by Anya Nowlan
He hadn’t felt a rush of adrenaline quite like it since he’d been in basic and then on his first few missions. The novelty wore off fast and though the stakes never got any lower – life or death – then the body and the mind swiftly learned that being nervous about it would only make it worse. But now, now he couldn’t stop it.
His thoughts were a jumbled mess. On one hand, his senses were finely tuned to finding any, even the smallest sign of his son. He was, objectively, the most important thing in the world right now, despite Ryker never having met him. On the other hand, he’d never really expected that he’d be in a situation to have any legitimate hope of actually avenging the deaths of his family and his pride. The desire to go on a rampage through Oakley and kill anyone even remotely related to Sawyer was something that was becoming harder to fight with every passing moment.
Later, he told himself. You’ll get him later.
As weird as it might have sounded, he’d never really thought about trying to track down the guy after he’d gotten out of his wild teenage years. When he was younger, every waking moment had been filled with thoughts on how he could tear the guy apart limb by limb, just like his group had done to his mother, but as he got older, those desires fell into the background instead of being violently on the foreground.
They had become a part of his daily cycle, like breathing or waking up in the morning. But when you live with something for so long then the idea that it’s something you could actually change becomes less and less feasible. All he had to go on was the fact that he thought the hyena’s name was Sawyer and what kind of shifter he was. Ryker had severely doubted that a man like that would even survive for very long and he’d told himself for years that the odds were in his favor that Sawyer was long dead and buried.
Oh how fucking wrong I was, he thought, reaching the mid-point of the corridor.
Suddenly, his steps came to a halt and he froze in place, Rio mimicking him perfectly. Ryker scowled, leaning forward a little. Somewhere, not too far, he could hear the low din of conversation and laughter. He glanced over his shoulder at Rio and his brother nodded in confirmation. There was someone here.
Rio smirked, the golden flash of his lion creeping into his eyes. Ryker could feel his own beast pushing against the boundaries set for it, growling and pacing, wanting to be let free and run rampant over this goddamn factory and dismantle it where it stood if that was what it took to find Rhamos, and to kill Sawyer.
He took a calming breath and motioned Rio to follow him, both of them extra careful with not making any noise now. The closer they got to the source of the noise – a slightly ajar door in the distance, with a sliver of light creeping through the slit – the louder they could hear the voices. Ryker could count at least five different voices, four male and one female, picking on one another and laughing loudly.
There was a definite slur to the voices of one or two of them and when Ryker huffed a lungful of air in through his nose and mouth, he could catch the subtle hints of whiskey, tequila and something that could only be called battery acid based on how it stank.
The motherfuckers are having a party, he thought with grim amusement. Can’t wait to crash it.
What he didn’t hear though, was the familiar, growly voice of Sawyer. Though there had been times when he’d doubted if he could recognize the man anymore, then at that moment he was entirely certain that he could pinpoint the man’s identity based on just a single syllable. Ryker was actually somewhat glad he couldn’t hear the man in the group, he wasn’t sure if he could control himself if he did.
They made it to the door and Rio fell in line behind Ryker. Listening, they paused for a moment.
“No fucking way, man! I’ll bet you… two shots that the little bitch in the cellar begs to be fucked before the kid in the corner cell,” one of them said.
“Please. The Cowardly Little Lion is ready to crack at any moment,” another voice scoffed.
“You’re both wrong. It’s gonna be the bear cub that’s going to want to be skinned before the night’s over,” a female voice added.
Ryker’s grip on his gun tightened. He listened for a few more seconds but his count on how many there were in there didn’t change and he didn’t see any point in prolonging the inevitable any longer.
Every single one of them had to die, the sooner the better.
Softly, he tucked one of his feet into the slit between the doorframe and the door and after confirming with Rio, slammed the door open with a bang and ducked in at the same time.
“Get on the fucking ground!” he roared, and of course none of them complied.
The first guy who got up, still holding onto a bottle of Jack, got two bullets in the chest. His eyes went glassy before the stupid grin on his face could be replaced by anything more intelligent.
They’d been sitting around a circular table, playing what looked like poker. One of the men, smarter than his friend by a good margin, pushed over the table and crouched behind it, joined by one of his friends. The fourth man was mowed down by Rio’s expert shot to the head and the woman, either the smartest or the dumbest of the lot, had tried to turn her back and make a run for the window a few feet to the right of her.
Her bloody handprints on the glass were as close as she got to escaping through it. Coughing blood and heaving her last breaths through her mouth and the dual holes in her neck, she slumped against the wall. At least she had the decency to die when she was told to.
Peeking out from over the table, one of them returned fire from a handgun, making Ryker and Rio split up and go for cover as well. They were in a large storage room, with fifteen-foot ceilings and at least a hundred feet of length.
Instead of rows and rows of stocked shelves, though, Ryker could only see the occasional piles of stacked boxes, obviously used to transport something reasonably large. He couldn’t see any discernible markings on them, or on the box that he’d ended up hiding behind either.
“Come on now, we just wanna talk,” he called out, checking his rifle and reloading it. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Oh, you’re gonna die, alright,” the clearly pissed voice of one of the men called back. “Who the fuck are you guys?”
“Just call us the tooth fairy,” Rio quipped from the other side of the door, having dove left when Ryker went right.
Immediately after that, Ryker heard a barrage of gunfire, making him spin out from behind the box as well. He and Rio hit one of the two men foolish enough not to be entirely covered by the unfortunately shaped table at the same time. He screamed like a pig being led to slaughter, sporting shiny new wounds in his arm and leg. Judging by where Ryker had hit him, he had about five minutes before he’d bleed out completely.
“Shit,” the now-familiar voice said, low enough that it was clear he wasn’t talking to the twins anymore. “Jamie, you okay?” he asked.
Jamie just screamed.
“I think we need to hit now,” Rio’s voice echoed in Ryker’s ear.
Ryker leaned forward a bit to look at where Rio had taken cover, seeing the blazing golden eyes of his brother blinking out of the dimly lit room. He nodded.
As if they were controlled by the same force or by the same hand, the lion twins jumped over their cover, both having their rifles shouldered. They unleashed the full power of their high-powered automatic weapons on the table, reducing it to a pile of splinters as they approached. Ryker had to step over the dead body of the man with the whiskey bottle, his twisted mind taking a moment to mourn the waste of perfectly decent hooch.
With the rifle still aimed in front of him, Ryker kicked the remnants of the table away, revealing the clearly dead body of one man and the still scarcely breathing form of the other. He had his gun up but there were at least ten holes in his body now and while he might have been a decent shot when he was, you know, still mostly alive, then the wounds didn’t do anything for his aim. The one shot he got off before Rio crushed his hand under a booted foot went wide over Ryker’s head.
“I told you we only wanted to talk. Now why did you have to go and do that, huh? Maybe I just wanted to beat you in a round of poker.”
“F-f-f…uck you, bitch,” the dying man heaved, his eyes flickering between a watery gray and a weak brown, his features morphing and wavering just a little at the edges.
Ryker had seen enough shifters in their death throes to recognize what it looked like.
Hyena.
He allowed the rifle to sling back on his shoulder and knelt down next to the man, peering at him with some interest while making a tisking sound at him.
“So defiant. I bet you’re a shitty loser. But you know what, if I were you, I’d try to get along with me for the next few minutes you’re still alive. If you don’t, I can make these last moments you have on earth really uncomfortable. You wouldn’t want that, now would you?”
Getting no answer, Ryker looked at Rio with a cocked brow and a dangerous, dark smirk, before shoving two fingers deep into the wide, gaping, bleeding wound in the man’s thigh. His whole body convulsed and he shot up a little off the ground, making his wounds bleed all the more violently.
“Okay! Fuck!”
“That’s better,” Ryker said, leaving his fingers in the soft, warm wound but refraining from moving them around anymore. “Now, tell me everything you know about a five-year-old boy bearing a striking resemblance to the two of us,” Ryker said, hiking a thumb at Rio and then himself.
The man looked at the both of them as if they’d lost their minds. Ryker wasn’t entirely convinced that the hyena shifter’s assessment on that matter was incorrect. He hadn’t been feeling particularly sane lately, after all.
“He’s… he’s… downstairs,” he spluttered. “But you’ll never get away with it. Whatever it is that you’re… trying to do.”
“Why not?” Ryker asked, fighting against the way his body was telling him to run as fast as he could and leave the man to his own devices regardless of what he had to say.
“Sawyer won’t let you,” he said, a mad glint coming to his eyes as he gurgled up a mouthful of blood, letting it dribble down his chin. “He’s been waiting for you two.”
Before Ryker could stop himself, he’d spun the rifle off his shoulder and slammed the butt of it in the man’s face so hard and fast that the crunch of bone and cartilage could only make a fleeting popping noise before his face was completely caved in. Ryker stood up, wiping his fingers clean on his black pants.
“Looks like we’re gonna have a party,” Rio commented mildly, checking on the woman to make sure she was as dead as she needed to be.
“Looks like it,” Ryker agreed.
So all of this was on fucking purpose, he thought, a chill running down his spine.
For the first time since leaving The Firm’s Nevada base, he was starting to think that maybe he shouldn’t have gone without backup.
Nineteen
Rio
A part of him had expected to see an endless swarm of hyena shifters storm their location the moment the first gunshot went off. That didn’t happen though and in a way, that was even more worrisome.
How the fuck did Sawyer know we’d be coming? he thought to himself as he and Ryker moved down another unnecessarily cluttered hallway, not catching a single sound as they went on.
With The Arctics, Rio had become accustomed to the fact that the first explosion that went off or the first shot that was fired would bring a seemingly endless tide of werewolf commandos pouring in on their location, all looking to kill them in the most directly gruesome way they could imagine. With the Wanderers, the opposite seemed to be true. The only thing they’d heard since exiting the warehouse was the sound of tires screeching as a car pulled out somewhere nearby.
Maybe they’re bringing reinforcements.
Either way, they need to be fast.
He passed right by an elevator, knowing that it was never a good idea to box himself in somewhere without an immediate way out. The stairs were close-by and when he entered the stairwell, he stopped for a second to listen. All he could hear was the rumble of a diesel generator somewhere below. He took the steps two at a time from there on, keeping his motions light but fast.
As far as he was concerned, there was no time to waste.
When he got to the bottom of the stairwell, Ryker right behind him, he didn’t bother to play coy anymore. He pushed open the door with a booted foot, sending it slamming against the opposite wall as the twins ducked to either side of it.
Nothing.
The hallway was empty, well-lit and completely abandoned. There was more of the clutter here, pieces of discarded machinery, empty paint cans and the distinct smell of sweat and chemicals in the air. Rio frowned, glancing at Ryker, who shrugged back. Something was really wrong here and Rio couldn’t put his finger on it.
Adrenaline pumped through his veins hard and heavy, but he was used to running on that kind of high. It had become a constant partner on missions and while Ryker claimed to be able to control his and barely notice it, Rio had always allowed it to control him. He was never as good as when he was rolling on that wave of a natural high, letting his instincts take over. Every motion was like poetry then, a killing machine just looking for an excuse to snap.
Without even noticing, he’d slapped another explosives pack on the wall, probably the seventh one he had armed in the factory so far. The whole of the lower floor of the factory had been sprinkled with the explosives packs and though they hadn’t ventured into the actual production areas, Rio was damn sure that if he stepped out right now and flipped the switch, the factory would come down all in one piece regardless.
“No one here,” Ryker said, keeping his voice level but dropping his gun slightly. “I think.”
Rio took a few quick steps forward, clearing a pile of crap out of the way with a swift kick of his foot to reveal a door that they hadn’t noticed originally. Ryker shouldered his gun again and together, they opened the door, Ryker stepping in first.
It was completely empty but Rio’s vision adapted quickly. At least fast enough to see the motion of a tall, wiry body slipping further into the shadows.
“Stop!” Ryker roared, but the guy didn’t do anything like that.
Rio frowned, noting that he seemed to be carrying something over his shoulder. He didn’t get a chance to figure out what it was though, because the man opened fire on them first, making the lion twins scatter out of the path of the bullets.
“Shit,” Rio murmured, both of them taking off in a run after the man.
It was dark as hell and there was old plastic, boxes and empty cans everywhere. Every few steps, Rio found himself almost falling over because of the shit littering the floors and he cursed under his breath, pushing himself to catch up with the man. Ryker was a few steps ahead of him.
The man pushed through a door and his features were lit by a lamp hanging in the hallway he entered for a moment before he slammed the door shut behind him.
It was Sawyer. And he was carrying the limp form of Rhamos over his shoulder.
Rio hissed in a breath and he didn’t need to say a word to know that his brother had seen the same thing that he had. The man they’d thought of as a ghost for fifteen years had come back to haunt them in the flesh and yet again he was poised to rob from them what was most dear. The irony of it all was staggering in its cruelty.
“That motherfucker,” Ryker growled, shouldering the door to open and allowing Rio to catch up with him.
They burst through the door together and found themselves in another stairwell. Looking up, Rio could see a flash of Sawyer’s boot and then the dark, chilling laughter that had haunted him since he was a kid. The man who had killed everyone he’d loved, so close and yet so impossibly fucking far to reach.
He’d never run as fast as he did now, going up endless flights of stairs with Ryker ahead of him. The stairs were narrow and they couldn’t pass one another, but Sawyer chose not to take the door that would have led to the first floor and
just kept going. They twins did the same. When Rio heard another door opening, they were only one flight behind the faster, slimmer man.
His lion was deafening him, roaring in his ears as Rio went through the doors. Now they were above the production areas, thin walkways connecting various lifts and chains above large, cavernous and now-empty vats that were once used to mix dyes and chemicals to form the paints. Sawyer was running down one of those long walkways, Rhamos’ body held over his shoulder.
“He doesn’t have anywhere to go,” Ryker said as they took off after him.
Neither of them could risk a shot for fear of hitting Rhamos instead, but Sawyer didn’t have that problem. The grizzled hyena would turn around periodically and fire a few rounds at the twins, making them fall back or change course and pick another walkway. It couldn’t last though, because there weren’t that many of the flimsy, brittle walkways to begin with.
“Give up, Sawyer. Just give us back the kid and no one has to get hurt,” Ryker called out as Sawyer reached a cross-section of paths his only options being running into Ryker or a dead-end.
He chose the dead-end.
“Yeah?” Sawyer called back, stopping at the end of the walkway now and turning around to face the approaching lion twins.
Rio had his gun shouldered while Ryker kept his down. Their steps were slow as they walked closer. Sawyer watched them, his wild eyes glowing and the black paint that he and his crew seemed to prefer marking the left side of his face, though it did nothing to hide the scars beneath the streaks.
“Stop or the kid gets it,” Sawyer growled, pointing his semi-automatic at Rhamos now instead of Rio or Ryker. “You should know I don’t fuck around with shit like this.”
They stopped immediately. While Sawyer would have likely hit himself in the shoulder had he taken a shot, then it would have definitely ripped through Rhamos’ body and they couldn’t afford that happening.