Waking Hearts (36 page)

“Where’s the other guy?”

“Chepe? He freaked, man. Never saw him again. He started spouting off to Ashford about how there was creepy shit out there. How that wasn’t just a bear. Said he’d heard rumors… I didn’t believe him, you know?”

The look on Adrian’s face told Ollie that the guard was starting to believe all sorts of things now.

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket, but he ignored it. There was no noise from outside and no one ever came out to this old service station. It had been abandoned when his father had been a boy.

“Who wants the money back, Adrian? Is it Lobo, or is it Ashford?”

Adrian was almost crying. “I don’t know, man. I’ve never even met Lobo. I thought I was doing a job for the Di Stefanos, but when I got to the club where I was supposed to meet one of their boys, Ashford was there. He had a better offer. That’s all I know. That’s all I
want
to know.”

His phone buzzed again, but Ollie ignored it. He was starting to wonder who was really the brains behind this new crew. Lobo was a mythical bogeyman, and so far, Simon Ashford seemed like the more dangerous player. He was also the kind who would have pegged Joe Russell as a desperate man from a mile away.

Adrian’s shoulders were slumped. His head hung, and Ollie could see the sweat lining the man’s once-pristine collar.

His phone pinged with a text. Ollie finally grabbed it.

Three from Allie.

Shit.

Answer your phone.

Please pick up.

I don’t think Lobo’s a nickname.

Just as he read the last, a car door slammed outside the building and Ollie heard Alex start to curse.

“Oh hell no!” Adrian yelled, starting to pull on his wrists, which were zip-tied to the chair. “Let me go!”

Alex shouted, “Ollie!”

He strode out of the crumbling building, leaving Adrian tied to the chair. “What’s going on?”

Alex was raging. “He fucking shifted.”

“What?”

“He shifted in front of me!”

How?

Who?

A million questions shot into his mind, but Ollie’s eyes swung around the barren parking lot. “What is he?”

“A damn snake. He slipped under the floorboards of your old wreck. I have no idea where he is. Just a pile of clothes in the back of the Bronco.”

As soon as Alex said snake, Ollie ran for the door.

It was too late. Adrian’s leg was a mass of blood and torn fabric.

Ollie couldn’t see a snake anywhere, but Adrian was shaking and yelling, “I told you! I told you!”

A sheen of sweat bloomed on the man’s forehead. He was panicking, and Ollie knew he’d been bitten. The poison was now surging through his bloodstream.

“Adrian, you need to calm down,” Ollie said. “We’ll get you some help. Alex!”

“I’m dead. I knew it. I’m so dead.”

“Deep breaths, man.”

They were half an hour from the nearest hospital, but even snake shifter bites, far more toxic than a wild snake, were rarely deadly unless they went untreated. The safest course would be to take him to Ted, who was rarely short of antivenin and could be discreet, but could they wait an hour and a half? His leg was bleeding profusely, almost as if the snake had bitten then torn the skin.

“Please,” Adrian begged. “Please, don’t let me die.”

Alex stood in the doorway. “He doesn’t look good. I’ll call Ted.”

Ollie took out his knife, and the human flinched. He bent over the man and swiftly cut the plastic strips that tied him to the chair. He cut away the pant leg from around the bites and winced.

There were four deep bites going up his leg. The shifter had aimed for the softer flesh on the interior of Adrian’s legs. Luckily, the young man was muscular enough that the fangs could only go so deep. The amount of swelling around the bites told Ollie the snake had still managed to push a sizable amount of venom into the young man’s system.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna move you, Adrian.”

“Don’t leave me. Please, don’t—”

“We’re not leaving you.” He and Alex might have been fine with interrogating the man—even roughing him up if he didn’t cooperate—but they weren’t monsters. “We’ll get you to a doctor.”

“Can you call my mom?”

Christ, how old was this kid? Ollie had thought he was in his late twenties, but the look on his face put him closer to a teenager. Despite his misgivings, Ollie felt his protective nature rise.

“I’m going to pick you up, and it’s gonna hurt like a bitch. Try not to pass out.”

Adrian nodded, his face already pale and sweating. Ollie decided they couldn’t afford to wait for Ted. He lifted Adrian up and carried him toward the Bronco.

Alex lifted the window and dropped the tailgate of the truck. “Ted said if he’s already sweating to get him to the hospital.”

“Got it.”

Adrian started to shiver.

“What kind of snake was it, Alex?”

“I couldn’t see. I just saw Ashford’s clothes.”

Adrian started babbling in Spanish. Ollie wasn’t fluent enough to understand him, but Alex was. He got in the back seat, leaning over the bench and speaking to the man who lay in the back while Ollie started the truck.

“He’s saying something about Ashford.”

“What?”

A longer stream of Spanish.

“Shit,” Alex said. “I think this kid was there when they killed Joe.”

Did you kill Joe Russell?

No.

But he’d never said he hadn’t been there.

“Find out what he knows before he passes out!”

Ollie didn’t want the kid to die, but he still wasn’t his best friend. Alex hammered Adrian with questions, and the kid practically wept when he answered.

“I’m pretty sure Ashford killed Joe. Lobo wasn’t even there.” A pause while Adrian spoke. Then Alex continued, “He didn’t tell them anything. Not even where he was from. They didn’t know he was from the Springs until the papers reported it. That’s when they searched Allie’s house.”

More panicked words from Adrian. Softer questions from Alex.

“He says that Joe was laughing at Ashford. Said he’d never find the money, even when Ashford threatened his family. He said… I think Joe said something about a hotel?”

Adrian’s words were more slurred. His tongue sounded like it was swelling.

“Joe laughed at Ashford and said the hotel would take care of his kids. They tore up any hotel room they could find that Joe had stayed in, but there wasn’t any money. Then Ashford saw the report of the body and he sent Adrian and… some guy named Chepe to search Joe’s old house.” Alex growled low in his throat. “They’ve been watching. Waiting for a chance to grab Allie, but they couldn’t get her. Ollie, I think he’s losing it.”

Ollie heard thumping in the back.

“He’s having a seizure!”

Ollie said, “This cannot be diamondback venom.”

“What the fuck does that guy shift to?”

“I don’t know!” Ollie slammed his foot to the floor and the old truck roared forward. “Get in back and make sure he doesn’t crack his head open.”

Alex crawled into the back, but by the time he was kneeling next to the seizing human, the man had gone still.

“He’s not breathing,” Alex yelled.

“Try CPR.” Ollie kept driving.

He pulled up in front of the big glass doors, put the truck in park, and jumped out, lifting the window and slamming the tailgate down to grab the barely breathing human.
 

He ran Adrian into the emergency room and yelled, “Snake bite! He’s not breathing!”

A guard, an orderly, and two nurses ran to him. The orderly pushed over a bed and strapped Adrian in just as he started seizing again. The guard pulled Ollie away while the nurses started shouting in medical jargon he couldn’t decipher.

The guard was asking him questions, but he kept watching Adrian’s bed until it disappeared from view.

“He asked me to call his mom,” Ollie muttered, turning to the guard. “I didn’t get her name.”

“What happened?”

“We… found him. Driving out toward the Salton Sea. I think there were four bites on his leg. My friend and I could tell it was bad, so we brought him here.”

Alex was pacing in the waiting area, speaking low into his phone.

“Your friend there know the kid?”

Ollie shook his head. “Neither of us did. Alex is probably on the phone with his wife. She’s a doctor.”

“Oh yeah?” The guard was suddenly friendlier.

“Yeah. Ted Vasquez? I think she’s here sometimes.”

“I know Doctor Ted!” The guard’s suspicious frown was suddenly gone. “That’s her husband, huh? Never met the guy before. Sorry about that.”

“Right.” Ollie let out a small sigh of relief. “I, uh… better go move my truck.”

“Sure thing.” The guard nodded toward the door. “I’ll see what I can find out about that guy. Maybe he had a wallet on him or something.”

Ollie nodded and went to move the car. The police would want to question them; better to get it out of the way so he could get home. Ollie suspected Adrian wouldn’t be giving his side anytime soon.

Or ever.

Two hours later, a solemn nurse broke the news that the young man they’d tried to help had died from multiple bites from an unknown snake. None of the antivenin had had any effect.

Ollie and Alex exchanged grim looks in the waiting room. Then he pulled out his phone and texted Allie.

Keep the kids in the house. This just got a whole lot worse.

Chapter Twenty-Three

ALLIE LAY ON THE BED, Ollie’s shirtless body draped over hers, his head resting in the crook of her neck and his arm wrapped around her waist. He’d stumbled home around one in the morning, obviously exhausted. Allie hadn’t protested when he crawled into bed with her and passed out. She couldn’t. He looked too tired and worried to send away.

She knew most of the story from his texts the night before. The young man who’d broken into her house was dead. His partner had disappeared. And Ollie had discovered, as she had the day before, that they weren’t the only shifters in the desert anymore.

A snake. A vicious one. Allie had trouble sleeping, imagining her babies alone in their beds. Snakes could get anywhere. They were silent and often very hard to detect, even for someone with senses as keen as hers. She’d smelled the wolves Alex had sent to patrol the property, along with the comforting scent of familiar bears.

She wasn’t going to protest. Not with her children sleeping in the house.

Ollie rumbled and nuzzled closer until she wrapped her arm around his shoulder and held him tighter. She heard a tap at the door and glanced down. She couldn’t bring herself to feel any embarrassment at having him close.

“Come in,” she said quietly.

Kevin poked his head through the door. “Hey.”

“Hey, baby. I’ll be up in a minute. Ollie got in really late.”

He walked into her room, his perceptive eyes taking in Ollie’s sleeping form. She saw no judgment or embarrassment from him, either. Her oldest son had a hint of a smile.

“You and Ollie, huh?”

Allie smiled. “Yeah.”

Kevin shuffled his feet. “He makes you happy.”

“He always has.”

Kevin nodded. “I know. It’s good.”

Ollie let out a light snore but made no move to wake.

“I think,” Allie whispered, “it’s always been him, Kev. And it’s always going to be him. Is that okay?”

“Course it is.” A slight blush covered his cheeks. “He was always there for all of us. Even before.”

Oh, her wise boy. Kevin had the whip-thin build of his father but the big heart of the man she held in her arms. She could see that now. See how Ollie had always been there. Always been the calm, steady rock they’d all depended on, even before she knew how deeply he cared.

“He loves you guys.”

“Yeah, well…” Kevin shrugged, and she could see the shine in his eyes. “The feeling’s mutual.”

Changing the subject before she burst into tears, she asked, “Your brothers and sister up?”

“Mostly. Mark’s dragging a little and Loralie’s playing instead of getting dressed.”

“Give me five minutes, all right? I’ll be up in just a bit.”

“Okay. You want me to start making breakfast?”

She nodded. “You’re the best.”

His smile turned into a cocky grin. “I know.”

Allie laughed softly when he slipped out of the room. She brushed Ollie’s thick hair back from his forehead and rubbed the stubble at the edge of his beard. He murmured something she couldn’t understand, and his hand slid up to her breast.

“Okay,” she said, moving it back down. “Time for me to get up, big guy. Save that thought for later.”

“Later,” he muttered.

Allie kissed his forehead and managed to untangle herself from his grip. Ollie rolled over, stuffed his face in her pillow, and let out another snore. His back rose in a deep breath as he fell back into sleep. She looked at him, traced a finger over the line of his shoulder, following a line of ink that led down his spine. Then she traced the words she’d been thinking on the small of his back.