Chapter 23
INGA
Inga heard a clatter, but didn’t realize what had happened until Luke held up his suddenly bare wrists with an exclamation of delight.
“It worked!”
“Awesome,” she said, squirming on the cold floor. “Do you think you can do your legs too?”
He had his feet out in a couple of tries. This made both of them realize that he had no way to free her.
“Hold on for just a minute,” Luke said.
He got up and walked to the door. For a moment he simply stood with his eyes half closed. Inga recognized the look of a shifter communicating with their inner animal, maybe not in words, but becoming aware of its presence.
Then Luke walked forward and ran into the door with an audible thump.
“Ow,” he muttered, rubbing his nose. “I really thought that’d work.”
“Luke—”
“No, wait. Let me try again.”
From her perspective, nothing was different. Luke closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, walked forward—and vanished into the door.
Inga lurched up to her knees in shock, nearly losing the raincoat wrapped around her.
“Luke!” she called softly.
From out in the hall, she heard a startled exclamation and a loud thud.
There was some silence and soft rattling, while she listened anxiously.
Then a key clicked in the lock. Inga scrambled to her feet, unwilling to meet whatever was coming lying down, and trying to ignore the lingering throbbing in her head from the drug.
The door opened and Luke stood there, grinning, with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Piece of cake. I’m gonna drag this guy in there so no one sees him, and then I’ll get those off you.”
He heaved the unconscious guard into the room, then quickly removed Inga’s cuffs and transferred one of the sets of shackles to the guard, clipping him to a cargo tie-down.
“Do you want to put on this guy’s clothes?”
Inga made a face and shook her head. “This is all right.” Now that she had her arms free, she put on the raincoat properly.
It was chilly against her skin, and considerably too big, but that was all right; it hung to her mid-thighs and functioned as a sort of short dress.
“We’ll probably have to shift again to swim for it. ”
“That’s not the only problem.” Luke cracked the door open and glanced out into the hallway, then looked back at her.
“There are hostages here. It looks like Brockton and his men took over the ship and imprisoned the researchers who would normally be working on it. How many people are normally on this ship?”
“Uh, about a dozen, I guess? Maybe a dozen and a half? There would be the scientists, some grad students or interns, and the crew running the ship.”
Luke cursed softly. “That’s not good. I only saw four.”
“In all likelihood, the crew would be manning their stations in weather like this.” The rolling of the deck was still pronounced underfoot, but it had the steady cadence of somewhere close to shore, not the wild swells of the open ocean.
“Of course, it’s possible they brought their own crew.
As for the researchers—I don’t know. I really hope they’re all right.
Were you able to talk to them? Did they look okay? ”
“They didn’t look hurt, just tired and stressed. I couldn’t talk to them because I was a bear at the time.”
“Oh.” Once again, she wished she hadn’t missed so much while she was out. “You can shift, then?”
“No, this was when I was on the ship earlier as a ghost bear.”
“Right,” Inga muttered. She took a breath and pulled the raincoat more tightly around her body.
Her bare feet were starting to ache from contact with the cold floor.
Maybe she should’ve dealt with the ick and worn the guard’s clothes after all.
Speaking of which, he was starting to stir and groan.
“Wherever we go, we better get out of here before that guy wakes up.”
Luke leaned out into the hallway, then swiftly ducked back inside. “Damn. Someone’s coming down the stairs.” He looked around the narrow confines of the small room. “Think there’s enough space for you to shift in here?”
As much fun as the idea of confronting their guards as a bear would be, Inga shook her head. “Not safely. I could try it if I have to.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Luke’s voice dropped to a whisper and he stepped to the side.
An instant later, the door swung open, and the man on the other side got as far as “Where the hell—” before Luke slammed the butt of the rifle into his face.
A moment later, a second prisoner was shackled with the first. To make things extra inconvenient for them, Luke threaded the shackles between both their arms so they were effectively pretzeled together.
“I doubt we’ll get that lucky again. They’re going to figure out that guys go down here and don’t come back.” He turned the rifle around and held it out butt-first to Inga. “Can you use this?”
Inga took it doubtfully. “I’ve had a little practice plinking at cans with a .22. I can probably manage not to shoot my foot off.” She checked the gun’s controls cautiously. “Or yours,” she added.
“Good enough for me.” Luke peered out into the hallway. “Coast is clear. So what I’m thinking we should do is split up. You can shift and swim for help, while I look for—”
“No,” Inga interrupted him. “No way. I’m not leaving you on this ship while I swim away.”
“Inga, I still don’t think I can shift. Without a boat, I’m not getting off this ship.”
“So we grab the hostages, steal a boat, and head out. Easy.”
Luke stared at her, then shook his head. “I can see already that I’m going to lose every argument with you.”
Inga’s heart lifted. His words implied an after for them—as people and as a couple.
“I’m not that confident of being able to swim to shore as a bear anyway,” she pointed out.
“It’s really rough out there, and it wasn’t easy to make it over to the boat where we met up before.
You’d feel bad if you sent me out there and I drowned. ”
Luke paused with his hand on the door. “I’d feel a lot more than bad.
” He slung the rifle over his shoulder, took her face in his hands, and kissed her hard.
His mouth tasted like ocean salt. When he released her lips, he gazed into her eyes for a moment.
“So let’s stay together, find the hostages, and everybody goes together. ”
“Funny, that plan sounds familiar somehow.”
Luke grinned, cracking his salt-dried lips. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They went out into the hallway, Luke leading. Inga followed as confidently as she dared, padding behind him in her bare feet. She found herself assessing the narrow spaces for possible shifting. It was her greatest asset, but she didn’t think this hallway could contain her as a bear.
“Luke,” she whispered, leaning forward. “Since this was a civilian research vessel, there should be diagrams of the ship posted everywhere with escape routes. Let’s see if we can find one.”
There turned out to be one next to the stairwell. They studied it for a moment.
“I think the place where I saw them before was in this lab,” Luke said, tapping it with the muzzle of the gun. “It looks like we can get to it without having to go up on deck.”
The door at the top of the stairwell banged open suddenly. “Hey! McGinnis!” someone called down. “Boss wants to see you!”
Luke and Inga drew back against the walls. Luke called up the stairs in a gruff voice, “Busy!”
Inga mouthed “Seriously?” at him.
“McGinnis, what’s going on down there?” The newcomer started down. Suddenly there was one of those ripping sounds, a yell, and he tumbled down the stairs and landed hard with an enormous Newfoundland dog on top of him.
“Oh hey, there you are!” Inga said. She rubbed Rogue’s ears, and discovered he was wet.
“Not that fucking dog again,” the man on the floor mumbled. Luke kicked him in the head, and he slumped into stillness.
“Luke, what do you think he’s been doing?” Inga asked, looking down at Rogue. He looked pleased with himself.
“Apparently running interference for us. Come on, let’s go find your researchers before we get the whole gang down here.”
The hallway took them into the lab area, where Luke seemed to think they would find the researchers. The first door they came to was locked. Inga saw Luke sink into his look of deep concentration, step forward—and there was a loud clatter as the gun contacted the door.
“Huh, my clothes go with me, but I guess I can’t take things I’m carrying. Here.” He unslung the strap from his shoulder and handed it to her.
Inga adjusted the other one she was carrying so she could handle this one too. “Are you sure you want to go in there unarmed?”
“I don’t really have a choice. I’ll have surprise on my side, at least.”
It seemed to take him less effort this time. He vanished through the door, and Rogue, who had plopped down when it seemed like nothing interesting was happening, jumped to his feet and stared at the door with his ears pricked forward as if it had personally betrayed him.
“Wait—!” Inga began, but Rogue was suddenly gone with that ripping sound. This time, Inga caught a glimpse of what actually happened. It looked like a narrow tear in the air that swallowed the dog—not leaping into it so much as being consumed by it.
There was now the sound of a commotion on the other side. Frustrated by her inability to help, Inga jiggled the doorknob, only to have it open so suddenly she almost fell through.
“Sorry,” Luke said. “C’mon in.”
There was a bruise on his cheekbone and two soldiers tied up on the floor. One of them was just being trussed by a very upset-looking scientist.
Inga’s gaze went immediately to the other people in the room. There were five civilians in total, and one of them she recognized.
“Dr. Moberly!”
“Inga Nilsson, isn’t it? Are you all right?” The gray-haired woman stepped forward and clasped Inga’s hand. “My dear, what happened to your clothes?”