Remy hit a button on the console, backing up the tape from one of the perimeter cameras covering the south side of the property.
Alex prayed his pack mate was wrong, but sure as shit, there was Lacey, climbing over the fence, almost killing herself in the process, and dropping into the junkyard—almost killing herself again. Even in a black top with dark jeans and a knit cap on her blond hair, he would recognize her anywhere.
“That’s your girlfriend?” Vaughn asked in confusion. “What the hell is she doing in there?”
Alex could have asked the exact same question.
“It looks like she’s sneaking around Bensen’s junkyard,” Remy remarked. “Only she doesn’t seem to be very good at it.”
Just before Lacey moved out of the camera’s view, Alex saw her bump into a rack of car parts, knocking something to the ground. It wasn’t her fault—it was dark as hell in there. But the clatter of the metal part tumbling off the rack and hitting the ground could be heard all the way out to the surveillance van, and he didn’t need his werewolf hearing to do it.
“Turn off the cameras and back them up,” he ordered. “I’m going in there to get her.”
Alex tore out of the van even as he heard Remy explaining to Vaughn that everything would be fine—and that no, they didn’t need to call Rodriguez.
He rounded the corner of the building they’d parked the van behind and ran across the dark street separating him from the junkyard, already feeling his fangs and claws slipping out. He’d never been good at maintaining control in tense situations, and the idea of Lacey getting caught by Bensen’s security people—especially Pendergraff—definitely qualified as a tense situation.
He hurdled the ten-foot-tall fence that surrounded the junkyard, barely touching it with his hand in passing. He tried—and failed—to keep from growling when he hit the ground a moment later, but he couldn’t help it. He could already hear people coming out of the main building, no doubt checking to see what the racket Lacey had made was all about. She was in more danger then she could ever have realized.
Alex’s eyes adjusted easily to the deep shadows filling the spaces in between the various car parts, equipment racks, and garage structures as he moved in the general direction Lacey had headed. His head was spinning at a hundred miles an hour the whole time he tried to navigate the bewildering maze of rows and aisles that made up the junkyard. What the hell was she doing in here? She was a fucking vet. How the hell did she even know about this place—or Bensen?
A moment later, he finally picked up Lacey’s scent, mostly because he’d let himself shift so far. He angled a little to the left, moving to intercept her as she continued to head for the main building. Didn’t she realize that the noise she’d made earlier had drawn the guards outside? Was she completely clueless about how dangerous these people were?
The answer to that was obviously a resounding yes. Even his semifunctional nose could tell she still hadn’t turned to go in another direction, even as several of Bensen’s guards moved her way.
He caught sight of one of the guards as he zipped between two of the garage structures, and what he saw freaked him out even more. The damn guy was carrying an automatic weapon. If he needed any other evidence that Bensen was involved in making and dealing drugs, he had it now. Guys guarding junkyards didn’t normally carry assault rifles.
Alex instinctively reached for his .40 caliber SIG Sauer but immediately moved his hand away. He couldn’t get into a shoot-out in here. There would be no way to keep Lacey’s name out of this, and he had no idea how she would explain her presence here. Hell, he wouldn’t even be able to explain his presence here, not without blowing this investigation wide open.
As he closed in on Lacey’s position, he could hear her heart pounding on the other side of the stack of crap he was moving along, when he realized her luck had run out. There was a guard heading straight for her, and there was no way in hell Alex could get to him before they crossed each other’s path.
Alex let out a low growl and ran faster, letting himself shift as far as he dared, then pushed it a little more. His leg muscles twitched and spasmed, bulking up and lengthening in response to his call for more speed, and he felt himself flat-out hauling ass along the ground, rocks and dirt flying behind him. But shifting to produce that kind of speed came at a price, and he felt his jawbone crack as more teeth came out than he had room for. If anyone saw him, he was fucked. He knew it was insane, but what the hell could he do? Those asshole guards would shoot Lacey on sight and worry about who she was later. He only prayed Remy had turned off all the cameras.
He was probably doing thirty miles an hour by the time he reached the end of the row. He was barely in control as he turned the corner and raced to close the distance between him and the guard he’d sensed earlier.
While Alex was moving fast, everything around him seem to slow down as both Lacey and the guard came into view at the same time. She was standing in the shadows fifteen feet away, completely immobilized by the sight of the armed man right in front of her, his weapon already turning toward her. Even in the darkness, the fear in her eyes was obvious.
Seeing Lacey terrified and in danger was too much for Alex. He cut loose a roar that echoed off every metal surface around them, sounding like a whole frigging pack of wolves had descended on the junkyard.
The guard snapped his head around in the direction of the sound, but it was too late for the man to see anything more than a snarling blur coming his way. The man tried to get his weapon up and around, but he was too late for that too.
Alex didn’t slow down to punch the guy or even disarm him. He was too crazy mad to even think of anything that rational. He was just glad he was able to resist the urge to rake his claws across the man’s throat. All he needed was for Lacey to see blood flying everywhere as he tore a man to shreds.
Instead, he lowered his shoulder and slammed into the guard’s chest at full speed. The impact was horrendous. The guard flew backward so hard, he probably went ten feet before he hit anything. Unfortunately, the thing he hit was a pallet of hubcaps, and the racket it made was almost as bad as the wolf howl Alex had just let out.
The guard went through the pile of hubcaps, bounced off a heavy-duty support structure, and then bounced five times across the gravel-covered ground before coming to a stop with a thud against the rack of equipment a full row over. He didn’t get up.
The pounding of feet converged on their location immediately. Alex didn’t have time to screw around, not unless he wanted to face a whole lot more bad guys. If that happened, the possibility of getting them both out of here without being identified would be just about zero.
Alex spun around to face Lacey, intending to grab her hand and head for the perimeter fence. But when he saw her face, he knew that plan wasn’t going to work.
He’d hoped that the shadows in between the aisle would hide his werewolf features—the claws, the canines that extended well over his lower lip, the glowing eyes. But obviously, that hadn’t worked out. Lacey’s eyes were locked on him, and they were as big around as saucers.
He tried to shift back, but he knew that was never going to happen. He was too freaked to manage that yet. When he was high on adrenaline like this, it tended to take a while for him to change back to normal. Usually the only thing that sped up the process was having a higher level alpha like Gage or Xander around who could snap him out of his werewolf haze.
Lacey opened her mouth, but whether she was planning to ask him what the hell was going on or start screaming her head off, he didn’t know. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to wait to see what happened. There were more guards coming, and they’d be here any second.
“Sorry,” he said. Then he charged straight at her.
