“Inverted what?” Cooper asked, leaning over her shoulder to look at the phone, his gaze darting back and forth between her and the screen, expression doubtful.
“If there’d been one horizontal slash at the top and bottom of the vertical line, this would be a traditional rune for protection,” she said impatiently, pointing at the screen. “All these additional lines pervert the entire purpose of the symbol, changing it from protection to confinement. The way it’s drawn, this rune will trap anyone who steps into the guarded space. We have to get there and break the rune before whatever else was left in there gets to them.”
“Calm down,” Rachel said, reaching out to grab her cell. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong, but if it will make you feel better, I’ll call Connor so you’ll know that he’s okay.” She held the phone to her ear for a moment, then frowned. “Huh. It says his phone is out of service. I’ll call Mike.”
Thirty seconds later, the whole room was full of werewolves frowning and looking more than a little concerned.
“All their phones are out of service?” Cooper said. “How is that possible?”
“It’s possible all right.” Kat was so exasperated, she wanted to scream. “That inverted protection spell won’t let anything—including cell phone signals—in or out of that building. Now, we need to stop talking and start driving. If we don’t get to San Antonio soon, Connor and everyone with him will end up dead.”
Chapter 3
“This shouldn’t even be effing possible,” Connor growled for what had to be the dozenth time as he stood in front of the concrete block wall.
He and his teammates had searched the entire mazelike basement for the past two hours and had yet to find a door anywhere. Even discounting the suddenly missing door, there should have been some way to get out of there, like an air-conditioning ventilation system or a trash chute. But if there were any, he and his pack mates hadn’t been able to find them. In the end, they had to accept there was no way out of this place.
They weren’t only trapped.
They were screwed.
“There’s no cell service anywhere in this damn place,” Trevor muttered, shaking his head as he stared down at the phone in his hand. “I’ve walked every square foot of this room and can’t get a single bar. I even piled up some boxes and climbed to one of those tiny vents and still got nothing. It’s flat-out unreal.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say someone is purposely jamming the signal,” Hale remarked from across the room, where he and Diego were trying to make Zane and Alyssa as comfortable as they could. “I’m not sure who that someone is or how they’re doing it, though.”
“At least why they’re doing it is obvious,” Mike said, coming back in the room from wherever he’d been searching. “Whoever trapped us down here doesn’t want us calling for help. They want us stuck, hoping we end up in the same condition as Zane and Alyssa.”
“But our pack mates know where we are,” Trevor pointed out. “When they don’t hear back from us in a couple hours and can’t reach us by phone, they’ll come looking.”
Connor snorted. “And what’s to keep them from ending up stuck in here exactly like us? It’s not like we can stand by the door and make sure we don’t let it close behind them. We don’t even know where the damn door is anymore.”
He hadn’t realized he was shouting until Zane jerked awake and started mumbling about not making so much noise. Diego immediately leaned down and tried to get him to drink some more of the stagnate water they’d found dripping from a rusted pipe coming out of the wall in the back of the basement, but Zane pushed Diego’s hand away, mumbling unintelligibly.
“I don’t think we can wait until someone realizes we’re in trouble, regardless of whether they can figure out a way to help us,” Diego said grimly, his dark eyes full of worry. “Zane and Alyssa are too weak to last much longer.”
No one said anything.
Connor’s heart thumped harder. He knew Zane and Alyssa were in bad shape, but the idea that they were that close to death was something he had a hard time accepting.
Cursing under his breath, he turned and strode toward the wall. A growl rumbled up from his throat as his fangs and claws extended, the muscles of his arms and shoulders twitching and spasming.
“If we can’t find the damn doors, we’ll make our own,” he snarled, bringing back his arm and clenching his fist as tightly as his claws would allow.
Behind him, Zane muttered something that sounded vaguely like a warning, but right then, Connor was too far gone to listen to reason. All he could think about was getting his pack mates and Alyssa out of this hellhole—by whatever means necessary.
With a roar of barely contained rage, Connor began to punch the concrete block wall over and over. Bones cracked in his hand, but as large chunks of the wall broke off and fell to the dirty floor, he decided the pain was worth it.
He was so intent on pulverizing the wall that he didn’t hear the warnings his friends were shouting until a flicker of motion to his right caught his attention. What he saw froze him solid and all he could do was stare at the thing coming toward him.
What the hell?
Connor was still trying to come up with an answer to that question when something that vaguely resembled an arm reached out and backhanded him halfway across the room. He hit the floor so hard, he actually bounced a few feet in the air before sliding the rest of the way and smashing into a wall.
Vision swimming, he pressed a hand to his throbbing head and came away with blood on his fingers even as his pack mates began letting out low, menacing growls. He considered staying where he was for a moment so he could clear his vision, but then he heard gunfire and knew he had to move.
Shaking off the fog, he pushed himself to his feet. And came face-to-face with the thing that had knocked him across the room. Realizing that claws were probably not going to help in this situation, Connor let them slide back in, pulling his gun and hastily taking a step back.
Whatever the creatures were, there were four of them. At first, they didn’t seem too intimidating, standing barely five feet tall. But then Connor realized the things were built like frigging tanks, with wide, misshapen shoulders and arms that seemed way too long and too bulky for their bodies. Even in the darkness surrounding the creatures, it was impossible to miss the spikes that seemed to be sticking out all over the things. As the one in front of him moved forward, it stepped into a puddle of light coming in from one of the vents, allowing Connor to get a better look at the thing.
