The Reckoning

Forty-six

WE COLLECTED TORI AND Simon just as they were heading out to rescue me. After a very brief explanation about the earthquake and the wolf by my side, I asked if Simon had gotten hold of his dad. His face darkened, telling me the answer wasn’t good.

“Voice mail,” he said.

“Seriously?”

“It said he was unavailable and switched to voice mail. I left a message. He could have been out of range or on the phone or…”

He didn’t finish, but we all knew what he meant. Unavailable could mean a lot of things, not all of them as innocent as being stuck between cell towers.

“We’ll call again as soon as we’re out,” Aunt Lauren said. “Which should be soon.”

We headed for the nearest exit. We’d gone about twenty feet before Liz came racing over.

“Three of them,” she said. “Coming this way.”

“Guns?” I asked.

She nodded.

If it was three unarmed staff-even with supernatural powers-I’d be willing to take them on. But guns were another thing. I told the others.

“There’s an unused wing to the west,” Aunt Lauren said. “They won’t guard that exit because it’s through a secured door.”

I followed her and used the key card to get us into the wing. As soon as we were through, Derek stopped short, the hair on his back rising, lips curling in a silent growl.

“Do you smell someone?” I whispered.

He shook his head sharply, with a grunt, as if to say sorry, and we started forward again, but he was wary now, gaze flicking from side to side.

“I know this place,” Simon murmured. “I’ve been here.”

“Your dad used to bring you to work sometimes when you were little,” Aunt Lauren said.

“Yeah, I know, but this place…” He looked around, then he rubbed the back of his neck. “Creeps me out, whatever it is.”

“The exit is around the corner and down at the end,” Aunt Lauren said, ushering us on. “It leads into a yard. We’ll need to climb the wall, but that’s another reason they won’t guard it.”

We continued along. Simon and Derek weren’t the only ones getting chills. It was so quiet. An empty, dead place. Shadows hunkered along the walls, out of reach of the security lights. It stunk, too, reeking of antiseptic soaked right into the floors, like an abandoned hospital.

I glanced in the first open door and stopped short. Desks. Four tiny desks. A wall of faded posters of alphabet animals. A blackboard, still showing the ghosts of numbers. I blinked, certain I was seeing wrong.

Derek nudged my legs, telling me to get moving. I looked at him, and I looked at the classroom.

This was where Derek had grown up. Four tiny desks. Four little boys. Four young werewolves.

For a second, I could see them-three boys working at the three clustered desks, Derek alone at the fourth, pushed slightly away, hunched over his work, trying to ignore the others.

Derek nudged me again, whining softly, and I looked down to see him eyeing the room, every hair on his neck on end, anxious to get away from this place. I murmured an apology and followed the others. We passed two more doors, then Liz came running back.

“Someone’s coming.”

“What?” Aunt Lauren said when I relayed it. “From down there? That can’t be. It’s-”

The clomp of footsteps cut her off. She looked each way, then waved to the nearest door.

“The key card, Chloe, quickly!”

I opened it and we all tumbled inside. As I closed the door behind us, the lock whirred shut. I looked around, squinting to see with only the glow of an emergency light.

We were in a huge storage room packed with boxes.

“Lots of places to hide,” I whispered. “I suggest we find one.”

We split up as footsteps echoed down the hall. I turned, nearly tripping over Derek. He hadn’t moved, just stared into the room, fur bristling.

I looked around. I saw boxes, lots of boxes, but over along the far wall, something else-four beds.

“T-this was-” I began.

“Where is everyone?” boomed a voice from the hall.

Derek snapped out of it, grabbed my sleeve between his teeth, and tugged me deep into the sea of boxes. We found a spot in the back corner where boxes were piled three high, leaving a small space for us to hide. Derek nudged me toward it. I whispered for the others as he went back to gather them up.

In a minute, we were all wedged in that space, crouched or sitting. Derek stood at the opening, guarding it, ears swiveling. As the steps drew closer, I didn’t need his hearing to pick up the voices.

“Scientists.” A man snorted. “They think they can hire a few rent-a-cop half-demons and they’re ready for something like this. Arrogant sons of…” His mutters trailed off. “How close is Mr. St. Cloud?”

“His flight will arrive in seventy-five minutes, sir.”

“Then we have an hour to clean this mess up. How many kids was it again? Four?”

“Three were recaptured. The fourth-the werewolf-wasn’t, but there was a report that he’d entered the building.”

“Great. Just great.” Their footsteps sounded outside the door. “All right, here’s the plan. I need two survivors. If you can get me two, Mr. St. Cloud will be happy. And that doesn’t include the werewolf.”

“Naturally, sir.”

“We need a place to set up a base of operations. The team will be here in five minutes.”

“It doesn’t look as if they use this wing, sir.” A door creaked. “This room even has desks and a blackboard.”

“Good. Start setting up and get Davidoff on the radio. I want him down here now.”

I waved for Liz to go check things out.

We all strained to listen, praying they’d find some problem with the room or be offered a better one. It didn’t happen.

“At least they’re on the other side of our escape route,” Tori said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Simon said. “We’ve got a Cabal SWAT team setting up down the hall. We’re screwed.”

Liz came running back in. “There are two guys in suits and one wearing what looks like a soldier’s uniform. Plus four more like him marching up the hall.”

The clomping of boots echoed her words.

“We’ll hold tight,” I said. “They’ll send those guys searching-hopefully somewhere else. When we get a chance, we’ll run.”

Derek chuffed and slid in behind me, letting me rest against him, so warm and comfortable that I started to relax, and when I did, so did he, muscles softening, heart rate slowing.

“So you two came on your own?” I said to Liz. “How?”

“Drove.”

“But Derek doesn’t have his license.”

Simon laughed. “Doesn’t mean we don’t know how to drive. Dad let us start last year, bombing around empty parking lots.”

“That’s a few minutes at the mall, not eight hours on the highway.”

Derek grunted, as if to say it’d been no big deal, though I’m sure it couldn’t have been easy.

“We took Andrew’s truck,” Liz said. “After we found…After Derek found his…Well, you know. We probably weren’t far behind you. I helped navigate.”

“How’d you communicate?”

“Paper and pen. Amazing inventions. Anyway, once we were in Buffalo, I led him here. We couldn’t figure out a way in and he got stressed and apparently that”-she waved at him-“is what happens when a werewolf gets stressed. By then, the garage door was open, some staff guy bringing in a car. He took one look at Derek and decided it was time for a new job.”

Noises sounded in the hall. Liz went to check it out. Behind me, Derek’s flank twitched. I rubbed it absently, the muscle jumping under my fingers. Then I asked the question I’d been dreading since Aunt Lauren first found me.

“Rae’s dead, isn’t she?” I said. “Dr. Davidoff said she was transferred, but I know what that means. The same thing it meant with Liz and Brady.”

The look on Aunt Lauren’s face at that moment…I can’t describe it, but if I had any doubt about how much she regretted the role she’d played in all this, I saw it as I mentioned their names. For a second she said nothing. Then she jumped, like she’d been startled.

“Rae? No. Rae isn’t dead. Someone broke in and took her. They think it was her mother.”

“Her adoptive mom?”

Aunt Lauren shook her head. “Her birth mother. Jacinda.”

“ But Dr. Davidoff said she was dead.”

“We said a lot of things, Chloe. Told a lot of lies, telling ourselves it was better for you all, but really, just because it was easier. If Rae thought her mother was dead, she wouldn’t ask for her. From everything I heard, though, they think that’s who-”

Derek’s flank twitched again. I glanced down to see a muscle spasming. Another started in his shoulder. When he caught me looking, he growled, telling me it was nothing, just ignore him and pay attention.

As Aunt Lauren talked, I rubbed the muscle in Derek’s shoulder and he leaned against my hand, relaxing. I knew it wouldn’t help. He was ready to Change.

“We need to get going,” I said. “I’m going to call Liz.”

She raced through the boxes before I even finished summoning her. Tori’s mom had joined the SWAT team in the next room. Apparently, Derek hadn’t hurt her as much as I might have hoped. She was nursing a killer headache…and a killer grudge. Derek was to be shot on sight-shot dead, not tranquilized.

Reinforcements from a Cabal satellite office were on the way to help sweep the building with manpower and spell power. They were determined to find us before this St. Cloud guy arrived.

“We’re going to have to make a run for it,” I said. “As soon as it’s quiet-”

Derek convulsed, nearly throwing me off him.

“Someone doesn’t like your plan,” Tori said. “And just when I was thinking how nice it was that he doesn’t have a voice. Won’t keep him from arguing apparently.”

“That’s not it,” I said as Derek convulsed again. “He’s Changing back.”

“Can it wait, because-?”

Derek’s whole body spasmed, all four legs shooting out, a back claw nicking Simon, a front paw swatting Tori. They both leaped out of the way.

“I think that’s a no,” Simon said.

“We need to clear out,” I said. “As you can tell, this requires room. And it might not be something you want to see.”

“Tell them I second that,” Liz said. “I caught a glimpse, and that was enough.” She made a face and shuddered.

I shooed them out, then turned to Derek, lying on his side, panting. “You’ve done this alone now, so I guess you don’t need-”

He caught my jeans leg between his teeth, pulling gently, his eyes asking me to stay. I told the others I was, and said if they heard any sign that the SWAT team was searching this hall, they were to get out-all of them.

“We aren’t leaving you two,” Simon said.

Derek growled.

“He’s agreeing with me,” I said. “For once. You have to go. With any luck, they’ll presume that means Derek and I are someplace else.”

Simon didn’t like it, but he only grumbled for Derek to hurry.

Aunt Lauren stayed after they’d gone. “If anything happens, you’re coming with us, Chloe. Derek can look after-”

“No, he can’t. Not like this. He needs me.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do. He needs me. So I stay.”

We locked gazes. Again, a look passed through her eyes, surprise and maybe a little bit of grief. I wasn’t her little Chloe anymore. I never would be again.

I walked over and hugged her. “I’m fine.”

“I know.” She hugged me back, fierce and tight, then left to join the others.