Teo scooted in next to Manx and pulled the door shut, and I sat up front with Dodd. “Thanks for the ride,” I said, pulling the seat belt tight across my lap.
“No problem.” He shifted into gear, then pulled the car smoothly onto the road. “We’re just lucky I’m not out patrolling tonight.”
That we were. Otherwise, our walk would have been much, much longer.
Half a mile later, I Shifted my eyes back, then autodialed my father. “Hey,” I said when he answered. “We’re free and clear.”
“Good. Call when you get to Henderson. We’re scrounging up weapons, and plan to make the first offensive in about an hour.”
For once, I had no idea what to say. Everything I could think of—be careful, watch out for Mom—seemed a bit obvious. Nothing an Alpha would need to hear. So I swallowed the grapefruit-size lump in my throat and told him the truth. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too, Kitten. Watch out for them.”
“I will. Will you tell Marc I love him?”
He laughed, a sound of genuine amusement, when I really needed to hear exactly that. “He already knows.”
We said goodbye again, and I slid my phone into my pocket, then twisted to accept the tire iron Manx handed me. Kaci sat in the middle row, holding a hammer. “Hey, be careful.…”
“Oh, shit!” Dodd stomped on the brakes. The van started to skid. Teo threw out one hand to protect Manx and Des. Kaci slammed into the back of the driver’s seat. I flew forward, then my seat belt snapped tight against my hip.
Stunned, I dropped into my seat—and screamed. Fifty feet ahead, and closing with every second, the largest thunderbird I’d ever seen soared right for us, lit from beneath by our headlights. His talons clutched something big, and dark, and obviously heavy.
Before Dodd could safely change course, the bird opened his talons, directly over us. Whatever he was carrying slammed into the hood of the van.
We all screamed. The van swerved. I rocked violently from side to side as Dodd tried to control the vehicle. And I could only stare at the huge boulder deeply embedded in the hood, pinning the thick canvas it had been carried in.
The van swerved left. Dodd overcompensated. We swerved right, and I braced my good arm against the dashboard. Dodd swerved again. The van careened off the road and smashed head-on into a trunk at the edge of the tree line.
For a moment, there was an eerie, shocked silence. Then Des started screaming.
I took a second to assess my injuries—a single, rapidly forming lump on the side of my head—then twisted to check on everyone else. “Are you guys okay?”
Manx nodded, dazed, one hand patting the screaming infant. Kaci peeked up from behind the backpack in her lap, and after a moment of consideration, she nodded, too. “I think so—”
That’s when Teo’s door was ripped completely off the car.
Fourteen
Kaci shrieked as a vicious half-bird head appeared where the door had been an instant earlier. Human hands attached to long, muscle-bound arms hauled Teo out of the car and tossed him to the ground. Manx screamed and beat the bird with her right fist, while her left clutched the screaming baby.
The thunderbird made strange, aggressive screeching sounds deep in his human-looking throat, pulling on Manx’s arm. But she was still buckled, and he couldn’t reach the latch.
I jabbed the button on my own seat belt, then leaned over my seat to punch the intruder with my good hand. Dodd reached for Manx but was too far away in the driver’s seat. I only realized he’d gotten out of the car when his door slammed shut.
A second later, Teo roared, and the thunderbird was hauled backward, out of my reach. Dodd wielded a crowbar and bared human teeth at the bird, who half Shifted rapidly in Teo’s grip. All three fell to the cold grass in a violent, snarling, snapping tangle.
I groped for my door handle with my bruised left hand, staring over the back of my seat at Manx. “Are you okay?”
Manx didn’t answer. She was hunched over the baby, protecting her infant with her own life. Her back heaved. I heard sobs and saw tears, but I smelled no blood—none of Manx’s, anyway. So I looked past her to Kaci—just in time to see the young tabby throw open her car door. I could practically smell her panic.
“Kaci, no!” I shoved my own door open, but she didn’t listen. I wasn’t even sure she could hear me over Manx’s crying, Des’s screaming, and the odd snarls and screeches coming from Teo and the bird-man. But it probably wouldn’t have mattered even if she had heard me. Kaci was terrified of being snatched again, and she was not strong enough to defend herself.
That was my job.
“Stay here and stay buckled,” I shouted to Manx, then I dodged the full-out brawl at my feet and took off after Kaci, putting everything I had into my sprint.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t concentrate well enough to Shift my eyes while I was running, so once we’d gone beyond the dim red glow of the van’s taillights, the young tabby’s dark hair and jeans faded into the night. If not for her bright white ski jacket, the slap of her shoes on concrete, and the terrified sobs floating back to me in the wind, I would have thought I’d lost her completely.
Go into the woods! I thought desperately as Kaci frantically threw one foot in front of the other. Thunderbirds couldn’t follow us there. At least, not in full bird form. But I couldn’t afford to waste my energy shouting something that might not sink in, anyway. If she’d been thinking clearly, she would have headed for the trees in the first place, rather than racing along the shoulder of the road, fair game to anything that swooped out of the sky.Then, as if my own thought had called it into being, a powerful thwup, thwup echoed at my back.
Oh, shit. Either Mateo and Dodd had lost their fight, or more than one bird had come after us. Probably both.
I dug deep and threw every spark of energy I had left into my sprint. My focus stayed glued to Kaci’s back, an inverse shadow in the nightscape. I surged ahead, and she was only twenty feet ahead now.
The wind-beating sound grew steadily closer. The accompanying rush of air blew my hair out in front of me. Ahead, Kaci tripped and screamed. She went down only yards from the tree line.
She stood unsteadily, but I was closing on her. Eighteen feet. My lungs burned. She started running again, but more slowly, and with a limp.
Fifteen feet. My side cramped, but any minute, I’d have her.
Twelve feet. I was already reaching out, moments away.
Then the whoosh that had been a warning was suddenly a horrifying roar. I couldn’t hear myself breathe; I heard only menacing wind. I couldn’t feel my pounding heart or rushing pulse; I felt only the surge of air now pushing me backward, away from Kaci.
I squinted against the dust that terrible wind blew at me. A huge, dark shadow swooped low, only feet in front of me. Kaci screamed. Her white jacket shot off the ground and into the air, bobbing higher with each powerful flap of wings. She kicked, the stripes on her shoes reflecting the little available moonlight.
“Hold still!” I shouted, stumbling to a stop beneath her, terrified that her tossing and turning would make the bird drop her. But she couldn’t hear me. I stared up at Kaci in horror, and the fresh ache in my chest threatened to swallow me whole. I’d lost her.
I was supposed to protect Kaci, and I’d lost her. I’d failed, and now she would pay the price.
What little I could see of the night blurred with the moisture standing in my eyes as I forced my legs into motion again. I couldn’t catch her without wings of my own; I knew that. But I had to try.
I stumbled along, wiping tears on the sleeve of my jacket, hoping I wouldn’t trip and further injure my arm. And that Teo and Dodd had won their fight. And that they could get Manx and the baby to safety. I couldn’t see if any of that had happened without losing sight of Kaci. And I couldn’t hear anything—not even Des screaming—over the roar of wings beating overhead and behind me.
Wait, beating behind me?
I spun, my heart trying to claw its way out of my throat. He dove the instant I saw him, a great hulking shadow blocking out the silver crescent moon. In that moment, the bird was everywhere. He was all I could see, and everything I feared. Talons. Hooked beak. And a possible forty-foot fall.
I couldn’t outrun him, so I dropped to my knees, then onto my good elbow, half-convinced he would land on me and crush me. Or drop another big rock on me. But his huge, curved talons were empty.
I tucked my head between my knees and screamed, but could barely hear my own voice. An instant later something gripped my upper arms, then jerked viciously. My shoulders screamed in pain. The world tilted wildly around me. And suddenly the ground was gone.
Just…gone.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I forced myself to hang limp, afraid that thrashing would get me dropped. And so far, the only thing I was sure I’d hate more than flying was falling.
I’d had only seconds to adjust to being aloft when another grating screech ripped through the air behind me. Something grabbed my right ankle in midair. The world swerved around me again, and I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter, still screaming. Then I was horizontal, my stomach to the earth, my left leg and forearms dangling awkwardly.
After several deep breaths, which only calmed me enough to bring my terror into sharper focus, I forced my eyes open. Then immediately slammed them closed again.