Rogue Wolf by Paige Tyler
Chapter 24
Samantha was so focused on the fire rapidly climbing the walls around her that she didn’t even see Rogi until he stepped out of Louis’s study with the big rifle in his hand. She opened her mouth to scream, but the warning never had a chance to make it out before Rogi pulled the trigger. The resultant boom vibrated through her chest like thunder, then Trey was flying past her, smashing into one of the suits of armor along the wall, the bullet going right through the middle of his chest.
Her scream made its way out then, even as Rogi turned the barrel of the rifle toward Kyson, his hands quickly working the bolt atop the weapon, loading another round in the chamber in a fluid motion as if he’d done it a thousand times before.
With Shaylee in his arms, there was little Kyson could do to avoid the shot beyond twisting awkwardly to the side in a desperate attempt to protect the woman he cared for. Samantha heard the gunshot, saw a line of red slicing across Kyson’s back from shoulder to shoulder, watched the blood start to flow. Trey’s friend stumbled forward as some distant part of Samantha’s mind realized Rogi was working the bolt of the rifle again, undoubtedly preparing to put another round into Trey or Kyson, finishing whichever one he deemed the biggest threat first.
Samantha would be damned if she’d let that happen.
She spun around and grabbed for the first thing within reach, almost shocked when she realized it was the hilt of an antique sword resting in the hands of another suit of armor. The weight of the weapon shocked her. It was far heavier than she’d expected. It also seemed to somehow be attached to the armor. But there was so much adrenaline pumping through Samantha right then that she didn’t have a problem jerking the weapon free and lifting it. She ended up holding it more like a spear than a sword as she turned and charged toward Rogi with a savage yell.
Rogi was so focused on putting another bullet into Kyson’s back that he didn’t see Samantha coming at him until the last second. He whirled around, swinging the barrel of the rifle in her direction. She didn’t bother trying to slow down, knowing it was too late for that. The rifle went off just as she shoved the pointy end of the sword into his side right below the ribs.
Time seeming to slow as she realized the blade had gone nearly all the way through man’s body. Blood trickled down Rogi’s lip, shock on his face. Then the rifle dropped to the floor with a clatter, Rogi slowly tumbling backward, his weight dragging the sword from her hands.
It struck her then that she’d killed someone. Samantha knew she should feel something, but as the flames continued to climb higher and higher around them, nothing came. And she didn’t have time to worry about that. Instead, she kicked Rogi’s rifle away from the body—just in case—then turned and ran toward Trey.
From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Kyson standing up, Shaylee still protected in his arms. The wound across his back was already closed and healing fast, but he’d be left with yet another scar on top of everything else he’d been forced to live with.
It wasn’t fair.
No matter how worried she was about Kyson, all that disappeared the second she reached Trey where he lay tangled among the crushed pieces of antique armor he’d landed on, a huge pool of blood splattered all across his chest. Her doctor’s training immediately told her there was no way he could still be alive even as she watched him pushing himself upright.
“Is it safe for you to be moving?” Samantha asked as she dropped to his side and slipped one arm behind his back to help him sit up.
A quick glance at his chest revealed a ragged hole the size of her little finger to the right of his heart. It was bleeding, but not nearly as much as it should have been. And obviously not as much as it had been only a few seconds ago, considering all the blood running down his chest. Her instincts were screaming in confusion, caught between wanting him to stay still to avoid injuring himself worse and dragging him out of there right this second before the place burned down around them.
“Do we have a choice?” he asked, using her arm to help him stand, motioning toward the fire that was consuming the second and third floor like a living thing.
Trey was right. Staying here for even a few more seconds could mean the difference between living and dying.
Ignoring how pale his face had become now that he was upright, Samantha slipped her shoulder under one of his arms and did the best she could to help him in the direction of the front door, Kyson right on their heels, Shaylee still unconscious in his arms.
Just before they slipped out of the atrium entryway, Samantha looked back, catching sight of Rogi’s body lying there with the sword still sticking out of him. She knew that was going to be an image that stayed with her for a long, long time.
It was dark outside, and Samantha didn’t have a clue where they were going, but none of them stopped moving until they were a good hundred feet from the home. Even at that distance, she could feel the heat on her skin, and she turned to see that flames were already shooting up high into the sky. She supposed they didn’t need to find a phone to call for help. No way in hell someone hadn’t seen the fire already.
They crashed to the ground in a section of perfectly manicured grass. Samantha gently helped Trey lie back on the ground, immediately moving to take a look at that terrifying wound in his chest. But he waved her away.
“I’m fine. Check on Shaylee.”
Samantha hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly nodded. Turning, she saw Kyson sitting on the grass, still holding Shaylee in his arms, his blue eyes glassy and scared, his expression making her think of a little kid holding an injured puppy.
Samantha moved closer to check the girl’s heart rate and respiration, but Shaylee was already coming around, coughing violently as she gasped for fresh air. Kyson pulled her close to his enormous chest, rocking the girl back and forth, making soft calming sounds that seemed so out of place coming from a man his size.
The moment Shaylee stopped coughing, she reached up and threw her arms around Kyson, dragging his head down to hers and kissing the hell out of him. Kyson seemed a little surprised at first, but then kissed her back. It was so damn sweet that Samantha had to bite her lip to keep from saying aw. Trey’s big hand closed around hers, and she glanced over to see him smiling, clearly as affected by Kyson and Shaylee’s moment as she was.
“I’m okay,” Shaylee whispered, her resting her forehead against Kyson’s. “You got us out in time. You saved me. You saved all of us.”
Samantha was still a little amazed at how this evening had ultimately turned out. Yes, they’d been imprisoned by a complete psychopath, tortured, experimented on, almost burned alive, and then shot, but they were all alive…and together.
She turned back to Trey, finally able to get a look at the wound in his chest. It took a second to realize it wasn’t even bleeding anymore. In fact, there was already soft pink scar tissue starting to fill in the void.
“Rogi shot you through the lung with a high-powered rifle,” she whispered. “How can you possibly be okay?”
Reaching out, she traced her fingertips over the area, her medical training telling her it wasn’t possible. Without questioning why she hadn’t thought about it earlier, she checked Trey’s back for an exit wound. Sure enough, there was one, the hole on this side worse than the one in the front. But while it was obvious that a lot of blood had poured down his back in the beginning, the thumb-size hole was closed up now. She sat back on her heels again.
“Is it because it wasn’t a silver bullet?” she asked.
“Nah, silver has nothing to do with it,” he said softly. “I’m alive because the bullet missed my heart. That’s what it takes to take to kill a werewolf—severe damage to the heart or head. With the bullet passing clean through, I healed in minutes. If any of the bullet had been left inside, it would have been worse. In fact, the small piece of scalpel blade Rogi left in me hurts worse than the gunshot wound ever did. That’s going to have to come out at some point.”
Samantha was more than a little rattled about the casual way he talked about werewolves dying, never wanting him to even think those words. But she pushed those thoughts aside, leaning in closer and trying to find anything that looked like a cut made by something thin and sharp like a scalpel. But other than the dried blood and endless scraps and abrasions from his fight with Nadia, she didn’t see anything obvious.
“You won’t find it that way,” he said. “The skin has already closed up.”
He cupped her face in a gentle hand, lifting her chin. That was the moment she remembered quite clearly that Trey was as naked as the day he was born.
“The moment an ambulance gets here, I’ll have them take you straight to the hospital,” she murmured, trying to stay focused on the pain Trey had to be feeling and not how much she wanted to kiss him. “A few X-rays to pinpoint exactly where it is, and they’ll have it out in no time flat.”
Trey leaned in and snagged a quick kiss, which turned into one that wasn’t so quick. Fortunately, Kyson and Shaylee were too busy with their own tender moment to pay any attention.
“Don’t worry about getting me to the hospital,” Trey said softly. “In fact, we don’t even need an ambulance. All we need is a pocketknife and a pair of pliers, and you can dig the fragment out yourself.”
She waited for him to say he was kidding, but when he continued to look at her, she realized he was deadly serious. “Oh, hell no. I’m not cutting into you with a pocketknife. I’m not cutting into you at all. Remember, I’m the doctor who chose to work with dead people because the living ones scare me too much.”
The sound of sirens in the distance interrupted whatever Trey might have been about to say, and while the expression on his face suggested he hadn’t given up on that stupid idea, it was Kyson jerking upright suddenly, his face displaying pure panic, that grabbed all her attention.
“Ky, what’s wrong?” Shaylee asked, her voice betraying her own alarm as she tried to keep her grip on his arms even as he attempted to set her back down on the grass. “What are you doing?”
Kyson scrambled to his feet, his head snapping left and right in the dark, like he was trying to pinpoint exactly where the sirens were coming from and how far away they might be.
“I have to go,” he announced, his breath starting to come faster. “The cops will know I was out there when the doctor and Rogi dumped those body parts. All I ever did was carry the pieces, but with the doctor and Rogi dead, you know they’ll be looking for someone to pin all of this on. They’ll lock me in a cage just like the doctor did in his basement. I can’t live like that. Not again!”
Kyson was hyperventilating by the time he finished, and Samantha knew he was seconds from running, even if Shaylee was holding on to his arm like it was a life jacket. It occurred to Samantha then that Kyson was speaking normally, though she didn’t know if it was thanks to Trey’s werewolf blood coursing through his veins or the knowledge that he was finally free of Louis and his torture.
“Then I’m going with you,” Shaylee said, clearly about to lose control herself, tears starting to roll down her face. “I just got you back. I’m not giving you up!”
Kyson shook his head, trying to pull his arm out of Shaylee’s grasp. “No! They’ll be coming after me. I’ll have to go on the run forever. Mexico, maybe South America. I won’t let you ruin your life to be with me. You deserve better than that.”
Samantha thought Shaylee might smack him, and she wouldn’t have blamed the woman if she did. God save all women from men and their grand frigging sacrifices.
“You both deserve better,” Trey said firmly, tugging Samantha with him as he stood and moved closer to his friend. “Kyson, if you run now, you’ll be running for the rest of your life. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Kyson looked off into the darkness for a moment, his whole body tensing as the sirens got closer and closer, before he finally turned his attention on Trey. Samantha could see hope in his eyes warring with instincts that were almost certainly telling him to run. “What else can I do?”
“You can stay,” Trey said simply, reaching out to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “The cops will understand that you were a victim in all of this, just like Shaylee.”
Kyson thought that over for all of a second before he shook his head and pointed at the faded lines crisscrossing his chest and stomach. “You know the cops will never believe that. They’ll take one look at me and all these scars and decide that I’m exactly the kind of psychopath who would kill all those people. I look like a monster. It will be easy to believe I am one.”
Shaylee was crying even harder now, but Trey simply squeezed Kyson’s shoulder and shook his head.
“The only people who know what happened in that basement are the four of us,” Trey said. “Once that fire in there is out, there won’t be anything left to go on but what we tell them. When the cops start asking the questions, you’re going to let Samantha and me do the talking, okay? We’re going to tell them that Louis Russo was a complete whack job who thought he could bring his dead son back to life by using parts he was getting from the bodies he stole from the morgue and the people he killed. Nadia Payne was helping him cover it up at the institute, and Rogi was the one who helped get rid of the bodies. You and Shaylee were simply his next victims, people Louis grabbed to experiment on.”
Kyson still seemed doubtful and he glanced toward the night sky that was already being lit up by all the approaching emergency vehicles. When he turned to Trey again, he looked like he was scared and he didn’t know what to do.
“Buddy, if you really want to run, I’ll help you,” Trey said, his voice low and rough. “You and Shaylee. But if you stay, I swear I can make the cops and everyone else believe what I just told you. I’m begging you to trust me, Kyson. Please. I won’t let you down.”
Kyson looked down at Samantha. “Why would you lie for us, too? You don’t even know us.”
Samantha smiled and reached out to take his hand in one of hers and Shaylee’s in the other. “I don’t know you two as well as I want to yet, but I know Trey. And for him, I’d say anything I have to. You two have gone through enough already.”
Kyson glanced questioningly at Shaylee, who was nodding urgently, her free hand latching on to his. “Okay, we’ll let you do the talking,” he said, finally agreeing. “But what happens after that? Shaylee and I can’t go back to living in the homeless camps. I couldn’t get a job before. You really think anyone is going to hire me now, looking like I do?”
“I’ll find a place where you and Shaylee can stay,” Trey said softly. “A place you and Shaylee can start over, with nobody looking at any scars. I don’t know where yet, but I’ll find a place, I promise.”
Kyson took a deep breath, then nodded. Reaching out, he pulled Trey and Samantha close, hugging them both. The move brought tears to Samantha’s eyes. Another minute and she was going to start crying like a baby.
“Okay, I’m trusting you,” Kyson said, pulling away. “But I do have a question.”
“What’s that, big guy?” Trey asked, his eyes a little misty, too.
“How are you going to explain why you’re naked?”
Trey exchanged looks with Samantha, then shrugged. “I have no idea.”