Chapter 23 #2
A sniper, 200 feet away.
I tackle Aubrey to the ground as a bullet pierces my skin and embeds in my back.
Aubrey
I scream.
I’m not sure what’s happening. Why Billy threw me onto the ground. The pavement scrapes and bruises my knees. His body blankets mine, heavy as a rhino.
The way he covers my head with his arms makes it clear what’s happening even before he rasps, “Stay down. There’s a shooter.”
A shooter. What the fuck?
Is this random gun violence or related to Sentience?
Billy has his phone out, and he barks. “I need back up now” before he pulls me to my feet. His hand stays on my head, pushing me, so I’m folded in half at the waist like him ducking from whatever or whoever is after us.
That’s when I see the blood soaking his clothes.
“You’re hit!”
Oh no. No no no no. Oh my God.
“Billy!”
This is unreal. Catastrophic. I gulp breaths to try to think.
He pulls me in a ducked run behind a low garden wall, keeping his gaze on a point in the distance.
I don’t hear the sound of shots, but glass explodes behind us.
Screams sound from every direction. They must be using a silencer. No one heard the first shot, but now everyone in the outdoor mall knows there’s a shooter.
My heart beats so hard I swear it will come out of my chest.
“You’re hit. Oh my God.” The amount of blood that soaking Billy’s clothes scares the shit out of me. We need to get him to an ER. “Help!” I scream, looking around. “Someone call an ambulance!”
He’s going to die, and it was because he was saving me.
He can’t die.
A bullet hits the brick wall to my right. I bark a sharp shriek of surprise.
“We’re okay,” Billy says calmly although he has to be seconds from collapsing from the amount of blood he lost. “Just keep your head down, and he can’t sight us.”
“Are they here for me?”
He scans the environment again then pulls me at a crouched run behind the next wall. “I won’t let them get you, Silver.”
Sully, Vance, Nickel, and Jake race around the corner.
“Shooter, two o’clock. Aubrey’s the target. Get transport,” Billy barks information with military precision although his movements are slowing, like the blood loss finally caught up.
He wasn’t in the military, was he?
Even more baffling, the guys react as if they are part of an elite navy SEAL team.
“Already on it. Jake, Vance, find the shooter. We’ll cover Aubrey,” Sully replies. Sully and Nickel flank us, providing me with even more body coverage as we run, en masse, toward the street.
Billy collapses, dropping to one knee.
“He’s hurt!” I cry, stating the obvious.
Nickel hauls him up, putting his shoulder under Billy’s arm.
“Cover Aubrey.” Billy’s voice sounds thin.
Oh my God. He’s going to die. I can’t let him die.
This can’t be happening.
“We need to get him to a hospital,” I cry.
Brick, Madi, Scarlett and Ruby, and Eagle run around, and one of the guys barks, “protect the Luna.”
Brick and Scarlett sandwich Madi.
Sirens sound in the distance.
The limo stands out front, doors open. The guys hustle us toward it. Billy’s still hanging onto me like I need protection when he’s the one about to bleed out.
“Wait!” I call, pointing in the direction of the sirens. “That might be the ambulance. Billy should go in an ambulance.”
They ignore me.
“Put Aubrey in the front,” Brick snaps from behind us. He takes my arm to try to separate me from Billy.
“Right,” Madi agrees.
In the front? With the chauffeur’s glass separating us?
Hell, no.
“Why?” I screech.
“Aubrey–” Madi’s also now trying to tug me away.
Billy collapses at the door of the limo, and Nickel and Sully have to pick him up to toss him like a hay bale onto one of the seats.
The reality that Billy may die turns me icy cold.
“No!” I wrench away from Brick and Madi and throw myself in behind him. “I’m riding with him.”
“Fuck,” Brick mutters, but everyone tumbles in, and the limo takes off with tires squealing before the door even closes.
“Billy.” I drop to my knees in front of the seat where he’s curled on his side. His face is colorless, teeth chattering.
Nickel sits toward his feet, and he rolls Billy forward to examine the wound.
I frantically skim his body with my palms as if I can heal him through touch alone.
“What in the fuck just happened?” Brick roars.
Billy’s lips move, but no sound comes out. He starts shaking like he’s having a seizure. His eyes seem to turn an icy silver.
“The bullet didn’t go through,” Nickel reports. “Lucky for Aubrey.”
For me? What in the fuck does he mean? Oh–because it would’ve hit me too? But everyone who watches mafia thrillers knows bullet wounds that go straight through are better. If he has a bullet lodged in an organ somewhere, he’ll need massive surgery.
“It’s my fault,” I choke. “They came for me.”
A strange cracking sound comes from Billy’s back, like it’s breaking apart. God, did the bullet hit his spine?
“Fuck,” Brick mutters again.
“He took a bullet for me.” Tears streak my face. “Now he’s going to die.”
“He won’t die.” Nickel sounds calm. It’s weird how people handle emergencies differently. Billy was calm, too.
And now he’s going to die.
Billy’s face contorts. The snapping bone sound gets louder. There’s a tearing of fabric, and then suddenly, Billy’s gone.
My breath stops.
In his place lies an enormous white and gray wolf. Billy’s clothes lie in shredded tatters around him.
A strange whimpering sound escapes my throat. What…just–
The wolf’s white fur turns red from blood.
“That’s it, Billy.” Nickel’s hand is on the wolf’s flank. “Let your wolf heal you.”
“The…the wolf is Billy.” My voice sounds far away to my ears.
Billy is a wolf.
I twist to look over my shoulder to gaze at the rest of the group. Every face I scan looks unsurprised. Pale and sober but unsurprised. Even Madi’s.
“Billy is a werewolf?” It’s like one part of my brain–the one indoctrinated with fairytales and fantasy–understands perfectly, but the other says this is impossible.
“A wolf shifter,” Madi says.
That’s when it hits me. “You’re all wolves.”
All except for Madi? Or has she been turned?
“He’s going to be okay,” Madi says, and this time I believe her. Because if men can turn into wolves, I certainly can believe other magic and miracles are possible.
I bob my head, tears still streaming down my face. “Okay,” I sniff. “That’s good.” I realize the other people in the limo are looking at each other.
I’m in on their secret.
I lean my face close to the wolf’s. He’s ginormous–way bigger than a normal wolf. My body has a biological fear response to the huge head and giant teeth, but this is Billy. The guy who just took a bullet for me. “Please be okay,” I murmur.
He licks the tears from my cheek.
“Please.”
“The bleeding already stopped,” Nickel says quietly. “His body will expel the bullet in a day or two. He’ll need to rest up to recover, that’s all.”
Relief pours through me, and I cry harder. “Oh. That’s good.” I stroke his silky ears. “That’s really good.”
“What happened, Aubrey?” Brick asks, without the bark this time.
I wipe the tears with my wrist and turn to look at him, keeping one hand on Billy’s head. “I’m involved in some corporate espionage. To take down Sentience, the A.I. company that stole everyone’s work.”
Brick’s eyebrows pop.
“Did you know this?” he asks Madi, who winces.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know it would come to this,” I say.
“There was a whistleblower of an AI company who ended up dead in a hotel room,” Brick says. “His death was deemed suicide…but his parents protest that claim. These guys don’t mess around.”
I shiver. Jamie was right to be paranoid. “Then I guess they’re trying to get rid of me. Billy’s guy said they ransacked my apartment yesterday and must’ve found me here. It’s just… crazy.” I shake my head, unable to believe things have come to this.
“A heads-up would’ve been nice,” Brick mutters. “From either one of you.” He splits a look between Madi and Billy.
It’s weird to see someone talk to an animal like they understand.
Suddenly, his relationship with his friends makes more sense. They’re wolves. They follow an alpha.
And no wonder Madi pulled away from me after she got serious with him.
I think back to how she felt marginalized by him at first–sequestered in a separate wing of the house when she got snowed in with him in the Adirondacks. That must’ve been before–
“Madi…are you a wolf, too?” I croak. I have to know. Are they going to bite me and turn me into one of them now? How does this work?
She lets out a chuff of laughter, but her eyes are sorrowful, like she regrets that she couldn’t tell me. “No. Still me. They’re a different species. It’s not a contagion like movies would have us believe.”
“Okay.” I turn back to Billy. That’s all I can handle right now. I keep stroking his head and ears.
I don’t care if they’re a pack of donkeys. What matters is that Billy is so much more than I believed. I’d pigeon-holed him into the role of asshole billionaire. A big, bad bully. I thought he only cared about money and business when he actually had a depth and history I never saw.
Now I want to know the real Billy. The one who is fiercely loyal to his alpha. The one who protected me with his life. There’s so much more to him than I realized, and I want to see it all.