A Shock to Your System (Dangerous Creatures #2) (20 page)

If Jack was the sort of asshole who threw
away friends like that because of something so small and
meaningless, then he wouldn't deserve to have friends to begin
with.

All the same, Jack was going to have to
speak with Ethan later on just to find out how long this had been
happening for.

He had to look away from the both of them
before they caught him staring.

It was Dylan who decided to be the dickhead
who broke the romantic moment. "So not what I needed to see, that
isn't cute," he said.

"Shut the fuck up," Jack snapped at him. In
his mind he was already planning all the nasty shit he was going to
do to the man if he even thought about ridiculing his friend.

Dylan's eyes widened a little, like he
hadn't seen that coming, but then his face darkened, getting
serious again. "We still have a job to do, with this one," he said,
nodding down at the girl still on the ground.

"I'm going to take this little girl over to
Head Office, hopefully collect some money off her, and Dylan will
take you all somewhere safe."

From the way his eyes turned over to glance
at the two boys, it was clear they were included in that bargain as
well, which was better than amazing. The kids looked scared out of
their minds, but the thought of being somewhere that didn't require
looking over his shoulder was at least putting Jack at ease as
Cindy went to them. She got down on her haunches, and spoke in a
calming voice to them.

The blond girl started to really scream and
struggle, her body wriggling in the dirt as she tried to escape. It
looked like she was trying to chew through her gag.

That continued until Ethan went to her and
stomped his boot hard on her back, pressing her down into the dirt
to prevent her from moving around anymore.

Jack did not blame the man, and no one else
said a word either.

It must've also knocked the wind out of her
because she stopped trying to scream at them through the belt in
her mouth.

"Where is safe? At your hidey holes?" Ethan
asked, adopting a more casual pose when Jamie came to stand beside
him. Ethan's hand settled comfortably around the other man's waist.
The two presented a strong unit overtop of the pained
paranormal.

"Fuck no," said Dylan, shaking his head.
"It's too risky to take so many people at once."

"There are safe houses," Leo said. “You're
all going to head there, most likely scattered since a group this
size might attract unwanted attention. If you want to keep on
helping other people, werewolves, shifters, mutants, then you can
stick around here."

"Or?" Ethan asked. Was he grinding his boot
harder onto the girl's back?

Leo scratched the back of his head. "The
Canadian Prime Minister just passed legislation that gives anyone
with paranormal powers the status of human, with all the same
rights and protections as full on humans as well. The laws weren't
that strict to begin with, and there's still some push back from
some of the people of Canada, but there are places up there that'll
take you in, keep you safe. All we'd have to do would be to get you
a birth certificate and then you're guaranteed they won't kick you
out of the country."

"They've been sending back refugees?" Jack
asked, looking at Cindy, still talking to those boys, unable to
imagine anyone kicking her out of anywhere.

He also couldn't imagine anyone punching her
in her pregnant stomach either, causing her to miscarry their
child, but someone had certainly done that once before.

"Just lay low with us for a while and you'll
all be right as rain in no time," Dylan said.

Jack never liked that saying. Very few
people felt remotely all right when it was pouring rain. In fact, a
good majority were miserable whenever it rained, and he was one of
them.

Jamie was speaking in a soft tone with
Ethan, and the two quickly came to their decision.

"We'll go with you," Ethan said. "But you're
not putting Jamie into any shackles and you won't take any of the
weapons we have."

Leo nodded. "All right, deal," he said.

Well, what sort of choice did Jack have now?
There was no way he was going to separate Cindy from her best
friend who'd already saved her life.

Also, if Ethan was going with those two
kids, then he needed to be there to have his back. "You can count
us in, too."

He looked over at Ethan and Jamie, who were
hugging each other. Cindy was smiling softly at him as she
comforted the two boys.

"Wait, wait, I need to find my sister,"
Ethan said, pulling away from Jamie's hug, but Jack noticed how the
two were still holding hands.

"You should leave her behind," Leo said. "If
we find her, we'll bring her along, but we can't waste any more
time around here."

"You don't understand, the collectors are
chasing her, too," Ethan said. He had that serious look in his eyes
that he got whenever he was about to get what he wanted.

Either these two guys would help him with
Jessica, or he would make their lives a living hell.

Dylan looked nervous, but Leo rolled his
eyes. "What's your sister's name?" he asked.

"Jessica Frost," Ethan said. "She's...she
was a hunter like me, but they're chasing her down now."

Jack was impressed with the way the two men
didn't make any comments about Jessica being the kind of woman who
hunted down her own people. The weird thing was when they looked at
each other, and both made squeamish faces.

Ethan picked up on that immediately. "What?
What happened?" he asked. His fists clenched until his knuckles
turned white.

Leo shook his head. "I'm really sorry, but
it just went on the radar not too long ago. She was already picked
up."

Jack heard those words, and his entire
stomach felt like it dropped right out of him.

From the look on Ethan's face, he was
feeling about the same. "What did you just say?"

Dylan nodded. "It's true. She'd already been
captured. Almost every hunter and collector got called in to
transport her to Head Office. She put up a fight, but she's there
now. Nothing we can do for her at this point, and if we want to get
out of here while there are next to no hunters chasing after us,
now is the time."

Chapter Thirteen

A Few Days Later...

"It's not too late for you to go after her,
you know," Jamie said, sliding his hand across Ethan’s stomach, his
sides, and his arm.

The touch was comforting, but not enough to
make him forget.

Ethan looked down at the man. They were
lying next to each other on a pitiful excuse for a bed that was
more of a cot than anything else. The room they were in was
laughably small and poorly furnished. Ethan suspected it was an old
broom closet that had been redone just for them. The only thing
that kept it from looking completely like a prison cell was the
large open window with lace curtains moving gently in the breeze,
and the fact that there wasn’t a toilet inches from their
heads.

Despite the grey look of everything inside
of their new room, and even the entire house they were in—which was
practically a fortress—the view outside of the window was a grassy
green meadow with a small lake at the bottom of the hill.

It made for easy relaxing, until Jamie
reminded Ethan about the fact that he'd abandoned his sister like
an asshole.

"I told you I was going to keep you safe,
and I meant it," Ethan said. He touched Jamie's blond hair,
threading his fingers through the white spots. “I’ll go after her,
but for now…”

He didn't even like thinking about what
Jessica was dealing with inside of a place like that. He didn't
want to think about someone coming and taking away Jamie from him
even more than that. Jessica knew what the protocol was in a place
like that. She might even be able to work the system to her
advantage. Jamie would have no chance. It would be like throwing a
bleeding sheep to hungry wolves.

And despite that, Ethan almost sent Jamie to
a place like that himself. He shivered just thinking about it.

"I know you're worried
about her,” Jamie said in a soft voice. “You can talk to me about
it. At least until you
can
do something for her.”

Ethan shifted uncomfortably, and he pulled
Jamie a little closer to him. It made him feel better to feel the
warmth of Jamie's body next to him. The smell of the man’s skin,
the touch and taste…He needed this. He needed to know there was one
person he hadn’t failed. One loved one he had left.

"I am worried about her," Ethan said. "But I
know how that building works. I won't be getting in. Not without a
lot of planning and help, anyway, and if I try to run in there with
almost nothing to work with, they will catch me and figure out
where this place is, or how it's hiding at the very least."

Jamie had a look around the room they were
in, and then his eyes turned toward the window.

Ethan didn't have to be a psychic to know
what the man was thinking.

"They could still find this place. Half the
things they experiment on paranormals for is to figure out how to
do the things they do. The camouflage on this place won't keep it
hidden forever."

Especially not if someone knew what to look
for, knew to search around one particular spot for just long
enough. Ethan liked to think he wouldn’t give up any information
even if he was captured and tortured, and maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe
he would have the strength of will to deny the scientists, and the
man at the top in charge of it all, from getting what they
wanted.

But that didn’t mean he’d be able to hold
back if they put a psychic in front of him. Or a mind bender. Those
people were rare, but they could really fuck a man up.

It was something of a miracle that this
place hadn’t been found yet already.

"I know, I know, I remember," Jamie said,
and a deep frown pulled at his brow.

Yeah, he'd been in the same room when Ethan
and Jack were being questioned. As former hunters, the people who
kept this huge house hidden had good reasons to want to know as
much about them as possible, including whether or not they could be
trusted.

There were people in this building who were
looking at both Ethan and Jack with a lot of suspicion for good
reasons, and very few had any pity for Jessica. Ethan would
convince them to let him go and save her eventually. However,
saving Jessica meant negotiating for her, giving reasons as to why
it was in their best interests to free her. That could take some
time that she might not have.

It made sense that if some paranormals could
become hunters and spy on Head Office from the inside, then the
same could be done by Head Office. There was already talk that this
was what they were planning, and it had been the subject of many
hours of questioning for Ethan and Jack.

It didn't take much to brainwash a pyro and
a man who could absorb electricity after all, and Jessica was
already considered a traitor to her kind if the gossip was to be
believed. Ethan had to bite his tongue every time he overheard
anyone speaking about her, but it was either suck it up and turn
the other cheek, or risk getting himself and Jamie thrown out of
what had to be the only safe place to hide in the country.

It was so damned hard, though. He had to
think of Jamie every time he heard people speak about how Jessica
was getting what she deserved for handing so many paranormals over
to Head Office. Jamie’s face, seeing him clean and safe every day,
getting hot food inside of him, was the only reason Ethan put up
with this shit.

He also wasn't about to argue with them that
many of those paranormals were guilty of their own horrific crimes,
just like that flesh-tearing girl. Ethan and Jessica had tried
their hardest to bring in only people who had outstanding warrants
against them for violence, not just for existing. He’d said as much
to Jamie, and while Jamie understood, the rest of this place
wouldn’t.

People’s minds weren’t so easily
changed.

Cooperation was the only thing that would
help. At the very least, it would keep Jamie safe, which was
Ethan's new number one concern.

So, he had cooperated. When questioned, he
answered everything honestly, even things he didn’t want to admit
to, like why he’d become a hunter, and how close he’d come to
turning Jamie in.

Ethan and Jack basically had to spill their
life stories. Ethan found out a couple of things about his best
friend that he hadn't been completely aware of before. He never
knew that Cindy had been pregnant or tortured by other paranormals
to the point that she lost the child.

Apparently Jack hadn't
known about that until recently either, but still, Ethan's heart
went out to the both of them, and he had to secretly take back all
the nasty shit he'd ever thought about her, back when he assumed
she'd hurt his best friend. The burn scars weren’t from Cindy and
her fire powers, but from an act of arson. Ethan also hadn’t known
how bad some of Jack’s burn scars were until he was asked to remove
his shirt and reveal them, and Ethan got a good look at his back.
He’d always known about how the scar licked up the side of his
throat, but he’d never seen something as bad as
that
.

And a whole new wave of respect for the man
swelled inside of him for surviving it.

Ethan had to explain about when he’d
discovered his sister was a paranormal, what her powers were, and
why they both decided to get into the hunting business. It was the
best way to hide her powers from everyone. No one would suspect
them, and it allowed Ethan and Jessica the chance to learn how the
hunters and collectors worked from the inside, how to avoid other
telltale signs, and even look the other way when they spotted
someone suspicious.