Crux (21 page)

Something knocks into the van, rocking us back and forth. The vehicle leans to the side as if a tire’s lost air. I push my body flat against the side of the inside wall, my mind wrestling with the idea of getting out and helping, but that wasn’t the plan. If I distract Grey, he might get hurt, so I exercise faith, clench my jaw, and force myself to wait. Muffled voices carry through the metal walls, along with scuffling, heavy thuds, banging and dragging noises, before everything goes quiet.

My throat is as parched as the Mohave Desert. I try to call for Grey, and my lips stick to my teeth.
Get a grip!

A sliver of light enters as the back door cracks open. “Bird?” Grey pokes his head in.

The doors open wider, and he’s knocked from view as my six foot tall werewolf replaces him, putting his two front paws on the bumper. He’s done some major shifting since I left him. Fenris pants and wags his tail as if I’m about to throw a stick.

My breath chuffs out. “Sheesh, you guys had me worried.” I rub my arms, jittery with nervous energy. “Can you help me move these girls? They’re hurt.”

I scramble from the vehicle. With no streetlamps, the area is dark but not as black as inside the van. My eyes adjust again, scanning the surrounding loading dock, boxed in by rows of brick warehouse buildings. Four bodies lie unconscious, tucked away on the pavement near the van tires.

Nice work guys.

Grey catches me in his arms and holds me close. “Did they hurt you?”

“No, no,” I whisper. “I’m fine, just like we planned. Did you see the girls get out?”

He releases me. “Yeah.”

“I told them to wait there if they wanted help. Can you call the cops and have them picked up?”

“Already did.”

“You rock.” It’s like he thinks all my thoughts along with me.

“I do. Now let’s move these girls.”

Grey retrieves a thick, blue quilt from his car. He lays it on a ramp across the lot where they’ll be out of the way and safe. We lift the injured girls and carry them to the blanket—the young teen I tow weighs nothing, thanks to Alarr. As I study her face, I shake my head. An ugly, red gash mars her forehead.

Midway to the ramp, I hear a motor hum. We freeze and stand there like idiots holding the bodies of badly beaten girls in our arms. I glance over my shoulder at the men lying unconscious by the van’s rear tire.
Sure, officer, let me just explain …

The car engine rumbles louder. My thoughts lock down with indecision. Grey jerks his head toward the loading area, and we run. Heart thudding, blood pumps in my ears until I can no longer hear the vehicle’s motor, the
whoosh
of increasing heartbeats drowning out every other sound.

Still cradling the girls, we crouch behind wood pallets lining the dock. Two beams of light puncture the darkness. The bass of a stereo thumps in rhythmic beats until a nondescript, dark SUV rolls up and slows to a stop. It sits there idling—a threat to all our careful plans.

Go away, go away, go away!

After what seems an eternity, the car inches forward. Headlights fade. I blow out an enormous breath, my butt hitting the ground, feet shooting out in front of me. “That totally freaked my world,” I whisper.

“Let’s move.” Grey says. I want a minute to regroup, but I guess the close call affects him differently because he goes all militant on me. “Hurry up!”

We lay the injured girls out on the blanket, close together for warmth, and wrap the edges around them. Hoping the reflective quality will help paramedics find the girls, Grey props the glow-in-the-dark Halloween masks he took off the goons against the dock.

“I’ll have to call for an ambulance now,” Grey says. “Cops, too. We don’t know how badly they’re hurt.”

My shoulders sag. He’s right, but I hate it. We’ve taken out the henchmen and moved their victims in under fifteen minutes, but we don’t know if the Snatcher is hiding here, or if we can find him before help arrives.

With no other choice, I accept with a weak thumbs-up to Grey. He lifts a phone from his jacket pocket and dials as I head back across the parking lot where the white van is parked. On the other side of the battered vehicle is a red, metal door blistered with spots of rust. I can only assume this is the direction the unconscious men meant to bring their prisoners since it stopped so close.

The door is locked, but with my borrowed strength, the metal handle crunches under my hand.

Fenris presses against my back, shaking so hard I can hear the pebbles beneath his paws rattle. A snarl rips from his throat.

“Steady boy,” I whisper.

Grey joins us. He nods, and I know help is on the way. We’re running out of time, and we’ve barely started. “In and out, boys,” I say. “Let’s find Shondra.”

22

My foot eases into the door opening as we slink inside. The warehouse is huge—an open space with brown, commercial carpeting. Dirt coats the drab tan paint of the walls, and a service elevator sits closed at the other end of the room. A smattering of furniture and a couple space heaters are situated to the left of the elevator door in front of a wide screen TV. Speakers blare so loud that the half dozen men sitting around don’t even glance up when we come in.

A flight of unfinished pine stairs to the right leads to a wide balconied loft with as many as twenty doors. Even from here, I can see the silver padlocks that secure each room.

Shondra has to be up there.

An unforgiving cross between glue and ammonia burns my nose and eyes, and an ominous chill snakes down the raw nerves in my spine. If cold has a scent, this place has it.

A utility sink and three tables line the wall to the left, piled high with dirty bottles, bags, cans and tubes. A long, fluorescent light blinks overhead, but its anemic glow doesn’t improve the atmosphere. That part of the room resembles my ninth grade science lab, only creepier. The carpet has been cut away from under the tables to reveal the stark concrete floor beneath where rows of glossy, enamel gas tanks are stored.

Grey turns to me and pauses. He and Fenris stand together, unseen in the corner at the foot of the staircase. I pray Fenris stays quiet, but his ability to understand our needs is uncanny. I swear he’s more human than dog. I make for the stairs, fearing and hoping Shondra waits behind one of those locked doors. As I squeeze past my posse of two, my shoulder brushes fur. I lean against Fenris a moment, his body trembling. He’s taller than me again, and as I place my foot on the first step, his wet nose grazes my cheek.

Below me, the men’s focus remains fixated on the screen—the sounds of their war movie deafening. Their continued ignorance of our presence would be funny if the situation was different, but it isn’t, and doubts fray the edges of my confidence.

I reach the first upstairs door undetected. The lock crunches and gives under my palm, and I withdraw it from the latch before pressing on the solid surface. The hinges open inward, and light leaks into the room from the warehouse.

“I said press pause! Are you deaf?” a voice yells from downstairs. “I gotta piss, but I don’t want to miss this. It’s the best part of the movie.”

I hold my breath.

“We ain’t waitin’ on you,” a cohort says, but the TV goes mute anyway.

Here we go.
There are no windows in the room I’ve broken into. Several mattresses are crammed inside, leaving little foot space. Bodies lay curled beneath their blankets. A shoddy dresser sits against the far wall next to a big, orange bucket. From the stench of waste blazing through my nostrils, I’m guessing the pail is a makeshift toilet.

If I think about the abuse these girls have suffered, I’ll lose it, so I focus on getting them out instead. “Pssst.” I whisper. “Hey, guys?”

Bed springs creak, and several heads lift. Four pairs of eyes peer back at me, blinking and squinting in the dark.

“Let’s go.” I motion with my hand and walk over to help a young girl from her
little bunk. She’s cuffed to the wall with a six-foot chain, which I break loose.

Snapping their bonds one by one, the others exchange confused glances but stumble toward the door. They follow me out onto the balcony, press against the wall away from the railing. Wrapping my arm around a girl, I escort her to the top step. I point to Grey, who waits on the first floor near the exit. He puts a finger to his lips, motions for her to come down, but she stops short.

Not that these girls trust anyone anymore, but I hope a female, close to their age, might seem less threatening.

Her scream blisters my eardrum, and I realize I’m wrong.

What the …

She points to the bottom of the stairs, and I follow the line of her finger.

Fenris?
Dang.
I forgot about my dog. He’d scare the pee out of just about anyone in his present form.

The men on the couch glance from the screaming girl on the balcony down to Grey, and we’re made.

The guy who went to take a leak runs back into the room and around the corner. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s a bear!”

Someone must accidently hit the pause button because the movie soundtrack roars to life.

Over my shoulder, I watch the girls cowering together near the stairs. One, with brown eyes and tawny skin, pales as she peers over the banister from her jailors to Fenris.

I pat the girl in my arms and point downstairs. She’s thin, glassy-eyed—with fear, drugs, or both, I don’t know—but I leave Grey with the chore of getting the girls to the first floor. I have to go back for more prisoners. I have to find Shondra.

I won’t leave anyone behind.

Not this time.

My feet fly down the length of the balcony at super human speed, my hands ripping locks off their hasps and busting doors off their hinges. I’m over doing it, I suppose, and I hate to frighten the girls more, but there’s no time to be gentle if we’re going to get them out.

A blood congealing scream pierces the air. Below, Fenris holds a man’s thigh in his jaws.

“Shoot him, dammit. Shoot him!”

Grey fights three at once.

I have to get down there.

Racing in and out of rooms, I yank girls out of beds and force them toward the stairs. The final two doors are empty shower stalls, and with the last hostages routed, I herd them across the narrow balcony to the stairs like cattle down a shoot.

Asian, White, Black, Hispanic. None of the faces belong to my old friend, Shondra. I know in my heart she’s gone, and the belief makes me even more determined to help the ones that
are
here.

The girls aren’t moving fast enough, though. I wave my arms and yell words in any language I can think of that might make them move. “Peligro. Run. Vamos, Police. Gunfire.”

G
unfire?

Popping noises ring out from the ground floor. I can’t tell if it’s the movie or real, but I take nothing for granted and hurtle myself over the banister to the floor below. Flight is as easy as breathing for me now. I don’t fly horizontally, it’s really more of a standing hover, but it gets the job done. My body floats above one of the men holding a gun, his sights on Fenris. I drop onto his shoulders before he pulls the trigger.

He lurches forward, and I roll to the floor as his gun goes off.
The bullet ricochets off something on one of the tables. Glass shatters in a spray of liquid sparks, and an instant fire erupts in the corner of the room.

The goon I jumped grabs me by the head and rams his knee into my face.

Pain explodes behind my eyes, and my sight disintegrates into shooting silver stars on a black screen.

I work a knife from my boot, drop to the floor and roll forward into his shins to throw him off balance. Using Alarr’s strength, and with one hard thrust of my arm, I plunge the knife deep into his calf.

With a shriek, he crumples on top of me. His elbow digs in my ribs and crushes the air from my lungs.

I hurl him off and get to my feet. The first, clear view of my enemy reveals shaggy, dark hair and graying beard. The creep wobbles, trying to get on his knees.

Forget it, man.

My hand curls into a fist, and I hit him so hard he flies back three feet. “That’s for Shondra!” I race forward and kick the pistol from his hand.

My nose throbs. I swipe my upper lip, wipe the blood onto my pants, and whirl to find a new opponent.

Jeff was right—the swelling from a busted nose makes it hard to see. Still, I make out Grey’s blurry image fighting two men—a bald guy and another middle-aged, silver haired man. Blood oozes over Grey’s right eye. It’s probably no worse than my nose, but it looks awful, and my stomach bucks at the sight.

To the left, a man bawls as my monster-wolf chews his leg as though it were Kentucky Fried.

“Fenris!” I yell. “Help Grey.”

Fenris’s eyes narrow as though I’ve spoiled his fun, but he turns and leaps on the silver haired goon who punished Grey’s jaw with a mean right cross.

Fire consumes the table where it began, flames tonguing the wall, adjoining tables, and threatening the gas tanks. There’s a pop and a sizzle like an amplified snake’s hiss. Sparks launch across the room to begin feeding on the staircase.

More shots are fired, the pellets of a semi-automatic raining down and clinking at the feet of the gunman. As they penetrate the wall over the stairs, my eyes focus on the second floor, where a dozen girls crouch against the landing.

“Stop shooting, you idiot. Let them go!” the bald guy yells. “The whole place is gonna blow.”

Grey takes the opportunity to clock Baldie with the butt of a rifle he’s found, dropping him like a rhino hit with an H&H magnum, full metal jacket.

Nice.

“Bird!” Grey runs to my side, his eyebrows knit together as he reaches for my face, but his hands pull back without touching me. “That’s enough, we’re finished here.”

“I’m not leaving. We need to find the Snatcher. There won’t be another chance.”

“The girls are getting out. That’s what’s important.”

I glance around the room. Fenris has a man cornered near the stairs. Three others lay on the floor, unconscious, but four are struggling to their feet.

“If he gets away, he’ll take more girls.”

“Dammit, Bird! That wasn’t the plan. You are my first priority.”

A bell dings to my left, and the elevator door slides open. A group of men exit, and my heart sinks at the thought there are more to fight.

Nothing unusual strikes me about any of the men until one emerges from the pack. He’s taller than the others, wears a long, black trench coat and military style boots. Thugtastic. Despite the fact it’s four a.m., his sunglasses cement the image of a blond, ‘Sven’-type bad guy from a cheap action movie. He turns and faces me.

Fenris lets loose with a roar that reverberates through my chest and rushes toward ‘Sven’. Half a dozen men stand in front of their leader. Three spring toward Grey, two head for me.

Fire burns out of control around us, and sweat runs down my forehead, stinging my eyes. Grey and I square our shoulders and face them together.

“Go!” Grey yells. “I’ll hold them. You get the hell out of here.”

There’s no time to run even if I was low enough to desert him. I know he knows that, but his bravery shores me up.

Screams filter down from the loft. Fire engulfs the balcony, endangering the lives of the girls I’m here to save. I can’t help them until I deal with the apes in front of me.

I jump into the air, grab my knees, tuck, and roll over their heads.

Approaching sirens whine somewhere in the distance.

Thank you, God.

I spin to meet my attackers when someone else grabs me from behind. My shoulders burn in their sockets as my arms are pinned together, another set of arms secures my legs. As a hand slides up my stomach to my chest, my skin crawls, and I shudder.

“Relax, sweetheart.” The voice that speaks is soft and serpentine-like in my ear.

Somehow, I know it’s Sven.

I draw from Alarr to throw him off when he says, “I only want this …” Through my shirt, his hand closes around Alarr, and he rips it from my neck.

My strength drains like gas from a siphon, and I sag against my captor. My head aches, heart pounds, and knee throbs. With my power gone, my wounds go from a one to a ten on the pain scale. Blood clots in my nose, obstructing my airway.

“Come with me, or I’ll kill them. And him.” Rough hands yank me to the right. Black and orange swirls against the ceiling. Through the mounting inferno, I view a man, his rifle trained on Grey.

A duck and counter hit shows he’s handling himself pretty well, but his movements are slowing. He’s tiring, fighting with his own strength now that Alarr has been taken from me.

“Done,” I say, loud enough for Sven to hear me. “Don’t hurt him, please.” I’m forced back toward the elevator. “Fenris,” I scream, “Help Grey. Help him!” My throat clogs with smoke, and my lungs burn with coughing.

Half a dozen men or more pin Fenris to the ground. They’re smart enough to avoid his snapping jaws, but he’s strong and determined. They won’t hold him long.

Grey smashes the face of a man to his left. “Bird, no! Fight them!”

The fear in his voice guts me, but what choice do I have? Our footsteps thud against the steel floor as we enter the car. There’s a metallic taste in my mouth from the blood I swallow.

Two strides ahead, another man blocks Grey’s path. Brow furrowed, he flies at his opponent, hitting him in the stomach. The henchman doubles over, and Grey puts a boot in his face.

The sirens cry louder. They’ll be here any minute. “Help the girls, Grey. Get them out!”

His eyes are wild, fierce. He shakes his head no. As he jumps over a fallen body, his fists continue to swing, punishing those who challenge him.

Two more men pile into the elevator and slide around us to the rear. A voice from behind says, “Boss, the whole damn place is torched.”

Fenris breaks free of his human bonds and rockets across the room. My werewolf bites into the throat of one before he can reach Grey. Another man outside the elevator fires a gun, and Fenris yelps in pain. I can’t see where he’s hit or how bad.

“Don’t!” My shoulders jerk in vain against the arms that bind me. I don’t know if it’s anger or helplessness that fills my eyes with tears.

Through the smoke, I glimpse a few girls slip out the door into the night and freedom. This time, it’s my turn to stay. I scan the floor, view the unconscious men sprawled out there who will surely burn to death if left alone.

Do I care? I do.

“Well, Ms. Strongwing?” says Sven. “We’re ready when you are.”

Grey and Fenris still fight to get to me. They will kill themselves for me if I let them. I glance down at the control panel on the inside of the elevator. It’s not complicated. There are two buttons: open and close.

I yell to Grey, “Save them! Get yourself out!” and mouth
I love you
before
I punch the ‘close’ button on the panel with my fist. The sliding of the doors narrows my view of Grey until he’s gone.