But once they landed at Harrison County Airport in Marshall, thank G.o.d, things moved quickly.

The four FBI wolves were waiting with three nondescript rental cars. After a short discussion, the group split up. Two of the agents went to Cafe Caddo on the off chance Wayne Hedges would head there.

The other two accompanied Mauro to the police station to meet Chief Rice and his deputy. The cops had likely never met werewolves before. With Mauro as the Designated Human, they might be inclined to cooperate willingly. If not, the agents would put the fear of werewolves and federal prison into the crooked cops.

Taran and Bryan pulled out onto Highway 43, headed for Old Lady Hedges's house.

She pa.s.sed the miles between Nacogdoches and Luxor in a weird, hazy funk, struggling to come up with an escape plan. Her thoughts chased each other around and around in useless circles until her brain locked up. All she could think of was TJ's body in the hallway, and the countless, all-too-imaginable things the werewolves would do to her. She couldn't even think how to kill herself. The miles flew by while she sank deeper into lethargic despair.

Then Wayne broke the spell by putting the gun down on the seat between his legs and pulling out his phone.

She watched as he punched in a number with a Shreveport area code. He nearly missed the turn off 43 onto the gravel road. She grabbed the glove compartment handle with her free hand as the car fishtailed in the gravel.

"Yeah. It's me. I've got her and I'll meet you at my- Huh? What? Wait, you- But- G.o.dd.a.m.n it, you can't do that! Now you-"

Whatever the person on the other end was saying, it had Wayne turning several shades of red and purple as he sputtered and hollered into the phone.

"You can't f.u.c.king do this to me! I got her just like you told me to! I need the- h.e.l.lo? Wait, don't- h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo? f.u.c.k!"

The car swerved and fishtailed some more as Wayne, shouting and cursing, slammed the tiny phone into the dashboard a couple of times before hurling it over his shoulder. It shattered against the back windshield.

"Problem, Wayne? Your new werewolf homies decide to do an acquisition instead of a merger?"

"Shut up," he snarled.

She shouldn't have used a four-syllable word on him.

"Shut up!" he yelled again, though she hadn't said anything else. "You shut the f.u.c.k up! I need to think!"

His heart lurched when they reached the end of the gravel road and he saw Sara's Miata sitting in front of the old lady's house. Yellow crime scene tape stretched across the front door, but nothing else would have indicated that anything unusual went down here just four days ago.

"Okay, now what?" he asked as Taran parked the car behind the trailer.

"What's the GPS showing?" Taran asked in reply.

He'd turned the phone back on when they touched down. His heart had stopped when he saw the voicemail from Sara. Then it had started pounding out of his chest when he listened to the message and heard the fear in her voice.

He'd been logged on to the GPS site ever since. Glancing once more at the comforting yellow dot still blinking its way up Highway 43, he said to Taran, "They're close."

"So now we wait."

"They're pulling out! The sumb.i.t.c.hes are leaving! Thanks to your boyfriend, the Feds are all over the place. All of a sudden, every small-town cop from here to Mississippi is making drug busts! They said it's too dangerous! They were supposed to be tough s.h.i.t bad guys! I gave the a.s.sholes all my contacts, all my customers. I told my guys we hit the jackpot-we'd be moving into Missouri, and Oklahoma, and, and, s.h.i.t!" He pounded on the steering wheel. Blood started to seep through the bandage on his right hand.

"Wayne! Wayne, calm down, it'll be okay. Let's forget the whole thing. I'll get my car from Grandma's, go back to Houston, and you can-"

"Forget? Forget what? What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

"Just walk away, Wayne. Let me go, and I swear I'll disappear. You'll never hear from me again, and we can pretend this never happened, okay? Please, Wayne?"

He stared at her, gla.s.sy-eyed and shiny-faced with rage, as he made the last turn. Once more she grabbed the glove compartment handle as he swung wide, tires sliding through the gravel.

"Go? Where am I supposed to go?"

"Anywhere! You know how big the world is? You don't have to stay in Luxor. If you let me go, you can-"

"I can't leave!"

"Of course you can! Take all your money and get lost."

"They'll track me down, Sara!"

"Why? You said they were pulling-"

"Not the Russians-the cops! I told Bud Rice he'd be set for life, I could pay him twice what I'd been giving him. That's the only reason he hasn't charged me with murder. They think I killed Mama and Jasper!"

"Well, you kind of did, didn't you?"

"SHUT UP!"

Flecks of spittle flew in her face, followed by a vicious backhand. She heard and felt a sickening, squishy crunch as Wayne's knuckles connected with her nose.

He threw the car into park. Her head snapped forward, then slammed back. Limp and dizzy, she pa.s.sed out.

Chapter Eleven.

"Where are they?" Bryan muttered as he paced the gra.s.sy circle in front of the house. "Hedges is still headed toward us, so where are the wolves? Why's he headed back here, with her, if he's not meeting the wolves?"

They both froze as they heard a car turn onto the gravel road. Taran ran to take up position on the south side of the house, where he could see the car as it drove up but wouldn't be seen himself. Bryan staked the same position on the north side and pointed his pistol at the ground. He flipped the safety off and tensed as he waited.

When she came to a second later, blood was flowing from her nose and the gun was poking her in the cheek. Wayne pushed it into her face until her head was pressed against the window, cold gla.s.s on one side, cold barrel on the other. Between the taste of blood at the back of her throat and Wayne's hot, wet, raspy breath on her face, she couldn't decide whether to puke or gag.

"You f.u.c.ked up my life, Sara."

"I hate the way you breathe." Where did that come from?

She glanced sideways to see him blinking at her in confusion, his whole fat face scrunching up each time his piggy little eyes opened and shut, opened and shut.

"Huh?"

The way he said it, slack-jawed and wheezing, snapped her last nerve.

It would've been one thing to die at the hands of evil werewolves. But to start a brand new life, a life that might be better than anything she'd had before, only to lose it to this brutal, stupid, mouth-breathing slug of a bubba who'd tormented her for fourteen years...

She watched her free hand come up to grab his wrist and wrench it away from her head. Had she always been able to move that fast? His tiny eyes widened with shock as she banged his hand against the dashboard. The gun clattered to the floor by her feet.

"I said, I hate the way you breathe. And the way you blink, and the way you talk. You're stupid and lazy and you look like a pig, and- And-" She dropped his arm and ran her sleeve across her nose. "And your clothes are ugly, and no woman would ever-ever-f.u.c.k you for free, and you got blood and snot on my one hundred dollar T-shirt, you mouth-breathing, nose-picking, knuckle-dragging, bargain-bas.e.m.e.nt-hooker-f.u.c.king p.u.s.s.y!"

He slapped her.

Twisting like a corkscrew to reach him, she landed a hard right jab on his nose. She yowled with pain-it hurt to punch someone in the nose-but Wayne started wailing like a girl. The middle of his face was a b.l.o.o.d.y, pulpy mess, much worse than hers.

Now that she'd hurt him, she was like a wild animal at the first scent of its prey's blood.

"Aw, did I hurt the poor thing? Are you gonna cry now? I'll give you something to cry about, you whiny little b.i.t.c.h!"

Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she banged his head into the steering wheel. He tore at his seatbelt as he hollered, scratching and clawing at the door handle until it gave. Then he tumbled into the gravel beside the car, leaving her clutching a few strands of greasy brown hair.

"Come back here, you f.u.c.king a.s.shole! Get the f.u.c.k back here!"

She jerked her left arm until it felt as if her shoulder would pop out of its socket. The cuff held. Wayne was running away while she kicked and screamed, trapped in the car.

Cursing a blue streak, using words she'd never uttered before and some she'd only read, she reached down to the floorboard (banging her head against the glove compartment, which prompted a fresh round of profanity) and picked up the gun.

She leaned toward the open door and aimed for Wayne's doublewide a.s.s as it jiggled slowly toward the trees. The bullet missed him by a mile.

A frustrated, multi-octave, throat-stripping wail of rage poured out of her. Yanking and flailing her left arm like a creature possessed, she punched herself in the face with her fist.

Her left fist.

She was free. Free to find her car and get the h.e.l.l out of Luxor, this time for good.

Right after she killed her uncle.

When he heard Sara scream, he took off down the gravel road, Taran right behind him.

"Slow down, wolf! Get back here! We need to have a plan!"

"f.u.c.k the plan-she's in trouble!"

A gunshot boomed. Taran let him go.

She squeezed off a couple rounds, but it wasn't easy to fire while running, especially in cowboy boots. She just kept doing it because she liked to see him jump and squeal like a pig every time she fired a shot.

"You can't run away from me, you piece of s.h.i.t! You were gonna let them KILL me! I'm gonna kick you 'til you're f.u.c.king DEAD!"

He'd reached the edge of the woods, but he was already slowing. A drinker and a smoker, Wayne never exercised. Running flat-out for more than ninety seconds would kill him. She had plenty of time to stop and check the clip.

s.h.i.t. Only one bullet left.

She planted her feet, took her time and fired.

The bullet struck the ground by Wayne's foot, sending up a cloud of gra.s.s and gravel all around him.

Wayne squealed and fell down.

Sara roared and kicked his a.s.s.

And his gut, and his shoulder, and his back, and any other spots she could reach as he rolled on the ground with his arms wrapped around his head, bawling for mercy.

"Ow! Stop! Please don't-oof-oh- Please! G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Sara, stop, I'll-"

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" Kick. "You dirty rotten f.u.c.king a.s.shole! You let them kill your mother!" Kick. "You sold me to those sick f.u.c.ks!" Kick. "You shot TJ!" Kick kick. "I hated-" kick "-every f.u.c.king-" kick "-minute I spent" kick "-doing s.h.i.t for you!"

"Help! Aaaagh!"

"What the h.e.l.l is going on over there?"

Bryan shook his head, transfixed by the scene.

He'd come tearing around the bend in the road, certain he'd see her dead or dying. Instead, he'd stumbled to a shocked and sudden halt at the sight of Sara kicking the ever living s.h.i.t out of Wayne Hedges. She was waving a gun in one hand, and in the other...

"What's that dangling from the cuff?" Taran whispered.

He felt a huge smile break across his face. "I think- I think it's the handle off a glove compartment."

"Come on. We have stop her before she kills him."

"Yeah. Okay." Pride and relief and joy washed over him. Why did it take something like this for him to figure things out? "f.u.c.k it," he muttered as he ran to her. "We'll adopt."

"No one can hear you, a.s.shole!" Kick. Kick. KICK.

"That's enough, angel. You can't kill him 'til the Feds have talked to him."

"You think anyone cares what happens to you?" Ki... "Huh? What?"

Strong arms-familiar, safe, beloved arms-grasped her around the waist and hoisted her up. Now her legs were kicking empty air.

Bryan buried his face in the back of her neck. Although she couldn't be sure, she thought he was laughing.

Taran appeared behind Bryan. He bent down and with one hand hauled Wayne to his feet.

Bryan set her down. She turned around and collapsed into his arms and he cupped her face in his hands to gaze at her. His joy turned to fury in an instant.

"Your eye, your- Your nose. He hurt you! The b.a.s.t.a.r.d broke your nose! I'll kill him!"

She flinched and pulled away from him as she suddenly smelled something weird, something musky and almost overpowering.

Moving faster than she'd ever seen any living thing move, Taran grabbed the back of Bryan's neck with his free hand, lifting him an inch off the ground.

"You will not get furry on me, wolf. Keep your s.h.i.t together 'til this a.s.shole's locked up and we're out of here, then you can stay four-footed as long as you like. Sara, hold on to him. Calm him down. Wait. Hold out your hand. No, the left- There you go."

He let go of both Wayne and Bryan-Wayne, still sobbing and gibbering, promptly collapsed into a wailing puddle again-and with a flick of his wrists snapped the cuff in two.