“Do you call her Cella or Maaarcella?” she crooned.

“Seriously? Are we going to start this now?”

“It’s not like we’ve got anything better to do stuck in the back of this van.”

“So we’re girlfriends now? Is that’s what’s going on here?”

“I’m almost sad you cut your hair, otherwise I could have given you ponytails.”

“This will not be the course of our relationship.”

“You and your fancy Queens talk.”

Crush decided not to let the woman get to him and asked, “So ... how long are we just going to sit here? Doing nothin’.”

“We’re not just doin’ nothin’. We’re getting paid overtime to do nothin’.”

“We didn’t work all day. How are we now paid overtime?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“MacDermot—”

“Zip it.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Zip it.”

“Fine, but my whole career is not going to be ...” Crush stopped talking and moved his gaze to the roof of the van.

“What?” MacDermot asked him.

Crush didn’t have a chance to answer her, though, reaching over and yanking her to the floor, dropping down next to her as something big and heavy slammed into the van, crumpling the roof on top of them.

When he was sure he hadn’t been crushed to death, he asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

The back doors were yanked open by one of their team.

“Are you two okay?” the wolf asked.

“Yeah.” MacDermot quickly low crawled out of the van, Crush following her.

Once outside, he stood and looked at the roof of the van. “It’s a body. Why is there a body on the roof of our van?”

The entire NYPD team looked up at the building, their gazes moving until they could see the edge of the building’s roof. Then they were dashing away, trying to avoid the next falling body.

“MacDermot?” he growled, not enjoying having bodies flung at him.

“Fuck!” The full-human gave an overall shake. “Crush, Jenny. With me. The rest of you watch the exits. No one comes in or out. And make sure no one sends any fuckin’ air support.”

She looked at Crush. “You ready for this?”

“No.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Cella was thrown back, her body slamming into the brick wall, seconds before some bear was slamming his quite sizable fists into her face and chest.

When they’d gone into the building—Cella’s team and Smith’s—they thought they’d only be dealing with full-humans. But as they’d moved from floor to floor, doing a sweep, they’d found nothing but empty offices—not evenfurniture or phones—and the ever-increasing scent of bears. That, however, hadn’t stopped them. They just figured they’d have to negotiate with the bears to get to Whitlan.

Yet when they’d hit the roof, those BPC bears had come after them like they were covered in honey or threatening their cubs. The question for Cella, however, was why had the BPC bears come after them? No one had challenged them. Both teams had immediately lowered their weapons when they saw there was no Whitlan, and no one had spoken a threatening word. And still, BPC opened fire.

Now an enormous fist was swinging at her again. Cella caught the bear’s arm by the wrist with one hand, holding it. She swung her other fist, hitting the bear in the face. He stumbled, stunned. Still holding his arm, Cella brought her foot down, ramming it into his knee. She heard it crack and the bear crumpled.

She gripped his head with both her hands and twisted, snapping his neck. She stepped over his body, but another bear was coming for her. He never got near her, though. A bowie knife rammed into the thick muscle between his shoulder blades. He screamed, chest arching out.

Smith yanked out the blade and swung around in front of him, slicing his throat. The bear dropped to his knees, hands around his throat. Cella kicked him in the chest, not worrying he’d get back up. Smith had a thing about making sure she hit at least one artery, if not two, when she used her blade.

Smith jerked her head. “Behind you.”

Cella moved to the side and caught hold of one of the arms reaching for her. She yanked him closer, kicked him in the face, then twisted his big arm, but unfortunately not enough to break any bone. The bear grunted in pain and grabbed Cella by the hair with his free hand, yanking her around and holding her in place so he could head-butt her. Considering the size of the bastard’s head, Cella nearly blacked out, her knees buckling. But she couldn’t drop to the floor because the bear still held her by her hair, which was starting to feel like it was being pulled out by the roots. Since she had no intention of getting a receding hairline before she was forty like her Uncle Harry, Cella kicked him, battering the bear’s chest. She could hear ribs breaking, but the bear didn’t seem to let it bother him. Instead, he reached for the .45 he had tucked into the back of his jeans. Cella, unfortunately, had lost her gun in the earlier stages of the fight. Desperate, she unleashed her claws, ready to start tearing flesh from skin, but a series of booming bangs distracted her and the bear, both looking at the thick steel rooftop door that had been closed by several bodies barricading it.

The grizzly’s lip curled and he snarled out, “Polar.”

Cella knew then it was Crush, even before the steel door buckled and was ripped off its hinges. It flew across the roof, colliding with several bears and grazing one of Cella’s teammates.