Chicks Kick Butt by Nancy Holder, Karen Chance, P. N. Elrod, Rachel Vincent, Rachel Caine, Jeanne C. Stein, Susan Krinard, Lilith Saintcrow, Cheyenne McCray, Carole Nelson Douglas, Jenna Black, L. A. Banks, Elizabeth A. Vaughan

hadn’t been enough to completely close the wound, and moving my arm had kept the blood flowing. Frustrated, I turned the flashlight off and shoved it into the side pocket of my pack, then used my free hand to apply pressure to my cut. But then I couldn’t see.
    Damn it! How was I supposed to save Robyn when I couldn’t even find her?
    You’re not cut out for this, Abby. Jace was right. You should just sit down and wait to be rescued. Again
.
    But if I did that, Robyn would die, scared, alone, and in pain. Just like Dani. And I’d be the coward who’d damned her.
    You’re not using your resources
 … a new voice in my head said, and she sounded for all the world like Faythe.
You’re not human, and you’re not helpless, so why pretend on either count?
    I closed my eyes, and the memory came back in full. We were training in the barn, at night, with the lights off. I could hear her when she spoke, but the others were silent, and I couldn’t see any of them. Because then, like now, I wasn’t using my resources. My senses.
    The partial Shift
. Standard procedure now, for all enforcers patrolling in human form, and one of the first things Faythe had taught me.
    I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and forced everything else from my mind. The cold, the dark, the pain in my arm … None of that mattered. Robyn mattered. Finding her. Saving her.
    Avenging the others.
    Pain shot through my right eye, followed by an answering spear through my left. The pressure was enormous, like my eyeballs would pop right out of my head. But they didn’t, and when the pain faded, when I finally opened my eyes, I could see. The colors were muted, of course, as they were for me in cat form, but the woods were clear, each tree crisply outlined by the little available moonlight.
    I grinned. This was going to work.
    My ears were next, and they were a real bitch. Shifting them was more complicated, and the pain was like needles being jabbed through my eardrums and into my brain. But when it was over the difference was unbelievable. I hadn’t realized how much I was missing in human form until I could suddenly hear like a cat.
    Rodent heartbeats. Wind rustling branches far over my head and half a mile away. An owl, halfway across the damn forest, swooping on its prey with a rush of air unique to that particular wing formation and dive pattern.
    And beneath all that, the steady, low-pitched hum of machinery. A generator.
    Steve’s cabin. It had to be.
    I let go of my injured arm and took off through the woods, easily avoiding fallen logs and jutting branches now that I could see them. Cold air burned my lungs, but I barely felt it. I was buoyed by the hope blooming in my chest. I could save her. I could make up for failing to save Dani. And maybe in doing that, I could prove to myself for good that the cowering, helpless Abby was gone. The men in the cage had killed her, but from her ashes, this new phoenix was born, and she was ready to unleash justice on their brothers in crime.
    Justice and pain. Lots of pain.
    Half a mile later, the cabin came into view, its generator growling now, in my sensitive ears. It drowned out any sounds I might have been able to hear from inside, and it was almost too much for my pounding head to take, so I Shifted my ears back as I watched the cabin, crouched behind a shelter of tall, thick ferns. But I kept my cat eyes. Feline pupils would adjust to the light inside the cabin. Once I got in.
    The cabin was small—why did they need such a big generator?—and I couldn’t see any movement through the windows. So after several minutes of nothing, I eased my pack off my shoulders and onto the ground, then ran hunched over to crouch beneath the uncovered front window, painting a square of untamed forest floor with light from within.
    A couple of minutes later, when no one charged out of the cabin wielding a knife, I dared a careful glimpse through the glass—and nearly melted with relief.
    Robyn lay on the floor