Calla
It happened in seconds but in my mind, the world slowed to sloth mode. We moved through space like those slow creatures, the vertebrae in my neck yanked one by one, forward, then back. My wolf yelped from deep within me, a fearful cry, and I felt like I was about to transform. Noises roared painfully around me. The crowd wailed, and then the explosion hit. Whiplash, bones grinding against bones. That feeling of transformation without the thrilling release that came from letting my wolf out. All my senses thrust into hyperdrive, and then...a void.
When I came to, a piercing ring blocked out all other sounds. My head throbbed. I rubbed it, and my palm came away red.
A head injury. Great.
I blinked away blood and blurriness. By now I was coherent enough to assess the situation. During the moment of impact, I'd assumed the car had been hit. My last thought was that I was about to explode into tiny bits, and of all people, I was to share this fate with Rhys Rawlings, our material bodies forever intermixed within the ash heap of my mother's Lexus. In the aftermath, I realized someone had tossed some sort of homemade bomb, it had struck the ground next to us, and as it seemed, we had kept all our bits still attached to our bodies.
Rhys moaned. He'd been tossed against the door and appeared banged up, but he was alive, which was good enough for me to ignore him for now.
"Neil?" I asked.
No response.
The heaviest damage seemed to be from the front driver's side, and the only way for me to assess Neil's injuries was to get out of the car. The crowd had fallen back after the bomb struck, but I couldn't expect that to hold.
They might attack me. I was strong and fought well in human form, even while sporting these Louis Vuitton pumps, but the numbers were on their side. Still, Neil, from what I could see through the broken glass separating front and back seat, wasn't faring well. I tried to remove the glass, shred by shred, but the car's metal roof had been bent downward. There was no point in attempting to assess him that way.
Time was ticking.
I tried my door. Jammed shut. "Shit." I wiggled the latch harder.
"What are you doing?" Rhys said, his words slurring like he'd been at the pub all night. That, plus the ringing in my ears made it hard to understand him. "Don't go out there, it's madness. Wait for the Liaison cops."
"I can't wait. Neil needs help." I gave him a wide-eyed look to convince him of how dire our situation was.
"Holy hell. You're bleeding," he said before passing out again.
"Fuuuck," Just what I needed.
My phone vibrated against my bare shin where I had dropped it during the attack. Wincing, I bent over to retrieve it. "Hello," I yelled.
Dev said something and it sounded urgent, but I couldn't make out the words.
"Speak loudly," I said, over-enunciating each syllable. "My ears aren't working well."
"We're trying to get through the mom."
"Whose mom?"
"I said, mob." He yelled. "There's a mob."
That made more sense. "No shit."
"Just hang on. Don't leave the vehicle. We'll be there soon." He ended the call.
What to do, what to do... Neil and his team might be here in thirty seconds or thirty minutes depending on how the mob behaved. Meanwhile, an Alpha werewolf had passed out next to me and a human was bleeding out behind the wheel.
"Sorry, Dev," I said as I crawled over Rhys so I could try opening his door.
I'd swung one leg over him, putting myself in a position that would have made a stripper one hell of a tip. Within me, my wolf perked up again. This was the exact wrong time and the exact wrong man for her to get excited about. Thankfully, I wouldn't be in physical contact with him for more than a few seconds.
Awkwardly, I reached for the door handle. As I pulled on it, a hand shot to my ass.
Rhys had awoken.
"You have terrible timing," he said to me.
"Get your hand off my ass, Alpha. I'm just trying to get out of the car."
I shifted my weight against the door, but he held onto me firmly. "If I have to die young, this is how I'd want to go out."
"Rhys!" I slapped his hand away even though my wolf very much wanted his hand to stay.
Trying the door again, it gave way, cracking open under my weight. "Don't go," Rhys said, finally opening his eyes to look at me. "Oh no. Blood," he said, dropping his hand from my butt. His eyes rolled upwards, and his head slumped against the headrest.
No. No fucking way!
The first time he passed out I assumed it was because he was injured, but a second time...and right after seeing blood dripping down from my face.
Did the sight of blood make this arrogant Alpha wolf shifter faint? How did that even work, given what we did each month? I had so many questions.
Putting that all aside, I opened the door and stepped out, taking a moment to get my bearings.
A moment. That's all it took to realize we were in the middle of werewolf hell.
A swarm of angry humans encircled the car. Several of the closest had blood-streaked clothes and faces. One woman was hunched over like she was about to puke. In front of the car, a body lay, with a couple of bystanders crouched over issuing medical aid. No one was bothering to help Neil, even though he was a human, just like them.
I tried the passenger's side door. Locked. My options were to either break the window or go around the car. I nixed the second option as it would mean wading into a sea of werewolf-haters.
On this side of the car, I was partially sheltered by the delivery truck that had been next to us before the bombing. This was my best chance.
Now, to break the window. I had limited options. One of my shoes, sadly, might do the trick but the thought of ruining them gave me sad thoughts. And then it hit me. Who had a massive fist and an even larger ego that would make him do stupid things to prove a point?
I leaned into the backseat again, hoping the crowd would leave us alone long enough to pull Neil from the vehicle. Maybe they'd take pity on him if we could separate him from us. Shaking Rhys with one hand, I used the sleeve of my blouse to wipe the blood away from my face as best I could.
"Rhys," I hissed. "Wake up, but keep your eyes closed."
"Mmmm." He started to open his eyes and I covered them with my hand.
"What sort of game is this?" He asked in an inappropriately excited voice. "Wait a minute, what the hell is happening?"
"Someone tried to explode us. You woke up. Saw my bloody face and passed out. Then you woke up again, saw my bloody face, and passed out again."
"I can explain."
"You have Vasovagal Syncope."
"D-d-did you just take the time to Google that?"
"One of our human housekeepers had it when I was growing up. She didn't keep the job long." Which begged the question: how did that work when you're tearing open the aortic artery of a mobster? I wanted to ask that question so badly, but it would have to wait.
"It's not uncommon."
"I don't care. Right now, I need you."
"Of course, you do. It's about time you realized that."
"To smash a window. I need you to smash a window. Can you stop thinking about sex long enough to use your big strong Alpha fist to bust through glass?"
"You don't have to ask me twice."
I pulled him, eyes still closed, out of the back seat, placed his hand on the passenger window and said, "That's your target. Go."
He curled his fingers, pulled his hand back and then, bam!
The window shattered under his strength. My wolf danced. She was impressed, and despite myself, so was I.
"Did I do it?" He asked. Opening his eyes, he took one look at his bloody knuckles and began to sway.
"No! You do not get to pass out again." I steadied him by pressing his back against the delivery van. The crowd roared around us. If they saw an Alpha about to collapse, there would be no stopping them from exploiting our weakness. "I don't have time for this."
Reaching into the window, I manually unlocked the car and opened the door. "Neil!"
Neil slumped forward, his head resting against the deflated airbag that had deployed when the car jolted to a stop. From what I could see, his door was majorly damaged, plastic and metal warping inward. Blood pooled onto the floor. Something must have struck him from the side, the force of it wedging into his leg.
"Is he dead?" Rhys asked.
I felt Neil's neck for a pulse. "Not yet. But he needs medical attention immediately or he's not going to make it." I backed myself out of the car and stood up straight. "I can't see the wound from this angle."
From the corner of my eyes, I registered a flash of movement. A tall human male, almost as big as the Alpha standing behind me, working his way out of the crowd. Once he reached the front of the delivery truck, he sprinted towards Rhys.
It happened fast. The man drew a gun from his waistband. Aimed it.
"Rhys, look out!"
As I yelled, I lunged towards the man, denting the side of the truck as I slammed him into it, my hand pressed to his throat. I grabbed onto his wrist with my other hand and twisted. "Drop the gun!"
The man cried out but held on firm to his weapon. With both hands occupied, my best option was to get another appendage involved. A swift knee to the groin and he caved. The gun clanked to the asphalt as he groaned.
"Damn," Rhys said, a smile of approval on his lips. "Nice work, boss."
"Calla!" Dev's voice rose over the crowd. My detective ex and what seemed to be his entire precinct had worked their way to the front of the crowd, pushing them back from us. Dev approached, followed by another officer.
"Take him," he said to his subordinate, who removed Rhys's assailant from me.
"Help Neil." I gestured to the car. "He's in rough shape. Please tell me you have an ambulance nearby."
The EMT gods seemed to be on my side today. No sooner had I relayed the need for them than they showed up carrying a stretcher and a bag of medical supplies. I stepped back to let them work.
"Make sure you have them look over the two of you as well," Dev said.
"We're fine." I tapped my head nervously, but it seemed the bleeding had already stopped. "Nothing some werewolf genes and a good night of sleep can't fix."
He looked at Rhys, who nodded the same. "Stop being stubborn, both of you. You need stitches, Calla. As for your driver, he'll be taken to Neutral Isle North Hospital. It's the closest one. If he can be stabilized, we'll transfer him over to Crown General so it will be easier for the Crown pack to oversee his care."
I stared at my mother's destroyed sedan. "Can we get a police escort back to Apex?"
"I was going to suggest it." He motioned to a woman in uniform who was walking towards us. "Sergeant Bristol will see that you get back safely. Despite all this chaos, I still have to go jump on that call with Japan. You'll be okay?"
He'd aimed the question in my direction, but Rhys answered before I could. "That depends. You're going to find out who did this, right? Someone who hates shifters so much they would do something so reckless, willing to harm humans to get their point across... That's dangerous."
I thought about Vicki, missing, possibly harmed by someone reckless, someone with ill intent. "I'm positive that whoever the perpetrator is, they'll be brought to justice," I said. "One way or the other."