A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2) (18 page)

He positioned himself to spring, but then
something beneath him did snap, loud enough that Allison turned
around to stare right at the bushes where he was hiding.

Ethan stopped breathing. He was staring
right at Allison through the leaves of the shrub, and it would only
be a matter of time before she caught sight of his eyes, or just
walked over towards him to make sure there was no one there.

She took a step toward him, and Ethan got
himself ready to spring, a lot sooner than he thought, but it was
going to happen.

"Hey!"

For the umpteenth time that day, Ethan's
heart stopped when Jamie rushed out of his hiding spot and stood in
the clearing, hands out and eyes wide, like he didn't know what to
do with himself.

Ethan wanted to turn back time by thirty
seconds, go back over there and strangle him before he could get
the chance to come out of his hiding spot like that.

Allison frowned at him,
and then she recognized him, "
You
."

"Yeah, me," Jamie said, though he kept his
hands raised. Probably because he was scared shitless about what
Allison would do to him if she caught him. "I was just wondering if
I could...join you?"

Holy God.

Ethan looked to Allison, who was staring at
Jamie like he'd lost his damn mind. This gave him the distraction
he needed because he sprung out of the shrubs, grabbed onto her
wrists, and clamped the spelled shackle on it.

Allison spun and shrieked at the sight of
him. Ethan immediately felt his cheek stretching, trying to come
apart just like that kid on the ground, but it wasn't enough, her
power was already dulled with the one shackle on her wrist. Allison
realized this quickly and yanked her body around so wild and
violently that Ethan almost lost her. She had more strength in her
than she appeared. He grabbed onto her other wrist when she tried
to use her fingernails against him, and he snapped the other
shackle on her, neatly avoiding her teeth when she tried to bite
his nose.

It was like trying to fend off a hungry
zombie. She seemed to develop super human strength with her
desperation, and for a few seconds, he wondered if that was part of
her power, too.

It wasn't, and because of what she'd done to
the boy on the ground, her other helper wasn't exactly eager to
rescue her when she called to him.

"Move and I'll fry you, kid," Jamie warned,
letting some blue electricity flow from his fingertips anyway as he
approached Ethan.

Ethan hoped the threat was just a threat,
but he sure as hell wouldn’t blame Jamie if he did what needed to
be done.

"You're hunters?" he asked, looking from
Ethan to Jamie, and then down at his friend, who was staring up at
the both of him, horrified and still crying.

"Not really," Jamie replied.

"Let me go!" Allison shrieked, still
thrashing around, and making more of a nuisance of herself than
anything.

Ethan wasn't in the mood for her, or had the
patience, especially with that kid on the ground and his own wounds
flaring just from the effort of keeping her still. He grabbed her
by the hair and yanked her head back hard enough for her to scream
in pain.

"I'm not exactly in the mood to be nice to
you, so you'd better behave yourself, little girl," he snarled.

Allison actually smiled back at him, her
eyes just on the right side of crazed. "You can't do anything to me
that hasn't already been done. Go for it," she said.

That...actually stunned
him. Ethan couldn't think of anything more horrible than what she'd
just said, especially considering how damned
young
she looked. Fifteen—that was
what he pegged her for—seventeen at the
very
oldest.

Then he looked down at the kid on the
ground, who Jamie was tending to with the last of their medical
supplies and bandages. The second boy was right beside him,
checking on his friend, and they were all looking up at Ethan.

"I'm not letting her go," Ethan said.

Jamie tensed, his blue eyes flaring wide.
"Christ, I hope not!"

"Then why are you all staring at me?" Ethan
asked.

"Bobby, Scott,
help me
," Allison said,
and though she wasn't struggling anymore, she still sounded
furious.

"What do we do about these two?" Jamie
asked.

Ethan wasn't sure what to do. Those kids
looked so damned scared, but that didn't mean they weren't hiding
some sinister part of themselves that was just as bad, or worse,
than Allison.

"What are your powers?"

The kid whose cheek wasn't ruined spoke for
himself and his friend. "I can change shape, and Scott can
sometimes talk to and summon small animals for me to hunt.”

Bobby held up one hand and, without
physically doing anything to himself, made his skin turn blue, and
his fingers lengthened and became thinner. Claws extended. It
reminded him of a lizard’s hand.

It was both interesting and creepy to watch.
Shape changers were weird.

"Come on, Ethan, what can they do with that?
And this kid needs a doctor," Jamie said.

The two boys looked at them hopefully, but
Allison was still ranting and raging. "You can't let them go. You
can't let them go and keep me! What are you doing?" she
shrieked.

Jamie had gotten up, yanked his belt off,
and then surprised Ethan when he put it around the girl's mouth and
tied it off behind her head.

"Thanks," Ethan said, and he couldn't help
but smile. Allison was still trying to scream, but it was muffled
now thanks to the belt. He’d stick her with the needle soon enough
anyway.

"No problem," Jamie replied, glaring down at
the girl, and then he was looking back at Ethan, his eyes begging
in a way that made Ethan’s resolve crumble.

"If you can't do it then you can't do it.
I'll understand," Jamie said, despite the puppy eyes.

"You will?" Ethan asked.

"Of course," Jamie said, though he hardly
sounded happy. "You live in that city. Your sister's there and you
need to find her. I knew this wasn't going to last long.”

Ethan sucked in a breath. His gut ached as
though savagely punched, and it had nothing to do with his wounds.
He hadn't even thought of that.

If he turned in three paranormals, and all
at once, then he could blame what had happened to him back at the
motel on some sort of mind trick. He could say he didn't know what
he was doing, and who would question him after bringing in these
three? Even if he let the two boys go, he couldn't let Allison get
away. She needed to be brought in. She’d proven herself to be
dangerous to anyone unlucky enough to stumble across her.

There could be no risk-taking with her. She
was too damned dangerous.

"The boys can go, I won't bring them in,"
Ethan said.

Both boys looked up at him from the ground,
as if they couldn't quite believe their good luck, or if this was
even true.

Jamie smiled softly at him. "Do you want me
to help you bring her in? I don't think it'll be easy by yourself
without a car."

"I'm not leaving you behind," Ethan said.
"But I don't think it's a great idea for you to be going into the
city for a drop off."

"So what will we do?" Jamie said, and he was
looking down at the two boys as if they had become part of their
group. Ethan didn't mind that. He liked that Jamie was so willing
and eager to look after the two of them. They looked like they
could use a friend.

"We'll find a spot to leave her and send in
an anonymous phone call. We’ll stick her with the tranq before
then, so she should have a nice long nap and anyone who comes to
pick her up shouldn’t have any trouble. The collectors can bring
her in. You and I won't be anywhere around for that."

Thanks to saving the tranquilizers, they
would have a good head start.

Jamie's eyes brightened just a little at the
sound of that, and then a wide smile broke out across his face. It
lit Ethan up inside to see it.

"I'm not a hunter anymore. I'm going with
you, wherever you go," Ethan said.

Despite the fact that they had company, and
that Ethan was holding onto his prisoner, Jamie went to him,
putting his hands behind Ethan's neck and head, and then kissed
him.

Allison made some small groan, like she was
disgusted with the both of them, but Ethan didn't pay attention to
her. No kiss was sweeter than this.

"I love you," Jamie said.

"I love you, too," Ethan said. He didn’t
hesitate, and it was so easy to say it once it was out of his
mouth, without the threats and without feeling like everything was
hanging over them. It was easy because it was true and he didn't
want to pretend anymore.

Jamie's smile as he took in those words—wide
and showing off the whites of his perfect teeth—was perfect. Ethan
wished he didn't have to hang onto Allison, so he could touch his
lover's face.

A loud, angry voice from behind broke their
beautiful moment. "Hold it! Put your hands behind your heads!"

Ethan could just
feel
that there was a gun
pointed at him and Jamie.

Fuck.
No
.

Chapter Twelve

Jack checked out the abandoned van, looking
under the hood at the engine. He had tried to start the damned
thing, but it wouldn't even sputter.

"I think Jamie sucked all the juice out of
the battery," Cindy said, coming around to check on him.

It still scared the ever-loving hell out of
Jack to see her wearing hunter gear and a badge. The fact that she
was hiding all that red hair beneath a blond wig didn't help
either. He felt like he was cheating on her with her whenever he so
much as leaned in for a quick kiss, which hadn't been happening all
that often after they'd picked up the uniforms and their new ID's
from Jack's contact.

"You're right," Jack said, and he took a
risk and reached down to tap on the engine and the battery itself.
Not exactly warm, but not stone cold either. "They're close by,"
Jack said, and he started to look around for tracks.

Cindy watched him. She was a fire starter,
the kind of paranormal who could either heat electronics to their
breaking point, or create a full-blown blaze of fire with just a
thought.

Jack wasn't a paranormal, and his only gifts
were tracking, which was what he and Cindy had been doing as they
tried to find her friend Jamie, and Jack's friend Ethan, before any
other bad shit happened.

"Do you see anything?" Cindy asked.

Jack clenched his fists, frustration
bubbling up inside of him when he couldn't see anything, but then,
there it was, and he sighed.

Tracks. Footsteps. The shoe size could have
been Ethan's, but Jack couldn't tell who the second pair of tracks
belonged to, but he had a good idea. These were a little bit
smaller.

If Ethan was traveling with Jamie, then he
would've known how to walk to keep his tracks less noticeable.
Jamie wasn't so great at it. Ethan must've tried to tell him what
to do, because there were some points where the tracks vanished as
Jamie walked on logs and rocks, or placed his feet anywhere that
wouldn't sink down.

It wasn't good enough, and Jack looked back
at Cindy. "I got something," he said.

Cindy's smile was wide, and she walked over
to him, moving her feet just the way Jack had taught her, so she
wouldn't leave tracks of her own that could be followed.

"Should I burn the van?" She summoned a tiny
flame at the end of her fingertip just then.

Jack looked back at it, the white hunter van
with the hawk in flight logo that he used to idolize. As much as he
would love to see it completely destroyed, beyond the point of
saving, so that it could never be used to haul in paranormals ever
again, it was too risky. "Any smoke from the plastic and metal will
just make it easier for the hunters to find. We should just leave
it."

The fact that they'd found it after
listening to their radios all night and hearing about what went
down at the motel was already pushing their luck. If they were here
then hunters could be just seconds away. They didn't have time to
stick around, even to watch that terrible van burn.

Cindy nodded, and they kept right on
going.

Jack watched the tracks, as well as the
direction they were heading in carefully. He didn't want to stumble
into a trap, and his heart was racing like he was on the hunt for a
dangerous paranormal instead of just searching for a couple of
friends.

Then a pained shriek sounded and an angry
roar echoed in the air.

"Let me go!"

Cindy looked up at Jack before she started
running to the sound.

Jack tried to grab her but she slipped away
from his fingers and was way ahead of him in minutes. "Cindy!
Cindy!" Jack hissed.

So much for keeping his footprints
light.

Jack raced after her. He caught up with her
right before she could burst into the clearing where Ethan was
holding onto a small blond girl. He had her cuffed, and she was
thrashing and wailing. One boy was on the ground, another standing
by, holding onto his arms and looking worried.

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.