Chapter Twenty-Five
With every sharp left turn of the car, Eleanor slammed into the guy sitting in the back with her. Her eyes were covered, and being unable to see on the curvy road made her feel queasy. Nobody had hurt her yet. If they tried, she had a feeling it would be very easy to throw up on them.
“She’s not even a fucking lion,” the guy in the backseat said.
“I told you, it’s not our fucking problem,” the other one responded. “Lockman told us to get a Dark Pines girl, so we’ve got a Dark Pines girl. They were all hanging out together and she smells like one of the lions, so it’s good enough for me. As long as we get paid.”
“How close to the drop-off point?” the first guy asked.
Eleanor listened intently. Lion? Will had told her he could transform into a mountain lion. What were the chances that they were all delusional—Will, Hayley, and these guys, too?
“We’ll be there any minute,” the driver said.
It felt too hot in the car. The heater must’ve been going full-blast. The guy next to her smelled like onion rings and Eleanor just wanted to pretend none of this was happening. But it was happening. The car went around another turn and she slid across the seat. She tried to get purchase with her feet on the floorboards, but it was no use. She careened into the second guy again. He shoved her back, cursing under his breath. Eleanor was too afraid to respond.
The guy in the front seat started cursing, and the guy in the back said, “What? What is it?”
“We got company.”
“Is it Lockman?”
“I don’t think he’d be riding our ass and threatening to run us off the road.”
Maybe it was Will. Eleanor took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. She’d known he would come for her.
“I’m calling Lockman,” the guy in the back said.
A moment later, she heard a loud voice over the speaker phone. “Do you have her?”
“We got her, Alec, but there’s a problem. The Dark Pines are chasing us.”
“What the fuck? I told you to do it in a way they wouldn’t follow.”
“We did. The others were nearby, I guess.”
“Is it Hayley you got, at least?”
Before the guy could answer, their car spun. She hadn’t felt a bump or anything—had it skidded on black ice? Her heart beat erratically. Were they free-falling? If they were on a bridge, she could be plunging down into freezing water. Terror gripped her, and her heart felt like it was climbing up her throat.
Wheels skidded, screaming on pavement. No free-fall, then. Eleanor raised her bound hands and ripped off her blindfold. She couldn’t stand being unaware of what was happening. Outside her window was swirling blackness, and then two bright headlights.
“Grab the girl and get out!” the driver shouted.
Eleanor pulled her legs up on the seat and kicked the guy next to her. She caught him in the chin. He swore, then lunged for her.
Before his hands made contact, his door was wrenched open and someone yanked him from the car. Eleanor caught the quickest glimpse of a giant bear that could only be a grizzly before her door opened and she started to fall out of the car. She screamed.
Strong arms caught her and she looked up, blinking, into Will’s face.
“I gotcha.” His face darkened when he noticed her bound wrists and ankles.
He pulled a pocket knife from his coat and cut her ties while a bear roared somewhere on the other side of the car. The…grizzly. Behind him, a mountain lion prowled back and forth.
“Will, when you said those things about shapeshifters…”
“That’s Jackson behind me,” he said. “Hayley’s in the trees, looking for more bad guys.”
“You should know, they were saying something about a drop-off point,” Eleanor said. “They wanted to take me to someone named Lockman.”
Swiftly, Will picked her up and carried her to Jackson’s SUV. “Did you catch that, Jackson?” he said. “Lockman could be around.”
The lion growled and continued pacing.
“Listen, Ellie,” he said, helping her into the car, “I gotta help fight. If we don’t take care of it now, we’ll be fighting with this other pride forever. Can you stay in the car with Summer?”
Eleanor turned to smile at Summer, who was sitting in the back. Then she faced Will again, and nodded. “Are you…gonna be like Jackson now?”
“Yeah.” He shot a glance behind him, on the other side of the narrow road, away from the roars of the grizzly and where he’d said Hayley was waiting. “I think they’re here.”
“What?” Eleanor looked past him. She counted three sets of yellow-green, shining eyes.
Will continued, “You don’t have to watch. It might even be better if you just climb into the back with Summer, okay?”
“Okay.”
Will closed the door, and Eleanor sighed heavily. She turned to face Summer. “You okay?”
Summer nodded. “My jaw hurts and I have a headache, but nothing’s broken. I just feel so helpless, though. We’re the only two humans out here, and we have to sit in the car.”
Eleanor nodded absently and reached her hand back to Summer, who squeezed it.
Humans. Shifters. She couldn’t believe her eyes or her ears. Would Dr. Bridges think she was hallucinating? Likely.
Fuck Dr. Bridges. He, or they, didn’t know her body or her mind—she did. And what she was watching in front of her—Will shucking off his clothes right outside the car, and then crouching to the ground, surrounded by a shimmering light that made it hard for her to see—this was real. And her feelings for Will were real, too. Love, admiration, trust.
The shimmering light faded, and just outside the car stood a mountain lion, impossibly large. He blinked once at her, slowly, then turned. He and the other lion, Jackson, ran to the trees at the opposite side of the road. Were real cougars that big? She’d never been this close to one, so she couldn’t be sure.
“Majestic, aren’t they?” Summer whispered.
Eleanor jumped. In her awe of seeing Will transform, she’d forgotten Summer was there.
“Yeah, they are,” she agreed.
Something moved in her peripheral vision, coming from the opposite direction, and she jumped again.
“What did you see?” Summer asked from the back seat.
“Something else. Another mountain lion.” She looked at the glimmering eyes on the opposite side of the road from Will and her friends. “I think…I think there are more bad guys than Will thought.”
“Climb back here with me.” Summer’s voice was urgent.
Eleanor couldn’t take her eyes from the wintry, dangerous scene outside the windshield. She felt alongside the steering wheel until her hand touched keys in the ignition. Joona Carpence in the ILC graphic novels wouldn’t hunker down in the back of a spaceship while her man fought. Joona would kick ass.
“Actually,” Eleanor said, “I think you should come up here. And buckle up.”
“Oh yes,” Summer said, sounding nervous, but delighted. “Let’s actually do something. Ooh, Jackson and Will are gonna be so pissed.”
“Why should they get to be the heroes?” Eleanor grumbled.
Summer made an oof sound as she clambered into the front seat. She buckled in and said, “Where the hell is my industrial hole-puncher when I need it?”
Eleanor started the car. She could just imagine the look of surprise on Will’s face when he heard it, but that wasn’t her concern right now. Right now, there were several sets of glimmering eyes on the other side of the road, ready to charge at the people she loved.
A mountain lion darted from the opposite side of the road and crossed to Will’s side.
“Okay, let’s get them,” Eleanor said.
Summer whooped as the next large cat started across the road and Eleanor slammed down on the gas pedal. The car lurched forward, and the mountain lion was forced to dodge.
She didn’t know what she was doing, but she had a feeling that anything interrupting the plan of the bad guys had to be good. In the SUV’s wake, three other lions had charged across the road. Eleanor made a U-turn and charged down the road again. This time, she clipped one. The lion went flying and slumped on the shoulder.
Eleanor felt sick to her stomach. She hated the idea of hurting anyone. But these guys had kidnapped her and they were now attacking the people she loved.
There was no time for feeling sick, only time for protecting Will.
But now, all the lions were on one side of the road, and a battle was taking place.
“I can’t drive down there,” Eleanor said. “Too much risk of hurting one of ours.”
“Or hitting a tree,” Summer added with a nod. “Now we have to wait.”