Sorry for the long wait! I've been a little to busy to write this next chapter. I hope it was worth the wait. Thanks to Ande and Aella88 for the reviews!

Chapter 27

Leigh wiped at her blurry eyes angrily. She couldn't believe that she had let him see what she was feeling. What was wrong with her? Why couldn't she control her emotions?

She was almost angrier at herself than she was with Doug at that minute. She had known better than to let him kiss her—and yet she had anyway. She'd wanted him to—so much so that she had lost sight of the truth. She knew he had just been kissing Amber. So why had she let him? And the scary thing was that she had seen Doug's mind, and nothing in it had ever suggested to her that he was a player. She had been so blind and stupid. She couldn't believe she had ever liked him.

And she couldn't seem to stop the tears from coming. She took shallow gasping breaths because the smoke was getting too thick. The heat was almost becoming nearly unbearable to her sensitive 'wolf skin. The curtains were up in flames and fire was spreading across the wallpaper, curling it and leaving nasty black marks along the walls.

Leigh turned blindly. She didn't care what danger she was getting herself into. She wasn't going to stay here a moment longer. She'd noticed only dimly that the firing had stopped. She shimmied along the floor in the direction of the living room, coughing.

"Leigh!" Doug called after her.

She ignored him and moved onto the carpeted floor. Patches of fire were spreading. And there were bodies…everywhere. Some were groaning or moving slightly; many weren't moving at all. Leigh's heart caught in her throat as she saw Bella laying face down in the carpet with her blonde hair draped across her face and fire licking at her fingertips.

Leigh got to her knees and bundled the little girl in her arms. Her life force was glowing, but only dimly. She made sure she had a good grip on the tiny girl's body and began wading through the masses of suffering people. So much suffering…

Leigh's stomach lurched. She didn't think that she had eaten enough in the past few days to warrant the mess she spewed all over the carpet, but obviously she had. The putrid smell steamed upward, catching her nostrils. She almost retched again as a result. She swallowed sickly and navigated around the mess, heading for the front door.

Flames were licking around the door frame. Leigh reached for the handle and yelped, pulling her hand back. A deep red mark scalded her palm. It began to heal immediately. She wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

Gripping Bella to her chest, she dipped to the floor and took a long breath before standing. She brought her leg up and kicked with all her might. There was a ripping sound and a shower of sparks. The door fell with a thunderous crash.

Cool air rushed at her cheeks. She heard the sound of people coming up behind her. She darted a backward glance. Jamie was moving forward, carrying Amber's prone form. She was followed by Porter and Porter's father, who were also carrying people. Doug was pulling up the rear, steadying Alec's form. Alec was coughing up blood, looking woozy.

They hurried out into the sunlight. The next couple of minutes were a blur as the group set their charges a safe distance from the house and ran back in for more. They had successfully retrieved all of the people by the time the fire truck had arrived to take care of the blaze. It was too late though. There was no way they would be able to salvage the Carlyle home.

Then the ambulances arrived. They were surprised to find most of the people unhurt—who had been healing even as they had been laying there waiting for assistance. They began to load one man on a stretcher.

Leigh hurried forward, catching sight of a dark head streaked with gray. The paramedics tried to push her away so that they could move the guy into the car. Leigh refused to be deterred until she had gotten a look at the man's features. She knew that large, bulbous nose and the unshaved cheeks. It was her uncle Dolan.

Leigh swallowed sickly when she caught sight of the wound in his forehead. A bullet must have passed right through his brain. The wound had filled with blood, for which she was glad. She wouldn't have wanted to see the damage that lay beneath.

She knew instantly that he was dead. He hadn't taken his TryptoKeri—probably hadn't had the presence of mind to do so when the shooting started. She doubled forward, feeling acid at the back of her throat. But nothing came out. She had nothing left to spew.

The paramedics brushed passed her, taking her uncle with them.

People were now on their feet discussing and arguing heatedly. The police had also arrived and were moving about the crowd, trying to discern what had happened. Apparently, one of the neighbours had called them for assistance when she realized what all the banging noises were about.

Leigh sat down on the sidewalk, burying her knees into her chest and tried to block out all the noise. She didn't know how many more angry and wailing voices she could stand. She built a wall around her attention and hid behind it. No matter what she did, a few voices filtered through her carefully laid walls.

"I'm not going to be a part of this anymore—"

"What if I died and my wife was left to care for the children alone?"

"This isn't our problem—"

"This is too dangerous. I didn't realize—"

Despite the fuzz that filled Leigh's brain, she got the general gist of what people were saying. They were saying that Leigh and her friends were alone. This was their battle and they would have to deal with it. They hadn't realized the seriousness of the situation. They hadn't realized that people might actually get hurt—that people might actually die. It had been so unreal to them. Now they understood and they were backing out. They were all alone again.

She faintly heard Jamie's voice echoing through the crowd—trying to rally everyone together again. She was trying to get them to hold themselves together and look at the bigger picture. Leigh knew her real intent was to calm the panic—because the 'wolfs didn't seem to notice all the humans around. They didn't exactly what the humans were catching on to.

Leigh knew she should help Jamie, but she couldn't seem to get herself to move. She didn't want to move again. In her present state, she hoped that she could just stay there, curled up on the cement and never have to deal again. She knew dimly that she was in shock. But the part of her brain that was in charge wouldn't listen. It just wanted to block everything out—make her forget that life outside of her existed.

A warm hand fell on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. She shrugged it off automatically. It was just another part of the buzz that was at the back of her mind.

"Leigh," a voice echoed through her brain, refusing to be ignored. "Leigh, it's okay. Everything is going to be all right."

No, it wasn't going to be all right. The words were cheap and meaningless. Nothing would ever be all right for Uncle Dolan again. He hadn't deserved to be a part of all of this. He was a quirky kind of fellow. He lived out in the country alone and rarely came into town except when he absolutely had to. But Leigh had known him well enough. He was a good man—had taught her how to hunt in the wild like 'wolves used to do; in the days before 'wolves became domesticated and ate meat from the stores like everyone else. He had a wild side, but he had always been good to humans. Now he was gone because of 'wolf slayers.

Rollson needed to be stopped. Leigh understood this now better than ever. If he wasn't stopped, he would continue to hurt so many innocent people. At that moment, the battle became more than just a fight of good versus evil. The fight became personal for Leigh. Rollson was going to pay.

"Leigh," the voice said again and finally she could place it. "Leigh, look at me."

"No, I will not look at you!" Leigh snapped and then did the opposite of what she said. She turned and looked Doug straight in the eyes. She just couldn't hold the anger in anymore. It came flooding out of her in a torrent. "Just go away and leave me alone. I don't want to talk to you. I'd be happy if I never saw you again!"

She could see the shock in his eyes when the words hit him. His face was impassive, but she knew she'd made a dent in his perfect cool. He opened his mouth to speak again but Leigh cut him off.

"Why did you come here anyway? You don't care about us! Any of us! Everything is about what you want—what you feel! The only person here that meant anything to you was Jamie! For once my parents were actually right about something! So why don't you just save your precious Jamie and leave the rest of us the alone!"

She knew she was making a scene and for once she just didn't care.

Doug snapped his mouth shut. His eyes closed off and his shoulders became stiff. He turned away from her with a cold shrug.

What did she care anyway? He could be as cold to her as he liked. She never wanted to talk to him again. Sure, it had hurt to know that he'd rather kiss Amber than her. But what hurt even more was to learn that he was just using her. She was surprised he hadn't tried to kiss her before that.

Another police car had just arrived at the scene. A policeman hopped out of the car, waving his hands. "Doug! Leigh!"

It was detective Tross. Leigh just folded her arms across her chest and refused to answer the call. He was acting as if he were their friend. After all he'd done to them…he could forget that. Leigh was determined just to ignore him.

Doug didn't appear to feel the same way. He strode toward the man with a dark look in his eyes. For a moment, Leigh's heart seized; because for that moment she actually thought Doug was going to punch the detective's lights out.

Instead, Doug took hold of the front of Tross's uniform and pushed him up against the car roughly. He pinned him there.

The detective let of a long string of expletives. "What do you think you're doing?"