by Sadie Moss
Finally, West held a hand up, bringing us to a stop.
Rhys swept the beam of his flashlight around, pausing on a dark metal grate that sat high on the wall. “There. Just like Carl said.”
Without hesitation, West and Noah stepped toward the wall, gripping each other’s forearms to create a makeshift platform. Jackson pulled the blowtorch and a pair of goggles out of the bag slung over his back, tossing the empty sack on the ground. He slipped the goggles on then stepped onto his pack mates’ linked arms, and they raised him up as he braced one hand against the wall to keep himself steady. When he was level with the grate, he flipped the blowtorch on.
“Avert your eyes,” he commanded in a mock-solemn tone, but he didn’t need to tell me twice. The flame burned so bright it made the surrounding darkness seem thicker somehow, and when I blinked, little white spots danced in my vision. I kept my eyes turned away, counting down the minutes impatiently until the soft whoosh of the blowtorch died out and there was a clanging sound.
“Sorry. Sorry.” Jackson grunted. “It’s open.”
Excitement stirred in my belly as I stepped forward, peering up at the newly-made opening in the side of the wall. Rhys’s dim beam shone on it like a spotlight as Jackson reached up and hauled himself through the hole.
I followed, panic flaring for a moment at the possibility that I’d be too short to reach the damn thing. But I’d forgotten I was teamed up with four massive, muscled shifters. Noah and West lifted me so quickly I was practically launched up the side of the wall, and Jackson caught my wrists, pulling me through into the metal duct.
He scooted backward to make room for me, before calling over my shoulder in a low voice, “You guys good?”
“Yeah. Go on ahead. But once you get out of the duct, wait for us.”
There was a subtle note of warning in West’s voice, but he needn’t have worried. Jackson might set vans on fire for fun, but when it came to shit like this, he wouldn’t act reckless or impulsive. It was too important.
“So far, so good,” Jackson murmured, shooting me a small smile as he urged me forward.
We crawled through the ducts, moving slowly to remain as quiet as possible. According to the building’s blueprints, there were five levels to the Strand complex, not counting the single story that sat above ground. If our estimations were correct, the air vent leading from the tunnel would spit us out on the third level. Based on the layout of the only other complex we knew of, it seemed unlikely that the test subjects would be kept too close to the surface, so we’d go down before working our way back up.
We reached a painted grate at the end of the tight tunnel, and Jackson drew a few tools from his vest, squeezing past me to unscrew it before pulling it into the duct. Then he dropped to the floor below before reaching up to help me down. The rest of my mates crawled out behind us, landing lightly on booted feet.
“They’ve got sensor beams set up across the doorways. Look.” Jackson jerked his head toward a door a little way down the hall. Two thin blue lines of light crossed the frame.
“They’re spaced pretty far apart. We should be able to get through without tripping the alarms,” West murmured.
“Yeah. Just be careful,” Noah added.
I swiveled my gaze up and down the long corridor. It had white walls and a tiled floor, and something about it was so intimately familiar that my heartbeat faltered. My wolf whined as the nightmare I’d had rushed through my mind again, and I wondered if it really had been a huge mistake to come here.
“Jesus. This place is creepy as fuck,” Jackson whispered beside me.
“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Noah asked.
“Yeah.” Rhys’s voice was hard, edged with soul-biting anger. “But nothing I ever wanted to relive.”
Hearing the agitation in their voices actually soothed my raw nerves a little. This was hard for all of us. It didn’t make me weak to not want to be here. It made me sane.
West pulled out a second flashlight, its beam bouncing off the sterile walls as we crept down the darkened corridors. Every time we passed through a doorway, we had to maneuver carefully between the blue beams of light, making my palms sweat and my heart clench. If a single beam was broken, all of Strand would know we were here.
We did a thorough sweep of the entire floor, passing offices and storage rooms, but saw no sign of any living creatures.
“Let’s try the next level down,” Noah murmured as we passed through the large open space that formed the central hub.
“Carl? Third level is clear.” West spoke into the earpiece he wore, nodding at the response that came through. He glanced over his shoulder at the rest of us. “Next floor down has the small holding areas. Below that are the large rooms.”
My mouth was dry as sandpaper, so I didn’t even try to speak. I just nodded in agreement, and the five of us veered down another hallway toward a new set of stairs.
The next level down was unlike anything I’d seen at the Austin Strand complex—it looked more like something out of my nightmares. The wide area that made up the main hub had large metal cages lining the walls. Everything looked dingier and more worn down, and a lingering smell—like wet fur—pervaded the air. Scratch marks marred the linoleum tiles.
Rhys and West moved around the perimeter, placing small devices that looked like silly-putty with wires sticking out of them in the corners of the room. My reluctant feet dragged me toward one of the cages. It was about six feet tall by ten feet wide, and a dog bowl sat inside, half-full of water. My stomach twisted as I imagined some hapless shifter stuck in here, treated no better than a wild animal, and anger burned hot in my chest.
“What is this place?” I whispered, the sound choked and rough.
“Training area.” Jackson spat the words, his amber eyes blazing in the dim light. “It was never enough for Strand to just create shifters. They want to see what their little toys can do, what different test subjects are capable of.”
“So they… train the shifters?”
“They try. But we’re not fucking dogs—something Doctor Shepherd and his team of monsters never quite seemed to realize.”
I shivered. What must life have been like for Sariah all these years? Assuming she was truly in this compound, what had she been forced to undergo in the name of research?
Rhys stalked up beside me, hands clenched into fists. His nostrils flared, and I knew it was taking all his willpower not to pummel the metal cage with his fists and boots. But unleashing his rage wouldn’t help get Sariah back. And we were so close.
I rested a hand on his shoulder. His whole body was shaking, his muscles straining like rubber bands pulled taut.
“We’ll get Sariah out of here, Rhys,” I whispered. “Let’s keep going.”
He jerked his head in a stiff nod, but I felt him release the breath he’d been holding. He turned to join West, and the two of them led us toward another hallway, pausing to slip between the blue beams that criss-crossed the hall’s entrance. Large glass windows lined the walls, revealing the interiors of the small rooms we’d seen on the blueprints. From time to time, one of the men would deposit another of the small devices Carl had given us.
Some rooms had examining tables like the ones I’d sat on for countless visits and checkups. Some had hospital beds. Some had cots set against the walls.
Trying to close my mind off to the horrific images it kept conjuring up, I quickened my pace, stepping quietly behind West and Rhys.
A sudden loud thud came from my right, and I yelped, scrambling away from the sound. My heart crashed against my ribs as the four men around me all turned toward the noise, braced for a fight.
My breath caught in my throat.
A face pressed against the glass of the room next to us. Two bony-fingered hands splayed across the pane, leaving streaks of grime and sweat as they dragged over the smooth surface.
It was a woman. Maybe in her early thirties, with stringy blond hair and wild eyes.
“Get
out!”
Her voice was muffled by the thick glass, but it was easy to hear the panic and fear it held.
“Holy fuck,” Jackson muttered, his eyes wide.
The woman’s body jerked, her bones morphing and stretching beneath her skin. But she didn’t shift. She grimaced in pain, pressing herself against the glass as though she could force her way through it. After a moment, her bones settled, leaving her still in human form.
She gasped for breath, her head shaking back and forth as tears streamed down her cheeks. Then she slapped the glass again, hard, making me jump.
“Get out!” she screeched. “Get out get out get out!”
I couldn’t catch my breath. Fear, revulsion, and pity all struggled for dominance inside me, and the resulting mess of emotions made me feel like throwing up. “What… what’s wrong with her?”
“She can’t shift.” West’s jaw muscles pulsed. Soft blue light glowed from a bank of monitors on the wall inside the room, spilling into the hallway and giving the woman’s gaunt face a ghostly sheen. “She’s stuck halfway. Her body keeps breaking apart and reforming on the inside.”
Oh, fuck. I tried to imagine the pain I experienced during a shift tearing through my body over and over, and blanched at the chill that washed over me.
“They still haven’t perfected it,” Jackson muttered, his lip curling. “When will they fucking give up and stop trying to play God?”
The woman had her forehead pressed against the glass again, her face contorted in an agonized expression as she stared at us. Her fingers curled convulsively like dying spiders, and her chest rose and fell with deep, ragged breaths.
I inched away as Jackson stepped forward, ducking his head to meet the woman’s gaze. He shook his head sadly, reaching a hand up to press against hers through the glass.
Just as his palm touched the window, an earsplitting alarm broke the silence, blasting through the deserted corridor like a hurricane.
I froze, suspended in place by the sound as fear thickened my blood.
He yanked his hand back, whipping around to face us. “Shit! I didn’t do anything. I swear!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What the fuck happened?” Jackson looked stricken. “Was it the glass? How the fuck—?”
The earsplitting siren drilled into my skull as we all cast around wildly, searching for the source of the threat. Noah’s gaze fell on me, and the expression on his face made my blood run cold.
I glanced down.
The thin blue line of light running across the doorframe behind me had been intersected by the back of my leg. Just barely. But enough.
Disbelief and shock twisted my stomach, and I stepped forward quickly. But the alarm didn’t stop. I had tripped the sensor, and I couldn’t undo that.
“Carl! Can you—” West cupped a hand over his ear, struggling to hear something on the other end. Then he looked up, his expression grim. “The sensors were triggered and tripped the alarm. Carl picked up the signal.”
“Shit.” Noah ran a hand through his hair. “How long do we have?”
“Not long. Carl’s checking cameras in a larger radius, and he’ll give us as much warning as possible. But given the response time at the Austin complex, I’d guess less than ten minutes.”
“Fuck. Fuck!” Rhys tilted his head back and roared, the sound barely rising above the blare of the alarm. He drew a gun from the holster at his side, jerking his head in our direction. “Go! Get out now. I’m going after Sariah.”
“Are you fucking crazy, man?” Jackson’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“I’m not getting this close again and leaving without her!” Rhys insisted. “If we fail, who knows what the fuck they’ll do to everyone left in this place? They could kill all the subjects here just to keep their secret safe! I’m not—”
“No, I meant you’re fucking crazy if you think we’re leaving you behind, you asshole!” Jackson shouted over the alarm, shaking his head like Rhys was an idiot. “We don’t abandon our own.”
The other two men nodded, and I felt my head bobble on my neck. Fear coursed through me like liquid metal, so strong my knees practically knocked together. But this had been my fault. I had tripped the alarm, sent the call out to the hunters, and there was no way I could abandon Rhys to face them alone.
And he was right. This was our last chance.
After this, there would be no more options.
Rhys’s face contorted in a grimace, and he seemed to be wrestling with his instinct to force us all to leave, to keep us safe. But there wasn’t time to argue, and he knew it.
He nodded once, his bright blue eyes flashing.
Then he turned toward the window, raising his gun. The woman’s eyes widened in understanding. She stepped back just before he fired two shots into the left side of the large pane. The glass shattered as the half-shifter inside the room let out a yowl. Her body rippled painfully again, but she shuffled forward through the shards of glass. She didn’t have to be a full wolf to sense freedom when it beckoned.
Holstering his weapon, Rhys strode forward, reaching through the now-open frame and grabbing the woman by the arms. His body was tense, but his voice was surprisingly gentle as he spoke to her.
“Hey, hey! It’s okay. You’re okay. What’s your name?”
The woman blinked up at him with a blank expression for a moment, like she couldn’t quite understand the question. Then she muttered, “J—Julie.”
“Hi, Julie. I’m Rhys. We’ll get you out of here, all right?” He ducked his head, trying to catch and hold her wild gaze. “But we need you to help us. Are there others here? Where are they?”
The woman’s mouth opened and closed a few times before she forced the words out. “Yes. D—downstairs. I can… show you.”
Leaning farther inside the room, Rhys scooped the woman up. She was so thin and frail he lifted her easily, helping her out of the small room. She wore a hospital gown, and her bare legs stuck out from the oversized garment like two pale sticks. When he set her down in the hallway, she almost collapsed again as another partial shift wracked her body.
He steadied her, and she clung to his vest, gasping for air. When the wave passed, she looked up, her eyes a little more focused.
“Downstairs. Come.”
Julie hobbled down the hallway, most of her weight supported by Rhys. Jackson darted up on her other side, slipping an arm around her too.
Even through my fear, my heart swelled with love for these men. Strand had destroyed my faith in people, but these four shifters had managed to revive it, slowly but surely.
They needed to live. The world couldn’t afford to lose them. And neither could I.
“Come on, Scrubs.”
Noah’s hand slid into mine, jerking me out of my frozen state. I gripped it hard as we dashed down the hallway after the others. Julie led us to another set of stairs hidden behind a locked door, and without missing a beat, Rhys shot out the lock. There was no point in subtlety now—we just needed to be fast.
We hustled down the steps, the metal stairs shaking under our pounding footsteps, and burst through another door into the lowest level of the complex.
The “wet fur” smell was worse down here. I could feel my wolf twitching inside me as we raced down a short, wide hallway. The scent agitated her.
“There. Through there!”
The half-shifter woman’s voice was rough, as if she’d shredded her vocal cords screaming. I could barely hear it over the nonstop blare of the alarm. But she was moving more steadily now, seeming to draw strength from her new mission.
West shot out the lock on the double doors and kicked them apart, sending them flying open. The space beyond was dark and open—one of the huge rooms we’d seen on the blueprints. He swept his flashlight around in a quick sweep, and my gaze followed the beam.
Scattered around the large space, which was about the size of the training yard in the Strand complex where I’d grown up, were shadowy forms. He held his
light steady on one, and I gasped when the keen eyes of a wolf snapped toward us. The animal leapt to its feet, hackles rising. All around us, I could sense movement as other shifters roused themselves.
“Sariah? Sariah!!” Rhys bellowed into the darkness, his booming voice rising over the alarm. He turned on his own flashlight, leaving Jackson to support the frail woman beside him as he spun in a circle, illuminating more shifters—some in human form, some wolf.
“Rhys!”
The breathy scream caught my ear a second before a willowy girl flew across the room, hurling herself into Rhys’s arms. The flashlight dropped from his hand, skittering across the floor, but in the ambient light from the beam, I could see him wrap his arms around the girl, holding her tight. She was naked, but her long black hair fell nearly to her hips.
Sariah.
She was here. We’d found her.
She and Rhys clung to each other as if their lives depended on it, ignoring the world around them for the moment, but West and Noah turned to the other shifters.
“We’re getting out of here,” West said loudly. “We came for her, but you can all come with us if you want.”
The words seemed to snap Rhys out of his bubble, and he broke away from Sariah, his expression hardening. We still had to get out of here, or their reunion would be for nothing.
“Trust them!” Sariah called, turning to face the others, her hand gripping Rhys’s. “This… this is my brother. He’s a shifter.”
“Guys, we gotta go!” Jackson shot an anxious glance toward the door, bouncing on his feet. “Like, yesterday!”
West reached a hand up, cupping it over his ear, and Rhys mimicked the gesture. Their expressions shifted at the exact same time, and their eyes locked.
“Damn it. We’re out of fucking time. They’re here.”
Rhys’s voice was low, but I heard him anyway. Whatever hunters had been called by the alarm had arrived. And we were stuck on the lowest level of the underground complex. All they had to do to end us was box us in.
“Is there another way up besides the way we came down?” Jackson grabbed the half-shifter’s shoulders, biting his lip as he searched her face desperately. Behind him, West dashed to the corners of the room, placing several charges on the floor.