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Rachel reaches around me and grips Vanessa’s arm. “We need you and Spoon up on the stage,” she shouts over the noise.
“Fuck no,” I growl, breaking her grip on Vanessa. “Makes her too much of a target. You didn’t say anything about a speech.”
Rachel sighs, her shoulders heaving as if the weight of the world, or a very large wolf-shifter, are on them. “We didn’t know there would be a standing ovation, but it is customary for the lead actors to speak if they get one. The audience will expect it.”
“Not a fuck?—”
“Keenan, darling.” Vanessa pats my shoulder as she attempts to slip past me. “We agreed I get to make decisions about my career.”
I grip her, stopping her from leaving. “And we agreed, I make security decisions.”
She pouts, her green eyes luminescent as she pleads with me. “Please, Keenan. I want to talk to my fans.”
Damn it.
She knows she has me in the palm of her hand when she does that. “You get two minutes and I’ll be close.”
She grazes my neatly trimmed beard with her lips. “I knew you’d understand.”
“I don’t,” I grumble, but follow her as she and Spoon ascend to the stage.
I stand to the side as they lift their linked hands and wave at the screaming audience together. The noise is so loud, my ears ring in protest, and I shake my head, my hand going to the scar on the side of my head. Once I lost the ear, the interior canal became more sensitive.
I shake my head again, and just as some of the applause and screaming dies away, I pick up on something else. Shouting. Movement. I swivel my head from side to side, trying to figure out where it’s coming from, catching sight of a person running along the back of the theatre, a backpack held in their hands. In jeans, a hoodie, and a baseball cap, they don’t fit in with the elegantly dressed assemblage.
Someone hands Vanessa a microphone. “Thank you all so much for coming here tonight to watch our film. Please, let’s have a round of applause for the master who wrote the script and brought it to life, Zach Wesselman!”
The screams are deafening and the person I was tracking disappears into the crowd. I frantically search for them, before seeing several security officers heading into the crowd after them.
I’m relieved they have a bead on the person behaving strangely, but I need to get Vanessa off the stage and out of the theatre. I take two steps toward her when a sound triggers my sensitive hearing, setting off alarm bells in my head. It was the sound of a detonation.
“Bomb!” I shout, launching myself at Vanessa as an explosion tears through the theatre.
Chapter 34
War of the Worlds
VANESSA
One moment I’m waving at a room filled with cheering fans, the next I’m flung to the ground, Keenan landing on top of me. I stare up at him blankly. “What?”
BOOM! An earsplitting sound rips through the building.
Keenan wraps his arm around my head and tucks me into his body, protecting me as the world around us falls to pieces. I flinch as debris lands next to us.
Then we’re hit, Keenan taking the brunt as something heavy falls on top of him and darkness engulfs us. He doesn’t make a sound, tucking me closer into his body.
There’s screaming all around us, but it sounds tinny, like it’s coming from far away. My ears are ringing. I try to lift my hand, to touch my ear, but I’m trapped. I can’t move at all!
Panic starts to overwhelm me, but Keenan presses a kiss to my temple. “You’re okay, but we have to stay still.”
I nod against him, not liking the strain I hear in his voice. Was he injured? He’s hardier than any human I’ve met, but he can still get hurt. His missing ear is proof of that.
“Don’t worry about me,” his voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.
“What about everyone else?” I whisper.
The screams are growing louder, more people joining the cacophony of noise.
