Anna cut him off. She was smaller than the cat, but she caught him broadside with a running leap, and they both went tumbling down, spitting and snarling, in a flurry of claws and teeth.
More shouts from inside, voices raised in warning and fear. Andrew hit the door with his shoulder and it yielded, shattering under the force of his advance.
Inside was chaos. Men and women scrambled for weapons in front of a door that shuddered as Julio screamed his rage. An older man sat in the corner, both hands pressed to his temples and his face screwed up in an expression of agony. Next to him, a woman clutched at his shoulder, screaming something that cut off abruptly as she stared at the door.
At Andrew.
Before he could move, she threw up her hand. Fire shot up in a semicircle that cut her and the man off from the rest of the room, and a second woman spun and leveled her gun at Andrew, her finger trembling on the trigger. “You self-protecting bitch, why don’t you set the fucking wolf on fire?”
She fired a split second before Andrew moved, and pain ignited in his shoulder. It didn’t stop him from lunging. She screamed and squeezed off one more wild shot, and he snapped his jaws shut on her forearm.
Julio’s enraged roar drowned out her pained shriek. The inner door trembled under the force of another strike, and the man standing before it lifted both hands as if warding off an invisible force. “Kill him, Saunders. I can barely hold the door.”
The remaining figure—a hulking man who smelled of wolf—swung a meaty fist at Andrew. The blow connected, driving Andrew to the floor, and the woman screamed as his teeth tore through her flesh.
He released her and rolled away to his feet, dancing clear of the next punch. His shoulder burned, but he could stand on his leg. Just a graze, maybe, and no real damage.
Zola’s voice echoed in his head, warning him not to let his anger guide him. Rushing in blindly was a recipe for disaster, so he braced himself and growled, baring his teeth and lifting his tail. A show of dominance. A warning.
For one second, one telling, fatal second, his attacker hesitated.
That’s right, you son of a bitch. Andrew let his growl melt into a menacing snarl as he surged forward. The man was strong, maybe strong enough to hurt him if he really got a good grip, so he’d have to drag him down. Instinct drove him just as much as anger, and he sank his teeth deep into the man’s thigh.
The wolf hit the floor, but he didn’t go down easy. A steel-toed work boot slammed into Andrew’s back leg, and Saunders snatched at the scruff of Andrew’s neck and yanked out a fist full of fur.
Inconsequential, really, that pain. For all he knew, this was the man who’d grabbed Kat off the street, covered her mouth to quell her screams and dragged her off to her fate.
No more anger. Even his rage was transformed, more animal than human, and he wrenched his head back without opening his jaws. Blood gushed as muscle and skin ripped under the force of his bite.
Saunders screamed—just once, short and agonized, and rolled away awkwardly, the desperate retreat of an animal who knew he was already dead but couldn’t quash the urge to flee.
The man by the door threw out his hands, and an invisible wave tossed Andrew into the air and against the wall. He barely managed to stagger to his feet as the remaining door smashed open, knocking the telekinetic aside. The man stumbled over one of his fallen comrades and tripped into the fire that blazed in the corner.
He flailed, screaming as the flames licked at his clothes and hair, but his suffering lasted only moments.
Julio gripped the man’s head between both hands, twisted hard enough to crack his neck and dropped him into the blaze.
Julio looked like hell, but he was alive. His shirt hung in sliced tatters over scabbed, bleeding flesh, and broken chains dangled from his wrists. Another inhuman noise escaped him, a match to the feral light in his eyes, and he dropped to the floor behind Saunders. One quick, vicious movement wrapped one of the chains around the man’s neck, and Julio drew it tight with a sharp snap.
Nothing stood between Andrew and the door, and he rushed through it. The first thing that hit him was the scent of blood, of death, and he stumbled blindly.
“Andrew?” Kat’s voice, hoarse and cracking.
Kat. Andrew shook as he tried desperately to reach for that spark of humanity inside him, to regain his human form and tell her everything would be all right. But the stink of death remained, and he realized with growing horror that it was Ben in the chair beside Kat, unmoving and-He dragged his attention away, focused every bit of his attention on the curve of Kat’s cheek. She needed him to help her now, and it was the only thing that allowed him to shift.
He struggled through the change and half-crawled to her chair. “I’m here.”
Blood and bits of Ben had dried on her face and neck, cut through with furrows that showed the path of her tears. There was something off in her gaze, not quite shock, or even fear, but a detachment that was almost numb.
It seemed to take forever for her to focus on him. When she did, her gaze fixed on his shoulder. Black swallowed her eyes, until her iris was nothing but a tiny blue ring around endless pupils.
In the other room, a man shrieked in agonized terror.
He’d forgotten all about the bullet wound, and he lifted her face with his hands, tearing her gaze from it now. “Stop, Kat. You have to come back now.”
“They killed Ben.” She leaned forward, twisted, and metal clanged against metal. “Get me out of these handcuffs. Let me fight.”
Struggling against the cuffs had cut into her wrists already. Andrew snapped the chain and lifted her from the chair. “I’m getting you out of here.”
“No!” She twisted in his arms like a wild creature. “I’m not running. Put me down and help me fight, Andrew. I need to fight. I need—” A hitched breath. “So much pain. They tortured Julio, and it’s in me now.”
No time to argue. He pressed his lips to her temple, clutched her tighter and ran for the door.
Just outside, the flames had grown higher. The pyrokinetic could still lower the flames and come after them, and Andrew trembled, torn between his need to get Kat someplace safe and his knowledge that everyone involved here had to die or she’d never be safe.
Before he could make a decision, a spot of magic flared on the wall, a flash followed by a bullet that shouldn’t have passed cleanly through the side of the garage. One of Patrick’s weapons, and as it found its mark, the woman cowering on the other side of the flames crumpled to the floor.
The ring of fire on the concrete floor subsided, but the flames had already climbed the wall. When they reached the rafters, they began to spread quickly.
Too quickly.
Patrick lunged through the door, a sleek rifle in his hands. “Where’s Ben? We need to get back to the cars. The fight’s converged there.”
Shit. “He’s…” Andrew couldn’t say it, couldn’t, not like this.
“Patrick.” Kat’s voice broke on his name, and that must have been enough. Without a word, Patrick circled around them and disappeared into the back room.
Kat shuddered, pain spilling over her features. “I can stand. You need to get him.”
Anna came in, barefoot and still tugging her shirt into place. “Everyone outside is down. Jackson says
—” She froze, her gaze on the open doorway into the back room. She crossed to it, heedless of the fire overhead and its mounting intensity.
Andrew took Kat outside and set her down, but he stayed by her side. “Anna will get Patrick out of there. I’m not leaving you.”
She tried to step away, but her knees buckled, and she ended up clutching at his shoulders. “I’ll be fine when my feet wake up. Just go.”