Page 6 of Depraved
Fascinating. It’s rare that I see her put in her place. I’m almost smug about it in a twisted way, but when I glance back over at Engine, there’s something so unyielding about her that borders on dark, cruel. I mentally back away from siding with either idiotic female alpha and, for a quick moment, I’m glad I’m not one of them … because if either of them is emblematic of what a female alpha becomes, then I want nothing to do with that.
My arms start to ache after the first half-hour, and I take a break to go check on Jonah. He’s laid out on a stretcher, an I.V. bag hooked to one of his furry wolf legs. But his eyes are closed, and the healers tell me there’s been no change. Next to him, Pluto looks the same.
“Is this normal?” I ask.
“Nothing about this is normal, Luna,” a paramedic with blue eyes that remind me too much of Jonah’s responds.
“They’ll make it though?” I question.
“They have a chance.” His response is too curt. Too firm. His bedside manner is shit. Of course, he’s normally probably dealing with feral wolves who’ve been hit by silver bullets. Bedside manner is probably the least of his worries.
Throat tight, I turn away and go back to digging, suddenly anxious to wear myself out. There’s plenty of excavating to do. The rubble is at least sixteen feet taller than the ground in places, more in areas with beams. We all dig slowly and carefully, not spearing the ash but using our shovels almost as rakes to shift the rubble before flipping the tool over and carefully removing some of the debris to a wheelbarrow that Matthew’s brought over.
Toe takes over the barrow, hauling off the loads we fill up.
The alphas on either side of me grumble often—I suppose this sort of thing is more tedious than the work they’re used to doing. And we have yet to see anyone lifted out of the mess.
I start to worry that we won’t.
Matthew and several of the women who were praying come over with water bottles. We all take a break to drink. When someone hands me a towel, I wipe the sweat and grime from my face with shaking hands.
“What time is it?” I ask, coughing up some of the crust lining my throat.
“Late,” Matthew replies dryly.
“Useful. Informative. Thank you.”
“I live to serve.”
He gets a grin out of me with his smart mouth as I shrug out the ache in my shoulders and then deliberately press my soiled, sooty water bottle right into his white suit shirt. He merely arches a brow and dips his head back toward the rubble to indicate that I should get back to work.
Suddenly, he freezes and his head cocks to one side. “Is that …” He drops my water bottle and circles me, going to the rubble and kneeling, swiping at the ash again and again.
I take up a spot behind him, trying to peer over his shoulder. There’s a dull thud in my chest at the sight of a new texture—one that’s not mottled concrete or shards of wood.
“Is that fur?” Matthew turns and looks at me for confirmation.
I nod rapidly, my breath short and stuttering.
We’ve found someone. Someone who’s shifted and maybe has a chance.
Poseidon and Warcraft crowd around us, glancing down. The glow from Warcraft’s shifted eyes is practically bright enough to light our work.
“We could yank them out,” Poseidon offers.
“You might hurt whatever healing’s going on.” Warcraft gives another small growl before shaking his head; his alpha tendencies are clearly making him lash out a bit under the stress. But he comes up with an idea that might help. “Let’s move this beam.” He points to a massive beam at least forty feet long that diagonally crosses over the shifter and the two alphas position themselves in squats and heave it upward.
The move would have been impossible for two human men, and even the alphas strain under the weight, but my chest swells with pride when they carefully side-step the beam away.
As soon as they’re gone, I lean next to Matthew and we start to dig by hand, the consequences of using our tools far too serious now that a shifter’s life is in the mix.
My mother starts to dig on the other side, and a small crowd forms around us as we unearth the wolf like paleontologists might a bone—with painstaking slowness.
The women praying come behind us, their chanting to the goddess a lulling background noise as we keep digging. I hiss when I touch a still-smoldering log—it feels as warm and soft as a loaf of bread that’s just been taken out of the oven. I quickly toss it aside, shaking my hand out after, as if that will erase the sting. Engine crowds next to me, saying, “Luna, careful. Let us take it from here.”
“No. I want to help.” I bend forward and dig a little more, unearthing a paw and then a leg that’s twisted the wrong way.
One of the medical personnel shoulders his way forward, saying, “Let me check for a pulse.”
