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  I was also a bit worried that if I didn't find a way to back up a little first before attempting to unleash on Elliot, that when he grabbed my hands, which he surely would, in the resulting struggle, I might accidentally zap Sunny. I knew he'd been near my feet when Elliot and Brent had first appeared, but now as I took a quick glance around the building site, looking for him, he just wasn't anywhere, and I hadn't even noticed him run off. Though of course, I'd been a little preoccupied by first the sight of Elliot and Brent, and then by the things that Elliot was saying.

  Probably having seen me quickly glancing around, trying to spot Sunny, Elliot confirmed that he'd run off. "For a second, I thought about chasing him, but with him only being three-legged, I figure Brent and I will have carried you right out of Haverwood by the time Sunny even reaches the house. Then, once he does, alone, without you anywhere near, that will just give credence to the theory that I'm going to try to feed everyone, which is that you must have been abducted or harmed by some rogue red-eye who made it into the village."

  While Elliot had been speaking, I'd decided to take my chance and had taken a slow, controlled couple of steps backward, getting just out of him-grabbing-my-hands distance.

  However, he'd noticed, and he now lunged and grabbed my wrists just as I was lifting my palms to zap him. With a grip strong as steel, he directed my palms at the ground and held them there.

  "I wouldn't try that if I were you, Jayme. I'm much, much stronger than you are."

  Suddenly angry, nearly enraged even, I practically yelled my next words at him. "If you really believe that's true, then shift and fight me, you lying, two-faced prick. Fight me!"

  *

  With a smirk and an evil glint in his eyes, Elliot immediately released my wrists and shifted into his wolf form within the blink of an eye, the action of doing so knocking me back on my rear. Having a clue about what he might try to do, I'd been lifting one of my palms to give him a zap, but while I'd been falling, the current of electricity had went wide, shooting off toward the sky. Knowing I had just another blink of time to save my life, I fired off another zap at Elliot, who was in mid-air, clearly intending to pounce on me. Nearly at the same time that I fired my zap, I began rolling away, knowing that if the electricity connected with his body, he was going to drop right on top of me.

  It did, but he didn't. I'd rolled away with maybe a tenth of a second to spare. However, out of the corner of my eye, I now saw Brent approaching in wolf form, racing across the dirt at top speed. Not even on my feet yet, I levitated him with one palm, then zapped him with the other and let him fall. Just in time, I turned my focus back to Elliot, stunned to see him back on his feet already, sinking to a crouch, surely getting ready to try to pounce on me yet again. Whipping both my palms up, I gave him the same treatment I'd given Brent, levitating, zapping, and dropping him, horrified to see out of the corner of my eye that Brent was already back up again.

  "Shit."

  I knew that if I was going to survive, I needed to get a good deal of space between me and them. That way, I could at least somewhat hold them at bay while I worked on trying to wear them down enough to finally knock them out, then run for help. This was pretty close to what Dana, Sarah, and I had done in the woods, and it seemed to have been a pretty effective strategy, at least for the most part. I also had an idea that if I could just hold my two opponents at bay for just a few minutes, I might not even have to knock them out or run for help.

  Thinking back to the battle in the woods, I recalled how Dana had used her zaps partly as a way to send a signal into the air that help was needed. Considering that it was broad daylight now and not an extremely dark, nearly moonless night like it had been then, I wasn't sure if this strategy would work as well for me, but I knew I had to at least try as long as there was a chance that someone from the village would see my zaps against the clear blue sky.

  After zapping Brent several times repeatedly, I took a precious second to get to my feet before zapping Elliot again, scuttling backward and farther away from him while I did so. Unbelievably, though, this zap didn't drop him, hardly even slowed him actually. He was beginning to charge for me, quickly picking up speed. Zapping him again just in the nick of time, when he was maybe just three or four feet away from me, I finally dropped him, then immediately took advantage by levitating him, dropping him, and then doing the same thing yet again. However, just when I'd gotten Elliot to where I thought he was going to stay down, Brent got up again and began charging me, snarling.

  I didn't get a chance to fire a few zaps into the air for at least a solid minute. And even then, they didn't travel as far up as I'd thought they would. Sweating in the late-day sun, I realized that I might have to knock my opponents unconscious and run for another wolf to finish them off after all. If I couldn't get anyone in the village to see my zaps, I knew that help would almost certainly never come. No one even knew where I was.

  Periodically shooting a few zaps into the air, I continued fighting Elliot and Brent, both of whom seemed to possess more strength and stamina than average shifters, even the enchanted red-eyes. My luck. After several more minutes of fighting them, though, I did manage to put some real distance between us, getting far enough away that I had at least a couple of seconds to drop them whenever they tried to charge me.

  Soon, I was able to sense that my power was waning slightly, and I could feel my energy beginning to ebb at the same time. Wishing with everything in me that I hadn't expended so much power and energy at the marathon-long Gifted practice, I resolved that I was going to have to force myself to keep going, no matter what. I just couldn't let myself get tired. And as for my power, I was going to have to try to keep it flowing as long as I possibly could. The alternative was just falling in the dirt to die, and I was not about to do that. I had too much to live for, namely my family, Sunny, my new friends in Haverwood, and the whole new life that had come along with me becoming a Gifted, and not just any Gifted, but the leader of the Gifteds.

  Above all other things that I had to live for, though, one person in particular kept popping into my mind. Cameron. Feeling a bizarre flash of joy even while I continued to fight off Elliot and Brent, I realized that I loved Cameron, and he was innocent of all I'd suspected him of. And because of that, because he didn't have a dark heart like most of the wolves who joined the Angels, I had to believe that there was still hope for us. Whatever the reason that he'd said that he couldn't love me, maybe he could get past it somehow. Maybe he could at least try.

  I was also determined to survive the current fight just so I could apologize to him. Now, in hindsight, even the vague, split-second hindsight I was experiencing in the heat of the battle, I couldn't believe I'd been stupid enough to suspect Cameron and fall prey to Elliot. I felt like I should have seen through his act of trying to blame Cameron the night that the red-eyes had gotten past the northern guard. However, at the same time, a tiny part of me couldn't blame myself for not being more suspicious of him. He was a damned good actor, that much I now knew, even though there was nothing else good about him.

  Eventually, between zaps into the sky, I finally managed to drop Brent hard enough that it appeared that he was going to stay down. Now I just had to do the same to Elliot, though I knew that might be difficult. He was proving to have strength and stamina greater than any shifter I'd ever seen before. He was also unnaturally fast, too, sometimes moving so fast between zaps that his form became a gray blur. It was during one of these rapid advances that he managed to close the gap between us significantly, getting to within maybe twenty feet from him until I was able to drop him with another zap, which was kind of astounding, because my zaps were becoming so weak that I could hardly see them zipping through the late-day sunshine anymore.

  While Elliot dazedly shook off the zap, trying to rise to his feet yet again, I fired off another zap, becoming a little panicky.

  "Don't you dare try to come any closer, Elliot! I'm sure Cameron or someone else has seen my zaps into the sky b
y now, and I'm sure all of Haverwood is on their way to come and kill you right this second!"

  I could only hope.

  Rapidly losing power and energy now, I levitated Elliot, but maybe only a foot off the ground before being forced to drop him because my arm felt like it was filled with lead. Then, with my other hand, I fired off a zap, though maybe fired wasn't the exact right word. The electricity more like trickled from my palm not shooting out any farther than two feet, and even that, it did very slowly. And Elliot was back on his feet now. To my horror, I immediately saw that Brent was as well. It seemed they were both going to outlast me.

  In my rising panic, I thought about trying to make a run for the path and sprint back down to the village, but common sense told me that I'd never make it. I'd probably never even make it to the path. Elliot and Brent had kind of boxed me in at first, pushing me away from the path, so in order to reach it now, I'd have to go around them. And with Elliot's mind-bending speed, I knew that just wouldn't be possible.

  Same thing with trying to make a break for it by running down the access path. I knew they'd chase me down, tackling me from behind, before I even got within a hundred feet of it. In fact, possibly because it might have been hidden by machinery, I honestly wasn't even really sure where it was.

  Knowing I was out of options and not knowing what else to do, I began threatening Elliot again, trying to keep a panicky tremor out of my voice. "They're coming, Elliot...Cameron is, and everyone else, too. And if you touch a single hair on my head, I'm sure Cameron is going to make your death a lot more painful that it has to be. So, you choose. If you just let me go, maybe you'll even have time to run away and join your Angel friends before Cameron can catch up to you. Maybe if you just run away, he'll decide to let you live."

  My "threatening" was beginning to sound an awful lot like pleading to me, so I stopped, suddenly resolving to go down with as much dignity as possible, not that my pleading had seemed to be swaying Elliot anyway. He was now speeding toward me, as was Brent, two twin gray bringers of death.

  *

  Screaming reflexively, I braced myself for the inevitable violent double tackle that I was sure was coming; but above my screaming, I heard a sound that allowed the tiniest shred of hope to rise in my heart, even during my terror. It was the sound of wolves snarling, and not just Elliot and Brent, but dozens of wolves.

  Everything happened with a level of speed I could barely comprehend. Somewhere in front of me, maybe just a foot or two, there was some kind of a massive collision that instantly made me flick open my eyes. Nearly at my feet, a massive gray wolf that I was pretty sure was Cameron was rolling on the ground with the two wolves that I knew to be Elliot and Brent. Behind this scene, dozens of Haverwood wolves with Gifteds on their backs were flooding into the building site from the path and the woods on either side of it.

  Gasping with relief and joy, I scuttled backward, trying to get as far from the wild fray of Cameron, Elliot, and Brent as I could, as fast as I could. Blood and guts were already flying, some of it spraying me even as I moved away.

  Being that Elliot and Brent had already been weakened by my powers, and being that Cameron was probably the strongest shifter in Haverwood, the fight didn't last long. Dragging myself to the edge of the building site on my shaky, tired legs, I didn't even turn around to see it end. I just knew that it had when I heard a sickening sound something like the ripping of fabric, followed by an identical sound. I knew Cameron had ripped Elliot and Brent's heads off.

  For just a few seconds, I felt an ache in my chest, and I thought about Elliot's face when he smiled, green eyes twinkling. I thought about how he'd used to look at my own face and my body, with a sexy, devilish glint in his eyes, and how good he made me feel when he told me I was beautiful.

  However, as quickly as these thoughts had popped into my mind, they popped back out again, replaced by a feeling of disgust toward Elliot. That was all I ever planned on feeling for him ever again.

  I soon rode back to Haverwood on Cameron's back. He hadn't even needed to shift into human form and tell me to climb on; he'd just run up to me and had lovingly nuzzled my legs with his nose before tilting his head in a gesture that I just knew meant "climb on my back, and I'll take you home."

  Once in the backyard, probably sensing how weak and exhausted I'd become, Cameron shifted into his human form and promptly swept me off my feet and into his arms, then wordlessly carried me into the house through the back door, planting kisses along the side of my face as he did so. In the dining area, we were greeted by Sunny, who ran up to us, barking and wagging his tail, clearly overjoyed to see us, though maybe not as overjoyed as I was to see him.

  After I'd told Cameron to please set me down, he did, and I dropped to a crouch, welcoming Sunny into my open arms.

  "You sweet, sweet boy."

  "This sweet boy probably saved your life."

  Incredulous, I turned my focus from Sunny to Cameron. "He did?"

  Cameron nodded. "I'd just gotten home when I heard him barking at the back door. Wondering why he was outside and where you were, I went out to see what was going on, and he immediately began leading me down the path, barking so loudly and with such a funny tone that I just got a feeling...I'm really not sure what it was...like he was actually able to communicate with me or something...but I knew where you were and what was happening.

  "Maybe part of it was that I got proof today that Elliot was indeed working with the Angels, after suspecting him for quite a while...so maybe I just put two and two together and knew where you were and what was happening based on that, guessing that he might try to do something to harm you, for whatever reason. But at any rate, not knowing if he had Angel backup with him that he might have brought in through the access road, I called a few of my elite men for help and told them to speed toward the building site with any Gifteds who could be ready to go within a few seconds. Then, in the minute or so before the first pairs of Gifteds and shifters arrived, I ran Sunny back to the house, knowing that you wouldn't want him anywhere near a fight."

  "You thought absolutely right about that, Cameron."

  "Though now, after seeing just how close you were to being killed, I wish I hadn't taken that minute. I don't think I could have ever forgiven myself if-"

  "Cameron, stop. I would have never forgiven you if anything had happened to Sunny. And besides...you had to wait for backup in case Elliot had...in case he had some Angels...."

  Astonishingly, or maybe not, I was actually starting to fall asleep right then and there, still in a crouch with my arms around Sunny, eyes closing.

  After mumbling a few more words to Cameron without really even being sure what I was saying, he picked me up again and carried me into my bedroom. With the fight seeming to have depleted my energy on a level that it had never been depleted before, I was out like a light before he even set me down on the bed.

  When I awoke, it was dark, and I was in the strength and safety of Cameron's arms, the only place I wanted to be. However, after a few seconds, I realized I was going to have to extricate myself for just a short while, because my body was telling me that it wanted to make a trip to the bathroom.

  While in there, I saw that Cameron had removed my shorts and top and had replaced these articles of clothing with a soft cotton shorts-and-tank-top pajama set. I'd been sleeping so hard I hadn't stirred even once.

  When I returned to bed, he was awake, and he took me into his arms again, asking me how I was feeling.

  I said that I actually felt just fine, and it was true. "I could probably sleep for another twenty hours or so, but other than that, physically, I feel fine."

  In the dim light of the moon filtering in through the gauzy curtains, Cameron pressed a kiss against my forehead. "Good. Go back to sleep, then, and get started on that twenty hours."

  Seemingly of their own accord, my eyelids had started closing even before he'd finished speaking.

  It turned out that I didn't actually need as much sleep as I'
d thought. I awoke around seven the next morning, alone in bed, but with a note on Cameron's pillow, beside mine. Sleep as late as you want, sleeping beauty. I've already let Sunny out and fed him breakfast. I'll be back home as soon as I can.

  Not having had dinner the night before, I was starving, but I also felt incredibly grungy after not showering after Gifted practice and then the fight the day before. Figuring that my first priority should probably be to not allow any offensive body odor to remain on my skin, I took a shower, then dressed and headed down to the kitchen, where Sunny was sitting on the floor, forlornly staring at his food bowl, as if trying to get me to think that he hadn't yet been fed.

  Chuckling, I dropped to the floor beside him and began giving him some cuddles and love.

  "You poor boy...did Cameron forget to feed you?"

  Licking my face, Sunny whined, as if to say yes.

  I laughed again, scratching his back.

  "Well, I got a note from Cameron saying that he did feed you, though...and I can even see some crumbs in your bowl, silly."

  Glancing at the bowl, Sunny whined again, and it was only then that it hit me how much energy he must have spent the day before, hopping back up the half-mile long path at top speed on his three legs, just to try to get help for me after somehow having fairly instantly intuited that Elliot was no longer a friend of ours.

  With tears suddenly springing to my eyes, I told Sunny I was so sorry, giving him a squeeze. "You poor sweetheart...it didn't even cross my mind how many calories you probably burned yesterday and how hungry that must be making you feel this morning. And all just because you were such a good boy and helped save Mommy's life."