Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Jonah

Well, damn it, I'm a weak son of a bitch.

That's an interesting thought to think while I'm tearing a large piece of plywood off a wall so I can more easily break through the framing to get to the room next door and, unless Melissa at 911 screwed up, right to where the teenage babysitter is stuck with the two kids she's watching. I'm confident. Melissa doesn't screw up. My guess is she's already gone through the city database for the original plans for this house. Thank Heavens the records are all digitized now.

Poor little girl. She's fifteen years old. She shows up here to do her regular babysitting gig and then an old woman's brakes go out, sending her straight into the front yard. That would have just been a matter for insurance except for the propane tank on the barbecue being punctured and then sparks lighting the gas. There wasn't an explosion. Instead, the house lit up like a torch. She was in the playroom with the kids when she called 911 and lucked out getting Melissa as her operator.

And I should be through the garage wall and to her any second now. My hands are burning. Literally. I have gloves on but there will be second-degree burns. No problem, really. As soon as I shift, they'll be healed. A very severe injury might take two shifts but ultimately, it's hard to do lasting damage to a shifter, really. We die from old age or violence, not from wounds that just don't heal.

"Parker. Turn, now." One of my brothers is pissed that I'm on fire and ignoring it. I turn and my hands are engulfed by the spray of a fire extinguisher. It's Tony. He's a Jaguar shifter. Good guy. Water sprays behind me. "Fucking wolf," Tony says. Reckless guys like me, pretty much all wolves, irritate Jaguars. They're far more… Well, whatever the opposite of reckless is. "You could have waited a minute and you'd still get in there at the same time with the fire out."

"Thanks," I say and turn to the plywood again. He's right, of course. It's a hell of a lot easier to get it all off the wall in one fell swoop with the fire off. I punch a hole in the drywall beyond it. "Jessica, are you in there?" I shout.

"Yes! Yes! We're on the floor because of the smoke! No, Peter, stay down. You two, Tanya. The nice fireman is going to come here to help us. Can you show him how good you are at staying down?"

"Good girl," I say. "You just stay low like that. We'll be there in a little bit and we're gonna get you guys out of here."

"Is she okay?"Jessica asks.

"Is who okay?"

"The operator said a woman crashed into the house. Is she okay?"

"She's fine, Jessica," I say. The woman is fine but she ought to sue the hell out of the shop that just fixed her brakes. Poor woman is alert and on top of things but she'll have to deal with people thinking the accident happened just because she's old. "Jessica, you just keep those kids calm and close to the floor for me, okay?"

"Yes, Sir," she says. I can hear in her voice that she's absolutely terrified.

"One last thing," I say. I push my hand through the hole. "Are you guys close to right here? I'm going to break down the wall. Are you close enough that I should worry about the wall falling on you?"

"No," she says. "No, We're far away. Can you… can you…" She's so polite she doesn't want to ask me to hurry. "Please be careful not to hurt yourself," she finishes. That's not at all what she wanted to say. I bet her father is a cop or a fireman. She's worried about being one of the demanding clients.

"Your father a fireman, Jessica?"

"My mom," she says. Well, duh. I shouldn't assume, right?

"Okay. We're gonna be right there. Just hang tight. We're going to hurry, okay?"

"Yes, Sir! Thank you!" she says. It's like an entirely different Jessica is speaking to me now. It feels good to reassure her.

It'll feel better to get her the hell away from danger, though.

Time is slowing and my focus becomes like a laser at this point. All my senses are trained for the next few minutes. I try to make each blow count and I ready the team with just the briefest of communications. Everyone is ready.

And then it happens, the part where everything speeds up again and seems to be happening at once. The wall goes down and we rush in. I see Jessica and the two kids on the floor under the window by the far wall. The room is far worse than we thought. She had five more minutes at most. We each take one of the kids and hurry back out the way we came, holding them close as we rush out into the safety of the wide-open outdoors.

I have Jessica, and I set her down by the waiting ambulance. "You did great in there. Your mom will be so proud of you."

She gives me a small smile. "She probably is going to tell me no more babysitting."

"Well, that would definitely be a mistake." I see that things are about to get hectic as two people, seemingly the parents, come rushing over. I decide it's a good time to bow out. "Take care, Jessica."

She nods but she's already distracted with the two kids and then, the parents as they hurry over and pull her into a hug. Jessica is shaking but still trying to be such a trooper for the little ones. The EMTs are taking over, taking vitals and getting them ready for transport to the hospital for thorough checks. They all seem okay, but you can never take chances.

That thought stays with me. Who wants to take chances? Of course, Mara is at the forefront of my thoughts suddenly. I feel that recklessness hit me hard. I don't know what to do about any of that. How can it be that I can be so clear-headed in a situation like this and so muddled over a girl?

Well, first, because she's not a girl, you dumbass. And second, she's absolutely amazing and do you really want to fuck things up for her a second time?

"Hey, the scene is cleared Jonah. We're done. Company 22 has their engine here and they're going to handle extinguishing. So, we're heading back."We're only at this house because we were picking up groceries at a big box store Garrett, a gorilla shifter, likes. We're not in our territory but Mellissa arranged for us to help with the lifesaving before Company 22 would arrive with an engine.

I look at Tony. "I'm going to take the scenic route back to the station."

He just nods. "I get you. Just remember it's you doing the reports when you finally do get to the station."

I smile and wave him off. Tony knows exactly what I'm planning on doing. I'm going wild.

All this means in the shifter world is that we're going to be spending some time in our animal form. It's how we relieve stress and give our minds a moment to work things out. And right now, I have a lot to work out.

Mara is just too young, still. I am excited about her in one instance and angry at myself in the next. My walking gets faster. The frustration of having her as a puzzle in my life again is just as overwhelming as it ever was when we were first together. I just can't reconcile the difference in our ages and well, the other elemental differences between us could be an issue, and fuck it.

Fuck it all!

I start running and the moment I have the space and the privacy to do so, I shift. It feels amazing to shed the human restrictions and feel the freedom of my wolf form. And all I want to do is run. The power of it drives thoughts of Mara away from a state of panic to just simple thoughts.

It's simple. I want her.

I howl and run faster.

It's not that simple because damn it.

I want her.