It was close, though, because the Omega was right. I could feel it pulling me under. Blood trickled down my back, and the pain was bright and awesome and it was so close. But then there was a ping through the bonds of the pack. A pulse. It hit me and I took it in and it said home and trust and sorrow and love.
And part of it was missing. Because she was gone.
It was acid on my skin.
Ice in my veins.
I said, “You shouldn’t have come here.”
And I was clear. I was precise. I took a step forward and her claws came toward my face, coated with my blood. She was fast. I sidestepped her, feinting left but going right. I brought the crowbar around in a flat arc behind her, the curved point slamming into the back of her head.
She grunted, low and guttural. Took a breath. Let out a choked sound.
I crouched and slid my right shoulder under the crowbar. It held tight in her head as I grabbed it with both hands. I gritted my teeth together and pulled myself to my full height. The Omega fell against my back as I jerked the crowbar forward. The momentum caused her to flip up and over my back, feet going skyward, landing flat on her face in front of me. She twitched along the ground as I tore the crowbar loose. I raised it above my head to bring it down again and again and again.
I was hit from the right side. The force of it knocked me off my feet and into a tree, shoulder first, my head rapping against wood. There were stars and lights flashing. I fell to the ground and thought, get up get up get up, but nothing happened. It was easier to stay down.
There were snarls and angry roars around me.
My vision wouldn’t clear.
I closed my eyes again.
I thought of many things.
Like Joe.
And my mother.
How dark it was.
How much my back hurt.
How much my head hurt.
How much my heart hurt.
“Ox!” a voice cried out above me.
I meant to tell whoever it was that I was okay.
Instead, I said, “G’way.”
The voice said, “I need you.”
And it was Joe. It was Joe who knelt beside me. Joe whose claws stretched against my skin. Joe who said my name again and again telling me to move, to open my eyes, to be okay, just be okay.
Part of me had been taken away. Crushed and destroyed when blood hit the floor.
Part of me burned up and became nothing but smoke and ash and charred remains.
But part of me still held together.
The part that belonged to him. To Gordo. To my pack.
I opened my eyes. My vision blurred. I blinked once. Twice. A third time.
He was there above me. With his orange eyes. His sharpened fangs. Half-shifted and worried.