“Wait! There’s more stuff!” I darted back into the garage.
Casey held up a couple of bits and bobs. “I’m not actually sure that any of this is yours.”
“That’s my radio.” I grabbed it and clutched it close to my chest. The open socket in the dashboard had been like a hole in my heart.
Shouts erupted from behind us, and I spun around. At the commotion, the pickup’s tires screeched on the pavement, and it lurched forward. “She’s leaving us!” I shouted in disbelief.
Casey and I raced toward the open garage as the truck peeled away, my Gran Fury in tow. We staggered to a halt as shadows appeared in the street outside. Werewolves.
“Back door! Run!” Casey shouted.
We barreled out the rear into the alley. He slammed the door shut and wove a quick spell, and sparks erupted from the doorknob. “Go! They’ll just run around the outside of the building. Or over the top—they can jump really far!”
We tore down the alley. I looked back as a dark shadow leapt onto the roof of the garage, then sprung high into the air. With the obscured vision of the mask, I couldn’t see where it landed. I could barely see where we were going.
“Are they going to kill us?” I screamed.
“Probably not! Don’t use any hocus-pocus unless absolutely necessary. We’re on their turf, and that would be bad,” Casey panted, surprisingly out of shape.
“I don’t have any goddamned hocus-pocus left to use!” I yelled back as we rounded a corner.
“You’ll be fine!” he replied, but then the shadowy form of a woman slammed into his chest, and he flew into the wall.
Sam. Jaxson’s bartender.
I skidded to a halt.
Jaxson stood at the far end of the alley, silhouetted against the streetlights. My breath caught, and my knees locked.
“Run, Savannah!” Casey screamed as he scrambled up from the ground.
Sam swept his feet out from under him, which knocked him on his ass and knocked me to my senses. I bolted back down the alley with Jaxson on my heels.
18
Savannah
My heart hammered in my chest as I sprinted between the brick buildings. I’d run track in high school and had a little speed, so maybe I could get a lucky turn and lose him.
I checked over my shoulder. Nope.
Jaxson was almost on me. He was too damned fast.
Not that I was surprised. The wolves that had attacked me had run my car down, and Jaxson was several magnitudes more powerful.
I ran anyway. A part of my soul leapt at the exhilaration, while the rest of my mind rebelled against the sheer insanity of it all.
I gave it everything I had.
Gravel scuffed, and a shadow flew through the air. Jaxson slammed into the side of a building and hung there with his fingers—no, his claws—embedded into the old, crumbling brick.
I darted right down a side street. Jaxson leapt again and landed on the adjacent wall above me, sending mortar raining down.
Holy hell. His hands could dig straight into brick.
He sprang upward and landed on the rooftop. I spun around a corner, but he hurled himself through the air and onto another rooftop right ahead.
He could outrun a car and leap thirty feet.