Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,77

hear him over the pounding of the blood in my ears.

Dad wedged his free foot and both his hands against the curb as his other leg was pulled farther into the drain. There was no way he could fit into that opening, but then, he didn’t have to for bad things to happen.

The Nightstruck were closing in again. Piper sauntered forward and picked up the shotgun. Whatever was pulling my dad into the storm drain kept him from fighting her for it. His face was red and contorted with the strain of fighting the pull, his teeth bared in a feral grimace.

“You should have left us alone, Mr. Walker,” Piper said loudly, but she was still looking up at me, evil green eyes boring into me. “You’re not meant for the night. It’s Becket we want, not you.”

“Let him go!” I shouted, banging on the window with the flat of my hand.

Piper smiled at me. “Come out and get him!”

Dad wrenched his body sideways so he could look up at the window while still bracing himself against the pull. “Don’t let her out of the house, Luke!” he yelled. “Keep her safe!”

Beside me, Luke started cursing, and I had the sense of him looking all around as if trying to find a weapon or some other way he could help. But I was the only one who had any chance of stopping this.

“Open the window for me,” I ordered Luke as I double-checked to make sure my gun was ready to fire.

I was worried he wouldn’t do it, that he would somehow feel that was disobeying my dad’s command to keep me safe, but he didn’t hesitate. He unlocked the window and shoved it open so I could take aim. The towel rods were annoying, but I could work around them.

“Let him go!” I shouted again, pointing the gun at Piper.

Still smiling, she took a quick step backward and let another of the Nightstruck—a bearded, filthy, older man who had no doubt been homeless before the night took him—stand between me and her. He wasn’t big enough to cover her completely, but if I fired I would be much more likely to hit him than Piper. Which didn’t matter to me in the least.

At least, not in theory. I gritted my teeth, and my finger tightened on the trigger, but I hesitated to fire. The only thing I’d ever fired at before was targets on a shooting range. I’d never even gone hunting, never shot anything that was alive. If the homeless guy were charging at me with murder in his eyes, I probably wouldn’t have hesitated. But he was just standing there, no threat to me, and showing no sign of being a threat to my father.

Just over the homeless guy’s shoulder, I could see Piper’s lips twist in one of those smirks I was starting to hate more than anything in the world.

The goat suddenly reared up on its hind legs, then lowered its head and leaped forward. Its horns slammed into my dad’s shoulder, and though he was a brave man, he couldn’t help screaming in pain. When the goat backed up, its horns and the spines on its head were dripping with my father’s blood. Maybe it had broken some bones, too, because my dad’s arm went entirely limp. Without the use of his arm, he wasn’t able to fully brace himself anymore. He screamed again as his leg was pulled all the way into the storm drain, as far as it would go, until his body slammed against the curb.

I no longer cared about the humanity of the homeless guy who had formed a human shield in front of Piper.

I pulled the trigger, but my eyes were blurry with tears and my hands were far from steady. My dad had told me once that even the best-trained, most experienced police officers miss more often than they hit, in the heat of battle. Your body’s fight-or-flight response shuts down your fine motor skills and makes it physically impossible for most people to shoot straight. I was no exception to that rule.

My first shot went completely wild, and I was so panicky I immediately squeezed off a second that was even wilder. Piper kept smirking, and the rest of the Nightstruck were completely unintimidated.

My higher reasoning kicked in and reminded me there were more Nightstruck out there than I had ammo for, and that they weren’t going to give me time to get another mag and reload.