It was probably a trap. What were the chances that I happened to make my escape during the guard’s only bathroom break?
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I turned toward the unfamiliar voice and smacked the back of my head on the bottom of the windowsill. “Shit!” Rubbing my scalp, I watched the guard jog toward me, carrying a travel mug steaming through the vent hole. One of Malone’s men. I knew him by sight—he’d been there when we were “arrested”—but his name wouldn’t come. Terry? Tommy? Something with a T…
My pulse raced, and I struggled to control it. Not that he could hear very well with that thick hood on, surely.
Teddy! It came to me suddenly as he stomped closer, unzipping his jacket to show me the gun tucked into the front of his waistband. The idiot should have kept it ready.
“Ted, right?” I conjured up a smile, wondering how much he knew about me. How dangerous I was considered by toms I’d had no personal contact with.
His brows rose, then his dark eyes narrowed in the light spilling from the window over my head. He seemed both surprised and suspicious that I knew his name. “This ain’t a drive-through window. Get back in there.”
“Is that coffee?” My brain whirred, scrambling for the right words, a plausible explanation. “Could I possibly convince you to get me a cup? Alex is pretty stuck on this bread-and-water routine.”
“I’m not your fucking gopher.” He craned his neck, trying to look around me through the window. “Where is Alex, anyway?”
“Bathroom. They stuck some bull neck right outside the door.” I leaned farther out the window and eyed his mug. “Can I just have a sip of yours, then?”
Teddy hesitated, glancing from me to his insulated cup, then back. I rolled my eyes. “You must be the only tom in this complex who’s afraid of my germs. Everyone else seems pretty damned eager to catch anything I’m giving out. Which means you’re either a big scaredy-cat, or you’re really stingy with your coffee.” Or he wasn’t into girls. I shrugged and started to duck back into the room. “Fine. Keep your damn coffee.”
“Here.” He shoved the cup toward me, like most toms, eager to defend his manhood. “I hope you like it black.”
I grinned. “So long as it’s hot.” I swear, calling them “scared” works just as well as playing the boob card. Almost. So just for good measure, I gave him a nice, long look as I leaned halfway out the window again.
While he stared down my shirt, I reached for the coffee—and grabbed his wrist instead.
I pulled, hard. He grunted and flew toward me. Coffee sloshed. His face smooshed into the window over my head. I tugged his gun from his waistband.
“Whoa…” Ted dropped the coffee and started to back away.
“Don’t move,” I ordered.
He froze. “You don’t even know how to use that.”
“My dad learned to shoot in college, and he taught us all the basics.” A little truth with every lie is like salt on potatoes—it just goes down better that way. I raised one brow when he frowned in disbelief. “What? You thought you guys were the only ones shooting up paper deer? Think again.”
“You’re lying…”
I smiled. “What if I’m not?”
“They’ll bust in the minute they hear gunfire.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but you’ll still be shot. As will the next fifteen people who come through that door. You want that on your head?”
“You’re not gonna kill ’em.”
“No, but I will shoot them. What’s Malone going to say when he finds out where I got the gun?”
Teddy hesitated, evidently trying to shoot fireballs from his eyes. “You’re a bitch.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking of having that put on some business cards. Now turn around and take a step back. You shout, and I’ll put a bullet through your shoulder.”
He didn’t move until I flicked off the safety, glad I’d seen both Dean and Alex do that earlier. And even more glad that they were evidently all carrying the same model gun. “Shit.” Teddy turned slowly, arms out at his sides.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
Teddy huffed. “You can’t tie my hands and hold that gun at the same time.” The tension in his hands and neck said he was about to try something stupid.
“You’re right about that.” I flicked the safety back on and leaned farther out the window, then swung the gun as hard as I could. The butt slammed into the back of his head. Ted crumpled to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.
I climbed out the window, already shivering violently, and when I was sure Ted was still breathing—thanks to the white puffs of air floating in front of his face—I rolled him onto his stomach and dug his handcuffs from his pocket. Then I took perverse pleasure in restraining him with his own cuffs. That’s like being shot with your own gun or stabbed with your own knife. Insult to injury.
I liked the irony.
Teddy’s eyes fluttered, and he moaned, already waking up. It was hard to get in a good swing when you’re hanging out a window.
Since I didn’t have any other way to keep him quiet, I kicked him in the back of the skull, and his head rolled to the left. He was out cold that time. And only once my adrenaline rush began to fade did I realize I’d cuffed him before taking off his coat. Again. And a quick search revealed that he didn’t have the keys on him. I was getting too cuff-happy for my own good. Fortunately, I was also free, armed with two guns I didn’t know how to use, and filled with the satisfaction of having single-handedly disarmed and disabled two members of Malone’s “elite” task force.
And I was freezing my ass off.
I double-checked the safety on the new pistol, then slid the barrel into the front waistband of my jeans—uncomfortably aware that I was now the meat in a two-handgun sandwich—then glanced around to get my bearings. My room was on the side of the lodge; the front was to my left and the back was to my right.
I edged along slowly with my back to the wall, while a clock ticked softly in my head. It wouldn’t take long for them to realize I was gone, and I had to free Marc and Jace before that happened. But when I rounded the back corner of the lodge, I discovered via the light and noise pouring from an uncovered kitchen window that I would be in plain sight during my dash across the yard toward the shed where they were being held.
Fortunately, the shed entrance was on the left-hand wall, so the guard hadn’t yet seen me. But a straightforward approach would never work. Even in the dark, when I refused to identify myself, he’d either shoot or shout for backup.
Frustrated and half-frozen, I backtracked quickly, then dashed across the side yard, heading for the woods as quietly as possible. Under the cover of trees, I stopped to Shift my eyes. Light from the cabin didn’t reach the tree line, and in my clumsy two-legged form, with inadequate human vision, I’d never make it to the shed without stumbling and giving myself away.
Now better prepared, I picked my way through the underbrush, aiming for piles of pine needles rather than crunchy fallen leaves, until I saw the shed directly ahead. And the tom on duty, too dark to identify from such a distance.
I could tell from his carriage and bearing that I didn’t know him. However, the chances of him not knowing me were slim to none, so the “Hey, I got lost in the woods” routine probably wouldn’t work.
But then again… He couldn’t see as well as I could in the dark, and our sense of smell is nowhere near as good in human form as in cat form. And he wouldn’t be expecting Malone’s most infamous prisoner—whom he didn’t know had escaped—to come tripping out of the woods.
Maybe if I go for the Oscar…
In the absence of a good plan, any plan will work. I moved Teddy’s gun from the front of my waistband to the back, next to Alex’s. My heart was racing, but that was good—a natural physiological response from a damsel in true distress. After a single moment’s hesitation, I took a deep breath and stumbled out of the woods.
I tripped on purpose,
breathing hard, and glanced over my shoulder at the trees I could see much better than could the guard. Half sobbing I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled a few steps farther.
“Hey!” the guard called, and I flinched over his volume. “What are you…?”
“Oh, thank goodness!” I gasped, obviously winded from my race through the woods. Hopefully he wouldn’t stop to wonder why he hadn’t heard me coming. “There’s something out there. Chasing me…” I jogged toward him, half twisted to point at the woods—and to keep my face averted. I panted and heaved, like I could hardly breathe. “Something big. I heard it. Huffing. Growling.”
He glanced over my shoulder, his hand going to his waistband in an automatic, natural gesture, and I had a moment to wonder if I’d found the one tom who was truly good with his gun.
“Run!” I gasped. “It’s right behind me.”
“I don’t hear any…”
When he didn’t move, I let myself collide with him, collapsing into his arms like beauty running from the beast. That way he was too busy holding me up to go for his gun. But I wasn’t. When he stood me up, I grabbed the 9 mm from his waistband—my third capture in half an hour. Not bad for a girl, huh?
“What the…”
“Shut up and face the shed.” I shoved him around by one shoulder. “You even look like you’re gonna move, and I’ll shoot you through the thigh.”
“Look, I don’t have any cash, and you have no idea what you’ve stumbled into.”
I laughed softly. He still didn’t recognize me. “Oh, I have a pretty good idea. I also have a pretty good idea what Malone’s going to do to you when he finds out what happened to your gun.”
“Faythe?” The guard started to turn, but stopped when I shoved the barrel of the gun into his back.
“One more word, and you’ll be fighting blood loss and hypothermia. Got it?” He nodded silently, and I had to work to keep my teeth from chattering. “Good. Take off your coat. Slowly.”
The guard slid first one arm, then the other, from his sleeves.
“Drop it, then kick it backward. And keep in mind that if you can take it off one arm at a time, I can put it on the same way. The gun’s still aimed at your back.”
“You’re not gonna shoot me.” He let the jacket fall, then slid it backward with his right foot.
“Haven’t you heard what a crazy bitch I am?”
After that, he had nothing else to say while I bent for the coat and put it on one arm at a time, doing my best to keep the gun aimed, just as I’d promised. “Now, open the door.”
“It’s locked,” he said, and a glance at the shed confirmed that.
“Unlock it. And drop your handcuffs.”
He dug his cuffs from one pocket and dropped them on the ground at his feet, then pulled a key from the other. “Malone’s going to have your head for this,” he said as he twisted the key in the lock, his fingers already red and stiff from the cold.
“Yeah, what’s he going to do, kill me twice?” Of course, death wasn’t what I really had to fear from Malone and his men, but nothing I did or didn’t do was going to change what they wanted from me.
A second later, he pulled the padlock from the shed door.
“Okay, open it and step inside. And don’t touch a motherfucking thing.”
The guard opened the door and stepped in. I followed, only pausing long enough to pull the door closed behind me. The dim light bulb dangling from the ceiling was a shock after the dark of the woods, and I stood for a moment to let my cat eyes adjust. But before they could, I heard shuffling from directly ahead.
“Faythe?”
Marc. And Jace was in the cage beside him.
I forced my eyes open wider and smiled. “Surprise.”
Thirteen
My blood boiled, in spite of the below-freezing temperature, at the sight of Marc and Jace locked up in five-foot-tall animal cages. Like me, they’d been marched out of our cabin without coats, and in separate cages, they couldn’t even huddle together for warmth. After less than two hours in the cold, they were both pale and shivering, and only warmed by the scorching rage clearly burning behind their eyes.
“How’d you get out?” Jace’s teeth chattered as he stood hunched over, fingers curled around the steel-mesh sides of his cage.
“Through the window.” I nudged the guard in the back with his own gun. “Let them out.”
“I don’t have those keys.” He started to turn, but stopped when I shoved him again.
I glanced around the shed and spotted an open, rusty toolbox in one corner, holding a hammer and an assortment of wrenches. “Get the hammer and knock the locks off. One blow each.” Because if anyone heard him, we wouldn’t have time to waste with dainty little taps. “And if you even look like you’re going to hit anything other than those locks, I will shoot you in the back.” I couldn’t kill as easily as Malone’s men seemed to, but I could and would kill in defense of myself, or either of the men in the cages.
“What about Alex?” Marc asked, as the guard picked up the hammer and hesitated, probably trying to decide if I was serious about killing him.
“Come on!” I snapped at the guard, then glanced at Marc. “Alex is a victim of his own stupidity and arrogance.”
“He’s dead?” Jace asked, his voice thick with a mix of regret and relief—they fought on opposing sides, but they shared a mother.
“Just unconscious. Same with the goon outside my window. Thus the rush.” I glared at the guard. “Do it. And if you have to take more than one swing, you’re going to regret it.”
Finally he shrugged, and I took a step back as he swung at the lock on Marc’s cage. The lock popped open, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. I hadn’t been sure that would work. “Take off the chain, then do the other one.”
The guard set his hammer on top of Marc’s cage and unthreaded the chain as ordered. Still shivering, Marc stepped out of his pen as Malone’s man moved on to free Jace.
“Here.” While the guard unwound the second chain, I pulled one of the guns from my waistband and handed it to Marc. “Just in case.”
When Jace was free, I handed him the cuffs, and he secured the guard’s hands behind his back. “You want to put him in the cage?”
“Yeah, if either of the locks still work.”
“We should gag him, too, or he’ll scream until someone shows up,” Jace said. He examined the locks while Marc scrounged for something to gag him with.
Unfortunately, both of the locks were smashed, but Marc found a roll of shop towels and a roll of duct tape in an old plastic crate. He gagged the guard and taped his ankles together, then shoved him into one of the cages. Jace wound the chain around the lock hasp and the bar. Without the padlock to hold it in place, the guard would probably eventually kick his way free, but with any luck, that wouldn’t be anytime soon.
With the new prisoner as quiet and secure as we could make him, we stepped outside in spite of the cold, to keep from discussing the rest of our plans in front of him—another lesson learned from TV bad guys.
Behind the shed, out of sight from the lodge, I debriefed the guys. Figuratively. “Okay, we need to get rid of the guns before this new pile of shit hits the fan, although from the look of you both, I’d say finding a couple of coats is also a priority.” I would have handed over mine, but I wasn’t sure which one to offer it to. And neither of them would have taken it, anyway.
“Yes, business is obviously pressing, but first of all…” Marc looked like he wanted to hug me, even if just for my warmth, but he wouldn’t let himself. “Are you okay?”
I couldn’t resist a little laugh. “For once, the double standard worked in my favor. I got a warm room, hot stew, and an idiot guard. You guys were the ones freezing your butts off in cages.”
“We’re fine,” Jace insisted through clenched his teeth, probably to keep them from chattering. “You took out three of Cal’s men by yourself?”
“Brains over brawn, baby.” I grinned. “If
they ever stop underestimating me, I might actually feel challenged.”
Jace returned my grin. “Or dead.”
“So I guess this means we’re moving against Malone sooner than expected?” Marc asked, arms crossed tightly over his chest for warmth, obviously unwilling to take part in the post-jailbreak levity.
“We have no other choice, unless you guys want to crawl back into those cages.”
Jace’s grin faltered, but couldn’t be completely extinguished. “Not even if you crawled in there with me.”
Marc gritted his teeth, but remained focused on the business at hand. “So…the guns. I’m guessing Malone’s keeping them close. Probably in his bedroom.”
I shrugged. “Actually, I’m thinking they’re in the shed behind his cabin. Alex said they’re locked up, and to my knowledge, none of the bedrooms have locks.” At least, the ones in our cabin didn’t.
“Alex told you about the guns?” Jace asked, through blue-tinted lips.
“Just that they have twenty of them, and brought ten here. But there are three fewer now.” Grinning, I pulled the second gun from my waistband and handed it to him.
Jace looked impressed, but he accepted the pistol hesitantly, no doubt remembering the recovery period from his last gunshot wound. “I don’t know how to shoot.”
“Me, neither, but it makes a damn good threat, and I’m guessing that, up close, your aim doesn’t have to be that good. Just make sure you know how to turn off the safety, or they’ll figure out pretty quickly that you’re bluffing.” While Jace turned the gun over in his hands, I glanced at Marc, who remained stoic against the cold. “Okay, we need to get you guys warmed up and let Dad know we’re out. Let’s go through the woods.” That way we’d be out of sight, and blocked from the worst of the freezing wind.
“So, this is going to go down without backup…” Marc whispered, as we picked our way carefully through the woods. The guys had both Shifted their eyes, too—they were among the first of my Pride members to master the partial Shift—and seemed much more adept hiking in their human forms than I was in mine, even with their limbs surely half-numb from the cold.