by Selena Scott
“Give my regards to your brothers,” he said with a put-on politeness. He spoke to the guards. “You can show her out to her car and send her on her way.”
Then he turned back to Quill. “There’s a room three doors down on your left. You’ll wait for me there.”
“Quill’s not leaving with me?” Dawn asked, even though she wasn’t sure she should. They were so close to getting the hell out of there. But she hadn’t anticipated getting dismissed separately from Quill. They hadn’t made plans for leaving separately.
The Director chuffed out a laugh. “Of course not.”
“Sir, they drove together,” one of the guards spoke up deferentially.
“Ah,” the Director’s expression cleared. “She’s unclear on how she’ll get home.” He turned back to Dawn. “Let me make myself clear. I don’t care if you walk back to Portland, you useless, underwhelming twit. Get the fuck off my property and out of my sight in the next five minutes or else one of these men will shoot you and bury you out back. Do you understand?”
The manner in which his expression changed as he brought her through that speech was bone-chilling. He went from mild-mannered to horrendously evil, his face twisting and his lips going white with rage. Dawn felt certain that if he’d had a gun on his person, he would be pointing it at her right at that very moment.
“That won’t be necessary,” Quill said dully, as if he wasn’t bothered in the least by the Director’s threats. “She can take my car.” He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his car keys, and tossed them to Dawn.
On reflex, she caught them.
“Take good care of her,” Quill said in a low voice. He scratched his ear. And then he turned and disappeared out the door.
Dawn stared after him.
No!
She was screaming on the inside, panicked and racing. On the outside, she was frozen like a rabbit. Two sets of hands gripped her under her arms and then she was being dragged out of the room and out of the facility.
The muggy air hit her like a wet sheet. She gasped against it, struggling and setting her feet. By the time it even occurred to her to shift, they were already yanking open the driver’s side door and depositing her into the front seat. Then the guards were gone. She heard locks click into place on the doors.
Dawn stared down at the car keys clutched in her hand, still warm from where they’d been against Quill’s body.
He was in there.
But she was out here.
It didn’t compute. For days they hadn’t been more than feet from one another and now he was behind doors she couldn’t get through.
And he’d seemed so okay with it.
No, not okay, she realized. Resigned. Unsurprised.
She pressed the warm keys to her cheek and stared into nothing.
“Oh my god,” she whispered to herself. “He never intended to come back out.”
A series of memories from their road trip flashed through her mind.
“We’re not barreling toward your demise,” he’d promised her. Your demise. He hadn’t said our. He’d already known that he wasn’t coming out of this thing alive.
“I can’t believe that I get to have you here with me in this moment. It’s almost like you’re a match for the person I was before I was in the camps. And even though all that awful shit happened, for some reason, the universe has decided that I still get to have you. Right here. Right now.”
Right here. Right now. That’s what he’d said. She’d been so caught up in what he was saying that she hadn’t even noticed that he always only spoke about the present. He never referenced their future together. He was grateful for every little moment they’d had together because for him, it was always almost the last.
“Fuck that,” she whispered to herself. She was not going to let it go down like this. She was not going to let him sacrifice himself for her. This was so unbelievably fucked. He’d loved her that hard just to die for her? Hell no. She was not the incompetent weakling she’d been in front of the Director. She was a fierce warrior wolf who would tear a hole in the Director’s heart if she got a chance. Fear was a cold spear in her gut. What were they going to do to him in there? What were they already doing? How long did he even have? Were they really going to kill him? “FUCK THAT.”
Dawn reached for the handle of the door, ready to charge in there and kick some sicko ass, when something caught her eye.
There, behind one of the smaller outbuildings, something was lurking.
She looked harder. There! In the shadows, she saw it again. It was an animal. Large.
She peered hard and out of the shadows, for just a small second, stepped a wolf that she would recognize with her eyes closed. Even through the closed car door, she caught a whiff of his scent.
It was Orion.
Her brother was here.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dawn watched in stunned disbelief as her brother in his wolf form disappeared behind one outbuilding only to reappear behind another. He made progress, checking to see if she was following, all the way out to the gate.
In numb confusion, Dawn started the car and backed out of her spot. She drove the car down the driveway and watched as Orion disappeared into some brush and bushes at the bottom of the fence. He appeared on the other side and took off at a run.
She followed him.
Out the driveway and onto the main road.
Her body filled with panic and hope in equal measures. It was insane to drive away from Quill, when it went against every single molecule in her heart to leave him there. But there, right there, sprinting twenty feet in front of her car, was her big brother.
And if her big brother was here, was there anything that Dawn couldn’t do?
A mile or so later, he slowed to a stop and then led her car down a gravel road. There, a huge SUV was parked and a crowd of people stood around it.
Dawn turned the car off and got out, blinking at everyone. She didn’t get to do much more than that before she was swept up in Phoenix’s arms.
“I’m so fucking mad at you,” he informed her. “Thank god you’re all right, you idiot. I love you. Jesus. Thank god you’re all right.”
“I can’t breathe,” she informed him as he turned her in a circle.
He set her down and she blinked at everyone again. She could barely believe what she was seeing. Ida and Wren and Diana and Pheonix and Orion and…
“Sasha?”
He shrugged and smiled and lifted his arms in the air.
“And, wait, you look familiar but who are you?” She pointed at the insanely large man who was standing stoically off to one side.
“I’m Jesse,” he said simply, like that was enough to explain everything.
Dawn gripped her head, which had started to pound at the temples. “How is this possible? How did you find us? What is going on?”
“We’ll explain everything,” Orion said. “Let’s just get your stuff into the SUV and we can get on the road. I’ll feel better when this whole situation is in the rearview mirror.”
He’d taken her by the elbow but Dawn refused to be led anywhere right now. Not when the guards who’d dragged her away from Quill still burned fresh in her memory.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded. “We’re not leaving right now.”
Orion and Phoenix exchanged glances.
“It’s the only way,” Orion eventually said.
Dawn searched the expressions of all the people standing around her and found grim resolve on most of them. Ida and Jesse seemed to be feeling a lot more mixed.
“It’s the only way according to you,” Dawn countered, her hands on her hips. Nothing short of a tranquilizer was going to get her in that car at that particular moment.
“It’s the only way according to Quill,” Phoenix said in a low voice.
“What?”
“He called me, Dawn,” Phoenix said, stepping toward her again and taking both of her shaking hands in his. “We went to Salt Lake City after y
ou told us that you were there. We picked up Sasha and kept looking for you. A few days later, Quill called me and explained his plan. He explained how it was all going to shake out.”
“Wait,” she said slowly, her blood turning to ice in her veins. “What exactly was his plan?”
“That the two of you were going to the Director. He was training you to act in a certain way that would make the Director lose interest in your skills. The Director wouldn’t care about us anymore, we wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”
“And in this plan, what would happen to Quill?” she asked in hoarse voice, already knowing the answer.
Phoenix looked solemn and concerned. His hands tightened over Dawn’s. “Quill knew that he was going to have to stay. That the Director wasn’t going to let him leave.”
“I knew it,” Dawn burst out, tears and high emotion straining her voice. “That bastard. That stupid, wonderful, self-sacrificing asshole.” Dawn ripped her hands out of Phoenix’s grip and paced away from him, gripping her hair. “How could he do this to me? How?”
“Dawn,” Ida said, coming up behind her and gently laying a hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t do this to you. He did this for you. It was the only plan he could come up with that would make you safe.”
“At the expense of his own life!” Dawn turned around and recoiled from all the expressions she saw. “And you’re all okay with that?”
The stranger, Jesse, put one finger in the air. “I’m not okay with that. But I got outvoted.”
Dawn strode over and stood beside him. “I don’t know you at all but you’re my favorite person here.”
He blushed and shrugged. “Doesn’t seem right to leave a man behind. Especially one who’s been through what he’s been through.”
“Am I the only one who remembers the part where he tried to get me and my siblings abducted and imprisoned?” Orion asked the group.
“Orion, you have no idea what he’s been through. And you have no idea how far he’s come. What it took for him to—” Dawn broke off, her throat closing around the words. She let out a deep breath. “Your whole life, Orion, you’ve been loved. You gave and received love so freely. Because your self-worth has always been through the roof. When you fell in love with Diana, there was no question in your mind whether or not you were a good enough man for her. Whether you’d be good for her. Quill? That’s not the case with him. The Director found him at his lowest moments, inches from death, grieving his entire family. And he tricked him into thinking that his only value was all the bad that he could do. And he was a kid. He was fifteen years old. And then the Director was the only person Quill even had in this world. It was brave for you to accept your love for Diana, sure, because all love has to be brave in order to work. But you were starting from here in order to get to here.” Dawn waved her hand in a line extending out from her hip and then tapped her heart. “But Quill? He started from about fifty miles down in order to get to my heart. To love me and be loved in return. Do you know how hard that is? Do you know the strength of character that takes? He made mistakes. Horrible ones. But he is a beautiful, worthwhile person. And he doesn’t deserve to get left for dead.”
Her voice cracked and she turned away from the group, hiding her tears.
Orion’s voice was ragged at her back. “I’m tagging out. Somebody else needs to play this role for a little while.”
“Not me,” Phoenix said. “I can’t take seeing her like this. Quill never said she’d be this effective.”
“What?” Dawn asked, turning to them, wiping her tears.
Orion sighed. “When Quill called us and asked us to come here, he knew that you’d be like this. The reason he called us was that he knew that if it were up to you, when you were sitting in his car with his keys in your hand, there was no way you were going to leave him behind. He thought you’d get yourself killed coming after him. So, he told us all about it and had us come here to get you back on the road.”
“He told us that you were probably gonna do everything you could to convince us to go back in for him,” Phoenix chimed in. “And he said that we were gonna have to be tough with you. And not to bend. No matter what you said.”
Something was happening to Dawn. It felt like cold water dripping down her body, alerting her to something great that was about to happen. “So, you guys don’t want to leave him behind either?”
“Look,” Orion said, dragging a hand over his face and looking a hell of a lot more like the brother she knew and loved than the man who’d been yelling about leaving Quill behind. “The phone call changed a lot for us. It showed us just how much he loves you. What he’s willing to do for you. For us. It’s not just you that he’s giving his life for in there. It’s us. He’s successfully gotten all three of us out from under the Director. But he made it clear, Dawn, that there’s no rescuing him from in there. To rescue him is a suicide mission.”
“A suicide mission?” Dawn asked in a quiet voice. “Kind of like the one he just did?”
Orion blanched.
“God.” Dawn tugged at her hair again. “You know he didn’t even let me tell him I loved him? Not once. Every time I tried, he stopped me.” The words were gravel-harsh in her throat. It hurt to speak. But she couldn’t keep the truth inside anymore. You’ll make me greedy. “You know what he told me? He said that if I told him, I’d make him greedy. That he’d want more and more and more. That it was enough to just tell me and hear nothing in return. You know what he really meant by that? Greedy? He meant that if he ever heard me tell him I loved him, he wasn’t going to be able to just let himself die. That if he heard those words in my voice, he was going to fight for his life. And that would destroy the whole plan.” She stared in Orion’s eyes and then Phoenix’s eyes. “Not only is he sacrificing his life for us, he didn’t even let the woman he loves tell him she loves him back before he did.”
“Oh, crap,” Sasha muttered before he came out from behind the group and stood behind Jesse. “I’m on their side.”
“Me too!” Ida chirped, running over to stand next to Dawn.
Phoenix groaned. “What is happening right now?”
“Mutiny,” said Diana with a little smile on her face as she strolled from behind Orion to stand next to Ida. “Quill was my friend and employee for a long time before he betrayed us. I think I’m going to concentrate on the first part. Not the second part. We can’t leave him behind.”
Wren shrugged and walked over to them as well. “I’m game.”
Then it was Dawn facing off with her two brothers, staring them down, her hands on her hips. “I’m going back in, with or without you.”
They groaned identically and turned to look one another in the eye, communicating in some silent, brotherly way.
“Oh, fine,” Orion said after a minute. “We’ll rescue the bastard.”
***
Officer Jajka sat in his cruiser, hidden behind the underbrush across the road from the abandoned military complex. He’d followed the newly engaged couple at a distance, watching through his binoculars as they’d pulled in and disappeared inside. Then, he’d parked here and waited. Two hours later, he’d watched with a great sense of relief as their car pulled back out. But that relief had immediately dissolved when he’d realized that the woman was driving the car alone. The man was apparently still inside.
And she was crying.
And he was pretty sure he’d just seen a wolf or a coyote or a wild dog of some kind? But that was beside the point. The point was that the man was still inside that “abandoned” complex. With the men with guns who’d escorted them in there.
Which wasn’t good news for anybody. But especially not for shifters.
As he’d sat here, waiting for them to come back out, Officer Jajka had done some googling. Turned out that the average life expectancy for a male shifter was 38 years old. 38. Female shifters were just a bit higher at 42.
And this wasn’t because their bodies gave way faster, or they weren’t designed to live long, he
althy lives. It was because the homicide rates were so high. Because the homelessness and addiction rates were so high. Because the hate crimes and the hysteria and the cultural and systemic hatred were through the fucking roof.
It was because shifters, though legally human, were viewed as second-class. As less-than. Because absolutely nothing was fair for them.
His knee bounced as he watched her drive away.
The man was still in there. The man who’d been in his young thirties and was probably about to drag the average life expectancy down another percentage point.
He got out of the car and crossed the road, inching along the outside of the fence, hidden from view from the interior of the complex. Jesus, what the hell was he doing?
He wanted to call for back up, but he knew that if he brought his colleagues along with him, any shifters who were in that complex would be in danger. Maybe even more danger than they were in right now.
It was gonna have to be him.
***
“So, does anybody know how to storm a military complex?” Ida asked innocently, her toe drawing a circle in the dirt.
“First of all,” Phoenix said, “you’re waiting in the car.”
“You too,” Orion said to Diana.
“You’re discriminating against us because we’re women!” Ida protested.
Phoenix shook his head. “No. We’re discriminating against you because you’re humans. Wren and Dawn can come.”
Ida growled in protest but Diana laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’ll only distract them if they think we’re in danger. If they know we’re a safe distance away, they’re more likely to concentrate.”
“Now that we got that settled,” Jesse said, looking a little bemused by all the lovers’ quarrels taking place. “First off, we’re gonna want to cut the power. Most shifters can see better in the dark than humans.”
“I can do that,” Sasha volunteered.
“You know how to do that?” Orion asked.
“Sure,” Sasha shrugged, blushing. “I’m an electrical engineer.” He looked around at all of their surprised faces. “Oh, jeez. I might not be the most valuable shifter around here, but I’m not completely useless. I can do some stuff.”
