Chief Leclair sighed. “We have nothing official, but I have a few contacts in the Department of Criminal Justice who’ve admitted Coffield is having a hard time locating all of the weapons from the Cell Block 7 security station.”
“Which means we have to assume the two men are armed,” Mike summarized, immediately getting on the radio to relay that information to the patrol units positioned around the wooded area.
“Any plan to notify the FBI and Marshals that we have two possible escapees surrounded?” Carter asked, not sure why he even cared. “I tend to remember something about that coming up in the briefing.”
“I’ll get around to it,” the chief said politely. “Just as soon as you and the other officers begin to move into the woods.”
Mike snorted. “Last I heard, both Ferguson and Turner were way south of here coordinating the checkpoints between Coffield and the border. Even with air support, they won’t be here for at least an hour.”
“Well, that’s just horrible,” the chief said with a put-upon frown, amusement in her dark eyes. “An absolute catastrophe.”
That earned her a few chuckles, and then Mike was moving over to talk to Carter, Hale, and Trey in a quiet voice.
“I want you guys to be careful in there,” Mike said. “We have no idea why these men bothered to come this far north or why they’d stop in this patch of woods, but remember that some of those cell doors were ripped off their hinges. We could be dealing with supernatural creatures. Don’t underestimate them.”
Carter turned the volume on his radio nearly all the way down as he moved into the trees, where the already cool temperature dropped at least five degrees in the shade. This patch of forest wasn’t very large, not more than a few hundred feet wide and maybe a half mile long. But the scrub pines and underbrush grew thick enough to block most of the highway sounds around him, making it feel like he was far away from the hustle and bustle of the crowded city. At least for a little while.
As he moved deeper into the woods, he was able to pick up on the scent of sweat and unwashed bodies, which meant the unhoused camp the other cop had mentioned must be close.
He’d barely gone a few hundred feet into the forest when he heard a series of low grunts and thuds from off to his right. The sounds were indistinct, muted by all the trees and undergrowth, but he recognized the tones of someone in pain. He dropped to one knee, trying to pinpoint the exact direction of the noise he’d heard as he pulled his radio mic closer, reporting the movement he’d heard in a whisper, directing backup toward his location.
Carter started forward at a slow trot, wanting to catch up with whoever was ahead of him, but needing to stay quiet at the same time. Within a few strides, he smelled blood. Dark, wet patches on the ground a little further on confirmed what his nose had already told him. The escaped cons had injured someone and then dragged their victim through this section of the forest.
He took off running, giving up stealth for speed, getting on the radio again, and alerting Mike and the others to the blood he’d found. Unfortunately, that one second of inattention cost him and a large form slammed into him from the side, taking him down to the ground hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and crack a few ribs. His nose was immediately assaulted with a weird, bland scent, but before he could figure out what it was a flash of movement from the corner of his eye reminded him of the danger he was in.
He tried reaching for the 9mm holstered on his hip, but his attacker was already on top of him, pummeling him with a savage intensity that took his breath away. As one of the man’s fists landed a blow to his jaw hard enough to crack bone, Carter accepted that Mike might have been right to worry. These guys were definitely supernaturals of some kind.
Carter gave up on trying to reach for his sidearm, going with his supernatural talents instead, backhanding the man on top of him across the face and sending him flying. His inner omega desperately wanted to let loose with his claws, and it took everything he had to resist the temptation. Fortunately, he retained enough presence of mind to realize that explaining torn flesh might be difficult.
But the rational part of his personality took a big hit when he scrambled to his feet in time to see another big man run into the small clearing. It wasn’t so much the guy’s sudden appearance that had his omega fighting its way to the surface. It was the blood that covered the man’s lower face and the front of his shirt. Only problem was, the guy hadn’t been punched in the mouth. If Carter didn’t know better, he’d think the guy had bitten someone or something. A glance toward the first guy—the one who’d blind-sided him—revealed that he was covered in even more blood than his prison buddy.
Carter was so busy wondering where all the blood had come from that he almost missed when they both darted toward him at the same moment. By darting, he meant they moved so fast they blurred. And when they attacked, they frigging snarled, fully exposing their bloody teeth—along with the bits of flesh stuck in between them.
Shit.
That’s where the blood had come from. These two men had been eating someone. WTF? How did Strickland indoctrinate these guys so fast?
Carter shouldn’t have been focused on the men’s cannibalistic tendencies because it almost got him killed as both of them came flying in faster than a speeding bus. He blocked the first three punches, but never even saw the kick to the chest coming until he was flying backward through the air. Thankfully, a tree trunk stopped him before he could sail too far. Who knew he’d ever be grateful for that?
“The boss wants the meat in the van,” one of the men said as Carter was busy falling to the ground after his impact with the tree. “I’ll deal with the cop.”
Carter shook his head, trying to clear it at the same time he attempted to understand what the guy had meant about the boss wanting the meat in the van. What boss? And why were these two cannibals dragging off their victims?
He was just getting to his feet when movement to his right caught his eye. He jerked his head that way to see Strickland standing there, regarding him curiously.
Every instinct Carter had screamed at him to take off after Strickland, the man who’d threatened Hadley. But he didn’t have a chance as the first man charged at him again and the second one took off into the woods in the same direction he’d heard the earlier groans. Was he going to move dead bodies, or could the people these two had attacked still be alive?
Then he couldn’t think about anything as the man reached him, fists swinging like sledgehammers. Carter tried to stay in control of his emotions, fighting to keep his omega at bay. But after a half dozen punches to the face, that now-familiar curtain began to descend across his consciousness. The last thought he had before everything went dark was a prayer that his omega wouldn’t use claws.
Or go after any other cops.
“Carter, come back,” a calm, reassuring voice murmured right at the edge of Carter’s awareness. But his omega wasn’t interested in listening at the moment, and the voice started to fade away.
“Hadley is here with me,” the muted voice said. “She wants you to come back.”
It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water down his back. One second he’d barely been aware of his name, the next he was five cups of coffee awake and staring straight into Mike’s worry-filled eyes.
“Where?” Carter demanded, snapping his head back and forth looking for Hadley.
