Luke ended up having to relocate her so she was in a corner.
“Gun,” she grunted.
She tried to lift her hands to hold it. She couldn’t.
Luke got the pack thing and put it carefully in her lap. Then he situated her forearms on the bundle and set the gun between her palms, training the barrel at the door at what would be chest height on an average man.
“I’ve got it,” she said. “You go . . . I’ll take care of myself.”
There was a pause. And then Luke surged forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
He was gone after that, rushing out the wide-open doorway.
As Rio took a deep breath, her ribs were like a steel cage around her lungs and nausea rose again. Then her vision receded to a fine point—although it came back quick enough.
Shifting her eyes over to the dead body, she swallowed compulsively. In the light that shined in from the stairwell’s fixture, the gleam of blood seemed evil—and then something moved.
Or . . . at least she thought it did. Probably just an autonomic jerk of muscle fibers.
Well, no doubt, it was that—considering most of the muscles of the chest were gone, and she wasn’t even sure which part of the glistening remains was the face.
She refocused on that open door and trained all her strength on her trigger finger.
In case she needed it to pull hard.
Lucan hit the walk-up’s staircase on a leap, jumping down landing to landing, swinging himself around by the banister. At the ground floor, he ignored the front entrance and shot to the back hall. Breaking out through the battered door at the end, he found a series of parking spots in the alley, but they were empty—of cars, that was. Discarded mattresses, a broken TV, and a couch that had its inner stuffing exposed to the elements took up the shallow asphalt square.
As he cursed out loud, he tasted anew the blood of the man he’d eaten.
Even though his wolf had done the chewing, as usual, he was left with the aftereffects, his full stomach not the kind of third wheel he needed right now.
Taking off at a jog, his bare feet were silent over the damp, cold pavement of the alley. When he got to the first intersection of a proper avenue, he looked left and right.
And jumped out in front of a car.
As the headlights splashed across him, he put both his palms forward like he was Superman and could pick the thing up by the front bumper—and then, because he was no hero at all, much less one that was super, he had to jump out of the way when the tires locked and the skidding started.
Momentum being what it was, he sprinted forward to keep up with the driver’s side window, and the second the sedan came to a halt, he locked eyes with a—shit, it was a kid behind the wheel, a human young who couldn’t have been much older than fourteen or fifteen, not that Lucan knew a ton about the aging cycle of the other species.
Actually, it was two kids, and they were arguing with each other, like over who’d chosen to come this way. Then both doors punched open and they bolted from the scene, taking off so fast, Lucan didn’t have time to get into their brains and demand that they give him control of the vehicle.
Might be the only thing that went his way tonight, Lucan thought.
The deserters had left the engine in gear, so without any brake pedal pressure, the sedan was rolling forward at an idle. Hopping in, he yanked the wheel around and hit the gas. The passenger’s side door flopped wide on the turn, but as he righted the course to straight, it clapped shut.
For no good reason, he noticed that he smelled fast food and glanced across the console. The passenger side’s wheel well was filled with Burger King bags, and that pair had obviously just stopped for some more grub. There was also something else in the air—fake strawberry and tobacco smoke.
The car was clearly stolen. Not exactly the complication he was looking for. He’d have preferred to tamper with the memories of a human so that he didn’t have to worry about the Caldwell police having an all-points bulletin out on Rio’s escape route away from that walk-up. But he had no time to spare to look for a better four-wheel option.
Back at the walk-up, he pulled in next to the deconstructed sofa, slammed the gearshift into park, and jerked the keys out from the steering column. It was a good thing that the beater was so old. In the last couple of months, he’d learned that modern cars had remotes that could live in a pocket or a bag and didn’t have to be plugged into the ignition.
Those boys might well have taken the ability to secure and restart the thing with them.
Stretching across the seats, he pushed down the lock on the passenger door. Then he was out and locking the driver’s panel with the key.