by Riley Storm
“You mean we don’t get to leave through another wall?” Lucien quipped as they ran out into the hallway, leaving behind three unconscious guards and a whole lot of broken electronic equipment.
“Sorry to disappoint, but that was a one-time trick,” Chief said as they came to an intersection and hung a left.
Up ahead, Lucien could see the solid walls give way on either side to sections of bars, behind which they hoped to find both Lorik and Lana. Glancing at his watch, he noted the time.
“Three minutes left,” he growled, and the pair of them increased their speed, closing the distance in a flash.
Three of the cells were occupied. In two, the occupants were up and pressed against the bars, trying to figure out who it was.
“Up and at ‘em!” Lucien shouted. “Rescue party is here.”
“Lucien?” Lorik looked stunned. “What are you doing here?”
“I think he’s the rescue party,” Lana drawled from her cell across the hallway.
“Well no shit,” Lorik replied. “My question was why?”
“No time for your lovers’ quarrels,” Lucien snapped, looking down the hallway. “Chief, how’s it coming there?”
“Working on it,” came the distracted reply.
“Work faster, we’re running out of time!”
“Time?” Lorik asked. “What the hell is going on?” He jumped back as his cell door clanked and slid open.
“Got it!” Chief crowed.
“Well, it was a nice thought while it lasted,” Lana said, tugging at her still-closed door.
“Shit, they’re separate,” Chief muttered, dashing back to the computer in the wall on the far side of the cells.
“Isn’t there a manual override?” Lucien shouted, glancing at his watch.
Two minutes.
They didn’t have time for this.
“Stop!”
Both Lucien and Lorik swung around to see the final guard appear in the hallway.
“Free her!” Lorik hissed, and ran down the hallway.
Lucien reached out to stop him, but missed.
“Help! Help!” Lorik shouted, waving his arms. “They’re going to kill us. They’re going to kill her! You have to save her! Please, help me! They’re going to kill Lana!”
The guard hesitated just long enough, and Lorik plowed into him in a tangle of uncoordinated limbs. Lucien had to admit, what the kid lacked in training and wit he made up for in spirit.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Lana muttered, looking down the hallway as her door swung open.
“Good kid,” Lucien growled. “Now go!” he shouted, pushing her down the hallway.
Lana didn’t wait, she charged forward and clipped the guard in the head with a knee, extricating Lorik and taking off, following Lucien’s shouted directions. He wasn’t far behind, only slowing long enough to pick the guard up, apologize, and then punch him square in the face.
Then he too disappeared down the hallway, catching up with Lorik and Lana and taking the lead. Behind him, he heard Chief call out an apology shortly after there was a very distinct thud.
“Okay, we did it!” Chief called out as they passed the devastated security room and made for the exit to the stairs.
Lucien’s watch started beeping.
“We’re not out of it yet,” he snapped, dampening everyone’s enthusiasm. They could celebrate only after they were safely back on the road and out of the facility. Until then, they were still in danger. If Alison was forced to leave without them, they would be trapped in the facility, unable to leave without drawing attention to themselves, which would make it all the easier for Lyken to track them.
“Hey, what smells?” Lana barked as they raced up the stairs.
“Shut up!” Lucien and Chief growled as one.
Pausing at the door to outside, Lucien opened it slowly and slipped outside, taking a look around. Nobody was in sight, thankfully, and he motioned silently for the others to follow. They crept along the side of the admin building, retracing the route he and Chief had taken on the way in.
Once again, they reached the corner of the building, beyond which he hoped was Alison’s truck. Peaking around the edge, Lucien breathed a sigh of relief. The truck was still there. A moment later, there was a yell, and the throaty rumble as the truck started up. She was preparing to leave!
“Now or never,” he growled, and ran for the back of the truck, hoping that Alison was watching her mirrors for movement.
He reached the back and waited, his heart hammering in his ears. If she hadn’t seen him arrive, she would pull away leaving Lucien exposed for any and all eyes to see. That would be far from beneficial to their rescue attempt.
Then there was a whine of hydraulics and the back opened about two feet before stopping. Lucien heard more yelling from the outside the driver’s door, but he paid it no mind, motioning wildly for the others to follow.
Lorik and Lana were next, both of their faces crinkling in distaste, though neither hesitated before climbing in through the tiny gap.
“What are you doing?!” a voice bellowed from even closer. “Close the damn hatch and get back to work. You don’t get paid to lie around here. If you think just because you have tits you’re exempt from working hard, I’ll have to chat with your supervisor about that!”
Lucien was already turning to go give the speaker a piece of his mind when Chief arrived, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Not now!” the older shifter hissed. “Not worth it. Sexist dicks will still exist even if you punch his lights out. The best thing you can do now is get inside so we can move.”
Still seeing red, Lucien nodded, following Chief into the rear of the truck, bracing himself against the smell as it once again assaulted his nose. He jumped in and ran to the front, tapping loud enough for Alison to hear.
He thought he heard someone ask “what was that?” but the noise was cut off as the hatch closed.
“What’s the plan now?” Lana asked, making her way over to him.
Lucien turned and braced himself.
The truck lurched into motion, spilling Lana to the ground amid all the sticky, nasty remnants of garbage that coated the floor.
“Now we get out of here,” Lucien said, unable to hold back a smile.
“Yeah, yeah, irony. I get it,” Lana said, accepting his outstretched hand to pull her to her feet. “Thanks for the rescue.”
Lucien shrugged. “We look after our own.” He glanced over at Chief, knowing that to the both of them it was more than just that.
Lorik, much to his surprise, picked up on what went unspoken, and carefully made his way over to where Lucien and Lana stood. He glanced at her with more than lust in his eyes, then at Lucien.
“How can we help?”
21
She strolled into the warehouse nearly half an hour after dropping the quartet off nearby. It had taken her that long to get the truck back to the drivers and then extricate herself from their thanks.
As it turned out, the pair were far more excited at the prospect of a payout and most of the afternoon off than anything else, and so didn’t care about the likely ass-chewing they would get for being so far behind on their route. Apparently, the unpaid overtime didn’t matter compared to the stacks of cash in their hands.
Alison was just glad she had been able to help, though the stress of having to delay while waiting for Lucien to return had been less than pleasant. Perhaps, she thought, I’m not cut out for this super-spy sort of role after all.
They wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without her, however, and she couldn’t deny that it felt good to help. To be on the inside of something.
“About time you got back here,” Chief crowed, flashing a smile as she walked inside.
“So sorry,” she drawled with an answering look. “Those garbage men just kept going on and on. Then one of them asked me out on a date and—” she stopped talking at the look on Lucien’s face as he and the others came over. “Never mind,” she finished.
“I turned him down. Said I had a date with four others already lined up.” She tested the air. “But personally, I had hoped at least one of you would have showered first. What happened? Why do you smell?”
She was trying to play it off, hoping the casual attitude would prevent Lucien or Chief from laying into her too badly for her screw-up with the order of switches at the start. It was coming, she knew, but maybe she could lessen it.
“Smell?” Lucien asked innocently. “What smell?”
One of the newcomers, Lorik, she guessed, since that was the male’s name, spoke up next. “I don’t smell anything. Is it like burnt toast? Do we need to call the medics?”
Alison rolled her eyes. “You’re all just used to it. But trust me, you all stink.”
“Well, we’re sorry for that,” Chief said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “But really, thank you Alison.”
She paused, her mouth already opening to apologize for screwing up. “What?” she asked dumbly.
“Thank you,” the other newcomer—Lana—said, head bobbing up and down. “Lucien explained how you delayed for us, and the risk you took by driving the truck in the first place. That couldn’t have been easy, just waiting out there, hoping we made it back.”
Alison swallowed, reliving the panicked terror as her watch counted down the minutes, until the ten were up. Then eleven. Twelve. Some supervisor or another had come out and started waving at her to go, then he’d come over to start harassing her. Just as he’d been frowning, like he realized she wasn’t a worker there, Alison had seen a flicker of movement in her side-view mirror.
Hoping it was Lucien, she’d flipped the hatch open just enough, hoping he would be able to get inside, and waited as long as possible until the jerk had come over to her and started yelling in her face.
Thankfully, by that point, she’d heard Lucien tapping against the interior of the truck, letting her know they were good to go. She’d fired it up and gotten out of there before the supervisor could do anything else but shake his fist at her. They’d done it.
“It was unpleasant,” she admitted. “But those two did the bulk of the work.” She pointed at Chief and Lucien, both of whom were sporting bruises and cuts on their faces, and likely elsewhere, she was sure.
“Well either way, we appreciate it,” Lorik told her, wandering closer as the five of them formed a squished circle.
Alison tried to keep her nose from wrinkling at the smell, but it was hard. They smelled bad. Like they’d been in the back of a garbage truck.
“Yeah, that was pretty cool of you,” Lana agreed with a head bob.
Lucien came up to stand next to her, and it took everything Alison had not to shy away from the stench, even if it was Lucien.
“We’re all grateful,” he said. “We just wanted to let you know that.”
Alison’s forehead creased slightly. “You’re…welcome,” she said for the third time.
“No, really,” Chief agreed, coming up to complete the misshapen circle. “We’re really appreciative of your efforts.”
Alison smiled awkwardly. “I had to help. Couldn’t just sit by and let you do all the work.”
“Well, we just wanted to express our thanks,” Lorik said.
Looking around the circle, she saw that the quartet were wearing identical smiles. False smiles. “What’s going on here?” Alison asked, cautiously taking a step back.
“We just want to show our gratitude,” Lucien said.
He tried to keep his voice even, but he slipped, and all at once their intentions registered.
“Oh no, you don’t!” she yelped, backing up.
The four of them were faster.
“No!” she shouted, ducking to the side and under Lucien’s arms.
“What’s the matter?” he growled, catching up to her.
“I don’t want it! No! Stop! Nooo!” she howled as first Lucien, then Chief and finally the others all joined her in one giant hug, rubbing back and forth, pressing into her. “You stink! Yuck! Ew! Get offff me!” she protested helplessly. “This is disgusting. It was an accident! I swear! I didn’t mean to!”
But it was too late. She was coated in a layer of nasty half-dried garbage slime, and it stank.
“This was not cool, guys,” she complained, pouting unhappily as the other four fell over one another, laughing and slapping shoulders at the “success” of their prank. “See if I ever drive your getaway vehicle again.”
More laughter.
“Why would you think that covering me in raw, drying garbage is a nice thing to do?” she added.
Chief came up to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “If you want to be a part of the group, you have to be a part of the group. Since you can’t look the part,” he said, gesturing at the height difference—even Lana was several inches taller, and thicker with muscle—“then you have to at least smell the part.”
“Rude,” Alison said with a tiny laugh, trying her hardest not to let the depths to which she had been affected by Chief’s words show.
After all, how could any of them know how their efforts to include her in their merry band of rebels would go over? It wasn’t as if they knew her past, or had any idea how much it might mean to her to not only be a part of something, but to be welcomed into it.
She was distracted from the depths of her thoughts as Lucien produced a hose from somewhere and started spraying them all down. The water was cold, but the other three didn’t let it bother them. After being so recently welcomed into their newfound fraternity, she wasn’t about to back down, and when it came to her turn, she spread her arms and welcomed the impromptu shower.
“All clean?” Lucien asked.
“Y-y-yep,” she answered through chattering teeth. “So fresh and so clean.”
He snorted, turning off the hose and coming over to her. “You’re ridiculous. Why didn’t you say that you were cold?”
Alison shrugged. “Everyone else was doing it. Why can’t I?”
Lucien paused. “Well…” he sighed. “Okay. Come here at least,” he said with a slightly possessive growl that made her smile as he reached out and brought her to him.
Gasping, she wrapped her arms around his chest as far as they would go. “How are you so warm?”
Lucien chuckled. “Trick of the trade. Always be warm when a beautiful woman needs extra heat. Never know when it will come in handy.”
She smacked his rock hard sternum with a fist. “Ha ha, very funny, mister.” But she didn’t push him away, and in fact snuggled in tighter, letting his unexplained source of heat warm her slowly to the core.
“Well don’t you two look cozy,” Chief teased as he finished wringing out his shirt.
Like Lucien, he had a hard, sculpted body. Alison frowned, deep in thought. Come to think of it, she thought with a glance over at Lorik. Even the young one is pretty jacked, though he’s lacking the thickness of the two older men. Her eyes strayed to Lana. The shower had made all the other woman’s clothes cling to her as well, and Alison could see plenty of muscular definition.
Tugging on Lucien’s shirt until he bent down, she asked him about it. “Is this secret organization of yours a bodybuilding gym of sorts?”
Lucien blinked. “What?” he asked, staring at her, completely lost.
“All of you are so fit. You two are big,” she said, pointing at Lucien and Chief, “and he’s going to be too, in another year or three. Plus Lana is super fit. It only makes sense.” She frowned. “Except for the part where they’re kidnapping you. Did you cheat your diet or something?”
In reality, Alison knew this wasn’t the case of course, but it was yet another curious piece of information that simply didn’t line up with anything else.
“What do you mean, a year or three?” Lorik asked, sounding hurt.
Alison’s eyebrows shot up. “You heard that?”
Lorik looked to Lucien quickly in a panic, then seemed t
o scramble for words. “Um. Uh.”
“It wasn’t as quiet as you thought,” Lana chimed in with a shrug. “Sorry.”
“Oh.”
“Now back to the important part,” Lorik interrupted. “A year or three?”
Lana laughed and rubbed his shoulder. “I’m sure she meant it in a nice way.”
She may have been teasing him, but Alison saw the way her hand lingered on his shoulder for just a few seconds too long. Someone’s not ready to admit how they feel, she thought to herself, suppressing the snicker that threatened to accompany it.
“I just meant that you’re young still, Lorik. You have the frame, you’re going to look like these two as soon as you hit that extra growth spurt. It was a compliment.”
Looking somewhat mollified, Lorik nodded in appreciation. “Okay, if you’re sure.”
“Just make sure to eat your veggies,” she added with a wink, which brought fresh laughter from the assembled group.
Even Lorik smiled. “Steak and potatoes it is.”
Alison rolled her eyes. “Well, that explains a lot.”
Lorik gaped at her, while the others roared at the joke. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.
Waving him off, she let herself laugh, marveling at how at ease everyone was around her. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” she said, looking around the three she barely knew.
All of them met her eyes and none objected, so she took that as consent to keep going. “How are you all so relaxed around me? None of you know me except him?” she said, nodding her head in Lucien’s direction.
“Simple,” Chief explained. “Any friend of Lucien’s is a friend of ours.”
“Just like that.” Alison wasn’t sure she was buying it.
Chief winked at her. “Pretty much.”
“Pretty much?”
Lucien cleared his throat, interrupting. “Alison and I are going to head back to the safehouse. It has clothing and food. We’ll come back with fresh stuff for everyone. Sound good?”
The others nodded and wandered off, leaving the two of them alone.