Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
“How in the hell did they even get past us?” Steel growled.
“Because we weren't looking for a little girl and her mom, we were looking for them,” Lion replied, jerking his head at the front door of the abandoned farmhouse where at least two dozen bodies were littered on the forest floor outside.
Not just looking for threats but enjoying the chance to indulge their need to unleash their anger and shed blood.
Annoyed as he was with himself—with all of them, although he placed the blame more squarely on his own shoulders because Kate and Ariella were his responsibility—he didn't want to waste time discussing how they’d messed up so badly. All he wanted to do was get out there and find his girls.
Knowing they were all alone out in the vast forest, with so many unknowns, had him practically vibrating with anxiety.
So many things could go wrong, and he wasn't there to protect them.
Ariella was just a little girl, a sick little girl at that, and Kate was injured, in more pain from her broken ribs than she was pretending to be, and he hadn't helped that with their sex session last night.
“I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t without going out.
I thought it would give them a better chance at not being noticed if there was just the two of them,” Rose piped up, none of the girls at all fazed by the fact that he and his teammates were streaked with blood.
Seemed he wasn't the only one who’d needed to blow off a little steam.
“You made the right choice, little ladybug,” Steel assured her.
When his team leader looked at him, Lion got the clear message that he was to agree. He did agree, but he wasn't interested in anything but getting out there and tracking his girls. They hadn't been gone all that long, and between the six of them, they should be able to find them fairly easily.
Assuming they were still there to be found.
What if more guards were out there, hanging back and waiting to see what happened with the first round?
What was the plan, to kill them all or to recapture them?
If it were to recapture them, what did that mean for Kate and Ariella, as well as Rose, Cassandra, Whitney, Indigo, and Maya?
If River Gardner was really behind this, it would make sense she would want her daughter back, the genius behind the original version of the drug, and the only other living test subject.
But that left Cassandra, Maya, and his girls as potentially expendable.
Not something he was ready to consider.
“Since you're all alive, it was the right call,” he agreed, because he knew Steel was more likely to get going quicker once he’d assuaged any guilt Rose might have.
“Pack everything we need and let’s move out,” Steel ordered, and Lion let out a breath of relief.
“Is Indigo able to be moved?” he asked. Although he was anxious to get going, he didn't stop caring about the people he considered his family. His brothers and sisters were not replacements for the little sister and parents he’d left behind, but a new family, one that had been there for him when he’d been lost in a sea of grief after giving up the woman he loved and the child he would have wanted if he hadn't been consumed by a rage he couldn’t control.
It was only because of these people that he’d learned to control that anger. That he was able to let Kate and Ariella back into his life without being afraid that one day he would snap and tear them apart with his bare hands.
“Indigo is fine to be moved,” Indigo answered before Voodoo could even open his mouth.
“Really,” she added when their healer raised his brows at her.
“I have the same enhanced ability to heal that you guys do.
I'm weak, not pretending I'm not, and I’ll be careful not to tear the stitches, but you know I'm not in any pain.”
“No pain doesn’t mean you're okay to move,” Voodoo grumbled. “It was the fact that you weren't in pain that meant I almost lost you since you didn't know you were injured.”
“But you didn't lose me,” Indigo reminded Voodoo, stepping into the circle of his arms and pressing her cheek to his chest. “I'm okay, alive, thanks to you. Now Kate and Ariella need us. Ariella is sick, Kate is injured, we don’t know if they made it past the shooting without getting hit.” Indigo sent him a quick apology smile when he tensed at her words, but she wasn't wrong.
“Take everything we can carry while still being able to move quickly,” Steel ordered, and they all spent the next couple of minutes packing the packs of things they’d salvaged from the crash.
Once they were ready, Cassandra, Whitney, Maya, and Indigo carried the few bags they had, leaving him, his teammates, and Rose armed in case they encountered more soldiers sent in to get them.
They were all on edge. As tense as he was, Lion could feel that same tension humming between their small group.
What had seemed like such a simple plan, get out of the house, get into the plane, get to Prey’s secure office, then find a way to go after River Gardner, had turned into anything but.
If he’d known someone had tampered with the plane, he would have insisted they stay, lock the girls in the safe room, and take on whoever was after them where they had the home-ground advantage.
Out here, there were too many unknowns, too many things that could go wrong. They didn't know this landscape like they knew their home, and that had his anxiety ramping up several notches.
As they moved, Lion constantly scanned the forest, searching for something he didn't want to see. The bodies of his girls lying discarded and forgotten on the forest floor. Each step they took where he didn't see them, the knot around his heart loosened a little.
If he couldn’t see their bodies, they were still out there somewhere.
Waiting for him.
I'm coming, Katie-Bear. Won't ever not be there for you again. Hold on and keep our little Ari-Bear close until I get to you.
“That way,” Dragon said, nodding to their right, and they slightly veered course.
It was clear that the girls had just been running, his little girl in a panic, afraid, and with no plan other than to get away from the shooting.
Kate had followed, probably trying to keep as quiet as possible so that she and their daughter weren't spotted.
It had worked because it seemed like the two had gotten away.
“Right,” Dragon commanded, and no one hesitated to obey. There was something pretty amazing about his ability to track someone just like a dog would do, and Lion had never been more grateful for it.
Even though Kate and Ariella had likely been running when they left the farmhouse, and he and his team were walking, making sure they didn't miss any important signs, he was pretty sure they were making just as good time as his girls.
Ariella was just a kid, a sick kid at that, and Kate was injured.
Running would have been hell on her broken ribs.
Although he doubted his girl had been thinking about her pain as she chased after their daughter.
“Wait,” Blade suddenly announced, and they all froze.
Trust between him and his teammates was implicit.
So many years working together, living under extreme circumstances, and having no one but each other to rely on meant they didn't doubt one another.
Ever. Doubt led to hesitations, and hesitations could lead to death.
“What is it?” Steel asked.
“I hear something,” Blade replied. Although they’d all known that, they wanted to know what specifically he was hearing.
Scanning the area, he searched for something, anything, that would tell him his girls were just up ahead, or even that there was another small army coming in after them.
This feeling of not knowing, or uncertainty, was the worst. He needed actionable intel so he could have his girls back where they belonged, in his arms.
Lion spotted it through the trees at the same time Blade answered Steel’s question.
“A helo,” he and Blade said in unison.
Months ago, when they first started this plot of revenge, using Rose as bait, they’d come so close to catching Ridge Gardner.
But the man had slipped through their fingers, escaping in a helicopter after the car he and Rose were in had crashed.
They’d stopped to save her life before the car, with Rose still inside, could tip over the edge of a cliff.
Never once had any of them regretted that decision. Saving Rose’s life should have come first, and it had. Possibly the first thing they’d done in a decade that had made them feel like maybe they weren't the monsters Dr. Gardner had claimed he’d turned them into.
Now another helicopter was rising from the ground, lifting into the night.
Soon the others could see and hear it, too, and they all stood and watched as it got closer until it was flying right overhead.
While the others tensed, preparing for someone to start firing on him, Lion froze. Because he saw two pale faces staring down at him.
Kate and Ariella’s.
Whoever was on that helo had just abducted his girls.
March 18th
4:13 A.M.
So close but so very far away.
Kate clutched her daughter against her chest and looked out the window of the helicopter they’d been forced onto. Below her were trees, the forest spread out like a blanket beneath them, and between the trees she saw him.
Leo.
Right below her. If she thought she and her daughter would be blessed with a second miracle, then she’d find a way to throw herself and Ariella right out of there. As stupid as it sounded, she trusted that Leo would catch them when they fell.
For a whole decade, she’d been so angry with Leo she thought that she hated him, even when she’d learned the truth, she’d been unsure if she could ever trust him again. Not fully at least, because he’d gone too far in his attempts to push her away, so she never wanted to come and look for him.
But now she trusted him.
Enough to catch her.
Enough to save her even.