Chapter 20
Alan was convulsing. Grand mal seizures that contorted his body and bent the bars of his cage. And there was absolutely nothing Julie could do about it but scream. Scream for bloody murder because no one was here to help him, and she was stuck in a damned cage.
They’d gone to dinner, damn it. Dinner! While Alan’s body contorted and she was trapped, trapped, trapped! So she screamed out her desperation and prayed that someone would hear.
If only the bonding had worked. She certainly stank enough for whatever pheromones to permeate the space.
Her body temperature had spiked, sweat and stink had made her light-headed, and maybe for a few moments there she had felt something.
Fury, emptiness. Connection? She didn’t know, and for the first time in her life she hated.
She despised Evil Einstein to a degree she’d never believed she was capable.
While she spoke soothing words to Alan, she stewed in fantasies of ripping them apart.
Of dancing while their lifeblood poured into the ground from painful, gut-wrenching wounds.
And then Alan had started to convulse and she had nothing in her but her screams.
The door burst open and a large form entered, gun drawn and eyes narrowed. Her subconscious recognized him long before her brain got the message. Her scream choked off into a sob of relief even as her eyes outlined a large body with unkempt hair, as if he’d been pulling at it in worry.
Mark.
He was at her cage a moment later, grabbing the lock, even as he turned to see Alan.
It was a pause between seizures, and like the other two times, Julie prayed that it would be the end.
That he’d breathe easier and rest. But just like before, four seconds ticked by in quiet before the convulsions began on the fifth.
“Help him!” she cried.
Carl leapt into the room in that moment, gun also drawn but he went straight to Alan’s cage.
Then he tossed his weapon to Mark before shifting into full grizzly.
There was a quick shimmer and then a huge grizzly with a silver streak down his back crowded everything else in the room.
A single swipe of his paw shredded Alan’s cage.
Another took out Julie’s lock. She started to scramble out, but her legs were startlingly weak.
Not a problem, though, as Mark hauled her out, wrapping her firmly in one arm while the other snapped open the buckles on his vest.
As soon as he was able, he hauled her to his mouth in a quick kiss. She wrapped herself around him, sobbing out her terror even as he set her apart from him.
“Put this on!” he ordered as he shoved his vest at her. She didn’t want to take it and leave him exposed, but he didn’t give her any choice. He dropped the thing in her hand and turned to get a grip on Alan. It’s not like Carl could do it in his grizzly form.
Except that there was little room to maneuver in this tiny space.
Julie had to climb on top of her ruined cage and pull on the vest simply to get it out of her hands.
Then—thank God—Alan’s seizure stopped. His body collapsed into a boneless heap, and he didn’t seem to breathe.
Julie held her breath even as she buckled on the vest, counting the seconds and praying.
But Mark wasn’t wasting a second. He started hauling the large man out of the cage the moment he could get a secure grip.
And then they ran out of time.
The little shit minion came in first with his ball cap askew and his mouth pulled into a wide grin.
If she hadn’t been looking at just the right way, she wouldn’t have seen what he did.
One second he was running in, popping the buckle on his too big denim shorts.
The next second he was leaping out of them as he shifted into a beige cougar wearing a band tee.
His ball cap flew off, and his shorts dropped to the ground, but what Julie saw most was the long sharp points of his claws.
Julie screamed, unable to give any more warning than that. The problem was that grizzly Carl was facing into the shed and there was no room to maneuver around. Which meant the cat landed on Carl’s back and dug in.
Carl roared and reared up, forcing everyone else to flatten backward—Julie against the wall and Mark, with Alan in his arms, scrambled onto the table that had held the research books.
The damned cat clung to Carl’s back, and Julie smelled blood, but Carl wasn’t fighting in a blind rage.
He was backing up, slamming the creature against the table and wall as he headed toward the door.
Except the other henchman was in the door now, though he, too, pulled back at the sight of bear and cat battling in this small space.
And behind him stood Evil Einstein with his mouth ajar.
“Julie!” Mark cried. “Grab the gun!” He had shifted Alan so that the man hung limply over his shoulder and was doing his best to step forward toward the door without interfering with the Carl–cat battle.
Julie spied a pistol sticking out of the waistband of his khakis and fumbled forward to grab it.
Now wasn’t the time to tell him she sucked as a marksman.
But she at least knew the basics. Not that it was easy holding the weapon steady as she thumbed off the safety.
Bang! Bang!
At first she’d thought she’d accidentally fired, but it hadn’t been her gun.
It was Stoic Minion as he elbowed aside Evil Einstein while firing his pistol.
One shot must have hit Carl because the grizzly roared in pain and redoubled his efforts to throw the cat off his back.
The other went wide, making a hole in the side of the shed much too close to Mark’s head.
The sight triggered all the furious hate that had been boiling inside her.
These bastards needed to die. Carl and Mark were busy, and so it was up to her.
She had a gun, and the bad guys were within a few feet of her.
But there were many pounds of roaring, twisting, slamming grizzly–cougar in between her and them.
Which is when she saw her moment. Carl slammed his back hard against the wood table, the microscope and vials shattering from the impact.
His head arched back and she feared he’d just cut himself in two when she realized that had been the point.
The cougar on his neck had slipped lower, down to his hips while his claws ripped long, bloody streaks in the grizzly’s fur.
It was the cat who broke, not the bear. And as the creature whimpered and fell, nothing was between her and Stoic Minion but the open door.
Time for Julie to run outside shooting.
Stoic Minion had his gun up, but he was aiming at Carl whose front was now exposed. Julie did two things at once. She ran forward and started shooting. No aim, just a rapid pulling of the trigger with the muzzle aimed ahead of her.
Bam bam bam!
The gun bucked wildly in her hand, but she watched with gleeful satisfaction as Stoic Minion jerked and the hand carrying his pistol went wide. Red sprouted on his chest, but she barely registered it. She was rushing outside and seeing Evil Einstein running for his life toward the trees.
She took off after him with no clear plan. She just knew that he was the one with the medical knowledge. He knew what shit he’d injected into them. Any hope of saving Alan would require him alive. Though she had no problem with maiming the guy.
“Julie! Stay with the cops!”
Julie slowed down at Mark’s voice, not because of what he said but to wait for him. He was slower, burdened as he was with Alan, and it was her job to protect him as much as she could. He and Carl made it to her side quickly, and she pointed into the woods.
“Einstein went that way. We need him!”
Grizzly Carl took off. God, bears were fast. Mark was running but with Alan still whipped over his shoulder, he was a good deal slower.
“Stay with the cops!” Mark snapped as he kept running, but not in the same direction as Carl.
Cops? What cops? Oh shit, those cops bursting through the house with their guns drawn. She recognized Tonya but the other two looked scary as hell. She threw her hands up in the air, but she didn’t stop running. Every part of her wanted away from that damned shed.
“Stop! Police!” one of them bellowed, and he was aiming at Mark.
Oh fuck! “No!” she screamed, stumbling as she tried to block their view of him. Oh God. All she could see were the muzzles aimed right at Mark. “He’s rescuing us!”
“Don’t shoot!” barked Tonya, her voice loud with command. But it didn’t seem like the other two were listening. “He’s taking Alan to the doc!”
Really? That was good. And why had her knees just given out?
“Where’s Carl?” Tonya barked, the tone so forceful that Julie answered even as she fell to the ground.
“That way.” She jerked her hand in the direction of the words. “After Einstein.”
Tonya nodded and ran off, bellowing her command over her shoulder. “Stay here!”
Julie didn’t know if the order was for the other cops or for her. Either way, she wasn’t going anywhere. Her entire body was shaking. Where is Mark? The other cops advanced on her, their eyes scanning everything.
“Don’t do it!” one of the cops bellowed.
Julie’s heart leapt to her throat. She wasn’t doing anything, but her voice had frozen.
“Put it down now!” the other cop ordered.
Unwillingly, her gaze jerked to the nearest cop. It was only then that she realized he wasn’t pointing his gun at her but at the shed. She turned—slowly—to see ball cap kid on the floor of the shed. He was lying on his stomach, a pistol braced on the concrete as he aimed at her.
Oh shit.
“Bitch,” he said. Then she heard the bang of a gun and she face planted. No pain, just suddenly, the world slapped her in the face. Had she been shot? All she knew was that her vision was blurry as she blinked grass from her eyes.