Choleric, Walter gestured to Brett.

“Rache!” Jenks shouted.

At least a dozen weapons turned to us. There was only one thing to do, and I did it.

Grunting, I leapt at Brett. It surprised him, and though he was by far the better military person, I got him down, attacking not like a professional, but like a sissy girl with my arms around his knees. We hit the pavement together and I scrambled for a better hold.

My arm went around his neck and I wrenched an arm painfully. And while he would have felt no pain had they still been in a round, he certainly felt it now. “Tell them to back off!” I shouted.

Brett started to laugh, the sound choking off when I pulled.

“Ow,” he said, as if I was simply bending back a finger, not ready to dislocate his shoulder. “Ms. Morgan. What the hell do you think you’re doing, ma’am?”

I could hear Nick’s truck. “Getting the hell out of here,” I said, stumbling as Jenks helped me stand upright without losing my grip. It was as awkward as all get-out, but we managed. A ring of weapons pointed at us. Jenks took my place, his face ugly as he bent his arm and pressed a knife to Brett’s throat.

“You ever see a pixy battlefield?” he whispered in the Were’s ear, and Brett lost the vestiges of humor. White-faced, he went passive. Which was really scary in itself.

The flash of a blue truck sped past.

“Too far, Ivy!” Jenks shouted, and there was the squeal of brakes quickly followed by the horns and the gunning of an engine.

I looked at my waistband and the phone. An insane need to giggle rose through me. I sure hoped we weren’t roaming.

Another squeal of tires, and Nick’s blue truck rocked to a stop at the end of the alley.

“Mom’s here to pick us up, Jenks,” I quipped, limping to the curb. “I’ll get the bags.”

I scooped up one of our bags, seeing as it was on the way and it sort of added to the travesty. My empty splat gun never shifted from Walter, though he was behind two rows of men. Coward.

“Hi, Ivy,” I said tiredly, tossing the bag into the truck bed and lurching in after it. Yeah, it was illegal to ride in the back, but seeing that we had just somehow beaten up three Were packs, I wasn’t going to worry about it. “Thanks for the ride.”

Nick was in the front seat, and pale. He handed a pair of bolt cutters through the window.

“Hey, thanks!” I said, then started when Brett came thumping in beside me like a sack of potatoes. The Were was unconscious, and I looked at Jenks in question when he followed him in, admittedly a hell of a lot more gracefully. “I don’t want a hostage,” I said. Then wondered when Jenks had knocked him out. He wasn’t dead, was he?