by Mandy Rosko
“Maybe Natalie saw something. She could have been following me because she was scared.”
“She could have been,” Albert said, nodding.
“I want copies of what those other cadets said when they were questioned.”
“We’ll be getting those right after you finish eating.”
Yeah, she was definitely feeling better about this.
Until a knock sounded at the door and Albert’s head twisted around, as though separate from his body.
Beverly screamed and jumped out of her chair, her hands coming up to cover her mouth in sick horror as she saw him turn back to face her as though his head hadn’t just been turned all the way around.
“What? What is it?”
She couldn’t believe it. She dropped her hands, looking at him, waiting for him to drop dead of a broken neck. “What do you mean, what is it? Your neck!”
He stared back at her with sincere confusion before his lips pulled into a wicked grin. “You forgot I could do that?”
“No fucking way.” She didn’t want to believe even though she’d just seen him do it. “You can turn your head all the way around?”
“You hate it when I crack my neck, too. Want to see me do it again?”
The knocking started up again, but the thing that made her almost jump out of her seat was watching him spin his head slowly around.
He knew he was freaking her out. She was sure of it, based on the smile on his face, which was surely a sign of how much pleasure he got from wigging her out.
“Okay, stop, stop! Please, that’s gross.”
Albert laughed out loud, turning his head back to the right position. He stood up from the table and wiped at his eyes. “You always hated it when I did that.”
“Yeah, because it’s weird. You’re weird!” she shouted after him.
Of course he ignored her, laughing all the way to the door like a fool.
But he was her fool, and even as she wanted to launch a pillow at the back of his head, she couldn’t help but enjoy being teased by him.
She reached across the table to steal his coffee then nearly gagged.
Jesus. Did he put any sugar in it at all? It was gross, and not just because it was cold.
She took another drink anyway, comforted by the caffeine, even though the taste disgusted her.
She got the feeling she’d stolen a lot of his coffees. He liked annoying her with that head trick, and she apparently took her revenge on him by drinking his filthy swill.
“Bev!”
A massive bang sounded through the house. Beverly’s heart and every drop of blood in her body chilled.
Then her body sprang into action. She jumped out of her seat and turned just as a broad-shouldered person clad in black lunged for her.
She ducked out of the way, letting the intruder slam into the table. He was fast but not very coordinated, and he fell against it.
Crashed was more like it. The wooden table collapsed under his weight in a shattering of splintered wood.
“What the hell?” Beverly didn’t think. She ran to the sitting room, which took about five strides, and then she was standing over Albert.
He was on the floor, not moving, with blood soaking his shirt.
“Oh my God. Albert?”
He snapped his eyes open with a heavy breath, and Beverly swore her heart froze for a second time. “Christ, what was that?”
“Get up. You have to get up.” She looked up. The man in black had gotten to his feet. He fumbled with the gun in his hands. It seemed the thick black gloves were giving him some trouble.
She didn’t think. She ran for the guy before he could find his coordination.
“Bev!”
Ignoring her husband, Beverly put all her weight into the jump, pushing her knees up and smashing into the guy’s chest. She reached for his wrist, making sure the gun was not pointed at her, or Albert, as they went crashing back down to the floor.
A few bullets popped off as they went down. Thankfully, nothing caught her, and the angle was too sharp for Albert to have been hit.
She was fine. They were both going to be all right.
She just needed to get the mask off his damned face...
He was strong, though. Beverly had knocked the guy over, but holding his wrist down when he tried pointing the gun back at her was another matter entirely.
So close. It was nearly...
No. Albert jumped on the man’s arm. The male let out a pained shriek, and Beverly understood why when she heard the loud crack.
Holy shit. Albert had broken his arm.
That was kind of sexy.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” Albert pulled at the mask. A ski mask with a visor. The male turned his head this way and that, as though that would keep them from getting the mask off him, but it was no use.
Albert grabbed it, pulled it off, and swore as he barely yanked his hand away from the fangs that almost bit his hand with an evil hiss.
The face staring back at them was unrecognizable as it was now. The male had changed his features just enough that they appeared more reptilian.
Green scales and a nose that was pushed down to the point of nearly not being there at all. He looked like an olive version of Voldemort, only more reptilian, if that was possible. When he opened his mouth to hiss at them again, his teeth dripped with a liquid that Beverly knew was likely poisonous.
“Fuck!” Albert yanked back, grabbing onto the back of Beverly’s shirt and taking her with him when those teeth snapped at her as well.
Beverly was shockingly clearheaded. She had a moment of panic when she’d heard the first gunshot, but now that she and Albert had taken control, she could think, and she could see everything without a terrified tunnel vision taking control.
She saw Albert take the gun out of the intruder’s reach as the three of them stumbled to their feet.
“What do you want? Who are you?” she shouted, keeping an eye on the fangs and darting her eyes around for something she could grab to use as a shield if needed.
The snake-faced man looked at her, narrowed eyes glaring at her. The thin, diamond-shaped pupils focused on her like she was something to eat.
Some snakes ate beavers, she supposed.
But Beverly wasn’t your average beaver. “You might as well start talking now. You’re in no position to do anything to us.”
The snake man hissed at her again, but Albert shut that down by pointing the man’s weapon at his snake face. “Show us what you actually look like.”
“You ruined everything!” he said in a hissing voice, looking right at Beverly as he said it, as though she had wronged him somehow.
Her insides froze. For a terrifying moment, she was helpless again. She couldn’t think, could hardly breathe, and then it came back to her.
“You were there.”
The male hissed at her again. His forked tongue flicked from his mouth. “You know nothing.”
“Then tell me! Why was I taken? What do you want from me?” She was glad Albert had the gun, because the emotions inside of her were wild, and she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to hold back from shooting the snake before they could get answers from him.
The snake man said nothing. He glared, and Beverly could tell that he especially disliked her. And he continued to feel familiar to her. In that way she felt whenever there was something she should know but didn’t.
“I’m right. Albert,” she said through gritted teeth, trying to control her temper.
“I know,” Albert said, his face stern, his eyes locked onto the snake shifter as though getting ready to swoop in for the kill.
The snake man was part of her kidnapping. He’d done something to her. Experimented on her? Or was he just a lackey?
Stupid memories were taking their sweet time to get back to her. She needed to know!
With the snake refusing to talk, and Albert keeping him in position with the gun, Beverly wondered where their household gun safe was. Ma
ybe shooting him in the knees would help to loosen up his tongue.
Before she could ask, though, Albert had a better idea. “Babe, my phone’s in my pocket. It should still work even if I crushed it.”
The snake man took that moment to drop.
She and Albert jumped back. Albert kept the weapon trained on the spot where the snake man had been, but it was only his clothes in a pile on the floor...
“No fucking way. Don’t even think about it!” Albert snapped as a cobra emerged from the clothes.
“Oh, fuck.” While Beverly’s nerves continued to stay calm and her body would use muscle memory to react, her mind couldn’t tell her what she was supposed to do in a situation like this, with a deadly venomous snake lose in her kitchen.
It hissed and snapped at them, a clear warning to stay away, which they did.
“Don’t get near him,” Albert said, not that he had to worry about her trying anything. The sight of a snapping cobra was more than enough to keep her back.
The snake slithered away from them toward the front door, which still stood open. It moved quickly, making progress while almost constantly keeping an eye on them.
“We can’t stop him?” Beverly asked, weighing her options. Surely a shifter could handle some venom from a snake bite...but was it worth the risk?
Albert shook his head. “No, we got his clothes. There might be something in there. Let him go.”
Beverly hated it, but she complied, watching the snake go, taking his knowledge of what happened to her with him out the door.
When the cobra was out the door, it slithered off and out of sight, around the corner. Albert leaned against the nearest wall, groaning from the struggle of staying upright.
“Albert!”
“I’m fine,” he said, though now he didn’t look so good either. “I’m fine. I just need to… to get this taken care of.”
She looked at him, seeing now that the blood on his shirt was from a bullet, which was still in his shoulder. “All right, we’re going back to the clinic. I’ll drive.”
Ten
Before they left the house, Beverly grabbed a broom. She wanted to be prepared in case that damned cobra was still out there, waiting around the corner to strike at them. Albert could hold on to the gun, but Beverly would go out there with something she could use to keep it at a distance.
Then she looked under the sink and located a box of garbage bags. It wasn’t a memory of where they were, just her first instinct at where they would be. She touched the snake’s pile of clothes with only the inside of the bag while scooping them into it.
“Good work, let’s go,” Albert said, his voice raspy and his breath ragged. He nodded to the keys on the counter, and she grabbed them.
In addition to the blood, she could see that he was also sweating through his shirt. It bothered her because shifters should heal more quickly, but he didn’t seem to be.
“Do you want me to try pulling the bullet out so you can start to heal?” she asked, pausing to wonder if she even knew how to do that.
“No.” He shook his head, leaning on the wall while taking steps toward the door. He held the gun loosely at his side, business end pointed down, but he looked almost ready to drop it.
She didn’t push the issue, just locked the door behind them and helped him down the front steps. She checked around the car quickly before they got in, hoping that the cobra wouldn’t hide under the hood and then jump out when they got to the hospital. She figured that it would get way too hot in there.
The instant they were locked into the car, Albert heaved a sigh. He ejected the clip then set the gun inside the armrest storage between their seats.
“How are you holding up?” Beverly asked, still keeping an eye out for the snake as she backed out of their driveway.
“I’ll be good once I get to the clinic.” He pulled out his phone. “I won’t be much help to you if that fucker comes back. You might have to broom him on your own.”
“You handled the weapon pretty well.”
“I was seeing three of him.” Albert closed his eyes, putting his hand over his face while he let the phone ring through the car’s Bluetooth system. “If he’d decided to snap at you instead of leaving, I wouldn’t have been able to protect you.”
Shit. Seeing multiples was never a good thing.
Albert got Alyce back on the phone and updated her on what had happened. Told her what evidence they had and where they were going. Beverly tuned out the conversation, giving her attention to driving…and watching for snakes.
Now that the adrenaline rush was over, her nerves were turning into anxiety jitters.
Albert was shot. Someone had attacked them, and it clearly hadn’t been some random break-in.
Positives. She had to remember the positives. Albert was alive. He was conscious, and aside from seeing things in three, he was all right. They just had to get the bullet out of him.
Visiting the clinic again wasn’t a thing Beverly had wanted to do that day. Her first choice would have been keeping Albert in bed with her, naked, while putting another smile on his face. The second choice would have been following up on the lion girl student.
But none of that mattered when she saw how Albert stumbled out of the car at the clinic.
His face was pale. Oh God. Beverly pushed herself under the arm on his good side, helping him through the sliding doors and down to the shifter emergency check-in. “Almost there. We’re almost there.”
“I think I understand why the medic facility back at the academy was trashed,” he said with a short laugh. “The fuckers knew we were going to need it at some point.”
Upon seeing how much blood was on him, the staff immediately got to work, guiding him to a room and getting him hooked up to an IV. Beverly wanted to be with him, but she had to get his information to the check-in nurse so they could find his records. Even when they were taking Albert away from her, and he assured her everything would be all right, Beverly felt a twisting in her heart and chest as she stayed in the lobby and her view of him was obscured.
“Can’t you just ask me in there, with him?” Beverly pleaded, biting her lip as she craned her neck to try to see what they were doing for him.
“No, I’m afraid we can’t. We don’t want to crowd the doctors, do we, miss?” The no-nonsense nurse seemed like she was used to this kind of thing and ready to deal with whatever fuss Beverly would try to make.
“It’s missus,” Beverly snapped, annoyed that the nurse would trivialize her relationship with Albert.
The nurse ignored it. “Here, start to fill this out for us.”
Beverly took the clipboard, and only then did she remember that she didn’t know the information to fill out the forms. How was she going to explain that?
After she’d stared at the paper for an awkwardly long time, the nurse took it back from her. “Here, we’re going to have you sit down, I’m going to get you some water. You’ve had a shock too. We’ll get his wallet and find his information there.”
Beverly nodded dumbly, feeling immensely grateful for the nurse’s show of compassion as she took a seat in one of the uncomfortable lobby chairs.
Her heart slammed.
He was going to be all right. He was only sick from the metal still being inside him. Shifters healed quickly. Once they got it out, gave him some fluids and a lollipop, he’d be back to teasing her in no time.
He’d better be. If the bastard died on her now, she was going to be incredibly upset.
Beverly pushed her hands through her hair. Think. She needed to think.
The evidence is still in the car.
She’d left the gun and the trash bag with the snake’s stuff in it in the vehicle. Some dickhole who might have followed them, or known to look for them there, could bust in her windows and take it all.
Everything happened in a whirl. She left before the nurse could come back with the cup of water, making her way quickly to the parking lot. She got the garbage bag and found a na
pkin to handle the gun itself, wanting to preserve any fingerprints she could. For good measure, she put the clip back in.
She had to hide the firearm beneath her shirt, figuring the staff wouldn’t want to see a weapon in their facility, regardless of the circumstances.
So she waited, clutching the garbage bag and sitting in the lobby. Some of Albert’s blood was on her. She could see it and smell it.
It made her dizzy.
Had it really only been seven minutes since she arrived? That clock couldn’t be right.
She heard car tires squealing as cars skidded to a halt in front of the clinic.
Only moments later, bodies charged through the shifter entrance doors. Beverly turned her head to look at them. Her brain was apparently operating on a slower setting than she was used to because she could hardly make out who the people were who stepped into the clinic until they were right in front of her, talking to her.
Beverly blinked, coming out of the trance she’d fallen into and finally seeing Alyce in front of her. She’d knelt down, her hand on Bev’s knee, shaking her a little, trying to pull her out of the haze.
“Bev?”
Beverly exhaled a long breath, looking up at the person who was with Alyce. She hadn’t seen him since coming back, but she knew it was Andrés.
There was another male with him, someone who looked a little more ready to run out into the field at a moment’s notice. He smelled like a bear.
“I’m fine.” Beverly shoved the garbage bag into Alyce’s hands. “This belongs to the intruder. If you can get any hair or DNA, that would be fantastic.”
Then she pulled out the gun. “Albert’s prints will be on it. The intruder had on gloves. Unlikely the snake man would use something registered to him, but here it is.”
“Snake man?” asked the bear.
“Cobra, really fast. We tried to get a look at him before he shifted, but he was in a hybrid state. Human body, human/snake face and skin.”
“So, you wouldn’t be able to point him out in a line-up?” The bear asked, exchanging a worried look with the other two agents.
Beverly shook her head. “I mean I’ve got height and shoulder width. He fumbled with the gun. He was either not very good at handling it or the gloves were tripping him up, but I’m hoping there’s some chance he or someone he works with touched it and left some kind of print behind before he came to our house. Cleaning it, anything.”
