Carly hadn’t heard his seething beckon, nor had she seen him come up behind her assailant, but the she-beast certainly had. Before it could twist around and give him a very primal and hungry sniff, he slammed into her, and she caterwauled as she fell into the brick. The long black talons which had reanimated in place of the once human nails had clipped Carly well, cutting straight through the meat of her shoulder and skimming the front of her chest for a superficial scratch. It’d sliced through her shirt, too.

“Shit!” Carly yelled in panic, her amber eyes wide and frenzied. Blood was coming from her shoulder in healthy amounts; not enough to kill her, but it’d make her dizzy soon enough.

The creature was at war with itself. It had two options: go after the prey, or go after the bastard who dared try to curtail her. After it spent a few seconds crouched on all fours, looking between them, it launched with an animalistic howl for Carly.

She locked up. Then, instinct encroached, and she grabbed her injured and gushing shoulder with her right hand, and with all her might she kicked a very heavy crate into the creature’s midsection. It fell back down with a savage cry.

The adrenaline oozed from her just as quickly as it came, and not only was her bum leg screaming, but now her foot was, too. She cursed to herself and hunched over, though she still tried to keep an eye on the ambitious she-bitch. She was seeing stars, overcome with some strange and unknown feeling that she couldn’t place. While all of this was incredibly fucked up and way out of the ordinary, part of it felt right, familiar. There was no word she could associate it with. It made accepting this a hell of a lot easier, though. Her eyes were crazy from all the action, and the bleeding mascara down her round cheeks gave her a much more alarming look, like a lab rat that’d grown aware of its cage.