Replica (The Blood Borne Series Book 2) (28 page)

A howl I knew all too well.

“Fuck it all, Ivan,” I snarled. “You’re going to get us all killed.”

I sprinted down the hall, following his scent to a wide open room—a small ballroom by the looks of it. But why would there be a ballroom in a facility like this one? I took one step inside before the room’s lights dimmed. I froze and watched as an image flickered to life in front of me, about halfway across the open space. A tall auburn-haired woman with pale gray eyes smiled at me.

“Ivan.” She breathed his name and held a hand out to me. “My love, come to me.” She glanced over her shoulder, a full body shudder rippling over her. The scent of roses and fear wafted into the room.

Fuck, whoever had put this hologram together was good. I could see the glimmer of sweat on her brow, the flicker of uncertainty in her eye, even the twitch of her muscles as she seemed to fight something.

I held my ground and she went to her knees, pleading. “Ivan, don’t leave me here. Please!” The words sang between us. She tried to move toward me on her hands and knees and then flipped onto her back, her whole body convulsing as if electricity were being run through it. “IVAN!”

From below us came a howl full of pain and grief.

“Fuck, this is going to get ugly.”

Unraveling the rope from my waist, I tied it around both sides of the doorknob behind me and then made a slip knot on the other end. I grabbed the knot and tightened it around my wrist, grabbing the rope as well.

I gritted my teeth and walked toward the image of Ivan’s wife. Each step I took shuddered beneath me—a portent of what I knew was coming. Ivan would have run to her, never noticing the shift in the floor.

As I reached her, the image flickered and went out, and the floor dropped out below me. I swung down into the darkness. The jerk at the end of the line snapped my body sideways and I slammed into a slick metal wall.

“Ivan.”

Something shifted below me, and I looked down. There were four werewolves, three with glowing red eyes. Their bodies were hulking, huge and covered in dark fur. Except for the one whose coat was several shades lighter.
He
looked up at me with a pair of chartreuse eyes I had grown rather fond of.

“Ivan, move it, wolf. Despite my propensity for a long life, I’m not going to wait forever.”

He leapt up to me, his claws digging into my hips. I gritted my teeth, biting the words out. “Get your ass up here.”

He climbed up my body, pausing only to lick my cheek before continuing up. A lick from a werewolf should not have made me smile.

Damn the grin on my face.

As soon as he was above me, I started up after him. And was grabbed from below by a set of teeth that clamped into my left foot. “Let go, you fucker!”

I lifted that one foot high enough that I could slash at the werewolf with my free hand. The silver stake cut across his face diagonally, popping one of his eyeballs. Screaming, he fell back to the ground with a thud.

Then the rope jerked upward and I was out of the hole in a matter of seconds.

Ivan’s body had returned to his human form. And he was buck fucking naked. I snapped my eyes upward, doing my best to un-see what I’d seen.

“Come on, we have to get back to Rachel,” I said. “Knowing her, she’s already on her way. I’ve been gone for almost forty-five minutes.”

“Why did you come for me?”

I untied the rope and pushed past him. “We’ve got to move.”

“Lea, why did you come for me?”

I could have lied, could have told him he was just a part of the team. That Rachel had made me come after him.

I spun around, grabbed his face and kissed him. His arms wrapped around me, crushing me to him. I pulled back after a few seconds. “Because.”

“Because?” He grinned, and there he was. The wolf I’d first met in the taxi.

“Yeah. Because. No gloating. Let’s get Rachel, kill Stravinsky and blow this place the fuck up.”

“I notice there was no mention of finding clothes for me,” he said.

“I assumed that was automatically on the list.”

He snorted. “I think you like the show.”

“Well, you certainly like giving it.”

He burst out laughing. “Oh, Lea. Every time I think I have you pegged, you surprise me.”

We were already out of the ballroom, headed back the way I’d come. He grabbed my shoulder and tugged me back toward the last intersection, his nose in the air. “Wait.”

Oh, fuck no. “Don’t tell me she’s in here already.”

He grimaced and shrugged. “Both of them. She’s got Antonio with her. And there are wolves on her ass if I’m smelling right.”

I pushed him. “Go, go!” Another time I would have enjoyed the view, but fear coursed through me. Rachel was already in here, and with only Antonio to help her...
Madre de Dios,
we were all going to die.

CHAPTER 30

RACHEL

“We have to set those explosives and get the fuck out of here,” Antonio hissed in my ear.

“Not until we stop them from killing those people.”

He grabbed my shoulders and leaned back to look into my face. “How do you propose we do that?”

“I don’t know, but I have to at least try.” I tried to jerk loose, but he held me in place.

“Stop and think this through. There are only two of us against all of them. It’s one thing to sneak in here and set explosives, but it’s another thing entirely to take them head on.”

“Then you go set the explosives, and I’ll take on the other mission.”

He cursed in Spanish, then pulled me closer. “And if I drag you out of here?”

I snorted. “You can try, but I highly doubt you’ll be capable of fathering children if you do.” His hesitation irritated the shit out of me. “You would seriously let them kill those people?”

“It’s not like I’m pulling the trigger,” he said defensively. “And if the odds were even slightly bent in our favor, I would consider it. But it’s a suicide mission. If we do this, then we run the risk that we won’t get to set the explosives. If we don’t destroy this place, a lot more villages will be destroyed.”

He had a point, as much as I loathed admitting it. “Fine. We set the explosives first, then stop them from gassing those babies.”

“We still have to figure out
how
to stop them.”

“The man in charge agreed to the plan of spraying down the village. Which means they’ll use some kind of vehicle, which is probably in the underground garage. I saw the location on the schematics. I know how to get there. We set the bombs, then find the garage and figure out how to proceed from there.”

“And if we make it to the garage and still don’t see what we’re looking for? Or if we get detained while the bombs are ticking down?”

“I never asked you to help, Antonio. This was never your mission. It’s mine. So why don’t you help me set the explosives and then get out of here. Wait for me by the truck, and if I’m not back when the place blows, you’ll know I didn’t make it.”

“Are you insane?” he asked. “You think I would leave you here?”

“Why would you stay?” I asked, just as incredulous as he’d sounded. “You only met me days ago. You feel no obligation to save that village. Why would you feel differently about me?”

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and leaned his head closer to mine.

I pulled back. “If you try to kiss me, I will seriously hurt you. Fucking priorities, dude.” Then I shoved him back and opened the door, bursting into the hall, which was a stupid thing to do. I should have at least checked to make sure the coast was clear.

But Antonio drove me crazy, because part of me wanted to kiss him, and another part kept reminding me of how Sean had tried to seduce and use me. I couldn’t fall for it again.

I took off toward the ventilation room, Antonio on my heels. I’d essentially memorized the plans, so I knew the laboratories were close. It made sense that this area would be more heavily guarded, so it didn’t surprise me when I heard the faint sound of voices at the next intersection we reached.

Antonio must have heard it too, because he pulled a handgun out of the holster at his side.

I moved with my back against the wall, drawing my own gun. “The lab is sure to have the antidote.”

“Remember our deal? Explosives first,” he whispered into my ear. “Then we can do it your way.”

This plan was a huge risk. We were damn lucky we hadn’t been caught yet. And we’d be even luckier to set the bombs and get out alive. Now we’d added another two major tasks—finding the antidote and tracking down the truck delivering the toxin. It really
was
a suicide mission. Not that I was changing my mind.

But first we had to make it past the hallway without being noticed.

I peered around the right-hand side and saw two guards clustered further down the hall. They stood outside of what I was fairly sure was the lab. We’d deal with how to get in there later. I decided to take a chance. People had been wandering the hall earlier. We were far enough away that if they saw us, we could pass as employees. Besides, they were so engrossed with their conversation, they probably wouldn’t even notice us.

My plan almost worked. I crossed the hallway opening without being seen and Antonio was almost across when I heard one of the guards shout, “What are you doing in this section?”

“They sent me to maintenance to get a tool kit,” he said. “They’re having issues with the coupler again.”

“Yeah,” the guard said. “Whatever. Hurry it up. This section is off limits for the next half hour. We’re about to move a toxic chemical.”

“Yes, sir,” Antonio said, then joined me on the other side. He looked amazingly calm for having nearly been caught.

The ventilation room was locked, but Antonio pulled out the employee badge from the guard we’d tranquilized and held it up to the card reader. The door popped open and we slipped inside.

Setting up the explosives was easy—so much so, it made me nervous. I had to grudgingly admit Antonio was better at this than I was. He set up five bombs to my three, then set the timer. Looking up at me as he finished, he said, “You get forty-five minutes,
mi amor
. No more.”

More generous than I’d expected.

We hurried to the door. “If we can intercept the toxin in the hall, we can stop it from even getting to the transport,” he said. “Then we can get the hell out of here.”

“Maybe so, but it will be heavily guarded,” I said. “Not to mention that we’re dead if it spills. It would be safer to sabotage the transport vehicle or maybe even steal the vehicle it’s stored in.” Not to mention getting Ivan and Lea out before the place blew. If they were even inside.

“This is a crap plan,” he said.

“I know. Think of a better one and I’ll entertain it.”

But he didn’t. He remained remarkably stoic instead as he followed me down another hallway my map said led to the garage.

It was quiet when we got there. Quieter than I had expected it would be if they were loading a truck for a mission. I had learned enough from hanging around U.S. military missions to tell something was terribly wrong here.

“Hands in the air,” a deep voice said behind us.