I knew I shouldn't have trusted him, that I should have just put a bullet in his head the first moment I saw him. Dealing with men like Trigger Thomas is like handling snakes. You're going to get bit, not because of anything you do wrong, or anything you screw up. No, sometimes a snake will just bite you because that's what a snake does. It tries to sink its fangs into anything that moves. And, unfortunately, you’re the one that’s moving.

Now, as I was staring down the barrel of Trigger's big, chromed automatic pistol, I knew what a snake handler felt like.

“Did you really think you were just going to get to walk away from this, Jake? Elise? Are you really that stupid?”

“We gave you what you wanted. We had a deal!” I said as I stepped forward and pulled Elise behind me.

“You did, and I commend you on that. What do you want, though? A shiny star next to your name for today’s class?”

True to his namesake, he pulled the trigger, the clap of the hitting my eardrums as it echoed off the mountains on all sides of us. Guess I should have seen that coming, what with his name and all.

In all my years going through the service and in Homicide, I'd never been shot. Hell, I pulled my gun in LA maybe twice, fired it only once. And now, here I was, lying in the snow, my blood seeping out of me as I collapsed, my legs worthless.

“Jake!” Elise screamed as I tumbled into the snow, blood pouring from my gut.

I felt nothing at first. Nothing at all. Then suddenly, pain spread through me like a wildfire catching on some dry chaparral in the hills of LA. I put a hand to my stomach, pulled it back and saw the dark crimson staining my fingers. I coughed a little as I tried to move my legs.

Nothing. The bullet must have gone in through my gut and hit my spine, cutting off control of my lower body.

I coughed again and groaned. Pain clouded my mind, blocking everything else out. I dropped my head back into the snow. This was bad. This was real bad. I could heal faster than any human alive. But fast enough to stop this murderous asshole before he moved onto Elise? I needed to do something.

“You son of a bitch!” Elise screamed as she knelt over me. “You fucking bastard!”

“Shame,” Trigger said. “You seemed so well-spoken and polite when I first met you, Elise.”

“Jake,” Elise cried, her tears trickling down her cheeks and falling on my neck, “can you move? Talk to me, Jake!” She stroked my hair as another tear fell on me like a spring raindrop.

Snow crunched as Trigger came closer, his gun down at his thigh, tapping out a strange rhythm like the drums of war. “Wouldn't worry too much about him, Elise. Now, give him a kiss good-bye and close your eyes.”

She sniffled hard, her hands going down to my side. She took a deep breath and shook her head as her hands continued to move. “I've got this, babe,” she whispered as she found what she was looking for. “Don't worry.”

“Elise,” I whispered in a raspy voice eerily similar to Trigger's, “don't. He'll just–”

But it was too late. She'd already drawn my pistol from its holster and was up on her feet.

“Oh, ho ho ho!” Trigger said, his pistol still hanging down at his side. “Little Janey's got a gun now, does she? How impressive.”

Again, I tried to move my legs. Nothing, just pain in my gut, pain in my side. Pain everywhere.

I thought back to a time when I'd been talking to Peter, about how our shifting can sometimes speed up healing. I hadn't ever had a chance to try it myself, especially not on something like a bullet wound. But my mate was in danger.

At this point, what did I really have to lose?

“Just take your drugs, get back in your car, and go.”

“Gonna shoot me? Is that it?”

As they spoke, I pushed my shift. I pushed it more intensely than I ever had in my entire life, ever since I’d first realized my ability.

“You got what you came for, Trigger. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to us?”

“Can’t just let your sister get away with what she did, Elise. If we did, we’d all look like fools on the street. Think the cartels wouldn’t start moving in faster and harder once they heard about it? Or the bikers? Those Skull and Bones guys would be laughing all the way to Denver.”

Pain rippled through my body. The pain was worse than even the wound to my gut.

It was like every part of my body was trying to separate from every other part at once. We normally took our time shifting to avoid this, but right now I had no choice. It was like I’d taken a thousand-year break from the gym, then decided to use every machine in the building all in one day after I’d already run an ultra-marathon. I cried out, my body trembling as I arched my back, my hands contorted and twisted, my muscles spasming. I could no longer feel the bullet wound as my whole body felt like cleavers were being dug into it.

“Jesus Christ!” Trigger yelled. “What the fuck is he doing? What the hell’s wrong with him?”

Hair burst through my skin, and my bones shattered and began to reknit themselves into their wolf shapes. I flopped on the ground.

“What the hell is going on?” the hitman yelled again.

And then I heard my gun fire.