Sam interrupted whatever was going on between them with a feigned cough. “So where does this put us?” She turned to Riley, “We still need to make a quick getaway.”
“We need the keys Lisa. And I guess the bigger question is; what are you going to do?” If Lisa wanted to, she could still turn them all in as jewel thieves and wash her hands of the whole thing. She would have every right to do just that. Riley wouldn’t have held it against her. Somehow he didn’t think it would come to that.
He grinned. There was no way that he could ignore the crush his brother obviously had on Lisa. What he wasn’t sure about was how Lisa felt about Caleb. The nine year age difference didn’t help the situation either.
Before Lisa could answer him, there was a faint sound outside that had the brothers instantly at attention. Neither one moved, but the air in the room seemed to buzz with tension. A look passed between the two and Sam watched Caleb move to put himself between Lisa and the windows. Riley turned his back to Sam. He faced the front door and hallway while his father rested a hand on the iron poker behind him. He faced the stairs to the upper floors, ready to swing the poker if needed.
The girls stood back to back in the center of the room. Lisa didn’t have a weapon. Samantha couldn’t risk the movement to reach the knife still tucked into her boot, but that didn’t stop them from tensing up, ready to fight or flee, depending on a signal from the men.
Lisa still clutched the keys. They dug deep into her palm as she stood facing Caleb’s back. This was not how she wanted to spend her weekend.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up as Sam heard a low growl roll from the man who stood between her and whatever was outside. She had no problem jumping out of the way if Riley or Caleb felt the need to shift. Daniel obviously knew his sons better than anyone else, Lisa was a wildcard though. What would she do? Could they afford the time or energy to explain things to her? Would she get hysterical or faint? Sam was never sure what to expect from her older sibling.
There was an echoing response from Caleb as he took a step forward, putting space between himself and Lisa. If he had to shift, he didn’t want to hurt her in the process.
There was a shadowed movement from the low bushes outside of the window. At the exact same moment, the front door burst in. Several large cats poured in the gapping whole, headed straight toward Riley.
He had less than a second to act. He shoved Sam back and bent forward in one fluid movement. The first jaguar caught him mid-shift. He rolled with the big cat, taking it away from Samantha toward the hallway.
The second cat continued its charge at Sam as she ducked and rolled out of it’s way. It received a huge blow from Daniel’s iron poker for its trouble. It landed with a thud in front of him. It didn’t get up.
Daniel turned around just in time to see Caleb shift and charge toward the huge plate glass window. The center panel of the window shattered. Glass rained down around them. He spun back around to find Lisa had picked up a vase from the center of the coffee table. She brought it down hard the face of the third jaguar. She stumbled and fell back. It kept coming, blood running in it’s eyes from the ceramic shards of the vase. Daniel thrust the end of the poker at it. The impact shoved him back against the mantle as the big cat hit the floor to his right. The poker stayed buried deep in its chest. It twitched several times and then lay still.
He grabbed Lisa up from the floor and shoved her towards the now open front door. “Move now!” He shouted above the din. “Where is the RV?”
“Around the house to the right!” Lisa shouted back but she made no move to leave. She wasn't leaving without Caleb and the others. She twisted her head to check on Samantha. She was waving her knife in front of her, holding off the half dead cat that had attacked first.
Sam tried desperately to gauge Riley’s wounds while fending off the monster in front of her. Riley had fully shifted but there was blood trailing from the reopened wound on his right shoulder. There were several new lacerations on his hip. He was bleeding heavily. If they didn’t get him somewhere safe soon and dress his wounds, she would lose him for good this time.
She lunged forward again, forcing the cat to jump back from her blade on an already broken back leg. It stumbled and went down. Riley pounced with more speed than he should have had left. His jaws closed on the exposed throat of the cat. There was a sickening crunch as he crushed it’s windpipe. He flung the dead cat away from him. His gaze settled on Sam.
They locked eyes in understanding as she lowered her knife. Her arm was numb from gripping the knife so tightly.
There was a sharp squeak from behind them. The scene that greeted them had them both running across the room. Riley got there first, taking the space in one long leap over the chair.
There was a dead cat laying off to the left, its fur covered in the diamond dust from the window. Blood glittered like rubies as it poured out of the gaping wound in it’s chest.
Caleb was still in his cat form. His head lay in Lisa’s lap, his eyes were closed. He was breathing, but only just. Her silent tears fell on his fur as she smoothed her hand over his side. His muscles jumped as she reached his ribs. He tried to snap at her but he was too weak. His breath came out in a sharp bark instead.
Daniel raised his head with the agony of a parent watching their child die etching his face. There was nothing anyone could say to him that would help. Riley roared his pain in one long note. It tore at Sam’s heart.
Samantha fell to her knees in front of her sister. She reached out a hand to rest it on the side of Caleb’s face. His whiskers were softer than she had imagined. She leaned closer and whispered, “Caleb Kacey, stop it. You’re scaring your father. You aren’t done here. Do you hear me?” Her voice broke. She rested her forehead on his soft cheek. This isn’t fucking fair. This is not going to go down like this.
Samantha poured everything she had into the thought. She refused to let Caleb die. She willed him to keep breathing with every part of her soul. She pictured him healed. Laughing at his brother, flirting with Lisa. Whole and perfect. Her tears poured over his face as she sobbed.
From the outside, what the others saw was something completely different than what was playing out behind Sam’s closed eyelids.
Riley could see her aura shimmering around her through the cat’s eyes. It was ten times brighter than it had been the last time. He didn’t know if it was because he was in cat form, or if she was getting stronger. Either way, there was definitely something going on with her that they needed to talk about...
Daniel stood back from the others. He couldn’t just stand here and watch his son die, but he was also more than a little taken aback by the strange, swirling colors that radiated from Samantha where she kneeled with her head on his son’s cheek.
Even more disturbing was the fact that those colors were beginning to swirl faintly around Lisa as well. The colors weren’t as strong, merely a transparent shimmer, but they were definitely there. Her aura crackled around her in fiery shades of sunlight and summer bonfires.
Sparking static flew from the boundary between the two girls. Samantha’s watery blues, greens, and purples flowed against Lisa’s fire, washing around it, but never quenching it. As he watched, the colors began to turn white. The entire spectrum of light became one as the sisters’ tears mingled where they fell on Caleb’s fur.
Neither of the sisters seemed to notice anything. Their full concentration was on Caleb. He shuddered as the light washed over him, but his eyes remained closed. There was a visible release of tension in his body as the cat’s muscles relaxed. He took a sharp breath and exhaled it slowly. The rise and fall of his chest became stronger, more even with a steady rhythm.
Sam lifted her head to look down at him as he relaxed. It took several blinks to get her eyes to focus. The distance between the inside of her head and this reality had her shifted slightly. It was as if she'd been asleep for days. She sighed with relief as she watched the steady march of his breathing. She ran her right hand over his side. He didn’t flinch when she reached the spot where his ribs had been crushed just a few moments ago.
Sam’s eyes flew to her sister’s face as the shock registered with them both. Lisa had the same groggy haze in her own eyes. What in all hells was going on?
Lisa looked back at her baby sister in confusion. What had just happened? One moment they were positive that Caleb was going to die from the jaguar’s crushing blows, now he was breathing easily. He was basically sleeping in her lap.
She stroked her left hand over his ear and down his side, following her sister’s hand to his ribs. There was no reaction as she stroked him. No evidence of pain in his ribs, nothing seemed out of place under the soft spotted fur of his side. It was as if his terminal injuries had just vanished like they’d never happened.
The soft rustle behind Sam’s right shoulder told her that Riley had shifted back to himself. His claws were safely tucked away. She half twisted to see him standing just to the right of them The strained look of his physical pain chased the emotional pain of the thought of losing his brother across his face in waves. The tears shining in his eyes broke her heart. She rose from the floor and wrapped her arms around his waist. The steady beat of his heart beneath her forehead assured her that his injuries were not as bad as they looked, though he was favoring his left hip.
There was cold fire in her blue eyes as she lifted her head to lock gazes with Riley. Thane and Lydia were going to pay for all of the pain they had ever caused these men. The silent oath settled into the deepest parts of her soul. They would pay dearly.
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