by Anya Nowlan
Madeline pushed down the door handle and stepped inside, flicking back the hoodie at the same time. When the heavy, explosion-proof door slid shut behind her and she stopped in the big, airy lab, Charlie was looking at her like he’d seen a ghost. He grinned widely though, spreading his arms and looking like a wiry ghost in a lab coat, with his pale skin and watery gray eyes hidden behind safety goggles.
“Adley! What are you doing here? Long time no see! There was no hurry with that last assignment, though. Certainly not enough for you to come see me on a weekend, anyway.”
Charlie took his goggles off after carefully sealing his experiment. He was combining powders in a test tube and Madeline knew to stay still while he did so. It was delicate work and if there was one thing she had learned it was not to spook a man specializing in explosives. Unless that man was Tex and he happened to be shirtless, anyway.
She realized suddenly that she missed the two men already, desperately even, and the heaviness in her stomach was only made worse by the realization.
I’ve got to get back soon!
“Hey, Charlie. No, it’s not about work. I’m really sorry to barge in on you like this. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important,” Madeline said sheepishly, finally unzipping her coat and smoothing out her hair.
“Nonsense! I’m always glad to see my subordinates! Especially the ones brave enough to still walk in here, if you know what I mean,” he said with a chuckle, pointing a thumb at one of the other walls, marred by what looked like the marks of a chemical fire. “So what can I do for you today if it’s not about work?”
Charlie Allen was a tall man, slim, and with a body that came from hunching over lab samples for most of his life. Madeline knew that he was also a gun nut, but it was something he kept rather private. Explosives were his first love. Despite that, much of the research he did for Xavian had to do with chemical compound stability, feeding the results to other teams while he got to run his little private experiments with relative autonomy.
“I actually need your help figuring something out,” Madeline said, slipping the phone out of her pocket and walking over to Charlie.
She was surprised that neither of the twins had tried to call her yet. It either meant that they hadn’t discovered that she was missing yet, which was unlikely, or didn’t know that she had Thatch’s phone. But Madeline would have imagined that they would have tried to find it already regardless. Frowning, she put that thought out of her mind, stopping herself before she went down any other speculative tracks. There was enough on her mind already and she needed to be mindful about what she was telling Charlie.
“Hit me!” Charlie said, sidling close to her as she flipped through the files in the phone. “I was about to finish up and head home anyway, so this might just be what I needed to finish out the day. Stacy has a roast today. That woman can cook!” Charlie boasted, beaming.
Madeline grinned. She had to hope that one of these days, she too could have a homey, personal moment like that with someone—marital and family bliss. Of course, she knew exactly that it wasn’t a case of having someone anymore, but two very specific men. Again she had to shake her head, brushing away the distracting thoughts that kept monopolizing her time.
This now, daydreaming later!
“Okay. So, a friend of mine used to be in the Navy SEALs. Explosives expert. They’re passing around this report, don’t ask me how I got it, showing the analysis they did on one particular explosion a couple of years back. They’re saying it came from a Navy-regulated explosive but I was looking through it and a couple of things seemed off.”
She got to the page that showed the precise chemical breakdown of the compounds present at the site, several samples and several locations. Every one of them had trace amounts of SEH-985 present. Even considering how little of it there was, it was highly peculiar that it would show up at all, especially in armaments used by the SEALs. It was highly experimental, uncontrolled, and wildly dangerous from what she’d picked up from Charlie’s little monologue on it.
“Let me see that,” Charlie said, his cheerful demeanor suddenly wiped away.
He thumbed through the pages, looking at every readout carefully and in complete silence. The frown that muddled his features got deeper by the second and she could see him switching into “work-mode,” putting the rest of the world on the backburner. After a while that seemed like an eternity, if not more, he raised his head, blinking a few times and rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“You know what, I think you’re right. I’d have to see the samples myself, but SEH-985 just isn’t something that you find accidentally. It’s crap only terrorists and lunatics use. At best, we would find SEV-548 in military grade stuff, but even that’s less likely than finding a snowball in hell during the Fourth of July. Either someone’s faking this stuff who doesn’t really know what should be showing up on these reports, or they’re getting duped, or they’re mistaking the payload for another. I don’t see any way how this could actually be tied to the details described in the reports.”
Madeline’s heart leapt. She grinned wide and throwing caution to the wind, she flung her arms around Charlie and hugged his skinny form tight against her.
“Thank you! You don’t know how much it means to me!” she said, practically bouncing with joy.
“Whoa! Any time,” he chuckled. “If you forward it to me, I can give you some sort of a more official statement. Put my name under it and everything. There are people out there who find that impressive, you know.”
“That would be excellent of you, Charlie! I’ll send it right away,” Madeline said, snatching up the phone and forwarding the reports to his work email. “Oh, but I shouldn’t be keeping you any longer. Stacy must be waiting,” Madeline said, getting her head screwed on straight again.
She was shuddering a little, all happiness, and Charlie kept up some light small talk with her while he cleaned up his workstation and got his coat. Madeline didn’t even notice that she was chattering, barely aware of what she was saying, until Charlie was locking the door. The relief she felt was so overwhelming that it was hard to think straight for a second there.
“You go ahead. I’ll catch up. I need to make a call,” Madeline said, waving to Charlie as he strode down the long corridor toward the elevators.
She wanted to let Thatch and Tex know where she was now so they wouldn’t have to worry, and so she could let them know the good news. Feeling pretty smug with herself, she stepped closer to the windows and peeked out into the wide courtyard that linked several of the buildings on the lot. It had a well-manicured little garden, which wasn’t looking too good because of the season, and wide pathways meant for walking.
Waiting until Charlie disappeared into the elevator, giving her one last wave and a smile, Madeline rested her shoulder against a windowpane and dialed Tex’s number. With the phone at her ear she waited for the call to go through, but then something caught her attention down in the courtyard. Two black vans, suspiciously similar to the ones that had been chasing them when they’d first made their escape to the Bear Den, pulled into the courtyard through the narrow entrance that Madeline would have thought wasn’t wide enough to let them pass.
As soon as the vehicles stopped, men in masks and wearing camo started piling out, brandishing rifles and scattering like cockroaches into the various buildings. She could see several of them head into the one she was in and she felt the cold fingers of fear grip her exactly when she heard Tex answer his phone.
Her throat went dry and every horrific image of her day on the train came back to her hard and fast, leaving her reeling. Her mind went blank for a moment, but when she heard Tex’s voice in her ear, she snapped out of it.
“Madeline, get out of there!” he said sternly.
“Tex, I—” she began to say, but she never got to finish that sentence because the phone was plucked from her hand from behind and the call ended.
Her breath caught in her lungs as she froze in place, her hand sti
ll up like she was still gripping the phone. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, she turned around and looked up, meeting the tall, towering form of a man whose deadly and cold smile was far too familiar to her.
“We meet again, Madeline,” he said.
This time, though, she didn’t pass out. He clamped his hand over her mouth before she could scream, and a steely grip went around her ribs, brutally yanking her backward. Madeline clawed at his hands on her mouth and around her waist, trying to struggle free, but he simply chuckled.
“This time, I won’t let you go,” he said.
Blacking out would have been a mercy she didn’t think she deserved.
What have I done? Madeline thought numbly, savagely fighting against him and getting nothing in return for it. This time, there was no escape.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Thatch
Dutch was driving one of the cars and Grim the other, with the team split up three and three in the two vehicles. Connor had made the wise choice of keeping Thatch together with Tex, assuming rightfully that they would do more harm than good apart. They’d be difficult to work with while worried to death about their woman and their future with her. At least Thatch could count himself lucky that they had a commander who knew what that felt like.
His hands were clutched around his assault rifle and his comm unit was in his ear, subsequently hooked up to everyone else in the two cars. A small laptop, barely larger than a wrist unit, was bouncing on his lap with every twist and turn in the road. He watched it blankly, seeing the radio waves and messages skitter back and forth, some encrypted, some not.
The closer they got to Xavian, the busier the channels got. This wasn’t just regular city chatter anymore. No, someone was using frequencies that wouldn’t show up for any regular hobbyist or in official dealings. They were mostly quiet, but Thatch could see when short blips were being sent, most likely commands from one unit to another.
“I think it’s going down,” he spoke into the headset, contacting Connor directly.
“Noted,” Connor responded.
There was a pause as the cars took alternative paths to the site. About two blocks from Xavian, Tex threw his rifle on the seat and he and Dutch changed seats mid-drive, Dutch sliding into the passenger seat while Tex took the wheel.
“On four,” Dutch said, grabbing his heavy sniper rifle case from the area between the seats, Thatch helping him haul it up front.
Dutch raised his fingers and counted down from four, Thatch slipping the computer in position while he got ready to jump up front too. When Dutch counted to one, he gave them both a lazy salute and then practically tossed himself out of the car, clutching the case and landing in a neat ducked running position, not breaking stride for a second as he disappeared amidst the buildings.
Thatch was in his seat in a second, slamming the door shut as Tex gunned it and crossed a stretch of buildings separating them from Xavian.
“This better go well,” Tex growled under his breath, his whole body pulsing with tension and a vein on his neck throbbing.
“It always does,” Thatch said, touching his comm piece. “Dutch taking position.”
“We’re ditching the vehicle. Cross last block on foot,” came a short command and Thatch looked at Tex, his brother confirming that he heard the order.
They parked between two tiny hatchbacks like it was the most normal thing and both grabbed their gear. A little old lady walking past them with a lapdog gave the Crawley brothers the oddest look as they sprinted out of the light-armored vehicle and took off at a dead run toward Xavian. Darkness shielded them, and when they got out of the immediate view of the street lights, they both drew their rifles.
“If something happened to her,” Tex hissed, not finishing his sentence.
“I know, brother,” Thatch said somberly as Xavian came into view.
They’d both heard her voice and the way the call ended abruptly. That couldn’t be good in any way. Thatch was trying to keep a cool head on his shoulders but it was getting damn hard.
“In position,” Dutch called, settling into his makeshift sniper’s nest somewhere high above them.
He never even told them where he would be if it was urban combat. Dutch was definitely the guy who stalked around on his own the most, but it was hard to argue with his results. As long as the job got done, no one cared how he did it.
“Seeing plenty of action inside. Reading units on seventh and ninth floors, and cellar of the leftmost building,” he reported.
“Come on,” Thatch said, waving Tex to follow him as he caught a glimpse of motion to the right of them.
They ran down the street right in front of Xavian headquarters and met up with the rest of the unit. Crouching behind a stairwell, Connor waved them in.
“You heard the man. Odds are the explosives are going to be in the cellar. Tex, you’re obvious up. Thatch, you too, and I’ll come with you two. Grant, Grim, clean out seven and nine. Whatever these guys want from this joint, it has to be on the research floors and I think you’ll have plenty of fun there. Dutch will keep an eye on you. Move out.”
The five men split into two groups, Grant and Grim heading for an entrance to the right of the main building while Thatch, Tex, and Connor took the main entrance. As they’d guessed, The Arctics were well on their way to destruction. Hidden in darkness, they’d killed both of the guards at the front desk and dragged their prone bodies behind the table there. Connor snatched a security pass from each of them and tossed one to Thatch while he kept the other.
Thatch caught it mid-flight and swiped it quickly, gaining entrance into the building. He threw it back and Tex followed while Connor took the other high, metal-covered gate. The gates whined in high-pitched protest at their guns, but one shot to the power consoles at the bottom left silenced that incessant noise.
“To port,” Connor said, taking point as Connor and Tex followed, both covering their flanks as they moved down the corridor and toward the stairs that led down into the belly of the building.
Like always, adrenaline was pounding through Thatch’s veins and his vision was both ultra-sharp and sort of fuzzy at the sides. He was very acutely aware of his breathing and even the slightest sound or smell caught his immediate attention. Shifters made excellent soldiers, not only because of their strength but because of their ability to tap into those latent powers that even their human forms carried. Heightened senses, hyper-focused attention, speed—it all helped to make one hell of a soldier.
But today, Thatch wasn’t feeling invincible. Today, he wasn’t the best man for the job. He worried. His gut was twisting and tossing with something very much akin to panic. He would have given anything to have Madeline in his arms right now and to be curled up on the bed with her and Tex instead of running around here. He would have given his left arm to spend a quiet evening at home with his mates and his kids.
We have to get her back, he thought, feeling the cold chill of icy sweat.
Tex’s hand on his shoulder snapped him out of it. Thatch looked up at his brother. Tex simply nodded, a somberness to him as he motioned to the stairs. He knew, and he was keeping his head on his shoulders. Thatch took a deep breath. He would have to do the same. For Madeline. For their future, no matter what it was going to be like.
As soon as Connor tried to enter the stairwell, he was met by a hail of bullets. He pulled back sharply, hissing a breath, and Tex grabbed a grenade from his belt and unpinned it, tossing it down. They all held back, listening to the second of pure, blissful panic that came after the first guy saw the grenade bounce down the stairs, followed by the scratching sounds of walls shattering and men being blown apart. Tex counted to three and then dove in first, running down the stairs with his rifle drawn and his body on edge.
As soon as he reached the bottom of the stairwell, he was met with gray walls lightly speckled in blood, and three bodies lying in various bits and pieces. Then, a round of shots was fired at him and he ducked down, using the corner of the stairs as
coverage. He shot back, taking careful aim in the direction that the shots had come from, somewhere deeper in the corridors with little to no light. The next barrage showed him muzzle flashes and he could focus his own return. He heard a grunt and a satisfying crunch almost at the same time, and a second later Thatch was bursting past him, running straight in like a madman.
“Tex! Shit!” Thatch hissed, going after him immediately.
Both of them made it to the next corner, pinning themselves against the wall, and Connor was right behind them.
“Slow the hell down, man,” Connor said, his voice that low, booming hiss that made them stand up a little straighter every damn time they heard it.
“She’s here somewhere. I can smell her,” Tex said, his voice on edge.
Thatch frowned, taking a deep whiff, and sure enough, he could smell her. There were small windows showing patches of the walkway outside, but no one walked past. One of the walls was almost completely covered in blood.
“He’s right,” Thatch said, feeling another chill traipse down his back and freeze the hell out of him.
Tex tried to duck into the next stretch of corridor, but he had to pull back right away because there were at least three guns firing at him.
“Shit,” he growled. “It’s too narrow. They’ll get us.”
Connor slid past them and shot an experimental volley into the corridor. He barely got the muzzle of his rifle around the corner when they were peppered with shots, probing, expectant. Gritting his teeth, Connor pulled back and the three of them huddled for a moment, Thatch keeping a close eye on the stairwell they’d come down.
“Doesn’t matter how many of us we have here, they have a good hold. I’m guessing three guys. Ideas?”
“Suicide, that’s about it,” Thatch muttered, taking another whiff of the air and almost doubling over because it all smelled like her and it was killing him.
“We could rush them,” Tex said.
“Yes, suicide. Didn’t I just suggest that?” Thatch commented darkly.
