The mutant roared at Alex, who shot again. But it ducked Eli’s attempt at decapitation and ran.
“Shit.” Eli ran after it.
Alex started to follow when he sensed something else in the woods. He felt more than saw the danger and heeded his beast’s instinct to follow after Eli instead of confronting what remained in the woods.
He raced after Eli and found him engaged in a battle with the mutant before the mutant once again escaped and ran away.
Alex managed to tackle Eli when the Circ would have continued to follow the injured mutant. “No, stop. We need to go.Now.”
Eli paused, stared at Alex for a moment, then followed.
They hurried back, taking a different route than the one they’d used to trail the mutant. And they still ran into trouble.
Alex and Eli stopped, seeing a familiar Circ kneeling by the corpses the mutant had left behind.
When he stood, he saw Alex and smiled.
As tall as Alex, with light-brown, shaggy hair and eyes so light they looked more white than pale gray, Sheer looked delighted to see them.
“Oh hell. Is that who I think it is?” Eli murmured.
“Paul Sheer,” Alex said, rage building at seeing one of his sister’s murderers. Along with Myers and Yates, Sheer had tortured his sister before giving her to Myers and Yates to play with. In the end, his sister had used Myers’s knife to take her own life before the rogues could hurt her any more. Alex knew, because he’d seen the event when he’d touched Myers’s knife months ago—his sister’s intentional last message buried in memory.
“Hey Palmer. We miss you at work.” Sheer grinned, and his fangs looked jagged. That was new. “When are you coming back? Oh, hey, did you see a mutant around here? I’m supposed to bring him in before he fucks someone to death.” He glanced back at the girl on the ground and laughed. “Oops. Too late.”
Alex refused to let the bastard trigger his temper. “Where are you working now? The Portland facility closed.” Alex took a step in Sheer’s direction, the urge to kill the fucker overwhelming. He kept seeing Katie in his mind’s eye, knowing she’d been severely abused by this man and the others.
“Oh, we’re around. I bet the boss would love to catch up with you. Caldane too.” Sheer gave him a leering onceover. “We lost Katie too soon. How about you make up for her loss, Palmer?”
Hearing his sister’s name on Sheer’s lips was too much. Alex would have launched himself at the monster, but Eli tackled him to the ground.
A good thing, because the wave of flame that licked over them missed them by inches.
“Shit. He’s a pyro, Alex.” Eli yanked Alex to his feet. “Come on. We’ll come back for him.” He shot in Sheer’s direction, but his bullets hit a wall of fire protecting Sheer from danger.
Who in their right mind would let a mutant out? And worse, who would letSheerout to bring the thing back in? That was like the insane leading the psychotic.
Sheer laughed and continued to shoot flames their way. In the distance, sirens sounded.
Alex pulled hard on Eli’s arm. “We can’t leave him to the police. He’ll kill them.”
“Damn it.” Eli swore some more. Then he turned to face Sheer again. In a low voice, he said, “Spread out. We’ll flank him. Don’t get burned.”
Alex nodded.
But to his surprised, Sheer had vanished.
Annoyed, Alex retraced Sheer’s steps. He leaned down to touch the body of the girl, right over the spot Sheer had touched. A trace of shared DNA between them, where Sheer had left traces of his saliva on the woman’s bloody stomach.
And hit the motherlode.
