As we locked up the apartment on our way out, Holden’s hand went to my arm, gripping it tight enough to hurt.
“What?”
“Something’s happening downstairs.”
“People are arguing,” Sutherland explained, nodding helpfully.
“Who—”
Pop.
My blood ran cold at the distinctive sound of a gunshot. We’d barely been gone for ten minutes. How could trouble have found us this fast?
I didn’t bother waiting to see if Holden and Sutherland were following me. My heart was racing as I ran down the stairs and skidded across the slick linoleum. When I burst out the front door, the scene on the street was frozen in an incomprehensible tableau.
Keaty was lying on the sidewalk, which I couldn’t understand, and a few feet away Jock was holding a gun. He still had a handcuff shackled to one wrist, but clearly it was no longer keeping him bound to a park bench. Seven armed men flanked him on both sides.
I looked from him to Keaty, and my pulse pounded so loudly in my ears I almost missed what Jock said.
He smirked. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
Chapter Nine
My whole body trembled, both from shock and rage.
Keaty was facedown on the sidewalk with a puddle of blood spilling out around him. Was he breathing? Was he alive?
He was still wearing his bulletproof vest, and I wanted to believe he was just stunned, but all the blood told me otherwise. What good was the vest if it couldn’t keep him safe?
I choked back a shuddering sob and tried to keep myself focused on Jock and his men for the time being. I couldn’t go to Keaty with eight armed men with itchy trigger fingers staring me down.
“What happened?” I growled.
In true Mexican-standoff fashion, my entire group had their own weapons pointed at the new arrivals. Now we were eleven against eight, but the second a gun went off, people were going to die on both sides. We had humans with us this time, and my sister. I didn’t want to take unnecessary risks.
But Keaty…
My finger flirted with pulling the trigger. I wanted to blow Jock away then and there and turn his blood into war paint. I wanted… The things I wanted were beyond human comprehension. Given half a chance I would tear these men limb from limb with my bare hands.
I shook.
It took everything in me not to fall apart and go on a killing spree. I needed facts and I needed them now.
“They caught us unaware,” Desmond admitted. “We were talking one minute, and the next Keaty was on the ground.”
I looked back at the men and noticed one of them had a sniper rifle slung across his back, in addition to the gun in his hand. Jock had known he couldn’t get close. I don’t know if he knew what we were, but he’d learned his lesson about close combat the first time around. So he’d followed us and attacked from a distance.
Anger was my only available response, and I didn’t know who to aim it at. I was mad at my friends for letting their guard down, even for a second. I was mad beyond measure at Jock and his men. I was mad at myself for taking the risk to come here for my father and even more for letting Jock live in the first place. And I was mad at Keaty for being mortal enough to let a bullet take him down.
Keaty was beyond human to me. He was a creature of mythic proportions, and though I’d long suspected a day would come when he would die, I’d assumed it would be when he was old and gray.
Lifting one hand in a sign of surrender, I slipped my gun into its holster with the other.
“I’m checking my man,” I announced.
The rest of my group had stepped back, pressing themselves flush with the apartment building, leaving Keaty exposed in the middle of the sidewalk. Why had none of them grabbed him? I couldn’t fault their instincts for going on the defensive so quickly, but they’d just left him.
“Go ahead. But my guy, he doesn’t miss. You say your tender farewells, then me and you are going to dance.”