A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2)

by Mandy Rosko

  It was easy to tell who Jamie was. Cindy had described the guy as having blond hair with noticeable white patches.

  Cindy struggled to get out of Jack's hold but he gripped her arms tight. Something wasn't right, and that feeling wasn't coming from watching Ethan work.

  "We have to stop him," Cindy whispered, glaring over her shoulder at him.

  "Don't move," Jack said, and he kept his grip on Cindy's arms tight. He wasn't even looking at Ethan anymore. He was watching the trees behind him.

  Cindy must have noticed it, or realized the fact that Jamie was helping Ethan to gag that girl, meaning things were not as they seemed.

  It was barely noticeable, but he saw the way the tree branches moved just behind Ethan and Jamie, who were smiling at each other now and completely unaware of the danger that was nearby. Jack caught the sight of a pale face.

  He tensed up. Hunters had found them. Or maybe those were collectors. Either way, it wasn't good.

  Jack wanted to go to his friend and tell him something was wrong, but that would give away his chance to surprise the hunters who were closing in.

  He signaled to Cindy to keep quiet. He didn't want another word spoken between them, even to ask questions, and by now, she knew his signals.

  He hadn't had much time to teach her, but she nodded and stayed put while Jack worked his way around. With any luck he could get behind the guy and stop him before he could radio for back up, or jump out of his hiding spot, holding a tranq gun to both Ethan and Jamie.

  To make everything worse there were two of them. Ethan whirled around, stepping in front of Jamie like he was protecting him. The guy holding the gun didn't waver.

  Fuck. Fucking fuck.

  Ethan held one hand out and tossed the girl to the two hunters. Jack was kind of stunned. From what he'd seen, it looked like Ethan was willing to give up on hunting. But then again, he'd known about his sister, and still hunted, so it wasn't like working with another paranormal was completely out of the question. The man had to have his reasons.

  Both hunters kept their stances straight and their guns pointed right on target. The taller one was blond and looked fresh out of college, while the guy with the black hair—and haven't shaved in three days beard—appeared all kinds of trigger happy with a silver ring through his eyebrow.

  "That's the girl you're looking for, we found her and I got her cuffed. She's ready to be taken back to the compound."

  The dirty blond chick on the ground thrashed around and screamed beneath the belt in her mouth. She looked enraged enough to chew right through it.

  Both hunters looked down at her, and then back up at Ethan. "What's her power?"

  "She can rip your flesh with her mind," Jamie answered, and then turned to the boy who was now sitting up, though still holding onto his cheek, which had a heavy bandage over it.

  "Her name's Allison. I didn't get a last name, and she doesn't have a number on her. Did you get a call on her?"

  The two hunters looked at each other. Jack got himself ready to spring, gun in hand, a real one that he would use, if it meant keeping Cindy and his friend away from those two.

  "Yeah, we heard something about this one," said one of the hunters. "Just like I heard your friend breathing behind me."

  Jack froze up, and Ethan frowned at both men, clearly confused.

  He wasn't going to look as cool doing this as he'd wanted to. Jack stepped out of his hiding spot, pointing his gun. His real gun.

  "Drop the guns and any other weapons you have and put your hands on your heads."

  "Jack?" Ethan said.

  Jamie frowned. "Jack? That Jack?"

  "My Jack," Cindy said.

  Why couldn't she just stay where she was?

  Jamie and Ethan turned, and Jamie frowned for half a second before his eyes widened. He must've recognized Cindy even without all that fiery hair.

  "Cindy?"

  "And thank you for saying her name out loud," Jack snapped.

  Jamie tensed.

  "Cindy? As in Cindy and Jack Marilla?" asked one of the men, and the guns lowered. That wasn't what should be happening if they were getting ready to make some arrests.

  "We shouldn't even be here," said one of the boys, the one whose face didn't look too painful to speak. He had his arms around his friend, and the kid on the ground was crying. They couldn't be much older than seventeen.

  "Keep quiet," said the blond, and this time the tranq guns went into their holsters as they both looked to Jack and Ethan.

  "Are these guys with you?" asked eyebrow ring guy, hooking his thumb over his shoulder at Ethan and Jamie.

  "That depends on what you plan on doing about it," Jack said.

  The two hunters looked at each other. Though one of them appeared incredibly young, they seemed to have a thing where they communicated easily and without words.

  "Are you arresting us?" Jamie asked.

  "No, they're not," Ethan said, glaring at both men. He was getting ready to spring if he needed to, to jump on both men and bring hell down on their heads for fucking with the wrong people.

  Jack's friend could be a hothead like that at times, which made it a damned miracle that their friendship had survived at all when Jack had been dating the man's sister.

  "Are you going to arrest us?" Jack asked, going for the calmer route before Ethan could attack.

  "No," said the guy with the brow ring. "We're not even really hunters."

  "You're not?" Cindy asked. She ended up getting closer to Jamie, and they were actually holding hands like kids or something. Jack wouldn't have liked that if Jamie hadn't been gay.

  "Do I look like a hunter to you? Or him?" asked the black haired guy, gesturing to his younger friend.

  "Who the hell are you?" Ethan asked.

  "The Resistance," said the blond, and when he puffed up his chest, proud of the admission. It was kind of adorable, like watching a kid brother show off their finger painting. "I'm Dylan Schumacher, and this is Leo Kane."

  Jack was hardly impressed, and he looked at Ethan, who was giving a similar look of disgust and disbelief.

  "Uh huh," Ethan said, proving just how not impressed he really was. "And what's to stop me from just killing the both of you and leaving your bodies for the damned squirrels to play with?"

  Both faces of the young men went incredibly pale. Jack had to smile. "I think you're about to make one of them piss themselves."

  "I can tell. Whatever resistance this is, it must really fucking blow to just have the two of you in it."

  Jack was equally stunned and impressed with his friend. "That's randomly mean of you."

  "I had a bad day," Ethan said.

  Jack noticed that his friend brought his hand up to touch his stomach when he said that.

  "It's not just the two of us," Leo snapped at them, regaining some of his manhood. "We're just the runners."

  "Runners?" Jack asked, frowning. "There are no runners. There's hunters, collectors, and handlers. No runners."

  "None that you know about."

  Ethan was shaking his head. "I swear to Christ that if this is some kind of joke, then you both had better hope your running practice has paid off, otherwise I will be cutting the two of you open."

  Dylan moved slightly behind Leo. "You wouldn't do that."

  "You don't know either of us, kid, or what we'd be willing to do to keep them out of a lab and us out of prison," Jack replied.

  He honestly wasn't sure if Ethan was just jerking their chains or not, but Jack was dead serious.

  If it meant keeping Cindy out of a lab, and making up for what he'd done to her, then he would do it. He wasn't about to take the risk if these two were trying to trick him somehow.

  "I've never even heard of a resistance," Ethan said, and he looked over at Cindy and Jamie. "What about the two of you?"

  "Not even paranormals all know about us. We're like the frickin' X-Men. We're secret, even to some of our own."

  "Bullshit," Ethan snapped. "Head
Office would've known about something like this."

  "They don't, and only because we're that good," Dylan said.

  "No one as cocky as you is that good."

  Dylan looked like he had more to say to that, but Leo looked down at his friend and shook his head. A silent warning. Dylan immediately shut his trap and became serious again, and his eyes were on both Jack and Ethan, as if waiting for either of them to pull a gun and start loading them with lead or something.

  "We've heard through the channels that this one was wanted for ripping apart a couple of people. We'll bring her in, but until then we'll make some calls, the rest of you are free to come with us if you want. We take in all, or most, paranormals," Leo said, correcting himself when he looked down at the blond girl, who had gone scarily silent.

  The way she was glaring at the lot of them, her facial features twisting into something nasty, and even the way her face turned red before it turned purple, was enough to let Jack know that she was trying to use her power on the lot of them right then and there. He shivered. Creepy as fuck to look at, that was for sure.

  "Wait, what did she do?" Cindy asked, as if she needed it said again. She stared at the blond and her mouth dropped open.

  "She ripped me apart and tore a hole in this kid's face," Ethan said. "But that does not mean for one second that I'm about to trust the two of you. I've never heard of any underground resistance for paranormals."

  "I have," Jamie said.

  "So have I," Cindy replied.

  "What?" Ethan and Jack both snapped the word out at the same time.

  They both stared at them. Jamie looked Ethan right in the face, like he was challenging him or something, but Cindy ducked her face and couldn't meet Jack's eyes.

  "There's a resistance? And you knew about it?" Jack asked.

  "Well," Cindy said, and then she did finally look up at him. "How do you think Jamie and I stayed under the radar for so long?"

  "Jesus Christ," Ethan said, carding his fingers through his hair. "There's a resistance... How many people are involved?"

  "Enough," Leo said. "We watch out for each other."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" Jack asked, staring at Cindy.

  She sucked in a deep breath right before squaring her shoulders. "I wanted to wait," she said. She said it carefully, watching him intently as she did.

  The implication that she'd waited because she hadn't fully trusted him hurt like a physical blow.

  Despite that, and everything they'd been through together, he understood, and he'd already decided to give up pretty much his entire life for this woman, so he wasn't about to let something like this get the better of him. He wouldn't turn his back on her or stay angry.

  "Okay, I get that. I was a hunter and you wanted to make sure I was on the right side here," Jack said, glancing over at Jamie. "But if these people actually exist, then why didn't you go with them and leave me behind?"

  "I want to know that same thing," Ethan said. His lips were pulled down in a deep frown, arms folded, his shoulders and the muscles in his arms and legs were high strung and tight. He was glaring, but only at Leo and Dylan. Ethan's training wouldn't allow him to take his eyes away from those two young men, regardless of the serious conversation he wanted with his...lover? Was that what they were? The way Jamie was looking at Ethan, and even the way he wasn't looking at him, suggested something was going on.

  And Cindy had mentioned that her best friend was gay. Jack had never stopped to think that his own best friend could be interested in men, however.

  Cindy just blinked her wide, purple eyes at him, and then she shook her head. "I didn't not tell you because I didn't trust you, Jack. You turned your back on Head Office and risked so much to get me out of Lincoln Peak. There's no one in the world I trust more than you right now. Even Jamie."

  "Thanks a lot!" Jamie said, though the man seemed more amused than anything else.

  Cindy ignored him. She just kept right on looking at Jack, like she was hoping he would get it.

  He didn't.

  "Then why not tell me? Or at the very least, why not run to them for help?"

  "Because she was afraid of what we would do to a former hunter if you were brought in," Leo said, filling in that blank.

  Jack looked between Leo and his girlfriend.

  Cindy sighed, and she nodded helplessly.

  "Is that why you didn't tell me about it?" Ethan asked, tilting his head a little, and Jack knew his friend was trying to look at the other man from the corner of his eyes.

  "No," Jamie said with no hesitation at all. "I just didn't trust you enough yet. I mean, trusting you with me is one thing, but with other people, that's different. I'd be an asshole to bring you around them just because my gut and my heart tell me it's fine."

  Ouch, the guy really didn't pull any punches.

  Despite that, Ethan didn't so much as wince.

  He did take in a deep breath, and then he nodded, as if there was nothing else that needed telling or explaining. "All right," he said. "Fair enough."

  Jack felt like he was watching a soap opera. Not because there was a lot of emotional drama or anything, but more because he couldn't take his eyes away from the imaginary screen in front of him.

  He had to know what was going to happen.

  When Jamie ran his hands through that weird hair of his, and then stepped forward so the two could share a kiss, Jack's eyes flew wide.

  He would be lying if he couldn't admit that he'd suspected this about the both of them when Cindy told him her friend was gay, but it was still very different watching his best friend kiss another man on the mouth.

  At the same time, he could already tell he was all right with this. Ethan was his best friend, and the man Jack had opened up to about Cindy. For Christ's sake, their friendship had even survived when Jack and Ethan's sister had been dating each other, and then survived again when the two broke it off.

  If Jack was the sort of asshole who threw away friends like that because of something so small and meaningless, then he wouldn't deserve to have friends to begin with.

  All the same, Jack was going to have to speak with Ethan later on just to find out how long this had been happening for.

  He had to look away from the both of them before they caught him staring.

  It was Dylan who decided to be the dickhead who broke the romantic moment. "So not what I needed to see, that isn't cute," he said.

  "Shut the fuck up," Jack snapped at him. In his mind he was already planning all the nasty shit he was going to do to the man if he even thought about ridiculing his friend.

  Dylan's eyes widened a little, like he hadn't seen that coming, but then his face darkened, getting serious again. "We still have a job to do, with this one," he said, nodding down at the girl still on the ground.

  "I'm going to take this little girl over to Head Office, hopefully collect some money off her, and Dylan will take you all somewhere safe."

  From the way his eyes turned over to glance at the two boys, it was clear they were included in that bargain as well, which was better than amazing. The kids looked scared out of their minds, but the thought of being somewhere that didn't require looking over his shoulder was at least putting Jack at ease as Cindy went to them. She got down on her haunches, and spoke in a calming voice to them.

  The blond girl started to really scream and struggle, her body wriggling in the dirt as she tried to escape. It looked like she was trying to chew through her gag.

  That continued until Ethan went to her and stomped his boot hard on her back, pressing her down into the dirt to prevent her from moving around anymore.

  Jack did not blame the man, and no one else said a word either.

  It must've also knocked the wind out of her because she stopped trying to scream at them through the belt in her mouth.

  "Where is safe? At your hidey holes?" Ethan asked, adopting a more casual pose when Jamie came to stand beside him. Ethan's hand settled comfortably around the other man's wai
st. The two presented a strong unit overtop of the pained paranormal.

  "Fuck no," said Dylan, shaking his head. "It's too risky to take so many people at once."

  "There are safe houses," Leo said. “You're all going to head there, most likely scattered since a group this size might attract unwanted attention. If you want to keep on helping other people, werewolves, shifters, mutants, then you can stick around here."

  "Or?" Ethan asked. Was he grinding his boot harder onto the girl's back?

  Leo scratched the back of his head. "The Canadian Prime Minister just passed legislation that gives anyone with paranormal powers the status of human, with all the same rights and protections as full on humans as well. The laws weren't that strict to begin with, and there's still some push back from some of the people of Canada, but there are places up there that'll take you in, keep you safe. All we'd have to do would be to get you a birth certificate and then you're guaranteed they won't kick you out of the country."

  "They've been sending back refugees?" Jack asked, looking at Cindy, still talking to those boys, unable to imagine anyone kicking her out of anywhere.

  He also couldn't imagine anyone punching her in her pregnant stomach either, causing her to miscarry their child, but someone had certainly done that once before.

  "Just lay low with us for a while and you'll all be right as rain in no time," Dylan said.

  Jack never liked that saying. Very few people felt remotely all right when it was pouring rain. In fact, a good majority were miserable whenever it rained, and he was one of them.

  Jamie was speaking in a soft tone with Ethan, and the two quickly came to their decision.

  "We'll go with you," Ethan said. "But you're not putting Jamie into any shackles and you won't take any of the weapons we have."

  Leo nodded. "All right, deal," he said.

  Well, what sort of choice did Jack have now? There was no way he was going to separate Cindy from her best friend who'd already saved her life.

  Also, if Ethan was going with those two kids, then he needed to be there to have his back. "You can count us in, too."

  He looked over at Ethan and Jamie, who were hugging each other. Cindy was smiling softly at him as she comforted the two boys.