Destined to Run

by J. Kearston

  “Something’s different this time,” she mentally whispers and I look closer at the man holding our fate in his hands.

  His hand is trembling slightly, a crack in his typically stoic control. It’s the only thing I can see at first, but I trust her instincts. I may not have had many interactions with him face to face, but I heard his voice, and it was always stern, yet not as angry as this. Not that any other person would find that unusual in this situation, but the only thing Carson Harlow keeps a tighter grip on than his image is his emotions.

  He knows.

  “You’re just like your mother, aren’t you?” he spits and she rears back as if he’d slapped her.

  “What are you talking about?” Rin asks, heart sprinting with fear, but facing him with courage despite it.

  His eyes harden and for the first time, I think she’s seeing what kind of person he actually is. She may have gotten a glimpse in recent weeks, but the darkness that’s been lurking beneath the surface all of these years runs deeper than anyone could have anticipated.

  “You want to embarrass me too, is that it?” he seethes with his rising anger, gesturing with his gun to the bruises on her shoulders. “You and your whore of a mother, making a goddamn fool of me!”

  One of the men snorts and Carson doesn’t even hesitate, stretching his arm to the side and lodging a bullet in his skull with practiced precision. The human crumbles in a heap, gone in a blink as heavy silence presses on us in his wake.

  “Get over here, Corinna,” Carson commands, voice cold. “We’re going to put this behind us. I’ll fix the mess with the Caswells and find someone else befitting my daughter’s name to pawn you off on. I’ve put up with enough of your nonsense over the years; you can be someone else’s problem from now on.”

  She doesn’t follow his demand, but she does inch her way in front of Cole. “If you don’t want me anyway, why drag me back? Just let me go and tell people I died if it suits you. I have no intention of stepping foot in another city so long as I live.”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to?” one of the humans snarls, breaking rank in his aggression to try and get in her face. “You think you’re in the position to make any sort of demands after we had to come out to the middle of fucking nowhere for you? Selfish bitch.” He spits on the ground at his feet.

  The only thing keeping me from lunging is picturing tearing his throat out the same way I did to the Jax-ass that tried to force Rin through a shotgun wedding. They call us savages, the filthy hypocrites. But if they keep pushing, they’re going to force us to show them the truth they don’t want to accept.

  We know damn well how to slaughter animals while keeping our honor intact. We aim to be better people than these monsters that only have courage while in a crowd hiding behind their guns and using their ‘friends’ as living shields.

  “Easy,” Ares warns, eyes flashing bright in the dim lighting. Mentally he projects, “Take a deep breath and tell me if you smell the same thing I do.”

  Confused, I follow his instructions, knowing that of any of us, Ares stands the best chance at getting as many of us out of this mess alive as possible. We might end up maimed, but so long as at least Rin survives in one piece, I’ll take it at this point.

  “Shit,” Cole breathes, summing up the sinking feeling in my gut better than I can.

  “When I say drop, fucking drop,” Ares commands before cutting the conversation, keeping the feebs’ attention centered on him.

  “Filthy mutt,” the human sneers, aiming the gun at Ares’ chest.

  He’s as well dressed as her father, so I guess it just goes to show that even the most stuck-up people will risk getting their five-hundred dollar shoes muddy for the sake of good old fashioned violence. You can put a suit on a demon, but it doesn’t make it any less evil, and that’s the exact reason the world went to shit.

  Rin, start walking towards your father. It’s the last thing I want, but we need just a little bit longer.

  She doesn’t question or hesitate, trusting me implicitly. “I’ll go, I’m sorry,” she begs, putting her hands up in surrender while keeping her steps slow and measured. “Nobody else needs to die.”

  Most of the attention stays focused on Rin and Ares, though there are two mens’ guns trained on Cole and I each. It doesn’t give us the chance to do anything more than breathe and listen, but that’s all we need.

  “Drop!” Ares shouts in silent command and we all dive to the ground as the mage sends a pulse out like an air wave, knocking the feebs back a step.

  It’s not much, just enough to disorient them as Ares shifts. His clothes fall in tatters to the grass as he leaps, crashing into the vamp in midair. He clamps his jaw around the creature’s throat and whips his head to the side, an audible snap ringing out around us.

  I roll to the side before springing up, tearing through the belly of another. These abominations are little more than a pack of feral rats, no rational thought despite their once human status. I’m used to the condemnation as anyone catches sight of our faces, so I feel like a damn hypocrite as I look down at the wide, unseeing eyes of the vamp to ensure he’s really down for the count. The golden brown irises are rimmed in red, but there isn’t the same wild look as usual that every vamp has, unable to even masquerade as a sane being.

  With extended teeth and claws, they’re preternaturally fast, but when shifted, we can hold our own fairly well. If we were to stay in our human forms though, we could very well end up like the feebs around us being drained dry.

  Rin?

  “I’ve got her,” comes Cole’s instantaneous reply.

  A brief flash of deep black fur flashes in my periphery before claws rake across my side and I’m forced to turn with a snarl. The vamp gets one more decent slash in before I slash through his throat, leaving him to bleed out beside several of the humans currently being torn apart and bolt for the truck. He might not die simply from the swipe I used to fend him off, but we aren’t here to exterminate a nest terrorizing a town, we just need to get the hell out of here.

  The mage is already in the truck, hand extended to help haul Rin inside and Cole jumps into the truck bed and over to the other side, shifting back and tearing open the door to the driver’s seat. I leap into the back with Rin before she slams the door shut, slapping her hand on the lock for an illusion of safety.

  “Ares?” Cole shouts, checking in.

  “I’m good, start driving.” A roar loud enough to make my hair stand on end echoes through the air as Cole slams his foot on the gas and swerves in the grass, trying to get back onto the road.

  “We’re not leaving him!” Rin panics, pivoting in her seat.

  We’re not, he’s just holding them back until we get to the highway.

  It’s clear she doesn’t believe me until a flash of striped fur comes into sight as we’re pulling onto the road. He’s soaked in blood, but by his sure footing, most isn’t his. Increasing his speed, he leaps into the bed of the truck, the entire vehicle lurching with the weight. When we put a little more distance between us and the vamps, he shifts back, because a naked man in the back of a pickup still draws far less attention than a tiger and we’re not the only car on the road.

  We wait in a tense bubble of silence, trying to process everything that just happened so quickly. After several more miles, Cole pulls over long enough that they can each tug on a pair of jeans and get back in the truck, heading in the direction of home, but taking extra unnecessary turns.

  “Do you think they’re all dead?” Rin finally asks and I curl up on her lap so she can nervously pet me, since I know she needs something to do with her hands. That, and I can keep an eye on the mage, but he looks on the verge of passing out.

  “Your dad, for sure,” the mage speaks for the first time, sounding breathless. “Ate his face clean off.” He’s pale and unnaturally still, like he’s trying to remain as invisible as possible.

  Rin jerks her head in a sharp nod. “Okay, yeah,” she states flippantly, but
starts petting me faster. “That’s good. One less problem. Everything’s fine.”

  “Are you hurt?” Ares asks, turning in his seat. He wiped off most of it, but there’s still a good bit of blood streaked across his chest as well as his side from the bullet. It went clean through thankfully, but it’s still bleeding pretty profusely.

  Rin swears, snapping out of her shock. “Me? What about you?” She starts rummaging in one of the backpacks and pulls out a shirt. “And we need to get the bullet out of Cole’s arm. I should be the one driving, pull over.” She balls up the shirt and leans forward, pressing it to Ares’ side, looking better with having a job to distract herself.

  “I’m fine, beautiful,” Cole argues. “Let’s figure out where we’re headed next and can deal with it there.”

  If the mage can keep his mouth shut, we can find another shitty motel. We’ll treat Cole’s arm and see if the mage is even useful. We shouldn’t show him where we live and end up with the cops at our door if he escapes.

  “Agreed,” all three of them respond simultaneously and I smile.

  Now to just hope he even knows what he’s doing, because that defensive blast was weak as fuck.

  Eighteen

  Rin

  “Shit, that stings,” Cole hisses as I pour the antiseptic over his wound and the tweezers.

  His curses only increase as I start digging around for the bullet, beyond thankful when I yank it out in one piece. Smothering the hole with antibiotic ointment, I wrap the gauze tightly around his upper arm and pray I never have to do something like this again.

  Ares cleaned his already, but I help rewrap his next since it keeps slipping off. “So how did you make that plan with the mage?”

  “Ian,” he snaps from his chair, resting his elbows on his knees and head in his hands. “Enough with ‘the mage’ already. You clearly want something, so just get to the point, would ‘ya? Please?”

  He sounds on the verge of a nervous breakdown, not that I blame him. The vampire attack will be something I replay in my nightmares for years to come, never actually seeing one in person before. They were just…soulless monsters.

  Add in the whole abduction and leaving him bound and gagged for a day, and I can’t fault him for reaching his breaking point. Until you get a read on your situation, it’s smarter to stay quiet and unassuming, gleaning any information you can that might help you. But after that scare, we’re all rattled and in uncharted territory.

  “We need your help.”

  He looks at me like I have three heads. “And you couldn’t just fucking ask, you psychos?!”

  “Calm down,” Ares warns, and Ian pales a bit further, but doesn’t back down.

  “And you. How the hell did you know I knew Morse code? How long have you all been watching me?”

  Ozzy, Cole, and I turn to look at Ares as one. “That’s still a thing? I thought only military or conspiracy weirdos knew it?”

  “Which is why it’s an effective code,” Ian and Ares defend simultaneously and I just blink in surprise before scrubbing a hand down my face.

  “Okay.” I sit on the edge of one of the twin beds, facing Ian. “Long story short? Haven’t been watching you, some mages did something to him,” I gesture to Ozzy, not wanting to give up our names just in case, “and now he can’t shift back. So we figured we needed a mage to undo whatever they did and here we are.”

  He looks at me incredulously. “I repeat; why didn’t you just ask instead of fucking ABDUCTING ME!?”

  “Keep your damn voice down,” Cole snaps, glancing nervously at the door.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Ian drawls sarcastically. “Would that be inconvenient for you?”

  “Look,” I plead, drawing his attention back to me to try and diffuse the situation before it can escalate past the point of no return. “I’m sorry, but can you really blame us? Nearly all of the mages we’ve met are self-absorbed bastards that could blast us on our asses and we figured we’d only get one shot at this before word spread and it was a manhunt. Would you seriously have been inclined to help people you didn’t even know? Shifters no less?”

  He starts to sit up and Ares tenses, like Ian’s about to attack. He notices, rolling his eyes. “With that attitude? No. Maybe if you offered to buy me a cup of coffee first and schmoozed a little though. Not all mages are pretentious bastards any more than every human sucks ass or shifters eat babies.”

  “So can we just,” I huff, swiping my hair back from my face and groaning in frustration. “Will you help us? Please?”

  He raises an eyebrow, assessing me as he debates. “What’s in it for me?”

  Ares growls. “We won’t kill you.”

  Ian narrows his eyes at him, but calms a bit when I force Ares to sit down so that he appears at least a little less hostile. “What do you want?”

  He licks his lips before leaning forward again and resting an arm on his knee, ticking things off on his fingers. “One, you owe me a new phone. A good one too; those things aren’t cheap. Two, you keep your names to yourselves. I want to go home when this is all over, so the less I know about you the better.”

  He taps his foot rapidly as he tries to think of something before his face turns hard. “And three, I want you to describe the people that did that to him. I’ve done just fine up until now by steering clear of drama. Whatever he got caught up in, I want no part of. If they’d go so far as to start abducting people,” he pointedly emphasizes and Cole flips him off, “then I have no doubt things will continue to escalate. World’s shitty enough without people fucking with the already precarious balance of things.”

  “One more thing,” Cole says, crossing his arms and leaning against the door. “You pull this off and fix him, we need you to look at someone else. We aren’t sure it’s the same issue, but it’s our best guess.”

  Ian narrows his eyes. “Going to just keep stringing me along like your personal slave? Not much of a way to start off a relationship when you’re the ones asking for countless favors and don’t have anything to offer in return.”

  “It’s a kid. A little girl that’s been sick for a long time.”

  Ian throws his hands up in the air and we all tense, waiting for a shockwave that doesn’t come. “Of-freaking-course there’s a sick kid! I’m not a doctor you know, or some wizard Jesus. Do you think I pull miracles out of my ass?”

  I cover my mouth, but a snicker slips out. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help thinking we’d have gotten along famously if the situation were different.”

  He sits back, the corner of his mouth twitching. “And four, I want a favor in return; a blank check to be decided on later. Since you’re tacking on more conditions, it’s only fair.”

  I share a look with the guys as we consider the terms, but we all know that he’s got us backed into a corner. “Deal.”

  Clapping once sharply, he stands up and shakes out his hands like he’s psyching himself up to do this. “Alright, hop up,” he tells Ozzy. Dragging the chair over to the edge of the bed, he waits for Osiris to move into position and it’s clear he’s reluctant to trust a mage after all he went through.

  “Is it okay if I sit with you? You know, so I can punch him if he tries anything.”

  Ozzy snorts. “You’re incredibly transparent, has anyone ever told you that?”

  “Is it working?”

  “Hold on a second,” Ian hesitates, looking between us. “You have a pack link? But you’re human.”

  I shrug, sitting beside Osiris on the bed and scratching behind his ear as he tries to relax. “And you have magic jazz hands, so which one of us is really the weird one here?”

  He bursts out laughing and it’s not lost on me how quickly the situation evolved. Not that I should be surprised, because I’ve seen countless examples of just how quickly life can change over the last few weeks.

  “So talk us through this,” Ares asks, looking as nervous as the rest of us. “If they just wanted to steal his energy, why wouldn’t he gradually get it back over
time?”

  Ian’s smile falls as he slowly places his hands on either side of Ozzy’s neck. The feline in question tenses as his heart rate skyrockets. His muscles bunch, like he’s going to pounce at any second. If Osiris lashes out, there’s nothing to stop Ian from walking away, but I refuse to try to restrain him and trigger an even worse reaction.

  Slow breaths, Ozzy. We’re not going to let him hurt you and he wouldn’t be stupid enough to try. After watching Ares rip a man’s head clean off his body, he’s going to help no matter his bravado.

  “I missed that part,” he admits.

  “It was pretty awesome, not going to lie,” Cole adds, coming to sit on Ozzy’s other side. “Brutal as hell, but badass to behold.”

  “Says the man running away with his tail between his legs,” Ares scoffs, but there’s a trace of male satisfaction in his tone.

  “Excuse you, but I was protecting our mate and hostage. Noble work,” he defends.

  “Hands off the ocelot,” Ian declares, closing his eyes, and I reluctantly fold mine in my lap. “So basically, imagine it like surgery, as if you’re carving out an organ. Done correctly, and it’d be like you said; they’d remove a chunk of energy and the body would naturally create more over time. But if you bump something else or don't cauterize an artery, you'll bleed internally until you die, or cause problems elsewhere in the body because things are out of whack.”

  “But why cut him?” Ares demands. “If you’re able to just put your hands on him to do this?”

  Ian hums, concentrating for a minute before elaborating. “I just told you that it’s a precision thing. You really think if I walked up to someone like this they’d just stand there? They would have wanted to subdue him enough that he wouldn’t thrash around too much to make it easier on them. It isn’t about them caring if he bled out or survived; it’s harder on us to find what we’re looking for if someone’s flailing around.”