One second, she was standing there with her jaw clenched, her heart racing so fast, I was afraid it would explode. The next, she was covered with Hargrove’s blood, and he lay dead at her feet, still bleeding all over the linoleum.
She looked down at him for the span of a single heartbeat. Then her eyes lost focus and her hands—one still a claw—fell limp at her sides.
“Abby!” I pulled her away from the body, and my fingers smeared the blood on her sleeve. Only it wasn’t even her sleeve. She’d ruined her roommate’s jacket with arterial spray from the man whose throat she’d just ripped out, and there would be no way to explain that to Robyn.
Or to the territorial council.
Fuck. I didn’t have clearance to execute any of the human hunters unless they were an imminent threat, and Abby had just killed the only member of the sick shifter taxidermy club we had in custody. The only source who could tell us how many of his fellow humans knew about us and just how big a problem we had. We needed that information, and someone would have to pay for the loss of it.
“Abby!” I yelled again, practically in her face, but she only stared at the floor as if she no longer saw the body lying there. As if she no longer saw anything. Footsteps thundered from the back porch, then Lucas pulled her from my grip and wrapped his massive arms around her.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded.
“She flipped out and ripped open his throat.” Then she’d totally checked out of reality—it probably wasn’t true catatonia, but she was definitely in shock. “Abby!” When I reached for her, Luke turned to put her out of my reach, and my temper flared in a white-hot instant. He’d forgotten in his concern and confusion that I was his fucking Alpha and that respect was my fucking due.
And, evidently, that I would never, ever hurt her. Even if she’d just thrown all of us into a vast world of hurt.
I snarled, and Lucas dropped his gaze but made no move to let go of his sister, who stood motionless in is grip. I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this wasn’t about defying his Alpha; it was about being there for his sister. I’d have done the same thing, even back when I was an enforcer. And I didn’t even like Melody that much. “Okay. See if you can wake her up. Quickly.” I grabbed his arm when he started to guide her away. “And don’t ever let that happen again.”
I turned to Mateo while Lucas bent to speak directly into his sister’s ear. “Call Isaac and put everyone on alert. Tell him Darren’s going after Melody, and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Teo stepped outside to make the call, and as a traumatized feline whine began to leak from Abby, I realized that her throat had shifted along with her right hand. What the hell had set her off?
“Why would she do that?” Warner watched Lucas smooth back his sister’s curls, still whispering into her ear.
“She must have felt threatened,” Luke said.
“Hargrove’s hands were bound behind him. He wasn’t a threat. She was in no danger.” Even when he’d held her at gunpoint, she’d been cool and collected…right up until the moment she ripped his neck open.
“Well, she must have thought she was,” Lucas insisted, over Abby’s head. “She was probably having some kind of flashback.”
Warner shrugged. “With everything she’s been through, I guess the real surprise is that she hasn’t flipped out before.”
In theory, that was a rational explanation, but in Abby’s case, it didn’t make sense. She’d definitely been threatened when the hunters had killed her friends in the woods, but she’d held it together in order to track the bad guys, eliminate them, then explain to me exactly what had happened, and how going against my orders was really the right thing to do.
Yet with Hargrove, even though he was restrained and unarmed, she’d freaked out, lashed out, then checked out. We were missing something.
“Abby,” I said as Warner started opening kitchen drawers in search of rags and towels. She still stared at the wall above the gun rack, but now a maelstrom of conflicting emotions flitted over her features. Terror, and desperation, and…caution.
What part of what she’d just done could be considered cautious?
“Abby!” I called again, and finally, she blinked. “Look at me.”
She complied, and I saw raw instinct battling shock behind her eyes. She was still mired in the trauma of what she’d done, yet something inside her demanded that she follow her Alpha’s orders. Hell, she might actually be easier to deal with as an enforcer without her human stubborn streak getting in the way.