Hale floored it without Xander having to ask.
Xander tried his best not to count the mile markers they zipped past. Even as fast as Hale drove, the poles still weren’t going by fast enough.
“Khaki’s going to be okay,” Cooper said into the silence filling the vehicle. “She’s tough and smart. She won’t let Jeremy get the drop on her.”
Xander wasn’t so sure about that. Although Khaki was more than capable of taking care of herself, Jeremy was clearly a good shot with a sniper rifle. All it would take was one perfectly aimed shot and Khaki would find herself in serious trouble. And considering that Jeremy had lured her to that junkyard, an ambush wasn’t out of the question.
But he was worried about more than just the possibility of Jeremy shooting her. What if Mac was right and Khaki had headed after her ex with the intention of killing him? Xander didn’t want to think about Khaki doing something like that, but he knew how much she hated Jeremy. He’d made her life a living hell out in Washington. So bad that a fighter like her had left the state. The fact that Jeremy had come here to Dallas, where she was trying to create a new life for herself, and shot him in cold blood might be more than enough to push her over the edge and make her do something she’d regret for the rest of her life. She could even end up going to prison.
Xander refused to let his mind go down that path. Instead, he focused on all the things he hadn’t had a chance to say to Khaki yet. She knew that she wasTheOnefor him, and he’d told her that he loved her, but that didn’t seem like it was enough. He promised himself that he was going to spend two straight days telling Khaki how much he loved and needed her. Hell, if he had to, he’d use Google Translate to come up with twenty different ways to say it.
Alex’s phone rang, echoing in the silence.
“Guys,” Becker said when Alex put him on speaker. “You need to get to that junkyard now. We have multiple reports of shots being fired. Gage has gotten Deputy Chief Mason involved and they’re calling for a perimeter to be established outside the area, but you need to hurry.”
“We’ll be there in two minutes,” Hale said as he weaved in and out of traffic.
In the backseat, Alex pulled out his backup piece and checked the magazine. He and Hale were the only ones packing. Cooper’s off-duty sidearm was sitting in a safe at the compound. That meant two 9 mms going up against a renegade cop who was carrying who knew how many weapons.
Alex offered Xander the 9 mm, but Xander shook his head. A handgun wasn’t going to make a difference in this situation. He needed to find Khaki and get her away from Jeremy. That was his only goal at the moment.
Hale slid the SUV to a stop outside the junkyard’s entrance. Xander would have preferred to keep going, but the gate was closed and it looked substantial enough to stop their vehicle cold if they tried to ram it.
Xander was out and testing the air for Khaki’s scent before the Toyota stopped rocking back and forth. The wind direction wasn’t helping, and even worse, the whole place reeked of gasoline and motor oil. He could pick up Khaki’s scent on the air, but he couldn’t pinpoint where she was in the large junkyard, or even a general direction.
“Spread out and find Khaki,” Xander ordered. “Mike will be here in a few minutes with his fully equipped squad. We’ll let him worry about taking care of Jeremy.”
They nodded, scrambling over the ten-foot-high fence, then spreading out once inside. Out of the corner of his eye, Xander saw Cooper start to strip off his clothes and casually drop them to the ground. Cooper had obviously decided that searching the junkyard in his full wolf form was faster than doing it on two feet. Xander couldn’t disagree. He’d love to change into a wolf right now, both because it would improve his senses and because he’d like nothing better than to kick Jeremy’s ass in that form. But it wasn’t practical at the moment. In his weakened state, it would take too long to accomplish a full shift and unfortunately, it would leave him without the ability to use his hands. He had no idea where Khaki might be. Being able to open a door might make the difference between her living and dying.
But just because he wasn’t able to shift into wolf form or carry a weapon, that didn’t mean he was defenseless. He let his body go into a partial shift, extending his claws and fangs as far as they would go, feeling the muscles of his arms, shoulders, and back ripple and twist as they bulked up. He wasn’t looking for Jeremy, but if he ran across him, the asshole would find Xander more than a handful to deal with.
He moved quickly across the middle of the junkyard, straining both his nose and ears to get a bead on Khaki. He caught an occasional whiff of her scent, but it was fleeting and inconclusive. He wished he had Khaki’s ability to separate out different scents. Then he’d be able to ignore all the harsh petroleum odors and focus on the one smell he cared about.
He was just passing an old, rusty drum of oil when he smelled a familiar scent. Even more than any other smell in the place, there was no missing the scent of Khaki’s blood. He turned and ran in the direction it was coming from.
He found a splatter of blood on the ground, then more leading under the remains of an old car. He didn’t have to stop and see if she was still there. She wasn’t. He would have heard her heart beating if she was.
The trail of blood led him to a row of partially disassembled minivans, and he almost stumbled as he saw a dark shape on the ground ahead of him.OhGod, no.But the overwhelming scent of blood coming from the bodies didn’t match Khaki’s. She’d definitely been here, though. He could smell her.
“Xander!”
His heart thudded at the sound of Khaki’s voice, and he spun around just in time to see Jeremy standing fifty feet away aiming a rifle at him. Xander threw himself to the side, but it was too late. Jeremy fired, and Xander cartwheeled through the air.
Xander hit the ground hard, the air whooshing out of his lungs, and his chest throbbing like an elephant was stomping on it. He’d known his previous injuries were still healing and sapping a lot of his strength, but he didn’t realize exactly what that meant until he tried to get to his feet and found his legs refusing to cooperate.
To his right, footsteps rapidly approached. For a moment, Xander thought it was Hale or Alex, but then he saw Jeremy come around the side of one of the minivans.
“What kind of fucking monster are you?” Jeremy eyed Xander like he’d stepped out of a horror movie, revulsion on his face. Then he lifted his rifle and pointed it at his head. “Whatever you are, I’m going to put you out of your misery for good this time.”
Chapter 15
Khaki had found a hiding place inside one of the minivans moments before Jeremy came around the corner. She held her breath as he walked past her, only a few feet between them. If he’d turned and looked her way, he would have seen her. But he didn’t, and as he slowly moved past her, she finally let herself breathe again. She didn’t move, not even after he was out of sight. Instead, she stayed where she was and tried to push the sharp pain in her leg and the dull throb in her stomach to the edges of her perception.
But no matter how hard she focused, the calmness she needed to shift wouldn’t come. It wasn’t surprising, considering she had to keep half her attention on Jeremy. She was so wrapped up in trying to put herself in the forest scene Xander always used with her that she didn’t realize Xander was actually there in the junkyard with her until his scent brought her back to reality.
She had no idea how Xander had gotten here, and she didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was, and that she had to warn him about Jeremy.
As slowly and quietly as she could, she crawled out of her hiding place. The pain shooting through her leg made it hard to move quickly, but she managed to get to the open door of the minivan without sounding like a herd of escaped monkeys.
