Bounty Hunter- Grant

by Kim Fox

  Two little girls were huddled in the corner, staring at her with wide terrified eyes. It was a prison cell alright. The tiny room had nothing but a toilet in the corner, a mattress with no sheets, and an old black and white TV from the seventies that had a cracked screen.

  Three mice were on the piled trays in the corner, licking the dirty plates. They scattered when Amélie walked into the room.

  “I’m here to help,” she said softly. “Not to hurt you.”

  The young girls just huddled closer together, shaking as she knelt down in front of them.

  “I’ll come back for you,” she promised. “But first I need to know where my mother and sister are. Do you know a girl named Elodie? She has blonde hair like mine.”

  The younger girl raised her head from behind her sister’s arm and nodded. She was clutching an old ragged doll to her chest. “Elodie is my friend. Sometimes she does funny voices when she tells us stories.”

  “Yes!” Amélie said as tears welled up behind her eyes. Her sister was alive! And she was here! Elodie loved kids and she was always goofing around with them, telling them stories and doing funny voices to make them laugh. “Do you know where she is?”

  The little girls shook their heads and said no. As much as it killed her to leave them, Amélie had no choice. She had to get her mom and sister out first before she could come back and help anyone else.

  “Take your sister and go to the roof,” Amélie told the older one. “There’s a fire escape that you can climb down. Go fast and quietly.”

  “Okay,” the oldest girl said as she got to her feet and pulled her younger sister up.

  “And be careful.”

  Amélie raced back into the hallway, hoping that the girls would make it out safely. There were probably bears and lions and wolves fighting on the roof, but she knew all of the people up there and was sure they wouldn’t hurt a pair of little girls. She hoped they would help get them down safely.

  She ran the access card through the slot beside the next door and kicked it open. Inside was a man with a teenage son. “Onto the roof!” she yelled at them. “There’s a fire escape!”

  They didn’t need any more instruction than that. The two of them blew past her and down the hall.

  Amélie released several more terrified prisoners—a family of five, a mother with two kids, an elderly man, a couple in their fifties—until she pushed open a door and saw them.

  Her mother was sitting on the bed with her arms wrapped around Elodie.

  “Amélie!” her mother said in a gasp. She surged forward as Amélie ran into the room.

  “Mom!” she said as her mother wrapped her arms around her, crushing her in the best hug Amélie ever had.

  Her younger sister Elodie crashed into them as she wrapped her arms around them both, crying tears of happiness into Amélie’s shoulder.

  “You’re hurt!” her mother gasped when she saw the blood trailing down her arm. “What happened?”

  “It’s just bullets,” Amélie said, trying to ignore the pain. Her body had already started the healing process, fusing the flesh back together as it slowly spat out the bullets, but it still hurt like hell to move her arm. “I’ll be fine. Are you okay?”

  “We are now,” her mother said as tears of relief and joy poured down her cheeks. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again.”

  Her chin quivered as Amélie held her cheeks with her palms, staring into the eyes of the woman who gave her life. She felt like a child again under that warm gaze. It had been a tough year and a half, full of pain and fear and sadness that she had to force down deep in order to survive. It was all rushing to the surface with a vengeance now that she was in her mother’s arms.

  But it wasn’t the time for any of that yet. There would be ample time for hugs and kisses and catching up later, but they were still in danger while they were in this building.

  “We have to get out of here,” Amélie said, pulling away from them. “We’re not safe yet.”

  “How did you get in here?” Elodie asked as she ran to the door. She peered into the hallway, looking both ways. “It’s clear.”

  Elodie was always a tough one. She was human, but was always as fearless as a shifter. She was the one who had climbed onto Mr. Parker’s roof whenever a toy got accidentally thrown up there and she was the one who had faced down the bully in elementary school who kept picking on their friends.

  “We need to move fast,” Amélie said as she grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her to the door. “I have friends waiting for us on the roof.”

  They ran into the hallway and turned toward the stairwell. Amélie stopped in her tracks as her mother and sister kept going.

  After a few strides, Elodie stopped and turned around. “Amélie? What are you doing?”

  Amélie took a deep breath and turned around, looking at the row of locked doors behind her. Each one had a loved one it, taken and held against their will. Each one was a pawn in General Hunt’s game, used to control another deadly shifter who was out in the world doing the General’s evil bidding.

  “Keep going,” Amélie said. “Up the stairs and onto the roof. Find Grant. He’ll save you.”

  “What about you?” her mother cried out with a horrified look on her face. “Don’t stay here!”

  “I’ll be fine,” she called back as she raced to the door on her left. She swiped the access card through the slot and pushed the door open. “You and Elodie go! I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”

  A fourteen-year-old boy hurried out of the room holding his grandmother’s hand. “Go to the roof,” Amélie said to them, quickly explaining what to do.

  She ran down the hall, opening door after door until dozens of people had escaped down the hall behind her. The last door in the hall had a father with a three-year-old girl. He ran out, cradling the child in his arms as he thanked her over and over again.

  “That’s it,” she muttered to herself when she was sure the floor was empty.

  She turned back and ran down the hall, desperate to get back to her loved ones that were waiting for her—her mother, Elodie, and Grant as well.

  “No!” she gasped when she turned the corner and saw what was waiting for her.

  The Angel of Death was standing there with a gun to Elodie’s head. They were surrounded by a dozen guards who were all pointing their machine guns at Amélie.

  “Let them go,” she begged when she saw a guard stick a pistol to her mother’s temple. “Please. I’ll do anything.”

  “Where’s my wand, girl?” General Hunt asked, narrowing his eyes on Amélie. “You better hope for their sake that you have it.”

  Amélie felt a sudden weakness in her legs as she looked down at her empty hands.

  She was screwed now. They all were.

  The Angel of Death’s nostrils flared as he glared at her with cold ruthless eyes.

  “Get her,” he ordered his men. “And bring the three of them to my office.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Grant

  Grant wasn’t sure which animal looked more ferocious: Hardy’s grizzly bear with the long string of saliva dripping down from his snarling jaw, or Mack’s growling lion who was low to the ground and ready to pounce as soon as Grant pulled his head up.

  “Come on, Mack,” Grant said in his most stern voice. “I know you’re in there.”

  The lion’s black lip curled up in what looked like a grin. Mack was in there somewhere, but it was the skin shifter Caelum who was behind the wheel and his friend was nowhere to be seen.

  Going up was a bad option, but dropping down twenty stories to the pavement at the bottom of the building was even worse.

  He was about to pull himself up and take his chances when Mack’s lion started to whip his head around violently. He bucked back on his powerful hind legs as he thrashed around, looking like he was fighting an invisible demon.

  The bear turned to him with a growl as the lion worked himself into a frantic rage. Grant had never s
een anything like it. The lion was jerking his body around in impossible angles as he clawed and bit at the air, going berserk.

  Skin shifters could slide into any animal and take them over, but Grant knew that Mack wasn’t like most shifters. Caelum was finding out what happens when a skin shifter slid inside a true apex predator. They don’t go down easily.

  With a deep breath, Grant quickly pulled himself up while the grizzly bear was distracted with the crazed lion.

  He glanced over at Caelum who was thrashing around too, unable to fully control the beast. His eyes were still white, but he wasn’t straight as a board the way skin shifters normally were when channeling an animal.

  The grizzly bear growled as he stepped toward Mack. The lion whipped its body around, striking anything and everything in its vicinity. It swatted the bear’s face, leaving two deep claw marks across his snout that had the bear reeling back with a whimper.

  He bucked around as if he had an invisible rider on his back that he was trying to throw off, swatting his claws at the imaginary ghosts around him.

  He’s losing his mind.

  The possessed lion bucked toward Logan who had the wolf in a headlock. He was holding on tight as he slammed his knee into the vicious wolf’s chest over and over again.

  He didn’t even see Mack coming.

  The lion thrashed his head around as he leapt into the air, right at Logan. His huge golden body smashed into his friend and as Grant ran over to help, the crazed lion struck.

  “No,” Grant gasped in horror as the lion bit into the top of Logan’s left bicep.

  “Aaaarrrggh!” Logan screamed, turning with wide panicked eyes as he saw the most powerful animal on the roof sink his sharp fangs all the way into his soft flesh.

  “Mack!” Grant hollered. “Stop! That’s an order!”

  But Grant wasn’t in control of the lion. Nobody was. He seemed to have been completely out of his mind as he fought the control of the skin shifter.

  The lion reared up as he thrashed his head from side to side, jerking poor Logan around like a Pit Bull with a chew toy. There was blood splashing around everywhere, coating everything. All over Logan and all over the deranged lion’s golden coat.

  “Mack!” Grant screamed again as he ran.

  The lion forced Logan to the ground and with a blood-curdling tear, ripped his arm right off of his body.

  “No!” Grant screamed as he slid to his knees beside Logan’s body. His good friend’s eyes were rolling in the back of his head as his face turned deathly pale.

  Mack was already racing to the other end of the roof, whipping his head from side to side with the severed arm in his jaws. He released it with a shake and it sailed over the roof, disappearing below.

  Grant couldn’t focus on any of that. He had Logan’s limp body in his arms as blood surged out of the mangled stump just below his shoulder.

  “Hang in there, Logan,” Grant commanded as he quickly pulled off his belt. “That’s an order from your alpha!”

  Logan was fading fast. There was thick red blood everywhere and it was making everything so damn slippery as it poured out. It took three tries before Grant could slip the belt around the stump properly. He pulled it tight and then yanked off his shirt to desperately try to stop the endless surge of blood.

  “Come on, Logan,” he whispered as he pushed his shirt against the stump, willing his friend’s enhanced healing to kick in.

  Shifters were fantastic healers, but Logan had lost a lot of blood already and was losing more no matter what Grant did to try and stop it.

  Mack’s lion was still bucking around the roof, trying to kill anything within reach.

  The door on the roof suddenly flew open and a stream of terrified looking people burst out. A man and a teenage boy were the first to come through, followed closely by two little girls who looked like sisters.

  After them, it was a steady stream of people who were fleeing to the fire escape and climbing down.

  The commotion caught Mack’s lion’s eye and he charged right at them, snarling like a rabid monster. The two young girls froze when they saw him and stood there helplessly as the out of control cat bore down on them.

  He moved so fast and Grant was all the way on the other end of the roof. He would never reach him in time.

  The youngest girl closed her eyes, squeezing the ragged doll she had in her arms as the lion lunged at her and her helpless sister.

  Bryce’s lion came leaping out of nowhere and rammed his shoulder into Mack’s lion, sending him flying to the side—just enough to miss the girls.

  They snapped out of it and ran away, following the stream of fleeing people over the fire escape where they were safe.

  Mack’s lion landed with a grunt on the roof and slid to a stop a few feet away from the door. He jumped up with a fury in his eyes as Bryce phased back into his human form beside him.

  “Mack,” the young shifter pleaded to the thrashing lion. “You can fight it. I know you can.”

  But the skin shifter and Mack seemed to be locked in another place, battling it out in a different dimension. Bryce’s encouraging words fell on deaf ears. The lion was still twisting his body and whipping his head around, completely out of control.

  “Move, Bryce!” Grant hollered from where he was still cradling Logan’s cold body. “He’s going to hit y—”

  Just as he feared, Mack’s thrashing lion smashed into the teenager who the whole crew had grown to love. His shoulder hit him first, knocking Bryce off balance. The mad lion then turned and bucked, kicking Bryce hard in the chest with his powerful back legs.

  Everyone gasped as Bryce flew through the air with a look of terror on his face.

  There was nobody there to catch him this time. Tempest and Ryder were battling it out with DeMarcus and Hardy, getting clobbered by the polar and grizzly bear duo. Tempest jerked her wand out when she saw Bryce flying toward the edge of the building and tried to zap him in the air, but he was too far away and the shot of magic flew past him.

  Mack’s lion seemed to finally come back to his senses and leapt forward to the edge of the building. He swatted his paw to try and grab the kid, but he just missed.

  Grant squeezed his eyes shut and wailed as the boy disappeared, falling to the pavement below. He winced when he heard the dull thud that would have surely killed the young boy. The young boy who was under his care. The young boy that he had sworn to protect.

  The fighting stopped around him as Grant stood up on wobbly legs. He walked to the edge like a zombie and held his breath as he looked down at the pavement below.

  Bryce’s lifeless body was lying there in an ever-increasing pool of blood.

  Tears burned Grant’s eyes as he watched soldiers approaching the dead body below with their guns drawn.

  Grant stared in disbelief. How could he have let this happen? How could he ever forgive himself?

  One of the soldiers knelt beside his body and took his pulse. That’s when Bryce’s eyes opened a crack.

  Is he…?

  “Up there!” one of the soldiers hollered when he spotted Grant. They all turned their guns at him and started firing as Grant ducked out of the way, the bullets sailing harmlessly over his head.

  Grant tried to replay what he had seen, but it had happened so fast and he had been so far away. Was Bryce still alive? Did he open his eyes on his own or did they just fall open from gravity? Did he even open his eyes or was Grant’s vision playing tricks on him from twenty stories up?

  Grant didn’t know, but he did know that it was time to get out of there.

  They had already sacrificed so much.

  He looked over at Logan who was stirring on the ground, moaning in pain as he laid in a pool of his own blood and hoped that Amélie, wherever she was, was doing better than they were.

  Mack’s lion began to shake and convulse, only this time he wasn’t out of control. The long golden hairs of his mane that were stained a crimson red began to retract into his body as he phased
. A second later, he exploded into his human form and looked over the edge.

  The tormented wail that burst from Mack’s body sent shivers racing down Grant’s spine.

  “We have to get Bryce and Logan out of here,” Grant said. This brawl was getting out of hand and he didn’t want to lose anyone else.

  But Mack was just getting started. He slapped his shoulders hard as he turned around with a murderous look in his eye.

  Caelum looked shaky as he climbed to his feet. His eyes were locked on Mack who was charging over with his hands squeezed into fists.

  The skin shifter managed to duck out of the way of the first punch, but the next twenty or thirty hit him. Mack didn’t even let up when the skin shifter collapsed to the ground completely limp. He kept hitting him with punch after punch as he sobbed uncontrollably. It took both DeMarcus and Hardy in their human forms to pull him off.

  Mack turned and unleashed his vengeance on them, throwing devastating punches at the two huge bear shifters. He cracked Hardy on the jaw with a roundhouse punch that dropped him to a knee. Another punch to the side of his head had him falling over in a KO.

  DeMarcus stepped back, but Mack wasn’t having any of it. He leapt forward and scooped the huge polar bear up in his flexed arms. With a grunt, he slammed him down onto the cement head first, knocking him out cold.

  The wolf whimpered and reared back with his tail between his legs as Mack turned his head and spotted him. Grant watched in shock as Mack ran over, picked up the wolf, and slammed him down onto his knee, cracking his back. The wolf rolled off, whimpering in pain. Mack finished him off with a kick to the head, turning his lights out for the night.

  He spun around with his hands squeezed into fists, looking for someone else to take his fury out on, but there was no one else. The three shifters and skin shifter were all unconscious.

  With no one to take his pain out on but himself, Mack dropped to his knees and sobbed. He dropped his head into his hands and wailed as Tempest and Ryder rushed over to comfort him.

  Grant looked down at Logan who was finally starting to get some color back into his face, but he was still in bad shape. It really was time to go now.