crack.
This time , Stone shrugged off Ling Mai’s hand as he stepped forward, ready to call the exercise over. One shifter was already hurt. Herc hadn’t stopped anyone, or showed any weapon that could halt either shifter.
“Exercise finished,” he called, heading toward Lisa already cradling her wrist.
But like a red flag to a bull, pain tended to trigger an immediate response in a lot of shifters, including Lisa. Rhinos tended to be live-and-let-live animals by nature, but not if threatened or provoked. Herc had just managed to push both buttons.
From where Stone stood , he could already hear the involuntary morphing of Lisa into her Rhino form. Pain to her signaled a possible threat and that’s when rhinos became volatile.
Jacques, being closer to Lisa, moved to her side, as if wanting to halt her morphing, but once started, there wasn’t a lot anyone, human or non-human could do.
A shifter changing was a painful, messy business, even to watch. Bones erupting from skin, churning muscles ripping and rearranging, the tear of skin replaced by fur or shell or, in Lisa’s case, by a hide several layers thick.
The horror on the kid’s face was worth the price of admission, but not if he was creamed for agitating Lisa more. Stone would bet dollars to donuts Lisa wasn’t going to remain stock still after she shifted. If Herc stayed splayed on the floor, remaining frozen, he might be safe, as rhinos couldn’t see worth squat, but they would attack based on scent or smell.
“Freeze,” Stone shouted to Herc, already moving toward Lisa to make an alternative target. “Stay right where you are.”
Leave it to the kid to disregard a direct order as he scrambled to his feet.
Rhinos looked like slow, lumbering beasts but they could outrun the fastest human, especially in short bursts, which was as fast as you could get in the gym. If they were in the wild, a tree might work. Here, evade and escape were the only options.
Lisa finished her transformation and just standing still , she took up a hell of a lot of room. Single-horned head lowered for charging, she bared her sharp lower incisors, which rhinos used to slash and gore, and pawed the floor once before attacking.
This time it was Stone diving toward the floor to tackle Herc out of the way of Lisa’s massive three-toed hooves, the same pads shaking the whole damn building. Together they rolled in an ungainly lump toward the nearest wall, with enough space to breathe, but just barely.
“If you have any amazing weapons, now’s the time to use them,” Stone huffed, keeping his eyes one hundred percent on rampaging Lisa.
The kid rose to his knees, either used to getting flattened or flaunting that damn resilience of youth. Stone followed, catching his breath at the same time.
Jacques backed away, still human , but Stone didn’t think that’d last for long. Once one shifter morphed, it was like a chain reaction to other shifters in the area. Like warning signals in the wild alerted all animals to be aware of predators, Lisa’s change would trigger the same response in Jacques. Their best bet for surviving was to cross the floor to the gym’s closest door and get their asses out of the direct line of fire.
Stone hoped Ling Mai had already exited and the rest of the team would stay put until Lisa calmed down enough to shift back. No telling how long that might take though. Before Stone could grab the kid and run like hell , Herc moved.
Like the idiot he was, the kid strode to the center of the gym floor, placing himself smack in front of Lisa who was circling around to take another stab at what she now saw as the enemy in her territory. Weighing easily five or six thousand pounds, it was still an awesome sight to see how she could swing her size in such a tight space. It wasn’t so awesome when she braced herself, lowered the deadly horn again, and charged. “Run,” Stone screamed, lunging at Herc who sidestepped him. Instead, Geek Guy raised his arms,
Craig Buckhout, Abbagail Shaw, Patrick Gantt