Midnight Hour (Shadow Falls: After Dark #4)(7)

control the beast inside him that wanted to come out and play. That wanted to come out and kill.

“Perry’s right,” his dad finally spit out. “We’ve got to leave.”

Did that mean his father really gave a shit? Or was he just being logical?

“Now you, too?” Caleb hissed. “Since when do you two think…” Sirens echoed from outside. Behind the mask, Caleb’s eyes turned black.

Obviously, he hated being proved wrong.

He snatched the backpack from the counter, turned, and hauled ass to the back. Perry’s and his dad’s footsteps slapped the tile right behind

him.

Caleb pushed open the emergency exit, no doubt to throw the cops off, allowing them a few seconds to escape. Then he darted into a small

office. Perry and his dad followed on his heels.

“Police! Don’t anyone move!” The door had barely clicked shut when the sound of officers entering the bank echoed from behind the closed

door.

Caleb closed his eyes, and his human form quickly transformed into a mouse. His father closed his eyes at the same time. But the older shape-

shifter lacked the same amount of power and his change wouldn’t come so quickly. Perry waited, wanting to see his father was safe, before he

morphed himself. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to protect his dad from the consequences, but right now, abandoning him felt so damn wrong.

Footsteps and voices rang closer. “Police!”

Then closer.

Bubbles of leftover energy filled the air and floated off his father’s weakening human form.

Finally, only a mouse stood where his father had been. Perry concentrated on his own shift into a lizard. The door slammed open at the same

time as his skin stung with the shift and his own iridescent orbs of energy filled the room.

Through tiny slits of eyes, Perry watched the officer barge into the room, his gun held out, ready to fire. “Shit,” he muttered and flinched

when one of the bubbles hit his skin and the magical current entered his body.

Perry scurried past the policeman now staring at the emptiness of the room. Perry had only gotten a few feet when another image of Miranda

flashed in his head.

She lay on a patch of grass. So still. So pale.

Miranda? Miranda? Are you okay?

The vision flashed again and it had his scales tightening along with his heart. Fear of what that vision meant made Perry’s tiny lizard legs

move faster.

*

Pain. So much pain. Breathing hurt. Her lungs refused the oxygen. Something was wrong with the air.

Something was wrong … with her.

Miranda? Miranda? Are you okay?

The voice echoed somewhere in the distance. A voice she knew. A voice she had one time loved. A voice of a shape-shifter who’d left her, for a

second time, and hadn’t contacted her in over nine months.

Perry.

Then something or someone poked at her face. Once. Twice.

The third time, she forced her eyes open. She expected Perry, to see his blue eyes and blond hair brushing across his brow. Instead she gasped

when she saw the hideous pink snout and scaly body. Was that … Perry? She blinked, confused about everything except knowing it wasn’t Perry.

Somehow she just knew.

Then fragments of memory came hurling at her. She remembered. The armadillo. The fortune-teller. Her sister. Losing her sister’s hand.

Oh, God! Tabitha!

Lifting her face from the grass, smoke filled her lungs. Her eyes stung. She coughed. Couldn’t breathe.

The sizzle and hiss of fire had her looking up at the burning house, but the smoke was so thick she could only see flames flickering behind the

wall of gray fog.

She blinked and saw bits and pieces of burning lumber littering the yard only a few feet from her. Her lungs begged for air. Clean air. She

inhaled and coughed and gagged.

The armadillo started poking her with his ugly nose again.

She fought the black spots clouding her vision, and finally saw her sister lying in an unconscious heap about three feet from her.

“Tabitha?” Between gasps and hacks, Miranda screamed her sister’s name, but when she went to push up on her arm, the pain brought her back

down. Moaning, she used her other arm to drag herself closer to her sister.

“Tabitha?” she said, but her sister wasn’t answering. Oh, God, was she even breathing?

“Talk to me!” Blood marred Tabitha’s face. Don’t you dare die. She reached over and put her hand on her sister’s neck, praying she’d feel

a pulse.

Nothing. No flutter of life touched her fingertips.

“No!” Miranda screamed and called her sister’s name again. “Tabitha?”

An ache burst in Miranda’s heart and subsided only when she saw her sister’s chest move. Miranda’s next smoky breath singed her lungs and

throat. She had to get them away from the smoke. Begging the Divinities for strength, she managed to stand, dizziness and wave upon wave of

pain almost had her hitting the ground. But determination had her using her one good arm to drag her unconscious sister out of the line of the

thick smoke.

The stabbing pain in her side finally brought her back to her knees beside her sister. Miranda’s left arm hung useless at her side. But