"Me too.” Noah started the truck and pulled out of the gas station, turning back onto the road.
Twenty-Eight
"I just fled these mountains, and now here I am racing to get back to them.” Noah glanced at the looming granite and shivered. “Those bastards better not have laid one finger on Lanie."
"We'll get her back,” Rogan whispered, running his hands through his hair.
Noah was silent for a few minutes, lost in his own thoughts. By now, they could have done anything to her. Every hair on his body stood on end. With each beat of his heart, he felt panic set in, almost choking him.
Noah gripped the steering wheel tightly. Had Tam already claimed Lanie as his own? Had they begun the process of making her a shifter? If so, the first step was reprogramming. Christ. She would forget him. Forever.
"We're close.” Rogan's voice snapped Noah out of his agonizing thoughts. “There's the mountain."
As they rounded a bend, Noah could see it tall and foreboding off in the distance—the very crag that had haunted his dreams. B*E*A*S*T*'s compound was carved out of the bedrock hundreds of feet below the surface, directly underneath that mountain. Noah presumed it was so they wouldn't be detected by a satellite scan of the area, but he knew this mountain. And seeing it again brought bile rising in the back of his throat.
"You'll have to tie me up and make it look like I'm your prisoner,” Noah said.
Rogan gave him a sidelong glance. “Think this will work?"
Pulling the truck to the side of the road, Noah put it in park and glanced at his friend. “Yes. I'm convinced they'll let us in even if they're suspicious. It's the easiest way to get us inside without a fight."
"Are there syringes of serum in this truck?” Rogan asked, climbing out of his seat and into the back. “We'll have to claim you have it in your blood, or they'll never believe you'd allow me to drag you back in your human form."
"I haven't checked all these compartments,” Noah said. “I have no idea if we have any of the serum or not."
After a few minutes of rooting around in the back of the truck, Rogan smiled broadly. “Aha!” he exclaimed, holding up his prize. “We do. This oughta come in handy.” He put one of the syringes in his pocket and handed another to Noah.
"Did you find any rope?"
Rogan nodded, a grin still plastered across his face. “And duct tape."
The look Rogan gave him was not lost on Noah. He arched a brow and grinned himself. “Well, let's get this over with. We need to get inside as soon as possible."
"Great, because this just makes me giddy."
"No it doesn't,” Noah countered. “You're scared as hell. I can smell it coming off of you in waves."
Rogan growled. “Shut up and turn around, Tiger."
"Not too tight,” Noah said with a smirk.
* * * *
Security guards greeted them a little while later on the dirt road that led into a large cave on the face of the bedrock. Rogan rolled down his window and managed to appear irritated.
"Look, I'm expected,” he said, glaring for their benefit. “Tam knows I'm coming. I've caught the traitor Noah Carpenter, and if you make me wait very much longer, I can't be responsible for what that panther does with your remains."
The two guards looked at each other and adjusted the machine guns strapped to their shoulders. One of them cleared his throat and said, “Who should we say is coming, sir?"
With a loud sigh, Rogan pinned him with an icy stare. “My name is Rogan Wolfe. That's W-O-L-F-E. I'm one of B*E*A*S*T*'s prized shifters, and if you don't get the hell out of my way, I just might consider moving dinner up a couple of hours!” The man's face paled as Rogan's eyes flashed. “So get Tam on the goddamned phone and tell him we're coming."
"Y—yes sir. Right away, sir!” The guard ran to the booth on the side of the road and picked up the handheld phone inside.
"Sounded convincing to me,” Noah whispered in amusement from the back.
"Shut the hell up!” Rogan hissed furiously. “Put that duct tape back on your mouth. They're going to let us through. You'll ruin everything if they see you."
"I don't care if they see me,” Noah said, sitting up from his prone position.
"Jesus, Noah—"
"I have a better plan,” he interrupted.
Rogan swallowed hard, almost too afraid to ask. “What? Now's not the time for second thoughts, my friend."
Noah tore out of his bonds and opened the rear doors of the Hummer. Before his feet even hit the ground, he shifted, tearing out of his clothes and charging before the guards could react.
Rogan watched with his mouth wide open as Noah pounced on one of the men, heedless of his screams, but he did not maul him. Just as the second guard ran out of the booth and readied his gun to fire, Rogan wrenched the driver's door open and jumped out. Grabbing the barrel of the gun, he forced the muzzle to the sky just as the guard fired several rounds. Using the strength B*E*A*S*T* had so generously given him, Rogan jerked the weapon out of the guard's hands and pointed it at his chest.
"Get over there!” Rogan nodded toward the other guard, who was still screaming at having a tiger on top of him that was growling and baring its teeth. The second guard didn't hesitate to do as he was told. “Get on your knees and put your hands behind your head."
Once the man was on the ground, Rogan told Noah to get the rope. Noah shifted and relieved the first guard of his gun before giving him a glare for good measure. The guard was far beyond caring, and Rogan could smell from where he was standing that the man had wet himself.
Noah ran to the truck and grabbed both the rope and the tape. With Rogan pointing the gun at them, the two men didn't offer any resistance as Noah bound and gagged them.
"Grab their ammo,” Rogan said, nodding toward their utility belts.
Noah nodded and complied, then he rushed past Rogan to get in the Hummer again. Within moments, he was dressed in the extra clothing stored in the compartments. Rogan watched as Noah dug through his ruined pants on the ground for the syringe of serum. Once he'd found it, he stuffed it into his pocket.
"Get in the truck,” Noah said, climbing into the driver's seat. “We've gotta hurry. The bastards will have all that on tape."
Swallowing hard, Rogan climbed in the passenger side and slammed the door shut. Before it had closed all the way, Noah was barreling through the cave entrance, leaving the two guards behind in a cloud of dust.
Rogan's heart raced, his eyes were wide, and he clutched the machine gun as if it were his only salvation.
This was it.
* * * *
"What the hell am I looking at?” Tam squinted as he glared at the screen, then he caught his breath. “Holy shit!"
There on the tape, from many different angles, were Noah and Rogan firing machine guns in the vehicle bay as they ran to the elevator. When the spray of bullets ceased, they had disappeared behind the elevator doors.
"How old is this tape?” Tam demanded.
When none of the five guards answered him, he grabbed the man standing closest to him and twisted his neck. The crack of breaking bone could be heard loud and clear as the man crumpled dead to the floor.
"HOW OLD?" Tam yelled, his eyes on fire.
"Fi—five minutes, sir!” one of them replied.
"Five minutes? Are you shitting me?” Tam viciously kicked the body of the dead man in frustration. “They could be anywhere by now! Sound the goddamned alarm and put the entire complex in lockdown. No one enters, no one leaves!"
"Sir, the guards at the front entrance are ... well, they're tied up."
"Then get some more damn men out there Now! Move, people!"
As they scrambled to assemble search teams, Tam resisted the urge to shift and feed on the still-warm body of the man he'd killed. His belly twisted with hunger, but he refused to give in to it. He'd wasted too much time dallying with Lanie and the scientists to notice what the hell was going on right under his nose. He'd predicted the tra
itors would come back, but not like this.
He should have been better prepared, but no matter. He could still take them. With a growl, Tam sprinted toward the stairs. He needed help to contain them, and he knew of a few loyal shifters who would be only too happy to comply.
Twenty-Nine
Justin woke up in a dark cell. He could barely make out the bars on the door in front of him. Wait a minute, this wasn't a cell—this was a cage. Where the hell was he?
All he could remember was being shot out of the sky and falling to the earth. Since he wasn't dead, he figured he must have been shot with a tranquilizer gun. His plan to infiltrate the B*E*A*S*T* stronghold on his own had sure as hell backfired, and now here he was, a captive again.
Terror filled his heart at what was undoubtedly in store for him. He'd be reprogrammed, made to be more like Tam. Just the thought of it made his body quake. Then he realized something.
Feathers. What the hell? His arms were wings. Flapping them a few times, he knew he was in his shifted state, but try as he might, he couldn't shift back. He couldn't become human.
They'd given him the serum. Those bastards had given him the serum! And that wasn't all. Glancing at his wings, he could tell by the missing feathers that one of his worst fears had come true: they'd clipped his wings. Flapping around the cage, Justin panicked, hoping against hope that Noah and Rogan were successful. If not, they were all screwed.
And what was the point of making sure he couldn't shift back into a human? Were they planning an experiment on him? The more he thought about it, the more agitated he became, wondering what the hell he was going to do.
Justin yelled and screamed for help, but all that came out were the squawks and screeches of a grounded bird of prey.
"There you are, you damned traitor!"
Justin recognized that voice—Sean Ross, another of B*E*A*S*T*'s prized shifters, loyal to the agency without question. He and Justin had once been friends, but Sean had soon became obsessed with the taste of blood, and Justin hadn't been able to stand talking to him anymore. Now he was terrified of him, knowing full well that Sean could kill him if he wanted to. A hawk could never compete against a Kodiak grizzly.
"Tam wants you out, pretty bird,” Sean said mockingly, turning a key in the lock of the cage. “You're coming with me."
Once the door to the cage was opened, Justin tried desperately to escape, but all he could manage was to flutter lamely on the floor. It had been hard enough learning to fly as it was. Flying with his wings clipped was pretty much an impossibility.
He couldn't get his bearings before Sean grabbed him in his gloved hands, clutching the leather strap Justin hadn't even realized was attached to his leg. Sean slipped a hood over his eyes, and Justin protested loudly and tried again to flap away. But it was useless. He could no longer see, and he definitely couldn't fly. He was at Sean's mercy.
Justin finally noticed the nagging sound that had been echoing all around him. Was that an alarm? Suddenly, his hope soared. Maybe Noah and Rogan were there! He could only pray it was true, because if Tam wanted to see him, it couldn't be good.
* * * *
"We have to split up,” Rogan said, glancing around the corner of the long passageway and turning back to Noah, who was pressed hard against the wall. “I'll free the shifters, and you go find Lanie."
Noah nodded and looked back the way they'd come. They couldn't stay there for long. The alarm wailed throughout the corridors, and already they'd had to hide from three groups of guards, and Rogan had been forced to kill one of the scientists they'd encountered.
"Don't do anything stupid,” Noah said under his breath, pointing his machine gun at the ceiling.
"Now why would I do that?” Rogan said with a grin, gripping Noah's shoulder. “Good luck, Tiger.” He ran back toward the elevator that would take him to the cells where the shifters were kept ten floors below.
Noah licked his lips and glanced down the corridor Rogan had just been scoping. If the scientists were going to do anything with Lanie, she'd be in one of those labs straight ahead. After reloading his gun, he made sure it was cocked before he turned and ran down the passage.
Noah couldn't deny that holding the weapon felt familiar to him. It was as if he were operating it with someone else's knowledge, and in a way he supposed he was—using the knowledge of Anthony Mercer to his advantage. The man had been in the military, after all.
He hadn't gone twenty feet before he could smell Lanie's sweet scent on the air. Inhaling deeply, his entire body sang. She was here—close! He couldn't afford to mess up. Following her fragrance, he came to a set of closed double doors.
She had to be behind the doors, but there was no one on this level—no guards, no scientists. For a fleeting moment, Noah had a bad feeling nagging at the back of his mind. And that's when he smelled it—Justin. And Tam.
The bastard was behind these doors as well, probably holding Justin prisoner as well as Lanie. Shit. It wasn't a coincidence that no one was on this floor. Tam knew Noah wouldn't leave Lanie in the lab. He was walking into a trap, but he had to go in.
Noah swallowed hard before swiping the security badge he'd stolen off the scientist Rogan had killed a few floors above. The green light on the locking terminal came on, and Noah turned the handle of the door as silently as possible.
He was going to kill Tam once and for all.
Thirty
Fortunately for Rogan, he knew the code that would take the elevator to the twentieth level of the compound where the shifters were held captive. The panel on the wall beeped as he punched in the code and waited for it to be accepted and the doors to close. He had a split second of panic when the doors stayed open longer than usual, but he sagged against the back wall in relief when they finally shut. Thank God they hadn't changed the code.
He made sure his weapon was cocked and fully loaded before the elevator came to a stop. When the chime rang, he pressed his body against the front wall, holding his gun close to his chest. The doors rumbled open and he waited a second before venturing out into the hallway.
Immediately, shots rang out and struck the elevator behind him. Rogan dropped to the ground and fired without really aiming at anything. Crawling to the far wall of the passage, he leaned against it and found his target. There, a few paces away, were three guards taking cover behind a desk in front of a huge chain link fence with a locked gate. Rogan could hear the roars and shouts of the men in their cells who evidently heard the volley of bullets in the corridor.
"Surrender now!” one of the men yelled, pointing his handgun in Rogan's general direction and firing. The bullet went wide.
"Funny, I was about to tell you the very same thing,” Rogan countered, in the mood to be cocky. Slowly, he inched closer.
"You're outnumbered!"
"That may be,” he yelled. “But I doubt I'm outwitted."
"You sonofa—"
"Carl, shut the hell up!"
Rogan smiled at the evidence of their panic.
"We have the serum!” one of the guards shouted.
"Don't think we won't use it!” another shouted.
"Ah,” Rogan said, pursing his lips. “You'll have to catch me first!"
"Come any closer and we'll kill you!"
He made a tsking sound with his tongue. “I don't think the wealthy benefactors will like that. Do you know how much money they invest in each one of us?"
"Christ, he's right,” one of them whispered.
They clearly didn't realize that being a shifter enhanced his hearing as well as his sense of smell. While they were distracted, he crawled closer, bit by bit.
"If we kill him, then we're dead. All of us."
"If we don't kill him, he'll kill us."
"Either way we're dead, so which one do you think gives us the best odds?"
Rogan slid up against the front of the desk. The men were still whispering furiously, then one of them decided to look back down the passage.
"Shit!” he exclaimed.
“Where'd he go?"
As the other two poked their heads above the desk to have a look, Rogan jumped up and knocked them cold with the butt of his gun. Before the other man could aim at him, Rogan pointed his own weapon and shook his head.
"I wouldn't. Trust me, your best odds for staying alive come from doing exactly as I say."
Rogan grabbed their guns as well as the keys off one man's belt, then he noticed they each had a pair of handcuffs, so he made the guard who still conscious drag the other two over to the fence.
"Cuff both of them to the fence, then cuff yourself,” Rogan commanded.
"Don't kill us!” the man screamed with tears in his eyes.
"I won't kill you,” Rogan said under his breath as he grabbed the key card from the man to open the gate. “But I can't make any promises about them."
The man's eyes went wide and his face paled. “Sweet Jesus!"
Swiping the key card in the locking terminal, Rogan opened the gate and ran inside, fumbling with the keys. He couldn't afford to think about the fate of the guards just now.
"Rogan! Rogan, let me out!"
"Over here!"
"Please, oh, please!"
The desperate voices of the men echoed throughout the cells, and Rogan tried to shut them out. He needed to concentrate on the keys.
Wait a minute!
Walking over to a keypad on the wall, he remembered something. Each cell could be open individually with the keys in his hand, or they could be opened simultaneously by punching in a code on this access panel.
He marched back out to the three guards, the two he'd knocked out starting to come around and the other one trying desperately to wrench his hands out of the cuffs. Grabbing the man by his shirt collar, Rogan said, “Tell me the code to open all the cages."
The man was practically drooling from hysterical fear.
"Tell me the code!" Rogan yelled, shaking him.
Breathing heavily through his teeth, the man stammered, “The code is ... 95325. Please ... please let me go! Please!"
Rogan ignored him and turned back through the open gate, walking toward the keypad. He knew cameras were capturing his every move, so he couldn't waste time dealing with the guards. With a shaking hand, he punched in the code, and a short bell could be heard right before every cage door opened, releasing countless shifters.
The B*E*A*S*T* Within Page 14