CAPTURED: 9 Alpha Bad-Boys(123)

"I'll get you to a doctor," Jamie said, and with almost no effort at  all, he lifted her into his arms. She never thought he was so strong. He  wasn't exactly bursting with muscles.         

     



 

She still struggled. "No. Put me down."

Jamie was already out the door and quickly rushing down the stairs with  her. "Don't be stubborn, seriously. You need a doctor. They won't know  what we are so long as you can keep your fire away."

Considering how hard Cindy had tried to free herself from that room, and  how much she'd wanted to fight back against Stephanie and Stacy with no  success at all, Cindy didn't think keeping her fire away was going to  be an issue.

Stress, it seemed, wasn't always helpful when she wanted to control her powers.

Jamie was the only one of the two of them who might get a few odd looks.  His dishwasher blond hair was littered with patches of white, and it  was naturally spiky, thanks to the electric currents rushing through his  skin. The small hairs on Cindy's arms were standing straight up just  from touching him.

Cindy finally managed to get Jamie to stop before he could get to his  beat up old jeep, and she explained why Stacy had attacked her as she  had.

"I need to get to Jack. Jamie, please, I need to get to him and stop them. They'll kill him."

Jamie's face went whiter than the patches of hair on his head. "Jesus  Christ, Cindy, a hunter? You can't even worry about that right now. You  said you're pregnant. You're bleeding. You need to see a doctor."

"Jamie, look at me. The baby's gone," Cindy said, and she immediately  let out a few choked sobs before she could compose herself. By telling  him this, she was taking the same risk she took with her roommates,  worried that he would react the same way they did.

"Jamie, please, please," she begged.

Jamie let out a hard breath. "All right," he said, and he put her in the  passenger side of the jeep before he climbed into the driver's side and  turned on the ignition. "I'll take you right to the house, but if there  looks like any trouble then you're staying in the jeep, and I'm calling  an ambulance and the cops when we get there."

That was more than what Cindy could've hoped for. Calling for an  ambulance was one thing, but involving the police was something else  entirely. He was risking his own freedom by doing that, especially if  either Stephanie or Stacy was still around and decided to out him for  what he was.

Cindy gave him the directions and he drove quickly. The sun was just  setting, turning the sky into a mix of purples, pinks, and even a  bright, flickering orange.

She didn't understand that the flickering orange was actually coming  from Jack's house until they turned the corner and drove over the hill.

Cindy gasped at the sight. There were already red fire trucks at the  scene, trying to stop the blazing inferno. It looked like the fire was  just eating the house alive like a cruel predator.

"Jesus Christ. Hey! Cindy!" Jamie cried, but Cindy was out of the jeep before he could stop her.

She wasn't fast enough to outrun him, however, and he grabbed onto her,  wrapping his arms around her middle and holding on tight while Cindy  completely lost her mind. She screamed for Jack. She could smell burning  hair and flesh even with the scent of burning fuel and wood. People  were dying in there, or already dead.

Stephanie and Stacy had killed Jack.

Jamie continued to hold her, tried to get her to calm down, but even  when she stopped screaming and struggling, she was still sobbing loudly.  Jamie was speaking to her, but it took her brain a while to figure out  what he was saying.

"We have to get out of here. I'm sorry, but we have to go," Jamie said,  and only then did Cindy notice that she was drawing a lot attention.

Of the many fire fighters and police officers who were already at the  scene, there were one or two of them who were able to take their eyes  away from the blazing fire to get a look at the woman who was screaming,  and the man with strange hair who was holding her.

Two men in blue uniforms signaled to their friends and started jogging over.

"Shit," Jamie said. "Shit, Cindy, we have to get out of here right now."

The men coming weren't collectors, and they weren't hunters, but even  regular police officers were required to turn in any paranormals that  they found. They might even think she was responsible for the fire when  they found out she was a pyro, although letting them know what she was  so they could take her away for experimentation-and quite possibly  death-suddenly didn't seem so bad. She wouldn't have to run anymore, at  least.

"Just leave me alone," Cindy said.

"Are you crazy?" Jamie hissed, tugging on her body, but Cindy was dead  weight now, and she didn't want to move. She slumped down to knees and  wasn't about to get up. She wanted to curl into a ball and just stop  existing.

Her baby was dead and so was Jack. Let the worst of it come.

"You there! Hey! Take your hands off of the girl," said one of the men  in blue. He held his hand out to Jamie, and he kept his other hand on  his gun, but he didn't draw it. The same went for his partner.

Jamie's hands were no longer on Cindy. They were up in the air as he'd been ordered..

"She's a friend of mine. I'm not hurting her," Jamie said.

"Yeah, well, just back up anyway. She clearly doesn't want you touching her," the second officer said..

"Get out of here, Jamie," Cindy said, staying on her knees, gripping the  grass in her fingers. The green blades were slowly browning, and then  turning black as smoke wafted from the burning grass between her  fingers.

"Cindy," Jamie said, a clear warning in his voice, and she wondered if he could see the tiny fire she was trying to start.

"I said stop talking to her!" The officer snapped. "Miss? Are you all right? Do you know the people who lived here?"

She looked up into the face of the police officer. "Is anyone alive? Did anyone make it out?"

Both men looked at each other, and then at her. There was pity in their  eyes, and the sort of awkward confusion on their faces that came when  someone didn't know how to tell another person bad news.

The fires inside of her roared to life, reaching out higher and hotter than even the fire that had killed Jack and his family.

She very nearly burned the two cops, who jumped back and away from her.

"What the fuck!" one of them screamed.

The guns game out.

Before they could even aim, Jamie lifted his hands towards them, bolts  of lightning shooting out of his fingers and striking the two officers  in the chest.

Their eyes widened and teeth clenched together as the electricity ran  through their bodies. Their knees buckled and then they went down. Cindy  watched the entire thing with a feeling of being very far away.

Then Jamie was in front of her again, kneeling down, his face inches  from hers. "Cindy, I'm sorry, okay, but I know you don't want to do  this. You don't want to die. So I'm getting you out of here before more  cops see us, all right?"

He was asking for her permission, but he didn't wait for her to give an  answer before he shocked her too. It was the strangest, most painful  thing she'd ever felt in her life. She was paralyzed and in pain, but  then everything was black, and she was only vaguely aware of being  hoisted into Jamie's arms as he started to run away with her, back to  his vehicle. That was all she knew.





Chapter Seventeen

When they made it to the storage facility, everything was surprisingly  quiet. There was barely any security either, aside from a single man  sitting inside of a rectangular box made of metal and glass. Jack passed  him a card, and the guy checked it out before he pressed a button and  opened the chain link fence for them to enter.

It was all so damned easy that it made Cindy nervous.

"You sure this is where you want to go?" Jessica asked.

Cindy looked at the woman, trying her hardest not to be jealous of her  and what she and Jack had shared in the past. At least it hadn't been  enough for her to spill her secret to him until just a few minutes ago.

"I've got a motorcycle and some more cash in my shed," Jack explained.  "I also know a guy who can get Cindy and me some new IDs. We can get a  car later."

Cindy was stunned. "Why would you need to have those things tucked away?"

Jack shrugged. "In case of an emergency."

It seemed like as good of an excuse as anything else, so she was going  to go along with it. Jack no longer wanted to see her hauled off by the  collectors, and if Cindy was reading this right, he also still had  feelings for her.

She was going to trust her gut on this one, even though it was rumbling  and twisting in pain from all the stress of their hasty escape.

Jack opened the door when Jessica stopped the car, and Cindy was  stunned, and warmed, when he reached for her hand and helped her out of  the car, as if she was some delicate treasure he needed to care for.

A little delicate, maybe, but people didn't want her because she was a  treasure. This almost felt like it had when they were together in the  beginning.