Page 80 of Wilde and Untamed
He swallowed the protest rising in his throat. Griffin was right to be cautious—they had no idea what they were walking into—but it didn’t make waiting any easier.
“On my signal,” Griffin said over the comms. “Three... two... one.”
The door broke surprisingly easily under Dom’s boot. He rushed in, rifle up, heart hammering against his ribs. The smell hit him first, stale air mingled with something like… coffee?
“Clear!” Sabin called from his left.
“Clear right!” another team member echoed.
Dom lowered his weapon slightly, eyes adjusting to the dim interior. The room before them was a snapshot frozen in time—coffee mugs on tables, chairs pushed back as if their occupants had just stepped away. But while some things looked like they hadn’t been disturbed in a long time, others appeared to have been freshly moved. There was a nest of blankets on the couch, and two mugs on the table that still had unfrozen coffee in them.
Sabin moved into the kitchenette and pulled off his glove, hovering his hand over the stove there. “Stove’s still warm. Somebody been playin’ house here not too long ago.”
So was the air, Dom realized. If this place were truly abandoned, it would be nearly as cold inside as outside. “They’re here. El!” he called. “Elliot! Rue!”
Only silence answered.
“Clear every room,” Griff ordered. “Dom, Sabin, with me.”
Dom nodded, following Griffin down the hallway. They checked room after room—bunkrooms with beds still unmade, a lab with equipment neatly arranged, an industrial kitchen with supplies stacked in cabinets.
No signs of struggle.
No blood.
But also no Elliot.
No Rue.
“There’s a door at the end of the corridor,” Griffin said. “Padlocked. Think you can get in, Sabin? I’d rather not use a door charge if we don’t need to.”
Dom’s pulse quickened as he jogged down the hallway, boots thudding against the metal floor. When he rounded the corner, he saw Griffin standing before a heavy steel door with a massive padlock securing it. Unlike the rest of the station, which felt like someone might return at any moment, this door had been deliberately sealed.
“Someone didn’t want whatever’s in there getting out,” Sabin muttered, his Cajun accent thickening as he studied the lock. “I know this movie,mon ami. Don’t much care for the ending, either.”
“Can you get in or not?” Griffin snapped. He didn’t have a whole lot of patience for Sabin on a good day.
“Pfft. You wound me. Padlock like that? Might as well leave the key under the mat.” He stripped off his gloves and crouched in front of the door, pulling a battered leather kit from his pocket.
“Merde.” He blew on his hands before unrolling the picks. “Cold as a witch’s tit in January.”
“Less complaining,” Griff said dryly, “more breaking and entering.”
Moments later, the lock fell to the floor with a heavy clunk, and Sabin backed away from the door. “Voilà. Dibs on the flamethrower if there’s a shapeshifting alien in there.”
“Weapons ready,” Griffin ordered. “Stack up.”
Dom’s palms were slick with sweat inside his gloves as he raised his rifle. The door swung open with a groan of protest, releasing a blast of frigid air that smelled wrong—antiseptic and something else, something that made his stomach churn.
“Jesus, Mary, and all the saints,” Sabin whispered.
Dom’s breath caught in his throat as he stepped into what had once been a laboratory. Equipment lay scattered across workstations like someone had swept it all aside in a panic. Broken glass crunched under his boots, and he caught sight of sample containers lined up on one shelf, each one containing something black and viscous that made his skin crawl.
But that wasn’t what made his blood turn to ice water.
“Found them,” Griffin called from deeper in the room, his voice tight with controlled disgust.
No.
