Air exploded out of her lungs and everything went fuzzy, but Jes kept fighting, one hand coming up to try and shove him away while the other reached for the Sig holstered low on her right hip. But Forrest—the thing that looked like Forrest, dammit!—was so freaking strong. She got her weapon out, but he simply grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the floor, then wrapped his hand around her throat.
Jes felt the tips of its claws digging in and her vision got even darker. She punched and clawed at his face with her free hand, but then she remembered natum didn’t have eyes like humans, so her scratching out the ones that were there probably wasn’t doing much.
The darkness around the edges of her vision got worse, no matter how much she kneed the thing and twisted side to side. Jes knew she wasn’t going to survive much longer, but the only thing she could think right then was that the damn creature was going to kill Misty next. Jake would fall apart when he found out, almost certainly blaming himself for their deaths.
“First you, then the other fucking bitch,” the creature above her hissed.
Jes kept struggling, refusing to give in no matter how hopeless it was.
Then, somewhere, a gun went off. The natum arched his back and cried out in pain, his hand falling away from Jes’s throat. Gasping, she grabbed her Sig and put half a dozen rounds in its midsection.
There was a lot of dark, thick blood, then the creature was falling forward. Jes shoved it to the side, and it landed in a heap on the floor next to her. Misty still stood there, holding her sidearm out in front of her, face pale.
“Forrest’s dad is a minster,” she whispered brokenly. “He’d never use that word. Never.”
On the floor, Forrest’s features slowly morphed into the faceless creature that was the natum.
As if suddenly realizing what happened to the real Forrest, Misty dropped to her knees on the floor, sobs racking her body. Tears welling in her own eyes, both for Forrest and for Misty, Jes pulled her into her arms, holding her tightly. Jes’s heart broke for her.
“Shh,” she said softly. “It’s going to be okay.”
That was a lie. For Misty, things would never be okay again.
Over the radio, Jes heard Jake tell Harley and Caleb to hurry, that there wasn’t much time before the launch. Still holding on to Misty, Jes glanced at the clock on the wall to see fifteen minutes left on the countdown.
She tried to tell Jake what happened, but her microphone wasn’t working. It must have gotten damaged when the natum tried to choke her to death.
“Misty, honey,” Jes said, gently pulling away to look at her. “We’re going to find our Forrest and we’re going to bring him home, I promise. But right now, we need to stop the launch of the rocket at this pad.”
Misty wiped the tears from her face with a trembling hand. “I already did.”
Jes caught a fresh tear with her thumb as it rolled down Misty’s cheek. “That’s good. But now we need to help the others, okay? I’m going to help Jake at pad three. I need you to head to pad two to help Harley and Caleb. Can you do that for me?”
Misty looked over at the body of the natum on the floor, then back at Jes. “Yeah, I can do that. Let’s go stop these creatures, then go find Forrest.”
Giving her a tearful smile, Jes helped Misty to her feet, then they both ran for the door. Jes only prayed they weren’t too late.
Chapter 18
Jake ran as fast as he could, ignoring the pain in his thigh and ribs as he raced for launchpad three and the bunker, which he hoped wasn’t too difficult to find. He would have preferred to take the Land Rover the security guards had been driving during the ambush, but between the shoot-out and Caleb, that hadn’t worked. The damn omega had ripped a tire off the truck and used it to beat a natum to death. Jake was starting to think there was something seriously wrong with that werewolf.
But at least there was no one left to chase him in his dash across the space center. And since the helicopter had disappeared a while ago, it was almost a leisurely run.
He tried his radio again, but all he’d gotten was static since getting hit by that Land Rover a few minutes ago. He’d ended up with nothing more than a couple broken ribs, but the radio hadn’t been so lucky. He wasn’t sure if he’d lost both transmitting and receiving capability. All he knew was that he hadn’t heard from Jes or anyone else in a while.
He prayed they were all okay. He’d sent Harley and Caleb to pad two a while ago, and the last he’d heard from Jes was that she, Misty, and Forrest were heading for pad one. The idea that Jes might be out there right now, in some kind of trouble, scared the hell out of him.
Jake was still envisioning all kinds of horrible scenarios involving Jes when he realized he’d reached the control building for the launchpad. A long, low building, it had multiple doors and windows on the side facing him. The entire front, which faced the launchpad, was covered with a huge mound of grass-covered earth. There were half a dozen vehicles parked along the back, and the helicopter that had been shooting at him earlier—the one with the dead gunner—was sitting off to one side, rotor blades thumping quietly through the air. Clearly, the thing was ready to take off at a moment’s notice.
He glanced around but didn’t see anyone except the pilot of the helicopter in one of the front seats, apparently checking the gauges. Jake looked down at his watch to see he had maybe eight minutes left on the countdown—if he was lucky. He needed to move.
Ignoring the helicopter pilot—the guy couldn’t see him from where he was seated anyway—Jake sprinted toward the control building. He was still twenty feet away when he picked up the scent of multiple creatures inside, as well as one that shouldn’t have been there—jasmine and fresh laundry.
At first, Jake thought he was picking up her scent because he did it all the time, even when she wasn’t around, but it was too strong for that.
Jes was in the building.
Jake’s claws and fangs were out before he took another breath, and it was all he could do to not charge into the building. He fought down the animal instinct. He had to be smarter than the beast inside him that only wanted to attack and kill at that moment.
