The sun had set by the time she arrived in front of Mike’s house. She sat in the darkened car, staring at the familiar front door. Kate absorbed the silence around her and pulled her legs against her chest. She’d thought she would want to go inside and walk through the crime scene, but as she sat there, she didn’t want to move out of the silence.
Her mind sifted through all of the conversations, jokes, arguments and encouragement she had shared with Mike. He was like a second father to her. He had believed in her when she didn’t even believe in herself. She didn’t want to think about her life without him. He was always the person she relied on to keep her grounded and now he was gone.
A shadow in her peripheral vision caught her attention. She focused on it and watched as two figures moved up the side of Mike’s house before disappearing around the back. Kate jumped out of her car and followed them while dialing her phone.
“Andy! Someone is breaking into Mike’s house I need back up. I’m going in.” She heard him say something, but disconnected the call before she rounded the back corner of the house. She didn’t hear the crashing of glass or the splintering of wood. If the visitors were inside, they either had a key or they picked the lock.
She found the back door open and pulled her gun. She listened intently for any noise as she moved silently through the house. She heard footsteps on the second floor. She crept through the kitchen and into the living room. She cleared the office and the main foyer before she headed toward the staircase. She rose to the first step and heard a key in the locked door behind her. She backed up, the doorknob twisted and there was nothing she could do. It opened and, whomever it was, stepped inside.
Melissa.
Kate saw her, grabbed her in a hug, covering her mouth. Melissa struggled for a moment and then recognized her assailant. Kate spoke with her eyes and Melissa nodded in recognition.
In the same moment, the crashing of furniture came from upstairs. Kate looked to Melissa. She reached down, pulled Melissa’s shoes off her feet and then grabbed her hand. She pulled her through the foyer to the back door. Kate reached for the handle when they both heard the thudding of heavy footsteps descending the stairs. Kate waited. The footfalls reached the bottom of the stairs.
Kate made her decision. She yanked open the door, pushing Melissa out and followed her. Kate heard the cursing of men behind then. She turned and saw the men raise their weapons. She pushed Melissa to the ground. Two shots fired and she pulled Melissa back to her feet. She led her around the corner of the house and stopped.
“Go! I’ll hold them off!”
Kate heard the crunching of approaching footsteps and knew she had to give Melissa time to get away. Where the hell is Andy? She took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the house, her gun raised. “Stop, FBI.”
The pursuant moved within a foot of her position. He smiled and raised his hands in surrender.
Kate hesitated, and remembered there were two. She turned. A booted leg hit her arm, knocking the gun out of her hand. She ducked and retaliated with a sweep of the legs, sending the unseen attacker careening to the ground.
She heard him grunt when he hit the ground and got to her feet. Kate regained her balance, but was punched hard in the chest. She fell. A spike of pain rushed up her back when she met the ground. His heat on top of her, she clawed at his face. She angled her feet in front of her and pushed him away. She saw the gun to her left and rolled toward it. A steel boot crushed her stomach.
Kate struggled and was unwillingly lifted off the ground. Her arms were pinned behind her back. She faced her opponent and saw the claw mark she’d left imprinted on his face. A wide triumphant smile spread across her face and his eyes blazed unbridled fury at her mocking. He threw his right fist into her jaw, his left into her abdomen. Unable to defend, the blows hit her hard and fast. Her head swam in pain. She tried to burn his face into her mind.
She fought against the strong arms of his partner. She sustained another blow to her stomach and heard a crash. She dropped to the ground. Two shots echoed in the darkness, followed by two thuds. She struggled to reclaim power over her lungs. After a moment of coughing, she managed to lift herself upright.
“Jesus, are you alright?”
She felt Andy’s arm around her waist, helping her to her feet. “I’m good.” He walked her across the yard toward the blazing of lights on the street. They reached one of the standard black SUV’s and she leaned against it. Her head ceased to spin and heard him call for a medic. “Melissa!”
“What?”
“Melissa Reynolds. She’s a friend of Mike’s. She arrived at the house in the middle—”
“Kate, slow down,” he put his hands on her arms. “We met her down the street. Mitchell is getting her statement. What the hell were you doing in there?”
“Nothing…I mean I wasn’t even inside until I saw them going around the back of the house,” she said, her head beginning to throb. “I was sitting in the car and saw them. That’s when I called you.”
“Nighton is going to be pissed.”
“Fuck Nighton, I just gave him two suspects in Mike’s murder,” she replied in between gasps of breath. “He’ll get over it.”
* * * *
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Happy Saturday, what have you been up to this week?
Here is a rundown of highlights for the week. I hope you find them useful in your life! My goal as a person and a writer are to always Pay-It-Forward, so please let me know how I can help you. YES, YOU!
Enjoy your weekend & this post! Amazing things to come!
~Amy
What am I Reading? - Life After This: 6 Heart Fire Stories To Pick You Up When Life Knocks You Down by Andrea Cadelli and Kate Michael Gibson ~ Designing Your Future Begins With Healing Your Past. How do you respond when life knocks you down? Are you merely going through the motions and calling it living? How do you bounce back and grow from difficult circumstances? In Life After This, storytelling coach Andrea Cadelli talks honestly and vulnerably about why our lives spiral out of control and how to get back in the driver's seat.
What am I Listening to? – Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron ~ Imagine knowing what the brain craves from every tale it encounters, what fuels the success of any great story, and what keeps readers transfixed. Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets--and it's a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper.
What Quote am I Pondering? – The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
What am I Researching? – Hidden civil war gold. Truth versus legend. Any thoughts or stories? Please share!
Yummy Meal of the Week – Homemade omelet with cheese, hash browns and bacon. Kudos to my eldest son! There is nothing like breakfast for dinner.
What did I Learn? – I think we should all read who moved my cheese? I learned, once again—maybe this time it will stick—I do not do well with change. My life, as of late, has been chalk full of change. While I can ignore it all I want, until I get re centered and settled my little princess (aka my subconscious mind) will do all she can to torpedo all efforts to move forward in an effort to protect me from the unknown. Can anyone relate?
What am I Watching? – Dear White People ~ on Netflix. Season’s one & two were very interesting. Season Three was a little scattered. Look for my upcoming review. Here are the details. - At a predominantly white Ivy League college, a group of black students navigate various forms of racial and other types of discrimination.
That is all for this week, my lovelies!
I hope you have an amazing week, and I will talk to you all next Saturday!
*BONUS Content ~
Have any thoughts on my week’s activity or want to make a recommendation? Drop me a line or a tweet. One lucky commenter will win a free Romine book of their choice! Never want to miss a blog post or a Saturday Seven? Join my mailing list, and I will be happy to send it straight to your inbox!
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On the Road: After a breakdown forces a shifter to make a pit stop, he realizes it’s a blessing in disguise when he scents his mate.
When Deacon Ferdmin learns his brother, Daevon, is transitioning into a new life, he decides it’s time to do the same. Plus, as a badger shifter, he’s tired of living in the city. Buying a motorcycle and heading cross-country to meet up with Daevon, Deacon enjoys the change of pace from his prior high-stakes job as a firefighter…until his motorcycle breaks down. There’s only a couple of mechanic shops in town, and the first one he goes to refuses to service his machine since he’s openly and obviously gay. As angry as it makes Deacon, when he walks into the second shop, he quickly turns grateful. He scents that somewhere within the depths of the dingy space is his mate. However, Deacon also realizes that approaching the man—Axel Spumoni—will take some finesse. Not only has Deacon already experienced discrimination, but he notices Axel is a burn victim. Can Deacon figure out a way to woo his reclusive, wary mate while dealing with the backwater town’s hostility?
Buy Now!
Excerpt ~
“We don’t serve your kind here.”
Deacon Ferdmin arched his left brow as he stared at the smirking man—James, according to the name written on his coveralls. “Excuse me?” At first, he thought James was referring to the fact that he was a badger shifter. Except, there was no way the human could know…right?
James curled his lip in a sneer as he swept his gaze over Deacon. “We ain’t helpin’ a faggot.”
Well, holy shit!
Deacon couldn’t remember the last time he’d been discriminated against for being gay. The fact that he swung that way was pretty damn blatant, too. Between the streaks of green that he’d dyed into his black hair, the studs and hoops in his ears, eyebrows, and lip, plus the pale-green and yellow plaid shirt he’d chosen to wear under his unzipped black leather jacket, it was an easy assumption.
Even all the guys at the firehouse he’d left behind when he’d resigned his position hadn’t given his sexuality a second thought in years. At least, they hadn’t acted as if they had anyway. They’d thrown him a going away party and wished him well. A few of them had said to keep in touch, and Deacon probably would for a few years. Then he would need to stop, since he would outlive all of them by centuries.
“Didn’t you hear me?” James crossed his arms over his chest. “You can leave.”
“I’d like to speak to the owner,” Deacon countered. As much as it galled him to trust the workmanship of his Triumph to a homophobic bastard, he needed his motorcycle fixed.
James sneered at him as he pointed at the store logo on the wall. “James’s Garage. I’m James.” He tapped the name on his chest. “I’m the owner, and I ain’t servicin’ the bike of a cocksucker. Get out.”
Damn. Was afraid of that.
Turning on his heel, Deacon left. He crossed to his motorcycle and leaned against it. Pulling out his phone, he opened his internet app and searched again.
When his motorcycle had quit and Deacon had coasted into town, he’d thought he’d been lucky to immediately spot the garage. Too bad he hadn’t known it was owned and operated by a backwoods homophobic hillbilly. He sure hoped there was another garage in this Podunk town.
Deacon read a second garage listing and hoped it wasn’t run by a homophobe, too. After making a mental note of the directions, he lifted it off the kickstand and began wheeling it down the street. At least with his shifter strength, pushing the motorcycle was easy.
As soon as Deacon had heard that his brother Daevon had chosen to resign as a college professor and approach a nomadic alpha to join his pack—or gang, as they called it—Deacon had decided he would do the same. He hadn’t had the opportunity to spend much time with his brother in over forty years. As a shifter, a paranormal living in a human world, he had to remake his identity every few decades.
The last time around, Deacon had headed to Chicago to be a firefighter, while Daevon had found a position in another city. Neither of them had had much free time. For the first time in a long time, Deacon had appreciated the changes in technology, but talking over a computer wasn’t the same as frolicking together in animal form.
Thinking about his brother, Deacon realized he would need to call the man and let him know he wasn’t going to make the rendezvous.
“As soon as I have something to tell him,” Deacon muttered as the sign for the second garage came into view. The place appeared old and dingy, but at least, there was a glowing open in the window.
Deacon left his Triumph in the parking lot and headed into the office. Seeing no one behind the counter of the dirty room, he grimaced. He could hear clanging and talking coming from an open door to the left of the counter, so he knew someone was there.
“Hurry up with that oil change, Axel,” a man ordered. “You were supposed to have that done this morning.”
“Yes, sir,” a deep voice responded softly.
Deacon knew that only his shifter hearing allowed him to make it out. The bass tones caused a warm flutter in his gut, and he almost hummed appreciatively. Having already been singled out for being gay stayed his reaction.
Instead, Deacon headed for the door and hollered, “Hello, the garage?”
“Yeah!” responded the first voice from deep in the bay behind an older Dodge pick-up.
Stopping in the doorway, Deacon swept his gaze over the area. He spotted movement in the back and waited. As he watched an overweight man in filthy coveralls lumbering toward him, he tried to breathe shallowly.
The scent of grease, oil, and other vehicle fluids hung heavy in the air. To his surprise, however, there was something else, too. He took a slow, deeper inhale, and heat and need began pooling in his gut.
Oh, damn! Do I seriously smell my mate in here?
With the way the heavyset man stared at him with narrowed eyes and a curled lip, Deacon prayed to whatever gods cared to listen that it wasn’t him. Great. Another homophobe. Doing his best to ignore it, Deacon dipped his chin in a nod of greeting.
“Hello, sir,” Deacon greeted. “I think the stator went out on my motorcycle. Can you take a look?”
The man looked Deacon up and down, his expression easy to read. “Axel, take care of this customer.” Then he turned and walked away.
Oooookay. At least he’s not my mate. His nasty BO just about knocked me outta my boots!
Which leaves Axel.
~
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