Renegade (41 page)

A growl rumbled out of his throat. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped as he fished the cell phone out of the shrub.

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

“I’m in love with her!” he burst out, his voice echoing around us. “Not you! Her!” He flung his arms wide, gripping the phone in his hand. Then in a quieter voice, he said, “We’re never going to be together again, Kimber.”

She stood there, the force of his words like a slap to her face, and she was momentarily speechless while Cole dialed the phone and spoke in low tones to Gemma. Then he hung up and jammed it into his pocket.

I moved forward, figuring I’d eavesdropped enough. Cole saw me coming and stepped toward me. “Kimber told me what happened. Are you okay?”

“I’ve had worse days,” I said, giving him a smile.

He pulled me in for a hug and I returned it, assuming he probably needed one too. “I called Gemma,” he said into my hair. “She’s on her way.”

I pulled back and nodded. “How about you? That was intense, huh?” I slid a glance over at Kimber who was watching us with a frown on her face.

Cole cursed and rubbed a hand down his face. “I didn’t mean to yell at you, Kimber.”

She sniffed, her aura smoothing out just a little.

Then Gemma appeared.

Kimber’s aura went crazy again, and I sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.

“Heven,” Gemma said, coming to my side and doing her best not to look at Cole (she didn’t do a very good job). “What happened today?”

I opened my mouth to explain when Sam practically ripped the hinges off the back door, rushing out into the yard.

“Sam?” I asked, knowing something was wrong.

“There’s more,” he said, his eyes flashing gold. He rushed out into the yard, looking up in the sky.

Everyone else was completely confused, so I explained. “He can sense the werebats. There were some here earlier, too.”

As if I conjured them, three swooped down out of the sky, howling and flapping their paper-thin wings. Sam was shaking. I could feel him wanting to shift and trying not to, so I ran closer to him, saying, “We’ve got this. They’re outnumbered.”

“Right,” he said as one charged him. He caught it by the foot and slammed it into the ground. I lit it on fire and turned. Gemma had already brought down one and Cole brought down another, which was struggling against the ground where he pinned it.

“Cole!” Gemma said, tossing him a dagger, which he caught and used to finish off the bat.

Bats gone, I turned to Sam to smile, but that wild look was still on his face. “There’s more.”

All the horses inside the barn began making noise and panicking and we all turned to see about five more werebats rise up over the roof and fly toward us. A brief flash of weariness overtook me for a moment. I was so tired of fighting all the time. But I pushed it away to brace myself and take down a few more creatures.

“Barbequed bat, anyone?” I said, concentrating on one of the larger ones and lighting it on fire. It landed too close to the barn and caught some hay on fire so Sam and I ran over to put it out, smothering it before it could get out of control. While we were there, another bat attacked, its huge head coming right toward me, but Sam knocked it out of the sky with a metal rake that was lying by the hay.

“Nice shot,” I told him once it was dead.

We turned back to the others only to see they’d been finished off by Gemma, Cole, and Kimber. Bodies were everywhere.

“Dragging all these things to the lake is out of the question,” I said.

“Uh, yeah.” Sam agreed.

“Let’s just bag them up and we can have a bonfire later,” I suggested.

He nodded and I called out to the others, “Be right back!”

“Do you think Gemma will know a way to vaccinate everyone from school?” I asked Sam as we rummaged around in the tack room for supplies to bag up the werebats.

“If anyone would know, it’s her,” he said.

I found a big box of extra-large black trash bags in the back of one of the cabinets and stood up. “Think fast,” I said and launched the box at his head.

He caught it, of course, and then faked that he was going to throw it at me. I flinched like an idiot, then laughed. “Like I would actually throw this at you,” he scoffed.

“I threw it at you,” I shot back. “I demand equal treatment!”

“Uh-huh, ‘cause if this thing hits you in the face and leaves a mark, Gran will have my ass.”

“Gran loves you,” I said, walking closer.

“I love you,” he said, dropping the bags on the floor and pulling me close for a too-short kiss.

“You did good out there,” I told him. “You didn’t shift this time.”

He nodded. “I think just knowing its them makes it easier to control, you know?”

“Yeah.” I agreed, going in for another kiss.

But we were interrupted.

By someone’s scream.

All traces of our happiness evaporated like rainwater on a hot day as we raced from the barn to see what was going on. Maybe we hadn’t gotten them all. Maybe one of them wasn’t actually dead.

I skidded to a stop just outside the barn to see Kimber huddled close to Cole who was sitting—more like
slouching
—on the ground. Kimber looked wildly around and when her eyes landed on Sam and me, they flared in panic.

“Cole’s hurt!”

I ran to his side and crouched down next to him. “Cole, what happened?”

His forehead was damp with sweat and when he looked up at me, his pupils were dilated. “I’m fine. One of those bats bit me is all.”

“The
were
bat bit you?” Kimber cried and began pacing.

“How deep is it, Cole?” Sam asked, stepping closer.

He pulled away the hand he cradled to his chest and held it out. I bit back a gasp. It was bad. His hand was ripped up and looked like a bloody, meaty mess, and underneath all the hamburger that had been his flesh, I could see bone.

I glanced at Sam, who gave me a worried expression.
He might be infected.

No, no, no, no.
“Cole,” I began and laid my hand on his shoulder. He reared back and roared, lunging at me. I fell backward and he came forward as if he were going to attack. I gasped and then Sam was there, grabbing him by the back of the neck and yanking him backward.

I heard some muffled shouting and cursing, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from my brother. “Cole?”

He blinked his eyes and looked at me like he was just seeing me for the first time. Then he looked at Sam, who was still gripping the back of his neck. “What happened?”

Blood was oozing down his arm, red ribbons of his life draining away and dripping into the grass beneath him.

“What happened?” he yelled, trying to pull away from Sam.

“Gemma.” I gasped. “She can heal him.” I looked around past Sam and Cole to Kimber who was standing there with this weird look on her face. I knew instantly she’d done something. I was about to ask her where Gemma was when I caught some movement and heard a thud. I looked past Kimber and to my left and there she was.

Trapped in a giant bubble. She was yelling and beating at it, trying to break free. Two daggers lay at her feet from failed attempts at getting out.

“Let her out!” I screamed at Kimber, jumping to my feet and going toward Gemma.

“She thinks he’s hers,” Kimber said coldly.

“She has healing powers! She can heal Cole. That is if it’s not too late!” I said, desperately.

Kimber looked at Cole who was still being restrained by Sam, although needlessly because he looked like he was about to pass out. Kimber waved a hand and Gemma fell forward, out of the bubble that was now gone. She ran forward, not even looking at me or Kimber and pushing Sam out of the way.

She put one arm beneath Cole’s shoulders and lifted him slightly off the ground as she sat, folding half his head and torso into her lap.

“Is this all I had to do to get you to touch me?” Cole said, his words slightly slurred.

Gemma made a sound in her throat and then raised her hands over his chest. Kimber started forward, but I grabbed her by her perfect ponytail and jerked her backward. “I swear I will burn every last hair on your head off if you even breathe too deeply,” I threatened.

No one else said a word as Gemma’s hand emanated a soft golden glow that traveled down and covered Cole’s chest and then spread out over his entire body, making him look like he was a nightlight in a dark hallway.

Gemma’s head was bent over, her hair falling around their faces so I couldn’t see, but I heard her speak softly every so often. “Is she chanting?” I asked Sam in hushed tones. I knew he could hear everything.

He glanced at me. “No.”

I nodded. It wasn’t a stretch to realize she was probably telling him how much she loved him.

Kimber made a sound and I glanced at her and she fell silent.

I don’t know how long we all stood there, waiting for Gemma to stop, waiting for her to move and for us to see that Cole was going to be fine. I thought about the wild look in his eyes when he lunged at me, and I prayed her healing would somehow get rid of the infection that was no doubt spreading through his bloodstream like ants on a tossed away crumb.

When the healing glow died away, Gemma hunched farther over Cole, like she was so tired she couldn’t hold herself up, and they sat there like that for long, quiet minutes.

Finally, my brother stirred. His legs bent and then straightened out and the hand that had been uninjured reached out and buried itself in the hair on the back of Gemma’s head. She pulled back slightly to look at him, but he wouldn’t let her go far.

I felt like a voyeur spying on a moment meant to be private when she lifted the hand that had been bitten and ran her fingers over the newly healed skin. “How do you feel?” she asked just loud enough so I could hear.

“Better than I have since the last time I held you.”

She must have laughed because her back rose and fell. “Technically, I’m holding you.”

“Even better.”

“Let me see your eyes,” she told him, tossing her head back, trying to flip her hair over her shoulder. It didn’t work so Cole used his hand to sweep it up and away from her face.