44. The Distraction That Will Be Their Undoing
FORTY-FOUR
THE DISTRACTION THAT WILL BE THEIR UNDOING
Seven
“ T he incident in the forest tonight will make this much more difficult,” the dark one—Farida—said tonelessly. She tapped at her bottom lip with one finger.
“In what way?” Jack asked with his arm firm around my waist, his free hand clasped in mine in between us.
“In the way that we have now lost any element of surprise that we might have had, infiltrating this Operation base,” Roman explained, shifting Blaire from one knee to the other. The room was crowded: Roman and Blaire, Jack and me, Farida, the blonde one—Ellis, Clay, and Cas, and six of their most trusted pack members.
Another male, who looked disturbingly like Roman, lurked in the shadows. Of which there were many.
I was still trying to wrap my head around the room I found myself in. A door in a dilapidated outbuilding in Clay and Cas’s village had led to a cavernous underground space, dark and musty, filled with row upon row of books of the like I had never seen before. These books looked like they could be centuries old.
It made me wonder how old these Drinkers were to inhabit a place like this. Farida, I was certain, was much older than I could comprehend. There was something about her that felt ancient. A wisdom. A coldness.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Farida said, her eyes falling on Jack. The calculating gleam in them had my fingertips itching to shift, to claw her eyes out.
I don’t like the way she’s looking at you , I told him.
Nope, me neither, he replied.
“We have two things working in our favor,” she continued, glancing over at Blaire. “Their drone was disabled by Jack before you took down the last agent inside the cabin, Blaire.”
Blaire gave a shudder. On the drive to this place, we got the rundown of how Blaire managed to escape the agent holding her at gunpoint. She was not cut out for the sort of violence she was capable of. Probably a result of her softer childhood, being raised as a human.
But how did that explain Jack? He’d taken to it like a natural. While I wasn’t sure that he relished murder, he saw the need for it, didn’t shy away from it when there was no other option.
Ah, but he has me, Blossom , the deep, rumbly voice of his monster spoke inside my head. And I’m quite partial to a little bloodshed .
Shut up and listen, Jack snapped.
I stifled a grin, trying to focus on Farida once more.
“And we have an Echo sitting in the room with us.”
Roman and Ellis’s eyebrows shot up, and they blinked around at the Shifters gathered. So, too, did the six from Clay’s pack.
But Clay and Cas both turned their attention to Jack, interest, and wariness in their gazes.
“What the hell is an Echo?” Blaire demanded. “And why is this important?”
Farida got to her feet. “Remember the Skin Thief who donned Roman’s face to trick you into running to him?” Farida approached Blaire, who paled.
“I’m not likely to forget that freak!” Blaire snapped.
“That Skin Thief was what we call an Echo. A Shifter who can take on whatever form they visualize.”
“That’s … truly fucking sickening,” Blaire mumbled. Roman held her closer, but his gaze slid over to Jack. He’d guessed. I tightened my grip on Jack’s hand.
“Indeed. They’re very rare and very powerful. Most Shifters dislike having them around because they have been known to … abuse their ability. Particularly as their immortal life stretches on, and boredom, and occasionally insanity, creep in.”
Blaire shuddered. Roman’s face was grim as he watched Jack.
Jack’s fingers twitched on my hip. “Yeah, she’s talking about me,” he blurted, untangling his hand from mine and raising it sheepishly.
The look on Blaire’s face would have been almost comical if the reason for this entire conversation wasn’t tightening my chest.
“Why is Jack being an Echo important?” I asked sharply. Farida’s eyes fell on me.
“Because he saw the agent who threatened Blaire.”
My throat rumbled in a low warning growl. Jack tensed beside me. Blaire jumped to her feet, her expression thunderous as she stared Farida down.
“No fucking way!” she shouted. “You are not sending him back in there disguised as one of them!”
“Don’t you think it should be up to him?” Farida countered. “He did say he needed to get back inside. This is the best option for him to do so. It also will provide a much-needed distraction … one that will let me get the rest of us in unnoticed.” she turned to look at both Jack and me, effectively cutting Blaire out of the decision.
“That is, if you still want to liberate all the hybrid prisoners.”
Jack jerked to his feet.
“I’m in,” he said firmly.
I shot up beside him. “He’s not going in without me,” I insisted. When he turned to me, I glowered. “We do this together, or not at all.”
“What the fuck sort of hero complex did they give you in that place, Jack?” Blaire demanded.
Jack opened his mouth, but Farida cut him off. “Well, this works perfectly. Seven can go in as his prisoner.”
Jack’s roar rocked the cabin. Blaire turned and stormed off.
I stood frozen. Caught between conflicting needs. The need to go back in there, to create this diversion to get everyone out, to play my part … to get access to Baxter. And the need to never be a prisoner inside that place again.
“You don’t go in there in a weak position, Blossom,” Jack rumbled, his eyes glowing. He’d merged with the monster.
“I’ll go in there in whatever capacity will get me face-to-face with Baxter. If I come back as a recaptured escapee, he’s going to want to come and gloat. And Mercer … they’ll want to test me. They’ll want to know if we … they were trying to force us to Join, Jack. I think … there’s probably a good reason they left us out here as long as they did.”
His eyes widened, his mouth a grim slash.
“Fuck,” he muttered, some of the glow dimming from his eyes. He looked around, realizing we were being watched by his Drinker friends and the pack members.
“We’re going to discuss this elsewhere,” he informed them.
“Discuss it fast,” Farida warned. “If we want this to work, we need to get in there before they send out more agents to scout the scene.”
Jack nodded tightly, then grabbed my arm and tugged me into the rows of books. Row upon row, they all looked the same. All dimly lit, all filled to the brim with bound tomes, many of them labeled in words that were not English.
“I hate this shitting place,” Jack grumbled. “Where the fuck is the door? I need air.”
My ears popped, and then we rounded another dusty shelf, and there was the door in front of us.
“How …?”
Jack shrugged, tugging the doorknob. “Don’t question it.”
We appeared outside on a rickety porch, similar to the cabin in the clearing but in much worse repair. Jack plonked himself down on the edge, patting the plank beside him.
“So, you think Baxter figured leaving us to our own devices out here might get us to … complete the Join.”
I picked at the splintering wood. “Well, he was right, wasn’t he?”
Jack grunted. “Fuck … yes.”
“What were we thinking?” I mumbled.
Jack was silent for a long moment.
“You regret Joining with me?” he asked eventually, his voice tight.
“I … no. I don’t. Which seems strange because we were both so adamant we didn’t want it.” I dug my nail under the splinter, picking it away from the plank and rolling it between my fingers.
“But it … feels right. Doesn’t it?” I asked, almost shyly, chancing a glance at him. His eyes were intent on my face.
“It feels fucking perfect, Blossom,” he murmured, his thumb coming up to swipe across my bottom lip. “And I wouldn’t change it, not for fucking anything. But the thought of you walking back into that fucking hell, offering yourself up to them … it makes me want to break things.”
I blew out a long breath, twirling the splinter of wood over and over in my fingers. “But that’s just it, Jack. It will get me right in front of the people I need to get in front of. And fast.”
Revenge was closer than it had ever been. And I needed to take this chance.
“But what about me?” Jack asked. “You just said, we do this together or not at all. But if I’m undercover as one of them, they’re going to take you away, and I’ll be expected to go off … wherever the fuck it is the agents go in there when they’re not working. We’ll be separated.”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “You go find Grace, or Greta—the one in the lab—and you start a fucking revolution.”
“While they do fuck knows what to you?” Jack snarled, jumping to his feet. “What if they drug you? They’re not going to let you wander around that place at full strength! They’ll drug you and chain you to one of their exam tables. What the fuck happens then, Seven?”
“What other option do we have, Jack?” I asked, getting to my feet, too, my blood heating in sync with this argument. “We had a plan. We need to get back inside to enact it. This is the fastest way to get inside.”
“Fast and smart are two very different things,” he muttered.
“Have you got a smarter idea, then?”
He sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. “A fucking ramraid?”
“A what?” I asked, mystified.
Jack laughed humorlessly. “Ignore me. I have no fucking idea. The place is a goddamned fortress, with the backing of the US government. The whole thing is probably a fucking suicide mission, no matter how smart we are about it.”
“Well, luckily, I’m immortal,” I joked flatly. Because all that did was throw into stark reality that Jack wasn’t.
“I can survive whatever they do to me for however long it takes for the rest of them to throw the place into chaos,” I told him firmly. “You’ll be safe, undercover as an agent. And then you can find me, and we’ll get our revenge on Baxter, and Mercer, and whoever else gets in the way. We’ll paint the walls with their blood and light the place up as we leave. Burn their failed experiment down around them.”
Yes! the whisper hissed. We will survive. We are the distraction that will be their undoing. And once everything starts to unravel, we will make them pay.
“You’re determined to do this, aren’t you?” Jack asked. I dropped the shard of wood, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“If we don’t do this now, they’re just going to send more agents after us. Farida’s right. This is the time while they’re still reeling from the failure of their attack on us in the clearing. If we return, with you looking like the sole surviving agent and me as your prisoner, they won’t question us.”
I looked up into his face. “I want this to be over. I want to end that place. And if we don’t do it now, we may never have another chance.”
His eyes squeezed shut. “You’re right. I fucking hate this, just for the record. But you’re so strong and so brave, Blossom. And you’re more cunning than Baxter would ever give you credit for. They made you into a weapon. And now you get to turn yourself on them.”
“Thank you for trusting me,” I whispered, nuzzling his jaw. He squeezed me to him, our bodies flush with one another. He tilted my head until my eyes met his, the dim glow telling me the monster was present but curtailed.
“I lo—”
“We need to talk, Jack.”
I blinked, turning my head to find Blaire, face pale and grim, toeing a rock in the grass a few feet away.
“Can it wait?” he snarled. I held my breath. What had he been about to say?
“Not if you plan to head straight back into that viper’s den, it can’t.” Her voice was firm. I found myself pulling out of his embrace.
“I’ll wait inside,” I told him. Jack grabbed my wrist, glaring at Blaire.
“Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of her. We’re a package deal. I know you know what that’s like, Bee.”
The dark-haired girl blanched.
“No, Jack. You and Blaire should talk alone. I’ll wait just inside the door for you. I’m not wandering around that … place … without an escort.”
Blaire threw me a grateful glance. I stroked a finger across Jack’s tight jaw.
“Talk to your friend,” I murmured. Then I turned and headed back inside the door, shutting it firmly behind me.
All outside sound disappeared, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. This place was not natural.
I picked at a piece of the splinter that had lodged itself under my fingernail, tugging it away.
A single drop of blood welled.