A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2) (19 page)

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.