Page 19 of Cruel Revenge (Jacky Leon #12)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I stood up on four paws, flexing them for only a second to test if everything worked.

Only a second. It was the only time I was willing to spare.

Things still hurt, but I launched across the room at lightning speed.

With a roar, I crashed through the restaurant’s large floor-to-ceiling window and slammed into the SUV.

“Fuck, drive!” someone screamed as I reached the first witch I could, the one struggling to get in the vehicle because Carey kept kicking him.

He couldn’t fully get into his seat, and that was now his fatal problem.

I grabbed him in my mouth and yanked him out, my jaws closing hard on his thigh.

When his scream reached my ears, I released him and bit his abdomen, severing things until my teeth cracked against themselves.

Wheels screeched, and both SUVs started rolling, the open door hitting me, shaking me from my kill.

I spun and bit the door, holding on as the SUV tried to move, unable to really move as it dragged my over five hundred pounds of muscle form.

I yanked, hearing metal warp and bend, and things snapped.

Whoever was driving must have had the pedal pushed fully down because they nearly lost control as the SUV jumped into action after the door failed and ripped off, left in my mouth.

I didn’t linger long. We were in Tyler, and there was traffic.

They wouldn’t be able to go fast enough to lose me.

I raced after them as they went onto the road, swerving through traffic.

I jumped over a small coup, the people inside screaming at the sight of me, a werecat covered in blood running down a massive vehicle without a door and driving on the wrong side of traffic as it swerved and dodged other vehicles.

The SUVs split off from each other, and I kept on the bumper of the one with my daughter.

As it made a turn, slowing down far more than I had to, I tried to bite one of its wheels, hoping to disable it.

People were screaming inside, and I recognized one voice as Carey.

It was all I needed to hear, knowing she was still in there, still alive, and always fighting.

I missed the tire, snarling as I had to push my body hard to keep up as they sped up, leaving the turn.

Sirens started up behind me, and the flashing lights of police cruisers lit up the now darkening evening.

One tried to get to my side while another tried to get to the SUV.

The local police knew of me, but I was more familiar to the police in Jacksonville, not Tyler.

Gods damn you! Get out of my way! I’m not the problem here!

I growled at the police cruiser trying to get to my side, drifting too close for comfort.

I jumped as it nearly sideswiped me, landing on its hood hard enough that it bounced.

As I hopped off in the same movement, that police officer lost control.

I only looked back for a second to make sure that the accident wasn’t going to be too bad, and the officer smartly slowed and parked thanks to the damage instead.

Horns honked at the parade I was now a part of, and I tried getting behind the SUV with Carey again, ignoring the officer trying to maneuver that vehicle.

Without a doubt, someone was already talking to the BSA with all of this happening.

A problem for after I get Carey back.

We were racing out of Tyler. I didn’t like that.

Once we reached a more open road, the vehicles were going to be able to gain more speed.

I could really move as a werecat, and I could run for a long time, but I couldn’t run seventy miles an hour.

Right now, it seemed like everyone was locked to a top speed of fifty, thanks to the traffic of Tyler after working hours, which, at a hard sprint, I could keep up as traffic made them slow down when I didn’t have to.

I was able to keep up, as two more police cruisers joined in. Something skinned my thigh.

Now they’re fucking shooting at me?!

I ran wide, getting to one side of the SUV, trying to keep it between me and the police cruisers trying to stop the situation that had unfolded in their town.

I understood what they were doing. I didn’t care what they wanted, though.

Carey was my only goal, and I was willing to hurt anyone to get her back.

If I had to deal with more of them to get to her, I was willing to do that.

Then I have to save the werewolves. I don’t even know where the kids are .

And Stacy.

Just thinking her name, having heard what I heard, made me run faster.

When a police cruiser got behind me, I finally lost my patience.

“THEY HAVE MY DAUGHTER!” I roared in my head, letting it echo into every mind that could hear, not caring if other drivers and people on sidewalks or in their homes and businesses had me suddenly screaming in their head at full volume.

It was surprising enough for the police that the cruiser behind me suddenly braked.

Its front end swerved a bit as the shock must have made that officer lose some control, the hard braking only contributing to the problem.

The other cruiser did the same, its tires screeching in unison with dozens of others.

Many of the cars on the road swerved into stops or braked hard right where they were as well.

I leapt after the SUV, and I was moving at full speed, getting around people who had no idea where the voice in their heads came from.

I tried for a back wheel again, snapping my jaws at it, hoping to gain any sort of purchase, but the driver swerved to dodge my attempt and hit the gas.

At full speed, I ran out of Tyler’s more densely populated areas, following the SUV, leaving behind any pursuers.

We were entering the problem areas, where they were going to be able to gain more distance with every second that passed.

However, they had to turn onto the highway, and they did so at speed, making a hard left.

I wasn’t sure if she jumped or if she fell out of the open door.

Carey flew from the vehicle right at the hardest point of the turn.

She bounced hard on the asphalt.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

My feet couldn’t move fast enough.

My heart couldn’t beat fast enough.

I couldn’t breathe deeply enough.

No. No. No no no no.

I raced all the way across the highway, luckily emptier than the streets in town. I slowed to a jog as I tried to find her, ignoring the blood on the road from her landing.

I found her on the other side, lying in the grass.

My beautiful, tough girl.

I didn’t stop until I was over her, looking down at her misty, stormy-blue eyes, red from her obvious tears, her lips cracked from the cold and the screaming.

“J-Ja-Jacky,” she stuttered out.

I whined. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing now. I just knew Carey was with me again, for just a moment, and she recognized me. She was still with me.

“Yeah, it’s me, Carey,” I said in her head, and that made her smile.

“I… I g-got a-a-away,” she forced out.

“Yeah, you did. I-I’m so proud of you. Don’t talk anymore. I’m going to save you.”

“I-I-I c-c-can’t f-f-feel…”

“Shhh. Stop talking, Carey. I’m going to help you.”

“A-Anything,” she finished.

My heart dropped.

No. No. Not like this. I can’t lose her right now.

“B-B-Bite me,” she said, her breath too weak, too shallow.

It felt like time froze. I heard screeching tires, but they felt so distant. Engines revved.

I had to get her away. She couldn’t move. I didn’t want to even think about the truth of what was happening.

I could move her.

I had to use my teeth.

I have to save my daughter.

I bit her leg, letting my teeth sink in for both a good grip and to do something I swore to myself and to Heath would never happen.

I didn’t hear a sound from her in return.

It broke my heart. Then I gently started to pull her further away from the road, trying to move her to a place where I could defend her better.

In the woods, in the trees, I would have a better chance. Or I hoped I would.

I dragged her quicker than I would have liked as my eyes flicked around, seeing the SUVs closing in again. I tried to get away with her.

I couldn’t move her fast enough, though, not without risking whatever chance she had at survival left.

“I don’t know how you’re alive, but I am very much tired of you, Jacky Leon,” the witch’s voice boom as he got out of his SUV. “I’m going to send you to hell personally, you slippery bitch.”

I released Carey to stand over her, snarling. She was fully unconscious at this point, and I had no idea if that was a good or a bad thing. At that moment, I knew nothing except that she was in danger, and I was her only defender.

“If I’m going to hell, I’m taking you with me,” I promised. “But you won’t have my daughter.”

“You can’t stop me,” he said.

I roared over Carey, refusing to leave her. I was going to stay with her until the bitter end.

The witch knew I couldn’t charge him as his help poured out of the two SUVs. One had several scratches over his face, even on his eye. His mask had been yanked off hard enough to leave red marks. Carey had done a number on him.

Good girl. You got away. You left your mark on him. That shit will probably scar.

I memorized his face. One day, I would crush it in my jaws.

The main witch, the one who taunted me, the one who haunted me, waved a hand, and the remaining metal spikes came out of his quiver.

“I have had a long time planning on how to kill not only you, but the other werecats who crossed me,” he said, his voice ringing with a second voice, something feminine.

It sounded off, distorted and overlaid in a strange way that made my ears want to bleed.

“Test the new device,” he ordered. “Let’s see if it works here. A live performance.”

That was when the sound started. A piercing, high-pitched note.

It was immediately painful.

I shook my head, but it felt like someone took a drill to my ears. Dizziness washed over me, and I found it hard to stand. Nausea hit me, and I couldn’t stop the feeling from causing me to gag and retch.

“Werecats have such sensitive hearing. I did some research into this new human technique of using sound to stop riots and the like. I figured with how sensitive your hearing is, you can be disabled even easier than a human, but I had to find the right frequency.” The witch started walking closer.

I could barely hear his words through the awful noise that nearly made me fall on Carey.

It was the only reason I stepped just a foot away from her.

“Looks like it works,” he said.

I snarled and swiped my paw, trying to drive him off. A spike rammed into my side, sending me further away from Carey. A second spike, with how disoriented I was, sent me to the ground. It went through me and into the ground.

This time, I couldn’t move at all. This time, I couldn’t pull myself off, fueled by Subira’s magic that forced my previous survival.

I could only struggle aimlessly as they picked up Carey and left with her, loading her back into that SUV.

The world was spinning as the witch stopped over me.

“Sir, reports are showing the BSA and local law enforcement are coming already. Plus, we've already reached human news. We have to move.”

“Damn. I’m out of spikes,” he said, sighing.

He crouched next to my head, and I snapped, but he was just out of reach.

“If you survive, you can be useful. Tell Heath he gets to choose. His daughter or his werewolves. Tell your father and mother that I won’t stop until I have wiped them and every bit of their influence from the surface of this world.

” He paused, magic filling my nose. His eyes had an eerie glow that pierced through the dizziness.

“Tell Kushim that I’d like my necklace back.

” That time, the feminine voice was strong, powerful in the words of the male witch.

Then he stood up and walked away. I was left bleeding out, stuck on the ground, that sound going on until I couldn’t hear anything anymore, except for the incessant ringing of tinnitus. I watched them leave until my body was too weak to even keep my eyes open.