Bearly Accidental (Accidentally Paranormal Book 12) (22 page)

She wanted it to hurt. Hurt so bad they prayed for death.

With that one mission in mind, Teddy saw red, a red haze of an agonizing death, washing over Stas and the last of his still-standing goons and Dennis.

That was when she reared up and ran, head down, eyes glazed, straight at Dennis and Stas.

She heard nothing, saw nothing but the end goal.

Yet, even as she launched herself at them, Dennis was gearing up, too, and he sprang into action alongside Stas, who shifted where he stood. Powerful and wicked with rage, Stas rocketed into an all-out assault.

The pair of them coming at her, all thick muscle and fur, didn’t daunt her even a little. The moment had come to wipe the earth of their scourge.

Teddy roared one last time, her final wail of fury, before she set her sights on ramming into them.

Stas’s teeth were barred, ready to sink into her flesh. Dennis, too, had widened his mouth, his yellowed chops dripping his special brand of angry venom.

And then she stumbled, lost her footing on someone’s gun.

A fireball screamed through the air, disorienting her, and Stas and Dennis took that opportunity to pounce.

The force of their weight blew her into the wall, sheetrock crumbling around her.

This was it. The moment men like Stas and Dennis won. She knew it. She was prepared for it even as she vowed to struggle to her death.

Until there was another shriek, deep and heated, shaking the entire room.

Cormac’s bulky body shot forward, and with his head down, he crashed into Stas and Dennis, knocking them clear across the room and almost over the bar

He didn’t stop to catch his breath. No, he rushed them, didn’t give them the chance to regain their footing before he was on Dennis’s back and Wanda was on Stas.

Dennis rolled and went for Cormac’s throat with a screech of torment, his jaws but a half-inch from the meaty flesh. However, Cormac was too quick. He raised his paw high in the air and took a long swipe.

The tear of flesh made a sickening ripping noise, blood spurting from Dennis’s throat in gushes of thick red as he went limp.

Cormac huffed, his broad chest heaving, his nostrils flaring before he let his head fall between his shoulders and his shift began to take hold.

Wanda held Stas on the ground, her body realizing its human shape once again.

Arch was there just as sirens rang out in the distance, throwing clothes at Wanda and Marty, who crawled to where Nina lie, her sobs cutting through the wail of the police cars Arch and Nina had been told to call if they were in the bar too long.

Carl appeared, his greenish-pale face a mask of pain. But he handed clothes to Cormac and Teddy so they could dress before the police arrived. Just like they’d planned if the confession didn’t work out and they were attacked.

The only part of the plan that had worked.

Cormac rushed to Teddy, helping her pull on an oversized shirt and some sweats, quickly zipping up his jeans and pulling her to him for a quick, silent hug before he jammed his feet into his scattered boots and went to help Wanda.

“I’ve got him, Wanda,” Cormac whispered as he helped her up and away from an unconscious Stas, keeping his eyes on her face. “Dress. Hurry. He won’t go anywhere.”

Darnell ran from body to body, searching until he found Dennis, his face grim.

“What do we do next?” Cormac asked from the glass-covered floor where small fires burned, sending tendrils of acrid smoke upward to the ceiling.

Darnell dug into the deep pocket of his jeans and pulled out the recorder, instantly covered with blood from his fingers, and handed it to Cormac. “You give this to the po-po. Don’t lose track of it. The rest, I got, man. Go. Be ready just like we planned,” he urged with a slap to his shoulder before he turned and stooped to haul up Dennis’s lifeless body. Throwing him over his shoulder, Darnell was gone in the blink of an eye.

Teddy knelt next to Marty, pushing her hair, soaked in blood and sweat, back from her face as she coaxed her arms into a sweater she’d never in a million years wear and begged her to put her pants and shoes on. “Please, Marty. I’ll help you. Get dressed before the police get here. We have to stick to the plan.”

Marty did as she was told, rushing and shaking as she did all the things she should, and then she was beside Nina again, stroking her hair, pressing her cheek to her friend’s.

Teddy fought a scream of frustration and sorrow as she pressed the sleeve of her sweatshirt against Nina’s wound, her breathing shallow and labored. “Where is the ambulance?” she asked, on the verge of hysteria. “We need help now!”

Suddenly the room filled with paramedics, who whisked Nina away on a sterile cot, hooking her up to an IV and blood-pressure cuff. The police entered right behind them, their eyes wide at the carnage, astonished that Cormac had Stas naked and pinned to the floor.

And there were questions, and more questions, and chaos, and crime-scene tape and chalk outlines and Cormac handing over the evidence they’d gathered, relaying the events of the night. There was Carmine, huddled and shaking so violently, he had to be carried out on a stretcher in handcuffs. And all Teddy could think was, she needed to get to the hospital to be with Nina.

And then she remembered Carl. Oh God. Where was Carl?

Carl, who’d done everything he was told to do, while looking almost catatonic. Teddy pushed her way through the throng of police and outside, where onlookers gawked. Cormac followed, gripping her hand to keep her close.

Then she saw him.

Propped weakly against a pole, his eyes wide, his torment crystal clear.

“Move!” she shouted to the people milling about him.

She reached out her hand to him, thrust it through the crowd and gripped his cold, stiff fingers, and he collapsed against her, his shoulders silently shaking.

Cormac sheltered them from behind, keeping the press and stray ambulance chasers from invading their circle.

Keeping them safe as Carl buried his face in her neck and they both cried.

A
fter they finished up the endless slew of questions the police lobbed at them, both alone and together, Teddy wanted to collapse, but as they entered the hospital, she knew she’d never sleep until she witnessed Nina was okay. There’d been plenty of questions, too. Like how four women and a man had overpowered Stas and his crew of gun-packers.

Somehow, they’d both managed to satisfy the police who seemed more interested in Carmine Ragusi and his wild tale of werewolves and bears.

Cormac pulled her close when she’d answered the last inquiry and the police wrapped things up and let her go—for now, according to them. There would be later questions she’d have to answer—questions they’d all have to answer.

“I can’t believe he killed his partner like it was no big deal,” Teddy mumbled. It had, in fact, been Mauricio who was murdered that night in the dealership, and Carmine had, in fact, led the police to believe it was his partner who was dabbling in the mob. Which led the police to keep things as quiet as possible.

During the course of the night, Carmine Ragusi confessed to the murder of his partner and the cover-up and his connections to Stas Vasilyev. He’d also revealed where his partner’s body was buried, and that meant Mauricio’s family would finally have some closure.

Teddy had heard a lot of mumbled chatter from his fellow police officers about Carmine and the story he told of bears and werewolves, all of which his now former colleagues were sure to talk about for years to come.

Cormac pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “That son of a bitch had some racket going on. It was a lot of cash.”

To say the least. But Teddy didn’t give a rat’s ass about Carmine or Stas or anything else but Nina.

The nurses directed them to the waiting room on the third floor of the ICU and as they rode the elevator, Teddy sucked in gulps of air for courage. Covered in blood and smeared with black soot, she refused to give in to tears.

Nina needed all the strength she could gather, and she’d hate everyone crying over her.

Straightening her shoulders, Teddy saw the desk at the ICU was empty, so she and Cormac made a break for Nina’s room unnoticed.

As they slipped inside, Teddy clung to Cormac’s hand as he led her to an empty chair.

Marty sat next to her friend, and who Teddy assumed was Nina’s husband, Greg, sat across from her. He was beautifully handsome, classically perfect in so many ways, just like Nina said. But his eyes…his eyes were haunted, riddled with agony, raw with emotion as he held his wife’s hand next to his cheek.

Marty laid her head on Nina’s belly, closing her eyes and gripping her friend’s hand. “
Damn you, Statleon
. You should have just let me turn you when I offered. But no. Nooo. You were far too busy with buckets of chicken wings and brewskies to worry about the fact that you’re not like us anymore. Too busy pretending to be a badass to realize there won’t be any self-healing this time. You won’t look at that fucking hole in your chest like all you need is a Band-Aid and a pint of O neg…”

Marty paused, her breath shuddering in and out of her lungs, her head lifting to reveal blue eyes filled with sorrow so deep, Teddy had to look away before she shattered in a million pieces.

Marty hadn’t left Nina’s side since they’d performed what Wanda had said was a tedious surgery. She had a broken arm from the fall, a break so ugly, she’d need pins and physical therapy to regain solid use of it. But worse was what that damn bullet had done. Stas’s bullet had screamed through Nina’s chest, just missing her heart, but the doctor warned their ragged crew, covered in blood and dirt, wet from the snow, that it could be touch and go.

If Nina made it through tonight, she had a fighting chance.

And then Marty shook her head as though she’d made a decision of some kind. “You’ll need physical therapy and bed rest and it’ll be a long road to recovery. So you can’t do this anymore, Mistress of The Dark. As much as it hurts me to say that, you can’t keep up with us and OOPS. Look at what happens when you try to keep up! You get your deaf ass shot. Didn’t you hear me howl? Don’t you know I can take a bullet in the chest but you can’t? How could you be so damn stupid?” she hissed at her friend.

But then her voice softened, her words gentled. “You’re not quick enough, strong enough, yet you’re still the same stubborn pain in the ass you always were. But when you get your cheeseburger-eating, ice-cream-hording ass out of this bed, it stops. No more, because I can’t…
I can’t take it, Nina
. I
won’t
take it! I’ll never survive losing you…”

The heart monitor rang out a steady song, and Teddy was grateful for that. Nina was tough, maybe not vampire strong, but she was healthy and there was no way she’d believe anything other than this woman, this woman with her angry words and fierce loyalty, would be anything other than okay.

Marty pulled Nina’s hand to her cheek, tears streaming from her eyes, rolling onto Nina’s pale skin and dropping to the sheet covering her. “I begged you. I told you I didn’t give a damn if it got me shunned or put me in werewolf jail or whatever the hell happens when you turn someone willfully. But you wouldn’t listen, would you? Do you ever listen to me? No one had to know. You, with all your in-your-face, no-rules-apply-to-me bullshit,
refused
. The rule breaker was suddenly a chicken-shit. And now…look. Look at what you’ve done!” she whispered, her voice laced in hysteria, her shoulders shaking.

Wanda came up behind her friend and gripped her shoulders, her knuckles white from the effort, her face wet with tears mirroring Marty’s.

And Teddy marveled at these women as tears also streamed down her face as well. Marveled at how true they were to each other. How steadfast. They were more than just family. They were something bigger. Something she had no definition for, no word in the dictionary covered how bonded these women were. How integral each of their lives was to the survival of the others.

It was amazing and frightening all at once.

“When you’re done being a sissy-ass, lying around in this bed like some kind of diva,
you’re done
. No more adventures for you, Elvira. If I have to lock you in a padded room, I’ll damn well do it! You’re not the person you were since the change, Nina. You have to stop pretending you are. Do you hear me in there?”

Teddy gnawed on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out.

“I was so angry with you, Nina Statleon. I kept thinking, how could you
not
want us to turn you back? Why were chicken wings more important than living out our eternities together? What about Charlie and Greg? Didn’t they matter? How could you go right on being human when you’d eventually die and leave us?” She rasped the words, pressing Nina’s hand to her forehead.

Wanda grabbed Marty’s free hand and clung to it, held on to it like her life depended on the very contact.

“Then I thought you were choosing. I thought all the horrible things you always say to us just might have a smidge of truth. Maybe you really were glad you were human again because it meant you didn’t have to put up with us for an eternity.
With me
. Or maybe you weren’t really as passionate about helping others like us as we were. But that wasn’t it at all. I know the truth now, Nina. Darnell told me tonight. You were too afraid I’d get caught for turning you—that I’d end up punished, maybe taken away from Keegan and Hollis because it was my second infraction, after helping turn Wanda. I didn’t understand it at the time. But you were just looking out for me. Just like always.
Please
come back, and I swear on every damn eyeshadow I own, I’ll look out for
you
now. Always. No matter what. For as long as you choose to be here.”

Teddy stuffed her fist against her mouth to keep from weeping out loud, the hot sting of tears clouding her eyes. Cormac pulled her from her chair and sat, bringing her to his lap, settling her against him. His big hand ran over her hair, pass after pass, soothing her.

And the night wore on. Long, dark, cold, sterile, with nothing but the glow of monitors and the incessant beep of Nina’s life in green numbers on a black screen.