“Yes.”
“So, you could move.”
“It’s not as simple as it sounds. Tori jumped at the little apartment over the hardware store because it was the first place to come open in quite some time. Kano says I’m on the wait list, but who knows how long that will take.”
“I own this house, Resa. Move in here. Call it house sitting if you want while we go through the trial period.”
“What? No fair. I love this place,” Tori complained.
“You love your apartment,” Resa pointed out.
“True but look at all the space you’d have here. Jealous.”
She looked around and I could see she was considering it. She was easy to read so I even knew the second she decided to accept my offer. “Fine, but I’m taking the guest room and I will make it mine.”
“You can take whichever room you want. I don’t mind. The place is all yours.”
“Are you leaving the furniture and everything?”
I nodded. “I assume Baine has all the essentials we need already. So unless I find I need something specific we’re packing light, mostly clothes and necessities only.”
“So why is that taking so long?” Tori wondered aloud.
I rolled my eyes. “We decided to go ahead and purge things while we’re at it.”
She groaned. “Not again. Didn’t we just do this a few years ago?”
“Yes, but it just reaccumulates. We don’t need all of this. Help?”
My cousins nodded.
“Well, let’s get started,” Resa said excitedly.
“You can have first dibs on anything. Macie already finished her room and her stuff is in the living room. My bedroom is an absolute mess though.”
We walked over and they laughed. “Yeah, this is going to take a while. Stand back, tell us which pile is what, and we’re on it,” Tori said.
I hugged her. “You two are the best cousins a girl could have.”
We worked non-stop for the next five hours and the house was spotless. We’d made three runs to the thrift store for donations and another nine boxes headed over to Resa’s consignment shop. It was mostly clothes and household items she didn’t think she would need and thought she could sell quickly for me.
The consignment store wasn’t full time. She only worked it on the weekends and one evening a night as she got it established enough to go full time. During the weekday she worked for the Clan out at the lumber yard. She was on the admin team and kept them straight over there, but it was her dream to own her own business and work it full time. She was taking baby steps trying to get there.
“How about I call in some pizza for dinner?”
“Sure,” Tori said.
Resa rolled her eyes. “Is Shawn working tonight? You know, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to just hide in the back room and pretend to work if he shows up.”
I laughed. “Why are you hiding from him this time? I thought you were beyond that now.”
She groaned and put a pillow over her face. “He asked me out again. I thought I made it clear the last time. He’s cute and sweet, but I want a true mate. If there were any doubts about that, seeing you and Baine together has solidified it for me. I don’t want to settle.”
“Yet, he’s definitely ready to settle down with his Resa-bear,” Tori teased.
“Ugh, I’ve always loved that nickname, but you make it sound dirty. Now I can’t ever use it again.”
We were cracking up still as I called in the order. Shawn had answered and assured me he’d have it over as quickly as he could.
“I’ll admit, I do love the priority bump in the pizza line when he’s working.”
“He does not do that,” Resa insisted.
“I should have told him you were hungry. I bet he’d break his delivery time record getting here.”
Resa groaned into a throw pillow again.
“It’s cute,” Tori insisted.
We were still discussing it when Shawn knocked on the door ten minutes later. Macie came out of her room to see who was there, while Resa squealed and ran to lock herself in the bathroom.
“Hi Olivia,” he said when I opened the door.
“Thanks for coming so quickly. We’re starving.”
“I saw Resa’s car out front. Is she here?” he asked with a sheepish grin. Poor guy didn’t stand a chance with my cousin.
“Yeah. She’s um, preoccupied at the moment.”
“Oh,” he said sadly. “Well, tell her ‘hey’ for me. I have two more deliveries to make while I’m out, but I could come back by later.”
“Sorry, lover boy, but it’s ladies’ night,” Tori informed him as she escorted him out of the house.
Macie watched him out of the window. “All clear, Resa,” she yelled once his car had pulled away.
Resa walked out of hiding, rolling her eyes. “Call me a chicken, I don’t care. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I’m not interested either.”
Macie shrugged. “Just tell him that then. Grownups always make things so much harder than they need to be.”
She helped herself to a slice of pizza piled high with all the meats. My baby was growing up too quickly. I just wanted time to slow down.
Fat chance of that.
Baine
Chapter 21
With each passing day, I was getting more irritable. All we were doing was surveillance. I was over it and ready to either blow something up or just go home, preferably the latter.
“Hey, check this out,” Tarron called out.
I walked back into our hotel room that had been staged with all his monitoring equipment.
“What’s up?” Silas asked.
“We have movement in the back quadrant.” Tarron pointed to something on the screen.
My heart fell. “How much longer are we going to leave him in there? We need to move.” It made me sick to see my former Alpha being experimented on in there.
“I’m in agreement here. This is too much,” Painter surprised me by agreeing.
“Any word from our man yet?” Taylor asked.
Silas nodded. “He checked in this morning and warned us this was coming. I think it’s time to move in for extraction.”
“Finally.” I was already mentally taking inventory and deciding what I would need where.
“You heard him. We’ve got the green light. You’ve all been preparing for this for days. Grab your gear and let’s move out. I want to be in and out and back on the road within the hour,” Painter barked.
“What about the others?” Ben asked.
“Not our problem today,” Silas said. “With Jake inside, we can continue to monitor things.”
“Does Jake know this?” Grant asked.
“Yeah, he does. He’s in for the long haul,” Ben confirmed. “Just, nobody shoot him if he gets pulled into the middle of this, and don’t blow him up either, Baine. I mean it.”
“Fine. Are we only extracting Pike on this mission?”
“Yes,” Silas confirmed.
“Why?” Taylor asked. “This is a pretty remote place, and we could save them all.”
“We could,” Ben agreed. “Instead, we’re going to solidify Jake’s position inside and use it to our advantage.”
“The only people we’ve managed to get this far on the inside have been Verndari allies,” Silas noted.
“Problem with them was that we weren’t sure who we could actually trust,” Painter added.
“Exactly. This is the first opportunity we’ve had to really get one of our guys in there,” Silas said.
“So he’s one of us now?” Ben asked with a smartass smirk on his face.
Silas ignored him. “We need this. So Pike only. In and out, boys.”
Taylor never corrected him when he said things like that. We were all brothers, period, and that included her. Of course, we knew she was a girl, but in the unit, none of that mattered. She was just one of the guys.
“What’s the plan?” I asked.
As Pai
nter took the helm and orchestrated our rescue mission, I was disappointed to find I would be relegated to a last resort. The plan was to sneak in, acquire our target, and get back out undetected if at all possible.
Having Jake on the inside meant we weren’t blind. As long as the guy didn’t turn tail on us, then we had eyes and could actually manage a stealth extraction.
“I’m still prepping for worst case scenario,” I argued.
“Jake’s not going to let us down,” Ben assured me.
I sighed. I’d been away from my girls for far too long. Nearly a week had passed as we watched and waited to give Jake time to get in with his cover. From the info he was able to get out to us fully encrypted, even Tarron had been impressed.
“Baine. I know you’re disappointed that we won’t be blowing anything up today, but I’m going to let you channel some of that extra energy later anyways,” Silas surprised me by saying. “You’re going in with Grant and Painter. Your objective, disable Jake.”
“What?” Ben asked alarmed.
“He’s undercover, Shay. He’s the new kid and the one they’ll most easily suspect. Plus, he’s already arranged it so he’s covering Pike along with another guy. Disable them. Leaving our boy unconscious would be best.”
I sighed. I liked to blow stuff up, not hurt people, but I quietly nodded.
“No permanent damage,” Ben reminded me.
“Understood.”
Within the hour we were geared up and ready to move. Ben, Tarron, and Taylor left first to give them time to get into position. I was surprised to find Silas going in with us. As leader, he often stayed back, usually with Tarron to orchestrate things. Today, Taylor was calling the shots.
I sent Grant a concerned look, but he just shrugged, clearly just as confused as I was.
We were all quiet as we took off into the woods. Since Jake had taken the car we’d arrived in, that left us with only the SUV which Tarron and Taylor had set up for surveillance. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but we were all making the most of the things we had. Getting back to Clan territory with Pike was going to be a tight squeeze.
We kept a steady pace as we jogged towards our target. A lesser group would have been wiped out by the time we reached the fence, but Silas trained us all for this every day. Had the rest of the team been with us, they’d have kept up as well. Even though Ben and Tarron almost always observed from afar, Bravo Team kept everyone physically ready for anything.
None of us had even broke a sweat, despite having just run three miles to reach our destination.
“I have you in sight,” Ben confirmed.
“Hold,” Taylor said.
We waited until we got clearance to proceed. When I first started this gig, it was really weird having them in my ear all the time. Now it was odder when they stayed quiet. It made me fear the worst.
My heartrate increased and I could feel the adrenaline starting to kick in as we waited.
“All clear,” Tarron said.
“Proceed,” Taylor confirmed.
Painter went first as he stopped at the fence and carefully and quickly sliced through the metal. He rolled through and held one side back as the rest of us followed. When he put the fence back into place you could barely tell there was a breech. That was the level of expertise we had on the force.
Silas led the way himself as he ran to the side door. Grant stayed back to cover the area knowing that Ben would alert them to any obvious threats. When I reached the door, I turned around pulling my rifle to the ready and swept the area watching Grant’s back until we were reunited.
Silas moved to go first, but Painter stopped him. It was our job to protect our leader. It was clear the big grumpy gorilla wasn’t thrilled by it, but we weren’t in a place to argue. There would no doubt be hell to pay for it later.
Painter disappeared into the building followed by Silas, then me. Grant brought up the rear.
“Left then right at the end of the hall,” Taylor commanded.
We moved without so much as a sound.
“Pause,” Tarron said. I could hear him tapping away at his computer. “Go fast.”
They were running infrared surveillance on the building and could tell where every person was based on heat signatures.
“Alert and flatten,” Taylor said as we pressed against the wall with weapons drawn. My rifle now hung on my chest with pistol in hand. It was a better combat weapon indoors.
I held my breath and tried not to make a sound as footsteps drew closer. When a voice spoke the hair on my arms stood up. I knew that voice. It was Trevor Daniels. He made a disgruntled sound and then pivoted and walked away just before reaching the corridor we were standing in.
Time seemed to drag out before Taylor finally gave us the okay to proceed again. One more right, two doors down on the left.
Things were going too smoothly. It made me feel unsettled. On top of that, my bear was close to the surface and agitated when we walked into the room and saw Pike strapped to a table and half conscious.
Grant pulled his gun up and aimed it for the guy with Jake. Painter’s was already targeting Jake.
“Don’t even think about making a move if you want to live through this,” I said when the second man started to dive for a hail Mary attempt at sounding the alarm.
He froze and raised his hands into the air. “You’ll never get away with this,” he said seething of hate.
Silas took his rifle and slammed it into the back of the man’s head. He went down with a loud thud.
“You going to give us any trouble?” he asked Jake.
Jake looked at the man and then back up to Silas as he shrunk back. We were 99% certain we had all the cameras disabled, but just in case, we knew we were all playing a role.
Jake moved to cover Pike with his body, as if he was trying to stop us from taking him. That was my cue. It was clear he wasn’t expecting it either as his eyes registered surprise when my right hook slammed into the side of his face causing him to fall backwards into the table Pike was strapped to. I didn’t stop either. My bear was too aware of our former Alpha’s state and I nearly lost control as I pounded into him over and over.
“We’re not trying to kill him, Baine,” Taylor warned.
My blood was pulsing through my veins and there was a roaring in my ears. I forced myself to step back. I blinked several times, trying to remind myself it was Jake and not one of the Raglan. I gulped in deep breaths and looked down at my shaking hands.
I took a few more steps back as Grant and Silas got to work removing the straps from Pike and helping him to his feet. He wasn’t entirely coherent which would make it a struggle getting him out of the building without drawing attention.
Feeling another spike in adrenaline, I got back to work. Jake was already a crumpled bloody mess on the floor, but I used duct tape from my pack to bind his feet and hands. “Sorry man,” I whispered.
He gave me a barely recognized nod and rolled his eyes. I smirked and then moved to also secure the other guy.
With Pike to his feet and Painter and Grant on either side of him it left me and Silas to safely get us out.
Silas usually kept a level head during a mission, though I’d only actually seen him on the inside a handful of times in all the years we’d worked together. The majority of those were in the early days when he and Painter would go off and do things on their own. They hadn’t been doing that much since the full team had been established and our commitment to taking down the Raglan had increased.
“Ready?” Painter asked.
We all nodded and then waited.
“All clear. You’re a go,” Tarron announced.
Painter opened the door and he and Grant moved quickly back in the direction we came. Silas swept the hallway and then followed them with me backing up and covering the hallway. It was the most exposed we were going to be until we got outside.
Everything continued to go smoothly. With the exception of me getting a little carried away with disabling Ja
ke, the mission was going as smoothly as possible.
“Take cover in the closet on the right,” Taylor said.
Silas moved ahead and opened the door as he ushered Painter, Pike, and Grant inside and held it open for me.
The room was small and cramped. Footsteps were approaching and we could hear voices. As they got closer. I could make out two males and a female.
We were so tight in the closet that I could feel Silas stiffen next to me. His fur started sprouting and I nudged him. He turned wild eyes on me and as his muscles tightened further it felt like he grew three feet more in the confined space.
“Calm down,” I said in a voice low enough that I knew the humans couldn’t hear it.
He snorted and I heard him grunt as his body shuddered. He was trying to regain control, but when the female with them yelped in obvious pain, I thought he was going to shift on the spot. It amazed me that the humans couldn’t hear his heavy breathing.
Silas had always been protective of those weaker than him, but I’d never seen him react so strongly before. He was seconds away from blowing our cover when Taylor spoke again.
“You’re clear but move fast.”
I opened the door and ensured the hallway was clear before allowing Painter and Grant to drag Pike out. They moved swiftly while Silas hesitated. I’d never seen my team leader struggle or lose his head in the middle of a mission.
“Focus and move, now,” I ordered him, even knowing there would be hell to pay for it.
He stared down the hallway and, for a minute, I fully expected him to bolt and try to save every other shifter in the building.
I grabbed the back of his shirt and pushed him into the right direction. He let out a low growl and then shook his head and sighed. He turned and ran after the others.
I checked our six and ran after him. Painter and Grant were already almost to the fence by the time I exited the building. Knowing Ben was watching their backs they didn’t wait or hesitate once we got word to go.
Silas dove through the break in the fence and disappeared into the forest brush. I followed close behind making sure to secure the fence again behind me.
“All clear. Nice job,” Ben praised.
Collision Course Page 15