He and Max climbed the stairs, covering each other as they moved higher. Like Brooks said, no one had seen a gun on this guy, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one. If the guy was so inclined, a stairwell like this was the perfect place to ambush some cops. But the blood droplets—and the man’s scent that accompanied them—kept leading straight up the stairs without any indication that the guy had even hesitated at the second- or third-floor landing.
“Where the hell was this guy going?” Max whispered.
Alex shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
When the trail led straight past the fourth floor, then the fifth, Alex wondered if maybe he and Max had missed something, but then he saw the bloody smear on the railing leading up to the roof.
“The guy’s on the roof,” Alex said into the mic. “Looks like he headed straight there the moment he entered the building. Anyone have a visual on him from down there?”
“Negative,” Brooks’s voice came back a moment later.
The door to the roof was wide open, blood smeared all over the inside of it. A quick peek outside revealed a gravel-covered roof and a knee-high wall that was probably there to keep people from accidently falling off the five-story building. No sign of the guy, though. Maybe he’d passed out. If all the blood they saw was his, that was a distinct possibility.
He and Max stepped onto the roof and cautiously made their way around the side of the stairway enclosure, only to stop in their tracks. The man was standing on the far side of the roof. White with dark, shaggy hair and a light scruff along his jaw, he couldn’t have been any more than twenty-five. He was wearing a pair of plaid golf shorts and nothing else, and he was bleeding from dozens of cuts along his chest, stomach, arms, and legs.
As Alex watched, the man stabbed the tip of his long kitchen knife into the muscle of his upper forearm, slowly cutting upward until he’d opened a serious gash two inches long. Then he poked his fingers into the wound and dug around like he was looking for something.
Max stepped back a few feet, whispering into his mic as Alex slowly walked toward the man. The crunch of his boots on the gravel distracted the man from what he was doing, and he jerked his head up to stare at Alex with unfocused eyes. Muttering something unintelligible, he lunged with the knife, slashing it back and forth through the air. Clearly, he didn’t want Alex coming any closer.
Alex released his M4, letting it hang from the strap as he held up his hands. “It’s okay, buddy. I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to help. Can you put down the knife?”
The man cocked his head to one side, reminding Alex of a confused animal. Alex wasn’t sure if he was on drugs or had mental issues, but he was leaning toward the former.
“Drop the knife, guy. We can deal with this.”
Alex tried to make his voice as soft and soothing as he could, and for a moment, it seemed to work. The man’s eyes cleared a little, and his arm started coming down. But then his gaze darted to the air over Alex’s head, and a look of pure terror came into his eyes. He viciously sliced at the air in front of him with the knife, then flailed at himself, uncaring that he was gashing his arm.
Shit, if Alex didn’t do something soon, this guy was going to slash his own throat.
The moment Alex lunged, the man threw the knife at him. Alex ducked under the spinning blade, closing the distance between them. Eyes wide, the guy turned and ran toward the edge of the roof.
Double shit. The kid was going to throw himself off the building.
Alex surged forward as hard as he could, almost losing his footing on the loose gravel of the rooftop. Behind him, he heard Max racing after them, but his teammate was too far away. If he didn’t stop the kid from jumping, the guy was dead.
Growling, Alex pushed harder, feeling his fangs and claws coming out as his body shifted automatically in response to the urgency of the situation. Letting the terrified kid see him like this was obviously a bad idea, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it, so he simply gave in to his inner wolf and accepted all the help he could get.
The kid went over the knee-high wall at the edge of the roof, his arms flailing and his hands slapping at things only he could see. He didn’t even seem to realize he was about to fall to his death.
Alex leaped through the air, grabbing the guy’s bloody forearm before he completely disappeared from view. The kid’s momentum pulled Alex forward, and he fell, slamming chest first into the low wall, his head and shoulders hanging over the five-story drop. Alex barely got a grip on the edge before he went completely over. Below him, Brooks, the cops, and the older security guard stared up as the insane scene played out. He only prayed he was too far away for any of them to see his fangs and claws.
Max grabbed Alex by the belt, keeping him from being dragged over by the kid’s weight. “I got you,” he said. “Get a good grip on him, and I’ll drag both of you up.”
The kid didn’t make it easy on them. He flailed around like mad, grunting and hollering, slapping and clawing at Alex’s hand like he was fighting to get away from a monster. As much as Alex hated to do it, he dug his claws into the man’s wrist. It was either that or let him fall. Whatever demons had sent him jumping off the roof were apparently still there, and the kid was doing anything he could to get away from them.
He was much stronger than any normal person had a right to be, and it took Alex and Max working together to keep him under control after they finally got him back on the roof.
“Drugs?” Max asked as they carried him down the steps.
Alex jerked his hand back to keep the kid from biting it. “Probably.”
“You think it’s fireball?”
Alex hoped not. He’d been so sure they’d gotten that crap off the street, but his instincts were telling him they hadn’t. “Maybe.”
That hope got dashed when they finally got downstairs and Brooks told them to hook up with Remy at a dorm on the far side of the campus after the paramedics sedated the kid and loaded him into an ambulance.
“I have to finish up with campus security and school officials, but you shouldn’t have a problem finding Remy,” Brooks added. “Just look for the dorm with the ambulances in front of it. You can’t miss them.”
