Chosen by Blood (38 page)

Helplessly, they watched as the guards lined up the gurneys, eight all in a row, clearly not wanting to open the compound’s large wooden gates until the last possible moment. The trucks started their motors and were driven off.

Felicia slipped on her earpiece and checked her weapon.

“O’Flare, are you ready?” Knox asked.

“I can’t shoot the chemicals now,” he said. “Not with those Others down there. Not when I don’t know their medical condition—”

“We don’t have a choice. We—”

“Where’s Wraith?”

Felicia heard the sudden tension in O’Flare’s voice. So did Wraith because she immediately looked at Felicia. Knox, however, didn’t appear to notice. “If they’re brought inside, it’ll only be that much harder to get them out. We’ve got to get them now. If that means they’ll be a little worse for wear, that’s a risk we have to take. We’ll have our gas masks and we can—”

Felicia saw the instant Knox realized he didn’t have a gas mask for her. A split second after his eyes widened, he cursed. “Hunt? How long will it take you to shift?”

“Knox, is Wraith with you?” O’Flare interrupted again. “Is she okay?”

Knox’s gaze bounced to Wraith, then back to the compound. “She’s fine, O’Flare. Now, if Hunt can distract them enough, the rest of us will shoot from here.”

“Don’t give yourselves away too soon,” Wraith said suddenly.

Felicia’s unease crystallized into outright fear. “Wraith—”

“Wraith, whatever you’re thinking, don’t,” O’Flare growled.

With Knox between them, Wraith straightened and moved forward.

Felicia grabbed Knox’s arm. “Knox!” What was she doing? Had Wraith already lost her mind?

“ As soon as we’ve—Wraith, where the hell are you going?” Knox pushed himself up and made a grab for Wraith. Wraith evaded him easily, slipped out of their cover, and walked calmly toward the front entrance of the building manned by guards.

“Get the fuck back here now, Wraith,” Knox gritted, obviously aware she could still hear them on her earpiece. “That’s an order.”

O’Flare, Lucy, and Hunt were talking all at once.

“Shit, is she crazy?”

“Prepare to fire on the bastards.”

“The Others—”

“We have no choice.”

“Everyone calm down. Calm down,” Knox snapped. “Stand down. Stand down, damn it!”

“But Wraith—” Felicia said.

Knox looked at her. “It’s out of our hands now. I don’t know what she’s doing, but we’re about to find out.”

All of them grew quiet except for their combined breaths heaving in and out over their communication line.

Felicia flinched as the guards shouted at Wraith, pointing their guns at her and gesturing for her to put her hands up. They seemed clearly thrown by the fact that she kept walking toward them. Felicia flinched when a shot rang out from the roof. Wraith’s body jerked as she was hit in the shoulder. Somehow, she stayed on her feet even as her jacket, which she must have had draped over her shoulders, fell to the ground.

Knox was half shouting. “Don’t shoot. Don’t you move, O’Flare, or I’ll kill you myself. You, too, Hunt. If we give ourselves away now, we lose the element of surprise. You will listen to me—”

“She’s got explosives strapped to her,” Felicia whispered.

Knox’s words stopped mid-sentence. His eyes met hers. “She’s going to blow the gate.”

“No, she wouldn’t . . .” O’Flare whispered.

“She has missiles. Why . . .” Tears filled Felicia’s eyes. “Oh God. She can’t die, but she can feel pain. She can feel pain, Knox.”

No more shots rang out. Clearly, the guards were afraid shooting Wraith would result in triggering the explosives. The ones on the ground fled. One brave guard on the roof decided to take his chances. He fired his weapon, then fired it again.

Wraith’s body jerked several times, but she was close enough to the gate now that it didn’t matter.

“Remember what Wraith told you,” O’Flare commanded in a near whisper.

Knox said, “We will,” just as the explosion shook the earth and blasted open the compound’s large wooden doors. Felicia saw sparks and smoke, as well as what appeared to be bits of debris flying into the air. She screamed. She heard the others scream. But clearest of all, she heard O’Flare scream.

“We’re moving,” Knox yelled. “Now. We’re moving.”

With Felicia beside him, he leapt out of their cover at the same time the rest of the team did. They all came out firing.

Felicia shot two of the guards on the roof and they both came toppling down. Knox got another on the roof, and then one that had been hiding around the corner of the building. One by one, the team took the guards down. In seconds, no more remained.

O’Flare and Hunt, still in human form, covered one another with their weapons as Knox and Felicia scrambled toward them. O’Flare ran to the spot where Wraith had stood, screaming her name.

Knox shouted to him, “O’Flare, help Lucy. We need to get these Others off these gurneys and under cover. Bring them into the trees.”

Lucy rolled one gurney toward the trees even as she used telekinesis to roll another alongside her. Felicia was right behind her with one of the Others. O’Flare, however, didn’t appear to have heard Knox.

“Where is she? Where the fuck is she?” he yelled, turning in a circle in search of Wraith.

Knox strode up to him, grabbed him by his shirtfront, and shook him. “Listen to me. We have a short amount of time to get these Others out of here before more guards come out. Help us, damn it!”

O’Flare shook his head, which seemed to clear some of the daze from his mind. He nodded. “Okay, okay.” He ran toward the captured Others, but instead of rolling them as Lucy and Felicia were, he unstrapped one, flung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, and ran with him into the trees. Almost immediately, he was back for another.

In the meantime, Knox moved to the remaining Others, running between them as he unsnapped their collars and fired questions at them, hoping to get some information as to what they would find inside. “We’re here to get you out. There are others inside. Did the men who took you say anything? Did they say why they were taking you? What they wanted to do with you?”

Most of the Others seemed too weak, almost catatonic, to answer.

Then a deep voice, low but steady, came from the werewolf that O’Flare was currently releasing from his restraints. “The guards who took me . . . One seemed to be filling the other one in, like he was new or something. He said we were the next installment of Others. That there were only one or two left. He said . . .” The werewolf paused and gritted his teeth, obviously fighting off some kind of disorientation or pain. He shook his head. “The younger one asked whether any vamps had survived. That it didn’t seem safe to work with them, even to test the effects of a cure to the vamp vaccine. He didn’t sign up for that.”

Adrenaline rushed through Knox at receiving yet more confirmation that the antidote existed. “Did he say where? Where the Others were? Where the labs were?”

The werewolf shook his head and seemed to collapse. O’Flare swung him over his shoulder and began carrying him away.

“He said—he told the young guard to stay away from the green door,” the werewolf gasped out as O’Flare carried him away. “The green door’s where the dangerous stuff is kept.”

The green door. Knox looked at Hunt, who had just returned from carrying the last Other into the bush. Then he looked at the rest of the team. “You three will stay with the Others.”

Felicia shook her head, but Knox kept his voice firm.

“You’ll do as I order, damn it. You need to stay with these Others. You need to be with them in case more armed guards come out and you need to be with them in case something happens to me. We’ll be back to get you out of here.”

The wildness in O’Flare’s eyes hadn’t disappeared, but it seemed to clear enough for him to hear. He glared at Knox. “You two get in and then get out. You heard Wraith’s last words. Make all this worth it.”

Knox nodded. “We will.”

With a final glance at Felicia, he and Hunt ran into the compound.

A
s Knox entered the compound, he immediately noticed that for all the traditional architecture of its façade, the inside was all simple lines and polished metal. It was clean to the point of sterility.

It was also empty.

They walked through a loading area that dead-ended and split into a T. Hunt and Knox stood back-to-back, pivoting 360 degrees and holding their guns at the ready.

“Guards guarding nothing? Seems silly,” Hunt said.

“More unbelievable than silly,” Knox replied. “Maybe they’re waiting in an interior room. Waiting until we go for the antidote or the captured Others to show themselves. Maybe the werewolf who told us about the green door was setting a trap.”

“So we gonna dance a little more or you gotta plan?”

“Howl,” Knox retorted.

The were shot him an “eat shit” glare. “Excuse me?”

“When you shifted that first time,” Knox explained, “a were howled from inside. Maybe if you—”

Nodding abruptly, Hunt threw back his head and howled. It was the same howl he’d given in wolf form, and the sound caused the hair on the back of Knox’s neck to stand on end. Almost immediately, the howl of another were sounded from the hallway to the right.

“Bingo,” Knox said.

Hunt moved to follow the sound, but Knox placed a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Despite what the werewolf told us, we don’t know how many Otherborn are in there. We don’t know why no one’s shown up yet or if there’s anyone waiting for us in this cavernous building. If we really are alone, we need to get out of here as soon as possible before anyone returns. It makes sense for me to check on the Otherborn prisoners. I can start teleporting them to Quantico, then return for the others.”

Hunt looked uncertain, then downright shocked. “You want me to get the antidote?”

Unbelievably, Knox felt himself smile. “Is this my ideal situation? No. But I know if it’s here, you’ll find it. And I know you’ll find a way to get it outside.”

Solemnly, Hunt stared at Knox, then notched his chin at him. “I’ll get it. For you. For Wraith. For all of us.” A huge grin split Hunt’s face. “Mainly, though, so you can tell Mahone that I’m the one that saved the day; seeing the guy’s face when you tell him will be all the thanks I need.”

Knox turned and started down the hallway where the howl had come from. Over his shoulder, he called, “If I pass a green door on my way, I’ll call out to you. Otherwise, you assume it’s down there.”

“Good luck.” Hunt turned and ran down the other hallway.

Knox moved swiftly, checking each room he passed to make sure it was empty. He knew he’d made the right choice—the only choice—and the irony of it struck him hard. He’d hated Hunt on sight and now the were could hold the fate of Knox’s entire clan in his hands.

Interestingly, Knox wasn’t as bothered by the thought as he should have been.

He checked a total of five rooms before he reached the end of the hallway. There, he found another door. Inside the room, there were three Others, each locked in tall cages, naked and beaten like fucking animals. A werebeast, a werecat, and a shape-shifter. Knox ripped the lock off the first cage and approached the werebeast huddled in the corner. He wasn’t wearing a collar, so Knox tapped the Other’s mind. He was met with nothing but weariness and defeat. Knox picked him up, cradling him in his arms like an infant, and teleported him to Quantico.

Several suited agents and med techs jumped when Knox appeared beside them. The agents started talking on their phones and the med techs rushed toward him, taking the were, putting him on their own gurney, and checking him over.

Knox immediately teleported back to the compound. By the time he’d transported the werecat and shape-shifter, as well as searched the rest of the wing for other signs of life or the antidote, he was feeling only slightly weaker than when he’d started. That sent a rush of hope through his system. Maybe the team’s first mission was going to be a success, after all.

His hope waned a little when he finally teleported outside to join the others. Felicia ran to his side. “Did you find them? Find it?”

“I sent Hunt for the antidote while I teleported three Others. You haven’t seen him?”

She shook her head. “We didn’t hear shots or signs of trouble from out here. Weren’t there reinforcements inside?”

Knox shook his head grimly. “That’s the strange part. There was no one inside. At least no one I encountered. But Hunt—”

“Hunt can handle himself, but I’ll check it out.”

Knox’s protest was automatic. “No, I don’t want you going in there. Not without me.”

Felicia arched a brow. “Excuse me?”

Knox grimaced. Vamp females weren’t the kind to hide while their males did the dirty work; Felicia certainly shared the same characteristic. “Uh—O’Flare and Lucy will need you?”

“Nice try,” she said after the moue left her lips, “but between the three of you, you’ll be fine. Which way did Hunt go?”

Knox took a deep breath, then gave in gracefully. “Down the hallway to the left. Looking in particular for a green door.”

Felicia nodded. “I heard the were. Don’t worry. If Hunt hasn’t reported in, chances are there’s nothing to report. Now get to work, soldier. I’m freezing here.”

Reaching out to rub her arms, Knox couldn’t believe it when he grinned. All this, and this woman still had the ability to make him smile. “We’ll see about warming you up when we’re out of here.” He gave her a swift kiss on the lips.

“You bet your sweet vamp ass we will. Now go,” she urged.

“Be careful,” he shouted as she readied her weapon and ran toward the compound.

He called for O’Flare to start bringing him the remaining Otherborn. At one point, Lucy used her power to float a shape-shifter into Knox’s arms. One by one, he teleported each of the Others to the designated room in Quantico.