Burned

by Dean Murray

  "And if we refuse?"

  There was a level of hatred in Jasmin's eyes that I'd never seen her direct at anyone but Brandon and Vincent before now.

  "If you leave there is a very good chance the Coun'hij's enforcers will pick you up before you make it out of the state. If that happens you'll be dead, but if you somehow manage to get past them, I'll hunt you down once I've finished up with our mission down here."

  I'd just crossed a line that couldn't be uncrossed. Not with Jasmin—maybe not with any of them—but it was Jasmin I was having the hardest time dealing with. Somehow I'd never seen it. For years she and I had been best friends. Neither of us had ever shown any evidence of wanting to take the relationship beyond that.

  Apparently Jasmin hadn't been as happy as she'd seemed about that state of affairs. It was too late to do anything about it now. I had to keep focused on the bigger picture or people were going to die.

  James skidded to a stop, eyes wide at the fact that everyone else was lying on the ground.

  "What's going on?"

  "They were going to leave before you came back to tell us all what you found."

  The rift inside of me was starting to oscillate as I reached the limits of how much energy I could absorb. It was all I could do to avoid snapping at him, but I knew I needed to keep my anger leashed. James was the only person so far who seemed ready to believe that I might have been set up.

  "It was just like you said. Adri's door was all busted up, and you'd obviously been there—your scent trail headed straight away from the motel."

  I released them all—I had to or I risked losing control of my ability and making it obvious just how hard it was to keep so many people immobilized at once.

  "You've all heard me out. Stay or go, it's your choice—just remember that there will be consequences if you run out on me right now."

  I turned just in time to see Brindi's legs collapse. I caught her just before she hit the ground.

  Chapter 17

  Alec Graves

  The Caravan RV Park

  Tucson, Arizona

  I knew exactly what they were all thinking as I carried Brindi up into my RV and closed the door behind me. I would have invited some of them in so they could see that I wasn't going to do exactly the kind of stuff that Adri claimed I'd been doing earlier, but that wasn't a possibility—not given how pissed I knew Vicki had to be by now.

  I was right—she didn't even let me get Brindi to the couch before she came hurtling out of the bedroom. I cracked open my ability while she was still several feet away from me, and prayed that I still had enough juice left to stop her from killing me.

  With someone else it probably wouldn't have worked. My first instinct had been to try to stop her from transforming so that I could deal with her in a less deadly form, but there just wasn't enough capacity on the other end of my rift to absorb that much energy. There was however enough of an absorption effect to shut down Vicki's gift.

  I felt her start to transform, felt the energy ratchet up, and then she realized just how dangerous it would be to escalate like that without her ability to see into the future. Instead of shifting to hybrid form and ripping my throat out, she punched me in the face.

  She was winding up for another blow when I captured her wrist and pushed her down onto the couch.

  "I know you're pissed that I would leave you stuck inside the bedroom while I was out here making out with Brindi, but that wasn't me."

  "It sure sounded like whoever it was had Brindi fooled."

  She practically spat the words at me, but she hadn't shifted yet, so that was better progress than I'd been expecting.

  "Yeah, he did have her fooled, but that doesn't change the fact that it wasn't me. I walked in on Adri and Tristan an hour and a half ago. All I can figure is that she decided her best bet was to start a nasty rumor in the hopes that it would keep me too busy to tell everyone else that she was playing me this entire time."

  Vicki did a double-take. "That's much more sophisticated than I would have expected out of someone who didn't grow up among our people."

  "Yeah, apparently we've all been underestimating her ability to deceive. For all I know, my people are leaving right now in the hopes that I'll be too busy chasing everyone else to come after them. I'm surprised you didn't hear all of that already."

  "I've had three privacy generators going in there—the last thing I wanted to hear was you and Brindi going at each other again. Once was quite enough. What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going after all of them. I got a call from someone just now warning me that the Coun'hij has an agent down here—an agent who has reported back saying they've managed to disrupt our operations—but I don't know for sure who Adri is working with."

  "Heath. If you're telling the truth, it has to be him. Nobody else could have convinced Brindi like that."

  "Yeah, that was what I thought too, but something like that is supposed to be beyond even him. Right now it's still just my word against theirs though. I need some proof—I don't suppose Shawn has a satellite feed of this area for the last couple of hours that he can send over? I've got Jack trying to get hold of that intelligence, but he said it's going to take a while, and every minute that passes puts Adri and the rest that much further away from us."

  "You think that was their plan all along, to split your forces up and then send you off to chase them down, thereby creating a window of opportunity for them to take out the Tucson pack?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. I've gone from thinking that Adri is behind all of this, to thinking it's all Heath, and then back again just in the last five minutes. There are too many pieces that I can't get to fit together quite right."

  Vicki sighed. "I should probably wait to tell you this until after Shawn gets me the video feed that proves it really wasn't you in here with Brindi, but what the hell—you only live once. Adri and the rest are back at the motel where I left my people. I got a text from them forty-five minutes ago asking me if they needed to be worried."

  I wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or even more worried. We hadn't been spread across a thousand square miles, but I still had to find a way to get to the bottom of what had happened.

  "Get on the phone to Shawn right away, please. We're going to need that video."

  **

  I should have known that things weren't going to be that easy. Fifteen minutes later—as I was out trying to get the rest of my people ready to move our operations to the motel where the Chicago hybrids were staying—Vicki texted me to let me know that the only satellite in the area had mysteriously stopped transmitting earlier in the day.

  Kaleb and the rest had obviously known that something was going to happen today and they'd wanted to make sure that I wouldn't have a provable alibi. Five minutes after I got Vicki's text, I was back in the RV and the big vehicle was moving.

  Brindi was still unconscious, which meant that Vicki came out of the bedroom as we pulled onto the main road. She obviously had something to say, but I got my question out first.

  "Did you guys bring one of those portable EMP devices that Ulrich developed to keep people from flooding the internet with videos of hybrids?"

  "Yeah. I'm assuming that you want us to use it to knock out all of the phones and cameras at the motel before we get there?"

  "Yes, please. If you can target it carefully enough to avoid breaking all of the vehicles in the parking lot that would be ideal, but one way or another we need to make sure that the humans in the area don't leak what's about to happen to the outside world."

  Vicki nodded. "Okay, I'll have my people deal with it, but I have a condition in return. Don't kill anyone, Alec. If you want to keep Shawn and me as allies, then that's the price."

  "You're afraid that I really was the one in here with Brindi and I'm going to kill whoever could prove that."

  "Not to put too fine a point on it? Yeah. That's exactly what I'm worried about. It wouldn't be the first time that some despot used a situation li
ke this to eliminate a rival."

  "I'll do my best, but you know how situations like this get—it's going to be a mile past volatile."

  She didn't respond to that—we both knew that she was putting me in a difficult situation. If I'd had any other choice I would have been delaying this confrontation, but I was working against a clock this time.

  Vicki was worried about me disposing of evidence and witnesses. I knew I was innocent, but that just meant that I needed to be worried about someone else disposing of whatever hope I had of clearing my name. Not only that, the satellite coming down like it had was another straw in the wind, another indication that the Coun'hij was gearing up for something. They wouldn't want their massacre of the Tucson pack caught on tape—not unless it was footage that they were a hundred percent sure they could control.

  I could feel the noose tightening around my neck—around all of our necks—and the only chance we had of surviving against a massed force of werewolves was if we were all in the same spot when the attack came.

  I half expected for my people to scatter once we were on the road—it wasn't like I was going to be able to run them down in an RV—but they all fell into formation behind me, and a few minutes later we were all pulling into the motel parking lot.

  I tucked a blanket around Brindi, and then as I exited the RV, James stepped up behind me.

  "I can't explain what's going on, Alec, but I believe you. Everyone else has had a chance to go check out Adri's door, but most of them are still pretty unsure what to believe."

  "What's tipped things for you, James?"

  "You saved my mom. I haven't forgotten that, even if she seems to have. I know her well enough to know that she's back there masterminding a whisper campaign to keep everyone convinced that you're the bad guy here, but she's wrong. I've got your back—just try to remember that your plan hinges on keeping all of Isaac's people alive."

  "Yeah, I haven't been able to think of anything else."

  It wasn't a surprise that Isaac's people had formed up in front of the motel by the time that my people had finished gathering at my back. They'd had scouts out, and based on how jumpy they all looked, they knew just how sticky things were probably about to get.

  "You're not wanted here."

  It was Taggart who'd spoken. He was standing there front and center looking like he wanted to tear me in half and watch me die.

  "I know I'm not wanted, but you all need to hear my version of events, Taggart. After I talked to you, I fully intended on heading over to Isaac's room and making the offer you and I discussed, but as I passed Adri's room I heard her and Tristan in there making out."

  "That's a lie!"

  Taggart was shaking now—obviously having a hard time stopping himself from transforming and coming after me.

  "A lie. Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking when I heard them, Taggart. You had just finished telling me that Adri left to go pick up food, and yet there they were. All I could assume at that point was that you were covering for her, that you knew all along that she and Tristan were an item."

  Isaac grabbed Taggart's arm, stopping him before he could take more than one step toward me. "Hear him out, Taggart. Too much is riding on what happens over the next few minutes."

  "I'm not going to sit here and listen to him call me a liar."

  Isaac's knuckles went white on Taggart's arm. "We have more people than he does, but you and I both know that we can't take them—Heath is not a match for both Alec and Grayson. Even if he was, us killing each other just does the Coun'hij's work for them."

  Taggart shook off Isaac's grip, but he didn't move any closer to me. I looked out over the rest of the people standing in front of me, and continued.

  "I heard Adri and Tristan making out, so I put my fist through her door and stepped in to make sure I was really hearing what I thought I was hearing, and then I left. I knew staying around was going to result in me killing Tristan, so I put as much distance as I could between the two of them and me. Imagine my surprise when I got back a short time ago and was told that Adri was telling everyone that she caught me making out with Brindi."

  "I told everyone that because it was the truth."

  Adri had been standing in the back of the crowd—I hadn't even been able to smell her back there. Now she stepped forward.

  "I caught the two of you, Alec. I saw you both with my own eyes, and no amount of lying on your part is going to change that. During the time that you claim to have seen me with Tristan, I was getting food—just like Taggart said. Isaac watched me get into the SUV with Heath, Cindi and Dom—they can all vouch for me. Who can vouch for you?"

  Isaac, Heath, Dom and Cindi were all nodding, obviously ready to swear that Adri had been with them. I could feel things starting to spiral out of control. I'd come into all of this ready to deal with the fact that Adri and Heath would back each other up—I never imagined that I'd be dealing with Dom, Cindi, and Isaac too.

  "My people went to your room, Adri. Everything was just like I told them it would be. Your door was damaged, and my trail led off into the desert. I wasn't lying, but it's interesting that you bring Heath up. From the moment I got back and heard everyone talking about your revelation, I realized that there was only one person I knew who could make people believe that I'd actually been there with Brindi—only one person who could make themselves both look and smell like me.

  "I don't know if you're the one behind all this, and you dragged Heath along with you, or if he's the one putting you up to it, but one way or another he's involved, and that means that nobody here can trust anything they've seen."

  Adri snorted. "Okay, we've heard you out, now let me explain what really happened. You're right, you were at my room before I found you and Brindi together. You even broke my door just like you said, but you didn't find Tristan and me together because that never happened. You found Tristan and you nearly killed him for some reason known only to you. Then you went back to Brindi. I don't know how you ever thought your word would stack up against mine, Heath's, Cindi's, Dom's and Tristan's but it's not going to happen. It's time for you to leave."

  It was my turn to start shaking now. I needed an opponent I could hit, something that I could defeat through pure brute force, but instead I was being verbally backed into a corner by the fact that she had all of the witnesses. Or did she?

  "Fine, get Tristan out here so he can tell his side of things, and then I'll leave."

  "Absolutely not! I'm not going to let you brutalize him again. If you're not going to believe all of the rest of us then it isn't going to do any good for us to add one more witness to our side."

  "You're not adding another witness to your defense, I'm adding another one to mine. Tristan is the only other person who can confirm that I was there at your room and saw the two of you ripping each other's clothes off."

  "No. I'm not saying it again, Alec."

  I smiled as the balance started shifting in my favor. "It almost sounds like you're hiding something when you say it like that, Adri." I turned to James. "Go get him. Don't worry, I won't let any of them interfere."

  Things started happening almost too fast for even a shape shifter to follow. Taggart and Isaac both stepped in front of Adri as though trying to shield her from me, at the same time that their people started to spread out so that they could stop James.

  That would have been bad enough all on its own, but at that precise instant I saw Heath and half a dozen other people flicker out of sight. My hand had just been forced.

  I opened up the rift inside of me, dropping a circular absorption field around Isaac's people. I'd mostly been concerned about stopping Heath, but I couldn't afford to leave the rest of them unrestrained. I didn't just get Heath, I got a lot more than I bargained for.

  Heath popped back into view as my ability shuddered from the effort to draw in more power than I'd ever tapped into at any one point. I thought it was just the sheer number of shape shifters I was trying to immobilize that was causing me prob
lems—right up until the illusion around Nellie dropped.

  One second she looked like a normal human girl, and then in the next she was replaced by a black-skinned man who was at least two inches taller than me. He was shirtless, revealing massive muscles, but that wasn't the most astonishing thing about him. As we all watched, tendrils of glowing black energy unfurled from behind his back.

  There were dozens of them, all moving independent of each other, but all fanning out into a pair of wing-like masses to either side of him.

  "I have to hand it to you—I didn't think that you would find me out. I've been doing this for thousands of years, and you're the first to manage it. It's a shame really—the feast the two of you were on track to provide me was going to be the best meal I'd ever tasted."

  There was an undertone to the creature's voice that made me think of tearing fabric, fabric that was rotted and failing. He was corruption incarnate.

  I'd never seen anything like him—not even in my darkest nightmares. Part of my mind was comparing him to fragments of legends that had been handed down by both the humans and my people, trying to find a match, but the rest of me had already started responding to the presence of a new threat.

  I shrank my absorption field down, shifting its focus to the creature at the same time that I ramped up the strength of the draining effect it created. I hit whatever it was with everything I had, and the entire time I was worried that I'd already used up the bulk of my ability holding Jasmin and the others in place until James could get back.

  The energy tendrils—the wings—on its back flickered ever so slightly, but it didn't drop to its knees, didn't evidence any other sign that my ability was even working. Instead, it casually whipped one of the tendrils around and slammed it into one of Isaac's wolves.

  She never even had a chance. It was a toss-up whether it was the blunt-force trauma or the discharge of electrical energy that did her in, but there was no question in my mind but that she was dead based on the way her chest had been crushed and the scorch marks visible in her clothes and skin.