And I’d just broken the lock that might have stopped him.
I watch as the blood drains from their faces, still holding the knob with the broken lock. No one says a word or draws a breath.
I push through the gathered and head down the adjacent hallway. “The other door,” I say. “Let’s go. Hurry.”
People practically trip over themselves following on my heels, Lucy taking up the spot in the rear of the group. This surprises me, though I suppose that it should not. The people at the edges of the group, as she and I were now, were obviously the most vulnerable.
I knew Lucy had even less patience for humans than I did; not to say that she didn’t like them, but it was hard not to stand on one side of the line when the world knew about supernaturals and was reacting to this knowledge in all the worst imaginable ways.
But, now, when it came down to life and death, she and I had taken up leadership roles naturally, well aware that among the gathered, we were the best equipped to survive the situation.
We get out of this alive, one of these fuckers better bake me some damn cupcakes on my birthday, I think.
Leave it to me to think about cake at a time like this.
We’ve just rounded the corner when the sound of a door creaking open sounds from behind—from where we’d just been. Hinges never screamed so loudly in all my life. The smell of fear permeating from our little group makes my nostrils flare.
We reach the other door and find it similarly locked. It occurs to me that the people in security must have put the building on lockdown. That seems silly to me, as the elevator is not automated in a way that requires clearance, so anyone who knows anything about the building could get to the second and third floors without needing a security badge.
As if these thoughts summon it, I hear the elevator in the adjoining hallway ding as it comes to a stop on our floor. There’s no way of knowing who’s getting off or on.
I snap the lock on the door to the second stairwell and lead the way down.
When we reach the bottom, I open the door that leads onto the first floor lobby…
And find myself staring into the dark eye of a barrel.
It takes me a millisecond to realize that I’d been wrong.
There is not one gunman, but two.
Instinct takes over.
And thank the Gods for that shit, too, because my mind is stalled in shock. Luckily for me, the wolf part of me is not so easily startled.
And that bitch hates guns.
Pretty sure it has something to do with that time as a pup when I was almost shot by a hunter in the woods, but I digress.
I deflect the barrel just before it fires, the sound loud enough to make my sensitive ears ring. The smell of gunpowder is pungent, and the group lined up behind me screams and gasps, some of them racing back up the stairwell, as if they’ve forgotten that another man with a gun waits on that level.
The bullet hits the wall, sending out a puff of plaster. I don’t let him get off another shot. With a sharp twist, I’ve taken the gun from him.
But the motherfucker has brought a spare.
SMDH. And we’re the ones they say everyone should be afraid of.
Bitches, please.
I slam my fist into his face. Bones crunch. A fine spray of blood mists the air. I know my eyes are glowing wolf-gold—something I can mostly control, except for when the beast in me gets overly excited.
And this shit definitely qualifies as over-excitement.
The gunman drops like a sack of potatoes. Only then do I realize how young he is, likely no more than twenty years old…
And familiar, though I can’t place how.
Then someone behind me lets out a heart-wrenching screech. Karen Stansel shoves to the front of the group. She kneels beside the unconscious gunman, tears welling in her eyes, and I stare at her like the crazy mofo that she is.
“Jason,” she cries, swiping some of the blood from his face with the sleeve of her blouse. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
She repeats those three words over and over. Behind me, the group is silent, but I turn to them with the obvious question on my face before the answer hits me.
I know why the gunman looks familiar.
He’s Karen’s son.
10
3:30 p.m.
It takes me longer than perhaps it should to connect the dots.
The story George told us about Karen’s husband and son showing up with that huge bouquet of balloons and flowers, Karen refusing to see them, and the subsequent altercation between them and Vince… The affair Karen and Vince might have been having.
This is not a random act of violence. What’s worse; the shooters are familiar with the building. I’d managed to put out the son for a while, but the husband could run a muck before the authorities got here if someone didn’t stop him.
As if the thought has summoned them, a swat team bursts through the lobby doors, geared the fuck up, ordering us to put our hands in the air.
Once they see the unconscious gunman on the ground, they aim their guns at him, despite the fact that even if the shooter did wake up, he would have a hard time seeing through all the blood on his face.
I hadn’t held back when I’d punched him. Now I just hoped he’d end up being okay. Not because he deserved it, but with all the mess going on in the courts at the moment involving supernaturals, one of my kind killing a human would not be taken lightly, even if it was justified.
One of the officers restrains the shooter’s hands with a zip-tie while another calls in a paramedic. Karen hisses at them to be careful.
Ah, the sweet advantages of having been born a white human male. The police
