He left the tablet downloading, covered with a towel in case Grant or the guards should come in. He hoped he had time to download everything before they had to make their move—or before Grant caught them.
Chapter 18
It was a long wait for the lights to go off that night. They needed darkness to escape—and they needed to do it before Jace and the Silverlake pack showed up tomorrow and stormed the bunker in a suicide mission. Because Jesse knew Alexander Grant had Jace pegged exactly right—he’d make plans to meet Grant, and then show up early and hope to take him by surprise.
They had to get out and make contact before that happened, and spread Grant’s troops thin hunting for them.
Jesse and Sophia didn’t talk much. They were still trying to convince Alexander Grant and his men that they no longer had any interest in each other—or in working together to escape. He sat on the floor near the door, back against the wall, resting his forearms on his bent knees and trying to will his body to heal faster.
Jesse didn’t know how Sophia was handling the silence and physical distance between them, but it was killing him. He wanted to touch her, to make sure she was okay. She seemed fine on the outside, lying on the mattress on her stomach, flipping through a celebrity gossip magazine.
But he’d come to realize that her feelings rarely showed on the outside. She kept her pain and her fear and her vulnerability inside, where no one could reach it.
He wanted with everything he had to make all those feelings go away. To make her feel safe and protected and cared for—worshiped like a goddess, cherished like a precious jewel, and accepted as a flawed but amazing human being.
Last night he’d dared to hope they could have something, that if they ever got out of this godforsaken cell, he had a chance with her. The thought of letting her down terrified him.
He wished he could go over there and run his hand down the curve of her back to that delectable ass, and run his fingers through her fiery hair. And then kiss her until she softened enough to share all that pain and fear, and let him soothe it away.
Sophia looked up, almost as though she could hear his thoughts. She was facing away from the camera, and she turned her head just enough so that Jesse could see her face. She gave him a slow, sweet smile, and then finished it with a saucy wink.
Love stabbed his heart. She seemed to see it in his eyes, because she held his gaze, her smile fading slightly, but her eyes warming and widening with something that looked like wonder. Then she flicked a quick glance over her shoulder at the camera, and looked away again.
Jesse’s wolf wanted to howl with frustration.
After an eternity of waiting and a dinner as unappetizing as breakfast, the lights finally shut off for the night. Jesse waited a moment for his eyes to adjust, and then he got quietly to his feet and went across to the bed. Sophia was just a shadow, but when she turned, he could see her eyes glitter in the darkness.
He reached out for her, but before he could touch her she was in his arms, kissing him hungrily.
As though she’d been hungry and thirsty for him all day, the way he’d been hungry and thirsty for her.
For a few minutes, Jesse just gave in to the warmth and softness of her in his arms, the silky touch of her tongue, the softness of her lips. He started growling, and felt Sophia smile.
“Shhh,” she murmured, putting her hand on his chest.
“I lose control when I’m around you,” he replied, his lips still against hers.
“Jesse the badass negotiator, losing control?” she teased.
“Special circumstances,” he muttered. He gave her one more long kiss and then said, “We need to do this now. You know what to do?”
Sophia nodded.
The plan was simple. Jesse would cut the cameras and Sophia would short-circuit the security lock on the door. Then they’d head for the emergency exit shaft in the back of the lab. Hopefully, there were no guards in there at this time of day.
Jesse pulled from his pocket the makeshift tools he’d cobbled together from parts of Sophia’s hair dryer. Quickly, he unscrewed the cover plate from the electrical panel next to the door, exposing the wiring. He gave another prayer of gratitude that Grant’s cheap-ass security system had a blind spot by the door—not that the guards could see much in the dark anyway.
By that time, Sophia had gone into the bathroom and returned with Jesse’s tablet and her cordless curling iron, which he’d made certain modifications to that afternoon. Jesse woke up the tablet and used the glow of the screen to show Sophia the opened panel. He pointed to a specific spot in the wiring, and she gave a quick nod. The curling iron was already overheating—he could feel it. He just hoped it didn’t melt the rubber grip before Sophia could use it.
“When I tell you,” he whispered. She nodded.
Jesse shut the screen off on the tablet, plunging them into complete darkness once more, and then moved as quietly as he could into the bathroom. He was wearing his running shoes from his duffel bag—he had the memory card with the downloaded surveillance video in his jeans pocket, so he needed to stay human and keep his clothes.
If he could. So many things could go wrong.
He tried not to think about that as he stepped into the shower area and woke up the tablet again, shielding it with his body so the light didn’t spill out the bathroom door and attract the guards’ attention. He hacked into the security system once more, this time going for the video surveillance control codes.
And then he cut the cameras, and waited.
Everything was dark and silent, only the faint glow of the night lights in the hallway shining dully through the window in the cell door. He could imagine the guards in the guard room. They wouldn’t be panicking—not yet. They’d figure it was just a glitch in the system.
Panic would come later.
Jesse counted down the seconds—five, four, three, two, one.
Let them get involved in figuring out what was wrong.
Then he called to Sophia: “Now!”
He was already moving as she jammed the overheated curling iron into the electrical panel. There was a shower of sparks, running up into the conduit, and Jesse smelled burning. And then there was a loud “pop” as the wiring shorted out, and the electronic door lock snicked open.
Jesse slid the door open and stepped into dimly lit hallway. He glanced to his right, toward the guard room door. It was still closed.
He tugged Sophia out of the cell and gestured for her to go ahead of him, down the hall towards the lab and the emergency exit.
They’d only taken two steps when Jesse heard a faint “pop” from down the hall. Then more and more, like the muffled sound of popcorn popping. And then silence. The hallway lights winked out.
They glanced at each other, then started running for the lab. Two cells down, they were brought up short by a huge shadow stepping into the hall. Jesse heard a low growl, much lower and scarier than a wolf.
Both of them slid to a stop. Behind him, Jesse heard more growling, and more doors opening. All up and down the hallway, feral, tormented shifters stepped out of their cells, nothing but bulky shadows and glittering eyes in the gloom.
All the eyes were trained on him and Sophia.
Holy fuck. He’d shorted out the entire electrical system. All the cells were open.
Menacing growls sounded from all directions.
They were surrounded.
Jesse’s mind snapped into negotiator mode. He reached out mentally, trying to grab onto the energy of the shifters surrounding him. There were so many…fifteen at least. They’d all been beaten and mistreated. They were all in pain.
And they were all in different stages of crazy.
Jesse’s wolf was scrabbling inside him, wanting him to protect Sophia. He could feel her tiger coming to the surface, frightened and angry.
But he couldn’t worry about that. They only had a minute, maybe less.
“We’re shifters,” he said rapidly into the darkness. “Capt
ured, just like you. If you want to get out, there’s an emergency exit through the lab. Follow us.”
He could feel the currents of crazy swirling through the air. Only one or two of the shifters were wolves, hardwired to work as a pack. The rest were all different animals—a fox, a grizzly, two jaguars, the lion he’d seen in the hallway, and more he couldn’t pick up on.
“Sneak out the back?” the lion said derisively, his voice a menacing rumble.
“I don’t think so.” That was the grizzly.
“These fuckers need to die,” a woman said. Jaguar.
“I’ll rip their eyes out.” Raven shifter.
Jesse felt the fox shift. Then a snow leopard.
Shit. They were going to storm the guard station. So much for a stealthy exit.
Jesse put all his authority into his tone. “If we take on the guards, we’ll take casualties. I have video evidence of what’s been going on here. I have to get it to the right people. We have to shut this guy down.”
“Don’t need no stinkin’ evidence,” the jaguar said.
“’Cause they’re all going to be dead.” That was the bear again.
They weren’t thinking. They could kill the guards—and Jesse didn’t really have a problem with that, after the videos he’d seen. But Grant probably wasn’t here, and unless they got him, this whole thing would start all over somewhere else.
The lion loomed over him. “We’re going for it, wolf. Make up your mind. With us or against us.”
The smart thing would be to let them do whatever they wanted, and head for the back door while they kept the guards busy. But as Jesse looked the lion in the eye, he could feel his dark desperation, pain and old grief, and a need to avenge those he’d lost.
These shifters had all lost people. Just like him and the Silverlake pack. They were desperate and alone. Just like he and Jace and Rafe had been. He couldn’t leave them to throw themselves on the guards like cannon fodder to cover his escape.
“Head for the back door, Soph,” he said. “Take this with you.” He slipped the SD card into her hand and turned to the others.
She pressed up against him. “Hell no,” she said. She shoved the card roughly back into his pocket and shifted to wolf. She crouched, head down, tail tucked.
She was submitting to him. She was telling him to be the alpha.
Energy washed through Jesse, unlocking something in him that had been hiding ever since he was a cub. Something in his chest expanded, and he felt power and authority filling him. He gathered up all the currents of energy and spun them into one. The crazy calmed, and the shifted animals stopped milling around.
“Okay,” he said. “For the next fifteen minutes, you fuckers are a pack. And I’m your alpha.” The lion growled softly, but Jesse stared him down. Astonishingly, he dropped his eyes and bowed his head.
Jesse gave them their instructions, and the most of the remaining humans began to shift. When they were in animal form, he pushed as much courage as he could through their energy connection, and then said quietly, “Now.”
The bear, closest to the guardroom door, lifted his huge blocky head and gave a roar that shook the hallway. The jaguar followed with a snarl that raised the hair on the back of Jesse’s arms.
Then there was silence.
In the deathly hush, they heard voices behind the door.
“What the fuck was that?”
“It sounded loud.”
“Do you think one of them got out?”
“Go see.”
The door to the guardroom opened cautiously, and they saw the barrel of a trank gun poke out, followed by a flashlight.
In two bounds, the grizzly bear was on him. With his enormous paws, he ripped the solid steel door right off its hinges and batted the gun out of the guard’s hand, raking his arm to tatters in the process.
“First wave!” Jesse yelled, before the guard even hit the floor. The bear, too big to fit through the door, was already shifting back into human, flattening himself against the wall to let the others go by. All the shifters that could get through the door in animal form surged forward, overrunning the guards. Jesse heard screams and gunshots, snarls and thuds, and prayed that none of the shifters were getting killed.
“Second wave!” Jesse shouted.
That was those of them still in human form—him, the lion, the bear, and a tall, emaciated man with long matted blond hair. And Sophia, still in wolf form. She’d refused to leave his side. They pounded down the hall. As they passed the last cell, Jesse saw a woman shrinking back into the cell doorway.
The panther. From this morning. He could feel her terror, but she seemed frozen.
She can’t shift, Jesse realized. And she can’t fight. They’ve trained her not to.
He stopped and grabbed her. “Shift,” he said. She just stared at him, trembling. “Shift!” he commanded, grabbing her by both shoulders.
He felt his alpha energy hit her mind, and her eyes widened. In seconds there was a black panther in front of him, fur standing on end, teeth bared and crazy in her eyes.
Oh, hell. “Attack them, not me!” Jesse said, pushing her toward the guard room.
With one more wide-eyed look to him, she flowed through the door like a deadly shadow, Jesse and Sophia just behind her. She held back her screaming snarl, and so the guard she hit didn’t even see her coming.
The room was dark; it seemed Jesse had knocked out power to the whole building. A couple of electric lanterns had been knocked over in the fight, their beams flashing crazily at the ceiling, broken now and again by grappling shadows.
Every now and then there was the spark of a taser, and an animal convulsed and was shocked into human form. Jesse saw a guard aiming a pistol at a woman on the floor. Before he could get to her, the fox leaped forward and fastened her jaws around the guard’s wrist. He screamed and dropped the weapon, and the blond man leaped on him out of nowhere and wrapped his arm around the guard’s neck, snapping it.
Jesse heard Sophia give a warning yip behind him, and he ducked just in time to avoid being hit in the head with a desk chair. He grabbed the chair and pulled, throwing his attacker off-balance, and the lion shifter tackled the him to the ground. Neither he nor the bear could shift—their animal forms took up so much space there would be no room for the others to fight.
Jesse turned to see a guard hit the black panther with a taser jolt. She dropped to the ground, human and vulnerable. Jesse threw the chair at her attacker, and followed with a body slam.
They grappled, falling over a desk. They were pretty evenly matched for strength—the guard was huge, nearly the size of the bear shifter, but he was still human, and Jesse’s shifter strength was a match for his—barely.
Jesse cracked him in the face with a few good punches, but he didn’t even come close to going down—just gave his massive head a little shake and kept coming. And he was fast—faster than Jesse expected for his size. One of his huge fists caught Jesse in the side of the head and he stumbled, stars bursting in front of his eyes.
There was a howl, and Sophia lunged out of nowhere, grabbing the guard’s forearm. He shook her off, throwing her across the room. She slammed into a bank of computer monitors and hit the floor.
“Sophia!” Jesse yelled.
He ducked under the guard’s fist, trying to get to Sophia. She was moving faintly, but her energy felt strange. Disoriented.
Oh, no.
Sophia’s fur rippled, and her tiger burst right out of her wolf form. She gathered herself and leaped at the guard, taking him down. Jesse barely got out of the way in time.
A radio on the floor squawked. “Scott?” said a voice. “This is command. What’s going on over there?”
They were going to have company, soon. And Jesse had no idea if Sophia had her tiger even close to under control. This was about to go sideways in a big way.
“Shifters, go!” he shouted.
There were snarls of protest, and Jesse said it again, putting all of his newfound
alpha authority into the command.
“Shifters! Go now!”
One by one they broke off their fights and headed for the exit, the grizzly bear first. Jesse felt him shift as he went. Good man. He could take the most damage; if there was any resistance outside, he could be a hammer that helped the others burst through it.
They bounded up the stairs in a ragged line, their animals too bulky to go as a group. Jesse just hoped they could all get out before the reinforcements arrived.
The fox was lying on the floor, half-stunned, a bloody gash down her side. Jesse scooped her up in his arms and carried her.
The last of the animals was leaving the room. Sophia was crouched near the bottom of the stairs, snarling, looking lost and confused. “Go,” Jesse said, putting a mental command into it. “I’m right behind you.”
He was almost to the door when he heard a soft whimper. The panther woman was huddled in a corner, shaking with terror.
“Come on,” Jesse said, holding out a hand. She didn’t move.
What now? He couldn’t carry her and the fox, and Sophia was already growling at the fox. If she attacked…
“I’ve got her.” Jesse heard a cracking of bones and a thud behind him, and the last guard hit the floor. The lion strode up to the panther and swung her up into his arms like she weighed nothing. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
As they burst into the open air at the top of the stairs, they could see lights heading their way through the surrounding forest. Far down a rutted dirt road, Jesse saw the headlights of a couple of trucks.
Jesse sent a mental message to his temporary pack. Scatter, he said. Save yourselves. They’ll have a hell of a time tracking you in the woods in the dark.
They all ran across the open area and into the woods. The shifters melted into the shadows, back in their element. The fox wriggled uncomfortably in his arms, and Jesse put her down. She shook herself, then limped off into the brush.
Tiger Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 3) Page 12