Relentless (22 page)

Brynna glanced between the two of us.

“Stop it,” I hissed.

“I’m not doing anything.” She started to smile.

I shoved a fry in my mouth and ignored her.

We all stacked our boxes near the door. After a while, the guards returned with the cart. When they’d collected our trash, they left, and all was quiet again. After he ate, Robert appeared exhausted. He hadn’t yet been able to speak without slurring his words, and occasionally he’d doze off in the middle of a sentence. He’d gone to his cot, and now I could see his breathing was slow and even. I hoped he’d return to his normal self eventually.

It was several hours before the guards returned and trained their guns on us, pulling Lana and Robert from the cells. We could only watch as they marched them away.

Jared gripped the steel bars and gritted his teeth. “I’m going to pull these bars apart and get out of here. We can catch them before they get to wherever they’re going.”

“And do what?” Brynna twisted her head to look down the hall and held up her hand. “Wait, someone else is coming.”

A figured appeared in the hall wearing jeans and a light hoody. Though she didn’t have on a coat, her boots had a dusting of snow on them that hadn’t had time to melt, making me think she’d just come in from outside. She carried a tote bag on her shoulder, and she stopped in front of our cell and opened the bag then passed bottled water to us. My anger boiled over.

“Valkyries, huh? So what is Thea Artimus the Valkyrie doing here?”

“Shhh. Just keep quiet and listen to me. It’s not what you think. Don’t do anything yet. Stay where you are. We’re working on a plan to get all of you out.”

“How did you get in here?”

She snorted. “I’ve been here for over a year. I work in the kitchen, and I was sent down here to deliver you water. I’ll try and get back, but I can’t just come down here for no reason, not until it’s time to leave. No one knows I’m not Fenryrian.”

“How?”

“Don’t worry how. It’s what we do. This will be the end for me here when I get you out. Can’t be helped at this point, I guess. I’ll be back when we’re ready. There’s a lot to do, and we have to get someone else out, too.”

“Who?” For a moment my heart gave a few beats of hope.

Her eyes hardened. “Not him, that’s for sure. You worry about yourself. Stupid thing you all did coming in here. What were you thinking?”

“We thought we could get them out faster than anyone else.” The explanation didn’t make much sense now, even to me. It had seemed perfectly reasonable in the beginning, though.

“Well, I guess having you here is a bit of a diversion since we would have had to try and get the others free.” She glanced to the cell where Myles and Jared stood pressed against the bars. “The extra manpower won’t hurt us, either. Stay put, and I’ll be back, but it’s going to be six or more hours. Maybe even tomorrow.”

She moved to the guys and handed them water. I guessed she was telling them much the same thing she’d told me, judging by the looks on their faces. Once the water was handed out, she picked up her bag and left.

I opened my water and drank, moving toward the guys.

“What do you think?” Myles asked.

“About what?”

“The girl. Do you think it’s some kind of trap? I mean, how do we know she is who she says?”

“I know her. I met her on Dromen,” I said.

“She was at the school?” Myles moved closer to the bars, keeping his voice low.

“The night you towed me in on the Jet Ski.” I could see a questioning look on Jared’s face, but I wasn’t going to explain now.

“I was with you the whole time after that until you went inside. I never saw her.”

I shivered a little, remembering the shock of finding Thea sitting in the chair by my window. “She was waiting for me in my room.”

“In your room? But why?”

“She wanted to talk to me about the Valkyries.”

Myriad emotions played across Myles’ face. I understood. He wanted to be chosen for the Einherjar. He knew what it was and what it meant. Yet they hadn’t come to his room to talk to him. Hadn’t singled him out. They’d come to me, the girl in love with a boy from the other pack. A girl who had said over and over to him she’d leave her own pack and join the other.

“I’m sorry, Myles. I don’t know why they wanted to talk to me.”

That wasn’t entirely true. I was fairly certain I did know why they’d come. At least I did now. I imagined Vincent Unger had encouraged them to ask me, though I was certain he hadn’t told them about our relationship, if he even knew. He often took up for me and tried to help me, which made me wonder if maybe Brodin didn’t know everything. Maybe Vincent knew exactly who I was. I rubbed my palm across my forehead. I wouldn’t, couldn’t tell Myles that. I couldn’t tell any of my friends, not now. Not just because Noah had said not to, but because it was so huge I couldn’t even digest it myself. If it had been this important to keep it a secret my whole life, maybe it needed to stay secret.

“It doesn’t matter,” Myles said softly, bringing my thoughts back to the immediate conversation.

“Maybe they knew what I was doing, meeting Eric, and wanted to give me the opportunity to become more ingrained in my own pack. They might have been trying to make me feel like I was needed by my pack.”

“Just shut up, you’re not helping.” Brynna’s mouth was right behind my ear, so close my hair moved as she spoke.

I clamped my lips together. She was right. Myles frowned and walked back to his cot.

Jared, who had been quiet thus far, looked confusedly between me and Myles. “What do we do now?”

Myles looked up from where he sat on the edge of his small bed. “We wait.”

And so we did.

We’d left behind cell phones in the motor home, except for the one Robert had carried to use to call our pack if needed. But the Fenryrians had taken that from him. Now, with no windows, it was impossible to tell the passage of time. The lights never went off, never dimmed. We lay on our cots and waited, slept, talked about nothing in particular, trying not to think about what lay ahead of us. No one dared speculate what might be happening to Robert and Lana. Another meal was served—an omelet. It might have indicated it was morning and this was breakfast, but who knew? Sandwiches came around several hours later.

A long time after the sandwiches had been delivered and the leftovers picked up and carted away, I heard movement down the hall. Several pairs of feet headed in our direction. We all left our cots and moved to the front of the cells. Three figures appeared, all bundled in winter clothes, their faces obscured by hats and scarves. I met Thea’s eyes and knew our time had come.  Judging by their size, the other two with her were guys. One of them stopped in front of our cell and punched a code into the lock on the door. Nothing happened. He paused and punched the keypad again. Nothing. He glanced questioningly to Thea.

“Try again. Slower this time.” I could hear the strain in her words.

His fingers moved deliberately, one touch then another. When he dropped his hands, I caught the bars in my hands and shook the door. It didn’t open.

“They’ve changed the code.” The man’s voice came through the scarf covering his mouth.

I turned to Thea. “What now?”

She shook her head then looked at me. “We’ll have to leave and either get the new code or a different plan.” She was silent for a moment. “I don’t know that we’ll be able to get you out. We can rescue those in the lab, but it could be a while before we find the code.”

In the next cell, the guys had moved from in front of their door to see what was happening with us.

“What’s wrong?” Myles hissed, his hands wrapped tightly around the bars.

“The code’s been changed.” Beside me, Brynna’s shoulders dropped slightly as she spoke. “They can’t get us out. We have to stay here, but they’ll get Lana and Robert out.”

“Oh, hell no.” Jared’s voice echoed against the rock. “We get out now.”

He stepped to the front of the cell, and I wanted to tell him it was pointless. Why would they build a cell for werewolves and not make it strong enough to withstand an onslaught from a powerful one? But I didn’t say anything. I wanted to believe that he could bend the steel. His hands closed around the bars.

“What’s he doing?” Thea stepped closer to our cell.

“He thinks he can bend the bars,” I said.

The guy who’d been punching the keypad snorted. “Yeah, right.”

Jared paused and looked around at us. “I need all of you to stop being negative. I need you to concentrate on me and see me making these bars move.”

“That’s going to help?” Thea asked sarcastically.

“Just do it.” I banged my hand against the bar.

We all focused on Jared, even though the others were skeptical. His hands tightened on the bars, and I could have sworn I saw them tremble in his grasp. The muscles in his forearms began to bulge, and a droplet of sweat formed on his forehead and started a slow track down the side of his face until it dripped off his jaw. In his hands, the bars groaned then started to bend. My heart began to hammer in my chest, and I willed any strength I had to him. I think at the first movement of the steel everyone concentrated harder. It seemed that once the movement started, the hardened steel gave way completely, and a large opening formed in the front of the cell.  Jared’s hand dropped from the bars to his knees, and he bent over, panting from exertion.

“Can you do it again?” Thea’s eyes never left Jared as she spoke.

Myles stepped through the opening in the bars, and Jared followed. He stopped in front of our cell. Our three rescuers, who couldn’t seem to rescue us, stepped aside.

I moved in front of Jared, and he wiped a hand across his damp forehead before gripping the bars.

Touching my fingertips to his knuckles, I leaned toward him. “If it’s too much, if you can’t get us out. It’s okay,” I said softly. “You get out of here without us.”

He took my hand in one of his. “You’re leaving here with me. Non-negotiable.”

He let me go, grabbed the bars, and inhaled deeply. His breath came out in a slight groan, and he strained against the bars. They yielded immediately, forming an opening big enough for Brynna and me to squeeze through.

When Jared turned, the three rescuers were staring at him.

“How did you do that?” Thea reached out and touched his forearm, pushing her fingers against the muscles.

“Because I had to,” he responded in a clipped voice. “Can you get us the rest of the way out of here now?”

His words jarred the others into action. They led us back the way they’d come. The same way I’d gone before, for my meeting with Brodin. We passed the heavy door that led into Brodin’s office and came to a steel door with a keypad. One of the guys with Thea punched a code into this keypad, and thankfully the door opened. We went through, and the door slid noiselessly shut behind us. My chest tightened, and I felt a little claustrophobic in the small hallway. From beneath their jackets, the three pulled swords, and one pulled a dart gun much like the one the guards had used on Robert. As Thea removed a short sword from her waist, I could see she wore her savalin underneath her coat. Hanging from her side was the jalmar. The sight of the huge sword gave me chills. I could still remember it slicing through the air as Vincent Unger used it to kill Channing. I hadn’t known the sword had a name then. I’d recently learned that in my history class. Werewolves could be killed by having their bodies destroyed and burned or by being beheaded with the jalmar.  Only the special steel of the jalmar was capable of completely cutting through the muscle and bone of a werewolf in human or wolf form. There weren’t millions of the swords lying around. Only a select few were allowed to carry them. The fact that Thea had one told me they had come prepared to kill if needed.

Another steel door faced us, and as the man with her punched codes again, she turned.

“We have to fight now. This is where your friends are. The red-headed one comes with us, too. Do not hurt him. He will not fight us.”

“The red-headed one?” Brynna glanced at me. “Who is that?”

“The guy who came for me yesterday, Noah.”

“But why is he coming?”

Thea had already turned her back on us, and I shrugged. There wasn’t time for talk as the door slid open and we rushed into the room. The Valkyrie and Einherjars took out the two guards at the door. I paused to get the layout of the room. For a moment, I couldn’t move.

We were in a weird lab with a chair in the middle of the floor. It was like a dentist’s chair. A limp and barely conscious Noah was strapped into it. A bag of blue fluid hung on a pole directly above him. He was shirtless, and in the bright light, his tattoos stood out sharply against his skin. A wedge shape arced over each shoulder, the interior of the design filled with swirls and knots. It flowed down his arms and across the upper part of his chest.

Robert leaned over him with a needle in his hand, and beside him, Lana was arranging tubes of blood that had already been drawn.  Behind them, three lab workers spun when they heard us enter and immediately transformed to their wolf state. My skin started to tremble, and I made a conscious decision not to transform. I had no weapons except my body, and I wanted to fight in my human form, protective suit or not. None of us could afford to change. We didn’t have any more clothes with us, and we were about to go outside in the cold. An alarm sounded somewhere in the building, and Thea jammed a wedge into the door behind us. I rushed forward to grab a wolf that had leapt onto Jared. I jerked the wolf away, but its teeth still managed to shred the skin of Jared’s arm. He rolled on top, immediately grabbing the head of the wolf. I looked across to Thea’s friend with the dart pistol.

“Shoot now!” I shouted.

He sprang across two tables between us, pointing the pistol as Jared threw the wolf up and away. The dart found its mark in the wolf’s shoulder. The animal’s eyes flared, and when he landed, he rushed me. He hit me at a full run, knocking me to the ground, his teeth closing over my shoulder. The pain took my breath, but I got my feet under the wolf’s belly, pushing him away. Suddenly the huge jaws relaxed, and the weight of the body collapsed onto me. I rolled him off.

Overhead the alarm stopped, and an odd quiet fell over the room. Outside the door, I could hear shouting. One of the Einherjar pointed to the back of the lab.

“There’s an emergency exit that way,” he shouted. “Hurry!”

Lana had pulled the intravenous needle from Noah’s arm, and she was pressing a handful of gauze against his skin.

“Get him up; he has to come,” Thea shouted at her.

“He can’t.” Lana pulled the gauze away and dropped it to the floor. “I don’t even know if he’ll live after what they had us do.”

Thea looked at Jared. “Can you bring him?”

He nodded and headed to the chair. With a grunt, he hoisted Noah over his shoulder, the other boy’s arms hanging limply toward the floor. I turned to follow him, but Lana began picking up the tubes of blood, sticking them in the pockets of the lab coat she wore.

“Forget those and come on,” I shouted.

“No!” She grabbed the last one before running after us. “I can’t leave his blood here. They may have some stored somewhere, but I won’t risk leaving this in case they don’t.”

I wanted to ask why she couldn’t leave his blood here and, for that matter, what they had been doing to Noah, but I didn’t have time.

“Let’s go!” Thea headed to the back of the lab. There was no keypad, and she shoved the door open. She went first, with her two friends bringing up the rear behind all of us. The last one carried the silver pole that had held the IV fluid for Noah. He jammed the pole into the door, blocking it. He turned to see me looking.

“It won’t hold them long. Maybe five seconds, but it’s something.”

The door had opened onto a set of stairs, and we immediately started climbing. We came to a landing, and the stairs continued upward. We ran as hard as we could. Already my legs had begun to tire. I hadn’t realized we were so deep inside the mountain.

Behind me, Jared paused and shifted Noah’s weight.

“Why don’t you let someone else carry him?”

“I’ve got it,” he grunted.

I could hear banging behind us as the Fenryrian guards, probably with Brodin, hit the blocked door. The stairwell made another abrupt turn ahead, and just before I reached the landing, a gust of freezing wind hit me in the face. I shivered but began taking the steps two at a time. At the top of the stairs, Thea held the door open while snow whirled inside to cover the concrete floor. I rushed through it and landed waist deep in a snow bank.

“Move!” she screamed at me.

I struggled to my feet. Lana, Myles, Brynna, and Robert were in the edge of some trees, but I could barely see them. The wind swirled, and everything was white around me.

“Thea!” I screamed.

A hand gripped my shoulder and shoved me forward. “I said go.”

I scrambled blindly toward where I’d last seen trees, then the air cleared, and I could see again. The two Einherjar motioned for Myles, Robert, and Jared to come with them. Jared placed Noah on the piled snow and raced forward. They stood beside a huge, snow-covered boulder ten feet from the door. The five of them began pushing it. Their grunts and groans were audible above the roaring wind, and I ran over and leaned my shoulder into the rock. Brynna and Thea were right behind me while Lana waited beside Noah. The boulder inched forward then began to slide steadily until it was completely blocking the door.

“Another five seconds,” the guy said to me as he ran past, grabbing my upper arm and dragging me with him. Jared picked up Noah, and we were on the move again.

We ran as fast as we could through the deep snow. I had no way of knowing how long we’d been moving. Ahead of me, Thea caught Lana and spun her around, bringing all of us to a stop.

“How much longer will he be unconscious?”

“I don’t know!” Lana shouted over the wind.

“We need to be able to shift to wolf form. We can travel better like that. When did they knock him out?”

Lana shook her head. “They didn’t dart him.”

Thea frowned. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s sick. I don’t know when he’ll wake up. I’m not even sure he will wake up.”

“Are you saying whatever you did to him will kill him?”

“I don’t know.” Lana was crying now, wiping at the half-frozen tears with the back of her hand.

“He cannot die.” Thea kicked at the snow. “You have no idea how important he is.”

Lana was shaking her head. “I do know how important he is. They made us work on him.”

“We have to climb up to the top of the mountain. There’s a cave there.”

Myles laughed. “You think they can’t find us?”

Thea turned on him. “Of course they can find us. But we’ll have a better chance when we get out of this snow. The cave is part of a tunnel system, and it leads back down the mountain. Once we get down, we can find transportation and maybe get away. They can’t find us when we’re on the road.”