Page 85 of Shifter's Homecoming

Remington opened the door and took them out on the porch. As soon as they got there, the branches parted. Remington herded them down the steps and toward the reservoir. “Let’s find your boys,” he said. “Quickly, before Rex sees us.”

They tried to run, but Reed couldn’t. She almost tripped over her own feet twice. Rowan held on to her and helped her along. She had both hands on her head and she was muttering constantly. Rowan ducked under her arm and held her up, dragging her across the concrete, her eyes searching the trees and the water beyond, looking for the wolves.

She saw them, on the left side of the reservoir. On the right was someone else, a man. He wound up and pitched something into the water.

Her poison.

Hot, heavy, thick guilt suffused Rowan. People were going to get sick, maybe die. Animals were going to die. Lots of them. And it was her fault. All her fault.

54 - The Neutralizer

“Faster,” Remington urged her and Reed. “He’s coming.” They were running now, just not very fast. Remington was herding them toward the right of the reservoir. “You two run for the base of the crane, I’ll alert your boys and hold off Rex. If you have to, climb up it. Do whatever you have to do to stay away from him.”

Rowan ran, pulling Reed with her, trying to do what Remington said, but the forest had a different idea. Branches and roots erupted from the ground right in front of them, while more branches closed in from all sides, until a kind of tree bridge led right up and over the water, heading for the crane.

“That’s even better,” Remington said. “Up you go.”

He stood his ground and shifted in one smooth motion, pitching forward as he did so, until he was a tawny mountain lion crouching low to the ground on four feet. The Rod of Asclepius, a staff with a snake twined around it, stood out in stark black on his left shoulder. He whirled and turned to face Rex with a snarl that scared Rowan to her core.

She pulled Reed right up onto the tree bridge and they ran up and over the water. The sounds of fire filled the night, making Rowan glad they were over water—until she looked down and saw the fiery sheen on top of it. Poisoned. It was all poisoned. An entire football field away from them, Trent and Troy were in the water, swimming from one side of the reservoir to the other, both of them sputtering and gagging and shifting from man to wolf to man to wolf again and again.

Rowan urged Reed forward faster, her eyes on the crane in front of them, her heart in her throat. She was barely able to believe that this was happening to her. In that moment she wished shewasa she-wolf, with teeth and claws and a fighting nature. But she wasn’t, and she had no power that she was aware of… and so she ran.

***

Trent and Troy were halfway across when they heard Remington’s voice in their minds.Heads up, we are coming your way fast, with Rex at our backs.

Trent, shifting from man to wolf and back again while he swam, looked that way and took in the situation in one heartbeat. The trees around Rowan’s lab were on fire and retreating, and the lab itself was on fire, too. The blaze would be completely out of control shortly, and everything inside would be lost. The two females and one male were running across the concrete, past the fenced in pool, angling north of the reservoir, until a kind of tree bridge erupted up over the water, and then the two females started up it, while Remington shifted and turned to fight.

Anyone see Soren or Grey?Trent called out to all the males present.

No, no,andno,came the replies.

Trent made a quick decision.

Troy, you continue on to the shore, I’m turning back. When you get there, you’ll need to either go up the crane or circle around to get to Rex. Protecting the females is our top priority now.

Got it.

Trent turned and struggled back the way he had come through the poisoned water. The air around him reeked like fire, and all he could hear was crackling, popping, splashing, and the sound of his own ragged breathing and rapidly beating heart as he struggled toward shore with one eye on his female.

***

Rowan and Reed raced along the tree bridge, moving as quickly as they could, which was not very fast with Reed in the state she was in. They were almost there, almost to the crane. Reed, hands still on her head, lost her balance. Rowan grabbed for her. A big cat’s scream ripped through the night and they both turned, gasping. Remington was still on the concrete slab, facing off against what looked like a freakingbear—the thing washuge. It growled and rushed in and grabbed the mountain lion around the neck. Remington fought, slashing with his claws at the thing’s underbelly. Rowan couldn’t afford to look any longer. She grabbed for the serum around her neck and turned around, urging Reed to go, go, go.

They ran. Rowan prayed for just a moment to take her serum, wishing she had already done it. She could not afford to go down in a heap and just wait for that…thingback there to come upon her limp body.

They were almost to the crane—two more steps and they would be on it, and then Rowan imagined the tree bridge would retreat, leaving Rex no direct way to get to them unless he ran around to the side of the crane and went up from the base.

Something behind them exploded. Reed moaned and pressed her hands to her head. Her feet tangled together and down she went.Thunk.The heavy thunk sound of her head hitting the metal of the crane turned Rowan’s stomach.

“Reed,” she shouted, panic twisting her gut. She grabbed for Reed, but the treesheavedone time and formed a kind of spiky platform under Reed, with railings around her. The platform shot up ten feet into the sky, then with one last shudder, the branches stopped moving completely, like maybe Reed was unconscious and they could not move without her.

Rowan jumped to the crane and knelt, holding on to the rusted handrails, her serum forgotten for just a moment as she stared up at Reed, hoping,prayingthat she wasn’t dead. There was no way to know, and there was no way anyone was getting up there any time soon. Reed wasn’t moving though, and she wasn’t talking.

Rowan reached for her serum again, purposely not looking at the fight below, even though she heard more mountain lion snarls and screams, and so much growling.

Her serum was gone.

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