into the driver’s door and he stepped on more than one body as he scrambled to the back. A furious screech heralded the arrival of another attacker bearing down on them, but he slammed the door between it and them. Long talons pierced the window, sending a shower of glass over the backseat. The Talos grabbed this one by the talons too, suffering deep gouges from the shifter’s pointed teeth as he wrestled it with one arm.
Detective Ewing didn’t wait for the battle to end. She had the car in gear and was driving. The Talos heard and felt the thump of tires smashing body parts, but was too busy wrangling the beast to wonder if any of them had still been alive before she ran them over. He didn’t particularly care if they had been. They’d put Ellie’s life at risk. It was sheer luck and lots of grit that had gotten them this far with her unharmed. The luck, or the grit, or both, held as he fought with the flying shifter. Its large wings beat furiously against the car door, its shrieks louder and angrier.
Finally, the Talos managed to grasp it around the neck, which gave him the handhold he needed. Ruthlessly, he beat the ugly lizard head against the side of the door, smashing it into the blue paint with all his might, until again he felt the crunch of bones. The cries weakened. Stopped. The clutch of the talons around his forearms weakened. He shook his arm violently to shake the beast free. It fell to the asphalt. The last glimpse he caught of it as they sped away was of a young woman, head and face nearly unrecognizable as human, the head was so smashed in. Blood soaked the ground.
He turned away, and sank back into the seat, releasing the Talos. Immediately, Carter was there, the human side taking over. He eased Ellie off his shoulder and down onto the seat beside him. Worry spiraled through his core. Despite the insanity, she still hadn’t roused. Had he been this out of it during their initial crossing? From what Ellie had said, he’d mostly lain on a quiet beach all day. It wasn’t like they’d been fighting for their lives.
“How are we doing?” Detective Ewing called from the front seat. Carter saw her dark eyes glance in the rearview mirror, checking on him and Ellie both.
“We’ll survive,” he replied grimly. The scratches and gouges and cuts he’d taken on his bronze flesh stung on his human skin, but it was more like a wound beneath the surface. Phantom pains, almost. His life wasn’t at risk from them.
“How about her? Anything yet?”
“Not yet.” Worried, he brushed the hair back from her face.
“I’m sure she’ll be okay.”
The cop said it with confidence, but what did she know? She was probably trying to reassure him, since she didn’t know that any more than he did.
“Where do you want to go?” she inquired now.
His initial instinct was to Sean’s. He’d even opened his mouth to say his employer’s name, when something stopped him. The cop thought Ciara had returned to her husband. She would’ve had to produce some type of cover story to explain Carter’s failure to return. No telling what it was. Carter didn’t want to bring Ellie back into that environment until he had some idea of what he was walking into. Never in his life had he dreamed the Costas mansion wouldn’t be his safe place, his refuge, but there it was.
“How about my place?” he suggested. “Or yours?”
If anyone was looking for him, they’d be less likely to find him and Ellie at the cop’s home.
Again, the cop glanced in the rearview mirror. “My place? You hitting on me, Ballis?”
“Yes,” he answered drily. “I’m hitting on you with my wife here in the backseat with me, asking you to take us both to your place.”
He caught her smirk in the intermittent flashes of street lights. “Well, I am pretty irresistible. Men won’t leave me alone. Constantly beating down my door.”
There was a strange note
