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Back Fractured Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. DEDICATION PAGE
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  42. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I took off, both terrified and exhilarated. Finally, a Mazikin to interrogate, one who might be the key to helping us locate the nest. I reached my car, yanked the orange parking ticket from the windshield, and pulled onto the street, forcing myself not to speed as I drove the five blocks to where Jim was waiting with our prisoner. I pulled into the alley, rolling to a stop a few feet from Jim and the struggling blonde Mazikin. Jim’s expression was rigid and cold as he shoved her forward. He’d ripped her shirt and tied one of her sleeves over her mouth. His fingers were a bloody, mangled mess.

She’d bitten him. Our clock was ticking.

I popped the locks, and he wrenched the door open and pushed her inside, holding his injured hand over her mouth and using the other to hold her arms behind her back. “Malachi put some rope in my pack,” I said, reaching for it, thinking I would need to ask Raphael for some zip ties.

The Mazikin growled, the sound muffled by the fabric and Jim’s hand but no less creepy for it.

I leaned between the seats, the rope in my hand. “Hold her tight.”

Jim moved his hand from her mouth to further secure her arms, but the Mazikin bucked in his grip and lunged at me, slamming her forehead into mine. With my ears ringing and vision blurred, and Jim’s curses and the Mazikin’s screeches filling my head, I fell back against the steering wheel. Her hands were around my throat in the next instant, sharp fingernails digging in. The horn beeped as we struggled, sending the needle on my panic gauge into the red zone. We’d be lucky if someone didn’t call the cops.

The Mazikin jerked back as Jim got an arm around her waist, her stiletto heels narrowly missing my face as she kicked and clawed. I grabbed for her legs but couldn’t get a grip as Jim wrestled with her. He was trying to flip her over on her stomach, but now her hands were free, red claws slashing through the air. Jim grunted in pain as a few drops of blood splattered on the window next to his face.

“Control her!” I shouted.

“Trying!” He kicked her hard against the closed door as she threw herself back at him, a ball of animal fury. “Dammit!”

From beneath his shirt, he drew a knife.

He meant to threaten her, I had no doubt, but the Mazikin’s eyes lit up as the silhouette of the blade came into view. I opened my mouth to scream at him, to tell him to put it away, but it was too late.

The Mazikin flashed a surprisingly beautiful smile at me. And then she threw herself at Jim and impaled herself on his knife.

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-THREE