The End of Us novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Kitchens

The knife went into Quinton's side.

He made a short, shocked sound, and he did not fall.

He caught the younger brother's wrist with both hands and hung on.

"Run," he said hoarsely, to nobody. "Take him and run."

I shifted in the corridor.

It took no time at all now.

The silver came up through me, and the floor was under my paws, and I hit the younger brother in the chest and put him through the nursery wall.

Keith went past me in his own form, a huge black wolf, and he took the uncle down by the shoulder.

The older brother turned to run with the baby.

Ginny was already there.

She came up off the floor and swung her plaster cast into his jaw.

He dropped.

The bundle fell, and Ginny caught it against her chest with her good arm, and she sat down hard on the boards with the baby crying in her lap.

Three men lay on the corridor floor, with Keith's guard pouring up the stairs to hold them.

I shifted back and ran to Quinton.

He sat against the wall with his hand pressed to his side and blood coming through his fingers.

"Is he hurt?" he said.

"He's fine. Ginny has him."

"Good," Quinton said, and his eyes rolled up.

Ginny handed the baby to a guard and was on her knees beside him before I could speak.

"Move your hand," she said. "Move it. Let me see."

"Don't cut my coat."

"I'm going to cut your coat."

She cut it.

The wound was deep, low on his left side, and she said a word I had never heard her say.

"It missed everything that matters," she said, after a moment. "He's lucky. A foot higher, and he's dead."

"Will he live?"

"If he doesn't do anything stupid for a month."

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