I felt fear creep through me; the sudden sickness for home that told me that I wasn’t sure I was ready to be out in the world. It only lasted a few seconds, and then I brought down my right hand in a hammerblow against the weakest part of Wolfe’s wrist.
And it bounced off.
Wolfe didn’t even grunt in acknowledgment of my attack. He reached for me with his other hand – and I have to give him credit: he was fast.
I was faster. I swept in below his arm and rammed my head into his solar plexus. Not my ideal choice, but I was a little off balance and I didn’t want him to get ahold of my neck. I slammed my forehead into his stomach, straightening my spine. I’d broken boards like this training with Mother, and it’s not without discomfort.
He didn’t react. My head felt like I had hit a wall where it should have been soft tissue. I spun to slide under his arm to get behind him, but the pain from my failed headbutt slowed me. He grabbed me around my turtleneck and lifted me off my feet as if he were picking up a head of lettuce one-handed. I felt the blood pooling in my brain, fighting to get out through the veins he had squeezed shut.
“Hey!” A voice drew my attention and Wolfe’s. I was still struggling, but two men in their twenties approached wearing heavy coats and jeans. “What are you doing?” Their faces were contorted with rage and the one that was speaking pointed at Wolfe. “You can’t treat a girl that way! Drop her!”
Wolfe acted as though he did not hear them and the two of them rushed at him. I saw it coming through the haze that was beginning to cloud my vision, even if they didn’t. Wolfe flung Reed into the side of a car and he ricocheted off, coming to rest in a pile on the ground. I would have worried about him if I wasn’t too busy trying to free myself to take a breath.
Wolfe turned his body so that his left hand, the one he wasn’t choking me with, could deal with them. His backhand sent the first flying a good six feet in the air and he landed with a crack on the asphalt almost fifteen feet away. It was so loud when he landed that it even caught my attention, and by this point sparkles of light were filling my eyes.
The second guy couldn’t stop fast enough. Wolfe’s hand lanced out, wrapping around the man’s throat, but I could tell his grip was less merciful because the guy’s eyes were bugging out of his head and Wolfe’s fingernails had dug into his skin. Blood dripped down Wolfe’s fingers, mixing with the spots in my vision. I hammered the bigger man’s hands and wrists, searching for leverage, but I couldn’t reach anything of importance.
By then things were so hazy it felt like I wasn’t even in my body anymore. My hands relaxed and I stared into Wolfe’s eyes, which were giant pools of black; no white, no iris, just black. I watched his hand relax and the Good Samaritan who tried to come to my rescue fell limp from his grasp. Blood was pooling in the snow and the man’s eyes were open and lifeless. Maybe if he’d had a gun. The thought drifted into my mind.
A little shock ran through my brain. I had a gun.
My hand sprang to my waistband. I pulled the gun and brought it up as Wolfe licked the man’s blood from his fingers. His eyes ran back to me as I pulled the trigger.
The shot hit him in the eyebrow and his hands flew to his face, releasing me. A howl as loud as an explosion threatened to overcome the sound of the blood rushing back to my head. I landed and my legs buckled. I fell to all fours, gun still clenched in my hand. I pulled up and shot at him twice more, this time aiming at his legs. My brain was sluggish, but when I looked to confirm that I hit him, all I saw was a thin black cylinder a little less than an inch long sticking out of the surface of his pants.
A dart was sticking out of his leg. Not a bullet wound. Damnation.
I raised the gun to shoot him again but his paw of a hand slapped it away. It skidded across the parking lot and under a car.
“Little doll,” he breathed in my ear. I lifted my head up to see those great black eyes staring at me, but they were different, unfocused. “That’s not a fair toy for playtime. What have you done to Wolfe?”
I might have responded if I’d had my wits about me, but his chokehold had deprived me of both oxygen and blood to the brain, and I was so dizzy I felt I might vomit. And if I did, I was aiming for him. Asshole. I was sucking down air greedily, large breaths so cold they hurt my lungs. It didn’t seem to be helping. The spots were still clouding my vision. His eyes still stared at me.
“Back away from her!” I heard a voice from behind, but I was too gone to turn my head. Everything was spinning.
“New playmates are not part of our game,” Wolfe breathed in my ear as he staggered to his feet. At least, I think he did. I saw his boots running through the snow, away from me.
I felt my head tilt back and my hair landed in the slush on the ground. I stared up into two faces – the men from my house. Oldie’s swollen nose overshadowed his other features. They were both talking, but I couldn’t hear a word by then.
The spots in my vision clouded everything out, and the spinning in my head worsened until it felt like I fell down, through the snow and slush and mud, through the concrete and asphalt of the parking lot, down into the ground. My vision darkened and blotted out the sky and faces above me.