Chapter 22 Jackson #3
Closing the door behind me, I moved through the lower portion of the house, straining to hear anything.
Above me, the sporadic thud-thud-thud of footsteps were fairly audible, along with muffled voices.
There were so many. This was already more difficult than I’d thought it might be, and I’d anticipated it being bad.
Hanging my head, I pulled the other item I’d brought along out of my opposite pocket—a black ski mask with two holes in it for my eyes.
I tugged the mask over my head, the tight-fitting, stretchy material conforming to my face.
Looking up, I caught a reflection of myself in the unshattered side of the glass door.
I looked like what I was. An intruder. A wraith of the night, here to swoop in and destroy a family.
Tearing my eyes from my reflection, I looked down at my hands—the implements of destruction.
Bitter tears stung at my eyes as I pulled a pair of latex gloves from my back pocket—the last of my tools—and pulled them onto my hands.
I inched the stairwell door open and crept up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, I pressed my ear to the door, listening for movement.
Everything on that side sounded quiet. From what I could remember, this door led into the main kitchen.
If everyone was in the den watching the game on the big-screen TV Christian’s dad had in there, then hopefully no one would be in the kitchen.
Twisting the knob slowly, so as to make no noise, I unlatched the door and swung it inward.
A broad-shouldered man in his mid-forties stood less than five feet away. A radio earpiece snaked down from his ear into his black suit jacket. He’d just taken a bite of a sandwich when he saw me, eyes going wide with surprise.
Fucking shit!
I moved.
For centuries, the alpha of a shifter pack was always supposed to be the strongest warrior.
In the days of old, other packs would try to go to war for territory, personal animosity, and resources.
Now, in the modern world, fighting wasn’t nearly as prevalent as it had been even a hundred years ago, but that didn’t mean an alpha wasn’t supposed to be able to fight.
I’d been trained by the best winged dragon shifters in the world—until they all vanished, that was.
Putting my skills to the test, I lunged at the man.
The security guard dropped his sandwich and grabbed for the microphone button at his collar. I slapped the hand away and tore the earpiece off him. The guard swung at me, his fist flying toward my face. With all the strength a wyrm shifter could muster, it would shatter my nose.
Dodging to the side, the fist barely grazed my cheek, which forced him off balance.
My opening given to me on a silver platter, I chopped down on the side of his neck with the edge of my left hand, slammed my right elbow into the bridge of his nose with enough force to break it, and punched him in the jaw with my right—three quick strikes in less than three seconds.
He was out on his feet, and I had to scramble forward to catch his hefty body before he crashed to the ground.
Stifling a grunt, I dragged him toward the door to the basement and eased him to the ground on the first stair, doing my best to stay quiet.
When I released his body, gravity took over and he slid slowly down the steps on his back, his head thumping on each stair as he went until he lay in a crumpled heap on the bottom landing.
A shout erupted behind me, and I whirled around, expecting another guard to be rushing me. Instead, the kitchen was empty.
The screams were coming from the den. The game.
It sounded like there were at least a dozen people in there.
I heard both male and female voices, and I worried Bryn would be in there with everyone else.
The only thing I had going for me was the fact that the girl despised sports.
I had to hope and pray she’d taken refuge in her bedroom.
Kneeling behind the island, I checked my watch.
The men outside had been getting some fresh air and smoking a cigar during halftime.
If the game was back on, that meant I had about twenty-four minutes to finish this.
There would be time-outs, fouls, and commercial breaks that could make the game go longer, but I couldn’t count on them.
No, I needed to be out of here with Bryn in the next twenty minutes, or I was screwed.
As much as I needed to use stealth, I needed to go fast as well.
Those two things typically did not go hand in hand.
Leaving the kitchen, I headed in the opposite direction of the den where all the sound radiated from. The house had two staircases, and the rear was used less often. Hopefully, it would be deserted now.
Moving with cautious speed, I exited the kitchen and made my way through the small breakfast room and a narrow hallway that opened to the rear stairway.
The front stairs were more grand in appearance—wide steps, wood and wrought-iron handrails, with thick plush carpeting.
In contrast, these rear stairs were more utilitarian.
Simple polished wood with a plain pine handrail attached to the wall.
Standing on the third and fifth steps respectively, were two more members of the Bauer security team.
Halting my approach, I jerked back into the shadows of a guest bathroom, but not before one of the guys spotted the movement.
“Did you see that?” a deep baritone voice said.
“See what?” a nasal voice responded.
“Somebody in the hall,” the deep voice said.
I glanced back the way I’d come. I could run for it, but then I’d still need to get upstairs, and they’d hear me. There was only one way up, and it was through these guys.
“Dave, where the hell are you going?” Nasal voice said.
“I’m checking it out. Get your ass over here, Lucas. You’re getting paid for this too.”
“Ugh,” Lucas said with a huff. “Some rich prick is probably taking a dump in the bathroom, bro.”
Steeling myself for what was to come, I waited until the bigger man—Dave—rounded the corner. My movement startled him, but instead of freezing like a deer in headlights, his instinct was to jump backward. This caused him to trip on his shoes and fall on his ass, taking him farther out of my reach.
“What the fuck,” the thinner guy—Lucas—said.
I’d hoped these guys were security in name only, but when Lucas moved forward as smooth as water and as fast as lightning, I realized they were skilled.
A fist swung at my face, and I barely managed to twist my neck enough to allow the knuckles to graze my jaw rather than hit with full force.
That strike very well might have put my lights out.
I crouched low and twisted, slamming my elbow into his stomach.
A huff of air burst from his mouth, followed by a groan of pain as he clutched his stomach.
I rose to finish him off with a punch, but Dave pulled my right leg out from under me.
I hit the floor, my cheek bouncing off the hardwood, sending a flash of white across my vision and pain rocketing through my skull.
Dave was on me in a second, trying to wrap me into a chokehold.
His burly arm swung around under my chin and across my throat.
The guy was immensely strong, and when he cinched his arm tight, the blood pressure in my head shot up, turning my face red. Lucas was still gasping and gagging in front of me on his knees, but he pawed at his throat, trying to get to the radio.
No!
Pushing myself up with Dave clamped onto my back, I managed to rise all the way to my feet even with the extra two hundred pounds.
My vision blurred, the edges of my sight going black as he cut off my oxygen.
Dull shots of pain erupted along my thighs as Dave slammed his knees into me, trying to drive me back to the ground.
With a massive heaving effort, I jumped and turned, spinning so that the man on my back was now on the bottom. When we hit the floor, all of my weight crashed onto him, and his grip released, flooding my lungs with blessed cool air.
Managing one quick gasp, I scrambled away from him and kicked Lucas, the toe of my boot catching his face. A couple teeth went flying as he tumbled backward, landing on his back. He was out cold.
Dave growled low in his chest and lunged at me.
Still disoriented from him choking me, I moved too slow, and he caught me with two quick punches.
One landed wild, striking me in the chest, but the other struck me right below the eye, and my head rocked back at the impact.
I managed to grab the collar of his shirt as I fell back, though, and brought him down with me.
We struggled, each of us trying to gain the upper hand, until Dave managed to straddle me, raining fists down at me that I managed to deflect by covering my face with my forearms.
Gasping for breath, he straightened and sucked in a lungful of air to scream for help.
I couldn’t allow that. I grabbed his jaw, my middle and ring finger sinking deep into his mouth while my thumb dug under his chin.
He gagged as I shoved my fingers to the back of his throat and pressed his tongue down as hard as I could.
He clawed at my hand and wrist, trying to extricate my fingers from his mouth.
While he worried about that, I jerked my hips up, sending him tumbling forward over my head to land face-first on the ground.
He gave a short bark of pain as his nose cracked against the hardwood floor, but before he could do or say more, I scrambled onto his back and wrapped my arm around his throat.
Unlike him, I used my knees to push his legs apart so he couldn’t use them to stand, kicking at his calves and feet each time they tried to push him up.
The man clawed and gasped, hissing out incomprehensible words as I cut off his breathing. Finally, blessedly, after what felt like an eternity, he went limp beneath me. Rolling off of him, I collapsed to the ground gasping for air.
This was not going as planned. Climbing to my feet. I headed for the stairs, not even bothering to hide the unconscious men like I had the first. Time was not on my side, and I needed to get this done before I lost my nerve.
Taking the steps two at a time, I made my way to the third floor. I’d managed to get halfway down the corridor when I heard a sound that made my blood run cold. A single male voice screamed from the bottom floor, his voice echoing up the stairs.
“Intruder! Men down! Men down!”
My body was moving before I even realized it was happening, instinct and my dragon’s urging sending me pelting down the hall toward Bryn’s room.
A general alarm would be going through the house.
Everyone would be on alert. An entire army of people would try to stop me.
Christian’s father was an alpha as well.
Between him and everyone else? There was no way I was getting out of here alive, much less with Bryn, if I didn’t hurry.
I sprinted toward Bryn’s door. My single-minded focus never let me see the man emerging from the main stairs.
A huge guy, not in a security suit, but wearing a Houston Rockets sweatshirt, speared me, his shoulder slamming into my side an inch or two below my ribs.
Our bodies crashed sideways into the drywall.
Dust and plaster rained down on us as the entire wall gave way with the weight of two dragons banging into it.
We fell through it into a guest bedroom.
“Motherfucker!” the man growled as he brought his fists down on me with hammering strikes.
In the chaos of the fight, a distant, panicked part of my mind recognized his voice.
One of the men in the garden earlier. The one who hadn’t come into the shed.
He clawed at my ski mask, but I slapped his hand away and jammed my hand forward, the webbing between my thumb and forefinger smacking him in the throat right below his Adam’s apple.
He made a terrible retching sound and rolled off me, clutching his throat as his eyes bulged out.
I’d not struck him hard enough to collapse his larynx, but that should put him down for several minutes at worst.
By the time I got to my feet, he was gasping for air. To keep him down, I reared back and kicked him in the face. He went down, face pressed to the ground, heavy snores emanating from his mouth.
Leaving him, I shoved my way out through the hole in the wall, and continued my path to Bryn’s room. I stepped forward, lifted my boot, and kicked at the door right above the knob. With a shower of splinters and a crack, the door swung inward, the knob burying itself in the wall behind.
Bryn yelped in surprise and jumped off her bed, her red hair swinging wildly as she turned. With my black ski mask, latex gloves, and heaving chest, I must have looked like a walking nightmare.
Bryn’s face broke into a massive smile, and she clapped her hands together. “Is it time for my performance?”
Sighing, I waved a hand at her. “Yes, but get that damn smile off your face, Sweep. This needs to look convincing.”
“Oh! Right,” she said, the big grin vanishing in an instant, replaced by a deadly serious grim expression “Gotta get into character.”