39. Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Gage
I was experiencing a sickening level of Deja Vu. The warehouse Dallas chose as his hiding spot was eerily similar to the last one I saw him in five years ago. One wall in the building had crumbled outward, leaving bricks and steel debris all over the concrete lot where it stood alone.
We weren’t within the city limits anymore, but this place was much closer to human activity than I liked. Any number of people could drive by and see us in full tactical gear and make a call to the authorities.
If we were lucky, they would believe we were the authorities.
That was the purpose of the black SUV Levi kept at the unit. It was registered under the name of a pack member in Alaska, only the most distant ties to us, which allowed us to move freely through the city on our way here.
The last thing we needed was cops—or any humans—locking their attention on us.
Only years of training and focus kept me from barreling into the building, gun drawn, and searching every shadow for Abby. She was here, I could feel it, and she was terrified.
Pack brother or not, I was going to skin Dallas alive.
Whatever happened to him at that facility, it broke him. Not the way my pack and I were broken but truly and thoroughly destroyed the man he used to be. Taking him out would be a mercy.
But I had to find him first.
There were at least three stories in the building. Dallas and Abby could be on any of them, and so could Manchini and his pack. Just because we hadn’t seen any vehicles didn’t mean they didn’t beat us here.
I gave Levi one minute for strategy, listening as he assigned Mason and Ezra recon at the exterior and bottom floor interior. Kai was the stealthiest and it would be his job to find a hiding place and get in position with his rifle.
“Gage, you’re with me.”
“I’m going for Abigail,” I told him.
“We all are, but you can’t just bulldoze your way in there. We don’t know what we’re looking at. If they’re blocking their scents, we have no way to judge how many there are or where they’re hiding.”
“Cover me, and I can.”
Levi triple checked his gun, face serious. “Okay, you’re covered. Stay safe.”
As soon as we pulled up the location on a map, we knew there was a chance this was a trick. The last time we were in a warehouse like this one, it was rigged with explosives. There was no reason to believe Dallas wasn’t trying to recreate that night and take us all out. I wasn’t going to wait around and assess the risk.
Levi gave his final order, and I was full out sprinting into the building. I ducked inside, anchoring myself to the wall and sliding sideways as my vision adjusted to the shadows. My brother was right behind me, grabbing my shoulder and shoving me down to the concrete floor seconds before a bullet smashed a hole into the brick.
Manchini was here, and he wasn’t alone. A dozen scents hit me at once. Big cat, maybe wolf, definitely pissed off shifter. Levi called out to the team, alerting them that the party had already started, and raising his gun to fire.
There were scattered pieces of metal siding all around the bottom floor. They were thin and didn’t make ideal cover, but it was the best we had. Levi and I ducked, crawled, and rolled across the space, bullets whizzing over our heads. I counted out four men in various positions. There had to be more, but I couldn’t get eyes on them.
They had a double advantage, both the element of surprise and better positioning. There was a metal staircase leading up out of sight and all four of them were crouched on it, guns aimed at us. We had to assume they were shooting silver which meant even one bullet was enough to take us down.
Unfortunately for them, we were shooting silver too, and Kai was a much better shot. The first one dropped so quickly it startled his friends, their focus still aimed on Levi and me as we huddled behind a slanted scrap. Immediately they shifted directions, aiming up the stairwell toward an alcove on the second floor. I had no clue how Kai got up there so fast, but I was fucking grateful for him.
“Cover!” I shouted to Levi, leaping from my position and taking off across the warehouse. Another spray of bullets began, this one from my left, and I felt one cut the air inches from my ear.
Levi answered with his own shots, his careful and timed. We came prepared for a gunfight, but it wouldn’t do for him to use up all his ammo before we got the extremists out in the open. We were outnumbered and outgunned.
My feet pounded up the staircase. One cat shifter was still perched on the steps, aiming straight at my face. I leapt with all my force, my foot connecting with his chest as a gun went off.
I glanced up to the second floor, briefly catching sight of two glowing green eyes, and nodded. Kai had my back too.
Mason and Ezra were already on the second floor. Ezra grappled with a large man in black. Mason was firing at three more taking cover behind a pile of rotting wood. I charged through the chaos, expecting every step to be my last as more and more bullets littered the empty space in the warehouse.
At the same time, I scanned every nook and corner, hoping desperately not to see Abby. She was alive, wherever she was. I had to hope she was out of range.
I could smell her now, a thread of scent amongst the dust and the stink of shifter blood. Hers was mingled with Dallas’s scent and my wolf let out of a roar of challenge.
Males didn’t challenge each other for mates in modern packs. It was considered barbaric, an antiquated practice that left females grieving and broken when a new mate bond was shattered by a more dominant male that wanted to have her.
That didn’t mean my wolf had forgotten. Wildlings still practiced mate challenges, and my wolf understood that. He was prepared for it, had already planned seven hundred different ways he would decimate any challenger that dared to approach him.
Dallas had taken up that challenge, whether he intended to keep Abby for himself or not, and my wolf was going to kill him.
Which was a problem because I didn’t want to kill him. Maim him, definitely, but I couldn’t erase the bond I shared with Dallas before he died. I couldn’t forget that he was my brother, that he saved my life half a dozen times, and that he was tormented the same as me.
I knew by the tone of Dallas’s voice that he wasn’t steady. While we were dropped back in Alaska after months of torture, Dallas disappeared. For all I knew, he was in that facility up until he appeared on the street that night outside the bar. Even the strongest, most dominant shifter couldn’t maintain their sanity after being isolated for that long.
I didn’t want to forgive him for taking Abby, and if he hurt a single hair on her head, I wouldn’t. But I couldn’t give up on him yet. I had to understand what happened to him. To see if he was worth saving.
“Dallas!” I bellowed, climbing another floor of stairs, and storming up onto the third. Abby was here, I could feel her, the bond a writhing mass of fear.
There were two doors at the top of the stairs, both red, both tightly sealed. There was no discernible noise on the other side, my ears ringing with the intermittent gunshots. I took a gamble, kicking the first one open, leaping to the side, and waiting for gunfire. Leaning around the doorway, I peered in and saw a dangerous drop all the way down to the first floor. Whatever was left of the floor up here, it was tilted and unstable, hunks of rebar sticking out to impale you on the way down if you fell.
My heart was in my throat as I went for the second door. I kept my finger off the trigger, gun pointed at the floor. No matter what was on the other side of that door, I wasn’t going to risk firing at Abby.
With a grunt my foot connected, the heavy door flying open and smashing into the adjacent wall. I forgot every second of my training at the shrill sound of my name.
“Gage!” I didn’t hear the rest, not until I was already inside, hands over my shoulders as I made eye contact with the barrel of a gun.
“That’s far enough, pardner.”
The rage stilled in me, my wolf going eerily calm. Until this very moment, he was ready to take Dallas’s head off. But seeing him was like seeing a ghost.
He wasn’t the same young man I knew from five years ago. Time had weathered him, fine lines forming creases around his mouth. His face was lopsided, one half of his jaw sitting at an odd angle.
That was probably because there was a chunk of his face missing, the skin and bone fused back together with little regard for aesthetics.
What the fuck did they do to him?
“Dallas?” It croaked from my throat, and I felt weak. I was weak. At my very weakest, with the only thing that could truly break me feet away from my no-longer-dead best friend as he wielded a gun, looking fifteen shades of crazy.
“You look surprised.” He smirked, angling himself so that Abby was just out of view. She’d gone quiet, and I was afraid to even look at her. Right now, Dallas was fixed on me, his gun pointed away from her. I needed to keep it like that.
“I am surprised,” I said honestly, regaining some of my composure. “I watched you die five years ago.”
“See,” he made a show of waving his gun, taunting me with a chance to disarm him. A chance he knew I wouldn’t take. “That’s not what they told me.”
“They?” I snorted. “You mean the people that put a hole in your fucking face?” It was bold, and I didn’t know if bold was the right move. Dallas used to take my shit better than anyone. Was that version of him somewhere in there, or did they kill it?
“I’ve got one of Manchini’s dipshits to thank for that, actually.” He rubbed absently at the side of his face. “I paid him back in kind.”
“That’s funny because Manchini and half his pack are downstairs shooting at my boys right now. Why invite him to your party after what he did?”
“The same reason I invited you.” His grin was unsettling. “Y’all been using me left and right, and I’m putting a stop to it. I’m here to take back my freedom.”
I swallowed, sliding one foot closer. “I’m not the one that took your freedom, Dallas. If I’d known you were alive, you know—”
“You traded my life for yours!” He shouted suddenly, backpedaling until he was only two feet away from a metal chair.
A metal chair that my mate was bound to, her shoulders hunched, eyes round with horror. Meeting her gaze was a mistake, one that might cost both of us our lives. My composure melted under the heat of my rage as it returned.
My mate. He took my fucking mate. The woman bound to my soul .
Did he touch her?
If I found even a scrape on her, I would—
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” His arm swung outward, the gun pointed directly at Abby’s chest. “Or did you think that I wouldn’t make it out of there to make you regret it?”
“Dallas, get that fucking gun away from my mate.”
He laughed, pressing it so hard into Abby’s chest that she winced. “Or what? What are you going to do? Shoot me? You wanna bet you can pull the trigger before I do?”
Bile coated my throat, my legs shaking. Sweat gathered in my palms as I resisted shifting. If my wolf gained control, it was over. His ability to assess risk was nullified at the sight of Abby in danger.
“You don’t want to do that, Dallas. You don’t hurt people that don’t deserve it. Put the gun down and we can talk about this.”
Below us the sound of violence and gunfire had ceased, leaving a disturbing calm in its wake. I could still feel Levi through the pack bonds, strong and confident, and his confidence bolstered my own.
Dallas shuffled his feet, energy building around him. Maybe I could get him to shift. At least then he couldn’t hold a gun.
“There’s nothing to talk about, you asshole. You got in over your head, so you traded my life for your freedom. You left me to be tortured by those scientist fucks! They cut me open! They put shit in my head!” The gun was no longer pointed at Abby, flailing wildly around the room as Dallas gestured. “We were never supposed to leave each other behind!”
“We didn’t,” I said softly, holstering my gun. “We didn’t trade you, Dallas. We didn’t leave you behind. Listen to yourself. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Makes perfect sense because I’m here, all kinds of fucked up, and you’re there, all shiny and new.”
I unzipped my tactical vest, tossing it behind me. “No, Dallas. I would never have left you behind. Find the pack bond. Do it, right now.”
Dallas faltered, his gun arm lowering.
“You know there’s only two ways to sever a pack bond. I don’t remember you asking Levi to cut you loose. Do you?”
“You’re trying to trick me!” He shouted.
“It’s not a trick, Dallas.” I slid my feet slowly across the floor, angling myself closer to Abby. Don’t look at her. Do not look at her. “You died. Maybe not for long, but long enough that your pack bond died too. We couldn’t feel you. We couldn’t find you. We thought you were gone.”
I took the hem of my shirt and lifted it over my head, baring every inch of damaged skin to him. “They got us too. Pumped us full of drugs, took a long look at our insides. All of us. Levi, Ezra, Mason, Kai—they ruined us all.”
Tears gathered in Dallas’s eyes, the copper glow from his wolf dimming to reveal a modest brown. The mangled muscles in his left cheek twitched.
“You’re trying to trick me,” he repeated in a whisper. “You volunteered .”
“Look at me.” My next step was bolder, closing the gap. Ten more feet and I could touch Abby. Ten more and I could put myself between him and her. “We’re trying to find them. The ones that did this to us. We’re going to make them pay.”
“Trying to find them?” He laughed humorlessly. “You really don’t fucking know?”
Know what? “We can help you, Dallas.”
His face crumpled, spittle flying from his mouth as he roared, “No one can help me!”
I didn’t think when Dallas drew the gun up and pointed it at Abby’s head. Every cell in my body reacted at the same time, my muscles exploding as I flew across those final ten feet. He was quick, but I was quicker.
I had to be.
I promised to keep her safe, and I would at all costs.
I didn’t hear the gun go off. I didn’t hear anything but the roaring of flames as they licked across my body. Air escaped my lungs, the fire burning it away.
Beneath me was cold and hard and I wished that I could sink into it. Anything to stop the burning in my chest.
Someone was screaming. Screaming for me.
I lifted my head an inch, trying to see her.
One last look.
But the fire consumed me and the last thing I saw was silver flames scorching through my veins.