by Natalie Grey
That emboldened her. She grabbed at his shirt and dragged his torso upright, and then down to meet her knee. She didn’t like to think of herself as a violent person, but she knew some of the things Gerard had done for Hugo—and she could just tell the sort of things he liked to do in his spare time. Hurting him felt good.
She decided not to worry about the larger moral implications right now.
He swung at her and missed, staggering sideways, and she pivoted on her standing foot, lashing out with the other to hit him in the shins. He went down with a yell.
And then a knife appeared in his hand.
“I am going to kill you,” he told her, and for the first time since she’d met him, there wasn’t any joke in his voice, there wasn’t any psychotic smile. He hated her.
He wanted her dead. And he had killed before.
Run, the recruit had told her in training. The people you might be up against when you’re with TQB? You probably won’t win if you have to fight. Run, and make all the fuss you can to get somewhere safe and not let your enemies drag you away. Just try to cripple them, and run like hell.
Her sense of vengeance wanted to get him on the ground and beat on him until he cried, but she knew they had been right. She wasn’t one of the Queen’s soldiers, and she wasn’t like Jennifer or Stoyan or any of the rest—she couldn’t tear anyone to shreds.
She ran, stumbling over cobblestones, and in terror, she heard Gerard running after her, grunting with pain as he came down on the leg she’d kicked.
Across one street was a tiny alcove, a place you might miss if you weren’t seeing well and you weren’t running fast. Arisha scooped up a rock from the ground as she ran, turned into the alley and wedged herself into the alcove … and threw the stone down a nearby street. It skittered and bounced as if someone had kicked it.
Gerard didn’t hesitate as he followed the noise. He limped past, murder in his eyes, and Arisha sagged with relief. Now she just had to get back to the apartment, but that was in the other direction from the way Gerard had gone.
And it hadn’t been a useless expedition in the least. With a small smile, Arisha unclenched her hand and stared down at Gerard’s phone with a satisfied smile.
—
It was 2:30AM when Stoyan, Irina, Nathan, and Peter made their way into the apartment.
Stephen looked up with a nod and a smile. “Glad to see you’re both still with us.”
Irina nodded back. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She had known, in some way, that Karliman’s ultimatum had set her free. The pack was never going to change, and the others were not going to come with her. Knowing that they would not intervene, no matter the stakes, no matter who was being hurt or killed—she could no longer be a part of that.
The truth was, though, that it had been just as hard to walk away the second time as it was the first. In some ways, it had been more difficult.
The first time, she knew she was giving up her pack status and she had been cast out. The second time, they had been offering her a chance at redemption. Or, what they considered to be redemption.
But when Stephen had been genuinely pleased to see both her and Stoyan, Irina realized that they had made the right choice. A new pack filled with those who had the same sense of honor was worth more than her birth pack, who would have let their own kin die without even trying to save them. This was their home now, and it felt more like home than her old pack ever had.
Stoyan, meanwhile, was looking around himself in increasing consternation. He eased the door open to each of the bedrooms and peered in.
“Where’s Arisha?”
“She’s sleeping,” Bobcat said, jerking his head toward the door to her room. “Hasn’t even stirred, even though we’ve been talking.”
“She’s not in there,” Stoyan said dangerously.
Everyone stopped dead.
“She’s not?” Stephen asked.
Stoyan gritted his teeth, “Look for yourself if you want.” He pushed the door open all the way.
“Shit.” Stephen grabbed his gun off the table. “Come on. We’ll sweep the town and—”
The door to the apartment opened and Arisha slipped in. Her hair was disheveled and there was dirt on her jeans, but she was smiling.
For a moment, no one spoke.
“Um….” Bobcat said finally.
“I was out with Gerard,” Arisha explained.
Stoyan exploded, “You what?”
“Yeah, he took me around… and then he tried to kill me.”
“Yet you’re surprisingly upbeat,” Stephen observed.
“Well, he didn’t kill me. And, I got his phone.” She held it up with a smile. The smile faded a moment later. “Of course, I didn’t kill him, either.”
“He tried to kill you?” Stoyan pulled her into a rough embrace. “He tried to…”
Bobcat picked his way around the outside of the hug and tugged the phone out of Arisha’s hand, “I’ll start running history on this, see which towers it’s pinged over the years. Hopefully, we’ll get some more facility locations from this bad boy.”
“Good idea,” Stephen agreed. “And maybe we need a buddy system for tomorrow.”
“What are we, four years old?” Peter gave him a look.
“Arisha went missing and yet none of us knew about it,” Stephen pointed out. He could have kicked himself, the thought of losing another new member of the team was chilling. “Stoyan, Irina. Don’t go off on your own. Arisha…”
He raised his eyebrows. Arisha and Stoyan were very thoroughly occupied.
“Ah… huh. I think it’s time for everyone to go to bed. We’ll cover the whole ‘not going off on your own’ thing in more detail tomorrow. Goodnight, everyone.”
—
Hugo turned as Gerard quietly entered the room.
He was annoyed. Gerard should have been here. None of them had heard anything from the man for hours. Did Gerard think he could just waltz off and take a long dinner whenever he pleased? While there were truckloads of weapons inbound, and TQB’s people might have discovered where they were?
His eyes traveled coldly over the dirt and tears on Gerard’s clothing, and the limp the man walked with.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing.” Gerard was not going to admit a failure. Hugo was angry enough, and Arisha’s escape still rankled.
How the hell had an untrained woman gotten away from him?
It didn’t matter. He reached for his phone and stopped.
His pocket was empty.
Shit.
Hugo noticed his look. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Gerard said shortly. He nodded to the screens along one wall, and the security guard speaking quietly into a headset. “What’s happening?”
If you had been here on time, you would know, Hugo’s look said. Out loud, he said, “We’re going to take care of those weapons before they reach this town.”
—
The other trucks caught up with him about an hour before dawn, and Maurice started over the border with a sense of grim determination. They were ahead of schedule now, and the holdup—such as it was—hadn’t been his fault. He drove first along the narrow roads and up into the hills. It was pretty country, visible as the sky started to grow lighter. Maybe everything was going to work out, after all. Which was his last thought before he saw the car.
Sleek but heavy, it was racing toward him along the road, weaving across the lines. It sat high on large wheels, and the dull siding looked almost like armor plates.
Maurice squinted through the windshield. A drunk driver? A drunk driver in an armored car?
But where he would normally be amused, he was now worried. Ditches plunged away on either side of the road, and the truck was hardly maneuverable, anyway. While he’d likely survive a crash against a car that small, he knew that his instincts might at any moment cause him to swerve and roll the truck into the ditch. And the closer the car got, the more it looked like it was tryi
ng to worry him. Which meant it was coming for him. Which meant it was trying to disrupt this shipment.
He didn’t know how to outdrive an armored car. Maurice gripped the steering wheel in suddenly clammy hands and prayed to every saint he could name to keep him on the road and safe. He could see another car behind this one now.
His radio crackled. “Someone trying to drive me off the fucking road!”
Shit, shit, shit. They were getting closer and he couldn’t decide what to do. Try to hit them dead on? Maybe if he played chicken, they would swerve instead of him. But what if they had guns? What if they had grenades? Why the hell had he gotten into this? He stared down the car and moved the truck into the middle of the road. If he tried to avoid them while they tried to kill him, he was going to die. Trying to bring the fight to them, that was his only chance. That was what he told himself, anyway.
About ten seconds out now, by his guess. Nine, eight—
The lead car suddenly spun and tumbled, as if it had hit some invisible object. Behind it, the companion car started to weave even harder, fishtailing on the dry, open road.
Maurice’s mouth hung open.
The first car hadn’t even righted itself, but somehow it moved sideways off the road, wheels spinning uselessly against air, and flipped onto its top in the ditch. The other car, swerving out of control, followed a moment later. It spun in the air—though why, Maurice couldn’t tell, and landed directly on top of the first car.
“Did anyone else see that?” He wasn’t sure he’d even managed to say words. What the hell had just happened? “Tomas? Are you alright?”
“Yeah.” The driver of the back truck sounded just as shell-shocked as Maurice. “It was as if… as if someone just picked the car up and tossed it off the road.”
“What the fuck just happened?” Maurice demanded.
“I don’t know.” Seban, the driver of the middle truck, sounded determined and freaked out in equal measure. “Let’s just get the hell out of here and get the trucks where they’re supposed to be. I want this job to be over.”
—
“The cars are down,” Phillips reported. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the General, and her eyes went wide when she saw, instead, the Queen Bitch herself.
“Good work,” the Queen said, with a decisive nod.
“I, ah… your Majesty.”
“You don’t need to call me that.” Bethany Anne smiled briefly at Phillips, then narrowed her eyes at the screens. Her arms were crossed over her chest. “Any read on those cars?”
Phillips swallowed hard. “ADAM’s running everything, but we still don’t know much.” She was still in awe that the Queen, herself, was here. She’d seen her the other day, of course, talking with Stephen and the others, but she’d never assumed she would meet Bethany Anne. The woman cut an enviable figure in black jeans, black-and-silver heels, and a red shirt that highlighted a perfect figure.
“Let me know as soon as you find out,” Bethany Anne said simply. She looked at Phillips. “I want to know which group of backward, goat-fucking, micro-cocked village idiots tried to blow up my fucking shoes. Good job, by the way.”
And she disappeared into thin air.
Phillips blinked at the air in front of her and then turned back to her desk. She caught herself looking back over her shoulder as she typed, but the Queen did not reappear.
“ADAM? Any read on those armored cars?”
>>I may have a lead. I’ll tell Bethany Anne as soon as I know.<<
“Thank you,” Phillips said. She looked over her shoulder again. “Does she do that disappearing thing a lot?”
Lance passed by with a coffee cup. “Fairly often. Try to get used to it, Phillips. And as you may have guessed from this encounter, don’t use boring swears in her presence.”
“Yes, sir.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At home, Jennifer usually began the day with grumbling, seven or eight cups of coffee, and dire threats against anyone who tried to interact with her for about three hours after waking up.
So far, Stephen was the only one to try to engage her in conversation first thing in the morning and emerge unscathed, and a large part of that was that he had the sense to bring her a mug and an entire coffee pot when he came to talk to her.
It was the little things.
Her first morning in the facility, Jennifer had tried very hard not to murder anyone. It had been one of the most difficult tasks she had performed in service to Bethany Anne, though she suspected that it was not the sort that would win any medals. She’d grabbed a cup of coffee, plastered a smile on her face, and glided quickly to her laboratory while pretending not to hear anyone’s greetings.
This morning, however, when the guards came through to unlock the doors, Jennifer was almost whistling, she was so happy. This was not only her last day in this godforsaken place, this was everyone’s last day. By midnight tonight, the rest of the Wechselbalg would be free, being patched up aboard the ArchAngel, and Hugo and Gerard would be dead.
“Good morning, ADAM.”
>>Good morning, Jennifer.<< There was a pause. >>You’ve never wished me good morning before.<<
Jennifer informed him, “I reserve that for special occasions. How goes your progress?” She stood up and shed the baggy blue pajamas each of the scientists were issued—ugly by any standards—and pulled on her shirt and pants.
>>As you noted last night, Hugo has increased his security. Camera footage shows thirty-six new guards both here and at the prospective pickup point for the shoes, and twenty-four new guards at the castle.<<
“Look at that, more playmates.” Jennifer grinned. “And here I was beginning to think this wasn’t going to be a challenge at all.”
>>In addition, Gerard’s phone has given us six more potential locations of facilities.<<
“How’d you get Gerard’s phone? Did you hack it?”
>>Arisha stole it.<<
“I always knew I liked her. I’ll bet he’s hopping mad about that. Anything else?”
>>Not much to report at present. I’ve begun preparations to sever the connection and establish a radio blackout between the two buildings as soon as the attack begins.<<
“Well, good luck with that, then.” Jennifer whistled as she laced up her boots. She swung a lab coat on around her shoulders, buttoned it, and stepped out into the hallway. “Now. Coffee.”
—
Thomas Stockton strode around the outside of the castle, his gaze fixed on the walls and sometimes taking in the hills and cliffs surrounding the place. Though it was old, the castle had been built to be defensible. It had the high ground, and the stone walls and heavy double doors into the courtyard were hardly going to be kicked down.
All in all, a good place to fight.
Their commander, Jamie, had come from meeting the big boss and gave a tiny shake of his head to indicate: this guy is really crazy.
Apparently, the man who hired them thought they were all going to get attacked by a pack of wolves.
They’d had a good laugh at that one, but quietly, and only in their own space. You didn’t laugh at clients, and you definitely didn’t tell them that their paranoia was crazy. Especially when that paranoia paid the bills.
“Maybe his family got killed by wolves or something,” one of the guys had suggested as they cleaned their weapons last night after arriving. “You know, hiking or whatever. He’s just still scared of them.”
It seemed as good an explanation as any. Thomas hadn’t even known there were wolves in Catalonia, but a fear like that didn’t come out of nowhere, did it?
Whatever was coming—because there were also whispered reports of trucks with weapons—it had the potential to break up a string of boring jobs, and he hoped it did. He’d signed on here because the Royal Army was too restrictive. You were never able to really go after the bad guys. You just knew they were out there and waiting to kill you, but all the bureaucrats had a bunch of rules about what you could and couldn�
��t do.
Private security forces were much better that way. Someone tried to kill your client, and you got to go after them however you wanted. The clients had more money than he could properly get his head around, too, so they were never in legal trouble. Thomas had heard about a couple of missions that had never hit the news, even with full shoot-outs and grenades, and that was really saying something.
So far, though, it had been just as boring here as it was in the army. Maybe this would be the job. Maybe.
He completed his circuit of the castle and went back in through the double doors, which were standing open right now.
“Best place to try to get in would probably be the back right corner,” he told his commander. He pointed. “It’s a dark spot in the cameras, so you could probably do it without floodlights coming on.”
“Good work,” the man told him with a nod. “Anywhere else to worry about?”
“Not really.” Thomas shook his head. “Once the doors are closed, there’s no getting into this place without climbing the walls, and that’ll set off the alarms. I mean, they could land a helicopter in the courtyard, but that isn’t going to be quiet, we’d have advance notice.”
“Good. I tell ya, anyone would have to be crazy to try to get in here—and since we came in last night, they won’t know we’re here yet.” Jamie gave a satisfied smile. “Should be easy to mop them all up.”
—
Stephen came out of the shower, dripping as he padded over to the bed. It was only a couple of hours past dawn, in winter no less, but the air was beginning to heat already. It had been a mild winter in Spain.
He pulled a slim-fitting tank on over his head and, over that, a prototype of Jean Dukes’ newest body armor. It was thin, and though it might have been heavy for a human, it didn’t bother Stephen at all. He tested the motion of it to make sure the straps were properly adjusted, and smiled.