“My fault,” Derek said, stumbling out of the darkness, the stink of his blood on the air. “I thought we had him contained at the LZ. Son of a bitch got free. Pulled a move I haven’t seen since the military, and faster than shit. Hit me over the head. My guys are down too. Alive, but out.” He sat down hard on the sand, as if he was dizzy. Blood dripped from his nose and the back of his head, and curdled into his collar. With my good hand, I pulled him forward and inspected the wound. “Ow,” he said, jerking away, only to grab his head again, the stink of his nausea acrid on the air.

“Concussion,” I said. A human would have needed stitches and a dark room and concussion protocol. Derek had been drinking powerful vamp blood. He’d likely be fine.

He said, “There are fire escape ladders built in beneath some of the windows. He must have used those. I’ll make sure they come out first thing in the morning.” He cursed, held his head a moment, and lifted a hand to the house and the workers congregated on the porch. “We need lights in the LZ, now!”

In the distance, the sound of rotor blades cut the air. The helicopter was closing in on the unlit landing site. I felt more than saw people rushing out to the landing area. Lights came on. A generator roared, concealing the sound of the helo. Bright lights sliced the night, illuminating the landing site. LZ. Landing zone. Right.

“Alex. You okay?” Eli called.

“Jane broke my tablets,” Alex said from the front door. “And maybe my nose.”

Eli glanced up at his brother. “No, she didn’t.”

“No. But she could have,” he said sulkily as he clunked down the stairs to us. “Jane wasn’t playing nice when she threw me down the steps.”

“Big-cats do not play nice,” Beast said through my mouth, her voice growly.

Both Youngers went still as stone.

I swallowed Beast back. “Sorry. But my arm is broken. I grabbed the grenade he threw in the window and then I hit Marco with the same arm. I think the grenade was spelled.” I held up my arm. My lower arm bent to one side then the other.

Eli looked it over. “Dang, Janie. Now, that’s a broken arm. Comminuted fracture of both bones. Hey, you”—he pointed to a man on the porch—“go get my gobag.” The guy took off. “I’ll splint it,” Eli said.

“As happy as I am to provide a medical lesson in orthopedics,” I whispered beneath the sound of the helo and generator, breathless, “I’m about to pass out from the pain. I have to shift. I need privacy and I also need to check on Bambi/Mike.”

“Soon as we stabilize that arm we can get you back to the third floor to shift, killing two birds. Broken hand too,” he continued as he tucked my fingers into the waistband of my jeans to give it some support. “Stay put.” Eli bowled Marco up into his arms and over his shoulder in a rolling/rising, all-in-one move I’d seen him do before. He pointed to my swollen hand. “I’ll be right back to splint that. I mean it, Janie. Stay put.” Eli carried the attacker toward the landing zone, Alex on his heels, carrying one of Eli’s nine-mils.

“Stay put? I’m not your puppy dog.” Eli was too far away to hear me.

Derek chuckled and then retched, throwing up onto the packed sand.

The smell nearly did me in. No way could I stay put. I jutted my chin to the retching Derek and said to a passing carpenter, “Bring him in. Put some ice on his head.”

I cradled my arm and hand and crawled to my feet. I climbed the stairs to the porch, breathless, aching, passing the workers, trying not to hurl or pass out, as that would ruin my badass image. Right. I made my pained way up to the third floor, ready to shift into Beast and heal my broken arm, the big room last seen as I leaped out the window. Halfway up the last steps, the smell of blood met me.

“Eli!” I screamed. “To me!”

Bambi/Mike was on the floor, her blood in a wide pool. I knelt at her side. She was still breathing, but there couldn’t be enough blood left in her to keep her alive for long.

Eli tore up the stairs, took in the scene at a glance, and began shouting orders. “Hold the helo. Get Leo on the helo’s comms system. I need a med kit, now!” He went to work trying to stabilize Bambi/Mike with nothing except his bare hands, the stuff in his pockets, and pressure.

Alex repeated the orders, shouting. People boiled into the third-floor space.

A man landed beside Eli, placing an oversized red case on the floor and opening the latches with sharp snaps of metal and plastic. It was the T-shirted potbellied man from earlier, and he had a massive emergency kit. “I’m an EMT,” he said, already tearing packages. “Cut her clothes open. Tampons.” He handed Eli a handful of packages. “Leave the tail hanging out. Then Gelfoam. Don’t put the foam inside. There may be intravascular compartments. We don’t want to risk embolism.”

Eli didn’t bother to tell the guy he had field medical training and had used the products before to stop bleeding on the battlefield. He just ripped Bambi’s clothes and found three entrance holes, on her torso, lower abdomen, and left arm. He stuck a tampon in each. Rolled her over and shoved three tampons in each exit hole on the back. Pulled open the Gelfoam pads and placed them over the wounds. Sanitary napkins followed. He wrapped them in place with heavy sticky tape. The other guy tied a tourniquet on her arm and started an IV. Fast. I had EMT training too and recognized Ringer’s lactate, a plasma expander. It wouldn’t replace blood, but it would slow shock. Outside, the helo landed.

I settled to the floor. My pain unnoticed. Watching.

“Call for a medical chopper?” the potbellied guy asked. “They carry blood.”

“No time. Let’s get her to the helo. You can call it in on the way. You’re going with her.”

Two workers placed a door on the floor as backboard and they loaded Bambi/Mike onto it. Someone tossed a sleeping bag at them and they tucked it around the pale-as-death woman. And then I realized she was awake. Silent. Her eyes on Eli.

“I gotcha, Mike,” he said. “You’re gonna be fine.”

“Dying,” she whispered.

“No way. Leo himself will meet you onshore. His blood will heal you. I guarantee it. All you have to do is stay alive to the mainland. Got it?”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. Piece a cake. Let’s get her to the LZ, boys,” he said.

Together they lifted the door and carried her down. And I was alone. I heard them race down and down and down the stairs and outside. Heard the helo’s rotors speed up.

Alone, I lay flat on the old flooring and cradled my arm. I tried to sink into the Gray Between, but it wasn’t happening. So much for anything Zen in my life. Beast. I need help.

Beast pressed down on my pain receptors and sent something like endorphins into my bloodstream, muting the pain. I’d never get all my clothes off. I’d have to shift clothed and I’d ruin the boots. What had I been thinking when I pulled them on? Boots at the beach?

I heard footsteps clattering back up the stairs, Eli being deliberately noisy, but stopping before his head rose above floor level. “You still human?”

“Sadly yes.”

“You need help getting your clothes loose?” he asked.

“Boots?” I asked.

Eli came all the way up and knelt at my side, studying my injuries. He had washed his hands, but he still had blood smears on his wrists. He shifted position and eased my boots off one by one, without shaking me and my broken bones. “I’m not a good second,” he said, as he removed the stakes and the knives in my boot sheaths and set them to the side.

I tried to smile. “You’re a great second. I could have just shifted, but I’d have ruined the boots. I like this pair.”

“You’re rough on the girly stuff. You’re rough on fighting leathers. I can’t think of a single piece of clothing you’re not rough on.”

“Lucchese boots,” I said promptly, waggling my toes at him.

Eli huffed in amusement. “Can you move your arm? Let me get to your waistband?” I supported and lifted the broken arm and hand. Methodically, he loosened my clothes. He said, “You can shift and your legs will slip out of the pants, but the shirt and jacket are pretty thick.”