Renegade (Heven and Hell #4)(60)
Author: Cambria Hebert

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 werebat 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.