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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 
     
ROWAN
When the door opens and Mercer walks in with a smile, I get anxious again.
“I heard about the two of you harassing Diego and breaking his arm. You just can’t be happy sitting still, now can you?” Mercer asks, even though he seems more amused by the whole thing than angry.
“Let us go, please. You know we can’t take legal action against this. You’re aware no one would believe us. We have nothing to add to this, so please let us go,” Quinn says, voice calm but assertive.
“See, now that’s where you’re wrong. You both have a part to play in this,” Mercer says as he turns off the electricity to the cage.
“What is that part?” I ask.
He sighs dramatically. “You two will have to be patient! I’ve never seen anyone with such little patience! Patience, my sweet little children. Now I want the snowy one. Wolfy, please, take a bow and step back until you’re against the wall.”
I look over at Quinn because I’m not sure if this is the moment Gina was talking about or not, but we have little choice otherwise. But even so, we can’t seem too eager to go, so when Mercer sends his shifters in, they have to pin Quinn against the wall before dragging me out. I hate seeing him forced down like that and I have to keep myself in check so I don’t do something I’ll regret.
While I’m taken back to the room, I’m careful to memorize every inch of the way and I glance in any open doors along the white, sterile hallway. Gina said we’re on the first floor, so we’d have to find a staircase or an elevator to make it down to basement level two. But if they permanently closed the exit into the mine shaft, we’ll be absolutely fucked.
Mercer takes me into the room where Gina is at the counter scribbling something onto a paper.
Gina spares him a glance. “Just… strap him to the chair. I’ll get to him in a minute. One of your ‘prodigies’ mixed up dosages. Literally, they didn’t realize that a cc and an mL were the same. Instead, they were trying to convert it and turned it into… into… hell if I know.”
“Not all are smart and pretty like you, Doctor,” Mercer says with a wink that seems to sour Gina.
She snorts and returns to scribbling furiously. It takes Mercer all of one minute to get impatient. He checks his phone, then waves at Gina. “Well, you can handle it from here. Whenever you get… whatever that is figured out, finish what I have on your schedule, and have the guards take him back to the cell.”
“Got it. Where will you be if I need help?” she asks.
“Probably the lab. I’m so close to a breakthrough, Gina. We just need a bit more information, and then we’ll be good to go.” He does this little clap for himself.
“Got it. Now quiet so I can figure this out,” she says as she shoos him out the door. She’s silent for a long time besides occasionally tapping her pen against the counter.
For a while, I start to wonder if she really is caught up in work, but the moment the two shifters in the room begin to grow bored is when she turns toward me. At this point, one is sitting in a chair, eyes half closed, and the other is rolling the cap to Gina’s pen around on the countertop like it’s a thrilling activity. I do notice neither of them appear to have cell phones on them, just radios clipped to their belts. Does Mercer not allow them to have such “luxuries”? Is he afraid he’ll lose control over them if they’re allowed to look at what the real world is doing?
Gina leans forward and shines a light into my eyes as her free hand loosens the strap around my left wrist. “Take me hostage,” she whispers.
I give the slightest of nods, but I’m not sure it matters, since the two are oblivious.
“Stop struggling or we’ll put you in the crate in the corner,” she says to me as she nods at it.
I glance over at it before realizing why she was drawing my attention to it. She wants me to get them in there where she can presumably lock them up. She grabs a tray and slides it over to me. I notice a scalpel on it a moment before she drops her pen on the ground. One of the shifters flickers his eyes toward us but doesn’t last long before glancing away as Gina kneels down. She loosens the straps on my ankles enough that I think I’ll be able to slide them out, then returns to busying herself.
I take a deep breath, praying and begging that I don’t fuck this up. Lives are on the line, including my mate’s. I take a deep breath and steel myself for what’s to come.
      
QUINN
The door opens and a shifter walks into the room, currently in his animalistic form. His body seems to be much more catlike, but he also has other features that I can’t pick apart. His gray eyes latch on to mine as he walks toward the bars and sniffs the room. He draws as close to the bars as he can get without being shocked and watches me for a long moment in silence.
“What do you want?” I ask curiously.
It’s hard to tell which of the men this shifter is when he’s in this form, and the drugs are prohibiting my shifter abilities, so I can’t shift and talk to him.
“You know you don’t have to let him control you. He’s manipulated you, made you into this by his own sick ways. You don’t have to listen to him. You don’t have to let him control you. We could help you,” I urge.
Clearly, he doesn’t like the sound of that because he growls at me as he goes over to the side panel and hits the buttons with his massive paw to turn the electricity off and open the door. It swings open and I debate trying to make a run for it before he blocks the door with his hulking body. He slowly walks into the cell with me, but his body language tells me he’s not quite happy to see me.
He sniffs the air as I realize just how defenseless I am in this room. If he were to attack me, there’s little my human arms could do to stop him from killing me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie down and take it.
As he gets near, I dart to the side to prevent him from cornering me. He growls out as he lunges, displeased I’d dare to not listen to him. I glance at the open door as he zeros in on me. And as I slowly move over to it, he slams me into the bars with the weight of his body. He rears up, mouth filled with long fangs that are inches from my face as his paws pin me against the bars. He breathes in my scent as he growls.
“What do you want from me? Did Mercer send you to kill me?” I ask, uncertain with the whole situation.
He snaps at me, so I drop down, grabbing his forearm and driving it down with my weight, like I would as a wolf, to get him onto his back. He slides off me, one paw going through the metal bars as he falls forward, and I rush the open cell door. I slip through it and go to shove it closed but he’s already there, waiting for me, like he wants to challenge me. I grab the chair and fling it at him. He tears it to the ground and lunges over it as I slip through the door out into the hallway before I start running. The issue is, I don’t know where to run to.
Rowan had explained where they’d taken him, but I can’t very well take a monstrous creature right to his door. Who the hell knows what’d happen then? Especially when I can’t tell if the shifter wants me dead.
      
ROWAN
I slip free of the binds and grab Gina around the throat, holding the scalpel firmly against it as the two shifters seem to realize that something’s happening.
“Move and I’ll kill her,” I growl as they assess the situation.
Gina shakes her head. “No, please! Help me!”
“Set your radios down or she dies,” I say as the two shifters seem unsure of what to do. One has his hand hovering over his radio, and the other seems to be debating a shift, which I can’t let him do no matter what. “You don’t want Mercer’s prized scientist to die, now do you?” I press the scalpel harder against her neck, making her squirm. I’m praying it doesn’t actually cut her, but I don’t want them to question what I’m doing.
“You’re going to regret this,” the taller of the two says.
“Please, no! Please, let me go,” Gina cries.
The shorter one on the right digs his radio out and sets it on the counter as he snarls at me.
“Hurry up,” I say to the other one.
“Please! Please do what he says! I don’t want to die!” Gina says, sounding panicked. I’m glad she’s good at this whole acting thing since I’m not positive about what I’m doing, but I at least get the second one to set his radio down.
“Get in the crate over there, both of you, or I’ll kill her,” I say.
There’s obvious hesitation now because neither of them are too eager to climb into a crate they’ll clearly be locked inside.
“There is only one of her and I’m positive Mercer could easily make more of you. You’re expendable. Do you really think he’d choose your safety over hers?” I ask.
This doesn’t make them too pleased and might have the opposite effect because they start coming toward me as the shorter one snarls at me like an animal. “You’re making a fucking mistake,” the taller one growls. “We’re going to tear you apart piece by piece. So let her go.”
I’m uncertain of what to do to get them to listen until Gina cries out and tries grabbing for her throat. “Please, stop! It hurts! You’re cutting me!”
I hesitate, thinking I really did cut her, but it makes the shifters move toward the crate. It’s not tall enough for them to stand in and really is only made for one, but they cram inside before I rush over and slam the door. Gina supplies me a key before pulling free and rushing for the counter as I lock the crate.
“You fucking bitch!” one of them yells. “They’re going to kill you both.”
“Hurry,” Gina says as she grabs one of the radios and hurries for the door. “It took so long they probably already know what’s going on.”
I follow after her as she pulls open the door and looks each way before slipping out into the hallway. That’s when a shrill alarm goes off and I glance at Gina.
“Shit. Okay. We have to go quickly. We’re racing against the clock now. The building is big and Mercer and Raylon will likely be in the lab, which is at the other end, but that still doesn’t give us enough time.”
“We need to get Quinn,” I say.
She hesitates before nodding. “Okay. Yeah. Quickly.”
We race out into the hallway and over to the open door that leads into the room Quinn and I had been held in. When I step inside, I realize the door to the cell is open and Quinn isn’t inside.
My stomach tightens as I look at the empty space my mate was supposed to be.
“What the hell, no one was supposed to take him anywhere,” Gina says as she takes my wrist and tugs. “We need to go.”
“I have to find Quinn,” I say as I anxiously look around for any sign of him.
She seems determined to pull me toward the exit, but I can’t let her. “Rowan, they know where we’re at. We have to go!”
And leave Quinn? I couldn’t leave him. No matter what happens to me, it doesn’t matter as long as I find Quinn.
Her face shows her desperation as she gives me another tug, but my feet won’t move. “I know you’re worried about him but we’re going to die if we just stand here,” Gina says desperately.
Panic fills me, but I know that my leopard would go to extremes to find him. In that form, I could tear this world apart for him.
I rip my clothes off as quickly as I can and pray I can shift because having to put my clothes back on midflight doesn’t sound appealing. The shift is painful, the drugs in my body fighting against my nature, but I push through it. I drop hard to my knees as my body distorts and I finally manage to shift into my leopard form.
My scent-tracking abilities aren’t honed like Talon’s and Quinn’s but when I have enough drive, I feel like I can find him. I can do anything to keep him safe.
I draw in his scent and start running.
Gina races after me as a red light begins to flash and a siren sounds every twenty seconds, telling everyone in the facility that we’re free and making a run for it.
      
QUINN
I’m fighting with my wolf. Begging, pleading, doing anything to try to get my wolf to come out as I run because on two legs, I’m useless.
The shifter barrels after me, skidding on the slick floor as I dive through a door that leads downstairs. I see a fire extinguisher and tear it off the wall. Yanking the pin, I spin on the shifter, spraying the foam right into his face. He roars out and swipes at me with his claws, but I throw the canister at him, which gets caught in the crossfire and he beats it to the ground. As he fights to clear his eyesight, I race down the stairs. After I descend two flights, I reach the bottom door that I pray is unlocked.
The handle turns in my hand and I push it open, stepping into an area that looks like holding cells. They’re smaller than the one Rowan and I had been in, but it’s dark and I’m not given time to look into them as I run for the door at the far end. The shifter slowly enters the room as he looks around before setting his eyes on me just before I pass through the next door.
I can hear him tearing things apart as he rushes to get a hold of me.
I need to shift. More than anything, I need to shift. I need to protect Rowan. I need to save him. I need to save my pack, and I can’t like this. I pull my shirt off, dropping it as I reach for my pants.
Pain flares up into my body like my veins have been set on fire. I grit my teeth as I double over, but my body slowly gives in as I drop to my hands and knees. My shift has never been so slow or painful before. It’s so slow that I’m afraid he’s going to catch me before I even manage to get to my feet.
He races for me as I roll up on four paws and skirt out from underneath the swipe he had aimed for my back. My body feels weird, unnatural, but I’m slowly gaining control over it as I run. When I rush into the next room, I slip to the side of the door and the moment he comes through, I leap onto his back, tearing him to the ground.
He’s fast as he pushes back and flings his body hard against the wall, smashing me between his weight and the wall. It knocks the air out of my lungs as I fall onto the ground, struggling, but I manage to jump up a moment before his claws rake the ground I’d just been lying on.
      
ROWAN
Quinn’s down here, but I can smell another with him. Another following him? Chasing him? Leading him? I have no idea what I’ll come up against, but Gina is doing her best to use a keycard to manually override the locks on the door, forcing them to stay locked until someone with a higher authority or security overrides them. She slips on some foam spray on the ground just before the stairs and I have to shift to catch her before she falls down them.
“You alright?” I ask as I steady her.
“I sure hope there really is a way out down this way because if there’s not, we’re fucked,” she says.
“I’m pretty sure we’d be fucked no matter what we do,” I say as I come down onto the last landing and push the door open. I look around the strange area, wall filled with small cells. I notice Gina looks down as we enter the room.
“What is this?” I ask.
She shakes her head, refusing to look at them. “We need to go.”
I hear a crashing noise and rush for the other door in case it’s Quinn. When I pass through, I get a whiff of Quinn’s blood and it makes anger spike inside me.
When I see the shifter rising off the ground, facing off with the black wolf, I rush forward to help until the shifter notices me.
The shifter steps back before shifting into his human form and I stumble to a stop.
“Rowan, come here. Help me, Rowan!” the man says, voice desperate as I try to wrap my mind around any of this. His eyes catch onto mine as I try to comprehend what’s going on.
“B-Brennan?” I whisper as I step forward.
My brother stumbles as he steps toward me, blood running down punctures on his throat, clearly caused by my mate.
“Oh my god, Brennan,” I say as I run to him. I haven’t seen him in years, but it’s clear by the scars that life hasn’t been kind to him. “What did they do to you?”
Quinn slips between me and Brennan just before I reach my brother. I look at Quinn in surprise before remembering that he doesn’t know who this is.
“It’s my brother,” I explain. I push past him as Brennan reaches for me.
“Rowan, help me,” he says a moment before he grabs me by the throat and slams me hard into the side of a cell. My mind swirls as darkness clouds my vision and Brennan holds me pinned against the cell, hand wrapped tightly around my throat, cutting my air off.
“I see you’ve finally come, little brother. You’re years too late, but it is such a joy to see you.”
Everything is growing blurry as I gasp for air, shocked that my brother would try to kill me. I see a flash of black as Quinn leaps up and grabs Brennan’s arm that’s around my throat. Quinn shakes his head hard and fast and Brennan jerks back, hissing out in pain. I can’t get my feet under me as I fall to the ground.
Brennan roars out as he turns to Quinn, shifting fluidly as he faces off with the wolf that’s less than half his size. No longer is he the snow leopard I once knew; instead, he’s something so different that there are only glimpses of the leopard left. He’s fast, unnaturally so as Quinn skirts around a table that Brennan just plows through.
The table catches Quinn in the side, disrupting his jump and allowing Brennan to drive him to the ground.
Panic fills me as he bites down on Quinn’s arm and I’m upon him as a leopard, leaping onto Brennan’s back.
“You’d pick him over me, brother?” Brennan asks as he flings me off him, but it gives Quinn the opportunity to get up.
“Brennan, please stop attacking him. Do it for me. Please,” I beg.
“I do nothing for anyone but my alpha,” he says. “I don’t know why I let him out, but he needs to go back, even if it kills him.”
This isn’t him. This isn’t my brother. Brennan was always kind and caring. He took better care of me than my father did. But he has to be in there, though it doesn’t even look like his body as a shifter anymore. Even if every ounce of his leopard seems to be gone, I know my brother is there.
He rushes for me, swiping at me as Quinn slams into him, tearing him down. Quinn is absolutely brutal, but I’m too caught up on the idea that this is my brother, and I can’t let him die. He’s just confused, and if I get him away he’ll be my brother again.
I hesitate mid strike and he throws Quinn down and grabs him by the neck, dragging him back in the direction we came from. Quinn thrashes but he doesn’t have claws like a cat. Panic fills me as I realize that if he clamps his jaws shut, Quinn could die.
“Brennan, please!” I yell as I rush after him.
That’s when Gina slams something into his side. He roars out, dropping Quinn and striking at her, but I slide in front of him. His swing hesitates a moment before it would have flayed me open and he snarls at me instead. Then he backs up, staggering.
“Run, I injected him with a sedative. We have to go,” Gina says, but the thought of leaving my brother behind in this place kills me.
I glance over at Quinn as he pushes himself to his feet, his amber eyes watching me closely. “Quinn,” I say anxiously.
“We can’t escape dragging a body, love,” he says.
“If it were your brother.”
Quinn’s fur is wet with blood. He’s favoring his leg and I know his throat has to be torn by the way blood drips from it. And I know it’s so goddamn selfish of me to be hesitating like this.
“I know. So I’ll do whatever you want to do, Rowan. But we’d never make it up the elevator shaft with him,” Quinn says, always the voice of reason.
I nod, knowing he’s right, and rush up to him.
“In here,” Gina says. “Is this the one?”
I look back at my brother who is watching me with hooded eyes. “Brennan, I’ll come back for you. I’ll save you. I promise.”
He says nothing as I slip through the doorway after my mate, but it almost hurts worse than if he did.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 
     
QUINN
Gina has the trapdoor open by the time we reach it and is anxiously looking down. “Here?” she asks.
I nod before nudging her toward it. She doesn’t hesitate as she slides down into it and I push Rowan toward it next.
“Quinn, go next, please.”
I shove him into it and he falls through the hole, which is kind of what he gets for being an idiot and hesitating. I can hear movement outside the room as I run for the panel and smack the button that closes the hole. I race toward the closing exit and slip inside just as the door shuts over me, immersing us in darkness.
“Well, this isn’t terrifying or anything,” Gina says as I hear her messing with something a moment before light fills the cave.
“We have to move quickly. They were already into the room when we made it through,” I tell Rowan as I bump my muzzle against him, trying to reassure him that it’ll be all right. I can’t imagine what he’s going through after finding his brother like that.
He doesn’t say anything but presses into me before picking up a steady pace. Gina can’t hear us, but she doesn’t seem to need to in order to figure out that we’re doing what we can to get our asses out of here. She moves at a run as I stay behind her and let Rowan lead the way. Thankfully, she doesn’t struggle too much through the collapsed path, but I get anxious as we reach the elevator shaft out and shift.
It fucking hurts like hell with all the punctures and wounds, but I need to be able to talk to Gina who is currently looking straight down at the depths below.
“I’m not the best at climbing, but I’ll do what I can,” she says, determined. “Especially if that’s what’s waiting for me down below.”
“Rowan will go up first and help you by pulling you up,” I assure her.
Rowan jumps ahead until he’s above her. Then he shifts to his human form and hooks his one hand on the bar before reaching down to her.
She takes a deep breath. “Either plummet to my death or be torn apart by my shifters… not much of an option,” she says as she takes off at a run and jumps. Rowan catches her wrist and pulls her straight up. She scrambles against the wall as she fights to get up. I shift and jump, but my leg gives out and I find myself slipping. Thankfully, I catch myself before I fall, but I can feel Rowan’s anxiety increase. Especially because I hear them coming. The mine plays tricks, though, and it’s hard to tell exactly how far away they are.
Rowan assists Gina to the top before slowly jumping back down to help me. He hooks me around the chest and pulls me up before hoisting me into the air. When I finally claw my way to the top, he leaps up beside me with ease.
Gina is already running in the direction Rowan must have told her to go and we easily catch up with her once he shifts back.
“I’m trying,” she says, breath heavy. “I’ve lived in that facility for over half a year. I didn’t exactly have a lot of good exercise.”
Since we can’t really talk to her, we keep running, but I never move ahead. I will get her out of here, not only to save her life or as thanks for helping us escape but because I feel like she could have answers we horribly need to end all of this. She could be the turning point in this hell.
But they’re coming. I can hear at least two of them, and it won’t be long before they’re on us.
Gina trips, her foot catching on the rails, and she falls forward to her hands and knees. Without hesitation, she’s up and running again. I can smell blood coming off her, but she doesn’t let it slow her as we round a bend and see light.
But that doesn’t mean we’re safe. It just means that instead of behind us, they could come in all around us.
Rowan’s the first through the opening, out into the blinding light that makes my eyes water. Gina follows close behind, wildly looking around for where to go since Rowan has slowed.
“I don’t know which way is best,” Rowan says.
“Head to the road. If we can find a human to help us, we might be able to get away,” I say.
And that’s the moment one of the shifters plows out of the mine.
Fuck.
“Rowan, take her and run. Flag down a car.”
Rowan, not listening to a word I’m saying, rushes to my side a moment before I hear noise above us.
Emery, the escapee shifter, drops out of a tree in his beast form and lands on top of the one that’d just stepped out of the mine. He startles the shifter so much that the shifter stumbles and that’s all the time our new aid needs to tear the throat out of the monster. Another emerges from the mine and lunges toward Emery, but Rowan leaps onto its back, knocking it off balance and giving Emery the chance to tear it to the ground.
Gina stares at him with wide eyes as she slowly backs away, seeming afraid of him. Emery walks toward her, blood coloring his mouth as he leaves the two bodies in his wake. She’s nearly shaking as he sniffs her.
Then he turns to me. “Let’s go.”
“You’re going with us?” I ask.
“Seems like you guys can’t do this alone… seems like I can’t do this alone. This isn’t me becoming part of your pack. This is me helping you, and when I’m done, I’m leaving and never looking back. Now let’s go.”
When we reach the road, it appears nearly impossible for any of us to flag someone down. Who really would be willing to give a ride to a wolf, leopard, and… whatever Emery is?
“Hang back in the woods, I’ll get a car,” Gina says.
We do as she asks and the next time a car heads past, she starts waving and running toward it. It slows down and the man even gets out to check on her. She talks to him and he makes a run back for his car, telling me he didn’t like her plan too much.
Emery doesn’t wait, he rushes out from the woods and leaps onto the car, sending the man running away from it. Gina doesn’t hesitate before she jumps in the driver’s seat and I pull Rowan after me. We climb in and she starts to drive.
“I don’t know where I’m going,” she says.
I’m not sure either and the village might be compromised, but right now, it’s my only option to catch up with my pack. I should have had a meetup location. I should have been prepared for something like this, but why would I ever imagine something like this could happen?
I shift into my human form so I can talk to her and Rowan does as well.
“We’re going to my village. From there, we’re going to figure out where my pack went and take them somewhere safe. You’re both welcome to come with us. If not, you can head toward the nearby town or something… fuck if I know,” I say.
Rowan climbs halfway into the front seat and Emery growls at him before he seems to realize he’s going for the glove box. Rowan’s wary as he grabs some napkins and returns to me before pressing them against my throat. I hiss at the pain that spikes into my neck, but I don’t pull away.
“You said Nathan’s with your pack?” Gina asks as she anxiously looks back at me in the rearview mirror. It takes me a moment to remember that Nathan is her husband, since I’m so used to him going by Scott.
“He was the last time we were with them,” I say, which isn’t a lie. I just honestly don’t know if he’s still with them or whether or not he’s still alive.
She nods, apparently determined to get to her husband and daughter no matter what it takes.
Even though the roads are winding, she doesn’t slow as she careens around them.
“I’m so sorry, Quinn,” Rowan says, and I turn to him in concern.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. I should be the one sorry for him, knowing his brother was in there.
He looks devastated as he says, “I nearly got you killed. I’m so sorry. You could have died because of my hesitation.”
“No, none of that was your fault,” I say as I gently bump my head against his. “I’m fine.”
“But you told me to stay back, and I didn’t listen!” he says as he gently holds the bloody napkins against my throat.
How can he possibly blame himself for any of this when that was his brother in there? “I can guarantee you if that were my brother in the exact same situation, I wouldn’t have listened either. I would have run right to him. So stop apologizing. I promise I’m fine.”
He nods, even though he doesn’t seem confident about the matter. Gently, I take his free hand and squeeze it in an attempt to reassure him because I can’t stand the idea of him upset. “We’ll get your brother out. We just need time to figure all of this out and the best way to do it.”
Gina waves in front of her. “Is that it?” she asks as she nods at the sign signifying the village.
“Yes. We’re going to have to be quick when we get there,” I say. “Gina, just stay with the car and let us know if someone comes in. We’ll be fast. Emery, you can stay too or… whatever you want to do.”
He just gives me a side glance, then growls at Gina before beating his paw against the door, like he needs out no matter what. So when the car stops, I open the door for him to get out with us.
I rush for the town hall as I send Rowan off to make sure Talon wasn’t left behind. Emery follows close behind me and once we’re inside, I turn to him. “Can you shift?”
He does before folding his arms over his chest and looking all around. He seems young when he’s in this form, probably not even as old as I am. But I think having mostly known him as the massive monster made me think he was much older.
“You clearly dislike Gina. She helped us get out and she does have answers, but maybe I shouldn’t take her to my pack,” I say. “Is she trustworthy?”
He sighs loudly as I look around. “She’s fine. She was just doing what she was told, but if she fucks up, I’ll kill her myself.”
“You think she’s safe?” I ask.
“Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t want to do to survive. But just seeing her makes me think of that place and it fills me with rage that makes me want to tear them all apart.”
“I understand,” I say as I see a note on the table.
Quinn, if you find this, I’ve taken the pack to our special spot.
Graham
I snatch it off the table as I see Rowan running toward the car with a single bag. I want to go home and gather everything I can. I want to take it all with me, but I know there’s no time. Mercer will have to assume I headed back to the village, so we run back to the car and Gina starts driving toward the exit. “Where to?”
“Take a right here,” I say as Rowan unzips a bag he must have grabbed from his cabin. He pulls Ethan’s cat out, surprising me, and hands her to me. “No one thought to grab her.”
She’s a little confused but purrs as I hesitantly take her. I cradle her to me as Rowan removes some clothes from the bag before setting them on my lap. He grabs another handful that he tosses to Emery who flinches away from them before seeming to realize what they are and putting them on in silence. I wait until Rowan’s done dressing to hand him the cat and get dressed myself.
“Where are we going?” Rowan asks.
“It’ll take us about forty minutes. But it’s a small fishing hut Graham and I went to when we were much younger. It’s the spot where we decided that we were done hiding. We were going to settle down, make a life for ourselves. The man who owned the hut was a wealthy older man who used it as a getaway. After he spent time with us, he told us about a village he owned, practically a ghost town. He said he had no use for it, but it’d been in the family for at least a century and he didn’t have the heart to sell it. So he’d like to hire us to take care of it, to mold it into something worth living in. He was our first step into making it a home. He passed away a few years ago now, but he left the village to Graham and me. It would have been nearly impossible otherwise for a group of shifters to get such a large plot of land,” I explain.
“I hope Mercer hasn’t figured out that’s where they’re hiding,” Rowan says, voicing my very concern.
“Me too. It wouldn’t be impossible for him to track it down if he followed the properties of the man who owned this village. But maybe he won’t think to look that far into it,” I say, then ask, “Emery, how did you and the woman get out?”
Emery slowly looks back at me, like he’s unsure I’m talking to him. “We weren’t doing what they wanted, so they locked us up in there. We could hear the hollow point in the floor, so we worked at it at night when they’d turn the lights out. It took us weeks and we’d have to hide our progress with our bodies, but it eventually fell away into the cavern.”
“So everything they told Scott about a guard seeing them flee and all that was a lie,” Rowan says.
“Did you ever try going back for her?” I ask.
“I did, but when I saw the hole still open, I knew it was a trap,” he says.
I snort since we clearly were idiots. “Yeah… well we just waltzed into the trap without hesitation.”
“I doubt you knew what was to come,” he says. “Let’s hope Mercer gets sick of looking for us. Because if he finds us, it won’t be pretty.”
And all I can do is hope, but as Gina makes the forty-minute drive, Rowan never lets go of my hand, giving me the confidence I need that everything will be all right.