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“Nice try, but I’m not stupid, Jo. I never was. No. We’re going to wait right here for your man and then the real fun will begin.”
Jo was quiet again, trying to think. How could she get past him, get out of the house, and where would she go? He had a gun. She couldn’t endanger Sarah, her elderly neighbor. She glanced toward the fireplace and spotted the poker resting in one corner while he poured himself another drink. Though the unit was gas, the old poker had remained. If she could grab it, she could get to him.
“Jo? Do you know your front door is open?” she heard King call out.
No, she couldn’t let Carter get to him. She lunged for the poker and swung it at Carter. He dodged her, and it went into the wall just as King rounded the corner. The sound was deafening as he pulled the trigger. She saw King go down and screamed.
“Fuck!” Carter shouted. “Now, you’ve gone and ruined my plans. He’s fucking dead.”
Jo’s breath hung in her throat as she saw the blood pouring from a wound somewhere near his chest. It was impossible to tell from here whether he was dead or just unconscious.
“Well, never mind. I guess we’ll just have to get on with things without an audience.”
Jo bolted from the room, running down the hallway and out the front door. She heard him running behind her and then the discharge of the gun, but she wasn’t hit. She ran in the direction away from Sarah’s house, toward the park and he gave chase, taking another shot at her and missing.
She had the advantage, ducking into a small alcove that wasn’t readily visible and holding her breath. She heard his footsteps pass by and then return. He was breathing heavily as he paused within inches from her and then he was reaching in, grabbing her by the hair on her head and dragging her back inside the house.
“That was fucking stupid, you bitch,” he told her, throwing her on the floor just outside the den.
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement, but dared not look that way. Instead, she lunged forward toward Carter, trying to get him away from the den so he couldn’t see that King was still alive. He was in no condition to defend himself. Hopefully, she could at least buy him some time. Worst case scenario, Carter would finish her off and run away, giving King a chance.
He began to walk toward her as she contemplated just how best to hit him with her small frame to upset his balance. She decided to just make a play for his ankles, bring him down from the bottom. He raised the gun and she pounced, knocking him forward so that he tumbled over her and the gun went spiraling out of his hands, scattering along the floor behind them. She turned to see him getting up, moving toward it and then there was nothing but a large blur as the enormous wolf she recognized as King jumped him from the den.
“What the fu-?” Carter managed before finding himself pinned to the floor beneath the beast.
He tried to fight it, somehow managing to get a knife from his pocket. Jo screamed, and King reacted quickly, clamping down on his neck and snapping it. Jo felt sick at the sound of it. Everything went black.
When she awoke, she was looking up at Hank Timmons and King. She had been moved to the sofa in the front room, away from the scene and sound of forensics people discussing the particulars of the incident.
“There’s our girl,” Hank chirped. “Good to have you back.”
Jo glanced toward King, there wasn’t a mark on him. Her whole body felt bruised though and her face hurt from where he had held her against the wall.
“Is he?” she said.
“Yes. Afraid so,” Hank said. “King here has already given me a statement. He says that he came in and found Carter attacking you. Carter pulled a gun and you knocked it free, but then he pulled a knife and King was forced to defend you. That sound about right?”
Jo nodded, other than the part about King shifting into wolf form and getting shot, it seemed pretty accurate.
“I’m going to need you both to give a full statement later down at the station, but it looks like self-defense. This should be the end of it.”
Jo thanked him. It would be hours before they finished and left, but King kept her away from the fray and comforted her, outside, while they did what they needed to do. Once they were cleared to leave, he insisted she go back home with him.
“You can’t stay here,” he told her.
Jo waited while he gathered a few things from her room for her and then they took her car to his cabin. He called one of the club members to retrieve his bike from her house while she got settled into his bed again. She couldn’t help but think she should have stayed here this morning and none of this would have happened, but there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t have happened tomorrow or the next day. Carter was off his hinges, he would have only waited for them and it might have been worse somehow.
