Prey (Copper Mesa Eagles Book 2)

by Dakota West

  Katrina held her breath, eyes wide. Zach squeezed her hand and grinned.

  “Not the cops,” he said. “The boss man, in from Denver. They just called him ‘La Cabeza.’ The Head.”

  “And he gave you a Christmas bonus for being really good at cooking meth?” Katrina asked.

  Everything that Zach was saying felt totally alien to her. She’d grown up in the suburbs, drinking in the desert every so often and sometimes getting high on her friend’s brother’s cousin’s neighbor’s pot, but she’d never made drugs. She’d never met a kingpin.

  “Kind of,” Zach said. “The month that I was cooking, I’d made some refinements, done a couple of things to streamline the process. And, apparently, drug making is kind of like working in any job. You get promoted for doing your job well.”

  He paused.

  “Also for being one of the few guys there not getting high on the job,” he said. “Honestly, I was way more interested in the chemistry parts and the science aspects than I was in getting high.”

  “You never tried it?”

  “I did, once.” Zach made a face and looked at the lake, then shrugged. “I got lucky, I guess, because I hated it. I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could feel normal again. If I’d liked it, I’d probably still be in Obsidian, just with considerably less teeth.”

  “Ew.”

  “Yeah,” Zach agreed, laughing. “Anyway, whoever La Cabeza worked for — I never knew, honestly — was working on making new synthetic drugs for the club scene.”

  “The massive club scene in Obsidian,” Katrina said.

  Zach laughed again.

  “Does Salt Lake even have a club scene?” he asked.

  “Barely,” she said. “It’s a pretty buttoned-up city. The church has a lot of influence, you know.”

  “Right,” he said. “The drugs were mostly bound for Vegas and L.A. So I started working at the experimental lab, in a different part of the desert. I was just an assistant, working under a guy with a Ph.D. in chemical engineering.”

  “I heard the academic job market was tough,” Katrina said. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

  “You’ve got it backwards,” Zach said. “This guy — I just called him Tortoise, I don’t know his real name, I never knew any real names — loved drugs. Loved them. I listened to hours and hours of him talking about how drugs were the way for humans to really open up their consciousness and expand their minds.”

  “Did it work?”

  “I only tried one or two of the things he made,” said Zach. “One just made me feel like I was underwater, which was kind of unpleasant. And the other made me feel like my brain was folding in on itself, like I was a sheet of origami paper. Didn’t like that one, either.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Katrina said.

  “I’m pretty square,” Zach said. “When I became a full-time student last year, I finally got my wisdom teeth out, because I had dental insurance for the first time. The day after it hurt like hell, but I hated being on opiate painkillers so much that I just suffered through it with Advil.”

  Katrina just laughed.

  “I got Vicodin for the same reason,” she said. “I thought it was pretty fun.”

  “That’s what I hear normal people think,” Zach said, dryly.

  “So, you made club drugs for a while, and then took over the whole business by age twenty-four?”

  “Not exactly,” Zach said. “I got there one day, and Tortoise was frantically packing up all his notes, files, computer equipment, anything that would fit into two huge duffle bags. Apparently there was a raid on another operation run by the same people outside Denver, and he thought it was best to cut and run, and told me I should do the same.”

  “And?”

  “I took my drug money, went back home, and enrolled in community college the next semester.”

  “And they say crime never pays,” Katrina said.

  “The statute of limitations is probably not up,” Zach said. “Don’t go telling everyone all my secrets. As far as my official record goes, I worked in a bakery for a couple years and then decided to go back to school.”

  Katrina leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, examining Zach’s face. Part of her didn’t want to believe him, because that story was ridiculous. Who got into meth, then other drugs, and then escape scot-free and became an engineer?

  She did believe him, though. That was the thing — it felt like he was telling her something he’d never told anyone before, and the whole story had a ring of truth to it. If he was lying, why not embellish? Why not say he’d run half the operations in the Southwest at some point?

  “Is that really the truth?” she asked, narrowing her eyes a little.

  “I swear,” Zach said. “Believe me, I couldn’t make that shit up.”

  “You just got out, like that?”

  He shrugged.

  “I was paranoid for a good year after it happened,” he said. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his face close to hers. “But I never heard another word from those guys. I didn’t know anything — just show up here, use this eyedropper to put this liquid into this pipette. I’d only just started to learn what I was doing when it all ended.”

  Stranger things have happened, Katrina thought.

  After all, someone saw his brother turn into an eagle.

  Her heart sank, and she swallowed hard. For most of the night, she’d been able to forget the whole reason they’d met at all — MutiGen wanted to know more about this guy.

  “What’s wrong?” Zach asked, frowning.

  He reached out one hand and brushed it away from her face, his rust-colored eyes searching hers. The tingling started in her toes and rose through her body, his fingertips on her face sending shivers down her spine.

  “Sorry,” she said, smiling. “Nothing.”

  Zach’s hand was still on her face, and Katrina leaned into it a little. She wanted to feel more of him against her, his warm skin on hers.

  His thumb stroked her cheekbone, and she felt frozen in that moment. Held in place by desire.

  Then Zach leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. It felt like everything stopped. She leaned into him a little more, pressing herself forward, and moved her lips against his.

  The ache inside Katrina only deepened, and then her hand was on his cheek, in his hair, holding him to her as tightly as she could. The arm of the camping chair dug into her ribs, but Katrina barely noticed.

  Lightly, Zach parted his lips against hers and Katrina could just barely feel the tip of his tongue come out and run across her bottom lip. She opened her mouth, wanting to let him in.

  Not far away, a siren squawked, and both of them sat bolt upright.

  Chapter Five

  Zach

  “Shit,” Katrina breathed, her blue eyes going wide.

  Zach took her hand and squeezed it, still at a loss for words. He didn’t give a damn that the cops were there, he just wanted to kiss her again, there on the roof in the moonlight, the lake spread out below them.

  “We’ll be fine,” he whispered.

  “This never happened before,” Katrina whispered back.

  Zach didn’t know why they were whispering. The cop car was parked on the street, outside the fence and on the other side of the parking lot. It wasn’t like the police could hear them from where they were.

  “They’ll just tell us to stop trespassing and we’ll go home,” Zach said. He let his hand move to the small of her back and his fingers pressed into the base of her spine.

  Everything about her made him feel electrified, like he could fly away.

  Out by the road, a speaker crackled to life.

  “You’re trespassing on private property,” a man’s voice said, staticky and tinny over the bullhorn. “Come down from there immediately.”

  Katrina looked like she might be on the verge of tears, and something inside Zach turned flinty and hard.

  I’ll kill anyone who makes her cry, he tho
ught, then blinked.

  That seemed a little extreme. Sure, he’d fuck up anyone who tried to hurt her, but kill someone?

  Come on.

  “We should go,” Katrina whispered.

  “Kiss me again first,” Zach said.

  “What?”

  They were standing on the roof, and she looked up at him, worry and confusion in her deep cerulean eyes.

  “Kiss me,” Zach said again, letting himself smile.

  He didn’t give a shit what happened afterward, as long as he got to kiss her again.

  “Now?”

  Instead of answering, he leaned his face down to hers and touched their lips together one more time, one hand on her shoulder and one at her waist. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed herself into him, and this time her body was against his, her warmth nearly overcoming him.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he’d parted her lips with his, swiping his tongue along her lower lip. Hesitantly, she responded, touching the tip of his tongue with hers.

  Zach could barely control himself. The blue and red lights of the police car played across his eyes, but he ignored them, focusing his entire being on Katrina, on her warm, soft mouth below his. Her perfect curves pressed against his body.

  He felt like something had combusted inside him, and now a fire he hadn’t known existed was burning, desperate for more of her, no matter what happened.

  The speaker crackled again.

  “Come down, now,” the voice said.

  Katrina pulled back, but now she was half-smiling. They walked quickly to the stairwell on the roof, but the moment they were inside, Katrina stopped.

  “There was only one cop car out there, right?” she asked. She held her flashlight steady on the stairs, looking downward.

  “I think so,” Zach said.

  “I think we could get away,” she said. “If we could get them to come in here after us, it wouldn’t be hard. We’re parked around the other side. We could get to the car and get away without getting busted.”

  Zach raised one eyebrow.

  “Are you always this devious?” he asked.

  “Only sometimes,” Katrina answered demurely. “Are you coming or what?”

  Like I could do anything else, Zach thought. Not when you’re looking at me like that.

  They went down the stairs as quietly as they could, and at the bottom, Katrina turned the flashlight off, leaving them in the total darkness of the stairwell.

  Blind, Zach reached out one hand and found Katrina’s shoulder, then her neck, her chin and suddenly he could feel her mouth envelop his thumb as she bit it, but just barely. It took everything he had not to groan there, in the dark, as he felt himself stiffen.

  “We should stay here a minute until our eyes adjust,” Katrina whispered.

  Zach didn’t have to be told twice and he kissed her again.

  This time he pressed her against the door of the stairwell and her hands were in his hair, holding him to her as tight as she could. Their tongues wound together, and Zach almost felt like he was drowning in this girl, a sea of blond hair and innocent blue eyes.

  Finally he pulled away, resting their foreheads together, and opened his eyes. He could just make out the shapes of the stairs and rails, and he knew it was time to leave, put their plan into action, even though he never wanted to leave.

  He kissed her once more, stifling another groan. Now he was hard as a rock, and all he could think about was running his hands down her curves, getting her dress off of her. What she’d sound like as he pleasured her, her cries echoing around the stairwell.

  “We should get moving,” she whispered when they broke apart.

  Zach didn’t want to go anywhere, but he knew she was right. As quietly as he could, he opened the door and the two of them stepped out, into the elevator-lined hallway.

  Katrina put one hand on his arm and pointed across the lobby.

  “That side’s where the car is. There’s a room over there that’s full of mechanical stuff — I think it’s the heater or something — but there’s an exit over there. We’ll have to run maybe a hundred feet, but then we can get behind that overgrown hedge and get to the car. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Zach whispered. He remembered the hedge, but they’d gone behind the hotel first. He just had to trust her.

  They walked to the end of the dark hall and peered out the massive windows at the front of the hotel. One was broken and emptied of glass, and one was shattered, but the rest were intact.

  Beyond them, two police officers had opened a padlock and were unwrapping a chain from a gate.

  “Come on,” Katrina whispered. She walked quickly and quietly across the lobby to another hallway, this one a mirror image of the elevator bank. Outside, the officers swept the light along the broken pavement of the parking lot, getting ever closer.

  The dark enveloped them again. Katrina bent down and picked something up: a chunk of concrete.

  “How far do you think you can throw this?” she whispered, handing it to Zach.

  He frowned and looked at her in alarm.

  “Just to make a noise,” she said. “Can you get it across the lobby?”

  He hefted it in his hand. It was heavy, but not too bad.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said. “When I say go, you throw that clear across to the other hallway, and then we go.”

  “Is this going to work?” Zach hissed.

  In the dark, Katrina shrugged, close enough that Zach could feel her shoulders move.

  “Dunno,” she said. “It works in movies sometimes?”

  She had her back against the wall and peered out, around the corner, at the officers in front of the building.

  “Just come out of there,” one of them shouted. He sounded exasperated, as though this wasn’t the first time that week he’d had to chase people out of the resort. “You’re trespassing illegally.”

  That’s redundant, Zach thought, and then he heard Katrina inhale sharply.

  “Now,” she said.

  Zach hefted the rock in his hand once, getting it into position, wound up, and threw it across the enormous lobby. It crashed into a wall in the darkness on the other side.

  “Over there,” he heard one officer say, and then Katrina grabbed his arm and pulled him further into the blackness.

  Somehow, she found the door and pulled it open. Zach held his breath, trying not to make any noise as he raced after her. Even in the dark he could see her outline, tempting him from a few feet in front. He wanted to lift her in his arms and push her against a wall in the heating room and damn the policemen outside, but he fought that part of himself down.

  Get out of here first, he thought. Do that later.

  With a rush of cool air, Katrina pushed the door to the outside open, her blond hair flying back. She peeked out, then looked back at Zach.

  “You see that hedge there?” she asked breathlessly.

  Zach nodded.

  “Get to that and run along it,” she said. “The car’s kind of over that little hill and past those trees. Ready?”

  Zach took her hand.

  “I’m gonna slow you down,” she warned.

  He grinned and shrugged.

  “Go,” he said.

  They took off, Katrina running at top speed and Zach jogging along beside her. The cop car was still on the rise across the parking lot, its lights still flashing, but the two cops were nowhere to be seen.

  At last they reached the hedge. Katrina was breathing hard, one hand on her chest.

  “This is not a good running outfit at all,” she muttered. “Wrong shoes, wrong bra.”

  Zach peeked out, but the only thing moving were the lights on the cop car. The door they’d left through was still open.

  We should have closed that, he thought. They’re going to know where we went.

  Katrina was tugging at his arm again, her flushed face below his.

  “C’mon,” she said. “We’re not home free just ye
t.”

  Staying close to the hedge, they darted through the copse of trees and up the hill. Despite himself, Zach started grinning, almost laughing.

  I can’t believe we’re doing this, he thought. I feel like a teenager trying to avoid getting grounded.

  It’s kind of great.

  Then they ran over the crest of the little hill. All that was between them and the car was the chain-link fence, and Zach figured that at worst, they could climb that.

  Parked right behind his ugly, old Escort was a second police car. Katrina slammed to a stop and Zach nearly knocked her over, taking her shoulder in one hand.

  The cop peering into his car’s windows with a flashlight looked up, and in a second, the bright light was on them. Zach turned his head and shaded his eyes.

  “Shit!” hissed Katrina.

  “Hey!” shouted the cop.

  Zach looked behind him, back at the copse of trees, the hedge, and the hotel.

  We could run back, he thought wildly.

  “Were you two in the old Grant property?” the cop asked.

  Neither of them answered. The door they’d left the hotel through slammed open, and the other two cops came out, flashlights blazing ahead of them.

  “Shit,” Katrina muttered again.

  The cop next to their car just sighed.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s get you out from behind that fence. This your car?”

  Zach nodded.

  The walk to the gate in the fence, then all the way back to Zach’s car, was dead quiet. The two cops who’d gone through the hotel gave them a quick pat down but didn’t handcuff either of them, just walked sternly behind Zach and Katrina as they trudged back down the road.

  Zach was terrified. Not for himself, but for Katrina. He didn’t have much in the world, so it didn’t matter if he lost it — but she had a job and an apartment. If she got arrested and charged, she could probably be fired, or at the very least, she’d have a hard time getting a promotion.

  I can’t believe I went along with this, Zach thought. This isn’t how you treat women. You buy them dinner and then do normal, safe things with them. You don’t go trespassing.