Chapter 14 Beast Mode with the Best Sidekick Ever
Beast Mode with the Best Sidekick Ever
I was on absolute overload. Shit, my overload was on overload.
Our wannabe overlord Magnum was four people, and his right-hand gal was a … a … I had no fucking clue what Fanny was beyond definitely not human, and definitely not pretty to look at, or to taste, based on Bobo’s continued reactions to her bodily fluids coating his tongue.
He hadn’t stopped grimacing, hacking, and scrunching up his face. My dog was being dramatic, but damn if he hadn’t earned the right to his theatrics.
To think all we’d set out to do was leave Ridgemore … Not only could we not escape the quaint mountainous town that was feeling less and less quaint by the second, but we were stuck inside its boundaries with not-humans.
Not.
Humans.
My chest heaved from the effort of taking on a monster to save Bobo, but more from the dismay of achieving it. Shock vibrated along the length of my body, making me numb all over. If I started shaking from the adrenaline dump, I might never stop.
I stared down at Bobo until my eyes blurred.
Eventually, Hunt murmured,
Layla asked.
I glanced up to find her collapsed on the ground, too near a seeping pool of gray goop, leaning heavily against her twin.
We delayed in answering only a beat, but it was long enough for Layla to sit up and whine,
Bobo’s hacking ceased. His head jerked upward and off my arm. His ears perked.
Griffin scooted next to me. Hunt leaned low over Bobo. And Layla and Brady slid so close Brady pressed his arm along the length of mine.
Layla asked in an awed whisper.
Brady said, almost reverently.
Bobo’s head jerked again.
When none of us were quick to reply, he added,
With his toddler-like inflections and the lisp, his esses sounded like thes. Noodles became noodleth. Lost became lothst.
It was ridiculously adorable. It probably would have been even cuter if he hadn’t been coated in a monster’s intestinal juices, or whatever all the wet slimy stuff was.
Griffin said, as if needing to hear the statement aloud to believe it.
Brady whistled.
Bobo’s ears drooped.
I blinked rapidly and shook my head to clear it.
Bobo whined, but when I narrowed my eyes at him, he ceased.
His ears stood up another time. He scrambled to rise in the cradle of my lap, then slid off to stand beside me.
he asked.
Bobo nodded. He stood strong, ears and tail at attention. Aside from the glistening evidence of the dunk he took inside Monster-Fanny, he appeared to be his usual self.
Hunt said, his words taking on a sharp edge.
He glanced at the very nonhuman corpse lying mere inches from us. The stench of its open body cavity was beginning to push through my numb shock. The monster smelled as rank as it looked, like rotten-egg stink bombs and doo-doo all at once.
I quickly took stock of the situation as my friends appeared to do the same.
Monster-Fanny’s shield, or whatever exactly it was, was holding strong.
If the three Escalades remained on the other side of it, I still couldn’t see any signs of them or the soldiers waiting with them.
I could, however, make out the welcome-to-Ridgemore greeting beyond where the vehicles should be, taunting me with its semblance of normalcy.
Griffin said in a conspiratorial whisper even though he didn’t speak aloud.
He said it so matter-of-factly, like the idea of me bringing someone—anyone—back to life wasn’t absolutely mind-blowing.
Griffin continued.
I was hearing every word Griffin was saying in that deep voice of his that sent excited tingles rushing through me more often than not lately, but they weren’t fully registering.
The shakes had started, so mild at first that I wasn’t sure they were really happening. But now there was no denying them. My teeth chattered as if we were on the Arctic tundra with whipping winds and not in Ridgemore on a balmy fall day.
Griffin didn’t hesitate to wrap me up in his arms and pull my body back against his.
“It’s okay, baby,” he cooed aloud. “It’s okay. You’re just in shock.”
“Ho-how are you n-not?”
“I’ve always known you’re amazing.” He said it again so matter-of-factly. “I’ve always believed in you.”
“Me too,” Layla said, before glancing at Brady and Hunt. “All of us.”
My eyes moistened. My head bobbed as the intensity of my shivering ramped up.
Like he was readying for a piggyback ride, Griffin wrapped his legs around me as well, enveloping my body in his heat as much as he could.
It took a minute, but finally my shivering began to diminish.
A final tremble rolled through me.
Layla said, eyes bright and made brighter by the contrasting gray sprayed across her face.
I sniffed and breathed in a bit of Monster-Fanny. I winced.
Griffin said, his face nuzzling my back.
Brady said, and my eyes snapped to his.
Like Layla, his eyes were made lighter by the gray smeared around them.
Then he grinned.
Hunt said.
For the first time, I allowed myself a glance at the monster’s head—or what remained of it. It was a deformed heap of gray flesh, ooze, and teeth.
I commented, unsure how I felt about the damage we’d caused, or how unfazed I’d felt about it while I’d been inflicting it.
Griffin said, as if reading my mind.
Brady said.
Hunt insisted ferociously.
Bobo smiled and wagged his tail.
A laugh burst free of my chest, relieving much of the weight I was carrying. My friends were laughing too. There was no helping it despite the morbid setting.
Seeming to realize his words had caused our reaction, Bobo repeated it exactly as he’d said it before.
Again, we laughed.
Layla said, chuckling.
Bobo’s brow furrowed. His smile faltered.
I chortled. I glared at Layla but was unable to put much oomph into it.
she griped.
I pointed a meaningful look at what had once been our fake fun-cool-aunt and was now a pile of body parts.
I asked.
Layla grimaced grimly.
I gulped.
We sat with that for a few moments.
Griffin told me.
Brady chimed in.
Hunt admitted.
I sniffled, nodded, and offered my friends who knew me so well a watery smile.
Bobo suddenly barked, and we all spun toward the direction he pointed.
Bobo told us unnecessarily.
The shield was down. Eleven mercenaries stood together with the three cars at their backs. They each gripped a pistol, and I couldn’t tell if they were loaded with tranquilizer darts or bullets. Their eyes grazed us, then Fanny’s remains—and stuck there.
“Weapons live,” one of the men said to the others. “Circle them.”
With a jangle of weapons and a rustle of fabric, Magnum’s muscle jogged over, fencing us in.
“Eyes on them only,” the apparent leader of the bunch commanded.
But a woman and two men, those who stood closest to the monster, appeared unable to stop their eyes from drifting downward.
A guy with a tight buzz cut and a meticulous goatee goggled at the sight, blinking repeatedly.
“I said, eyes on them only,” repeated the commander, this time with bite.
The woman and man beside him snapped their stares upward, but Goatee gawped.
I tried to view the scene from his perspective, assuming he’d been kept in the dark about the true nature of the people he worked for as we’d been.
Beyond the grotesque sight of a pulverized head and an abdomen ripped apart with the brutality of bare hands, he’d be seeing inexplicably slippery gray flesh, gray blood, and gore.
He’d be spotting sufficient teeth to fill the mouths of a dozen humans.
And he’d be seeing how the body of the woman we’d believed to be Fanny pooled limply around her hips and hands—how I’d shattered her arm and wrist bones.
The skin suit was bunched up in an accordion of pale-colored skin, gray alien flesh, and blue shirt.
The rest of her was unnervingly human-looking.
Her flowered maxi skirt had barely been disturbed, save for the gray gore that spattered it.
Her feet were still stuffed into matching blue socks and her ever-present Birks.
Goatee gulped, visibly shaken, and dragged his stare across me, my friends, and my dog. The guys’ sneaks were covered in alien gray, and the monster’s blood spattered up the legs of their jeans. Gray blood was on their shirts, arms, hands, faces, and hair too.
Layla and I were also covered in it. Her and my hands and arms were so thick with gray blood, it was as if we’d dunked them.
The commander sighed, and before I could decide what that signaled, he opened fire.
Pop.
Blood blossomed in the center of Goatee’s forehead.
Before he dropped: pop, pop, pop, pop.
The leader caught the woman in midturn, preparing to flee, and he caught the man as he was raising his revolver to shoot back.
A scarlet crimson bloomed through the back of the woman’s head as she plummeted forward. The man’s knees gave out as blood dripped from an eye socket. He slammed to his knees before pitching forward.
Their bulletproof vests had been useless.
My crew and I leapt to our feet.
I commanded. If he charged the commander, I had no doubt he’d aim that gun at my sweet boy. I added for good measure, so Bobo would do nothing to provoke the trigger-happy fucker.
Griffin, Hunt, and Brady lined up in front of Layla and me. She and I quickly sidled up beside our guys.
The commander trained his gun on me.
Griffin and Brady dove in front of me. Hunt darted around to shield my exposed side.
But the commander didn’t shoot. He only glared at us while he spoke to his soldiers: “Anyone else unwilling to follow orders?”
In unison, the seven surviving mercenaries barked, “No, sir!”
The commander scowled. “Good.”
To us, he sneered, “It’s naptime, assholes.”
From the others’ guns, much softer pops rang out into the afternoon. They hit Griffin, Brady, and Hunt first. When my guys wobbled, they shot Layla and me.
A dart pegged me in the neck, spearing my throat. They were probably all sharpshooters, which meant the extra fuckery was intentional.
I growled at them, yanked out the dart, but wasn’t even able to keep myself from sliding into my friends and the monster’s gunk before the world went dark on me—yet again.