“Go,” Jenks prompted, and I tore my eyes from Nick. I felt sick again, and as my paws hit the dirt outside, I wondered just where Jenks expected us to “go.” There was only one road out of there, and someone was coming up it. And stumbling about with a sick man in the woods was a sure way to be caught.
“Just…go behind the building!” Jenks said, and I trotted an uneasy path beside him, feeling small. Nick tried to help as his muscles started to regain their movement. Jenks eased him to the ground, propping him up against the painted brick. It was chill back there, out of the sun, and he held his legs and groaned. I thought of Marshal’s warmth amulets. We had only one left—if they hadn’t found our gear. Maybe Nick and Jenks could share it somehow. My fur could keep me warm. Could I swim that far as a wolf?
“Stay here,” Jenks said to me, standing to look tall. His brow was furrowed. “Keep him quiet. I can take care of them, and then we’ll drive out of here.”
I put a foot on his shoe for his attention, looking up at him pleadingly. I hadn’t liked running apart. I didn’t want to do it again. We did better together than alone.
“I’ll be careful,” Jenks said, turning toward the sound of an approaching vehicle. “If there’re too many, I’ll hoot like an owl.” I raised my doggie eyebrows, and he chuckled. “I’ll just shout for you.”
At my head bob, he crept away, silent in his black tights and running shoes. I looked at Nick. He didn’t have any shoes, and his pale feet looked ugly. Nick, I thought, nudging him.
He stirred, wiping the goo from his eyes and squinting. “You’re too small for a Were. I thought you were a Were. Good dog. Good dog…” he murmured, sinking his fingers into my wavy red fur. He didn’t know who I was. I didn’t think he recognized even Jenks. “Good dog,” he said. “What’s your name, sweetheart? How did you get on this hellhole of an island?”
I took a heaving breath, hating this. He looked awful in the brighter light. Nick had never been a heavy man, but in the week Jaxs said he had been on the island, he had gone from trim to emaciated. His long hands were thin and his face was sallow. A beard hid his cheekbones, making him appear like a homeless man. He stank of sweat, filth, and a deep-seated infection.
Looking at him, one would never have guessed at his wickedly quick mind. Or know how easily he could make me laugh, or the love I felt for his complete acceptance of who I was without any need to apologize; a man whose danger was in calling demons and his willingness to risk everything to be smarter than everyone else.
Until I had accidentally made him my familiar and he seized when I pulled a line of ever-after through him. My eyes closed in a long blink as I recalled the three months of heartache when he avoided me, not wanting to admit that every time I pulled on a line, he relived the entire terrifying moment in his mind, until he couldn’t even be in the same city.
I’m sorry, Nick, I thought, putting my muzzle on his shoulder and wishing I could give him a hug. The familiar bond was broken now. Maybe we could return to the way we were. But a wiser voice in me asked, Do you want to?
My head came up and my ears pricked at the sound of someone downshifting. I padded to the edge of the building, peeking around to see an open Jeep rocking to a stop. Nick moved to follow, and I growled at him. “Good girl,” he said, thinking I was growling at them. “Stay.”
My lip curled and I felt my annoyance rise. Good girl? Stay?
Two of the four men with weapons got out, calling out for Nick’s captors. My pulse quickened as they entered the building. Jenks and I were running without even a sketch of a plan except for, “Stay here, I’ll take care of them.” What lame-ass kind of a plan was that?
Shifting my front feet, I was debating whether I should do something when Jenks fell out of the tree and into the Jeep. Two savagely powerful blows with his stick and the men in the vehicle silently slumped. Jenks jerked the cap off the last one’s head even as he collapsed. Wedging it onto his head, he grinned and gestured for us to stay.
A shout came from inside the building, and Nick and I shrank back.Heart pounding, I watched Jenks yank one of the men up. There were three quick pops from the building as the two men came out, and blood leaked out of the Were in front of Jenks, shot.
Jenks dropped the Were and jumped into the tree like a monkey. Branches shook and leaves drifted down. The two Weres with guns shouted at each other, stupidly running over and aiming into the canopy. And I say stupid because they completely forgot there might be someone else here.
“Sweetheart!” Nick shouted as I bolted out to help Jenks.
Thanks a hell of a lot, Nick, I thought as both Weres turned. I barreled into the first, my only goal being to knock him down. The man’s eyes were wide. Snarling, I barked and yapped, trying to stay on top of him in the hopes that his buddy wouldn’t shoot me lest he hit him instead.
There was the pop of a gun and the crack of wood. In my instant of distraction the Were shoved me off. “Crazy wolf!” he shouted, turning the barrel of his weapon at me. Behind him, Jenks stood frozen in panic. The first man was slumped at his feet, but Jenks was too far away to help me.
A boom of thunder echoed, and the man pointing his weapon at me jumped. My heart pounded and I frantically waited for the pain.
But the Were spun, leaving me to stare in surprise at the hole in his back. My attention flicked behind him to Nick, propped up against the building with a shotgun.
“Nick, no!” I barked, but he took aim again, and with his face white and his hands shaking, he shot him a second time. The Were’s gun went off as the slug hit him, but it was a death pull. Nick’s second shot had gone straight into his neck. I sprang away and the Were fell, choking as his lungs filled, drowning him in his own blood. He clawed at his throat, gasping.
God help me. Nick had killed him.
“You sons of bitches!” Nick cried from the dirt, having fallen from the recoil this time. “I’ll kill you all, you fucking dog-face bastards! I’ll kill you—” He took a shuddering breath. “I’ll kill you all….” He sobbed, crying now.
Frightened, I looked at Jenks. The pixy stood under the tree, white-faced and scared.
“I’ll kill you….” Nick said, hunched on all fours.
I slowly skulked over to him. I was a wolf, not a Were. He wouldn’t shoot me. Right?
“Good girl,” he said when I nudged him. He wiped his face and patted my head, a broken man. He even let me pull the shotgun from him, and my tongue worked at the bitter taste of gunpowder. “Good girl,” he murmured, standing up and wobbling forward.
Though clearly not wanting to touch him, Jenks helped him into the back of the Jeep, where Nick collapsed. Jenks unceremoniously dumped the unconscious men in the front out of the vehicle, and I scrambled into the passenger side, trying to ignore that the man Nick shot had finally stopped making noises. Jenks started the Jeep, and after a few jerks while he learned the practical aspect of how to drive a stick, we started down the road. I touched the radio with my nose, and he turned it up so we could hear.
Jenks looked at me, the wind brushing his bangs back. “He can’t swim,” he whispered. “And we only have one warmth amulet.”
“I can swim.” Nick had his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees against the jostling of the rough road.
“They must have a dock somewhere,” Jenks continued, not paying him any mind but for a nervous glance. “They probably already have people waiting for us, though.”
“I’ll kill myself before I let them take me back there,” Nick said, thinking Jenks was talking to him. “Thank you. Thank you for getting me out of that hell.”
Jenks’s lips pressed together and his grip clenched the wheel as he shifted to a lower gear and took a tight turn. “I can smell an oil and gas mix to the south, almost exactly where we came in. It’s probably the marina.”
Nick pulled his head up, the wind shifting his lank hair from his eyes. “You’re talking to the dog?”
Sparing him a glance from under his new cap, Jenks turned away. “She’s a wolf. Get it right, crap for brains. Tink’s knickers, you have got to be the stupidest lunker I’ve ever lit on.”
Nick’s eyes went wide and he clutched the side of the Jeep. “Jenks!” he stammered, going whiter. “What happened to you?”
Jenks’s jaw clenched but he stayed silent.
Nick looked at me. “You’re a person,” he said, looking gaunt. “Jenks, who is she?”
I trembled, unable to say a thing. Jenks gripped the wheel tighter, and the engine nearly stalled when he slowed to go around a turn and didn’t downshift. “No one cares little green turds about you,” he said. “Who do you think she is?”
Nick took a gasping breath, leaning forward to slip to the floor of the Jeep. “Rachel?” he said, and I watched his pupils dilate just before he passed out and his head hit the seat.
Jenks took a quick look over his shoulder. “Great. Just freaking great. Now I’m going to have to carry him.”
Sixteen
I had scrambled back to sit with Nick, worried at the stink of infection and that he hadn’t regained consciousness yet. The wind from our passage as Jenks jostled us down the road to the supposed marina lifted the hair about my ears, giving me a fuzzy “view” of the sounds around me but an expanded picture of the smells. The chatter from the radio was loud and heavy, bringing Jenks up to speed on Pam’s death and the breakup of the round. That we might have stolen a Jeep and were listening apparently hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind. The survivalists had divided their forces to maintain dominance of the island as well as search for us. It could only help.