Jerking her head back, she felt the back of her skull impact with her captor’s nose. It gave with a satisfying crunch but she didn’t stop there. Bringing her knee up, she drove her stiletto heel down into his foot, trying all the time not to think about the fact that they had freaking claws. There was a grunt of pain, and his grip eased enough for her to tear herself loose and run forward.
Only to watch with horrified eyes as one of the others swung around, claws raking through the air in a terrible arch to slice across Kacie’s stomach.
Time slowed as Kacie staggered back, her hands over her abdomen. She looked down in the same direction as everyone else as red seeped out from under her hands to stain the pretty green top dark.
Their assailants backed away, horror on their faces.
“Fucking hell, Jack!” one muttered, looking at the leader, whose claws were stained red. “The boss said we were only supposed to grab them, not fucking hurt them!”
“Shit. There’s more on the way,” the one by the entrance to the alley shouted. “We need to get out of here. Get out of here now!”
In a stampede of booted footsteps and cursing, the alley cleared of men, leaving the three women looking at each other in horror.
Then Kacie paled and staggered. Instantly, the two others were there, supporting her as they lowered her to the ground.
“Shitshitshit,” Lilly muttered, yanking off her own top to wad it against Kacie’s stomach. “This is bad, so bad. Kait, grab my cell and call Dean Sterling. He’s in the quick dial contacts.”
“Dean? Why are we calling Dean? We need to call her an ambulance,” Kait’s voice was shrill as she grabbed Lilly’s purse and reached for the cell within. “Seriously, she needs—”
“JUST CALL DEAN!” Lilly’s bellow was unexpected, loud and way too deep to have come from her throat. Her eyes flashed dark for a second, obliterating the green, and Kait gasped. The speed, the strength…
“Seriously…shhh, Kacie, it’s going to be okay, I promise,” Lilly reassured the injured girl and then looked at Kait. “A hospital can’t do anything for her now. Call Dean.”
“Okay.” Hands shaking, Kait hit dial and waited for an answer. In the back of her mind a voice screamed hysterically but she ignored it, calmly sitting in the dirt with one of her best friends bleeding out through a gut wound and the other telling her some ex-high school jock would make it all better.
But it was all okay because this was a dream. A nightmare for sure, but since men didn’t really have claws, it had to be a dream.
It had to be…didn’t it?
If it was, it was the most surreal dream Kait had ever had.
Dean Sterling picked up the call with a curt, “What the hell, Braun? I told you guys I was busy tonight.”
Oh shit, he sounded pissed. On a normal day, that wouldn’t bother Kait in the slightest, but this wasn’t a normal day by any stretch of the imagination. Any day that involved men with claws was so far from a normal day it was laughable.
“Uhm, I’m sorry. Lilly told me to call…that you could help.”
Heavy footsteps sounded behind her as she spoke. Twisting in panic, she breathed a sigh of relief to see their admirers from in the bar earlier. Only right now, they didn’t look so young and harmless. They looked grim and dangerous as they surrounded the small group of women protectively.
“What happened?” the one who’d tried to chat them up in the bar demanded, his attention all on Lilly. The charm was gone now, and the look in his eyes made Kait shiver.
“We got jumped.” Lilly’s response was no nonsense and rang with an authority Kait had never heard from her before. “Secure the alley and one of you go get a truck. We’re going to need to move her to the lodge.”
“Hello?” Dean’s voice brought Kait back to the conversation. “Hello? Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” She’d obviously slipped into some surreal nightmare, but she was still here.
“Good. Who is this… Kait, is that you? Kait Turner?”
“Yeah, it is.”
You had to hand it to small towns. Dean hadn’t needed more than a few seconds to work out who she was based purely on the fact she was in Lilly’s company. No doubt the gossip network had swung into action as soon as she’d driven into town earlier.
“Kaitlyn. I need you to tell me what happened.”
She took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart and so she didn’t sound hysterical. Because what she had to say was crazy. Crazy and hysterical? They’d be carting her off to the nuthouse in Elim Springs.
“There were men,” she started, looking up with a smile of thanks as one of the new arrivals put a jacket around her shoulders. Why hadn’t she realized she was shaking so much? It couldn’t be the cold. It was too mild for that.
“Men in the alley waiting for us. They had…they had claws,” she said quickly and made the mistake of looking over at Kacie. She lay on her back, her eyes closed and her face pale. Everything about her was pale apart from the vivid scarlet across her abdomen. “Oh god, there’s so much blood.”
Before she could say anything else, the cell was plucked out of her hand by one of the men. “Itan? It’s Bennett. We got a couple of intruders. Five by the smell of it. They caught Braun and her friends in the alley by the library. One got tagged and it’s bad.”
“Which one?”
Kait clearly heard the question as she wrapped the jacket more securely around herself. She felt like an owl as she watched those around her. Three of them, including Lilly, crowded around Kacie, trying to stop the bleeding.
The guy with the cell looked down, a crease between his brows. “Yeah, it’s Kacie Leroy. How did you kn—”
The whole group heard the roar of pain and fury from the other end of the line. The guy holding the cell held it away from his ear, a wince on his face. He must have caught the full force of the sound before he’d yanked it away.
“Yes, Itan,” he said when the noise died down and he replaced the phone against his ear. “We’re on our way. Scott went to get a truck…” He paused and looked up, as though listening for something. “He’s just about here now.”
Sure enough, within seconds a truck pulled up to the entrance to the alley. Kait was shunted to the side as two of the men loaded Kacie onto what looked like a body-board and carried her toward the vehicle.
Lilly straightened up and regarded at her with an odd look in her eye. “Kait, I’m sorry, but you’re going to need to come with us.”
“Duh, way to go, Captain Obvious.” How she was still walking and talking, Kait didn’t know, but at least her powers of sarcasm hadn’t deserted her. “Where she goes, I go. Why aren’t we taking her to a hospital again? She’s bleeding… From. Her. Stomach. That shit’s serious. Like way serious.”
All of a sudden it hit home and the blood drained from Kait’s body right until she felt queasy. “Shit, she could die, couldn’t she? Screw this, I’m calling an ambulance…the sheriff. Anyone.”
She had her cell half out of her clutch when it was plucked out of her hand. She gasped and turned to look up into Bennett’s face. His eyes darkened dangerously.
“Sorry, ma’am, but we can’t let you do that. So, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Please take the easy way. Cause you won’t like the alternative.”
Chapter 3
“You can’t do this,” Kait hissed for what seemed like the hundredth time as she was hauled out of the truck and shoved toward a large building. The lodge, apparently. Lodge of what, she had no idea. It looked more like one of those fancy hunting places Aiden and his lot booked for “team building exercises.” Despite having grown up in Lizard Lick, she’d had no idea it was here, tucked away in the forest-covered hills above town.
The others had already unloaded Kacie, rushing her into the building ahead of them. Dean Sterling had been waiting at the door, lines of concern and fear written on his face. Perhaps the thing Kacie had for him wasn’t all one way?
“Hey, Bennett. Stop being an asshole and be gentle.” Lilly stormed around the truck and got all up in Bennett’s face, forcing him to let go of Kait’s arm. “She’s human and scared, so cut her some fucking slack, okay?”
“Yes, Enforcer.” The big guy rumbled, ducking his head in what appeared to be a subservient gesture. Kait’s eyes widened, as much at his manner and the casual way Lilly had referred to her as “human.”
Shitshitshit, this really wasn’t a dream, was it? She stepped to the side, away from the big man and swept a gaze around her. There was a parking area in front of the lodge, filled with all manner of vehicles, but just beyond it was the tree line. She was a fast runner, once she got rid of the ridiculous heels, of course.
If she could make the trees, she had a good shot at getting away from whatever madness this was. Alert the authorities about the attack on Kacie. She’d been thinking about it. Those guys must have had some kind of cosplay claws that fit over their hands…perhaps they were all involved in some weird live action role play world that Lilly also seemed to be involved in.