Definitely Dead

began to rise from the pavement, too, my throat becoming more and more pinched by the grip he had on me.
    Quinn must have seen my desperate situation, because he struck the Were on top of me with his free hand, a slap that rocked the Were’s head back and simply knocked him for a loop so thoroughly that he let go of my neck.
    Then Quinn grabbed the young Were by the shoulders and tossed him aside. The boy landed on the pavement and didn’t move.
    “Sookie,” Quinn said, hardly sounding out of breath. Out of breath is what I was, struggling to get my throat to open back up so I could gulp in some oxygen. I could hear a police siren, and I was profoundly thankful. Quinn slipped his arm under my shoulders and held me up. Finally I breathed in, and the air was wonderful, blissful. “You’re breathing okay?” he asked. I gathered myself enough to nod. “Any bones broken in your throat?” I tried to raise my hand to my neck, but my hand wasn’t cooperating just at the moment.
    His face filled my scope of vision, and in the dim light of the corner lamp I could see he was pumped. “I’ll kill them if they hurt you,” he growled, and just then, that was delightful news.
    “Bitten,” I wheezed, and he looked horrified, checking me over with hands and eyes for the bite mark. “Not me,” I elaborated. “Them. Not born Weres.” I sucked in a lot of air. “And maybe on drugs,” I said. Awareness dawned in his eyes.
    That was the only explanation for such insane behavior.
    A heavyset black patrolman hurried up to me. “We need an ambulance at the Strand,” he was saying to someone on his shoulder. No, it was a little radio set. I shook my head.
    “You need an ambulance, ma’am,” he insisted. “Girl over there says the man took you down and tried to choke you.”
    “I’m okay,” I said, my voice raspy and my throat undeniably painful.
    “Sir, you with this lady?” the patrolman asked Quinn. When he turned, the light flashed off his name pin; it said Boling.
    “Yes, I am.”
    “You . . . ah, you got these punks offa her?”
    “Yes.”
    Boling’s partner, a Caucasian version of Boling, came up to us then. He looked at Quinn with some reservation. He’d been examining our assailants, who had fully changed to human form before the police had arrived. Of course, they were naked.
    “The one has a broken leg,” he told us. “The other is claiming his shoulder’s dislocated.”
    Boling shrugged. “Got what was coming to ’em.” It might have been my imagination, but he, too, seemed a bit more cautious when he looked at my date.
    “They got more than they expected,” his partner said neutrally. “Sir, do you know either of these kids?” He tilted his head toward the teenagers, who were being examined by a patrolman from another car, a younger man with a more athletic build. The boys were leaning against each other, looking stunned.
    “I’ve never seen them before,” Quinn said. “You, babe?” He looked down at me questioningly. I shook my head. I was feeling better enough that I felt at a distinct disadvantage, being on the ground. I wanted to get up, and I said so to my date. Before the police officers could tell me once again to wait for an ambulance, Quinn managed to get me to my feet with as little pain as possible.
    I looked down at my beautiful new outfit. It was really dirty. “How does the back look?” I asked Quinn, and even I could hear the fear in my voice. I turned my back to Quinn and looked at him anxiously over my shoulder. Quinn seemed a little startled, but he dutifully scanned my rear view.
    “No tearing,” he reported. “There may be a spot or two where the material got a little scraped across the pavement.”
    I burst into tears. I probably would have started crying no matter what, because I was feeling a powerful reaction to the adrenaline that had surged through my body when we’d been attacked, but the timing was perfect. The police got more avuncular the more I cried, and as an extra bonus, Quinn pulled me into his arms and I rested my cheek against his chest. I listened to his heartbeat when I quit sobbing. I’d gotten rid of my nervous reaction to the attack and disarmed the police at the same time, though I knew they’d still wonder about Quinn and his strength.
    Another policeman called from his place by one of the assailants, the one Quinn had thrown. Our two patrolmen went to answer the summons, and we were briefly alone.
    “Smart,” Quinn murmured