Squatch (Rolling Thunder MC Birmingham #4) - Candace Blevins

Chapter One

Kitty

I usually work until four in the morning on weekends, but things had been slow, so I’d left a little before three with Dementor’s blessing.

I’d come home and crashed, and then my inner cat woke me twenty minutes later — we both heard and smelled the humans in our lair. I looked at the gun on my side table, but I didn’t want to use it. I’d shot people during the riots, and it made a horrible, bloody mess. I slid jeans on and clipped the holster onto my belt though. Just in case. I’ll never be anyone’s victim again.

I’d been naked in bed, and now I had on jeans, a holster, and a gun. No panties. No bra. No shirt. I didn’t care, at the time. Wolves don’t usually care much about nudity because they spend time naked before and after their change. It’s a group activity for them. Not so much for tigers. We’re solitary. Or, we’re supposed to be. My family isn’t, but we still don’t all change at the same time.

It’s true I take my clothes off on stage for a living, but I’m still not comfortable running around naked when I’m not working. I didn’t even think about it on this night, though. I needed to get to the bad guys before they realized I was awake. I put the jeans on because I needed them to hold my holster and weapon, so I could shoot the bastards if it was my only option, but I was hoping to get rid of them without bloodshed. I didn’t want to have to replace the flooring and carpet to get the smell of blood out of my apartment.

The first room you walk into in my apartment is a giant living room/eating area, with a galley kitchen partially hidden by a wall. I stepped into the hidden portion of the kitchen, looked around, and grabbed my cast iron skillet. Blunt force trauma to the head should kill them without bloodshed. Right?

I peeked around the corner and saw two men. One was unplugging my gaming consoles and putting them into a little cloth wagon, the other had my big-screen TV off the wall. I waited for him to set it on the floor by the door before I acted — I didn’t want him to drop it. He propped it against the wall and turned towards my kitchen — probably to steal my microwave. This was the bigger of the two men, and since he was coming towards me, I figured he won the toss-up on who I hit first. I waited until he was close before I stepped into his view, leapt towards him, swung, and hit him so hard the cast iron skillet rang like a bell.

The asshole went down like a lead balloon, but I didn’t stop to check on him. I could see the other man reaching toward his waist, so I propelled myself to him and swung again. He had his gun out and was in the process of aiming when the skillet made contact with his skull. I’d hit him much harder and I was pretty sure I’d cracked or broken something important.

I stopped and listened. The asshole in the kitchen’s pulse was strong and racing, but the smaller man’s pulse was thready and weak. He’d also pissed himself. So much for not making a mess.

I have a box of disposable gloves in my bathroom because I have to dye my hair every time I change. I walked back there, put some on, went to my kitchen for garbage bags, and realized these assholes weren’t going to fit into a regular kitchen-sized bag. I grabbed two of them anyway, and put one under the pants-wetter’s butt to try to keep the piss from soaking even more into my carpet. His heartbeat told me he’d likely be dead in the next few minutes, so I went to the other man. I didn’t think he’d wake up anytime soon, but I also wasn’t sure he was going to die from the head wound. I put the other garbage bag over his head and down around his arms. The bag inflated and deflated a little as he breathed. Too much air was moving for it to asphyxiate him. I grabbed a third bag out of the box and used it as a rope around his throat.

He started thrashing around, trying to breathe, and I worried he was waking up. I grabbed the skillet and hit him