A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2) (17 page)

"Is that why you and your sister never...I
mean, that's why you both weren't trying to help other paranormals,
right?"

"What do you mean?" Ethan asked, briefly
looking behind him. Jamie was glad when Ethan yanked another tree
branch out of the way, so Jamie could walk by it without getting
scratched. Now that he wasn’t so focused on his starvation, he
could see that Ethan was doing that a lot.

Then Jamie realized that what he was saying
could be taken the wrong way, which was the absolute last thing he
wanted. He had to tread carefully here. "Just that... you've both
been alone in this. Did you ever try to find other paranormals to
teach her how to control her power?"

"No, it was only me," Ethan said. "We were
just kids when she started showing her abilities, but we still knew
about what happened to people who could do things like that. We
made each other promise we would never tell anyone else. Actually,
we pinky swore on it,” Ethan said, the corner of his lips turning
up.

The thought of Ethan pinky swearing anyone,
even as a kid, was so sweet and cute that Jamie smiled back at
him.

“
Unlike some other
brothers and sisters we knew who were close in age, we were
actually good friends. We knew the second anyone from our old
church or neighborhood found out about it she'd get turned
in."

"But you said you helped to teach her. What
could you do to teach her?" Jamie asked, and he was genuinely
curious, considering Ethan was normal.

Ethan shrugged. "Well, whenever I got frost
bite in July, I always told my parents I was making a fort in the
freezer."

Ethan smiled back at him when he said that,
and there was no question in Jamie's mind that Ethan hadn't been
joking.

They both laughed out loud, and it was
great, just being able to smile and laugh like that, as if
everything was normal.

“
So, you kept it from your
parents for all these years? That must make for interesting family
holidays.”

Ethan shook his head. “No, they found out
when we were teenagers. Thank God we were almost done with school
anyway. They were distrustful of paranormals, but for whatever
reason, they didn’t report Jessica. Aside from them, no one else
knows about her, and I think they might've even convinced
themselves that it isn't true.”

“
I’m sorry,” Jamie said,
though Ethan didn’t look upset. He was still smiling.

“
Don’t be. We were fine.
They kicked my sister out, so I went with her. Maybe that’s the
reason they didn’t turn her in. Maybe they didn’t want their only
son, who happened to be normal, getting thrown into prison for
harboring and protecting a paranormal. I don’t think I’ll ever know
the real reason, but they’ve been out of our lives for a
while.”

"You seem pretty easy going, considering
what happened to you, and that there are hunters actively looking
for us," Jamie said, wondering if Ethan was just hiding some other
internal pain.

“
Could say the exact same
thing about you,” Ethan said, looking at him. “You told me your
parents don’t speak to you for being gay. Was that
true?”

“
Yeah, but I was still
living in their house, when I told them about this, however,” Jamie
lifted his hand, showing off bright white and blue electrical
charges. They danced sporadically around his hand and arm, looking
like vines with thorns. Then he shrugged. "It's not the first time
I've been on the run either.”

He smiled up at Ethan, but Ethan was no
longer grinning down at him. He had an expression on his face that
was both thoughtful and serious.

"What's wrong?" Jamie asked.

"Nothing, let's just—" Ethan stopped
himself, and then held up his arm and stopped Jamie from walking
another step.

"What's wrong?" Jamie whispered it this
time, his body tense as he sensed the danger.

"
Shh
!"

Ethan put his hand over Jamie's mouth,
desperate to keep Jamie quiet.

It worked. Jamie barely breathed against his
hand, and he put all of his focus into his ears, into hearing what
was out there. Any other time, he would have loved to have Ethan’s
hand on him, but there was nothing in Ethan’s posture that
suggested he was playing around.

After two seconds of careful listening,
Jamie’s ears heard beyond the wind through the trees, and the sound
of birds, to a familiar voice yelling in the distance. More like a
high-pitched screech that sent shivers down Jamie’s spine.

"You fucking idiots! That was all you could
get?"

The sound of a young male screaming
followed. The sort of scream that Ethan had let out when she hadd
used her powers on him. The helpless-and-numb-with-pain kind.

Looking up, Jamie could see the wide-eyed,
angry expression, on Ethan’s face.

Allison. Holy Shit. She wasn't that far away
and clearly she was doing something to hurt someone. One of the
boys she’d been with before? What were the odds that she'd be
here?

Pretty damn good apparently.

Jamie thought he would fall on his ass in
fear and exhaustion. This couldn’t be happening now. No way could
this be happening now. No one was that unlucky.

****

Ethan had to put his arm around Jamie’s
waist when the man’s knees shook and buckled.

Jamie apparently heard her voice and it was
having an effect. Funny how the man could handle being attacked by
hunters and running from the hands of Head Office for his entire
life, but this one woman scared him enough that he nearly fell
over.

“
I need you to stay on
your feet,” Ethan said, whispering his words, now that he knew he
was so close to that wretched little girl and her crazy
powers.

He wasn’t feeling so hot about being near
her either.

Jamie blinked and seemed to come out of his
daze. He grabbed onto Ethan's shoulder, steadied himself, and then
tried to pull him in the other direction. "We need to get out of
here," he whispered.

Ethan agreed. His wounds were starting to
sting and burn again just at the sound of that bitch's voice.

He wasn't a hunter anymore. One wild
paranormal wasn't his concern when he had Jamie to think about.
What she’d done to him, she could do to Jamie, especially in
retaliation for fighting back against her before.

Part of Ethan wanted to go after her: he was
trained to fight in these situations and now he had a pair of
shackles back, but he had to think of Jamie. She was going to get
picked up eventually.

He’d speed up that process by sending in an
anonymous call the first chance he got. Yeah, that was a good idea.
He’d call in and tell the guys exactly where to find Allison, and
they’d know what to do with her.

Another loud shriek. Worse this time. Rising
up above the trees and over their heads, was the kind of noise that
someone made when the pain was too much for them to even be able to
think.

Ethan stopped, and so did Jamie. Ethan
turned back to look in the direction of that terrible noise, and it
sounded again. His stitches throbbed. He could almost feel the pain
of the boy Allison was torturing. One of the boys she’d been with
the last time?

The kid shrieked again. Ethan took two steps
toward that sound. His blood was humming and he wanted to kill
Allison for what she was doing. His legs twitched to move, to rush
after her and stop her.

But then he turned and looked back at Jamie,
who was staring at him with an expression on his face that Ethan
couldn't quite place.

Jamie actually smiled at him. "Let's go get
her if you want."

Jamie understood. Ethan could see that in
him, but as relieved as he was, he wasn’t about to risk Jamie
getting hurt.

"You're going to stay here and wait for me,"
Ethan said, pulling out the last pair of spelled cuffs. The tranq
guns he’d taken from the van would no longer fire since Head Office
had officially terminated his job, but he’d been able to pull out
some of the needles. He just had to get close enough to stab her
with one.

Jamie didn't flinch away
from him, but instead he walked up right beside him, and then moved
past him as casual as if they were having a stroll through the
park. "You're not putting those on me and I
am
going with you. You're going to
need someone to distract her when she tries to pull her shit on
you."

Ethan hadn't been planning on putting the
cuffs on Jamie. He was going to need them if he wanted the courage
to walk up to a chick who could tear his face off with her fricken'
mind.

Ethan quickly caught up to Jamie, who was
pretending that he wasn't scared out of his mind. The grim look on
his face and the way he clenched his fists, walking like a robot,
proved that he was rethinking what he was doing even now.

"I wasn't going to shackle you to a tree to
keep you from coming, just so you know, and I can handle a
paranormal," Ethan said, just as another pained screech made his
skin crawl. "I've done it plenty of times before. Faced off against
worse than her.”

He’d been with a team of guys, including
Jack for some of those, but he wouldn’t mention it now.

"Yeah, but now you're doing it with me."

Ethan stared at the man for a few seconds.
Jamie wasn't trained for this, he was clearly scared, but he wasn't
going back. "You don't have to worry about me, you know?" Ethan
said. "She's not going to get the drop on me this time."

Jamie winced at that. “I’m not just worried
about you. I am, but…I’m not leaving you behind again.”

As touching as that was, Ethan knew he
wasn't going to win this argument before they made it to where
Allison was torturing her latest victim. The more they spoke, the
more dangerous it was.

They might as well start yelling out to the
bitch that they were coming.

“
Just stay low and try not
to draw attention to yourself right away,” Ethan said. Catching her
by surprise could save them both a lot of trouble.

And maybe their lives.

Eventually they ducked low into the shrubs
as the sounds of the screams and the crying got to be louder. There
was more crying than screaming at this point. It tugged at Ethan’s
heart to hear it. He didn’t like it when kids cried.

Ethan kept one eye on Jamie, making sure he
wasn't moving too suddenly, or disturbing anything that would let
Allison know they were out here.

They ducked behind another heavy set of
shrubs, moving quickly and carefully between them as they got
closer and closer. Ethan had to quietly move some of the branches
out of the way in order to see what was happening.

Allison looked even worse than Ethan
remembered. Though to be fair, at their last encounter, he hadn't
been paying much attention to her looks. Regardless, she was pale
to the point of being grey, dirt and grime was caked on her legs
and hands as if she’d been foraging for her food and shelter like
an animal. Leaves and twigs were in her hair, which was so gnarled
and knotted that it probably needed a good pair of scissors to
fix.

She'd clearly been sleeping on the cold
ground outside, probably trying to make her way as far from the
city and the compound as possible, while avoiding the highways and
people, just like Ethan was doing with Jamie.

On the ground, at her feet, was one of the
boys he'd remembered being with her. The poor kid had a hand
reached out and he was grabbing onto her ankle. Whatever his power
was, it wasn't helping him in this situation, because she was
tearing him apart.

"One squirrel! One fucking squirrel! How are
we supposed to eat that?" Allison screamed down at him right before
she kicked his hand away and stomped on it.

The second boy was standing off on the far
side of the little clearing, wincing and trying not to watch as
Allison ripped apart their companion. Tears made muddy tracks in
the dirt on his face. The boy on the ground already had a tear in
his cheek that looked beyond painful, and the occasional flash of
white made Ethan think his cheek was ripped clean through, and that
those were teeth he was looking at. It made him want to puke.

"P-please," the boy said, and he was crying.
Ethan couldn't blame him. Beside him was a single dead squirrel,
and not a big one either. Probably meant to be their lunch. Allison
clearly wasn't happy with it.

Ethan looked to his left, and not only was
Jamie pale as new snow, but he had a look of such rage on his face
that Ethan became worried about his mental health.

Ethan nudged him, getting his attention
before he could ruin their surprise by jumping out to try and
electrocute her with the little power he had inside of him. Allison
would have to be standing in water for the power from the car
battery to do more than burn her.

Ethan pointed at himself, and then motioned
with his hand his plan to make his way around the clearing without
being seen. If he worked quickly enough, he could get behind her
and shackle her wrist. He just needed one wrist. It wouldn't cut
off her power completely, but he was physically stronger than she
was. He could get her other wrist shackled before she could do more
than scratch him.

Jamie nodded, and Ethan went. He had to go
slow to prevent his boots making any noise on the twigs and pine
needles that were on the ground. His heart was racing, like it did
every time he was about to sneak up behind a paranormal. He’d put
the needle away, opting instead to hold the shackles in both of his
hands to keep the metal from swaying and making noise.

His heart was so damned loud that he was
stunned Allison couldn't hear it. Even when he swallowed, he
thought for sure the workings of his throat would be loud enough to
give him away, but she continued to yell at the boy on the ground.
That kid was way too young to have been thrown into a compound, or
to be stuck all the way out here with this girl who’d lost her
mind.