Page 110 of Bloodhunter

When it clanged, I expected Angus to sit up and glare at allof us.

He didn’t move.

“Angus,” I whispered, and slipped to his side. “Oh, my God,Angus.”

“That’s fucked-up,” Shane said, glaring at the captain.

“I don’t disagree,” Crawford said. “I don’t disagree atall.”

Despite his massive injuries and his unconscious state,they’d fastened a thick cuff around his right ankle. A chain that looked likeit’d be too heavy for me to lift snaked from the cuff to an iron post embeddedin the floor.

Three cops milled around the bed, electroshock batons inhand, as though the thing on the cot might miraculously rise and take them allout.

Oh, if only.

If only.

I turned and sucker punched the cop closest to me. The bloodfrom his shattered nose sprayed my face, mixing with the tears that ran from myeyes in a cold, steady stream.

He yelled as he slammed back against the brick wall, thenlifted his baton and started toward me.

“You touch her,” Shane said, his voice as icy as my tears, “andI will kill you.”

The cop wiped the blood from his face and looked at hiscaptain.

“Get out,” Crawford told him. “All of you, get out.”

The captain waited until they were gone, then gestured at Angus.“I’m sorry,” he said, simply, then followed his men from the cell. He hesitatedat the doorway. “If anything will get him off for attempted murder of a human,that will.”

“Always good to look at the bright side,” Shane growled.

I sat down beside Angus, gingerly, unable to breathe pastthe pain in my chest. I wanted to look away, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. “Weshould’ve stayed to help him.”

“Then we’d be dead,” Shane said. “We’re not like him. Wecan’t take damage like that and live through it.”

“I’m afraid he can’t, either,” I whispered.

Yeah, he was that bad. That beaten, burned, and broken.

He was that bad, and the humans were that angry. Thatafraid.

“What will Bay Town do without Angus?” Shane asked.

I swallowed my thick tears. “I don’t know. I don’t know whatany of us will do without him.”

“Maybe Miriam can—”

“No.” I wiped my eyes. “You don’t bring back the ones youlove. And he’s not dying. Don’t say that again.”

He pulled his phone from his pocket.

“Who are you calling?”

“Their doctor.”

I nodded. “Put him on speaker.”

And then I looked, really looked, at Angus Stark. Or whatwas left of him.