Page 203 of White Wolf

Above her, Trina heard a softwoofsound, like a flag caught in a sudden breeze. Then shefelta breeze, down the side of her face, whipping her hair, and a dark blur fell past her through the open air.

“What?” She paused and glanced over the railing just in time to see the blur land on its feet, lightly, graceful as a gymnast, in Chad Edwards’s path. The alley’s security light caught hold of shaggy, platinum hair, and she knew it was Sasha.

“Holyshit,” Lanny breathed.

The kid had just leapt off the top of a four-story building and landed on his feet like it was nothing. Yeah. Holy shit.

Trina pelted the rest of the way down and landed beside Lanny on the ground, drawing her gun. “Freeze, Chad! Hands in the air where I can see ‘em!” she called, and realized she didn’t want to approach him. Damn it, she wasscared, and she hated herself for it.

Lanny stalked forward, gun trained, but she heard the faint note of fear in his voice, too, and felt better for it. “Hands up, asshole!” he barked.

Trina went with him, the two of them a united front as they approached Chad from behind.

He didn’t put his hands up, frozen with his arms down by his sides, weight shifted onto one foot. Ready to bolt. There was just enough light for Trina to see that the muscles in his back, his arms, hell, his whole body, clenched and twitched, like a spooked horse about to take off. He was squared off from Sasha, who had his head down, filling the alley with a low, threatening growl. That sound made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up; nothing on two legs should have been capable of making a sound like that.

“Chad,” she said as they approached, trying for calm and reasonable. “There’s only one good way out of this, and that’s by cooperating with us. I know you didn’t mean to hurt Christa.” She didn’t believe that, but certain scenarios called for stretched truths in the line of duty. “And you probably didn’t mean to hurt Jamie Anderson either.”

Chad flinched and Sasha’s growl went deeper, louder, a vicious snarl. “Don’t move,” he snapped.

“I know what you are,” Trina said, voice getting even softer. “I know what happened to you must have been terrifying, and that you’re feeling all these crazy things. We can work with you, help you find a really great lawyer, but you have to cooperate so no one else gets hurt, okay? I know you don’t want that.”

Slowly, his head turned a fraction, so she could just make out his profile, bright white in the glare of the security bulb. “I meant to,” he said.

Something in her mind faltered. “What?”

“You said I didn’t mean to hurt them, but I did, didn’t I? I wanted to bite them, turn them, and I knew that would hurt.”

“Okay…”

“I had to try it first. That’s why I followed that guy – Jamie, you said? – to see if I could make it work. Then I was gonna turn Christa, so we could be together.”

Shit.

Lanny said, “Shit.”

Trina’s heart was pounding, but she managed to keep talking, steady and curious, not freaked out and furious. “Why Jamie?”

Chad shrugged. “He was all alone. Figured nobody would miss him.”

Sasha snarled.

Lanny said, “Wow, what a piece of shit you are. Hands up, let’s go. Behind your head where I can see ‘em.”

Chad sighed, shoulders dropping, and lifted both hands –

He whirled.

Sasha was on top of him before Lanny or Trina could blink – or pull the trigger. They watched, stunned mute, as Sasha tackled the vampire to the ground and bit him hard in the back of the neck, white hands like talons in the meat of his shoulders.

Chad screamed, half-pain and half-anger, and tried to twist out from under Sasha. But Sasha was stronger, doubling down. Chad’s shirt ripped where Sasha’s fingertips were dug in; shiny pearls of blood rolled down the side of his neck.

“Shit, is he gonna kill him?” Lanny asked.

“I have no idea.” And a part of her wondered if that would be such a bad thing, a thought she immediately struck as unethical, and possibly evil. But. She’d thought it.

Sasha gave one last violent snarl and then stood upright, dragging Chad with him. He disengaged his teeth from the back of his neck and spat on the pavement. Licked the blood off his lips and teeth and spat again. “Don’t fucking move this time.” His accent came out thick and guttural amidst his growl.

Chad look dazed, eyes sweeping the alley back and forth, glazed and unfocused.

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