Heart and Soul by Jackie May (reading list .TXT) 📗

And me? I’m…I’m having a hard time thinking straight. It’s hard to explain, but I can feel the complexity of my emotions dissipating, replaced by primal instincts—my fox taking over with its black and white reflexes: fight or flight. And fight is out of the question. My fox will flee.

I’ll shift. I’ll run away.

I don’t want to, but I’ll have to. The reflex is too strong, triggered by the vampire bite burning at my neck. Shifters aren’t turned by a vampire bite. Untreated, it will slowly kill me, like poison.

Claws extend from my fingertips. My desperate pleas to resist, to stay here, to keep fighting, now feel detached, as though another person is shouting at me. A shiver ripples up and down my spine. Here it comes.

There’s a sudden rumble in the ground as the cargo hold beneath me begins to open. Rolling onto hands and knees, I shake off a bout of dizziness to focus my eyes on the domed roof. It has split down the middle, revealing a dark chasm that grows wider and wider.

I shake my head again, trying to cut through the fog in my mind. The cargo hold is opening, I say to myself. They got inside. They found the controls. They’re opening the cargo hold roof. I know why. Don’t I?

I need to shift.

No, I command myself. Don’t. Not yet. The doors are opening. They can get to Arael from above. But it’s three stories down. Too far.

I have to shift.

Too far. Too high. Impossible.

I feel my body ripple again—here it comes.

No! Not impossible. Not for her. All at once, my mind grabs hold of a complete thought. The doors are opening for Beyona. She’ll swoop down from the sky, easy pickings.

Raising my eyes to the night sky, my fear is confirmed. Against the backdrop of gray clouds, a dark shape streaks toward the opening chasm.

My next thought is the last: Jay is down there.

I pop up and run—sideways at first, but quickly correcting my course, dashing straight for interception. The roof continues to roll back, carrying me away with it. I dig deep, pushing my legs harder, faster. I lean forward so far that if my legs weren’t propelling me, I’d fall flat on my face. The harpy drops into a vertical dive, gaining speed. I don’t even have time to recalculate my trajectory. Reaching the edge of the chasm, I hurl myself across it like a missile.

I only have brief flashes of memory after that. The world spinning. My stomach flopping in another long freefall. Black feathers in my face. My claws digging into porcelain white skin. A terrifying shriek.

I don’t remember hitting the floor, but I know we have, because the last thing I see is Jay. He’s shouting at me with no sound. The world has stopped spinning, but it’s now at a weird angle—sideways. I see Jay’s frightened eyes locked on mine before he is eclipsed by enormous black wings.

I hear a deafening sound that might be a gunshot, or it might just be the sound of me blacking out.

I awaken to the sound of a flatline from a heart monitor. It’s a hospital sound, but I’m not in a hospital. And I’m not dead. Slowly, like a computer restarting, my brain spins up, recalling events, scanning my body for serious injuries, assessing my surroundings. I’m still in the cargo hold. Its roof is open. I see clouds lit gray by the moon.

Hillerman crouches in front of me, turning her head sideways to match mine. “Don’t try to move.”

“How long—” I cough, which causes a shooting pain in my ribs. “How long was I out?”

“Not long. Thirty seconds. I just got down here.”

I wince with the effort of trying to comprehend. Thirty seconds. That can’t be right. It’s too quiet. There’s no battle raging. “It’s over?”

“For now.”

I close my eyes. I feel like I could sleep for a week.

“The Agency’s on their way. Nick’s bringing healers, so just sit tight.”

My mind flashes with an image of Russo on the ground, bleeding. Seems like it was weeks ago, but I guess it’s only been a few minutes. “Russo,” I rasp.

Hillerman sighs. “He’ll make it.”

“Was he shot?”

“Twice. Both times…” She struggles against some sort of complicated emotion. “Both shots were meant for me, but he…”

I widen my eyes, which hurts my bruised face. “He took a bullet for you? Two bullets?”

“The big idiot. He pushed me down and sat on me.”

I want to laugh, but that’s not happening. My ribs are on fire. I manage a sort of wheezing chuckle. “Of course he did. Is Brenner up there with him? You know partners worry more than housewives.”

Hillerman surveys the wound at my neck and says, “Just try not to move. I mean it.”

My grin fades. Her answer—or lack of one—is alarming to me. “Charlotte,” I say. It takes me a moment to find the voice to ask again, “Is Jay up there?”

She places a firm hand on my shoulder. “Shayne, you know he’d never leave you here, not for anybody, even his partner.”

I try to get up. She holds me down, but after the look I flash her, she lets go. Stumbling to my feet, I look around. Aside from Hillerman and me, the only other person in the cargo hold is Arael Moaz, and he’s dead, lifeless in his hospital bed with a gunshot to the chest. The flatline sound comes from his heart monitor.

A long silence stretches out while I piece the story together in my sluggish mind. The last sound I heard—the gunshot—was Jay shooting Arael. He killed Arael Moaz, which means…

“They took him,” Hillerman confirms. “He didn’t have any other choice. We were beat, and he was face-to-face with Beyona. He had one or two seconds to live, max. So he shot Arael. Brilliant, actually. They can’t kill him now. Arael’s spirit will haunt him. They’re connected. Beyona will need Jay in order to keep Arael close until they