A big hatch was open on the deck a few feet from a small cabin made of glass with nobody inside it, but three more men came out from below deck, and all of them had guns in their hands.
Calling for my magic, I pulled up a shield that wasn’t going to keep more than four bullets off me, but I needed the time to get closer at least.
Still, before any of them could shoot, Dominic literally picked up the guy who was fighting him andthrewhim at his friends with all his strength.
All three of them ended up sprawled all over the deck. I ran forward, trying to get to them before they made it to their feet. I couldn’t shoot now when my shield was up—it wasn’t going to let my bullets through to the other side, either, but I could still slam the handle of my gun on their faces while they were down.
Except a second before I reached them, Dominic wrapped his hand around my arm and pulled me to the side—straight into the hatch.
A muffled scream left me, and I braced myself for the fall, but it never came. Dominic somehow managed to land on his feet, and since his hand was still around my arm, he pulled me against his body easily, my feet dangling in the air. My arms went around his neck tightly on instinct. When he let go of me, I slid down his body, feelingallof him in the process. A different kind of heat spilled all over me, as if I wasn’t running for my life, and I wasn’t in a dangerous place probably full of people who would kill me without hesitation.
“Keep moving,” Dominic said and started walking down the narrow corridor dimly lit with yellow LED lights every few feet and white doors on either side.
Except the guys we’d left on the deck were already coming down to get us. We started running the moment we heard them climbing down the metal stairs in a rush.
I had no idea where we were going, only that we were going in the wrong direction. We should have been headedoutof here, not deeper into the ship.
Too late.
My magic was still secured all around me and I was right behind Dominic, so when the men started shooting at us, I didn’t panic immediately. My magic would stop those bullets—and it did, at least until we reached the door at the end of the narrow corridor, and Dominic pushed it open, dragging me inside it.
The square room wasn’t big, but it was full of wooden cases.
It was full of people, too.
And they all had their guns aimed at us—all four of them, not to mention the others coming from behind us. I had my gun raised, too, no matter that I couldn’t shoot because of my shield.
Strangely, though, when we stopped in front of them, my heart beat steadily. My hands didn’t shake. The view didn’t swim in front of my eyes. I only turned around when the footsteps of the men coming after us stopped right in front of the open door.
Slowly, Dominic moved until his back was against mine.
Nobody made a single sound for a long second.
“Evening, fellas,” Dominic said, his voice low anddarksomehow. “You wouldn’t happen to have some Crackdown around here, would you?”
“How fucking stupid do you have to be?” one of the men on the other side of the room said. I couldn’t see his face—my focus was on the four guys outside the door, two of them with guns aimed at my head, the two others with their hands to the sides, ready to launch at the slightest movement.
“Do you know who this belongs to, fool?” said another man. I couldn’t see him, either.
“No—but I’d be very thankful if you told us,” Dominic said. I could hear the grin in his voice, and that more than anything quickened my pulse.
The first guy who spoke laughed. “Get rid of them. Throw the bodies in the river—and make it quick.”
The two men in front of me shot their guns at once. Dominic was no longer behind me. I ducked down, even though my shield was still wrapped around me, knowing it wouldn’t hold for long. I launched myself at the door, at the waiting arms of one of the men who didn’t have any weapons on him.
But that’s just because he didn’t need them—he had claws instead of fingers now, much longer than Agnes’s, and he dug them into my back hard before I yanked myself away just a little bit, to swing my arm and catch him in the jaw with the butt of my gun. Hands grabbed me and my magic was slipping, but I still moved as fast as my body allowed. They only shot at me four times, their bullets hitting my magic and falling to the floor harmlessly. By then, my magic should have dissipated, but it still held. Thankfully, there was no time to dwell on it now. I just blamed it on the adrenaline coursing through my veins. It fueled my magic with the same intensity as it wiped the pain from all the hits and cuts the men left on my body with every movement.
And the guy who’d scratched me with those claws had already made up his mind to shift all the way.
I had no choice but to put my shield down on purpose. I was going to need to shoot my own gun now—all eight bullets in it. I ducked and moved out of the way every time they tried to grab me. They were big, much bigger than me, and I used that to my advantage. I used my speed to my advantage, too, but it could only get me so far. As soon as my shield was down, I started shooting. I missed the first shot, but my aim was true with the second. It caught one of the men to my side in the shoulder, and he slammed against the wall, though he didn’t collapse like I’d hoped. More came, and I shot my gun until there were no more bullets left. Everything was a blur of movement around me. The shouts and the sound of bodies hitting the floor filled my head completely. There was no space for thinking. My instincts had free rein to move my body the way they liked. I’d shot the other two men, too, but no fatal wounds—one in the gut, the other in the arm.
But they weren’t the problem anymore—the shifted wolf coming for me was. He was not Dominic by any means, but he was stillhuge. Possibly close to seven feet tall, with a half-human, half-monster face, and patches of dark brown fur covering his muscled body. I moved back a step when he growled, then another, the only thing in my hand my empty gun.
“Fuck!” I shouted at the top of my lungs when I stepped back into the room again and jumped to the side without really seeing where I would land.
On a wooden case at the corner near the wall, which broke under my weight and spilled all its contents on the floor right beside me. Packs of syringes full of orange liquid in transparent plastic wraps.
I thought about grabbing one and hiding it in my jacket, but the wolf was inside the room already. And he was coming for me.