Strange Trouble (24 page)

While the blood was flowing, Ellis slipped away to the inn
to fetch her some clothes.

“And any weapons you see lying around,” she’d told him.

Owen came into the room. He looked her over, nodded
approvingly, and then dropped a shitload of blades, guns, and holsters on the
table.
“Figured you’d need these.”

She smiled. “I knew there was a reason I liked you. As soon
as Ellis is back with my clothes, we’ll head to Hawthorne.”

He winked. “We’re ready when you are.”

She watched him as he left the room, her gaze lingering.
When she looked up, she found Strad leaning silently against the wall, watching
her, his face unreadable.

Neither of them said a word.

She put her arm over her eyes, finally, and lay in silence
until Ellie came back with her clothes.

“How do you feel?” he asked, kissing her cheek.

“Great.
Almost myself again.”
She
didn’t feel normal, but she felt…capable. Her body was slowly waking up, and
the first tingles of real pain had begun to ripple across her skin.

Ellis tossed a smile at the berserker, perhaps to make up
for snapping at him earlier, and left her to dress. She stood, a little wobbly
but nothing major. She held the sheet around her with one hand and studied her
other arm.

Her skin was bluish in places, with dim red lines where it’d
knitted back together, but there were no gaping holes showing the bones
beneath.

She was a fucking cyborg.

Less and less human.

Blowing out a tired, but not quite as painful breath, she
started to drop the sheet.

The berserker still leaned against the wall, and his stare
was as hot and heavy as a physical touch.

She shivered as gooseflesh dotted her sensitive skin. She
clutched at the sheet, suddenly hesitant to expose herself to Strad’s probing
gaze.

“What time is it?” she asked, silently cursing herself.
She’d never been overly modest, and Strad Matheson had been inside her. It made
no sense to be shy now.

But there it was.

He glanced at the clock on the wall.
“Noon.”

“Only noon.
It seems like weeks
since this morning.”

He said nothing.

The longer she waited to drop the sheet, the harder it
became.

Dammit. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Finally, she glared at the man across from her and let go of
the sheet. She put her hands on her hips, glaring harder when one corner of his
mouth rose in a slight smile.

“Well,” she bellowed. “Got your fill yet?”

“Never.”
His voice was as soft as
cotton.

Owen chose that moment to step inside the room. “Elizabeth
said—”

He froze, watching her as she stood angry and naked, her
stare on the berserker.

“Shit,” she whispered.

“Holy fuck,” Owen murmured.

“Out.”
Strad’s voice was mild. The
look in his eyes was not.

It was then she realized why she’d turned suddenly shy
before the berserker. It was because he saw her.
All of her.
Her secrets and…

She dropped her arms to her side and unable to stop, looked
at Owen.

…her desires.

“You look…” he swallowed, hard. “You look well.”

She pursed her lips to keep from grinning, but wasn’t sure
she succeeded. “Get out.”

After a last, lingering look, he went.

She hurried into her clothes, looking everywhere but at the
berserker. She said nothing, and breathed a sigh of relief when neither did he.

Once upon a time she’d had a rule about not fucking the men
she worked with. That might have been a smart rule to keep.

She slid the last shiv into its sheath and finally, glanced
at Strad. “I’m ready.”

He was smiling.
A tiny smile, but a smile.

It took her breath, that smile. “What?”

He walked to her and took her by the shoulders. “Don’t worry
so much.”

She started to reply but he leaned over and pressed his lips
against hers.

His lips were soft.
And very, very warm.

She opened her mouth to him and he slid his tongue between
her lips, brushing hers with a slow, hot touch that made her forget, once
again, to breathe.

But he pulled away. He stared down at her, his eyes full of
promise and heat.
So much fucking heat.
“Tonight.”

She nodded.

Tonight.

But first…

She took a deep breath, trying to sharpen a brain that had
gone dull and heavy with thoughts of sex. “Let’s go get the twins and Lex.”

Ellis waited by the exit doors with Jack, Owen, and Raze. He
squeezed Raze’s arm when she and Strad walked toward them.

Raze didn’t smile—Raze rarely smiled—but there was a
softness in his eyes when he looked down at Ellis.

She pulled Ellis into a quick hug, surprising him. “We’ll be
back soon, baby.”

He nodded, smiling as he swiped at his eyes. “I need him,
Rune.”

“We’ll make sure you get him.”

“Yes. You will. You
will.
”

Maybe he was trying to convince himself, but it didn’t
matter. They would bring the rest of their crew back.

In her mind, there was no doubt. There was no room for
doubt.

The berserker and Owen were staring at each other, a long,
hard stare that finally ended in some sort of silent communication the others
were not privy to.

Rune pushed through the exit doors, her mind on the battle
to come. Once outside, she tried again, and again failed, to send out her
claws.

But she had her blades.

Her silver was all she needed to cut out COS like the
malignant growths they were.

She fished her cell out of her car. One of the men had
driven it from the Moor earlier.

“I’ll ride with you,” she told Raze. “I don’t want to
drive.”

The drive to Hawthorne seemed to take hours. With each mile,
thoughts of what might be happening to the twins and Lex bombarded her mind.

She couldn’t shut them out, not anymore.

She punched in Jack’s number, drumming her fingers on her
thigh as she waited for him to answer. “What’s the word?”

Jack had a contact in the forest. After Rune had told them
she believed COS was in Hawthorne, Jack had made a quick call. She was right.

“My guy checked an hour ago. They hadn’t left the house.”

“What the fuck are they doing in there, Jack? Why are they
hanging around?”
Not that she wasn’t grateful.
It’d
have been tougher to track them if they’d left the county.

“They think you’re dead and we’re occupied with zombies.
They’ve found a lot of willing humans here. Why would they want to leave?”

“Fucking Bach Horner,” she said. “He wants to own our city.”

“He thinks he already does,” Jack said, and hung up.

No matter what they did in Hawthorne that day, COS was never
disappearing. Not for long. They were fucking cockroaches.

That was one reason they wanted to get rid of her. She was
going to be around to fight them.
Forever.

To Karin Love, Rune was her most dangerous enemy—because
long after Karin was dead, Rune would still be there.

And most likely, that just pissed the bitch off.

A distant sound of sirens drew closer and louder, shrieking
like banshees in the quiet afternoon and jerking her from her thoughts.

“Rune,” Raze said.
“Call Rice.”

She twisted around to look out the back window. Three police
cars streaked toward them. “I’m only surprised they didn’t try to stop us
sooner.”

Raze pulled the truck over. Behind them Strad did the same.
Jack and Owen had ridden with the berserker, and as she peered through the back
glass, she willed them to be calm.

But when the cops poured from their cars, guns drawn, she
had a feeling no one was going to remain calm for long.

“Out of the vehicle,” one of them called.
“Hands
where we can see them.”

Rune got out of the car, phone to her ear as she waited for
Rice to answer. When it went to voicemail, she quickly punched in Ellis’s
number.

“Ellie, we’re surrounded by fucking River County cops. I
can’t get Rice on his cell.”

“They took him in, Rune,” Ellie said. “I heard he’s been
forced out as police director.”

“He’ll be okay if they don’t arrest him. He still has RISC.”

“I thought you were finally dead, Alexander,” one of the
cops said, gun out and ready. “Put the phone away.”

Like a gun would stop her if she decided to kick some ass.

“
Gotta
go, baby.
I’ll call you when I can.” She put her phone back in her pocket. “What’s going
on?”

“Where are you headed?”

The cop speaking was a thirty-something redhead who’d
cheered her and the crew on when they’d wiped out the zombies. Samantha. Rune
couldn’t remember her last name.

Rune crossed her arms. “I’m pretty sure you already know the
answer to that, officer.”

“We’ve been ordered to turn you around. Mr. Horner filed a
restraining order against every member of your crew.
Including
you, of course.”
Samantha nodded toward one of the other cops, who
rushed forward to hand Rune an envelope.

Rune tapped it on her thigh, not bothering to look at it.
“Horner has three of my crew. We’re going in to get them.”

Samantha shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

“I wasn’t asking permission.”

“Rune,” Strad said, stepping closer.

“Back off, big guy,” Samantha ordered, turning her gun from
Rune to the berserker.

He put his hands up, trying to look unthreatening. He didn’t
succeed. “Go with us, if you want. But don’t try to stop us.”

Samantha pointed her chin at the two cops standing slightly
behind Strad. “Cuff him.”

“Don’t do that,” Rune warned.

Strad didn’t have his lethal silver spear—he couldn’t wear
it while driving. But it didn’t matter. Before anyone could blink, he had
silver shivs in both hands. “You’ll want to get the fuck out of here,” he said,
“before you get hurt.”

“Shoot him,” Samantha yelled, at the exact moment she turned
her gun back to Rune and pulled the trigger.

There were eight cops, and all eight were armed.

But against the crew, they had no chance. They had to know
that.

She’d seen the spark of rabid fanaticism deep in the cops’
eyes, and knew exactly what the crew was facing.

These cops belonged to Karin Love. They belonged to the
Church of Slayers.
To the bastards hiding in the house in
Hawthorne, torturing Lex and the twins.

And not one of them was thinking logically. They simply
wanted to bag the crew for their church.

Rune was sure fucking Horner was secure in his belief that
the city would protect him.

She’d lost her claws, her fangs, and now, she
realized,
her speed. She was just another crew member
fighting the bad guys.

But that was enough.

They’d been expecting the cops to shoot them, so they were
prepared.

“Don’t kill them,” Rune yelled. She knocked the gun out of
Samantha’s hand then punched her in the temple—a blow extra hard because her
fist was weighted with the heavy silver of a shiv.

Samantha went down like a rock.

Her men already had the other cops under control. Guns were
on the ground, and the policemen stood silent and blank faced with their hands
in the air.

Before the blast, Rune would have mowed most of the cops
down before they’d so much as moved. She had a quick flash of fear. She wasn’t
going to be worth shit when it came to fighting COS.

“Cuff them all,” Rune said, silently cursing the quiver in
her voice. “Take their keys and guns and lock the sons of bitches in the
backseats of their cars. That’ll buy us some time.” She leaned over Samantha,
who was still on the ground, groggily caressing her head. “Now, we’re going in
to get our crew.”

Samantha spit at her.
“Fucking monster.
Your fucking traitor friends are already dead.” She smiled a cold, cold smile.
“Or wishing they were.”

It took them ten minutes to clean up the area and secure the
cops. Rune called Ellie back.
“Any news on Rice?”

“No. What happened there?”

“A little run-in with some COS supporters.
We handled it.”

“Rune, I have a bad feeling. Please hurry.”

“I will.”

And once more, they were on the road to Hawthorne. If
nothing more happened to delay them, they’d be near the house within the next
fifteen minutes.

Raze waved Strad around. “Take the lead. You know the area
better than I do.”

“I don’t have my speed,” she told Raze, just needing to say
the words.
“Or my strength.
I can’t do much.”

“Keep your confidence, Rune. That’s the one thing you can’t
let yourself lose.”

“I took out one fucking cop. You guys…”

“You’re one of the best fighters I’ve ever known.
Speed and claws or not.”
He winked at her. “You just got
spoiled by all that vampire shit.”

She wanted to believe it.
Wanted it badly.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t know.”

“None of the crew has those abilities. That doesn’t make us
ordinary, does it?”

She shook her head, smiling. “No.”

Satisfied, he reached over to pat her leg. “Damn right.” He
glanced at her face, her body. “You look almost healed from the blast. Is that
because of the witch’s power, or all you?”

She shrugged. “Either that or I’m…” She closed her mouth,
unsure how to finish that sentence.
Invincible?

“Raze.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you ever tell Lex how you feel about her?”

He cleared his throat.
“Nah.
Talk
about beauty and the beast. I’m not right for her.”

Rune lifted an eyebrow. “There’s no one more right for her.
After we get her back, you should…” She gestured. “You know. Take her out.”

Again, he cleared his throat. After a moment, he said,
gruffly, “We’ll see.”

She stared out the side window and smiled.

But soon, her smile fell away and worry crowded her mind.

Lex and the twins had been in the sadistic hands of COS for
too long.

The crew
would
bring them back.

She just hoped they didn’t have to bring them back in
pieces.