15. Chapter 15

Chapter fifteen

“ C ome on. Daylight’s wasting.” Gabe brushed by me on his way out to the car. “We might be able to make it to Lykos Labs before they close if we head out now.”

Gabe had shucked his loner ways and slipped back into his detective role with relative ease. The same way he had in the blossoming friendship with me and Lucas. We had formed an alliance—a pack of our own.

And my wolf approved.

After I claimed shotgun, we piled into the Camaro with Gabe in the back seat and Lucas behind the wheel. It was a forty-minute drive to civilization and the lab—and we had a little over thirty minutes to get there.

Lucas’ lead foot more than made up for lost time.

“Did you even touch the brakes?” I asked as he drifted into a parking space in the paved lot alongside Lykos Labs.

“We made it in one piece with five minutes to spare.” Lucas replied as he shifted into park.

I exited the car and moved the seat forward for Gabe, who looked a little green around the gills as he climbed out of the back seat.

“You always hear people talk about taking a drive through the mountains and how beautiful it is.” Gabe rubbed a hand over his stomach. “I’m not a fan.”

“It’s all the curves.” I gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “I used to get car sick driving with Lucas. You get used to it.”

“Tell that to my stomach.” Gabe muttered as he fell in line behind us on the sidewalk that led up to the brick building where the lab was housed.

We reached the entrance of the lab in time for one of the technicians to flip the open sign to closed and lock the door.

“Come on, please.” I rapped on the glass. “Just give us five minutes. All we need are copies of lab results.”

The technician shook his head, turning his arm to point to the face of the watch fastened on his wrist. It seemed no amount of pleading would change his mind, but I was just as determined to get inside the lab as he was to clock out of it for the day.

“Lina, stop. He’s not going to open the door.” Gabe reached for my arm, but I jerked away and continued my relentless pounding.

“When it comes down to a battle of wills, Lina will win every time.” Lucas pointed toward the lobby and the technician who had pivoted on his heel and began to make his way back to the front door. “See.”

Answers to the questions about the silver nitrate compound and its source were within reach, bringing us one step closer to catching the person who’d murdered my father and Dr. Bennett.

Or so we thought.

An explosion rocked the lab. The force of the blast hurled us across the building’s front lawn and out into the street. Debris from the demolished building rained down as we laid on the pavement and attempted to assess our injuries.

“Lucas, Gabe? You guys, okay?” I managed between groans as I rolled to one side and attempted to get up.

“I feel like a tube of toothpaste squeezed at the middle.” Lucas knelt on the ground; arms wrapped around his midsection.

“Barotrauma, from the vacuum left after the blast wave.” Gabe pushed himself up to a seated position.

My throat and lungs felt scorched. Tears streamed from the corners of my eyes as I sucked in more of the hot, sooty air. We took stock of our injuries; relieved to find only minor scrapes and burns left among them.

Any internal injuries, typical with that type of explosion and our distance from it, had begun to heal before we connected with the asphalt. Within a few hours and at least one shift to our wolves, any lingering aches and pains would be gone.

Rapid healing—one of the perks of being a werewolf. Unfortunately, it had its limitations.

A layer of glass coated every surface, glittering in the late afternoon sun as if encrusted with diamond slivers. Dark gray plumes of smoke hung in the air above the demolished building, while chemical fires burned in the rubble.

“Do you think anyone inside survived?” I pushed the singed and matted strands of hair from my face and tucked them behind my ear.

“The blast probably killed everyone.” Gabe tucked his chin against his chest and shook his head. “You can only heal so much damage before you bleed out.”

Contrary to popular belief, werewolves were not immortal. Hard to kill? Yes. But a bomb would have done the trick. Had the technician opened the door and let us inside, it was unlikely we would have made it out of there alive.

“We need to be sure.” Lucas got to his feet and staggered toward what remained of the front door—which wasn’t much.

Chunks of brick and mortar littered the grass and sidewalks surrounding the building. The roof had partially collapsed on the left side. We went in anyway.

Survivors were our top priority. Containment came a close second.

If anyone had survived the blast, the healing process would have already begun. Which made explaining the injuries or lack thereof a hell of a lot more difficult. We needed to patch up minor injuries and get transport for the major ones before EMS and Fire arrived on scene.

If I had to guess, we had three minutes—tops.

The deceased were a whole other problem. The last thing the were-community needed was for one of our bodies to end up in the hands of a medical examiner.

Our trip went from recon to search and rescue in a matter of seconds.

Sirens wailed in the distance. The first responders wasted no time getting to the scene. I doubted if they’d ever had a bomb threat, never mind an actual bomb detonation, and assumed it had been an all-hands-on deck type of call.

Gabe and I picked ourselves up and followed Lucas, who had already entered the building. The lobby branched off into two hallways. We opted for the one on the left. The right side had been blocked off when part of the exterior wall collapsed.

We made our way down the corridor as a unit. Lucas took point, while Gabe and I flanked him on either side. When we reached the first set of offices we split up, clearing each room before we moved on to the next.

“Clear.” I called out, moving from one lab room to the next.

Lucas had already placed a call to his father. Members of the council, along with its resources, were on their way. Benjamin assured us that we had people in the fire and police departments. They would handle anyone from EMS and ensure no wolf made it to the morgue.

“I’ve got one.” Gabe shouted from behind the last door on the right.

Prior to the explosion the secure, sterile room required a key card for entry. The blast had knocked out the electricity and short circuited the security systems. According to the surviving technician we weren’t the first to arrive.

If there had been any doubt as to the bomber’s identity before, there wasn’t any longer.

The only question I had was whether they had intended to destroy the lab and were forced to finish the job when it failed. Or was the explosion meant as a distraction and a way inside the facility?

Either way, Lykos Labs had a data breach.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.” The lab technician clutched Gabe’s arm. “Don’t let them take me to the hospital.”

“Hey, hey, relax. I want you to take a deep breath.” Gabe pulled air in through his nose and expelled it through his mouth, instructing the tech to do the same. “You’re safe.”

Amber hues bled into his warm brown eyes as he flashed his canines to the terrified middle-aged woman.

Creases at the corner of her eyes and mouth softened as her grimace all but disappeared. Her tense muscles relaxed, leaving her slumped against the wall. She released Gabe’s arm from her death grip once she realized she was among friends.

After what she’d been through, I didn’t take her distrust personally.

While we tended to the technician, Lucas continued his search of the building with the tactical precision of a special forces elite soldier. Years of training and experience as a tracker for the council culminated as he swept through the lab in search of survivors or evidence left behind by the bomber that may have survived the blast.

“She’s the only one.” Lucas’ head and shoulders hung heavy as he came into the room and shared the burden of his news. “Our guy was just tying up loose ends.”

“Well, he did a real bang-up job.” I winced at my choice of words, not intending to make such a poorly pun. “Our one lead turned into another dead end.”

“Not necessarily.” Gabe glanced over at the lab tech who had nodded off on the floor beside him. “She said someone else had been here.”

“Well, we can’t question …” I flicked my gaze to the melted name tag pinned to her lab coat. “Jan, or Jane—”

“Janet.” Her eyes flickered open. She stayed awake long enough to correct me.

“Right, Janet.” I laid my hand on top of hers. “We can’t question Janet here. The fire department’s already moving through the building.”

“We have people on the scene.” Lucas turned toward the sounds of fireman clearing the building. “They’ll get us cleared and past any EMS.”

“This room is a ticking time bomb.” Gabe scooped up Janet and jostled her into a fireman’s carry position over his shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not waiting around to be rescued when this room could go any minute.”

“After you.” I grabbed Lucas’ hand, pulling him behind me as I followed Gabe out of the lab.

We stayed low, avoiding as much of the smoke and fumes as possible, but my lungs and throat still burned from over exposure. We pushed through the emergency exit and stumbled out onto the back lot.

I sucked in deep breaths of the cool, crisp autumn air which seemed to acerbate the irritation. Racked with a coughing fit, I wrapped my arms around my middle while my body tried to expel the smoke from my lungs. Lucas and Gabe appeared to suffer from the same symptoms.

Gabe staggered over to a small dogwood at the end of the row of parking spaces and propped the lab tech against the ring of mulch piled high around the base of the tree.

“Think we’re far enough away?” I directed my question at both Gabe and Lucas.

“Probably not.” Lucas motioned to a car with ash and debris over its roof and hood.

“My car is one row over.” Janet’s hands sank into the licorice tinted mulch as she pushed against it. “The blue Wrangler.”

She looked worse for wear, but her shifter genetics had been hard at work healing any major injuries she had sustained in the blast.

“Keys?” Gabe asked, as he helped her to her feet.

“Should we at least check in with your dad’s contacts?” I asked Lucas, while scanning the parking lot for a blue jeep. “There.”

The four of us gravitated toward each other and moved across the employee lot as a unit.

“There’s a spare in one of those hide-a-key things inside the right front wheel-well.” Janet pointed to the front passenger side.

I slipped between the surrounding cars, knelt down on the passenger’s side and reached up behind the fender in search of the small magnetic box.

“Got it.” I twirled the key ring around my finger. “I’ll drive. You call your dad.”

“Shotgun.” Lucas pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial button for his father while Gabe and Janet piled into the backseat. “We’re on the move.”

Lucas brought his father up to speed on new developments.

“Everyone buckled in?” I shifted the old CJ-7 into reverse, whipped out of the parking spot and tore out of the lot; tires squealing as I rounded the corner.

Another explosion rocked what remained of the laboratory as we took off. The shockwaves followed us for several blocks. I kept the pedal down and never hit the brakes until we crossed the city limits and were well on our way back to pack lands.

It was the first time in recent memory that I had been in a hurry to get home. The source of so much of my pain had become my safe haven. It seemed life was not without a sense of irony.

I was hot on the trail of my father’s killer and collecting problems as well as people—who seemed to have no qualms about putting their trust in me.

For their sake, I hoped it wasn’t misplaced.