Her father gestured to Agent Smith, encouraging him to proceed. “Take her away. Give it a try. I can’t have her here like this.”
Her eyes went wide with horror. “Daddy—”
His eyes went hard. “I am not your father. Obviously.” He turned his back on her.
Agent Smith made a grab for her. She shrunk away, and in desperation, shifted to her wolf form, hoping to make a run for it. She scrambled past him, but she didn’t even make it to the door before three rapid pinches sunk into her back. The world blurred, and she slumped against the still-closed door.
Her vision started to fade. The last thing she saw was Jared’s wolf form lying on the cool marble floor of her father’s office.
Jared heard wailing in the distance.
He was lying on something hard and foul-smelling, and everything hurt. A moan creaked out of him before he managed to open his eyes. The wailing sound wasn’t a human cry—or a wolf howl—but something mechanical. Pitched high. Pitched low. Back and forth as he slowly opened his eyes.
He tried to move, but he was weak. The room was dimly lit, afternoon light filtering in through slatted blinds. A shaky voice came from behind him, muttering words his barely-conscious brain couldn’t make out. He tried to push up from the musty carpet and twist around to see who it was, but a wave of dizziness sent him back down again. The shrill voice screeched louder behind him.
He vaguely remembered that Agent Smith had showed up at the Senator’s office and shot him—but Jared had no idea where he was now.
He stayed down, closer to the floor this time, and just turned his head to peer into the striped shadows. A woman was standing on a bed in the middle of the room, which was some kind of cheap motel, judging by the odor, the crappy bedspread, and the barely-patched holes in the wall.
Most of all, he noticed the gun shaking in her hand and pointing at him. “Don’t move! Don’t move! Oh God, he’s moving!”
Jared tried to get his hands up and tell her to calm down, but all that came out was a moan and an awkward flailing. The gun went off, and white-hot pain tore through his shoulder, throwing him flat on the floor again.
The woman screamed.
“Fuck,” Jared breathed out. What the hell was going on?
“Oh God! Oh God! I shot him!” The woman was hysterical.
Jared blinked, fighting off another wave of dizziness. His shoulder screamed with fresh pain, but his entire body was body weak and on fire. He swallowed hard, but stayed down, so she wouldn’t shoot him again. When he thought he could speak intelligibly, he waited for a pause between her screaming and ranting.
“I’m not going to hurt you!” he called out.
Her rambling cut off suddenly. He lifted his head to peer at her. She was still on the bed, but the gun was at her side, and she was staring at the window. The mechanical wailing grew closer and louder.
When she saw him watching her, the hand with the gun popped back up. “That man said to shoot you if you woke up!” The gun wavered. She was barely dressed, mostly in fishnet. Her tight corset heaved with her panic.
She was obviously some kind of street worker roped into this situation by Agent Smith. Jared shook his head and tried to piece it together. If some poor woman claimed Jared had attacked her, and she shot him in self-defense… either he would end up dead from her gun or he would simply go to jail. Either way, Jared would be out of the way for whatever Agent Smith’s plans were. And the Senator’s.
Grace. God, what happened to her? There was no way she would take this sitting down. He had to find her.
The woman was still pointing the gun at him.
Jared raised a shaky hand. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he repeated, more softly. “Just put the gun down. I don’t know what he’s paying you to do this, but trust me—it’s not worth going to jail for murder.” He had to stop for a moment, gasping for air. This raspy kind of weakness… it was bad news. He’d lost too much blood. He needed to get out before the police arrived, or he’d bleed out before he reached the station.
He squinted up at the woman’s terrified face. “This is not your problem. Just put the gun down, and I’ll walk away. None of this has to be your problem.”
Her eyes were wide, but he could tell that shooting him the first time had freaked her out. She slowly lowered the gun again. Jared worked his way to his feet. The siren was insanely close—they were probably pulling into the parking lot already. He was a mess—covered in blood, naked—but at least he was human. A wolf would be shot on sight.
Jared stumbled toward the door, threw it open, and lumbered to the back of the motel. He managed to slip around the corner before the crunch of police car tires rolled up to the room where he had just been. It wouldn’t take long for them to come after him, and the way he was bleeding, he’d probably leave a trail. He needed some speed, and for that, he needed his wolf. He would just have to stay out of sight.