by Rebekah Blue
“Byron, you’re hurting me,” she whispered.
He released her wrist.
“I’ll make sure you’re safe. Get you back to the Zoo in one piece. But I’m not going to risk being caught. You stay with me until I’ve thought it all through.”
“I want to stay—” she began, but he placed his finger on her lips to silence her. They parted slightly against his skin.
“After that, I never want to see you again.”
They were still for a long moment. Her lips were warm against his fingerprint. He wanted to pull her into his arms. He ached to touch her.
Instead he pulled his hand away, curling the fingers into a fist by his side so he wouldn’t touch her again.
Before he could stop her, she gave a harsh sob and whirled away from him. She groped blindly at the door, yanking it open and stumbling out into the night.
Fuck.
He couldn’t leave her out there alone. He needed to know exactly where she was, not just to keep her safe, but because he couldn’t trust her.
He groaned and ran his hands down his face.
His head snapped up at the sound of a single gunshot.
Chapter Fourteen
Naomi couldn’t fathom how things had gone so spectacularly wrong. Her father believed she was involved in Byron’s escape…and now Byron thought she was part of a plan to trap him. And here she was, stuck in the middle with nobody to trust her.
It hurt so much not just because she was innocent of the accusations thrown at her from all sides, but because she’d always trusted her father, always assumed he’d keep her safe, and now she was running from vicious thugs he’d set on her tail.
And then she’d put her trust in Byron. She’d started to like and admire him – admire his quick wit and the way his ready charm shone through despite the darkness that sometimes shadowed his eyes. She’d even started to think she felt more for him than that. And now…
She felt a sudden twist of misery deep inside and she wrapped her arms around her stomach and curled over, a wretched, painful sob escaping her…and a shot whip-cracked past her head, so close that she felt a sting against the curve of her ear.
She jerked upright, her spine galvanized by shock, but even with her feline night-vision she could see nothing beyond the bright strings of circus lights.
Then Byron burst out of the trailer and yanked her away, and they were running through the carnival as another shot buzzed wasp-like past them.
“What’s happening?” Naomi gasped as they ducked behind a helter-skelter.
“Sniper,” Byron replied, his chest heaving. “Your daddy’s trackers haven’t caught us, so he’s sent out the specialists. Guys with military training, probably. Or hired killers.”
“Someone’s…someone’s trying to kill me?” No, she couldn’t believe that. Even if her father thought she’d betrayed him, and Dynamic Earth, and the rehabilitation center, he wouldn’t want her dead.
Byron grabbed her upper arms in his hands and held her gaze. His fingers were bruising. His pupils were enormous in the eerie silver-gray of his irises. “I don’t know, but he’s not trying to deliver a candygram.” His eyes looked haunted. “When I heard that shot, I thought you were dead, Naomi. I thought I’d come out and find you lying in a pool of your own blood and it would be all my fault because I lost my temper and I didn’t trust you.”
There was a shout from somewhere in the fairground, followed by a scuffling noise.
Byron released her but grabbed her hand in his and held on tight. “We’re going to run to the fun house. It’s big and bright – you’ll see it.”
She gazed up at him in bewilderment. “The fun house?”
“I played there when I was a kid. I know every gimmick and trick. If this guy’s found us, there’ll be others – not just your daddy’s men but freelancers too. We have to try to lose them.”
He counted to three and they launched themselves out from behind the helter-skelter and pelted out across the fairground, past a row of stalls still exuding an aroma of stale popcorn and candy apples, and a merry-go-round that suddenly lit up and began to turn, picking up speed as the horses moved up and down in a herky-jerky motion in time to the tinkling, off-key music.
Naomi saw that one of the carnies, a hugely muscled man dressed in striped pyjamas, was on the platform wrestling with a wild boar shifter – one of the bounty hunters who were after them. The creature was huge and black and bristled, one of its vicious-looking yellow tusks broken halfway down. It was trying to gouge the strongman, but he was kneeling with his arms locked around its thick neck and was twisting with all his might as the carousel carried them out of sight.
There was a high whoop of exhilaration somewhere in the night, then the crack-crack-crack of rifle shots. Just ahead of them, a snarl was punctuated by a dull thud-crack and mutated into an anguished howl. Naomi caught a brief glimpse of a slender figure wielding the mallet from the test-your-strength game. Her nostrils caught the rusty scent of fresh blood.
It looked like Byron had been right – freelance bounty hunters had flooded into the fairground and they were converging on Byron and Naomi. They weren’t going to get through without a fight, though. Many of the carnival folk had fled violent pasts. Others had fled the law. Now this was their home. Byron was their family. The bounty hunters had picked a fight with the whole fairground.
As they passed the Ferris wheel, Naomi gasped, “Oh my god.” A dark, graceful shape was clambering down from the dizzying heights of its upper curve. Moonlight gleamed on the gunmetal length of a barrel as he tumbled in a semi-controlled leap onto the roof of one of the cars, which rocked alarmingly under his sudden weight. The sniper who had shot at her. She didn’t see whether he fell – Byron pulled her onwards.
Up ahead, Naomi made out the crooked shape of the fun house. Its stories were unbalanced and off-kilter, the doors onto its balconies uneven in their frames and painted in mismatched colors. Barber poles to either side of the front door were twisted in rotating candy-cane stripes of purple and yellow.
There was a terrifying roar behind them that dashed ice water against Naomi’s spine as Byron pulled her into the twisted building. Something was chasing them.
Byron stumbled as they went through the barrel of love, the revolving tunnel throwing him off-balance despite how well he knew the fun house. But Naomi was a cat – she might not be strong, but she was clever on her feet. She spun on her toe, perfectly poised, and lashed out with her foot, catching their pursuer full in the snout. The bounty hunter, half transformed into his wolf shape, fell back snarling. Then she spun and ran fleet-footed through the rolling barrel, scanning her surroundings as she reached the other end. There was a horrifying growl from behind them, followed by a grim gargling noise. Someone or something had taken down the wolf assassin. That didn’t make her feel any better – it just meant something even scarier and more dangerous was after them now.
“Come on!” Byron pushed her in front of him and into a maze of mirrors, each of them throwing back distorted reflections.
They slowed to a halt, listening for sounds of their pursuers, straining their ears.
Pad. Pad. Pad.
The sound of footsteps. Slow, steady, measured. Naomi realized she was trembling against Byron’s big, warm body as they listened.
Pad. Pad. Pad. Relentless and unhurried.
He urged her on through the crazy chasing reflections, and she thanked heaven for his familiarity with the maze. The silvery walls threw back reflections of them both that were stretched and twisted, and phantom movements flickered in her peripheral vision, making her start and turn as Byron hurried her through the hall of mirrors.
And then they were chasing not just through their own reflections, but alongside hundreds of images of their pursuer. A tall, dark-dressed figure moved smoothly through the mirrored halls, his scattered reflections making him seem to approach from every direction at once.
They accelerated. Byron caught Naomi around th
e waist and almost lifted her off her feet as they burst out into a gaily-painted circular room. Hissing air jets shot confetti and twinkling tinsel into the air. Naomi stumbled to a halt on the opposite side of the room and turned as she realized Byron had stopped and was facing down their pursuer, a low growl rumbling from his chest.
As the man dressed in black stepped forward, a broad disc in the center of the floor began to rotate, spinning the two men. Byron leaped.
The sniper’s gun went clattering and bouncing across the floor, landing at the edge of the disc, which began to pick up speed as it turned until it was whipping around. Byron was tumbled over by its momentum, but he curved his spine and rolled and kicked up and out with both feet. The blow knocked the sniper off his feet, and the lurching rotation of the disc threw him against the wall with a rib-cracking impact.
The sniper landed on the floor with a pained grunt and started to crawl towards Byron. His canines had lengthened and he moved with the deadly stalk of a big cat. Byron threw back his head in a howl of challenge. His eyes went wolf. The seams of his sleeves ripped as his muscles bunched and swelled.
A stealthy footfall behind her.
Naomi shrieked as a snarling monstrosity pulled her back into a darkened alcove.
Byron’s head whipped around at the sound.
The sniper scrambled for his gun.
Naomi struggled against the creature’s grasp, but it was too strong. Its arms were roped with wiry muscle, wrapped firmly around her waist. She beat at them with her fists and gouged at them with her nails, but it had no effect. She could feel its hot, damp breath on her neck.
Like the panicked cat she was, she squirmed and hissed, then lashed out with fingers now tipped with needle claws. The thing released her and she fell to the floor, spider-scrabbling backwards away from it. It was a wolf man – not a shifter in either form, but something in between, warped and grotesque.
She heard the crack of a shot and something silvery struck the creature in the throat…but it simply plucked it out like a bee-sting and turned it over in its fingers. It gave itself a wet-dog shake.
Then it said, “Ow.” Not what she would have expected from a horror-movie monster. She hesitated.
“Naomi! It’s okay!” Byron had the sniper in a headlock. The recently discharged gun lay just out of reach. “That’s Gus!” Byron panted. “He’s on our side! Are you going to stay still, you son of a bitch?” That last was addressed to the sniper.
“Sorry about that, Miss,” rumbled the wolf man. He looked like a special-effects project gone wrong. He extended a gentlemanly hand to help her up. It was huge and hairy, with gnarled knuckles and evil-looking claws. She gaped for a moment, then allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.
“Er…sorry about…” She gestured to the deep, bloody furrows on his arms.
Gus shrugged. “I’ll heal.”
The sniper didn’t seem to be fighting anymore. Byron had allowed him to sit up, and they were sitting side by side on the big central disc, which was still dreamily rotating. They were both panting and battered.
“Gus runs the ghost train,” Byron explained breathlessly. “Scares the crap out of the kiddies. He’s a good guy. Well, he cheats at cards, but he doesn’t deserve to be shot.”
The sniper flopped onto his back. “How was I supposed to know? Literally everyone is trying to kill her. I’ve fired tranquilizer darts at half the shifters in the state tonight, trying to protect her.”
Byron picked a piece of confetti out of his hair. “Yes. Including Naomi. Funny way of trying to protect her. You’d better start talking.”
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, Mae and James, Byron, Naomi and half a dozen others gathered in the office for the council of war – as Mae insisted on calling it. With her skin whorled with dark blue ink, Mae looked like a twin-setted Boadicea. Naomi was glad she was on their side. James was wearing the same conservative slacks and shirt he’d had on when Naomi had first met him, but he’d added yellow spotted suspenders, and she realized with shocked delight that he’d once been a clown. She would never have guessed, but when she thought about it, his gentle manner, gangly limbs and long, lugubrious face probably made him a natural.
Byron’s folks had come ready for battle. They also had a pretty good collection of battered bounty hunters. The boar shifter had been cuffed and bound. She shuddered at the memory of his splintered yellow tusks, and in the confined space of the office, his rank piggy smell was overpowering. The man was sullen and silent now, but he glowered at her with an expression that let her know he wasn’t taking his humiliation well. If he was free, she was pretty sure he’d kill them all, or die trying.
Three others hadn’t been as lucky, and their corpses had been dragged to one side and covered with pieces of tarpaulin. Mae had waved away Naomi’s concerns about the dead bodies bringing trouble down on the carnival. That seemed like something it was better not to ask about. Naomi only agonized about it very briefly – she got as far as feeling bad that she didn’t feel bad, and then she decided, fuck ‘em. They’d been trying to kill Byron and her. They’d got what they deserved.
The wolf Naomi had kicked in the face was breathing with loud, ugly snores, curled unconscious on the floor at the boar’s feet. Blood was dried in dark scabs around his mouth and nose. Beside them, in the middle of the room where the coffee table had been, the sniper was sitting on a wooden chair. He wasn’t tied up, but he was the center of focus of maybe a dozen really pissed fugitives, acrobats, bare-knuckle fighters and not-very-reformed criminals. What was he going to do?
Byron grabbed another chair and swung it into place in front of the sniper, straddling it with his arms folded across the upright back.
“Okay,” he said. He nodded at the wolf and the boar. “These guys were after me and after Naomi, dead or alive.”
There was a phlegmy wheeze of laughter from the boar. “Dead suits me better. Especially when it comes to the pretty ones. They don’t struggle so much.”
Naomi shuddered.
Very casually, without making a fuss, Gus put his big hand on the boar’s shoulder. His claws dimpled the flesh, just enough to make the point. “Mind your manners when there are ladies present.” He smiled pleasantly, and on his face, it looked like a threat.
The boar wasn’t as stupid as he looked. He shut up.
Byron continued, addressing the sniper. “But you…when you fired at Naomi, you were using tranquilizer darts, weren’t you? And you took down the wolf, and you tried to tranq Gus when you thought he was attacking her. I’m not surprised that didn’t work, by the way. We’re not even completely sure what he is. No offence, Gus.”
“None taken,” said Gus amiably.
“So,” Byron concluded. “Explain.”
The sniper cleared his throat. “My name’s Felix,” he said, and as I’m sure you’ve guessed, I provide…special services for certain clients. Discreetly.”
“You kill people for money,” Byron clarified.
Felix narrowed his eyes. They were a remarkable green and had a cat-like tilt at the corners. “Among others things,” he conceded. “But I don’t let anyone just point me where they like and pull the trigger. Including Dr. Atkins.”
“So my father did send you after me.” Naomi had known it was true, but she’d been holding on to a fragment of hope as fragile as dandelion fluff, and now it had blown away on his words.
“Yes.” Felix switched his gaze to her. “And for what it’s worth, he asked me to avoid killing you if I could. Not that I’d take too much comfort from that if I were you.” He jerked his head at the boar, frank disgust in his eyes. “He still sent things like that after you. Death might be preferable.” He nodded at Byron. “You, he wanted dead.”
Byron nodded. “But you were firing tranqs, and you weren’t carrying any other ammo.”
“Right.” Felix stretched his arms above his head and cracked his knuckles. It was a nonchalant gesture, but Naomi had a feeling his every move
was studied.
“At first I was given the same story as everyone else – Naomi sabotages the security system and runs away with Big Bad Byron. But that story didn’t add up to me. Why put herself smack bang in the picture like that when she could have made sure she had a watertight alibi and joined him later?” He shook his head. “However love-struck she was, that would be just plain stupid. So I did a bit of digging. Turns out the only person with the authority to override the security protocols like that was Dr. Atkins himself.”
“What? No. I don’t believe that.” Naomi was on her feet. “You’re saying my father planned the whole thing? He knew he couldn’t bug Byron with electronics, so he bugged him with…with me?” She felt sick, and she was sure all the color had drained from her face. The office seemed suddenly too small and too hot.
Felix nodded slowly. “That’s why I went after the rougher, scarier people he sent after you. And that’s why the tranquilizer darts – I knew you’d run from me, and I needed to talk to you. Find out the truth.”
“You were going to drug her and interrogate her?” Byron growled.
“Yes,” Felix said simply. He turned his feline green gaze on Naomi. “I wasn’t sure. Not a hundred percent. But now… Looking at your face…I’m sure.”
He was wrong about one thing, Naomi thought. The boar and the wolf might have been rougher, but Felix was scarier. And the scariest person of all…someone who saw her not even as an enemy or a target but as a disposable tool…was her father. She retched.
Byron rose to his feet, knocking over the chair, but before he reached her she dodged around him and ran out of the office.
It was a dazzling early morning, and the tears in her eyes made the sunlight fracture. She gulped in air. The drumming of her heart was painful.
When she felt Byron’s presence at her back, she turned into his arms and he held her to him, whispering fiercely that he was sorry and he loved her.
