Misha: Lanning's Leap (2 page)

Rider was on his way with bags of clothes for them all and also some guns. Misha felt sorry for his brother carrying all that extra weight.
But it was his turn, and if anyone had to do it, he was sort of glad it was him. Rider was driving him nuts being so smothering.

Within minutes of his arrival, all five of them had shifted and dressed.
Misha was strapping his gun to his hip when the door suddenly opened.
Show time
, was the first thing that popped into his head as he drew his weapon.

The wolf came out with his nose in the air.
Misha knew it was finally coming to a head, and they had to act now or someone was going to get hurt. Going up behind the wolf, he fired once in his head and let him drop as he turned with his weapon pointed at the building.

The human came out when they told him he was surrounded
, but he started shooting almost as soon as he cleared the door. The small gun didn’t hit much more than the leaves on the trees around them, and when he was dry firing, Rider grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him to the ground. It just happened to be nearly on top of the wolf. He tried to get up several times before Misha told him to lay still.

“You killed him? You fucking killed him?
Mother fuck.” Rider told the man that they had and to shut up. “What is wrong with you people? I would have given you a cut of her insurance. Mother fuck, mother fuck. I’m going to have to start all over now, and do you know how hard that’s going to be?”

Misha looked at Andrew to see if he was recording this. At his nod,
Misha walked over to the man and picked his head up off the ground, much the same way the man had done with the woman earlier.

“Start over?”
The man started to struggle, so Misha pushed his head into the dirt until he stopped. “Start over with what?”

“Finding a sadist
, you stupid mother fucker. They don’t just grow on trees, you know. Do you know how many we had to kidnap before Gunn could get enough practice in so that my wife would suffer? There is double the insurance for murder, and we needed to make sure that it looked like she’d been murdered and not just had an accident. How the hell else was I supposed to pay him back? Gunn was expensive. My mother fucking cunt of a wife is going to suffer like I have all these years.”

The sirens sounded
in the distance and the whoop-whoop of the chopper was coming closer, the sound getting louder and louder with each turn of the blade. Misha stood up just as Phillip came out of the building. He was shaking his head.

Misha looked down at the man. “I’m afraid you’re out of luck
, buddy. Your wife is going to live for a while longer.”

Twenty-nine hours later
, they were boarding a plane to head home. One stop and he’d be in his own bed tonight, and Misha was looking forward to waking when he wanted, not because of a case or an alarm.

~~~

“That’ll be twenty-seven dollars and fifty-four cents.” Hannah Oliver watched the very smartly dressed woman look at her. She hadn’t blinked once since she’d told her the first time how much her meal was going to be. Han, as most people called her, knew just how she felt. Thirty bucks for a meal for two was a shit load of money. And that didn’t even count the two coffees she’d gotten from somewhere else in the big airport.

“That’s too much.”
Han didn’t even bother arguing with her. She’d heard it all before and figured that was the price you had to pay if you didn’t eat before getting on this side of your flight. Once you passed those security guys, you were stuck until you left. “You’ll get me the manager right now.”

“He’s not able to come up here now.” Which was true. He was having a nice little nap like he did daily when he came in.
“But if you’d—”

The woman slapped both her hands onto the counter
, and Han took a step back. She’d been hit before and knew the look of a person who was about to show their mean side. Not at work, of course, but she knew the look of meanness. “Miss, you’ll have to back up now. I can’t help you if you don’t.”

“You aren’t helping me now, you stupid bitch. I just got into trouble for having too high of an expense account on these trips. You’ll either give me the right prices or I’m going to
knock you around until you do. I’m not having some high school dropout get me…you’re nothing but a minimum wage flunky, and I’m a professional here who holds down a fucking job. Not a burger-flipping bitch who thinks she can cheat me by charging double for this shit. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been traveling just this week? I’m tired, but I’m not fucking stupid.” Her fist connected with Han’s jaw before she could move out of the way of it. Her lip felt as if the woman had used a bat rather than her fist. Han put her hand on her mouth to stop the bleeding. She’d be charged if she had to have a replacement uniform again.

The man behind the woman grabbed her as she started over the counter. Han wasn’t
sure what she would have done if she’d gotten to her. Curling into a ball and hoping for the best was what she normally did, but she doubted that this woman would continue hitting her after she’d lost consciousness, as happened when she was at home. But the man saved her from finding out.

He had
the woman’s arms pinned behind her back while on her knees in front of him. Han watched him as he held her as if she were nothing more than a bothersome flea. When he asked Han if she was all right, she nodded once, then shook her head.

“Has anyone called security, honey?”

Han’s boss chose that moment to come out of his office just as her savior asked her.
Dick was a big man in that he had a girth that was as wide as she was tall, and he was as stupid as the bagels that they served. He said that he would call.

Security arriv
ed about five minutes later. Han was sure it was due more to the fact that they wanted free refills on their coffee rather than coming to the call. These two men were what gave most security firms a bad name…lazy, fat, and incredibly stupid.

“You okay?”
She took a step back from her rescuer when he reached for her. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t need stitches. May I look please?”

Han nodded and closed her eyes when he touched her mouth. The
pain wasn’t the worst she’d had, but it still hurt. She knew that he could tell she was afraid of him, but he never said anything. He pressed a wet cloth over her lip and she opened her eyes.

“You need stitches.
Four or five I would bet.” He took a step back from her when she realized she was blocked by the coffee machine. “I won’t hurt you. You have to believe that.”

“Mary, you’
re going to have to finish your shift before you can go anywhere. Maybe next time when you have a problem with a customer you’ll let me handle it rather than you trying to be pissy with them. We’ve talked about your attitude before, haven’t we?”

She
wanted to remind him that his talk with her had been him trying to get her to blow him. He’d been so pissed he’d only put her on the schedule for four hours one week. But it hadn’t worked out. She was the only one who knew how to turn on most of the equipment, including the register. He’d revised the schedule when he had to delay opening the store for nearly three hours before she was able to come in.

Dick told her to get back to work and be thankful she still had a job.
He also told her he might write her up just because he could. She looked at the man when Dick left them.

“You have any trouble with him, you give me a call.” He handed her a card
, and she took it without thinking. “You should just go and get those stitches before it gets too swollen. I bet he uses the wrong name all the time when he talks to you, right?”

“He does.” For the
briefest of moments she wanted to smile at the man. No one, not anyone, had ever been this nice to her before…at least not in a very long time. When he turned to the other side of the counter from where they were, she saw that there were three other men dressed as he was. She knew that they were all related, too. They had a look…one that she recognized as more than friends. She looked at the man again. “If you get on the other side, I’ll take your order. That is if you’d still like to eat here.”

He stared at her for a few seconds before he nodded.
That’s when she noticed that his shirt said “Lanning Search and Rescue.” It explained why he’d helped her. It wasn’t because he thought she needed it, but because it was as much a part of his job as breathing. She backed up when he took a step toward her.

“You’re very
skittish, aren’t you?” When he moved to the other side of the counter, she took their order and tried to ignore their antics. They were very nice, but nice men didn’t like her.

After her shift
, she clocked out and went to get her things. Dick called her to his office, but she didn’t enter. He had a look on his face like that of a spoiled child, and she wondered what he was up to now.

“I’m letting you go.”
She nodded, knowing that there was little to nothing she could do now. “I don’t need people calling in here screaming at me on how I should treat you. He actually told me that I should appreciate you more than I do and that I should fucking learn your name. Well, Hannah Oliver, you’re fired.”

She took the sheet he handed her and picked up her things. She was to the bus stop before she realized that her mother was going to kill her. Han didn’t know what to do
, but got onto the bus to go home, trying to think of any way to tell her mother that wouldn’t get her hurt. There was nothing. Han was in so much trouble.

Chapter 2

“You okay
, honey?” When she looked up at him, Billy saw the wound on her mouth. “Your momma do that to you? Someday you’re going to have to hit her back. Then she’ll take notice that you’re not a punching bag.”

Han had been riding his route since he’d taken
it from the man before him. She was as regular as a clock and just as quiet. But today he could see the tears she was holding onto. Billy could also smell his friend on her. He smiled when he thought of Carter and what he might have done with a woman like this one. She was not really his normal kind of date, but Billy thought it would be good for the both of them.

When she spoke, Billy was surprised
, he thought, as much as she was. “He fired me. I didn’t do anything wrong, and now I don’t have a job. What will Mother say?”

She seemed to know she’d said too much and snapped her mouth closed.
He watched her crawl back into herself as she stared out the window. Billy decided that he’d check on her later, maybe even bring Carter by and see what he might know about the beautiful woman.

Billy had been curious about the young girl for years. She’d get on the bus with bruises
, and a couple of times he’d had to help her out of the seat once she got to the airport. She never said much and was always very polite to him when he asked her something. But this was different; even at his advanced age, he could see this time she was terrified.

After he let her off in front of her house, he drove out the rest of his shift.
He didn’t even bother going home but made his way to Carter’s house. The more he thought about young Han, the more worried he got.

He’d
heard rumors about the girl. Most of them he knew to be untrue, but there were a couple that had him wanting to pull her aside and have a long talk with her. She’d been in and out of the mental hospital since she’d been about ten, and her mother, a sorrier excuse for a human than he’d ever seen, was right there at the stop with her after she’d been released to tell him all about it. He’d listen to her because he had to, but he was seething inside every time he thought of how much she seemed to enjoy humiliating the poor girl.

The rumor that he’d heard about her first
was that she’d seen something. A man had turned into a large wolf right before he’d been killed. The wolf had grabbed her up and saved her from being raped by a few of her mother’s friends. According to Han, he’d been standing in his yard, hoeing out his vegetables, when he’d seen her coming.

Billy
knew the man, of course. You weren’t a shifter in a town this small without knowing who was who. Billy, like his buddy Carter and his family, was a leopard. But unlike them, Billy wasn’t the creamy-spotted kind, but a full black one. And just as Han had said, Donald Gamer was a wolf.

Donald had been a very nice man
, and Billy could see him doing just what Han’s mother had said. Her daughter had told the doctors that a big wolf had saved her, and that had gotten her into trouble. But Donald had been killed when he wouldn’t turn the girl over to the men. He had shifted back to human before the police had arrived after he was dead, right along with the other wolf he’d killed protecting the child. Poor Han had been shoved into a shed but had seen the entire thing. The brutality of the event had more than likely been very hard on the child.

Then Han’s mother had
come to him about a week after he’d started on his new route to warn him about the girl. She was insane. She had issues. And worst of all, her mother had told him, she was a liar. Billy had nodded and said nothing.

But he knew better now. He knew then that what she’d seen was fact
, but he didn’t know the girl then. Now his heart broke for her every time he let her off in front of that house. But today he was going to do something about it.

~~~

Han walked up the sidewalk seeing that someone, her mother more than likely, had dug up all the flowers again. She’d saved and saved to buy them, only to have them ripped out every year. Han moved to the front of the house and knocked on the door. Someday she’d have her own house, she thought, and there would never be a lock on it for her to be locked out. An impossible dream, but one she cherished. She stood there for a moment before she moved inside when her mother opened the door.

Her mother was a drunk.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, she was an abusive one as well. Even though Han was twenty-five years old, she’d never be able to get away from her. Her mother was forever telling her that no one would want her, no one would take her in, and she’d never be worth more than the shit she threw in the trash at work. The work she no longer had. She would do as her mother told her because Han was simply terrified of being locked up again.

Han was
depressed all the time. And yes, that one time she had tried to kill herself, but she’d been stupid to get caught at it. Not that she’d try again, but some days there was just…. No, Han thought, she was over that stuff. But now her mother had something else to throw into her face…how she’d even been a failure at that. Han tried not to think of it as a failure but as a learning experience.

She moved
into the house when her mother told her to shut the fucking door. Han wanted to go to her room, but there was dinner to fix, as well as cleaning up any mess her mother might have made while she’d been gone.

Han
went to the kitchen and heard the click-click of her mother’s heels overhead as she moved from the bathroom to one of the other rooms up there. Han slept downstairs in the small parlor that served as her room. It had a door and a smallish closet, but it was clean and hers…at least as much hers as it could be living there. She began to pull out things to make for dinner, trying to figure out how to tell her mother that she’d been fired.

Han
’s was the only income they had. Her mother could have found a job if she’d wanted, but everything was too beneath her, or the timing just wasn’t right. Han never brought it up about how poor they were. It had gotten her a good beating when she’d been sassy, as her mother had said, so Han let it go. Her mother spent Han’s money like she had a job. And if it wasn’t for Han’s job and the fact that she paid the rent at the end of the month, they’d have been out on their butt’s years ago.

She was making salmon patties when her mother came into the kitchen.
Han felt the hair on the back of her neck dance when she was close like this, but she didn’t turn. There was no point in it. Han knew just how she was dressed.

Her hair would be hanging down in a long curl that was more suited to a girl than a grown woman.
Her makeup, thick and dark, would be there to hide any signs of aging, which somehow was also Han’s fault. Her earrings would be sparkly, long, and gaudy, and would look like heavy weights on her ears. And her dress would be one of three.

There was the blood
-red one that was slit up the side to show off her legs. The back was held together by safety pins that had been painstakingly hidden in the stitching because she was forever taking it in or letting it out. The frayed elbows would be covered with an equally red shawl that served only to hide the shabbiness of the clothing.

Then there was the blue one. Han liked the color
, but it was all wrong for her mother. Where her skin was a pasty white, the dress only made her look washed out and almost dead. It was similar to the red one in that it was held together by safety pins, but it was less worn because she’d had it the least amount of time. Other than that, it was still skin tight and showed every bit of fat her mother claimed she had.

Pink wasn’t her
mother’s color, either. It, too, washed her out, but instead of making her look dead, it gave her the appearance of pork that had been left out too long. She looked more like one of the dead people in those shows on television than a living, breathing person. This dress was a little more modest than the other two. There was no slit up the side, but it did plunge down in the front so that it showed off her navel and a good deal of her breasts. Han and her mother had nothing in common when it came to chests. While her mother was small and tight, Han was large-breasted and full.

She was also taller than her mother.
A good deal taller. In her stocking feet, Han stood just under six foot. Her mother was just over five foot five. She’d told Han once that she’d been with a giant of a man whose dick did not match up to his height. Han flushed for days every time she thought of that.

The fish was almost finished when she
turned around, and Han could only stare. Her mother had…she had on a new dress, and had dyed her hair as well. There were no words to describe how she really looked.

“I wondered if you’d ever get your head out of your ass and turn to tell me how good I look.”
Han nodded, not really sure what to say to her. “I gots this today when I was feeling sorry for myself. I think it’s perfect.”

The
dress—she supposed it was a dress, but Han wasn’t sure why it would be considered anything less than simply material that had been hung together—was as ugly as anything she’d ever seen. The front was see-through and her nipples were dark against the virgin white material. Even her pussy was showing, and not just from the lack of color, but also the length of the dress. Han thought if her mother bent over, her entire ass would be exposed, as well as anything else that should have been hidden. Han didn’t think of herself as a prude, but this was too much.

The color of her hair nearly defied description.
There were streaks of pinks and golds in it, as well as blue and purple. How she’d be able to walk down a darkened street without glowing was beyond her. Han could see other colors, too. She stared at her when she turned in front of her. That’s when she noticed the shoes.

The
heels were at least six inches tall. It was not unusual for her mother to wear high heels, but Han wondered how she could balance on the ones she had on. And then there were the spikes that seemed to scream to be noticed. Each tip looked as if it had a drip of blood on it. Han looked at her face when her mother laughed.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you? Who knew that your mom could look so good, right?”
Han didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure how to. “When you go into work tomorrow, you’ll have to get an advance on your next check. I have to pay Cecile back for my new doo.”

“I
can’t.” Her mother asked her why the hell not. “I got fired today. I mean, he fired me for something I didn’t do.”

Her mother just stood there staring at her.
Han took a step back when she kicked her shoes off and picked them up in each hand. She knew just what she was going to do with them, and Han felt her body start to scream at her to run. But it would be worse if she did.

The slap of the shoe across her face took her breath away. The second
time it hit her in the arm, Han tried to grab it, but her hand only got the spikes, and Han screamed. Her mother hit her three more times with the shoes before Han fell to the floor. After that, all she could do was curl into a ball and hope that she would tire soon.

The plate of food hit her
, and she felt the burn of the fish as it spread over her face. Han peeled at it, trying to keep it from blistering too much. But her mother just continued hitting her until she suddenly stopped, turned, and picked up a chair.

Han screamed again when it crashed over her ribs
, and the feel of them breaking and hitting her lungs was like hot acid being poured over her body. She knew that they’d been broken when breathing became painful enough to make her dizzy. The next time her mother hit her after the chair had done its damage, Han felt the world around her sliding away. She was going to die this time, and she didn’t really care.

The cold splash of water woke her
, coughing, but Han cried out when she did and looked up at her mother. A large man who visited her mother some nights was standing over her. He was taking off his belt when her mother laughed.

“I’m so worn out that
Big Dan is going to take over. And when he’s done, you’re going to call that boss of yours and beg him to give you back that job, even if you have to let him fuck you on the desk daily to keep it.”

“No.”
She let out a cry as the belt hit her across the back. “No, I don’t want to work there, and I won’t have sex with him. Please stop.”

The pain was too much
, but every time she passed out, one of them would wake her with cold water. Han knew that she’d not be able to take much more and simply let her mind drift away. It was hard with as much as she hurt, but she thought of the wolf. The one that had saved her.

She’d been running from her mother and her boyfriends, four of them. They’d told her that if
they caught her, she’d be giving each of them head. Han was young, but she knew what that meant. And the thought of having a man’s dick in her mouth was sickening, much less four of them. She’d been given a five-minute head start, and she’d taken off almost as soon as her mother had said “Go.”

The man had
been in his yard with a large hoe in his hand. He’d seen her, of course, and stopped what he’d been doing to stare at her. She looked behind her when the man—she had no idea what his name had been—whistled for her. Han tried to run again, but she was hurting from the beating one of them had given her.