by Kim Faulks
He nodded, tears shone in his eyes.
I raised my hand, fist tight. “For Stitch.”
He blinked, swiped his eyes with the back of his hand and punched mine. “For fucking Stitch.”
Alpha shoved open the door and moved around the rear seat. I followed, grabbing the guns while he opened her door and cradled X in his arms.
She’d sleep while we planned a war. God knew when the next time either of us would rest. I made for the back door and held it open while he carried her through.
I heaved the bags into the kitchen and made for my room, with the rifle bag over my shoulder. I could hear them in his bedroom, whispering words of comfort and of love as I grabbed a clean set of clothes and headed for the bathroom.
The Doctor—I closed the door and dropped my clothes onto the counter as the silver Camry reared in my mind. Dead because of me.
My hands shook as I gripped the basin and lifted my gaze to the mirror. My breath burned on its way out. Brown eyes of a stranger stared back at me.
The eyes of a killer.
The eyes of retribution.
The Doctor had been close to death by the time the bomb detonated.
Throat slashed, already bled out.
They killed her…
They fucking killed her, and then used her as a weapon to kill the rest of us.
I dragged the blood-splattered shirt over my head and peeled the bandage off my shoulder. Scars savaged my chest and carried down to my side. My fingers trembled as I traced a jagged line over my kidney, remembering all the blood that seeped from the wound. My foster mother screamed at me…screamed that they couldn’t take me to the hospital while I held my belly and cried.
That kid came to the surface with a roar—small, pathetic, afraid of everything, and everyone.
Until they taught me to hate. I touched the circle burns on my shoulders. Just like the ones that covered my back—cigarettes, lighters…bleach.
Cuts, broken bones, busted nose, broken socket of my right eye.
Broken teeth.
Broken Spirit.
To defend, to protect, and to never back down, and for that I was prepared to bleed.
I twisted the taps and stepped into the spray, blood mingled with the rivulets to run down my thighs. Wash, eat, plan, and then go to war. I scrubbed, and tested my shoulder.
I could still fight, still shoot. If I could breathe then I was fine.
I switched off the water and stepped out, swiped a towel across my body, and yanked on clean khakis.
Gotta dress that wound, soldier. Stitch’s voice echoed through my head.
You gonna be my nurse? Gotta nice little white uniform you could wear.
I smirked with the words. “Yeah, I got your uniform,” I growled and opened the overhead cabinet, pulling Neosporin and the shit Stitch nagged us to use from the shelf.
The dressing nestled hard against my underarm. I wound it firm and covered it with a bandage. I could almost hear the nagging sonofabitch in my head. No, not like that, poke the end under, see…like that. Ace, are you listening to me?
“Yeah, buddy. I was always listening.”
I yanked on my shirt and stepped from the bathroom. The house was quiet…too quiet. I made for the kitchen to see Alpha spearing a mouthful of chicken into his mouth.
Figured, the only time he was damn well quiet. He nodded to a plate piled high, opposite where he sat. I scanned the kitchen and grabbed the chair. “X not eating?”
He shook his head, swallowed, winced, and answered. “She said she’s full of ‘bad guy’.”
My stomach tightened, revulsion rode high.
All of a sudden food didn’t seem so appealing.
“Yeah,” Alpha muttered. “Had the same reaction, but shit in a can is even less appealing, and other than that”—he nodded toward the plate—“that’s all you got.”
I lifted the chair and eased down, barely making a sound, and then grabbed the fork. “So we go back out to that compound. Look for a way into that fucking tunnel and take what we can.”
He nodded, and then looked down at his plate.
“That’s not all, is it?”
Alpha lifted his head and met my gaze. “I took the GPS tracker from the explorer.”
I winced and tried to swallow. A slow nod was all I could manage while my thoughts carried me away. “And you really think they’ll come?”
One brow shot high, and there was that glint. The one that made my balls tighten. “Oh, I’m pretty fucking sure of it. You could say I sent them a nice little message through one of their dead guy’s body cams.”
I could imagine what that message was, all tied up with the usual Alpha flare. “So we draw them out into the open and pick them off one by one.”
My brother nodded. “While they’re busy with us, then they’re leaving the others alone. All we need is time. Time for Irwin to find out who these bastards really are, and time to send him whatever we can. We can blow this whole thing up. Put it all on prime time news. They’ll run. They’ll hide, like the cockroaches they are.”
“And if he can’t find them?”
Gone was the smirk. Gone was the glint. His voice turned cold as stone. “Then we take one, and we make him talk.”
Torture. The word welled in my gut. The faceless enemy came to life, empty eyes, empty heart. I couldn’t think about them, not their wives, not their girlfriends, or their mothers and fathers.
I didn’t care about them.
I stared at my brother. I cared about him. I thought of Gunny. I cared about her. I thought of the Guardians and all the wolves…I thought about the shifter…the one from the compound—the one Manduck and his team killed without so much as a second thought. I could still see her, tiny, beaten, bloody…nothing more than a child.
Like Hiccups—like me with no family—not even a fucking name…who cared for her? I did.
I fucking did.
“Made contact with Clark?” I shoved the last piece of chicken into my mouth as he shook his head.
“Nothing.” He wrenched his head up to meet my gaze. “But he’s done this before, right? Went to ground and surfaced twenty-fucking years later.”
But my brother was a coil of terror. His eyes were wide. The whites shining with a shell-shocked gleam.
Twenty years was a long time without a dad…now he had a chance for happiness. I’d kill anyone who stood in their way. “Then let’s blow their little party to the fucking moon and wait for him to show.”
I cleaned our plates as Alpha sat there and stared at his phone. Fear crawled under my skin and welled in my gut as I headed for the infirmary. I punched in the code and headed for the case, sliding the Tac-fifty into the bag, and set out my pack with as much ammunition as I could carry. Magazines went in, as well as three wrist pouches and all my survival gear.
The Silverado came to life with a growl outside as I slipped into my vest and cinched my belt. I had everything—two Sigs on thigh holsters, a tactical knife, and more rounds than I had magazines.
I heaved my pack onto my shoulders and winced as the strapping bit. X was awake with legs curled under her as I wrenched open the rear door and climbed inside. Alpha shoved the car into gear, backed out and then shot forward. I gripped the rifle bag feeling the familiar contours of the long gun as we headed back to the forest and the compound.
I pressed my spine against the seat and closed my eyes, thinking, planning. The car settled into silence. I dozed, waking twice as the dawn turned into day. The dirt track banked hard as we headed out and around before turning west and then made for the compound.
“That range runs east, south-east all the way up to Hamilton County.” Alpha pointed to the ridgeline. “If these Shadow bastards are coming from anywhere, it’ll be from there. No way they’d travel all this way, just to head back around.”
I yawned, stretched and sat up. “Has Irwin uploaded the maps?”
“Yeah, but getting around Gunny is going to be a problem. And the bas
tard’s not answering his damn phone.”
“So we’re on our own.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “We’re on our fucking own.”
I scanned the ridgeline before reaching into my pack and dragged out the map. I’d plotted the course before, knowing the markers, knowing the ridgelines all the way up to Hamilton. But we’d not tracked this part of the county. This was unknown territory—worse than that, this was shifter territory.
“We get what we need and then I’ll head to that point.” I shoved the map between the seats and pointed to a jutting edge high on the satellite image. “You and X will head here. There’s shelter and multiple escape routes. Here…here…and here. I’ll be here, it’s the closest I can get at fifteen hundred and ten meters.”
Alpha glanced at the map and then glanced at me. “Can you make that shot?”
Over fifteen hundred meters to save his life? I looked up at the ridge, with the wind and the heat. “Yeah, I can make that.”
My brother nodded, knowing he placed his life in my hands. I had to make it—there was no other option. The track cut right. In the distance sun glinted off metal, blinding me for a second until Newman’s abandoned Explorer came into view.
Thorns scraped the paintwork, sending a piercing squeal through the cab, and my mind drifted to the Dragons—and to the Vampire Princess soon to become Queen.
The Huntress…the damn Huntress.
Every cell in my body screamed Eva was hiding something.
Something more than the damn secrets of her past.
Alpha and the others had tracked the Huntress all the way to the Guardians. I’d waited in the bushes, ready to take the bitch down before she reached the front door…and yet she never showed.
Only Eva did, hours later…with the kind of injuries I’d seen in bomb blasts. But the gouges on her arms weren’t made from any steel, and the scratches on her face looked like marks left from fingernails, and yet here we were walking straight into the unknown. “Stop, wait a minute. Just stop.”
Alpha wrenched his head upward and scanned the area before turning to me.
“X, can you smell anything…human, or Vampire…anything at all?”
X lifted her head, catching the breeze. She turned this way and that, eyes caught by some unseen force. “Deer. But the trail is old…a day, maybe two.”
Alpha grabbed his pack from the rear seat and closed the door.
“There’s something else. Wait, Alpha. Don’t like this…” She lifted her head, moved toward the front of the vehicle and scanned the trees. “Bear…I can smell bear…and she’s hurt.”
The shifter moved fast, heading for the gash in the fence line, ducked under and was through before we moved. Alpha grabbed his rifle and raced after her.
The file’s black and white image pushed to the front of my mind. I grabbed my bag, my weapons, and shut the doors before following. Broken fence wires snagged the top of my pack as I ducked under and shoved through.
I moved around the other buildings, and climbed the stairs to stare at the dried smear across the doorway. It was as though the twenty-four hours hadn’t happened at all. Yet X stood here, drawing in the stench of dust and blood. A whimper slipped from her lips as she backed away. “Bad place. Bad blood,” she murmured. “Bad things.” Her dark eyes shone as she met Alpha’s gaze. “Bad things, Alpha. This place is death, terrible death…human death, but the animal survives.” Her lips curled, baring fangs in warning.
“The animal survives.” I took a step closer. “What does that mean?”
Alpha’s phone beeped, then again, and again, one after another as he snarled. “It’s Irwin…goddamn signal. Ten missed calls,” he muttered, pressed his fingers against the screen, and stepped away.
But X wasn’t finished as she shuddered and curled her shoulders. “It’s Hell, Alpha…Hell all over again.” She hurried, moving past rusted cages and surgical trays embedded in the walls to get outside.
Alpha watched her, dragging the phone from his ear only to stare at the screen and try once more. “We’ll get you out, okay? X, honey.” He neared, lifting his hand slowly to brush her arm. “Our best bet is the extraction point. We find out what’s in that hole, and we can work our way backwards. Goddamn signal. Ten missed calls, what do you think that means?”
I gripped the zipper on my rifle bag and unsheathed my rifle. “Nothing good.”
Alpha followed X, leaving me to stare at the carved dust on the ground. I moved closer, drawn by the marks of her feet and crouched at the lashings in the dust. Hair. I pressed the tips of my fingers to the marks made by her hair. “Why the Hell were you here?”
A silver strand hovered on the surface. I carved a trail with my finger, catching the glint and lifted. Bear…that was what X said… I glanced at the smear of blood across the doorway and my stomach tightened.
“You coming or what?”
I stood from a crouch and shoved the strand of hair into my pocket. We made our way through the fence and over the soft, sloping rise to where I went down. My pulse picked up pace as X slipped ahead to scout the area. I watched her until the shadows of towering pines stole her movements.
Pain flared in my shoulder and speared down the length of my arm, just enough to remind me this was where I fell…right here, amongst the needles and the leaves—and didn’t get up.
“Blood,” X called and stepped out of nowhere.
I wrenched my gun upward with the sound. My heart slammed against the inside of my chest. I didn’t see her, didn’t hear her…out here, she was hunter and we were the fucking prey.
I tried to swallow, tried to breathe, and stared at the darkened bark next to her. “That’s where she was…the shifter.”
“Dangerous.” X dragged in the air and backed away. “She’s hurt, Alpha, and she’s pissed.”
The clang of metal resounded through the air. “Can’t worry about that now.” He grasped the flashlight from his belt and hit the button. White light pierced the hole. “We got bad guys to catch.”
X still scanned the area, moving from tree to tree as I stepped up to the hole.
The steel ladder led down to a concrete floor, the choking scent of history bloomed. X stepped up to the hatch and whispered. “Looks like Hell, smells like human.”
I’d never seen my brother pale in the blinding sunlight. Olive skin turned ashen as he lifted his gaze. X shook her head and stepped backwards. Her dark eyes widened, and a snarl followed before she spoke. “Can’t go in there, Alpha. Not under the ground. Never again.”
He licked his lips and reached for the back of his neck again. “Okay, but I have to. You understand that right? I’ve gotta go down.”
She nodded and took a step backwards, and then another all the way until she hit the base of a tree. She slid downward until she sat amongst the roots and the dirt. “Then I’ll just wait here.”
My chest tightened. I didn’t like it, didn’t like leaving her up here all alone. “I’ll go down.”
There was an instant shake of his head. “No, I have to do this. My name. My blood. This is all on me.”
He yanked his pack around to the front and dragged out a hand-held two-way radio. “You press this and speak there if anything happens, okay? Press and speak, Ayita. You understand me?”
Ayita? Give them some damn privacy. I grabbed my flashlight, pressed the button and aimed it down the hole. The stench of stagnant water flooded my nose as I gripped the steel and stepped down.
The cold was instant, stealing my breath, sending an ache through my legs, and biting into my thighs. I focused on the rungs, shining the light across the concrete sides, and made my way down.
There were no boxes, no files—nothing but the dark in a never-ending tunnel.
“You good down there?”
I lifted my gaze. “Yeah, I’m good. Although you’re not going to like what you see.”
His heavy tread thudded against steel, until he hit the ground behind me. His light brightened the walls, until the
white neon light faded. “Jesus, they must’ve dug this place when they built the compound.” He winced and settled his pack around his shoulders. “Smells about right.”
I took a step, moving deeper into the tunnel, and followed fresh tracks that left a mark on the floor.
Newman…had to be.
The tread moved deeper, stopping at a thin metal door. I shone the light through the tiny window and grasped the handle. “I’ve seen rooms like this before, and they’re never good.”
Footsteps stilled behind me. “Looks like a goddamn padded cell.”
And that was exactly what it was. I yanked the handle. Old hinges howled, lashing my ears as I dragged the door open and cast the beam around the room. Steel filing cabinets lined the walls on one side. One drawer was open, pages tore free, some littered the floor. Paper rustled under our boots as we stepped inside. Alpha was drawn to the pages, and all I thought about was the mountains outside and the terrain.
Once we made the connection and powered up the GPS transmitter, then we were targets with very clear bullseyes on our backs.
“Jesus Christ,” Alpha muttered as he flipped through the pages.
I glanced over his shoulder to the details, and then scanned the drawer. There were files, hundreds…thousands. More than I ever thought of, every man, woman…every child.
“It’s all here, Ace. What they did to them…and who they are. Every doctor, every nurse…every Sergeant and Commander. Look…” He stabbed the pages. “Newman Slater. The sonofabitch is all over them.” He flipped through page after page. “Every fucking one.”
His eyes sparked like a goddamn match and we were standing in an ocean of gasoline. “I’m going to set his world on fucking fire, Ace, and then I’ll stand back and watch it burn.”
And I knew he would.
His uncle made his bed a long time ago when he tried to kill Alpha’s father, his own fucking brother, and now with the shifters.
I could still see them behind the shelf of glass…all the shining brass…all the pretty ribbons.
All the medals Newman Slater didn’t earn with courage or skill.
Those earned with blood—it just wasn’t his.
Alpha dragged out the laptop from his pack while I moved deeper into the room.
