17. Chapter 17
Riley
Malcolm lay on his back in a spreading pool of blood so dark it looked black in the dim light. His chest was a ruin of flesh torn open by shrapnel and metal fragments. His shirt was shredded, and one jagged piece of metal jutted from his abdomen, just below his ribcage, the edges gleaming wet.
Cora’s face was ashen, streaked with dust and blood from a cut across her forehead and an injury on her shoulder. “It was a trip wire,” she managed, her voice thin and shocked. “I didn’t see it. He shoved me out of the way.”
Malcolm’s body was trying to shift to his wolf form. I could see it happening, the muscles beneath his skin rippling and bunching as his wolf fought to surface and heal him. But the wounds were too catastrophic. His breath came in wet, rattling gasps.
“No, no, no,” I heard myself, the words coming out like a chant as I dropped to my knees beside him. Parker was already there, his hands pressing down on the worst of the wounds, but there were too many. Blood welled between his fingers, warm and slick.
Malcolm’s eyes found mine. They were shockingly green, even here in the dust and the dark. They held mine with an intensity that cut through the chaos and dust. His mouth moved, shaping words I couldn’t hear over the ringing in my ears and the thunder of my own heart.
I leaned over him, my eyes wide. “Red, oh god.”
“Dinnae grieve, lass. Tell… Sawyer…” His body shuddered as bones cracked, trying to realign. A sound escaped him, not quite human, the raw vocalization of a wolf in agony. I grabbed his hand and squeezed hard.
Parker swore, low and vicious, and pressed harder. But the blood kept coming, and Malcolm’s breathing grew weaker, each inhalation shallower than the last.
His eyes never left mine. I sucked back tears and gazed back, watching his vitality leave him, replaced by stillness. His grip tightened for a second, then went limp. The terrible, wet sound of his breathing stopped, and the pool of blood beneath him slowed its spread.
“No,” I whispered again, my voice strange in my own ears. “Noooo!” I wailed, knowing he was gone.
A coldness spread from the base of my neck, down my spine, and into my limbs. It wasn’t shock. I knew what going into shock felt like. This was deliberate and clinical, the implant activating to keep me functioning. Freda knelt beside me and took my hand from Malcolm’s bloody one.
“He’s gone, Riley.”
A wail rose in my chest, then crashed against something implacable and cold. Emotion didn’t disappear. It was still there, a vast, howling void. But the implant had erected a barrier against the raging grief, like a sheet of ice between my hand and a flame.
I became distantly aware that my cheeks were wet and Parker was saying my name. But all of it reached me through that barrier, muted and strange, as if I were hearing it from another room. I looked down at Malcolm’s dead body, his green eyes dull, his red hair dark with dust and blood.
The coldness settled into my bones. The implant worked to catalog what had happened with brutal clarity. Deceased. Cause: massive hemorrhaging secondary to explosive trauma. Next steps: evacuation, preservation of evidence, notification of next of kin.
I reached out and closed his eyes, my hands steady. Perfectly, horrifyingly steady.
“Riley.” Parker’s voice cut through the fog. His hand closed on my shoulder, his grip hard enough to bruise. “Talk to me.”
I looked up at him. His face was streaked with dust and Malcolm’s blood, his eyes fierce. “I’m operational. The implant is blocking… everything.”
Parker’s jaw clenched. He knew what was happening. He’d seen it before.
Behind us, Freda and Bart were kneeling over Cora. Her eyes found Malcolm’s body, and something crumpled in her face.
“We need to pull back.” Parker’s voice was hard and controlled. “The explosion might have weakened this area. We can’t stay here.”
Freda nodded. “We’ve got Cora.”
Parker didn’t take his eyes off me. “Riley. Come back.”
But I was already gone, locked behind the ice, watching everything through a sheet of perfect, terrible clarity. Malcolm was dead because Sawyer sent him to help protect me. And I’d watched him bleed out and die.
Gray morning light filtered through the dust that still hung in the air. My cheek was pressed against the rough fabric of my backpack, and someone had draped a jacket over me during the night. My body ached, and my throat felt like I’d swallowed gravel.
Malcolm’s body lay ten feet away, wrapped in a dark green sleeping bag we’d taken from one of the dead guards. The fabric was stained dark in places where the blood had seeped through. We’d pulled back to the mouth of the entrance and slept in the dead guards’ quarters.
Mangus lay curled against my side, his massive body radiating that unnatural heat, one paw draped across my leg. Athena had followed Parker to the entrance, where he kept watch, her white fur gray with dust.
Cora sat propped against the opposite wall, her eyes half-closed, the bandage on her thigh already dark with dried blood. Bart snored softly a few yards away, his massive chest rising and falling in the rhythm of deep sleep. Freda was gone, probably checking the perimeter.
My head throbbed. The implant pulsed with a cold, steady rhythm along my spine, and I’d started thinking of it as a second heartbeat. It walled off the worst of what had happened, but the pain was still there.
I closed my eyes. Malcolm’s face swam behind my eyelids, his green eyes holding mine as the life left them, his hand going slack.
Sound cut through the haze. Parker’s voice, low and tight, coming from somewhere down the corridor.
“Sawyer, it’s Parker.”
I didn’t move. He’d taken the sat phone last night, and now he was taking on the horrible job of telling Sawyer what had happened to his second Beta and closest friend.
“We found a Cold War bunker that Apex is turning into another black site. There was an explosion last night, and Malcolm took the brunt. He’s gone.
” A pause. Parker’s voice was calm but heavy.
I wondered how many times he’d had similar conversations as an active Marine.
I was a coward for not calling Sawyer last night.
“It was a trip-wire explosion in the east corridor. Cora triggered it and Malcolm pushed her out of the way.”
There were a few moments of silence, then Parker spoke again. “He didn’t suffer long, and he died in Riley’s arms.” Another pause. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry, Alpha.”
I drifted. The words came and went, fragments washing through my consciousness.
“…wrapped him in a sleeping bag. We can’t move him until we get extraction…”
“… this fuckin’ facility’s bigger than we thought. There’s Apollo Genetics equipment, and crates of lab hardware up to your eyeballs.”
“Yeah, it has the potential to be as bad as Roswell. Probably worse.”
I came back to myself when I heard him say Conall’s name. “Tell Conall Riley’s holding it together. It’s that fuckin’ implant that’s helping her. She’s functional, but she sounds like a damn robot. I don’t like it.” He paused while Conall replied.
“Mangus is with her now. Hasn’t left her side except to hunt and relieve himself.”
Functional. The word settled in my chest like a stone. Functional meant I could stand and walk, aim and shoot, and analyze. It meant the implant was working as intended. The irony was so thick I could have choked on it.
“We need to document everything first, then get the hell out.”
I opened my eyes and sat up. Dust motes danced in the beams of light coming in from the entrance. Mangus lifted his head, his red eyes finding mine, and whined softly.
Parker walked back into the tunnel, hard lines bracketing his mouth.
“The Blackhawk’s ETA is three hours.” His voice sounded rough. “We document everything we can before then. Photographs, video, manifests. Take what we can carry and get the fuck out of here.”
I nodded. The movement sent a ripple of pain through my neck. “Cora?”
“Stable. Bart’s with her. Freda is checking the western tunnels.” He crouched beside me. “You with me, Bug?”
The nickname felt like it belonged to someone else. Someone younger. Someone who wasn’t infested with a government implant and hadn’t watched my friend, who’d had feelings for me, die in this godforsaken place.
I straightened and cleared my throat. “I’m with you. I’ll finish documenting the lab equipment so no one can contest that Apex is starting up another lab site.”
Mangus rose beside me, his massive body stretching, joints popping. He nudged my hand with his wet nose, leaving a smear of sulfur-scented drool on my palm. Funny how the putrid smell had grown on me.
Parker glanced at the green-shrouded shape on the floor. “Sawyer wants him buried in Pack ground with honors.”
The cold wall inside me cracked. I swallowed and nodded. “He’d want something with bagpipes, and good Scotch whiskey.”
“Aye lass, he would,” Parker mimicked Malcolm’s Scottish accent. I cleared my throat, then picked up my pack and turned toward the tunnels. We had work to do.
We moved through the facility with grim efficiency.
Parker continued taking photos and video of every crate, every stenciled Apollo Genetics logo, every shipping manifest, his phone’s flash bouncing off the concrete walls.
My job was the science. I documented the equipment, the model numbers, and stored away the implications of each piece of equipment.
The implant droned on, steady and cold, filing each discovery into neat, precise categories.
“These aren’t just research-grade.” I ran my finger along the edge of an unpacked centrifuge, its stainless steel housing gleaming under my headlamp. “The equipment is mostly production-grade. They’re planning to manufacture something here.”
“Like what?” Parker asked, snapping another photo.
“Probably whatever they’re doing to people to turn them into Cogs.”
Freda appeared in the corridor. “I found something you both need to see.”
We followed her down a side passage, which was a narrow gap between the concrete and the rough-hewn stone, barely wide enough for Parker’s shoulders. The air grew warmer with each step, thickening until it coated the back of my throat.
The passage opened into a cavern that dropped away into darkness.
Warm air billowed up from below, carrying the sharp smell of spring water.
A geyser roared somewhere deep in the blackness, its thunderous rhythm vibrating through the stone beneath our feet.
Mineral deposits encrusted the walls, glistening in our headlamps like wet sugar.
“The thermal activity under this bunker is off the charts,” I murmured. My energy responded, crackling along my veins, the implant humming louder in response to the surge. It was like touching a live wire.
Freda glanced at me questioningly.
“They built this place atop one of the largest energy sources in North America.” I stepped closer to the edge, peering down into the darkness.
The geyser’s roar echoed up the shaft, rhythmic and immense.
“Cognizant abilities are fueled by energy. It stands to reason that modifying a Normal into a Cog would require massive amounts. This location isn’t just remote. It’s a huge natural power plant.”
We documented what we could and backtracked to the main corridor. Parker ducked into what appeared to be the administrative office area. The room had a massive metal desk, office chairs, and a filing cabinet whose drawers screeched when he pulled them open.
Inside, rolled up next to yellowed maintenance logs, was a stack of maps. Parker carefully spread a few out on the desk, using his headlamp to illuminate them. I held the curled ends as we unrolled maps of Texas, New Mexico, and the Western United States. We studied them, our heads together.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
The map showed a network of facility sites, or perhaps potential sites, across the western United States, each marked with a small black X.
Roswell was there, circled in what looked like fresh ink.
So was the Austin site we’d found months ago.
There were others. One in Nevada, another in eastern Oregon, two in northern California.
And there, in the mountains of Colorado, an X marked a location in Rocky Mountain National Park.
My throat closed. With shaking hands, I lifted my phone and took several photos.
Parker’s finger hovered over the mark. “Fern Meadows,” he read.
Fern Meadows was where the forest fire had started. The fire that burned twelve thousand acres and took three weeks to contain. The fire that started around the time my father disappeared.
“I would stake my life that they burned it,” I whispered. “After he found it, they burned the whole area to cover it up.”
Parker was silent for a long moment, his fury and pain pummeling me. Then he carefully rolled the map back up. “We’re taking this with us.”
We documented the rest in silence. Freda found equipment request forms, the dates stretching back eighteen months.
Apollo Genetics had been moving equipment into this bunker before Roswell was taken offline.
Probably around the time they’d figured out how to modify Normals and shifters with Cog abilities.
Three hours later, the Blackhawk’s rotors thrummed through the mountain air. We loaded Malcolm’s wrapped body first, Parker and Bart carrying him between them.
“We’re leaving Bart and Freda here for now,” Parker shouted to the pilot over the rotors as we strapped in.
They were staying to guard the place until ISB and the Pack could get a proper team in. Shit was going to hit the fan… again.
We’d found another military-guarded facility, this one beneath a national park with Apollo Genetics equipment and a massive thermal energy source. We also had the map, which was probably outdated by now, that pinpointed their operational sites, dating back years.
The Blackhawk lifted, and the area vanished beneath the trees. I stared out at the mountains beneath us, vast, indifferent, and full of secrets.
My father had probably stood in a wilderness like this and taken a last stand, even though he knew it would mean his death. If there was an afterlife, I hoped he and Malcolm could meet someday.