Page 2 of Rescued

Fuck.

Rex said, “Hey, Switch, if we made an offer on the bar, would you check over the wiring for us? See what it needs?”

Switch got out one of his tiny screwdrivers from the pocket pack he always had with him, and picked up the robot again. “I guess, if I’m still around.” They both snorted. “What?” he said, looking from one to the other. “I’m not staying here.”

Dobe shook his head. “And yet, it’s been over a month, and there you sit. Are you sure you didn’t get caught up in the bonding magic the night Gunn came back?”

Switch was wondering that himself. He didn’t feel bonded to the other wolves—but then, he’d always been a lone wolf, so how would he know?

“If I get the urge to hold hands and sing ‘Kumbayah,’ you’ll be the first to know.” He tightened a tiny screw. “In the meantime, somebody could make me feel welcome by fixing the fucking roof of the guest cabin. Sanchez.”

Sanchez turned his generic glower onto Switch. “It’s not like I see you helping with the construction work, Flyboy.”

“I need my hands for delicate electronic work.” He put the robot down and it walked in a circle. At least both legs were working now. “What if I smashed my finger with a hammer? My genius would be lost.”

Sanchez said, “If you’re such a fucking hotshot who wants to get out of here, why haven’t you finished upgrading the comms system already, like you told Gunn you would?”

Good question. “Genius takes time. You wouldn’t understand. You be big wolf, hit thing with hammer.”

“Fuck you,” Sanchez said. “Do you know how much work that damn compound needs? And how shorthanded we are with people who actually know what they’re doing? We’ve been telling Gunn and Thanatos for weeks that we need actual contractors to come in, but Thanatos is still worried about outsiders.”

Well, yeah. Thanatos was paranoid. He’d formed the Outlaw Ridge pack by taking in former criminals, spies, and black-ops burnouts, sending them on missions to take down bad guys no one else could get to.

Protecting the innocent, helping the helpless, blah blah blah.

But they weren’t exactly good guys. Practically everyone in the pack was wanted for something—including Gunn, Dobe, Rex and Sanchez. And Switch himself, according to Dobe’s Wanted poster, where he was listed as a Known Associate.

That had pissed him off. He very much wanted to be an unknown associate.

Anyway, Gunn had messed Thanatos up by falling head over paws for a chick from the most prominent Enforcer pack in the shifter world. Whoops. She’d mostly talked Gunn and Thanatos into going legit—or appearing to—creating a ‘security company’ as a cover for their activities.

Thanatos was still on the fence about it, probably because of living in the dungeon like Dracula and likely bursting into flames if he were touched by sunshine. He was still half-convinced that coming out in any way would destroy the pack.

Baby steps.

Switch said, “Why doesn’t Thanatos hire those buddies of Mikey’s? The Bad Blood crew? Don’t they own a construction company? And they already know about you all.”

Sanchez sneered. “Like they’d really come here. They live about eight states away, in Tennessee or Kentucky or one of those backwoods places.”

“Says the man who lives in a forest in the Adirondacks, a gazillion miles from anywhere. In which I have to put plastic buckets all over the living room when it’s raining.”

“What difference does it make?” Sanchez snarled. “You’re leaving any minute, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Unable to get Hank the Robot to dance, Switch got up to get some more coffee. He didn’t know why the fuck he was drinking coffee instead of beer or whiskey. All he knew was when he first got here and opened his mouth to order, the word ‘coffee’ came out.

Fucking little voice. It would be nice if it told him things that made sense.

His hand shook a little when he was putting his tiny tools back in their container, and he bit his lip. That was the caffeine. Had to be. He hadn’t had the shakes in…

Well, who was counting, anyway?

He was finally putting the past behind him.

Because he couldn’t be a guy who had random bouts of PTSD. Everything he did that mattered depended on clarity and precision. He couldn’t fly helicopters if he couldn’t keep his shit together, and he couldn’t build machinery if his hands were shaking.

The healer said it would get better, and it had. He’d go for long periods without any panic attacks or shaking.