“Hey, you—lab coat boy,” Boyd grunted, bending down to prod Dr. Saunders in the back with the barrel of his weapon. “Get over there and look at Jesse—now.”
Dr. Saunders didn’t take his gaze off Megan. “I’ll take a look at him as soon as I’m done here.”
Eyes narrowing, Boyd put the barrel of his gun to Megan’s head, eliciting a weak growl from the small werewolf. “How about I put a bullet through her head, then you won’t have to bother with the freak at all?”
Dr. Saunders looked up, anger clear on his face. He was about to do something stupid—Lana just knew it.
“Take care of Jesse,” Lana whispered. “I’ll look after Megan.”
Dr. Saunders continued to glower at Boyd for a moment, but then nodded at her before standing up to move over to look at the injured hunter.
“Smart girl,” Boyd said to her, giving her that emotionless grin of his. “I’d hate to have to kill you before it was time. Not that you have a lot of that left anyway.”
Lana tried not to flinch at the blatant threat. Instead, she glared up at him. That only seemed to piss him off, and she thought for a moment he might hit her—or worse.
But then she heard a quiet buzzing sound, and Boyd turned away, pulling a cell phone out of his pocket. He looked at the number on the screen, then moved a little farther down the hallway for privacy. Like that mattered. She could still hear him just fine.
“What the hell happened?” a harsh male voice demanded on the other end of the line. “I gave you the address of the clinic where the injured SWAT officer is being treated—the same place I told you the female werewolf would probably be—just like you asked. The plan was for you to slip in and kill them both, then get out of there. Now 9-1-1 calls are coming in about a major shoot-out and a possible hostage situation. How did you screw this up so badly?”
Boyd’s face twisted. “How did I screw it up? Maybe you should have mentioned they had werewolves on the perimeter guarding the place. I doubt they’re stupid enough to try to come in here while we have their friends as hostages, but you need to do something to help get us out of this damn place.”
The man let out a short laugh. “I don’t think so. You getting trapped in there is not my problem.”
“It will be your problem if they arrest us and I start talking,” Boyd warned.
“I don’t think there’s very much chance of that. Something tells me SWAT isn’t going to be too interested in arresting you when they show up. They’re more likely going to kill you on sight, considering you injured a member of their pack. If you want to get out of there, you’re going to have to shoot your way out.”
“We’ve got no problem with that,” Boyd said coldly. “We’ve already confirmed our new ammunition will put these things down with a single shot. But it’d help to know exactly how many we’re dealing with.”
“I have no clue,” the man said. “But you should probably assume you’ll be dealing with the entire SWAT team full of those monsters.”
Boyd didn’t say anything for a while. “A whole SWAT team full of freaks, huh? That’s like music to my ears, since it means there’s more of them to kill.”
* * *
“This is a revolver,” Max told Kari, showing her how the snub-nose .38 worked. “There’s no safety on it of any kind, so if you squeeze the trigger hard enough, it will fire. But there are only six bullets in it, which means you’ll have to make them count.”
Max tried to talk slowly as he showed the beta werewolf how to open the cylinder and reload the weapon. Staying calm was tough at the moment, since everything around him was barely controlled chaos.
A good portion of the SWAT Pack was at the compound now, loading up and getting ready to head for the research clinic any minute. Gage was putting all his eggs in one basket, taking everyone with him and gambling that all the hunters were going to be there when they arrived, instead of some of them attacking the compound. But before they left, they were handing out weapons to any werewolf who felt they could safely use them. Max knew it was insane, but they didn’t have a choice. Once he and his pack mates left, the compound would be unguarded except for a ragtag collection of werewolves who barely knew each other. There were women and children here. They couldn’t leave them defenseless.
Max’s hand trembled as he demonstrated how to load the revolver again. He was so worried about Lana he could barely think straight. Somewhere on the compound, he knew Remy and Alex weren’t doing much better. The hunters had all three of their mates, and no one had a clue what they were going to do with them. Lana could be writhing in pain on the floor of the clinic right now from one of the hunters’ poison bullets.
The thought made him almost hyperventilate.
“I’ve got this,” Kari said, reaching out to put a gentle hand on his arm. “Go save that girlfriend of yours.”
Max nodded gratefully. He was more than ready to get the hell out of there. It had only been five minutes since Jayna had called from the clinic, but it seemed like a frigging lifetime. He and his teammates normally rolled out of the gate within sixty seconds of getting a call, but with the need to arm and instruct the werewolves staying behind, it was taking a hell of a lot longer.
He was about to bail but then noticed Kari was no longer looking at him. Instead, she was gazing at someone behind him. He frowned as he picked up Coletti’s scent. He turned to see the IA detective standing there with a baffled look on his face.
“What are you doing here?” Max asked. “Are Mrs. Wallace and her kids okay?”
The man continued to look around for a moment, at everything from the SWAT cops obviously loading up for a major operation to all the civilians running around the compound like their hair was on fire.
“They’re fine,” Coletti said, finally looking at him. “Well, as fine as they can be after what went down tonight. I was coming over to tell you they’re settled in again over at the Safe Campus, but I guess you’re a little busy right now.”
“A little,” Max said. “So maybe we can talk later?”
