I turned to smile at him, relief and affection flooding through me, when something caught the corner of my eye. A flicker of movement, wrong somehow in its deliberateness. The third cop—the heavyset one who'd been wandering the aisles—strolled toward us. We were about to leave after all, so it made sense he'd rejoin his colleagues. But his steps seemed too measured, too purposeful, too focused. Then his face changed. The mask of bored professionalism slid away to revealsomething underneath, something cold and cruel, his eyes glittering with a malicious intent that turned my blood to ice.
I opened my mouth to shout a warning, to scream, to do something, anything, but before I could form the words, before the air could leave my lungs, he lifted his hand. Something dark and shiny gleamed in his grip—a gun, the barrel impossibly large from this angle, aimed at the back of Xabat's head.
The gunshot exploded through the room like a thunderclap. So loud it seemed to shatter the air itself. The report echoed off the walls and ceiling, reverberating in my chest until I couldn't tell if it was the gunshot or the cracking of my heart that made the terrible sound.
Xabat's eyes met mine. Wide with shock and confusion and something that looked like an apology. Then they glazed over, the light in them dimming like a candle being snuffed out. His knees buckled. His large body folded in on itself as he crumpled forward with terrible, inevitable slowness. The back of his shirt blossomed with red, the stain spreading across the fabric like a grotesque flower opening its petals. Dark and wet and growing larger with each passing second. Red, not green because of the cuddwisg. It seemed wrong somehow.
I screamed. Or at least I meant to. My mouth opened, my throat worked, but the agony building in my heart—the horror and terror and absolute devastation—didn't have time to escape. Before the scream could tear free, I felt a sharp prick in the back of my neck. Then a cold sensation that radiated outward. My vision blurred at the edges, darkness creeping in like ink spreading through water. My legs gave out beneath me.
Everything went black.
Chapter 13
Xabat
My head throbbed. Memories slugged through my brain like thick syrup, fragmented images that refused to coalesce into anything coherent.
Xytol.
The Storm.
Danger.
Harper!
Her image fought through the fog, beautiful and bright. The thought of her settled in my brain. The organ felt like it rattled violently in my skull, shaken until everything inside had come loose.
I opened my eyes to find my vision tinged with red and edged with creeping black at the periphery, like I was looking through a tunnel of human blood.
Harper? Where was Harper?
I opened my mouth to call her name, but nothing came except bile exploding from my lips as a brutal wave of nausea claimed me, my stomach heaving violently.
Grit alone pushed me to my hands and knees, the room swimming sickeningly around me.
The store.
Potato Chips.
Claiming my mate.
Where was she?
I managed to sit upright, my head swimming, fragmented memories attacking my senses in sharp, jagged pieces.
Something had happened. Something very wrong.
My hand trembled as my fingers found their way to the agonizing throb at the back of my head. The skin was torn, ragged edges of flesh that shouldn't be there. Blood soaked my hair, matting it into sticky clumps, and the back of my shirt clung to my skin, drenched and heavy with it.
I remembered the sound. Loud and violent, a sharp crack that had cut through everything, louder than the hurricane.
"Harper?" My voice came out raspy, barely a whisper, my throat raw and dry. Only silence answered, thick and suffocating.
I blinked my eyes, forcing them to focus. The red tinge thinned gradually, and the dim grey light sharpened into clarity. The shards of sunlight streaming through the boarded windows fell at different angles than before, telling me time had passed—too much time.
Harper.
I swayed, my equilibrium completely shattered and vomited again as the spinning in my head intensified into a vicious cyclone. Memories whirled through my consciousness with chaotic force, each one striking like debris in a windstorm.
