Page 117 of My Undead Love Life

The leopard’s body convulsed above me.

A third shot rang out, and the animal collapsed fully, its weight crushing down on me so hard I couldn’t make a sound.

All I could hear was sharp, high-pitched ringing. It filled my skull until the warehouse disappeared beneath it, and the shouts around me became nothing but muffled pressure against the edges of my awareness.

All I felt was pressure. The crushing weight of the leopard on top of me. The hard floor beneath my spine. The splash of blood against my jacket and scarf.

I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t even tell if I was breathing. Then, the world slammed back in all at once.

“The last one’s gone!”

“Get it off her!”

“Spencer!”

The leopard’s body shifted above me, and pain sparked through my ribs as its dead weight dragged against every place it had pinned me down. Mad and Oxi hauled it away with Luck helping try to get the weight off, all three of them grunting from the effort. Their boots scraped across the floor. Claws caught briefly in my torn coat before ripping free with a sound that made my stomach lurch.

Then, it was off me. Cold air hit my face again.

I sucked in a sharp breath, but it caught wrong and turned into a violent cough that curled my whole body. My lungs burned, and my throat scraped raw.

“Easy.” Luck’s hands were there immediately, careful and shaking as he helped me sit upright. One palm braced behind my back while the other hovered near my ribs. “I’ve got you, slayer. I’ve got you.”

I tried to nod. The warehouse swayed around me, shadows stretching and warping in the dim light. My vision blurred, sharpened, then blurred again.

The office door hung half-broken behind him. A deep gouge split the wood where claws had torn through it. The desk we’d shoved in front of it had been knocked crooked. A smear of blood stretched across the floor beneath the door. Human blood. Too bright against the dusty concrete, and way too much of it. A piece of Jan’s blanket lay crumpled in the doorway, soaked dark at one edge.

I didn’t look inside. I couldn’t.

Frank and Jan had been breathing a few minutes ago. They had followed us through the storm, and Jan had apologized to Oxi about his mother. Frank had given us Olivia’s letter. Now, there was only their blood under the broken door.

“Were you bitten?” Oxi’s voice cracked.

The panic in it cut through the ringing. I turned toward him, or…tried to. His face swam in and out of focus, pale and terrified, his green eyes moving frantically over me.

Mad dropped to one knee in front of me, axe still slick in his hand, eyes wild. “Flare. Look at me.” His voice was calm in the way people sounded when calm was the only thing keeping them from falling apart. “Were you bitten?”

“I…” My voice didn’t work. My throat closed around the word. My ears were still ringing. My hands were still raised in front of me, fingers curled like I was still holding the leopard’s jaw back.

Mad’s gaze dropped to my torn coat. Oxi made a broken sound. Luck’s hand tightened behind my back.

The warehouse tilted.

The smell of blood was everywhere now. Not just infected leopard blood. Human blood, specifically Frank’s and Jan’s. Maybe mine. I didn’t know. I tried to breathe and answer, but I couldn’t even make my hands unclench from nothing.

Over Mad’s shoulder I saw him.

At first, he was only a shape at the top of the stairs. A man standing in the shadows with an M-4 still raised, chest rising and falling hard. Snow clung to his boots and the hem of his coat. His face was half-hidden in the dark, only the edge of his jaw and the line of his shoulders visible in the faint moonlight from the windows.

I couldn’t process it.

His hand shook as he lowered his rifle.

My heart stopped.

The old strip of red cloth was still tied around the stock of his gun. I had torn it from one of my shirts months ago because he said he needed something on the gun that reminded him of me.

My mouth opened, but nothing came out.