him and said, “Yeah. If it wasn’t for the Legion of Doom over there tag-teaming the entire prison, we would have been locked away, picked apart, and cut to pieces.”
“He’s right,” Frank said. “Nobody knew we were there, and Waylon was after something important enough for him to kill to get it.”
Another wave of gunfire erupted from the police encroaching on the prison. Randolph rolled to his feet and shifted into his four-legged form to charge the armed men who had tried to flank him. With bullets thumping uselessly into his fur, he scattered the humans, lowered his head and came back around to drive it into Esteban’s stomach. Having flipped the other Full Blood into the air, Randolph shifted into his upright form to catch Esteban by two clumps of fur and fling him away. The werewolf clawed at empty air while snarling ferociously, but was unable to do much more than that before slamming into the side of the building with enough force to go through the outer wall. Randolph turned to face the cops then, warned them back with a primal, territorial roar, and leapt through the hole in the side of the prison to pursue his prey.
“We need to get moving,” Cole said. “There won’t be any better time than this.”
Lambert couldn’t nod fast enough as he jogged toward the top of the rise so he could put more distance between himself and the raging battle.
Frank, on the other hand, wasn’t so eager. “You’re just going to leave?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Cole replied. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do after successfully breaking out of prison?”
“You’re a Skinner, aren’t you? If Skinners are good for anything, it’s hunting things like them,” he said while pointing a leathery hand at the howling Full Bloods. “Now you just want to leave?”
Cole stepped up so he was toe-to-toe with the Squam. Even though he had to look up into Frank’s yellow eyes, he glared at him as though doing so from higher ground. Normally, he was on the receiving end of stares like that, and when he saw the hesitation in Frank’s eyes, he realized why Paige used the tactic so often. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t exactly a normal day of monster hunting. They’re hunting us, and so far they’re winning. Even if we did run back there to try and take on a pair of Full Bloods using nothing but a few crappily prepared sticks and foul language,” he added while holding up the confiscated club, “those cops would shoot us and toss us back into a cell before we had a chance to get torn apart. Either way, we wouldn’t be able to do much more hunting, and those Full Bloods would still be able to do whatever the hell they want!”
“They’re doing that already,” Lambert said, pausing to look back at them. “Let’s just get to steppin’!”
“You want us to do something, Frank?” Cole asked without budging. “Then tell me what I should do.”
The Squam’s mouth remained closed so tightly it resembled a line scribbled across his face with a pencil.
“No?” Cole challenged. “Anything you want to do?”
Although the muscles in his face jumped beneath the scales embedded in his skin, Frank shook his head.
“Didn’t think so. We’re getting the hell away from here. You’re welcome to try your luck on your own, but if you want to come along, then spare me the speeches.” With that, Cole turned his back on Frank and the ruined prison so he could join Lambert as he headed for what looked to be a distant access road. A few cars raced by, but the drivers were too preoccupied with the werewolves tearing through a small army to notice a few figures making their way through the trees.
They ran for a mile, heading west through a patch of rocky terrain. Since the cars were coming from a highway to the north and helicopters were still flying in from the east, Cole didn’t see any alternative but to press on into the hills. Never before had he so deeply regretted not being a Boy Scout when he’d had the chance to learn more about wilderness survival or navigating using the sun’s position in the sky. When he thought the prison was far enough behind him to stop and catch his breath, he heard another explosion that spurred him onward.
Once they were deeply entrenched in what appeared to be some sort of park or nature reserve, Lambert slowed to a