42. Not A Fucking Chance
FORTY-TWO
NOT A FUCKING CHANCE
Seven
C lay’s pack was impressively disciplined. A few barks and he had the fire put out and the clearing empty of every Shifter except for Clay and Cas. It all happened before I had even managed to wrap my head around everything that I’d done in the last few hours.
I was Joined.
Joined .
Jack’s hand was warm in mine.
It was like my understanding of the world had been jumbled before, and what Jack and I had done tonight had reformed it all in the correct order. And with it came a warm, comforting sensation of rightness pulsing through my blood.
I couldn’t even remember why I’d wanted to avoid this. There had been a good reason, hadn’t there?
“How much do you want to tell them?” Jack asked quietly, tugging on my hand to pull me back as Jack’s Drinker friends filed into the cabin behind Clay and Cas. “It feels like there’s not much point in trying to lie now. But … if they want details, about what goes on in there, you … you know you don’t have to share them.”
I shook my head. “There is nothing from my past that I am ashamed of. Every awful thing that’s been done in that place … the blame lies at the feet of Baxter. These … friends of yours, they need to know. They need to understand why we have to get the other hybrids out of there. And why I have to kill Baxter.”
Jack’s eyes glowed, and his voice took on that double tone of him merging with his monster. “Why we have to kill Baxter. Together. Mercer, too. And the rest of them. Every single one who stood by and watched you be raped. They’ll all fucking pay … painfully.”
I shouldn’t feel turned on by his rage. But listening to him talking about my revenge … our revenge …
I pulled him closer, rubbing my cheek against his stubble. “I wish we had time for one more …”
A growl rumbled in his chest. “Don’t, Blossom. I’m barely keeping my dick in my pants as it is.”
I darted my tongue out, flicking it against his earlobe. He groaned and grabbed my backside.
“When you’ve finished fondling … actually, scratch that, before you’re finished fondling, because we don’t have time to wait for you freshly Joined horn-dogs to go to Pound Town again … we have an Operation to infiltrate!”
I broke away from Jack, turning to glare at the slight, blonde female with her short, wavy hair and mischief-filled eyes. She reminded me a bit of Two. They were both small, with a wickedness about them and that lingering sense that if crossed, they would be utterly vicious.
I decided now was not a good time to cross this one. I gripped Jack’s hand tightly, tugging him towards the porch steps.
“You sure you’re ready to do this?” he asked. I nodded firmly.
“Let’s get it all out in the open.”
“ M y name is … I’m called Seven,” I introduced myself, letting my eyes rove around the faces gathered in Clay’s cabin. “Because I was the seventh hybrid born inside Taiga.”
I’d never paid a lot of attention to facial expressions before. But then again, I’d never had a captive audience, eyes trained on me, all waiting for my next sentence.
I described, as dispassionately as possible, what life was like for hybrids inside Taiga. What my life had been like. The Stranger-hatred indoctrination from an early age … and then the torture to determine my limits … to stretch those limits. To hone me into a weapon. And then the abuse when I was moved from G Block to R Block.
As I spoke, their faces morphed through incredulity, shock, disgust, heartbreak, and outright horror. All these emotions I’d felt so many times while locked in that place, playing out on the faces of these Strangers who didn’t know me. Emotions I’d tried not to let myself feel, because rage was easier to cope with.
The pitying expressions, though … those sent hot shards of anger stabbing through me. I didn’t need their pity. Everything I was telling them was only to inform them of what they would be walking into … to convince them they needed to help us to get the other hybrids out of there. To shut Taiga down. Permanently.
I refused to acknowledge their pity. So I fixed my gaze on the only face that remained completely impassive. The dark-skinned Drinker with the many clinking braids. She watched me, unblinking, as I recounted the night Jack and I escaped.
When I got to the part where Grace had clawed her own stomach open, her face finally moved. A twitch in her jaw.
“So this agent was … by all prior evidence … presenting as a human, but she grew claws and injured herself? When you were already on your way to freedom?”
I nodded, frowning. I glanced at Jack. His expression was shellshocked, and I realized that he hadn’t seen it, and I hadn’t told him about it either.
The braided Drinker pinched at her bottom lip. “She helped you escape … but she made it look like you’d overpowered her, had injured her in order to get out …”
“Yes … I suppose she did,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
“How did she grow claws?” Jack asked, his brow furrowed. “How was she an agent, but also a … a Shifter?”
“That’s a very good question,” the female said. “There is no way Baxter is recruiting Shifters … not knowingly anyway. How has she flown under the radar with them? And why was she intent on helping you? Was she the one who orchestrated the explosion that caused the power outage? Or are there more like her in there?”
Jack started to his feet, walking across the room, weaving around the crowded little cabin. He tugged open a drawer and pulled out an envelope. The envelope Grace had handed him that night. How had I forgotten about that?
We’ve had a lot on our mind since then … the whisper reminded me.
“Grace gave me this … she said ‘we’ kept this safe for you,” he said. “So, maybe there are more.” He looked over at me, eyes glistening. “There was the other one … the one in the lab with Mercer. They looked very similar.”
“Greta,” I muttered. “They looked like sisters.”
The dark one reached out to snatch the envelope from Jack, but he clutched it tight in his fist.
“What is it?” she demanded. “What did she give you?”
“Nothing that’s relevant to you,” he snarled.
“Does any of this help us to work out how the hell we’re going to pull off this crazy heist?” the blonde one interrupted. “I mean, great, there’s one, maybe more possible Shifters working undercover in there. So what?”
I like her , the whisper said.
The dark one fixed her with a glare. “If this undercover Shifter helped them escape, then she’s a potential ally on the inside,” she snapped. “And if there is more than one of them who worked to get these two out … that’s multiple potential allies.”
The blonde one wrinkled her nose. “Yeah. Okay, I’ll shut my yapper now and let the grownups talk.”
“So, we … Seven and me … we aren’t prepared to leave the other hybrids in there,” Jack added, moving back to stand beside me. He stuffed the envelope into the pocket of his jeans and took my hand again. “I get that you guys had probably planned some sort of covert rescue mission, but this is bigger than just the few you wanted to get out.”
“How many hybrids do you think are in the place altogether?” the dark one asked, one fingernail tapping on the kitchen bench.
I gave a slight shrug. “I don’t know. There are more than one hundred who have reached full immortality. And …” I swallowed. “There are most likely still youngsters … children … babies … in the nursery block.”
“Shit,” Blaire’s Joined—Roman—muttered. Blaire looked shell-shocked. The blonde actually hissed.
The dark one didn’t bat an eyelid.
The scrape of a chair, and Clay was on his feet. His eyes glowed an eerie, vivid blue.
“My pack will do whatever you need to help you get them out, to bring them to safety. We’ve known of this government stronghold for decades now, and we’ve left it alone, on my orders. If I’d known the extent of what was going on inside that place, I …”
He broke off, a deep rumble erupting from his chest. His shirt ripped, from the force of swelling muscles.
“Outside,” Cas commanded, leaping to her feet. His eyes darted to hers, his canine teeth descending. His skin erupted with silky gray hair. “Clay, you can’t stop it now, take it outside!”
With a snarl, he darted for the door. He had just made it onto the porch when his clothing finally gave way, and an enormous, silver wolf galloped off into the clearing and disappeared into the trees.
The silence in the cabin was broken by an agonized howl in the distance. I looked to Cas, who sighed deeply.
“He’s very passionate about his golden rule. Those Candies in that place hadn’t ever shown interest in hurting our pack, so he told us in no uncertain terms to stay away from them. Your news … the thought of us sitting idly by while this was happening to you, Seven … happening to you and so many others … he will need some time to feel his rage and guilt.”
“He wasn’t to know,” I said quietly. “No one could have known, not without breaking into the place.”
Cas smiled sadly. “Thank you. It won’t change him feeling responsible, though.” She stood, taking off her shirt, baring her breasts to the entire room as if that was completely normal.
“I’d best go after him. He’ll need me to bring him back from the dark place he’ll no doubt go,” she explained, tugging off her trousers, too. She walked, stark naked, out the door, and seconds later, another wolf, a golden-furred one, dashed across the clearing.
“Oh, and before anyone starts making plans to evacuate a bunch of hybrids …” Jack added, his eyes fixed on the dark Drinker. It dawned on me that she must be their leader. “Seven and I will be going in. That’s a non-negotiable.”
“Why the hell would you want to go back in there, Jack?” Blaire demanded, getting to her feet from her seat on the mattress, flinging her hand in the direction of the dark one. “Apparently Farida can get in and out completely unnoticed. Let her go in, bring everyone out. Don’t you dare endanger yourself!”
I rounded on her, fury flooding my veins. Who was she to dictate to him? He was Mine.
“Don’t you dare tell him what he can and cannot do!” I snarled. “You have absolutely no idea what he’s capable of!”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what he’s capable of!” she retorted, folding her arms, glaring defiantly at me. “He’s not immortal yet!”
I took a step back. Swallowed hard. My shocked gaze fell on Jack, his expression mutinous. He was too young to have settled into his immortality. I’d known that. But it seemed impossible. He was so … powerful. It had been so easy to forget that he was still vulnerable to death in so many frivolous ways.
“Don’t you dare side with her,” Jack muttered. “Don’t you dare try to stop me. I need to be there … to help you make them suffer.”
“I …” I began, thinking fast, trying to puzzle out a way that I could give him what he needed while also keeping him safe.
Gunfire exploded outside.
“Shit!” the blonde one hissed, crouching low.
“Operation Agents,” the dark one—Farida—muttered, peering out the window.
“Can you handle them?” Roman asked her. Farida and he shared a long, loaded look. She shook her head.
“Not this time,” she said. He nodded solemnly, then grabbed Blaire, pushing her down on the mattress as the staccato drumming of multiple weapons fired on the cabin.
“Stay here, stay down!” Roman commanded. Blaire rolled her eyes but complied.
“Only because I don’t want you distracted with worrying about me. Don’t get shot, Roman!” she warned him. “It’s not fun for me.”
He looked stricken. “I promise, Sweetest.” He leaped to his feet, sprinting for the door. The blonde followed him.
“Will you stay in here, too?” I asked Jack. My heart sank as I saw the resolve in his stony expression.
“Not a fucking chance, Blossom.”
He was out the door before I could say another word.
“Don’t let him die,” Blaire warned. I flashed her a furious look.
“If you think I would ever allow that, you’re a fool,” I snapped, storming out after him, the tingle of my shift overtaking my body.
A raucous, ear-splitting trumpeting sound reverberated in my sensitive feline eardrums. I whipped my head around, darting to avoid bullets, my hair standing on end when I saw what he had become.