Page 19 of Lower World

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“She’s still stuck on the salt.” Dominic chuckled and moved past me with Johnathan slung over his shoulder. “The human is like a pest.” He froze with one foot up, his head snapping to the side, and he dropped the Atua on the ground. “Get Alice,” was all he snarled before he shifted.

I darted inside the house with one thought screaming in my head: get Alice. It was circling on repeat as I made a mad dash for the kitchen, finding my human friend with half her body stuck in the pantry. The light was glaring, too bright for my eyes, but I snatched her by the waist and turned toward another broken window. Alice shrieked and grabbed at me as whatever she was moving in the pantry crashed behind us. Dizziness hit me, and I stumbled, smacking my hip into the oven, which propelled me toward the sink.

“What are you doing?” Alice was shouting in my ear, making my dizziness worse. “It’s not funny, Brooklyn. Put me down.”

“Be quiet,” I hissed at her, and she immediately shut up, her hold on me tightening.

“What’s happening?” Alice whimpered, all the bravado from earlier gone.

Holding her to me with an arm wrapped around her, I placed my other hand on the windowsill and leaped over it in a tilted arch. Not the most graceful escape but darkness covered us, and lowering her to the ground, I pressed our backs to the wall, covering her mouth with my hand. Her warm breath was puffing over my skin in short pants as she stared wide-eyed at me. Swallowing the acid burning the back of my throat, I focused on any sound that didn’t belong.

Nothing.

Not even the small critters that scuttered around the trees could be heard, which told me a predator was stalking the area. I liked to believe it was Dominic, but I couldn’t take any chances. From the last twenty-four hours or so, Alice was stronger than me. I couldn’t fight if I had to. Holding her with whatever strength I had left, I hoped Dominic would be able to handle whatever it was. If not, we were doomed.

The ferocious cry of a large feline pebbled my skin.

Alice stopped breathing, and so did I, but no other sound could be heard in the night. That was until the shuffling of feet scraped over the dirt and a pained howl split the air.

“Brooklyn,” Dominic called out, worry evident in his tone.

My heart skipped a beat, but I held Alice firmly to the wall. Did Dominic get captured and was calling to tell me to run? There was no way I was releasing Alice until I was sure she would be safe.

“Brooklyn, it’s safe. I need help here,” the shifter called out louder, and the whimper of a hurt animal accompanied.

Alice was gone from next to me before I could remove my hand from her mouth, running around the house like the hounds of hell were chasing her.

“Is that a hurt animal?” Her shrill tone told me she wanted to kill whoever hurt it. I darted after her just in case it wasn’t as safe as Dominic made us believe. Trust issues were hard to push back.

When I rounded the house, I had to skid to a stop. My eyes bulged out, and my mouth dropped open. “Is that?”

Dominic lifted his head, his eyes locking on mine. I could tell how hard it was for him to hold the bloodied animal in his arms while Alice fussed over it, cursing up a storm. I glanced from the gray, matted fur to Dominic’s face a couple of times, still unable to believe what I was seeing.

“It is,” Dominic said at the same time as Alice turned to look at me over her shoulder tears running down her cheeks.

“It’s the wolf, Brooklyn. He is alive.” She gasped, as stunned as I was.

12

The wolf shifter was alive, although barely. His breathing was sporadic, and his heartbeat was barely there. An occasional gurgle would pass his slack jaw, the lolling tongue to the side as dry as cardboard. Dominic carried him inside with Alice, directing him like a supervisor from hell. He either jostled the wolf too much or he wasn’t walking fast enough. I had no idea how he didn’t snarl at her. It was the second miracle of that night. If anything, Dominic did everything in his power to do as she asked.

I stumbled after them, holding myself upright by sheer will alone. Dark spots were dancing at the corners of my eyes, and my own heart was stuttering and skipping beats in my chest. Grateful that it wasn’t another attack, which I would not have survived, I was happy to tag along and let them do whatever they thought needed to be done. A fleeting thought about how the wolf found us bounced around my skull, but I was too far gone to be able to grasp it. It slipped through my fingers, leaving a distant thudding in my head.

They placed the wolf on the kitchen table, which somehow survived the fight with the Atua as I joined them. Dominic moved to the side while Alice checked the shifter for whatever she thought was important. His hind leg was twisted awkwardly, and without missing a beat, she felt through the bone before snapping it back in place. I cringed at the sound of a cracking bone.

“I have no idea how he’s still alive.” Dominic spoke from next to me where I was leaning on the doorframe. I didn’t see him move.

“Can’t you force him to shift?” I mumbled. I had no strength to speak louder, yet I cleared my throat, pretending the rasp was from disuse and not because I was ready to pass out.

“I tried, but it felt like somehow my command was blocked. When I forced it at him, it bounced back at me hard enough to make me stumble.”

I could hear the apprehension in his tone. He probably thought the same thing I was thinking. The Syndicate found him, and they were using him somehow. The problem was, if he didn’t shift, I had no doubt he would be gone by dawn. The shift would heal everything, and the wolf knew that, so why wasn’t he? Why hadn’t he done it instead of tracking us across the city and outside of it, and he did it in the terrible shape he was in? A memory teased at my senses, and I was lucid enough to examine it. The plane, the wolf shifter’s fear clawing at me, his agreement to shift and wait in the luggage area until someone picked him up. Did I use my curse on him? I didn’t think I did, but that could explain why he stayed with Alice and acted like a house pet. Maybe he couldn’t shift.

Pushing off the frame, I stumbled toward the table. My body tilted sideways, but Dominic was next to me in a blink of an eye, wrapping an arm around my waist. He didn’t say a word, for which I was thankful as he guided me to Alice and the wolf. Leaning on the table with both hands, I blinked fast to clear my vision because I was seeing two wolves on the table and Alice had four arms. Her face was pinched in worry when she looked at me.

“Shift,” I rasped, but it was barely a whisper.

“What are you doing?” Alice frowned at me. “Go sit down. I’ll bring the salt and a tube. You need to eat.” She said it so matter-of-factly that it cleared my haze a little. “Dominic, take her to the bedroom. She’s stubborn as a mule.”