Chapter 17
Seventeen
Brooks
The cop was gonna swing at me, I just knew it.
“For the last time,” Vikki said through her teeth, “hand over your phones, your tablets, whatever the fuck you’ve got, and get out.”
I laughed. “Who do you think owns this cabin, hon?” I said, hopping onto a free spot on the counter. “You can’t kick us out. And you can’t disconnect or risk losing data. So stow the dramatics already.”
“You want your pack to get out of there alive, right?” Vikki bit out. “Like, you’re not actually looking to get all of them killed? And us too, for good measure?”
“More than you do,” I snapped back. “It’s been over two weeks, and you still won’t fucking—”
“This is bigger than just—”
“—fates in the hands of a goddamn—”
“—no idea the risk you’ve put us all—”
“Shut up, both of you!” Brea stood between us, one hand held in each of our directions like we’d actually stepped in to start brawling. “We’re on the same team, remember?”
“Coulda fooled me,” I muttered, leaning back on my palms.
Brea groaned and rolled her eyes. “I swear to all that is good and righteous, Brooks, if you don’t—”
Vikki’s phone rang. Brea’s mouth snapped shut.
The phone never rang. It vibrated once every hour with the texts from V. Vikki called out on it, usually to Gail Thorne to talk about the files or when she was supposedly making her arrangements to get our pack out of the Phoenix Labs building.
But this was not a phone that received calls.
It rang again. Shrill like a siren.
She swallowed, stepping to grab it from the countertop. “Only one person would call this number.”
Brea and I exchanged glances. Neither of us had a clue what this meant for our alphas and omega. But we weren’t buying any more of Vikki’s bullshit.
“Answer it,” Brea said. “On speaker.”
Vikki tucked a short strand of dark hair behind her ear as she tapped the screen to answer the call, then again to put it on speaker. She didn’t say a word, and neither did we. The person calling clearly didn’t need a greeting to jump right in.
“I’m burnt.” Agitated words, the voice winded like he was running. “We’re all fucking burnt.”
Vikki gave a little shake of her head. “Whoa, whoa. Explain yourself, V.”
“I’m fucking stupid and our moles are goddamn idiots is what happened,” the voice snapped.
Brea immediately stepped forward, outrage marring her face, and Vikki shot her hand up with a finger in the air, bidding her to wait. “Stop playing coy. What’s happening?”
The male on the other end loosed an infuriated sound.
“Omega was on day six of the first heat cycle. I couldn’t—” He took a deep breath.
“I had an opening to bring the alphas to her. I thought they could ease the worst of it for a few hours. But they’ve all bitten each other and there’s no hiding that.
Shift change is in forty-one minutes, and once they come in, they’ll see the bites, they’ll figure out who helped her, they’ll discover I’m a leak, and they’ll plug that leak and shove all of us into the incinerator. ”
A beat of silence followed the diatribe while we gawked at each other.
“Hello?” the voice called out over the speaker. “Dead man walking here!”
Vikki shook herself again and began pacing. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Brea’s eyes were nearly manic, her face pale. She swallowed hard. “Forty minutes?” she choked out without breaking eye contact with me.
“What the—you had me on speaker, K? Are these the geniuses who texted me about adopting fucking puppies?”
Anxiety burned in my gut. I wasn’t the lay down the law guy.
I wasn’t the do as I say or suffer the consequences guy.
But the moment our mysterious V had declared they were all on borrowed time, my world shrank.
Objectively, sure, there were billions of people on this planet.
As far as I was concerned, there were less than ten who mattered.
My pack. And the ones who’d keep us alive. Primarily, though, my alphas and my omega.
“Get them all ready,” I said, stepping closer to Vikki. My eyes stayed glued to Brea. We were each other’s anchors amidst a growingly turbulent sea. “Grab hard drives, files, whatever you can get physically in your hands. Be ready for our call.”
“What’re—”
“Do it, Sevrin!” Vikki said before ending the call.
I pulled my own phone out of my pocket and dialed Colin’s number. He didn’t answer. I called again. Third time. Fourth time.
Finally, my driver buddy picked up. “Dude, gimme like half an hour—”
“Change of plans,” I said. “We need extraction today. In the next thirty-five minutes.”
“Fuck you,” Colin said. “There’s no way.”
“Colin, I don’t care who or what or how,” I said. “We need to move today. Like, as soon as literally possible.”
“Brooks, it’s not so much I don’t want to help as it is that I simply don’t have the ability to bend time and space. This kinda work, you don't just hop on a new route.”
Of course he chose now to be fucking verbose, every stupid word ticking away another second. “I swear to motherf—”
A pale hand reached over and snatched the phone from my hand, hanging up on our only chance of rescuing our pack.
“Brea, what the fuck?”
She didn’t answer. She simply dialed another number and hit the speaker button, raising the phone to the middle of our standing triad.
A computerized female voice spoke immediately. “Thank you for calling Hydrex Technologies, Incorporated. For a list of—”
“Extension one-zero-two-eight,” she said, eyes dull and face grim.
The voice cut off, followed by a brief pause. “Great,” she said in an artificially cheery tone. “Please enter the ten-digit passcode.”
Brea pulled up the keypad and did as instructed. Vikki and I watched, mute.
Once she finished, there was another pause over the line. “Thank you,” the voice said. “I’ll connect you.”
A dull buzzing sound denoted the dial tone. Lost and looking for any hint of a road sign, I shook my head at her. “Brea, whose number is this?”
She swallowed. “One I promised myself I’d never dial again.”
The buzzing cut off. “Heath Torrington speaking.”
My heart leapt straight from my chest, confusion morphing into fury to even hear that dipshit’s voice again.
Brea ignored me, diving in without preamble. “I have a proposition for you."
Heath cursed on the other end of the line. “How fucking dare—”
“Don’t interrupt me,” she commanded. “I have a proposition for you, and you have thirty seconds to accept or decline.
“I have in my possession a hard drive. On that hard drive is all the information you need to access Phoenix Labs’ internal data and systems. All their proprietary research, field tests, and developments at your fingertips. Both legal and non.
“I need an extraction of four individuals from the lab facilities in southwest Remington City, and I need it done in the next thirty-three minutes. You get them out, and deliver them safely to me at a location of my choosing, and I give you that hard drive.”
My heart pounded in my chest. I’d done a bit of reading on Heath back when we thought he was the one sending assailants after Taryn.
His company, Hydrex, wasn’t a direct competitor to Phoenix or Wainwright.
But I prayed there was enough overlap in their fields that Heath may be tempted at the prospect of some good old-fashioned corporate espionage.
It galled me to admit, but Heath was our last resort and final hope.
Silence hung over the line. Seconds ticked away on the phone screen. Three minutes and thirteen seconds had elapsed since Brea had dialed.
Twenty seconds left for him to decide.
If he rejected the offer, we’d be in the car racing that way. If I had to forfeit my life to get them all out, I would. If there was a one in a billion chance I’d succeed, there was no question.
Three minutes, twenty-six seconds.
“Time’s ticking,” Brea said, voice firm. “Ten seconds, take it or leave it.”
Another beat of silence, then a resolute, if slightly indignant, huff sounded over the speaker. “Building on Farrar Ave?” he asked.
“Yes,” Vikki answered aloud.
“There’s a helipad on the roof,” he replied. “Have your people there in forty-six minutes.”
“No,” Brea answered. “We need in thirty.”
“And if you had anyone else who could do this, you wouldn’t have called me,” he sniped. “Forty-six’s what I got for you. Now you take it or leave it.”
She met my eye. I could tell she wasn’t eager to trust this man. Neither was I. But did my distrust of Heath outweigh my desperation to save the rest of my pack? Not by a long shot.
“Terms accepted,” she said.
“Terms accepted,” he echoed. “I’ll call this number when we’re in the air to arrange a meet.” The line went dead.