Joel was an FBI agent, newly assigned to a project looking for augmented humans. It had been sightings of a man running with a wolf pack, he’d said, that brought him to find Wylde. Through a combination of persistence and patience, Joel earned Wylde’s trust and the tolerance of his pack. Then he started the process of bringing Wylde back into the human world.
He’d given Wylde an isolated cabin surrounded by private lands for him and his pack to roam. Slowly, Wylde found his human side again. Through Joel’s interactions, he remembered what he’d been before. He remembered people. Mostly, he remembered Dove.
Then she’d come back into his life. A reunion he never thought he’d see. And she was all grown up. Smart, beautiful, funny. He’d missed her so much.
He missed her now. His heart ached at the thought of what they could be doing to her behind those walls.
One way or another, he was getting her back.
Chapter 10
Scowling, Dr. Wylde leveled his gaze at Dove. “I’m disappointed in you. You haven’t started work on any of my projects. You just sit here playing. Must I find a new way to motivate you?”
His voice, silky smooth, his demeanor, calm, yet she heard the razor-sharp edge in his tone, and she knew the demon that existed under the charm and charisma.
Randy . . . or Lennie . . . or whoever the hell he was . . . stood behind him with two other thugs.
Intimidating, but it didn’t change her mind.
“I see where your work is going, and I won’t help you get there.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her gaze at Dr. Wylde.
He hissed a long, drawn out sigh. “No, I suppose you won’t. You are too much like your father in that respect. Such a waste. But perhaps he will work with me now that I have you as a bargaining chip.”
His expression hardened. “Take her.”
The two thugs stepped forward, one on either side of her, grasping her arms and holding her between them.
Dr. Wylde turned his back to her, strolling toward the animal cages at the back of the lab. “A pity, really. Now we have no use for these test animals.”
Dove’s gut tightened. Certainly he couldn’t mean to—
“Lennie, kill them. Make her watch. Then take her to her new cell. No one defies me.” Dr. Wylde spun on his heel, then strode to the exit, slamming the door as he left.
In the stark silence that followed, a thin smile spread across Randy’s face.
Dove struggled in the grip of her captors. The poor animals. “No.”
~ ~ ~
The rumble of big rigs filled the forest. Three semi-trailers full of supplies snaked its way toward the compound.
Wylde watched from the upper branches of an aspen.
Oily fumes filled the air as the first of the big trucks passed under him.
Not this one. The standard semi-trailer offered no protection, and he was sure to be spotted by the compound’s tower guards if he were perched on the top.
The second truck offered a flatbed trailer with a tarped load of something. Perfect.
He dropped from the tree as the trailer passed under. Wiggling under the tarp, he found piles of wood planks and two-by-fours. He filled his lungs with the rich aroma of cedar and pine.
Someone lining a closet? Only the best for the Red Guard hierarchy. They basked in their wealth and power while their test subjects, animal and human, lived on scraps in dank, dirty cages.
And those high in the organization had the funds to get anything they wanted delivered out here in the middle of nowhere.
The rattle of metal told Wylde the trucks were approaching the compound entrance. The big gate was sliding open. In moments he’d be back inside the one place he vowed he’d never return to. But if he could find Dove and free her, it would all be worth it.
The echo of the truck engines told him they were passing through the gateway between the freedom of the forest and the confinement of the compound. He risked a look, peering around the edge of the tarp.
Snow banks surrounded a cleared parking lot in the inner courtyard. The lot held only about two dozen vehicles, leaving a large portion empty. Not the usual population of the compound, at least from what Wylde remembered. Where was everyone?
When he’d been here ten years ago, the place had always been a beehive of activity. Scientists, guards, lackeys. The parking lot had almost always been full, except when Red Guard was focused on a mission, usually a takeover of some small village or settlement for slaves and test subjects for their insidious experiments.
Continuing through the lot, the trucks took the back driveway around the compound toward the garages and loading ramp. That would be a good place for him to enter unseen, but not while trucks were being unloaded.
As the semi rounded the corner of the building, Wylde made his move, crawling out from under the tarp and tumbling to the ground between the trailer and building. It was doubtful the driver would have been looking in his rear-view mirror, and Wylde didn’t see or smell any guards close by.
He hunched down behind one of the decorative shrubs along the structure’s foundations and scanned the grounds. The only people in sight were two wall guards making their rounds. Neither looked his way.
On all fours, nose to the ground, Wylde inhaled the essence of the area. The oily scents of the vehicles that had just passed were predominant, but there were other essences, people, though many of them were hours or even days old.
One of those Wylde knew well enough to sift out. He’d never met the man, but he intended to. He’d picked up Randy Trevor’s scent from his chair in the Locklear lab. Sensing it here now confirmed the man was in residence.
And that meant Dove had to be here somewhere as well.
~ ~ ~
Her drastic change in living conditions had Dove biting her thumbnail. Filth and dust covered the concrete floor of the cell. Heavy steel bars lined one wall, while white-washed concrete block made up the other three. Windowless and stark, the chamber sported a thin bed and one of those stainless-steel combination toilet and sink things she’d only seen in television crime shows. The thing was gross and in full view of the barred doorway wall.
Ugh.
The bedding reeked of body odors and mildew, the flat pillow was nothing she’d ever dare put her head on, and as she pulled back the blanket, some multi-legged arthropod scurried out from underneath.
Obviously there was no maid service in the cell blocks between customers.
I’m going to be sick.
No. That was what they wanted. To break her down, force her to work for them. She refused.
Her heart still ached from witnessing the senseless slaughter of the lab animals. Randy had taken his time, torturing them mercilessly in front of her. No, his name was Leonov. His true nature so different from the role he’d played as her dad’s lab assistant. Someday, she vowed, he would pay.
She needed to keep her resolve, no matter what they did to her. And to do that, she needed to keep busy.
She turned the hot water tap on the sink. It took a few minutes, but eventually she got a steamy flow. Ripping a foot-square piece of fabric from the moldy sheet, she wadded it up under the water.
Then she started to clean.
~ ~ ~
Wylde waited for the trucks to leave the loading area, then slipped into the compound through the still open garage door. He encountered no guards in the loading bay or the entrance to the building proper. Either security was lax, or this was just what they wanted him to do.
First the tree, now this. Could they somehow know he was coming?
Was that the reason Dove had been kidnapped?
Red Guard had moved behind the scenes for decades. Spies, illegal internet activities, drugs and guns. Always seeking power and money at any cost.
They’d been the puppet masters behind Ghaim. When Ghaim captured him and slaughtered his pack, had that been under Red Guard orders? He’d escaped before they could finish their experimentation on him, and he’d been with Xi Force ever since. Taking Dove would have been the one thing that could bring him out in the open. The one thing that could bring him back here.
This facility was their human augmentation laboratory. What Joel and Xi Force had been doing within strict structures in the United States, Red Guard had been doing without any moral or monetary barriers here.
Like Ghaim, this facility was just another arm of the powerful crime syndicate that operated under the name Red Guard.
Port had probably been created here. They’d recruited his father, and most of Wylde’s genetic manipulation had happened here. It was anyone’s guess what other evil they had spawned within these concrete walls.
From the garage, Wylde slipped into the building proper, moving from shadow to shadow, every sense on alert for guards and traps as he searched for any sign of Dove. Where would they be keeping her?
The multi-story compound was vast. As large as the Xi Force’s new mountain headquarters. But many of the rooms and offices here at the back seemed vacant. The labs were on the main and upper floors. The cell block for human prisoners was in the basement.
He caught a scent and crouched behind a desk as footsteps approached. One solitary guard, walking a patrol. Where was everyone else? Had the program fallen on lean times or was their work nearing completion? Red Guard had other properties. Perhaps this one no longer suited their evil purposes.
He tumbled out from behind the desk, swinging his leg around to trip the surprised guard.
“Who?” The man grabbed for the pistol at his waist.
Wylde punched once, then again for good measure. The man slumped. Quiet returned to the complex.
The place, at least this back area by the garages, felt deserted.
Wylde pulled in the scents of the compound and was surprised to find Piotr’s essence among them. Was the wolf still here? Could Wylde rescue him as well as Dove?
He owed it to his old friend to try.
Ten years ago, he’d lived in a special cage in his father’s lab. His only friend, a wolf pup he’d named Piotr. The pup was used to extract DNA that was put into Wylde. Some of Wylde’s human DNA was also put into Piotr as a separate experiment. They spent many pain filled nights together, side by side in matching cages.
You were like a brother to me. They’d planned their escape together, but Piotr hadn’t made it out.
Along with Piotr’s essence, he detected Dove here as well as Randy and . . . his father. So the bastard had survived. But the last thing Wylde wanted was a confrontation.
“I’m probably going to get one anyway, aren’t I? It sure would be nice if you would skip ahead a few chapters and let me know what I’m about to get into.”
He’d never actually heard the reader, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there somewhere. The author had to be writing all this for someone. Perhaps just this once he could make contact.
No. Stupid thought. “Who’d want to read about me?”
Dove’s scent trail took him down two flights of stairs to the dungeon level, where they kept the human prisoners. Wylde hadn’t been allowed down here before, he wasn’t considered human, but the poor dregs they’d brought up from here to the laboratories for experimentation didn’t look like they were living any better than he was in his cage. Many begged for the mercy of death as the Red Guard scientists did their gruesome work.
Two guards stood on duty at the doorway to the cell blocks, automatic rifles at the ready. Was this a trap?
It didn’t matter. Dove was behind that door. He had to get her out.
“Screw it.”
He marched boldly down the hallway toward the two men.
They leveled their weapons on him. “Halt.”
“Nope.” He picked up his pace as they opened fire. Bullets ripped into his chest and stomach. Seconds later they popped back out as the wound and the hole in his shirt closed. The hits stung, but there was very little blood loss.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.” He was tempting fate here, he knew it, but what the hell, even if no one was reading, it had to be getting toward the end of the chapter.
His keen hearing picked up the click overhead in time for him to roll to the left and avoid the net that dropped from the ceiling.
“Sloppy.”
The wide-eyed men at the end of the corridor must not have been clued into his powers. They continued to spray bullets his way.
Wylde leapt at the one on the right, pulled his rifle from his grasp and brought the butt around and into the chin of the other man with enough force to throw him back against the wall before he tumbled to the ground unconscious.
Dropping the gun, Wylde grabbed the first guard by the lapels. “You too. Night, night.”
He head-butted him and released his grip, allowing the body to drop to the floor.
Dove’s trail scent went through the doorway. Wylde grasped the doorknob.
“This is where the big trap is on the other side, isn’t it?”
It didn’t matter. Dove was on the other side too.
He yanked open the door, then stepped back.
Nothing.
“Hmm.” Did the author just miss the obvious, or was there something even more sinister awaiting him down that hallway?
Dingy cells lined both sides as he crept along following Dove’s trail. Other human scents mixed with dust and mildew assailed his senses. Wylde drew it all in. Dove was close.
Ahead one cell stood out as cleaner, brighter. As he approached he spotted a slight figure on her knees, scrubbing the floor.
She looked up with her big, dark, beautiful eyes. “John?”
“Dove.”
Chapter 11
He’d come for her. Dove’s heart leapt.
Wylde stood on the other side of the wall of steel bars, looking every bit the hero, costume and all. And suddenly everything was good again. “I like the new suit.”
His smile was genuine. “Just a little something I threw on for the occasion. How are you doing?”
He was keeping it light, for her sake. Testing her emotional state. But with him here, her fears diminished.
“I’m good. Just feeling a little confined.”
He gripped the bars on the door rattling it, then rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Super strength would be really helpful right about now.”
She knew who he was talking to. “Has complaining to him ever helped?”
He shrugged, his gaze locking back on her. “Who has the key?”
“Leonov. At least he’s the one who locked me in here.” And he’d been none too gentle about it. Now that they weren’t courting her services, he seemed to delight in inflicting pain—both on those poor lab animals and on her. He’d forcibly shoved her into her cell. She’d tripped and scrapped her hands on the grimy concrete floor bad enough to draw blood.
The bastard had laughed as he slammed the barred door shut.
Wylde sniffed the lock. “I smell Randy.”
She knew he meant something else, but she couldn’t help herself. She sniffed him back.
“I’d call it more funky, but yeah, that happens when you live in the woods and don’t bathe.” She’d always loved the teasing relationship they shared. Friends with the ability to poke fun at each other. Somehow with him here, she felt safer, despite the bars that separated them and the danger they were both in.
Wylde cocked his head at her, his oh-so-kissable lips drawing up at the sides. “I meant Randy Trevor. Who’s Leonov?”
“Leonov is Randy. It’s his real name. He’s a Russian secret agent working for
Red Guard, who went undercover to kidnap my dad, and then decided to take me instead.”
“I guess I’ll have to go find him. He leaves an easy trail to follow and I’ve been meaning to introduce myself to that bastard anyway. Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
Just like John. One step at a time. “Be careful. Your father suspects you’re coming. He’s laid some traps.”
“I’ve already foiled two of them on my way in here. Hopefully the author isn’t too pissed at me.”
His author. Another game he liked to play with her. But it lightened her heart to banter with him again.
“If your author is in control of everything, perhaps he wanted you to avoid those traps. Don’t you think he also controls you?”
John went down on all fours, sniffing the filthy floor. “I sure as hell hope not.”
As John’s sexy ass bounded down the hallway, Dove’s heart swelled. “You and me both.”
If anyone deserved to be in control of their destiny, it was him.
~ ~ ~
Wylde followed Randy’s trail from the prison block up two flights of stairs. He encountered only the occasional guard along his path, easily avoided by merely sticking to the compound’s many shadowy alcoves.
Every bit the villain’s hideout from just about any comic book, movie, or video game, the Red Guard complex had a serpentine web of hallways, some leading nowhere. But, with Randy’s rank scent to follow, Wylde avoided being misdirected.
The trail eventually led to a place he knew well. A place he dreaded even entering.
His father’s laboratory.
He listened at the door.
“We’ve got cameras trained on that tree from every angle. Still no sign of him.” The speaker had a Russian accent, but it was not a voice Wylde recognized.
So, it might be Randy . . . Leonov.
Wylde (Xi Force Book 3) Page 8
