Kathi S Barton - [Aaron's Kiss 04] (17 page)

“No, missus, he didn’t, but he seemed most anxious, if you do not mind my saying so. And he did say it was important. I do hope the young miss is all right. She is quite the baker and I do so love what she can do with sugar.” Aaron thanked Duncan and when he had left, turned to Sara. “Something is wrong.

I can feel it. Something to do with Tucker. Can you ask Mel to put a hex on the shop over there to keep Sam safe?”

“Hex? Why you bloodsucking ass! I do not put hexes on things, of all the nerve!” Mel had a habit of coming and going whenever the mood struck her, and apparently today was one of those days. Her anger didn’t bother Aaron. He knew she was there with them, Sara’s magic blending with his powers to make him incredibly strong mentally. He had said that to aggravate her.

“Why look who’s here, and without an invitation too. And for your information, the only ass I’ll suck now is Sara’s. It is so tasty and sweet.” He licked his lips for added effect. Sara stared at him with part amusement and part shock. He laughed harder because of it.

“I really hate you. Really, really hate you, you know that? But I love Sara, and if she wants me to, I’ll put a little magic on the place for her. You, my good man, can rot in hell.” Mel loved him, Aaron knew this. She had told him that Sara was happy and Mel loved her so she had to love him by default. Aaron went off to rest, wondering how else to irate the Queen of Magick.

~CHAPTER FOURTEEN~

“Sam, you need to come out front. Right fucking now!” Sally had her back to the kitchen, staring out into the shop. And Sally never cussed.

Sam stood up, moved to the side of the kitchen door just behind Sally, and pulled out her gun. She checked the clip, racked one into the chamber then returning it to the butt of the gun, she hid it behind her, tucking it in the back of her jeans.

“Sally, I want you to move back another step and then two steps to the right. Don’t go back in there,” Sam whispered calmly to her.

Sam had reached out and knew what was going on. Mr. Hermendez had found her.

This was becoming a bad habit, one that she wasn’t thrilled about. Someone or something was giving her away.

“He told me to get you and come back. He’ll kill the little girl if I don’t get you like right now. Sam, I don’t want her to die.” Her voice was low and full of terror. Sam gave her a tiny push of strength and asked her again to move back.

“You’re not. That’s it, just a little further. Now turn to your right.” When Sally was out of the doorway and up against the kitchen wall, she began to cry. Sam was hurt by the sound, but needed to focus all her energy on the shop and the man there. “I need you to go up to my apartment and call nine-one-one. Tell them we have a hostage situation, all right? You can do this, Sally.” Sam took a deep breath when Sally took off toward the stairs.

Sam stepped into the shop and looked around to see where everyone was placed. It was important to know one’s enemy. Even if you weren’t sure who they were, it was good to know where everyone was. An innocent person could be just as much an enemy as the one holding the gun if one didn’t know where they were. If a person miss fired, or the enemy decided to take another life to make a point, knowing all the players would and could save lives.

“Mr. Hermendez, you don’t want to hurt her, let her go.” Sam had come out with her hands in front of her, palms out and fingers spread. It was a sign of “I’m not armed” and she hoped that he wouldn’t shoot her without at least giving her a chance to save the child.

The little girl he was holding looked to be about seven or eight. Her face was streaked with tears and she was sobbing for her mother. Sam had noticed a woman in a crumpled heap on the floor next to the counter and assumed it was her mom. With a tiny touch, Sam assured herself that the mother would heal, but have a nasty headache when she woke.

“I’m the boss here, bitch, not you. I want my kids. You’re gonna tell me where they are right now.”

He was speaking in English, but it was slurred and broken, spittle spraying from his mouth with each word. He was very drunk, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. In fact, it probably made him more so. He was also very stupid if he thought he was leaving here on his own.

“All right, you can be in charge, but I want you to let the little girl go. You’re frightening her. You can take me. I’ll come with you to find your wife and kids, just let her go.” Sam was walking toward him. She wanted to make a clean shot if she had to and not let him hurt anyone in the process.

There were seven other people in the shop, not including the girl and her mother.

Almost a dozen people to worry about when there were guns, drunks, and anger involved. When Sam started toward the man, Betty, bless her big heart, grabbed the woman on the floor by the ankle and began to drag her behind the massive counter.

Once she had her there, she motioned for the others to follow her into the kitchen and safety. She must have made some little noise because before anyone made it to the back, he opened fire. So did Sam.

By the time the police showed up five minutes after Sally called, it was over. Juan Hermendez lay dead. The little girl, Danielle, had a broken arm from being thrown free of him by Sam, and was currently being held by her mother, who had a large laceration at her temple. All the other patrons were fine, if only a little shaken by the ordeal.

Sam was sitting on the floor against the counter bleeding from the bullet she had taken when Juan had turned to shoot Betty. Sam had thrown herself forward, grabbing Danielle’s arm with a jerk away from the mad man and been hit almost at the same time she had fired at him. Her shoulder hurt like hell, but she was alive. She was dizzy from loss of blood, not just from the wound, but from her bites from the night before with Tucker.

She knew by all rights she should be dead. His aim had not been off and the bullet should have hit her dead center in the chest right through her heart. She had felt the surge of magic that had propelled her forward a little harder and made her just a little faster in pulling the little girl down and away. She didn’t know who had intervened, but she was reasonably sure it wasn’t that big vamp’s wife, or whatever. She would probably have slowed her down just to be satisfied she was good and shot. No, this was strong magic, but not like her mothers.

David showed up before the ambulance did, but not by much. He had been radioed about a hostage situation and then shots fired at this address almost precisely at the same time. He was just leaving the stationhouse to go home so was able to get there quickly. The coroner was already there waiting for the investigative team to finish with the room. Danielle and Marsha Walsh, members of his brother’s pack, were being cared for by Sally and Betty with ice and cold glasses of water. Sam was still sitting on the floor, someone, probably one of the older women, had given her a towel to staunch the bleeding, which had already soaked it through.

“It seems a Mr. Juan Hermendez came in here at approximately two-thirty and took a Miss Walsh, age six, hostage and demanded the proprietor, Miss Sam Hunter, tell him the whereabouts of his wife and children. Miss—”

“I swear to Christ, if you call me ‘Miss Hunter’ again, I’m gonna stomp your fucking ass. And he didn’t want his wife, just the kids. I’ve told you this story ten times now; the least you could do is repeat it the way I told you.” Sam continued muttering under her breath, something about the officer’s parentage and the brain wattage of the combined police force being too low to light a twenty watt bulb. David covered his mouth and coughed to hide the sudden burst of laughter. He had no doubt that she would do just as she had threatened, and he thought Officer Todd did as well, because he looked positively white.

“Has Miss, err Sam been looked at?” He had made the mistake with her name on purpose, just to see her glare at him. She didn’t disappoint.

“No, sir, she...well, she won’t...that is to say...she’s still armed sir. Said she’d only give it to someone of authority. I did try to explain to her that I was the authority and she got nasty with me. I don’t think she has much respect for me and the other officers, sir. She did break the gun down and gave me the used clip, but not the weapon itself. I thought that I’d just have an officer secure her until you arrived. It seemed...well, it seemed safer than trying to take it from her. She’s a little scary when she’s riled.”

“You’d better believe I’m scary, you moronic asshole. I swear to Christ, you got your badge from a cereal box, didn’t you? Why don’t you go and tell your mother, she wants you, and leave me the hell alone? I’ve had about all I can take of you today.” She looked at David and grimaced. “He’s a moron.”

He looked at the police office and thought maybe Sam wasn’t too far off in her estimate. He knelt down in front of her and looked at her wound. She was still bleeding pretty well, but he knew that they wouldn’t come close to her while she was still armed.

Didn’t make them any less stupid, just smart enough to know when to back off apparently.

“Sam, I need your weapon, honey, or I can’t let the medical team over here.” He held the evidence bag out in front of him, hoping she wouldn’t want someone else to take it.

“He’s a dumbass, you know that?” She was looking at Officer Todd, not at him. He shifted on his feet slightly to see what he was doing now. Yep, no doubt about it, the man was a moron. He was currently trying to get Betty to leave Marsha alone and to go get in his squad car to be questioned. Betty was gonna hit him in a minute, he just knew it. He turned back to Sam.

He started to say something, but she looked at him. “David, I can’t. Let go, I mean. I can’t make my hand let go of the butt. He should have killed me. I know where the bullet was headed and it should have hit me in the chest, not in the arm. Someone interfered, someone with magic. I…I feel sick. I wanna throw up, but I can’t seem to…my hand. He was intending to kill everyone after he killed me. I had to shoot…I broke that little girl’s arm. I heard it snap, the bone just snapped. Can she, you know, do some mumbo jumbo and turn and fix it? Betty was gonna die, I love her, she couldn’t die.”

Sam didn’t know what she was saying, he could tell. She was just emptying her head of every thought that entered it. He saw that she was in shock, and asked someone for a blanket from the ambulance. When they brought it in, he covered her himself and started making soothing noises at her.

He heard her hiss and turned to see Sara and Duncan pushing their way into the room. Sara had a cell to her ear and was shouting to someone on the other end. David nearly laughed at the sight of the two of them, but decided that he didn’t want to end up on the wrong end of either of the three in their combined anger.

“I can see her. Yes, she’s just sitting there like she hasn’t a care in the world. Let me see if I can...hold on, damn it. Here, take this.” She shoved a phone at Sam and even David could hear the man shouting at the other end.

He took the phone from Sara and held it to Sam’s ear, just knowing it was her mate and that he must have felt her pain. Sam listened for a few seconds, then turned her head away and stared off into the room. He doubted she was seeing or hearing anything. She looked very pale and he could feel her struggling with the pain. He put the phone to his own ear just in time to hear Tucker yelling at her about not letting him in.

“Hello? Is this Tucker? This is Lieutenant Wolff, please calm down and I’ll talk to you, or otherwise I’m hanging up this phone.” That shut him up.

Tucker took several deep breaths and began again in a much calmer, if not lower voice. David was impressed. His brother would have snarled and demanded that he do as he was told.

“I want to...I need to speak to Sam, please. Can you put her on?”

“I’m sorry, Tucker, but she can’t talk to you right now. She’s in shock. But I will tell you all I can. She has been shot and has lost a good deal of blood, though I’m sure you can guess why not all of it is from the wound. But she’ll be fine. She’s also still armed and before you and Sara rile her up again, I nearly had the gun in my possession.” David glared at Sara when she snorted. “The medical team won’t treat an armed person, and you and Sara have fucked up all progress I’ve made. I have a dead man here, a little girl with a broken arm, a woman who in all likelihood has a concussion, and the one person who I can help won’t let me. Now, if you think you can be a calm and rational person, I’ll call you back when I have more information on her health.

Until then, back the fuck off.” He clicked the phone shut, handed it to Sara, and told Duncan to take her outside of his crime scene or he’d have her arrested too.

Sam had finally passed out. He picked up her weapon by the butt, put it into the evidence bag, and bellowed for the EMTs to get their asses in there now. They worked on her for twenty-five minutes then loaded her onto a stretcher and took her to the closest hospital. She was weak from blood loss, more so than what they could account for, but she would recover. David had an idea why she had lost so much blood just as he had hinted to Tucker, but didn’t enlighten them.

“Where are they taking her, David? I’ll go with her and have Duncan…is she going to be arrested?”

Sara had calmed down considerably. David was sure she knew more of what had gone down than he would ever know as she had more than likely heard what had happened through her search of the minds of the people there. Sam had saved the lives of everyone in that shop. David knew that as sure as he was standing there. Sara also told him that she had contacted Aaron who relayed the information to Tucker.

“Grant. You should have Reilly meet her there as well. She has mated with that vamp and whatever they do at the hospital, blood work will be drawn. She’ll be fine, Sara. She will be arrested initially, but the charges will more than likely be dropped.” He looked quickly around the room and then lowered his voice so that just the two of them could hear. “She felt magic intervene on her part. I don’t suppose that you might know anything about that, would you?”

Sara nodded before she spoke. “Mel came to me to say that the magic had been breached not ten minutes after she had put it there. I immediately woke Aaron. He hadn’t been asleep long. He had asked her to do it and she did it for me. It turned out to be the smartest move he could have made. I think Tucker felt her, and then when she was shot, he dropped to the floor. I can only assume it was Sam’s pain he felt as it was happening to her. It was everything Aaron could to do keep him from leaving and going to Sam. He could feel her fear, he said.” Sara looked at the bloodied stain on the floor as she continued. “Duncan and I took off immediately to see what we could find out because Sam had blocked Tucker out and he couldn’t contact her. I’m not sure now that she was blocking him on purpose. I think she’s been doing it for so long that...David, that woman is perhaps one of the bravest women I’ve ever met.” By the time they were wheeling her out of surgery, it was dusk and Tucker was there to meet David. He wanted to question Sam more, but knew that she needed her mate more than he needed answers. For now. From all accounts, Sam had saved everyone in the shop.