Jeremy Engler was a deranged cop who’d followed Khaki all the way from Washington State because he’d thought she belonged to him. The man had tried to kill both Khaki and Xander when he realized they were together. Armend Frasheri was a boss in the Albanian mob who had gone after Eric and his mate, Jayna, after Becker had gone undercover in Frasheri’s organization and destroyed the whole operation.
How the hell those two had ended up working together with Oliver on an escape was impossible to explain, but Brooks knew one thing—it didn’t bode well for the Pack or any of the werewolves in this city looking to them for protection.
He and Zane were still a hundred yards away when one of the prison guards finally saw them. The man hurried toward the first truck, motioning for the driver to stop. Brooks wasn’t in a position to see exactly what the driver was doing, but he saw movement behind the windshield, then heard gunshots. A moment later, the guard fell to the ground.
Both trucks sped through the gate, then turned left, racing away even as more guards came out of the security building and fired at them. But it was too late for that, and other than punching a few holes through the back doors of the trucks, the guards’ attempts did nothing.
Brooks and Zane were running at Olympic sprinter speed as they hauled ass past the gate and the few guards there. It was stupid to run this fast in public, but they couldn’t let any of those assholes get away.
Brooks shouted at the guards to sound the alarm as he and Zane raced past, but he knew it wasn’t going to matter. These weren’t a few dumb inmates grabbing a random truck and making a dash for the Mexican border. Frasheri had money and endless criminal contacts. Oliver was a man who had traveled the country killing people for years while staying off the grid. It was a guarantee that with those two involved in this, there was a plan in place to make sure they got away.
Brooks and Zane followed the trucks down the narrow road that ran past the prison. Fortunately, the rural farm road wasn’t meant for high-speed traffic, so the trucks couldn’t do more than forty miles an hour. That meant he and Zane could at least keep the vehicles in sight until they moved out beyond the first turn in the road so the guards at the gate couldn’t see them anymore.
As soon as they were clear, he and Zane pushed their shift even further, claws and fangs coming out while the bones in their legs and backs changed shape to let them move even faster. If it had been nighttime, Brooks would have dropped his clothes and fully shifted to his wolf shape. In that form, he would have caught up to the trucks in seconds.
But even on two legs, they were still able to catch up to the rear vehicle. Brooks made a hand gesture to Zane, pointing at the front tires. Zane nodded, slowing a little as he lifted his weapon and took careful aim at the front driver’s side tire. At the same time, Brooks veered to the left side of the road and picked up speed, drawing even with the cab of the truck.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the driver’s panicked expression. Brooks lowered his head, tightening up his right arm and shoulder, then charging in as Zane fired his pistol. The front driver’s side tire blew out at the same time as Brooks slammed into the door. That little nudge, along with the blown-out tire, was enough to send the truck out of control.
Brooks already had his feet back under him and was chasing after the other vehicle when the one he’d just tackled slid off the road and flipped over a few times. He and Zane ignored it, both of them more worried about catching up to the other truck.
He was already motioning toward Zane, planning to take out the second vehicle the same way they had the first one, when the back door rolled up, revealing Frasheri, Engler, and Oliver all standing there with automatic weapons.
Brooks wasn’t too worried. He doubted any of them were good enough to pull off a kill shot from a moving vehicle, especially as fast as he and Zane were moving.
Bullets sprayed in their direction, slamming into the asphalt around them, sending up the stench of synthetic wolfsbane. Brooks subconsciously slowed, recoiling at the idea of getting hit with one of them, even though he’d been vaccinated against the poison.
But while Brooks flinched a bit when the first few bullets impacted around him, Zane lunged to the side while running at forty miles an hour to avoid them. Brooks heard bones breaking as his friend tumbled head over heels into the nearest field.
Brooks growled in frustration as he slowed to help his packmate. He fired a few rounds at the fleeing vehicle, but it was useless. The truck had already picked up speed and was pulling away. One of the omega werewolves with them gave him the finger as they disappeared down the road.
Cursing, Brooks turned and ran into the field. He found Zane kneeling in the deep furrow his body had carved out in the dirt when he landed, cradling a right arm that was obviously broken.
“Why the fuck did you stop chasing them?” Zane demanded. “You could have gotten them!”
Brooks didn’t answer as he knelt down beside his friend, checking for other injuries. Broken bones were nothing to mess around with. Werewolves healed fast, but if the bones in Zane’s arm were misaligned when they did, they’d stay that way, which would only limit his mobility more than it already was.
He heard the sound of approaching sirens as he reset Zane’s forearm bones. The area was going to be crawling with cops soon.
“I’m fine!” Zane snapped, pushing Brooks’s hands away and standing up. “Let’s go check on the inmates in the other truck. Maybe they can tell us where Oliver is heading.”
Brooks got to his feet and followed without a word. While the omegas in the truck they’d flipped had almost certainly survived, he doubted they’d be able to tell them anything useful. Frasheri and Oliver were unlikely to reveal critical details to some out-of-control omegas.
As they walked toward the other truck, Brooks pulled out his cell and punched his commander’s number. Gage was going to shit bricks when he heard about the escape.
* * *
Selena drove past Terrace Grove High School, hoping to see Ruben hanging around outside. He wasn’t there. Then again, she hadn’t expected him to be.
She sighed as she watched the school disappear in the rearview mirror. It was beyond weird not to be in her classroom at two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, but it wasn’t like she had a choice. Another long argument on the phone earlier with Eva hadn’t gotten her anywhere.
So she’d spent the morning doing what she could, visiting those members of her class most likely to find themselves in trouble. Whether it was sitting down and watching TV with them, working through some homework problems, or even talking about the violence they’d seen in her classroom, it was about letting them know that she was there for them. She’d even gotten sweet, quiet Marguerite to sign up for a session with the school-provided counselor, so maybe Eva and her damn school board would be of some help in the end.
But while she’d been able to see nearly all her troubled students yesterday and today, it was the one she wasn’t able to find who had her the most concerned.
No one had seen Ruben since Selena had caught that one quick glimpse of the boy Monday night outside the school. Ruben’s grandmother said he hadn’t slept in his bed in two nights, and she was terrified something horrible had happened to him. Selena was worried, too. She wouldn’t put it beyond the Locos to go after Ruben in some kind of twisted retribution for what had happened in her classroom. Her biggest fear was that the kid was lying in an alley somewhere, beaten senseless. Or worse.
She turned her car onto a side street off Ferguson, doing a circle around the apartment complex where Ruben and his grandmother lived. Then she went to the next block up and did the same thing. Blindly driving around in circles, hoping to find the kid by chance wasn’t the most brilliant of ideas, but it was the best scheme she could come up with.
