Page 49 of The Alpha

“Yessssk.”

Lany shrugged and hurried back the way they’d come. Dallan and the others were waiting not far away, and they didn’t have a moment to lose. “Okay, everyone’s been taken down in the main lab.”

“There was smokessssk,” Tylahs said from the backpack.

“Smoke?” Dallan said. “A fire?”

“It came from the ceiling and smelled badsssk.”

“Then we’d better hurry this up.” Dallan forged ahead, leading the way. Lany, Kwaku, Markhel and Asher followed. Zara brought up the rear.

“That waysssk,” Tylahs called as he poked his head out of the backpack. “The big metal doorsssk!”

Dallan reached it, peeked through the small windows and motioned everyone to follow. “I see them.”

He entered and wrinkled his nose. “Hurry.”

Lany frowned and covered his nose and mouth with one arm. “Smells like some kind of gas. Don’t breathe it in.”

Tylahs ducked his head back into the backpack. Men littered the floor, and Lany had to step over a few to get to the two glass and concrete cells at the far wall. Melvale was in one of them, clad in a hospital gown, his wrists and ankles chained. He looked like he was out cold. Probably from the gas still lingering in the air. “Let’s hurry.”

A girl with pink hair, also wearing a hospital gown, lay a few feet from a chubby dark-haired man wearing a white lab coat. His dark rimmed glasses were askew on his face, and he had a key card in his hand.

Lany frowned. “I think he’s holding what we need to get these doors open.”

“Like this one?” Markhel said and plucked a similar card from one of the unconscious guards.

“Yes.” Lany approached, took the card from him then studied the lock on their side of the door.

“Hurry, Master Lany,” Dallan urged.

Lany slid the card through the slot, and there came a decisive click. The door slid open.

“Kwaku, Markhel,” Dallan barked. “Get Melvale out of here!”

Lany went to the next cell, ran the card through, and the same click sounded followed by the door opening.

Dallan hurried into the cell, scooped up the girl, and headed out. “Archer, Master Lany, bring that one.” Dallan tossed his head at the man still in the cell. “We’ll question him.”

Lany looked at Archer with raised eyebrows then reached for the unconscious man. Each took one end of him, and they carried him from the cell. An alarm sounded, this one louder than the first, and Lany spied the cameras in both cells. “We’ve been found out! Hurry!”

They left the lab and started racing for the exit they discovered earlier. Lany was already tiring. “Archer, this is too awkward!”

Archer didn’t hesitate. He picked up the man like a sack of meal, slung him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and took off down the hall at a run.

“Being half Muiraran must be nice,” Lany muttered and took off after him.

They sprinted down a connecting hallway, the sound of booted feet getting closer. Lany was sure their pursuers were well armed. He and the others would have to take the exit they found earlier, then sprint across a wide expanse of open ground, unless Dallan told Shona to have Evan bring the car. If so, Markhel would have left Melvale with Kwaku and Zara at this point and was sprinting for the van.

They reached the building’s exit moments later and burst through the door. Sure enough, the car and van were racing toward them.

Gun fire exploded through the air, and Dallan put his back to the sound, protecting his precious cargo.

“They’re on that roof,” Lany called out as he spied two gunmen atop an outbuilding. They took aim at the vehicles and fired off another round, trying to hit the tires most likely. Good, they didn’t want to risk hitting Melvale or his mate.

Lany glanced at her. She was young, like Shona, with a pixielike face and short pink hair.

He gave his attention back to the fast-approaching vehicles. They’d shoot the tires up as soon as the vehicles stopped to let all of them in. “Dallan or Kwaku… do something…”

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