by Anya Nowlan
“What do you want, Sawyer?” Rio asked, his voice barely more than a snarl at this point.
“Oh, so you remember me?” Sawyer asked with a chuckle, a note of dark mania beneath that laugh. “I’m touched. I always wondered if you two saw what I did, if you even knew who I was.”
“We saw everything,” Ryker said.
If looks could kill then Sawyer would have been just a pile of ash and bones on the ground.
“Good. Some of my best work. You know, for the longest time I had no idea that anyone survived that fun little day. I have to ask, where were you two hiding?”
“Just give the kid back and I won’t fucking shoot you right now,” Rio said, his muscles so tense that he had to slip his finger further from the trigger in case his desire to see the man as a bloody heap on the floor got the best of him.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be doing that. Fine, you don’t have to tell me, don’t play nice. I’m sure I’ll find out one day. Maybe I can re-enact the whole thing for your little boy here, hmm?”
Sawyer tapped the barrel of the gun against Rhamos’ back and Rio saw Ryker visibly twitch.
“You sick fucking prick,” Ryker hissed.
“I’ve been called worse,” Sawyer said, glancing around himself as if looking for a way out in a place that couldn’t possibly provide him with any kind of escape, or as if he was just looking for an audience.
He had to have known that there was no way out, coming up there. The only way down was a twenty-five-foot fall onto concrete and even for a shifter that wasn’t a very comfortable jump. Especially for a man who wasn’t quite in his first youth anymore.
The hyena shifter was older and a bit grayer around the edges. The wounds that Rio and Ryker’s mother had given him had definitely fucked with his appearance further, though the burns had been enough to disfigure them even before the lioness got to him. Yet the manic glow in his eyes still remained and Rio recognized it all too well.
He’d seen the same glint in his own eyes on some mornings, looking into the mirror.
The thought was sobering.
“What do you want?” Rio asked.
“I want my face back,” Sawyer said with a smirk, turning his cheek so both of them could see the extent of damage their mother had done on him. “But I don’t think you can give me that. But causing your little nuclear family more pain will serve as a decent enough alternative to that, so I have to thank you for that.”
“You have to know that there’s no way out of here,” Ryker said. “You either do as we say or you’ll regret the consequences.”
The air was so thick with tension that Rio could practically feel his brother vibrating with anger next to him.
“Isn’t there?” Sawyer asked, quirking his brow. “The way I see it, I have all the power here. I have your kid… and I have about ten kilos of explosives strapped to a few others just like him downstairs. I bet you didn’t notice that though, what with how badly you wanted to get to me. I’m touched, really. You’re making an old man feel wanted again.”
Rio’s brows furrowed. Was this guy for real?
“Cut the crap, Sawyer. You can either give us the kid and spend the rest of your days in jail – the biggest kindness I can offer you because there’s not a fiber in my body that doesn’t want to rip you to shreds right now – or we could kill you and you won’t have a chance to make your little speeches ever again. Which is it going to be?” Rio asked, taking a deep breath in to calm his mounting desire to slice and dice the guy.
“Oh, I see you don’t believe me,” Sawyer said, quirking a brow. “What about now?”
With his free hand, he produced a small remote from a pocket on his jacket, holding it up so both of them could see. Rio’s heart dropped. While it wasn’t quite as high-tech as the gear he was running with, he could clearly see the timer running on it from the short distance they were standing at. Considering the kind of man Sawyer had shown himself to be, he had to consider that the possibility that he was fucking with them was far lower than the probability that he was telling the truth.
“That shut you two up, huh,” Sawyer said, grinning.
He dropped the remote back in his pocket and patted it once for good measure.
“So here’s what we’re going to do. As of now, you have exactly five minutes to get those whiny shifter kids out of here. If you don’t, they all die, and you too, probably. While I’m sure you’re okay with the latter, I get the feeling you won’t be particularly happy with the former. So…”
He reached behind him and before Rio or Ryker could do anything about it, he had grabbed hold of one of the massive chains that connected the cranes and were used for lifting heavy pieces of equipment. He fell backwards, slipping over the edge of the railing, wearing a grin on his face.
“We’ll have to continue this at another time,” he called out, laughter in his voice as he swung his body down until he swooped over the ground and then let go, dropping on the concrete from a height of maybe eight feet, Rhamos still firmly in his grasp.
He pulled the chain further from them with that and there was no way for the twins to follow unless they wanted to risk broken tibias.
“Fuck!” Ryker hissed, running to the edge of the walkway to watch Sawyer wave at them before taking off at a run, his steps firm and fast.
“Come on,” Rio said, starting to run down the walkways again. “We have to go!”
“He’s got Rhamos!” Ryker growled, following behind.
“Yeah, well, Rhamos isn’t going to die in this fucking explosion,” Rio shot back as they reached the door to the stairwell and bulleted down the steps. “But everyone else might.”
Desperation was strangling Rio and every step he took away from his child felt like he was betraying the boy. But he knew that if he didn’t do what he had to now – save whoever else was down there – then the odds were good that they’d never see Rhamos again anyway and along the way they would have caused the deaths of more innocents than they could live with.
Even if Sawyer didn’t have that many explosives planted in the factory, just a little could do serious damage because of the additional armaments Rio had set up all over the place.
“Sy, we need your help,” he barked into the comm.
Every second counted now.
The next time I meet him, he won’t be so lucky.
Twenty
Kayla
It was sort of amazing, how things kept going from bad to worse all the fucking time lately.
“Are you alright, honey?” Kayla asked, giving a little dark-haired girl Rio had pulled out of the cellars a juice box as they sat in Sy’s surprisingly comfortable living room.
She’d been tasked with looking after the kids for a moment but her curiosity was getting the best of her. Altogether, there had been five kids, aged four to nine, cooped up in the Wanderers’ little cellar of horrors. All of them had had some form of explosive strapped to them and it was only because Rio had been there that they’d gotten out alive instead of being blown up into a million pieces.
The building had exploded maybe ten seconds after the twins had gotten the last of the kids to safety. The extent of evil in the world was starting to nauseate Kayla.
Above it all, even with the little lives that had been saved on the mission, she couldn’t help but feel like desperation was mounting around her. Rhamos wasn’t one of the children sitting on the couches now, frightfully eating apple slices and drinking juice. It killed her.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she said, slipping out of the living room and closing the door behind her.
She could hear raised voices down the hall and she tip-toed into the kitchen, her instincts taking over before she could catch herself doing it. When you sneak around for years, trying to get delicate information out of some really nasty people, then staying quiet starts becoming a second habit.
In the kitchen, all of Shifter Squad Nine stood around the large dining table, arguing animatedly. Sy was sittin
g in the corner, looking somewhat dejected and entirely annoyed. Kayla had to imagine that he wasn’t particularly glad about having that many people in his now no longer secret lair.
It had been unavoidable, though. They had no idea who the kids belonged to and hitting Oakley again without reinforcements was going to be a suicide mission. The option of calling Dice had been one that she offered and begrudgingly, the twins agreed to it.
She stepped into the kitchen and while Thor and Prowler gave her quick looks, with Prowler nodding at her, it didn’t change the course of the argument one bit. She slid next to Ryker and he wrapped an arm around her shoulder automatically, pulling her close.
Kayla had to wonder if he even noticed when he did it or if it was some sort of a reaction to her presence. Considering that her own arm draped around his waist, she was going to guess that it was probably more to do with the second option than the first.
I wish I could enjoy this, she thought for the umpteenth time.
“You’re insane,” Price said, shaking his head.
A map of Oakley had been laid out on the table, with some spots marked by the men earlier based on the information Kayla had swiped. They’d marked several locations, circling them with a red pen, and Kayla leaned closer to look at the arrows they’d drawn and the scribbles that had been put on the paper.
“There’s no sane way to do this,” Dice commented mildly, getting a murmur of agreement from Rio and Sy.
She glanced at both Rio and then up to Ryker, who were wound up so tight that a pin dropping in the room could have probably gotten them to snap. Since she and Sy had rolled up in the tank – meeting no resistance as they went into the town the same way that Rio and Ryker had – she hadn’t seen them relax for a moment. They still stood like they were in the middle of battle, muscles tight and tense, expressions stern and worried.
She had to assume that she looked much the same, completely wound up with hints of desperation and definite dread.
“They’re going to know we’re coming,” Thor said.
“They didn’t care all that much last night,” Kayla shot back with a frown. “The place was a ghost town.”
“I think it’s going to be different tonight,” Rio started. “We set up surveillance via Sy’s drones before we hit the place and not a single vehicle has left the town since last night, but several have come in. I think they’re waiting for us to hit again. I don’t know why, but if I had to guess I’d assume it’s just because Sawyer’s a sick fuck who likes to put on a show.”
“You know that The Firm can’t be far behind at this point,” Price said, his voice a bit raspy. “You two taking off got everyone up in arms and now that we’re off the compound too… I’m just saying, they’re going to find us and they’ll either stop us or them. With Spade and that crew, I can never be sure whether we’re about to get fucked in the ass or just have the cavalry roll in.”
“It’s usually a bit of both,” Ryker said, inciting some chuckles in the room.
Kayla squeezed his side slightly, feeling the strong, taught muscles underneath the black shirt he was wearing, stretching over his wide chest. Sawyer getting away had taken a harder hit on him than it had on Rio, it seemed. The air about him was almost electric with anger, but it seemed to quell a bit when she was close. She took that as a good sign.
“They’re going to have to get here anyway. Those kids need to get home,” Dice said.
“Some of them don’t even remember what their parents look like,” Kayla said, her stomach dropping as she spoke those words.
It was the same for her own boys, she feared. They’d been away too long and been too young when they were taken.
It was a small miracle that Rylen was alive at all, really. The first thing Dice had done when he came to Sy’s base was to sit down Kayla, Rio and Ryker and give them a thorough overview of what had happened since they’d left with Rylen’s vitals and his status. They’d gotten worse, which was saying something since his white blood cell count was so low he should have been dead anyway, but he was holding on.
The clock was ticking.
“Anyway,” Prowler began, clearing his voice and obviously trying to get everyone off the morose topic of mentally and physically abused children who’d been taken from their parents. “I think we need to split up into three teams. Hit here, here and here,” he said, pointing at the spots on the map that they’d marked. “We can take out the communications networks with Price. Thor can set up a nest in the old radio station.”
“We’ll go into the hotel in the middle of town. It looks like the place the Wanderers’ officers should be living at for the most part. Sy and Kayla can make sure that the roads leading out of the town aren’t more than just dust and gravel,” Ryker finished with a nod.
“Sounds like a plan,” Dice agreed.
Kayla gave one more look at the men who had gathered in the room. Rio and Ryker were adamant about how these soldiers were not their brothers, how these ex-SEALs didn’t care about anyone and how they were the most brutal motherfuckers to walk the planet. Yet here they were, every single one of them, having shown up because a kid’s life was in danger.
Even Thor, though he stood back and looked disinterested as usual, had nodded his agreement to the plan. At any other time, their willingness to possibly sacrifice their health and safety for that of a little boy would have gotten Kayla choked up.
But right now, she just wanted to kick some hyena ass.
“I’m going to need a flamethrower,” Ryker said, squinting his eyes slightly as he considered the small town of Oakley, nestled in the pristine dirt and nothingness of the Nevada desert.
“Correction. You want a flamethrower,” Rio said, grinning for the first time in a long while.
“No. I need a flamethrower,” Ryker said, reaching for a cigar on his belt and making Kayla slightly shake her head with a smile.
So maybe they weren’t entirely sane, the lot of them. That was fine, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Twenty-One
Ryker
“Lynx One, moving out,” Dice said over the comms, slightly tinny in Ryker’s ear.
The gear they had to run this mission with was mostly their own stuff, what the rest of Shifter Squad Nine had managed to swipe on their way out and what Sy had cobbled together from his seemingly endless warehouses. Everything was a little bit old-school, a little bit spit and duct tape based, but it would get the job done.
The heavy tanks on his back felt nice though, the long hose of the flamethrower tucked away in the middle of them. He hadn’t been joking about needing a flamethrower. There wasn’t a force on Earth strong enough to stop him from frying Sawyer into a nice, thin crisp when he got the chance that night.
“Lynx Three, copy. Lynx Five and Lynx Three moving out,” he spoke, before turning down the volume on his headset again as the rest of the confirmations came pouring in.
He hated being in this situation. It was night again and the shroud of darkness was heavy over Oakley. They were standing on the outskirts of town, the desert quiet behind them, the occasional breeze the only thing that brushed through the endless emptiness of it.
This shit should have been resolved last night, he thought. If Rylen dies before we get to him… if something happens to Rhamos…
Ryker growled under his breath, his gaze flashing golden as he pushed into the city, walking down the street with Rio at his side. Kayla was out there with Sy, hopefully safe in his tank and minutes from blowing up the first of several roads leading out of Oakley. No one was going to get past them without going through some trouble of their own.
In about two minutes, cell reception was going to go down all around Oakley, courtesy of Prowler. If the Wanderers didn’t keep radio contact then they’d be well and truly fucked – something that Ryker was counting on, considering that he hadn’t seen any of the guys at the factory with any radios on them. One by one, they would get plucked at the root by Thor or Dice or anyone else with a gun
in their hand and vengeance on their mind.
But Ryker was counting on having the highest body count that night.
For a second, he felt an odd tingle run down his spine, something that may have been akin to discomfort. Kayla had never seen him and Rio like this, when they were on a warpath, at least not when they’d been together all those years ago. There’d be a lot of explaining to her, to make her understand how his mind worked and how Rio’s did. But with Rhamos back and Sawyer dead, Ryker imagined that the talk would be a whole lot fucking easier.
“Movement on the left,” Rio said softly as they walked down the very middle of the street, guns drawn.
They were goading the Wanderers on. Ryker was absolutely certain that Sawyer had not left the town and he’d armed his boys to the teeth now, expecting another hit this night. That was exactly what Shifter Squad Nine was going to give them.
“I sure hope so,” Ryker gruffed back, glancing in the direction Rio had pointed.
It was a narrow alleyway, running between redbrick buildings that used to be storefronts but now stood unoccupied and uncared for. He didn’t see anyone hiding in the shadows, but he could only assume that there was someone there and would be for the extent of the walk down to the central hotel.
Ryker got the feeling that Sawyer didn’t want anyone else killing him or Rio, but he was sure as hell going to keep an eye on them.
They marched silently, the occasional murmurs coming in over their headsets. When the first blast sounded in the distance, Ryker could see Rio grinning. The main road leading out of Oakley had been blown out and Sy and Kayla were going to circle around the small town and do the same to the rest of them. With all-terrain vehicles, there were still plenty of ways of getting out, but the drone pictures hadn’t shown a lot of decent equipment around Oakley and Ryker was fine with making things even a little bit more difficult for the Wanderers.