Page 24 of Teeth To Rip & Tear

A scream.

I pressed my hands against my mouth, stifling a sob.Kaleb!

“It bit me!” Joel shrieked. “Something fucking bit me!”

“Where the fuck would she hide?” Dave thumped out of the kitchen and to the front door. He struggled with the lock for a minute before finding my purse abandoned on the floor. He rummaged through the bag, growing angrier when he couldn’t find my keys.

“Let me in!” Joel shouted.

A feral snarl ripped through the air, closer than I expected. Kaleb waited on the other side of the door.

Dave pulled his gun and fired. My door dissolved with even more holes, and a canine yelp echoed through the night air.

My hands pressed against my mouth, slick with sweat and tears, as I held in all sound.

Dave threw my purse to the ground and kicked the door. It burst open, and Dave poked his head through, searching for the source of the sound.

There was only one thing for it; I slid out from the coffee table as Dave looked the other way and grabbed one of the books I’d left on the coffee table. I tossed it.

Dave aimed his gun at the book, spooked. “Fuck this.” He growled before racing through the open door.

A moment passed before a car peeled out of the driveway, but I didn’t dare move until I was sure Joel and whoever he’d brought with him was gone.

Shamefully, I remembered Kaleb’s pained cry much later than I would have cared to admit. I rushed to the porch to find Kaleb still in canine form, blood coating his teeth and his leg weeping blood and limp.

“Kaleb!” I cried, tangling my fingers in his silver fur. “What do I do? Did they shoot you?”

Kaleb wheezed. He managed a single word, sent directly to my brain before he passed out.

I wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline or the knowledge that Dean Hart would kill me if he lost one of his oldest wolves, but I grabbed Kaleb’s limp body and tucked my arms under his front legs.

He was heavy in wolf form, at least a hundred pounds. My legs shook as I dragged him to my car, dropping him to the floor as gently as I could before I rushed inside for my car keys. When I came back, I managed to get Kaleb in the back seat, though once I pushed him into the car, I had to go around the other side to fully drag him inside.

Every moment behind the wheel, driving to the Chug became an exercise in hyper-focus. I heard every whimper, every wolfy moan as I took a bend. I drove perfectly and kept to the speed limit, not daring to drive through town in case the cops stopped me—or if Joel lay in wait further down the road.

My body was stiff and robotic, and my emotions were replaced by instructions repeating in my mind.

You’re worried we can’t protect you?

Turn left. Stop sign. Turn right.

Back to the Future.The first movie I ever saw.

My car bounced on the dirt road leading to the Chug. Kaleb let out a groan of pain.

I can’t even remember my parents.

My caution dissolved the minute the neon sign came into view, and I skidded to a stop in front of the bar, kicking up dust. I flew out of the driver’s side door, leaving the engine running and the door open as I raced toward Doug, the bouncer.

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I was covered in Kaleb’s blood.

Chapter Six

Kaleb was taken to the back room of the club, and I’d been pushed into a booth in the corner with the stern command not to move until Dean Hart was ready to speak to me.

Though I couldn’t see or hear anything in the backrooms, I winced with every imagined scream of pain. Thinking of Kaleb’s bloody leg and wondering if they had to dig out the bullet or if it had gone straight through.

My hands were covered in blood. It had dried under my fingernails.

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