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  Protect and Serve: Don’t Need A Hero

  Lena Austin

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2011 Lena Austin

  ISBN: 978-1-60521-749-9

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  Publisher:

  Changeling Press LLC

  PO Box 1046

  Martinsburg, WV 25402-1046

  www.ChangelingPress.com

  Editor: Katriena Knights

  Cover Artist: Bryan Keller

  Adult Sexual Content

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  Protect and Serve: Don’t Need A Hero

  Lena Austin

  When cat shifter Petra (aka Pete) becomes the victim of “friendly fire” during the apprehension of a bank robber, panther shifter cop Apollo Jones feels obligated to make sure she’s okay. Pete’s positive she doesn’t need another hero in her life, and Apollo’s out to prove her wrong.

  Chapter One

  I buckled my niece into the back seat booster chair with all the care I’d used to do the same for my baby nephew Mikey. They were the loves of my life, and I could hardly wait to take them to the beach for the day. Oh, yeah.

  Angelina clutched her new teddy bear and grinned up at me. “Auntie Pete, where we going? Are we going to get French fries?”

  “Fen fies! Fen fies!” Little Mikey squealed, beating his new camo-colored teddy bear on the “driving wheel” of his safety seat. Well, at least he liked the new toy I’d made him. I smiled fondly down at my adopted sister’s unruly pair. I’d been their slave since Marissa had first allowed me to hold them in the hospital after their births. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll stop by and grab up some grub before heading to the beach, okay?”

  Both kids managed to hit ear-piercing levels of cheers, and I winced internally when my feline-sensitive ears protested the assault. What else was I going to do on my day off, anyway, but give Bean’s sister Marissa a break and take the munchkins to the beach? Hanging around Dustin’s big-assed mansion was hard on my heart.

  I had started out life in a mansion like the one I currently called home, but when the family abandoned the city for safer digs in the country, they’d kind of forgotten to take their fur-friends. I and an old dog named Beau had been heartbroken. Beau had sat on the drive day after day, waiting and starving to death. As far as I know, his bones are still there in that driveway, a testament to undeserved loyalty.

  I, then known as Champion Petra of White Oaks, had just won my honors at cat shows and was looking forward to a few years of litters of kittens before retiring gracefully to a pillowed window seat. I’d been two years old, dammit. What had I known except luxury and pampering? At first, learning to hunt up my own dinner had been rough, but I’d lucked into meeting up with other abandoned shifters.

  Tigs and his pals had taken me into their little pride and had shown an abandoned Himalayan barely out of kitten-hood the ropes, saws, and tools of the construction trade. I abandoned my old name and past, and upon Rat’s suggestion had become “Pete.”

  So to circle back on the prey, I’m now a master carpenter with a specialty in interior finishing work, and I take care of the guys who’d taken care of me. Well, sorta.

  Now that Tigs had married the wealthy Dustin Hardesty, I wasn’t much needed anymore. I didn’t dare invade the cook’s kitchen, and the rest of the staff saw to the cleaning of the huge mansion we all shared. The most the guys needed me for was the occasional sewing and mending.

  Dammit, I was getting depressed again. I got in, buckled my own seatbelt, and drove down Stockton to where I could pick up the highway onramp heading to the beach. Marissa’s little bungalow in the north of Riverside near I-10 faded off into the distance. We’d be back not long after two, when the sun got too fierce, giving Marissa a chance to sleep in for once. Being a single mom is a bitch.

  The guys still wanted me around, despite their changed lives. Beans, the Amigos Construction accountant, had become Dustin’s bookkeeper out of sheer boredom. When a Rottweiler shifter got bored, you gave him something to do or he started tearing up the furniture. I thought Dustin had practically thrown the unholy mess he’d inherited at Beans, and Beans had gleefully set about making Dustin not just rich but filthy fucking rich.

  Rat, the rat terrier shifter and my best bud, had done what he always did -- took over when Tigs was busy. Boy, was Tigs busy since he’d married Dustin. Tigs had gone to college and become a big-time architect, specializing in restoration and renovation of old buildings. He joyously redesigned the old structures then handed the actual work over to Rat and me.

  Rat was in his element. He’d take the designs and make them into beautiful reality. We had six crews working all over the city, and even had one offer to work in fucking Dubai of all places. Rat was considering his options. In the meantime, Amigos Construction, owned by all four of the original team, was making us all rich, and Beans was busily seeing to it we were all going to be nearly as rich as Dustin. I was a little scared of all that fucking money. I didn’t want to end up like my first family and stop caring.

  I frowned and took the exit to Beach Boulevard. The famous bright yellow arches were a few miles down and right on our way. I was going to lounge in the sun, build sand castles with the kids, and stop feeling lonely, dammit.

  I did feel weird driving the fancy-ass Mercedes, even if it was twenty years old and owned by Dustin’s dad before he passed away. My beat-up, filthy F-150 wasn’t suitable for taking kids to the beach, and Dustin had thrown the keys at me. “Please take it out and use it, Petey-girl. The chauffeur spent twenty years keeping it in tip-top shape. Seems a shame not to have it driven once in a blue moon at least.”

  So I drove the Mercedes, feeling very out of place. My truck was good enough for me, thank you, but I have to admit driving the old Mercedes was to be steeped in luxury. I ran one hand over the real wood panel and almost missed the turn into the fast food joint. What the hell was I thinking? I didn’t want luxury, and I damn sure didn’t need it. Despite a hefty bank balance, I’d be damned if I ever got so snobby I didn’t enjoy the simple, old-fashioned things like a greasy burger and fries.

  Fuck it. Just fuck it. One step at a time.

  I ordered the kiddy meals and indulged in a fish sandwich for myself. The kids cheered when I ordered chocolate shakes for all. It’s nice to be the hero sometimes, ya know?

  After the cheerful acknowledgement of their order, the total, and the request to drive forward, I inched around the narrow curve of the drive-though. I remember I wish
ed Mickey D’s would think about the drive-through design a little more carefully. I was totally hemmed in by the cement wall on one side and the lovely view of the Dumpster, the employee parking lot full of kids’ jalopies, and a few scrub oaks. Not much of a great view, but the morning was still cool enough to leave the windows down. The car had that funny, old people smell to it.

  The view got worse when we rounded the curve toward the pickup window. People fled from the doors into the parking lot. I glanced in through the narrow little window where I would have gotten my food delivered, and I could hear screams and gunfire. Oh, fucking wonderful! Unless I was willing to run the fleeing customers over, I was trapped in the drive-through.

  Seconds later, a guy in metal knit -- really? Seriously? Chain mail? -- and waving a large gun came through the door. He carried a bag covered in red-orange dye, which also decorated his face and costume. The paint didn’t improve his looks. He saw me, wrenched open my door, and tried to drag me from the vehicle.

  I choked and fought, but the old seatbelt and harness fought me just as much. The webbing cut into my hips and choked off my breathing, but I wasn’t going anywhere without hitting the release button, and I’d be damned if I’d leave the kids behind with that asshole.

  Angelina and the baby were screaming their heads off, adding to the mayhem. Angelina threw her teddy bear at the perp, but missed and hit me instead.

  For three seconds, I wondered what had hit me from behind. Then the bastard with the vermilion face backhanded me.

  I fell back against the seat, stunned and shaking my head. A beam had fallen on me once, and I’d seen stars, but this was worse. No one had ever hit me before.

  “Since you won’t move, bitch, I’ll sit on your fat ass!” He sat in my lap, wedging himself between the steering wheel and me.

  By the way, I’m not fat, but having a full-grown man smashing me into the fancy leather seats made me feel like an elephant. A really smushed elephant. I could barely breathe, but I could bite and claw. I went to work like a hellcat, bent on shredding his back to ribbons.

  * * *

  Name: Lt. Apollo Jones

  Timestamp: 1934

  Incident Date: August 17, 2027

  Incident time logged as 0837

  I finished my boiled eggs and tucked my lunch bag under the seat. It was my turn to drive, and I didn’t want the straps tangling in my feet if I had to get out in a hurry. “Jeff, if you don’t quit eating like that, you’re gonna be in the fat boy program on the force.”

  Jeff Petoskey patted his slightly rounded belly and grinned sheepishly. “Ya think, Jonesy? Married life is making me soft.” He polished his new wedding band. He’d just come back from his honeymoon, and his uniform still fit a bit more snugly than usual. I’d given him the usual razzing about married life making him slow and fat that morning already, but he’s a good cop. He’d be back in shape in a day or two.

  The Motorola radio squawked. Bank robbery in progress at the Bank and Trust just up the road from where we sat. Jeff and I glanced at each other. Something in my heart and mind said this was going to be ugly. Call it instinct. I didn’t have another word for it, and I still don’t.

  Jeff slapped his collar mike. “546, we’re on it.” He threw the remains of his lunch into the bag and burped. “Let’s roll!”

  I flipped on the lights and siren and hit the accelerator. Lunch break was over, and the old parking lot we’d been using as a stop was emptier than the dreams of the former owners.

  I wove easily in and out of what little traffic still used the city streets. Out there in suburbia, it wasn’t so bad, but the inner city was quite literally turning into an urban jungle full of predators, who were slowly expanding out into the outer limits. Pretty soon, even our relatively quiet precinct would suffer the same fate and become abandoned by the law.

  I personally think we should just wall in the inner city and hit it with a bomb. Any of the few remaining good citizens still living there would either have to take warning and flee or suffer the consequences. Either that, or it’s going to take superheroes, and I stopped believing in that kind of bullshit when I stopped reading comic books.

  We drove into chaos. The radio went nuts trying to keep up with the calls, but the main points were clear. A lone robber, dressed in medieval armor, of all things, had managed to get out of the bank and was on the move.

  A man in a businessman’s jumpsuit flagged us down from the left. He waved frantically toward a fast food joint. “Some sonovabitch in chain mail shot my car! He went that way!”

  “Fuck me running!” Jeff called it in that the perp had been spotted heading into the Mickey-D’s on Beach and Kernan. Shit, on a Saturday morning, the place was likely packed with people stocking up on their carbs before heading to the beach.

  I just cursed and hit the gas, ran over the curb, knocked down some old sago palms decorating the median between the businesses, and arrived first.

  The place was crazy. People burst out of the doors in front of us, screaming and heading for the protection of their own vehicles or anywhere else they could. Most of them made it out of the parking lot at lightning speed.

  In the confusion, three more police vehicles arrived, blocking off the exits. The design of the fast food joint’s landscape hemmed in all escapes with a fenced kiddy playground, streetlight poles, and a copse of large, decorative trees. The heat wasn’t so bad, but the trees still provided a barrier, if not shade. The perp was trapped.

  Jeff opened his door and used the thing for a shield seconds before I jammed the car into park and did the same. Jeff barked into his collar mike, “Where is he? How hard can it be to find a guy in armor?”

  “He’s in the gray Mercedes in the drive though! Window tinting makes it hard to see if he’s got hostages!” Was that Lt. Anders? Someone check his voice recording. Anyway, I thought it was Anders.

  “I got a bead on him from the side!” I didn’t catch the names on the speakers. It’ll be recorded.

  “I can’t see anyone in the passenger seat, nor in the back! I think they ran with the rest of the customers!”

  Gunfire rang out. I’m fairly sure our dashcams and throat mikes caught the sound.

  “Shit! He’s firing.” That was Cussler, I’m sure of it. He’s got a mouth like a trucker.

  “Shots fired! Shots fired! Officer down!” Darcy. I think. She was Ander’s partner that day. Guess that was when Anders got his bullet.

  “I see him!” Jeff fired once, but all he did was hit the windshield. The old glass spider-webbed, making it more difficult to see if anyone at all, even the perp, was in the car.

  I shouted to my partner. “If you can see him, he can see you!”

  Too late. A red-and-silver arm appeared out the window and fired.

  Jeff cried out, and his face was covered in blood. He fell backward, out of sight. Over the sirens and gunfire, I couldn’t hear anything, but I remember I reported into my collar mike anyway. “Officer down! Repeat, officer down. 546!”

  To say adrenaline raced through me was an understatement. Time slowed down, and I narrowed my focus. Two officers out of our dwindling force was bad enough. Blue took care of their own. I was pissed beyond belief. Jeff was a fucking newlywed who didn’t deserve to die.

  Apparently, my fellow officers felt the same. The Mercedes became a target, then Swiss cheese. The windshield shattered, and the bank robber/cop-killer died in a barrage of hot lead.

  One by one, the guns stopped firing.

  In the silence that followed, I heard the worst sound in the world, and the one we all dreaded, coming from inside the Mercedes -- a child screaming for her mommy.

  Chapter Two

  I sprinted for the wrecked remains of the gray Mercedes. I smelled gasoline, blood, and of course smoke from the gunfire, but all I could hear was the hysterical cries of a little girl screaming for her mommy. I was terrified of what I might find, and already feeling guilty that we’d not checked more carefully for hostages. Yeah, like w
e have X-ray vision to see through vehicles and tinted luxury car windows. Right. I wrenched open the front passenger side door.

  The nearly headless corpse of the robbery suspect, a white or perhaps Hispanic male with the bank’s explosive dye still visible despite the carnage, sat in the driver’s seat atop a woman’s quiet form.

  The woman’s fingers twitched and clawed weakly at the bloody gray leather seat. She breathed, but shallowly, considering about 170 pounds of dead weight -- really dead weight -- covered her.

  I shoved at the perp’s body until it slid to the side and allowed the woman to breathe. From the sirens coming closer, the EMTs would see to her, but it looked like the perp’s chain mail and the teak dash had taken most of the bullets.

  Her hands were bloodied. Despite a myriad of old scars, one bruised nail, and a pile of calluses, her hands were long and delicate looking, like some patrician lady had been doing hard labor. With the blood covering her face, I couldn’t guess her age. She had a sundress covering a bathing suit, a tan, and a flip-flop on one foot. Her tan ended at her ankle so her foot was white. Her other foot was definitely bleeding.

  I hit the button on my collar mike. “We have three hostages in the car. Two need EMS now. Assessing the third.” I saw a pink teddy bear with roses on it on the floor near the woman’s foot. Definitely a little girl’s toy. I snatched it up and showed it to the little banshee in the back booster seat in hopes of calming my one witness down. Meanwhile I got the back door open so I could talk to her and get her out fast.

  The little brunette female was between six and nine years old, brown-brown, wearing a pink bathing suit. She grabbed the bear from me and cuddled it. “Where’s my mommy! Please get my mommmeee!” Then she pointed to the boy next to her. “The bad man shot Mikey!”

  EMT’s with stretchers and kits yanked open the other doors and shouted in that peculiar language only the medical profession understands. That was my cue to get my little witness away. It certainly was no place for a little kid to see bullet wounds and what med-techs had to do to fix them.