by Kim Fox
“Take him out, B-27, but don’t kill him.” Hunt grinned at Mack. “You’ll be B-28, my next cyborg. Even more powerful than him.”
The lion began to approach and Mack swallowed hard but didn’t move. He was terrified of becoming a cold killing machine like that as well. He didn’t want Kara to ever see him like that or be used to hurt her. The thought of Grant and his old crew breaking in here and having to face him as well was making him sick.
“Wait!” Hunt shouted as the lion approached. “Let’s make it personal.”
He grinned as he pressed some buttons on his tablet, taking control of the lion once again. The long spikes retracted into his back and he began to phase. The lion’s face was eerily still as his body shook and morphed into Bryce’s human form.
Bryce walked over to his clothes and slowly, methodically put on his pants and shirt. Once he was done, he turned and faced Mack with a stare—a non-human stare.
General Hunt was pressing buttons on the tablet, controlling his new toy, controlling Mack’s old friend.
Mack’s hands were loose by his side as he stood in the office, watching Bryce as he walked over as callous and detached as ever.
The injured and bleeding animals around them were all out of the fight, either moaning and squirming, or worse—laying completely still. Mack was on his own.
“Bryce,” he said as the cyborg approached. “Bryce are you in there?”
He stepped right up to him and Mack’s stomach clenched when he saw the cyborg’s cold green eyes up close. Tiny symbols were passing over his irises in long strings like a scene out of The Matrix.
“Bryce,” Mack said in a desperate tone. “You can—”
Mack’s head snapped back as a steel fist slammed into his face. He stumbled back as pain shot through this brain and water filled his eyes. Fuck, that was hard.
His legs wobbled as he touched his crooked nose. Mack had thought that Hardy had punched hard, but this creature was on another level.
Bryce came forward and hit him again. This time cracking his jaw as Mack hit the back wall, sending pebbles of concrete raining down on his head.
He had just enough time to spit out a glob of blood before Bryce hit him again. He nailed him in the stomach, taking his breath and crumpling him in half. Mack tried to straighten back up, but the pain was too great and he fell to his knees in front of the ruthless cyborg.
He looked up into the cyborg’s unresponsive eyes as he tried to catch his breath. Everything hurt so much. He clutched his stomach as his lungs burned. “Bryce,” he said between coughs. His fucking jaw was burning. Every word sent jolts of lightning surging through him. “Bryce… I’m sorry for what happened.” Hot tears were filling his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to—”
The cyborg grabbed him by the hair and Mack screamed as he got lifted off the ground. He threw him across the room and Mack slammed into a metal filing cabinet, taking it down.
Mack grunted in pain as he pushed off the cabinet and fell to his knees. Bryce rushed across the room to finish the job. He’s so fast…
“I’m sorry, Bryce,” Mack spit out as his body screamed in pain. “It got all fucked up. I’d never hurt you.”
It felt good to say it to him, even though Bryce was just a cyborg now. Mack hoped that there was still a small piece of the boy left in there listening, understanding, and forgiving. It felt like a tremendous weight had been lifted off his chest.
The cyborg reached him and grabbed his shirt. Mack gulped as he picked him up.
“I love you, Bryce,” he said as the cyborg stared him down with cold distant eyes.
The bright green computer code suddenly flickered off, but a split-second later it turned back on. A feeling of hope jolted through Mack. In that second when the code turned off, the kid he knew—the boy who followed him everywhere and asked him a million questions, the boy who annoyed him and pestered him and brought a little happiness into his dark life once again—was back.
“Bryce?” he gasped.
But as quickly as it came, it went.
The green code was back and the cold, methodical, uncaring machine was back in charge.
“That’s enough,” General Hunt said, looking like he was sensing that something was up. “Neutralize him.”
The cyborg reached down with one hand and grabbed the inside of Mack’s thigh as he held onto his shirt collar with the other hand. He picked him up easily and raised his knee about to smash him down on it. Mack knew his spine would snap on that metal knee. When he woke up, he’d be a cyborg, just like Bryce.
Bryce had his back to General Hunt as he raised him up for the finishing blow.
“Come on, Bryce,” Mack whispered. “Fight it!”
The green suddenly flickered away once again and instead of slamming Mack over his knee, Bryce threw him forward, sending him flying through the window.
Mack clenched his jaw and braced for impact as the cold November wind rushed up against him as he fell four stories down. He landed hard on the pavement below, grunting in pain as bits of glass rained down around him.
He was winded and groaning as he pushed himself onto his back, looking up at cold sky. The cyborg suddenly appeared, leaping out of the window after him. He landed perfectly on his feet with his head down.
Who am I going to get this time? Bryce the boy or the ruthless killing machine?
Mack was hurt badly and didn’t have much fight left in him, even if he did want to try, which he didn’t.
The cyborg turned his head and locked eyes with Mack.
“I thought cats always land on their feet, old man.” Bryce’s warm golden eyes were back and he had a grin on his face.
“Shut up you little twerp,” Mack said with a pained smile as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Tears of relief filled his eyes as he looked at his boy.
Bryce rushed toward him, dropping to a knee in front of him. “I don’t know how long I can control this, Mack.” The green in his eyes began flickering on and off and his body started jerking in an unnatural way.
Mack grabbed his arms. “Fight it, Bryce! Fight it!”
His green eyes flashed back to gold and Bryce winced, looking like he was fighting with everything he had to hold the machine back. “I can’t. It’s too powerful… you have to get out of here.”
Mack squeezed his arms. “Not without you!”
“Just go!” Bryce leapt to his feet and grabbed Mack’s bicep with two strong hands. He turned his hips and launched Mack into the air like he was competing in the hammer throw.
Mack must have flown over fifty feet into the air, sailing over the electrified fence with the barbed wire that ran along the perimeter of the compound. He crashed through the hard branches of an old maple tree and landed with a thud on the ground.
Ow, that fucking hurt.
He winced as he lifted his head and watched Bryce scaling the brick wall back to the broken window on the fourth floor. He moved like Spider-Man, leaping from ledge to ledge with ease.
Mack pushed himself up to his feet as he watched his old friend disappear into the window.
What have they done to him? I’m going to kill General Hunt for that.
Kara suddenly flashed into his mind. He could sense that something was wrong. That something had happened.
Panic rushed through him as he yanked his lion forward, letting him come out. His lion exploded out of him and he turned and ran, sprinting like he had never sprinted before.
He ran the entire way back, not stopping, not slowing for one second. His legs burned and his body ached, but he kept running as the morning sun rose in the background until he arrived at the spot where he had left her in the truck.
No…
It couldn’t be. She was right there!
The lion looked around in a panic when he saw nothing but dead woods and tire tracks on the frosted road. He ducked his head and kept running until he saw something up ahead.
Oh, please… no…
> His black F-150 had skidded off the road and the front bumper was wrapped around a thick tree trunk.
The lion sprinted over to it and looked inside.
Nothing. Kara was gone.
He looked around the area in a panic and saw several footprints. Men’s boots. A lot of them.
They took her.
The brokenhearted lion threw back his head and roared.
Chapter Thirteen
Mack
“Hello?” It was Logan.
Mack’s heart pounded as he held the phone to his ear. After he had phased back from his lion, Mack had gone into the crashed truck to get some clothes from his bag. That was when he spotted Grant’s cell phone on the floor.
He was so ashamed at the way he had acted toward his crew and hated to call like this, but his mate needed his help, Bryce needed his help, Hardy and the boys needed his help, and his bounty hunter crew were the only ones who could help. So why was it so hard to talk?
Tempest’s voice came through the line. She was somewhere in the background. “Who is it?”
“I think it’s a fan,” Logan’s muffled voice replied. It sounded like he was covering the mouthpiece.
“Your first stalker?” She sounded excited.
“Oh, my God!” Logan cried out with an excited edge to his voice. “It’s my first stalker! I’m famous!”
“You’re not famous, you moron!” Mack barked into the phone. “It’s me, Mack!”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed, but Mack couldn’t tell if it was because it was him calling or because he wasn’t some crazy obsessive fan. “What the heck do you want?”
“I a…” Mack rubbed his forehead as he tried to spit out the words. “I need your help.”
Logan snorted out a laugh. “You have some nerve, Mack. What do you need help with? Did that poor girl realize what a giant dick you are and run back off into the woods to freeze?”
Mack took deep breaths, choking back the guilt and shame that kept creeping forward. He knew he deserved that. He knew he deserved a lot more than that.
“Where are you guys?” he finally asked.
“We’re up your mom’s ass.”
Mack took a deep breath. “I found Bryce. He’s alive.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, except for Logan’s heavy breaths.
“General Hunt has him.”
Logan cleared his throat and answered in a serious tone: “We’re still at the motel.”
The smashed truck coughed and spat as it rolled to a stop in the motel parking lot. It took all of Mack’s might to pull the truck off of the tree that it was wrapped around, and all of his mechanical skills—which weren’t much—to get it going again. The bumper was hanging down and dragging along the pavement, creating a shower of sparks under the truck, but it worked.
Kind of.
The truck could no longer turn right, so with every right turn that Mack had to take, he had to get out of the truck and lift the frame to shift the wheels over.
Grant was standing outside of the motel with the crew, watching as Mack killed the engine and got out.
“That was a new truck,” Ryder said, shaking his head.
Grant rushed forward. He didn’t care about the truck. Not while Bryce was out there needing help. “Where is he? What happened?”
Mack took a deep breath and told them everything from running into Hardy and the boys in the gas station to Hardy being Kara’s brother. He told them about the truce and breaking into the military facility, and finally seeing Bryce and what he had become.
“A cyborg?” Grant repeated, rubbing his shaved head as he stared at the pavement in disbelief.
“He’s not totally gone,” Mack said. He then told them about how Bryce had fought against the AI software and helped him escape. He conveniently left out the part about getting his ass kicked.
“Hunt still has him. He has them all. Hardy, DeMarcus, Irish, and Caelum too.”
“Then it’s not all bad,” Ryder said with a chuckle.
Mack shot him a hard look. “They’re good men, Ryder.”
“I told you,” Amélie said.
“I know,” Mack replied, looking at her as shame burned his cheeks. He had made a lot of mistakes in the past few days. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”
Mack took a deep breath as he looked at each one of them. “I’m sorry for a lot of things, guys. I’m sorry I snapped at you and left with Kara. She’s my mate by the way. Something had come over me and I couldn’t control it. It was overpowering.”
“Your lion was probably reacting to its mate,” Grant said as he watched him. “Sometimes that happens. Animals can get in a panic that they’ll lose their mate before the bond. It must have seeped through to you.”
“It definitely seeped through.”
“Do you feel better now?” Amélie asked.
“I did.” The tightness in his chest was unbearable. He was supposed to protect her and now she was gone. “But General Hunt has taken her too.”
“What?” Grant stepped forward putting a comforting hand on Mack’s shoulder as he started to crumble.
“She was waiting in the truck…”
Grant looked at the smashed car and swallowed hard.
“When I came back for her… She was gone.”
Grant pulled him in for a hug as Mack’s heart pounded in his chest.
When his alpha pulled away he had a serious look in his eyes. “Then let’s go get her back!”
Grant turned to his crew as he squeezed his hand into a fist. “Mount up!”
Chapter Fourteen
Kara
Cold chills snaked down Kara’s back as the soldiers dragged her into the one place she didn’t want to return to.
The facility looked more intimidating than ever as they walked her through the front door.
“What time is the card game tomorrow?” the guard on her right asked the guard at the door.
The guard at the door grinned. He looked like a regular guy who lived down the street. A bit too chubby to be a guard, probably from too many beers after work. “Come when you’re done your shift,” he said, perking up in excitement, “but it starts at eight.”
“I’ll be there,” the guard holding Kara answered as they walked through the checkpoint.
The whole thing felt surreal. Here she was, walking to her doom, and these guys were chatting about playing cards. Couldn’t they see that the whole world was crashing down around her?
Her chest got tighter the further they got into the facility. Everything seemed to be running as normal. Kara wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
What happened with the guys? What happened with her brother and with Mack?
A million questions raced through her mind and she looked around for any clues to answer them but came up with nothing. Everything looked normal.
People were walking around at a leisurely pace. There were no fire-alarms blaring or armed soldiers rushing around.
Did that mean they were successful and got her family out or did that mean they had been caught?
She was about to find out. Kara wasn’t sure what would make her feel worse: to see that her parents and sisters were still in the cell, or to see that it was empty and she would now have to spend her days alone.
“There she is,” a deep voice said from behind her.
The soldiers turned her around and she swallowed hard when she saw him. She had heard rumors floating around of The Angel of Death and she could tell immediately that it was him. Her stomach rolled as he walked over.
He was in the military uniform of a General with enough badges on his chest to tip over a regular person. He stood tall and proud with a grin on his face. His hair was a salt and pepper gray and even Kara had to admit that the man was handsome, even though she did prefer her men to be a little rougher around the edges.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
He smirked. “We didn’t even know you left. Those soldier
s were on a routine patrol when you sped off.”
If only you had stayed on the road…
Kara cursed herself, but it wasn’t her fault. It had been at least two years since she’d last driven a car, and she’d never driven such a big truck before.
“It was only once the soldiers identified you that we discovered that you were missing from your cell,” the General said. “Were you waiting for your brother?”
Kara’s stomach dropped. No… Did that mean he found Hardy? And Mack…
“Come,” the General said, waving her over. “I’d like to show you something.”
The grip on her arms tightened as the soldiers on her sides practically dragged her forward.
They traveled down hallways and up stairs until they arrived at a room where the General had to swipe his card through the slot to get in.
“Oh my God…” It was worse than she could imagine. Hardy, DeMarcus, Irish, and Caelum were all locked up and looking like they were being tortured. Their arms and legs were being stretched spread eagle. Their hands and feet were swallowed in metal machines and they each had a metal collar wrapped tight around their strained necks.
Each of their faces was twisted in pain as a strange sort of energy buzzed and crackled all around them.
“Let them go!” she shouted as a furious heat flushed through her body. She tried to lunge at the General but the soldiers holding her were too strong. “What are you doing to them?”
It was only then that she noticed the blonde soldier in the room. He was standing guard next to the boys, but there was something off about him. He stood as still as a statue with bright green eyes that were staring straight ahead. They were creepy and looked almost inhuman.
“What is this place?” Kara whispered to herself. It was like some sort of high tech torture chamber and it was making her skin crawl.
She looked at Hardy’s face all twisted up in a pained grimace and felt sick. Once when they were kids, Hardy had climbed the antenna to their roof to grab a frisbee that had gotten stuck by the chimney. He was a big kid and the antenna broke under his weight when he was near the top. Kara screamed as he fell on his arm, snapping the bone. She cried as she ran over to him, but her big brother barely said a word as he calmly cracked it back into place.
