No Mercy by Shannon Dermott Page B

separated from a tree fell frame by frame as I watched for movement everywhere.  A butterfly took flight from a tree to my right.  Its yellow against the brown bark of the tree drew my line of sight. 
     
    Then a subtle sound, a slight rustle of a twig against the hardened earth and a whip like noise in the wind had me jerking to the left.  The shifter girl did a gymnastic move full with back flips and cartwheels to land in my previous position.  Extending a leg out like a dance, graceful and all, I spun out of reach just in time.  A no-hand flip and she dipped to kick out at my shins.  My hand shot out to her throat, not to choke but pushing her out of reach.  Falling back, she kicked out and back flipped to land on her feet. 
     
    Running full out at me, she changed tactics.  I really didn’t like fighting girls.  It didn’t matter if they were as strong as I was or not, it just didn’t feel right.  So I disappeared this time.  Taking flight, she stopped just about where I had been.
     
    “Come out, come out where ever you are?” she crooned.
     
    Okay, that just begged for an answer. “I’m up here.”
     
    Tilting her head back, she looked up at me.  I lowered myself to the ground hoping she’d gotten the answer.  Too late, she hadn’t.
     
    A jab came at me.  I knocked away before her other fist was up and I captured that one.  Doing sort of a dance, I blocked her kicks and then more of her punches until it became a little ridiculous how easy it was.  She was a fighter yes, but not trained well.  These wolves seemed to depend on their animalistic abilities over their human ones.
     
    Finally, she stopped. “Are you done?” I asked flatly.
     
    Breathing hard, she said, “You’re not even tired?”
     
    Shaking my head, she ground her teeth in frustration. “Look, I have to go,” I said and disappeared not waiting for her answer.
     
    She let out a little scream and I watched her stamp her foot until she finally stalked off.  Moving in stealth mode going back the direction I came, I took several long moments before I let myself be seen.  In the end, I decided maybe airborne would be the best mode of transportation.   That Jo still may not have given up.
     
     
     

 
    Chapter  Fifteen – Flynn
     
     
     
    After a bit of clean up at the house and eating the rest of the breakfast that was left over for lunch, we decided to head back.  Luke shared the story about Jo and I laughed at the guy again.  He wasn’t pleased which made it even funnier.
     
    In order to keep the guy from going on a bender out of frustration, I called shotgun.  And not just for the front seat, but specifically the passenger seat.  Laughing again, I watched his jaw tightened because he knew why I’d done it.
     
    “Do you think we’ll ever see Sara again?’ Luke asked.
     
    Scrubbing a hand through my hair, I asked, “I don’t know.  Do you want to see her?”
     
    His hands became white knuckles on the steering wheel.  “Do you?”
     
    “No, dude, I asked you first,” I said.
     
    “Yeah, I guess. She was interesting,” he said with a slight smile.  There were those stars again.
     
    “Uh, huh, interesting how?” I asked.  Oh, I knew how interesting the girl was.  Her kiss lit a fire in my gut. And that did some wild shit to me, a stupid kiss.  And the guy was going to hook up with her if that shit hadn’t gone down.
     
    “She was just different, real in a way I’ve never seen,” he confessed.
     
    “What you liked was that she said what she meant and wasn’t afraid to do so,” I stated, rather than asked.
     
    “Maybe,” he said.  But I knew it was true.  It’s what I liked about her.  Amanda had that too but she wasn’t as “real” as Sara.  I wished we would see her again.  I could only imagine her actually shock me with stuff I didn’t even know about.
     
    The niggling thing at the back of my skull was what the hell she was.  Not many things could go