Page 53 of Feral

This time I did hear a shot, but just the one.

Was there only one guard? I frowned, trying to peer through the windows, but all I saw from my hiding spot were moving shadows. Even before the escape attempt, there’d been several guards stationed by the entry point. It didn’t make much sense to decrease their numbers.

But moments later, Beau stuck his head out of the door and waved me forward, and I obeyed.

“There’re supposed to be more guards here,” I whispered as I finally entered the building, my old workplace, and saw a single man lying dead on the floor.

“There were double the amount of guards we expected around the perimeter,” Jerome said, his gaze sliding along the reception area. “They seem to have shifted their focus to shell protection since you left, probably wanting to give their men the higher ground in case of another break-out. Which way from here?”

I hesitated, focusing on the bond. It was pulling at me, but I wasn’t sure where to, except deeper into the compound. “Best bet is where they keep the test subjects.” I tried to step around him to lead the way, but he placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Need I remind you what happens to Barnes if you die?” he growled. “In the middle, at all times.”

I sighed and let Beau take the lead, followed by Larry and Eric. Directly behind me, Jarl closed in with Jerome taking up the rear.

“Through that door, down the hall,” I said. My heart thudded unevenly as the familiar smells of disinfectant and blood assaulted me. It was like returning to a nightmare, every flicker of the fluorescent lights forcing memories of the night of my escape to resurface in my brain. Only the knowledge that somewhere deep in the bowels of this hell was the key to my survival stopped me from turning around to flee.

Beau swiped the access card he’d stolen from the dead guard on the floor over the scanner, and the doors slid open with a hiss.

None of us were expecting the sharppop-pop-popthat immediately followed.

“Get down!” Jarl roared, throwing his heavy body on top of mine before I could so much as blink. Snarls erupted around us as heavy boots slammed against the concrete floors and more gunfire went off.

I shrieked as Beau fell next to us, glassy eyes wide open and a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his half-open mouth.

Another thud of a body hitting the ground made me twist underneath Jarl’s protective cover. An unfamiliar man in a dark guard uniform stared back at me, his face contorted in pain and blood spurting from between his lips. He gurgled something and reached for me. Jarl put a bullet in his brain before he could get close.

More gunfire went off above us, accompanied by roars of agony—but it was over quickly. When silence finally fell over the hallway again, five men in guard uniforms lay scattered on the floor.

Jerome knelt by Beau’s side, pressed his fingertips to his neck for a few moments, and then drew his hand over Beau’s face, closing the other man’s eyes. “Anyone else hurt?”

“Just a flesh wound,” Larry grunted. When I looked up, he had a hand pressed against his side. Blood seeped between his fingers.

“Fuckers must’ve seen us enter on security cams,” Eric growled as he tore a piece of fabric off one of the dead guards to bandage Larry’s wound. “Fuck!”

Jarl finally got off me and helped me to my feet. When he noticed me staring at Beau’s pale face, he put his hand on my shoulder. “He died for his brother’s freedom. Every last one of us is willing to sacrifice our lives to get Barnes out. This was a good death. Don’t feel sad.”

I didn’t say anything as I looked at the blond alpha who’d laid down his life to get me my mate back. I’d known him for a month—planned with him, relied on him. But I’d never really known him. I didn’t know any of these men who were here, risking their lives for me and Zach. And I realized then that to me, they were nothing more than the brawn and power I needed to make my bond stop tormenting me day and night. Staring at the man who’d died to protect me, I felt nothing but indifference.

It horrified me.

Over the past four weeks, I’d thought I’d become less damaged, that the fire of determination and single-minded hope was mending the torn place in my chest where that awful tether hooked in.

I’d been so very wrong.

“Come,” Jerome said as he got to his feet. “We’ll retrieve his body on the way out. But first, we have a mission to complete. Larry?”

“I’m good,” the injured alpha grunted, pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against with a grimace. “Let’s go.”

We continued deeper into the belly of the compound, our footfalls the only sound echoing around us—until we finally entered the lab where the feral alphas were held.

“Lord above,” Jarl murmured as I led them through the large room flanked by cage after cage of naked men. Several were empty, but a few of the alphas had disheveled-looking women by their sides. Seemed they’d gotten more alphas to claim mates while I’d been gone.

I steeled my jaw and kept my gaze on the end of the room where Zach and I had lived together for one miserable week. But when we got there, the cell was empty.

“They kept Barnes in here?” The disbelieving question had come from Larry, but judging by his companions’ tense expressions, they were all trying to come to terms with what had happened to their brother-in-arms.

“Yeah. They must’ve moved him after I… escaped.” I touched a hand to the bars and tried to think where they could have taken him. The infirmary?

---