Chapter 14

Ben

"I"ve got him! I"ll be damned, I"ve got him!" Tarron yelled.

"Who?" I asked.

"Walker. His tracker just went live. That means he's back in civilization in . . ." he looked over the screen. "Louisiana? Looks like he"s in panther territory."

"Get on the phone now and let Phillip Dannett know we"re coming. Suit up boys. We"re going to get Walker back," Silas said.

As he walked through headquarters, he pounded on Michael"s door.

"We"ve got eyes on our boy. Louisiana. Does Delta want in on the pickup?"

"Hell yes!"

*****

Five days earlier.

I was perched on top of a cargo ship in port that gave me a decent aerial view of the open market below. I could blend in and hide amongst the strapping and netting here. But more importantly I had eyes on Nate as well as Taylor and Walker.

It was pretty boring and uneventful. My interest piqued when they walked towards Nate"s cage. I watched them carefully through my scope. They stopped at the cage next to his that had a woman and two kids in it. It always tore me up to see children being traded and treated like cattle. These two couldn"t be much older than my kids, which pissed me off even more.

Taylor had herself draped all over Walker and really playing it up today. Poor Grant. I hoped he wasn"t watching this. It wasn"t easy for him to have Walker cast as her husband in their roles for this mission. But I also knew the second we were done with this mission, he"d whisk her away and we wouldn"t hear from them for a week as he reminded her exactly why she was his.

Couldn"t blame the bastard. Even knowing how harmless Walker was, he still got under my skin all the time. I loved his friendship with Shelby, but it didn"t make it easy. They were so close and I knew they respected our bond. That was never an issue. But that asshole sure like to goad me into thinking it could be sometimes. I was pretty sure he got off on it. Sick bastard.

"Grant"s gonna kick your ass for after this mission," I told him through coms.

Taylor chuckled like he"d just said something funny, but I knew she was responding to me even though she couldn"t say it.

They stopped and talked to Nate for a second before Walker took interest in the female with the pups.

"A mother and her two pups?" he asked. "Are they to be sold together?"

"Something like that," someone said.

"Are they all witches?" Taylor asked.

"Yes."

"Can you show us your powers?" Taylor asked.

"She needs more room," someone said and the boy turned to the woman and winked.

I had a bad feeling about this.

"Open the door and let her out," Walker insisted.

"You heard him. Do it!" Taylor demanded.

"Grab the brats," one of the men said.

They reached for the kids and a roar erupted from the small woman. And then she shifted into the most hideous and terrifying creature I"d ever seen, and I"d seen a hell of a lot of weird shit out there. She had the lower half of a cheetah, wings of black feathers that spanned at least ten feet wide, two extra arms like Eagle"s claws, and the face of a wolf.

What the hell was it?

"I give you the beast!" one of the men yelled proudly.

I panned between Taylor and Walker. They both seemed shocked.

"I've never seen anything like it," Taylor said, echoing my thoughts exactly.

I couldn"t look away as I stared up at her.

She grabbed the kids and took flight as people ran screaming. It was complete chaos.

A gun fired opposite to me trying to shoot her down. Instincts had me sighting in on the shooter instead of the beast. There were kids involved. Were they insane?

"Was that gunfire? What the hell"s going on over there?" Silas barked.

Unlike the rest of the team, I wore two separate coms. One was open mic to the team, and the other was just between me and Silas. Sometimes if we were setup with multiple shooters there would be more on that channel but today was supposed to be nothing more than an observation day. Shit like that wasn"t supposed to go down.

Because I wore multiple coms, I could hear everything but had to tap a button for anyone to hear me. I tapped for Silas.

"Looks like one of the witches got lose. I"ve never seen anything like her before. Some sort of hybrid. If I hadn"t seen her in human form for myself I"d swear they had an Experiment up in here. She"s taking off with two kids. I have the shooter in my sights."

I was too busy sighting in on the shooter to realize that she had circled back until Taylor yelled, "Get down!"

I whipped my gun back towards Taylor just in time to see the monster scoop Walker up in her claws and fly off.

"Walter!" Taylor screamed.

"If you have a shot, take it. I do not want to explain to Michael that we lost his kid," Silas said.

I sighted in on her, but she was already out over the water.

"If I take her down, Walker goes down too. Even over water he"s not likely to survive a fall like that. Please advise."

"Take the shot," Silas said.

I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I set my rifle for interception and fired.

She moved so quickly. There was no way I could have anticipated speed like that.

"Damn it!"

"Report," Silas said.

"Shot fired. It"s a miss. I underestimated her speed. How the hell did she move so fast with three passengers like that?"

"It"s okay. We"ve got a tracker on him. Stand down."

"What the hell just happened?" Tarren asked through coms.

"Some beast of a witch just flew off with him," Taylor replied.

"Tay, remember your role," Walker said.

She scoffed.

"Dude, you"ve just been kidnapped and that's what you"re worried about?"

"Are we able to track him?" Silas asked the team.

"Yes, sir," Tarron confirmed. "Coms are currently holding too."

"We"re going to get you back," Silas assured him.

"She"s flying fast. He"ll be completely out of range soon. Don"t worry, we can still track you," Tarron said, but there was no response. "Damn it! I think we just lost him on coms. He"s too far out."

"How about the tracker?" Silas asked.

"Holding for now, but if he"s over open water for too long, we"ll lose that too."

"I thought we had international scope on that thing," my boss said angrily.

"We do, as long as it doesn"t lose a cellular connection for too long. There was no need to fit him with a satellite tracker. Or so we thought," Tarron explained.

I hit the open coms button on my jacket. "Are you telling me we may have just lost him for good?"

"If his tracker drops offline, then we"ll have to wait until he"s back in service range and near a device to connect him through."

I just laid there in shock.

What the hell was I going to tell Shelby?

*****

Roughly 48 hours later.

We'd been over everything a million times. We had thought we"d prepared for absolutely everything. But there was no way for us to have seen this coming. Even as what had unfolded started to sink in, none of us could comprehend how or why it had happened.

Tarron had tracked him to a deserted island but by the time we got there, they had taken off again and there was absolutely no trace left aside from a fire pit and small shelter we assumed Walker had built. He had a fondness for kids so it was highly probable that he was trying to take care of them.

Footprints and disturbances in the sand confirmed that it had to be where they"d spent the first night. We"d all been too shocked to move fast enough to intercept him there. And now he was gone.

Silas ran our debrief on the flight back. I didn"t envy him having to explain this mess to Michael and Delta team. And I"d do just about anything not to have to explain this one to Shelby. How do you tell the woman you love that you just lost her best friend?

"Daddy!" Mary Alice squealed and ran to jump into my arms as I walked into the house.

"Hey. Why didn"t you tell me you were coming back today? I thought this mission was going to take a few weeks at least."

She rose up and kissed me, then pulled back and really looked at my face.

"Mary Alice. Why don"t you go get your brothers and tell them Daddy"s home? I"m going to call Aunt Maddie and see if you guys can go over there for a bit while Daddy and I catch up."

"Do we have to?"

"Do as your mother said, sweetpea."

Shelby had no idea what I was about to tell her, but she knew enough to know that it was bad. Still she smiled for the kids and kept a positive tone on the phone with her sister.

"Hey Mads, can you take the kids this evening for dinner and some playtime? Ben just got home . . . I"m not really sure. . . Thanks. You"re the best. I"ll have them ready."

She hung up and turned towards the kids. "Hey, guess what you guys? Aunt Maddie and Uncle Liam want to spoil you guys tonight with a sleepover. Doesn"t that sound like fun?"

"But Dad just got home," Nathan said.

Zachary took in the situation and seemed to have a sixth sense for moments like this. As a baby he would have started crying. But now he stiffened and smiled for his siblings.

"That sounds great. We love going sleepover with Aunt Maddie and Uncle Liam. Right guys?"

They mumbled in agreement and I gave my son a grateful nod.

Twenty minutes later we stood on the porch waving goodbye as Maddie drove away with the triplets.

Shelby smacked my chest. "Spill it. What the hell happened? This was supposed to be a long mission. Why are you home and why do you look like someone just died?"

I cringed.

"Oh my God! Who died?"

"No one. I hope."

"You hope?"

"I don"t know how to tell you this."

"Spill it Mr. Shay, right now because I"m imagining the worst here."

"Fine, we lost Walker," I blurted out.

She froze. "Come again?"

"We lost Walker. He"s gone, Shelbs. Just vanished in the claws of a monster."

"What exactly does that mean?"

"Listen to me. There was this witch who transforms into this hideous beast. She escaped with two pups and then came back around and snatched Walker and flew off."

"Do you hear yourself right now, Benjamin Shay? That is insane."

"I know. I watched it all unfold unable to stop it and I"m still struggling to believe what I saw, but I"m dead serious here, babe. Walker is gone. They flew out of coms reach and then later we even lost him on the tracker. Unless or until he comes close enough to a cellular device to reconnect, then we don"t have a clue where he could be."

She stared at me for a moment and then burst into tears.

I pulled her into my arms, feeling like the absolute worst mate on the planet. Of all the people on that mission, why the hell did it have to be him?

*****

Another 24 or so hours later.

"What"s this all about?" I asked Tucker as I took a seat.

Bravo and Delta teams had been fully assembled for a meeting.

Tarron walked in with Archie hot on his heels.

"Apologies everyone. False alarm," Archie said.

"We had a blip on Walker"s tracker and thought we may have a location, but after closer testing it does appear to be nothing more than a glitch," Tarron explained.

"Where was the blip?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Possibly somewhere near New Orleans, but it happened so fast that we can"t really pinpoint an exact location."

"New Orleans is even just a guess," Archie said, giving a side eye glare Tarron"s way. "The blip occurred in southern Louisiana. Just a blip. Sorry to have caused you all to come in over nothing."

It was clear that this had been Tarron"s idea to assemble the teams and not Archie"s.

Delta team huddled together to talk. Michael finally nodded.

"I"d like to send a few guys down to Louisiana just in case. Linc and Tucker have volunteered. If another more definitive blip occurs then we"ll have boots on the ground ready to move in."

"That won"t be necessary," Silas said. "Right now it"s no more than a shot in the dark."

"With all due respect, that shot in the dark may be the only lead we get. We have allies in the area. What will hurt to let my guys go down and talk to them?"

"Look, I know you all just want to do something. But right now there is nothing to do. Just sit tight and I promise the second we have a lead on his location, we"ll include Delta in on the mission."

The two team leaders stared each other down, before Michael gathered his things and called his team out of the room.

I wasn"t sure if he was going to go over Silas"s head to Patrick or even Kyle and have them override him on this, or if he was truly backing down for the moment.

One thing was certain, tensions were high between the two units and I couldn"t fault Delta one bit for being pissed. We"d told them we had his back and we"d failed them all on our watch.

*****

Present day.

As we were celebrating the relief of Tarron"s announcement of finding Walker, Colin peeked his head in.

"What"s going on?" Colin asked.

"We"ve picked up Walker"s tracker. I was right dammit. He"s in New Orleans, or rather just outside it. Silas is on the phone now confirming with the panthers," Tarron said.

"What the hell is he doing in panther territory?" Linc asked as Michael rallied his team into the conference room as soon as word got out.

"Kian, this is Silas. I have Bravo and Delta teams with me. I repeat, do you have eyes on Walker?"

"No, sir. But I think we know where she"s keeping him. He came into our territory a short while ago to let us know that he was okay and asked that we contact you with his location. Then the beast swooped in and grabbed him. She flew off with him. But we had a run in with her earlier this week. As long as she"s still there we know where to find him."

"Where?"

"One of the NOLA wolves" manors. It just across our border and after a similar monster ran the wolves out of there a few years back, the place has been abandoned and largely considered neutral territory."

"We"ve got him," Tarron said. "This is it."

"I have Foxtrot on standby at the airport. We leave in twenty," Michael surprised us all by saying. "Despite our differences on this, we"d appreciate the help in recovery. But Delta is rolling out now. Since we didn"t get our guys down there sooner when I asked, we"re already behind the ball and losing valuable time. Delta, roll out and report to the airfield immediately."

He didn"t even wait for Silas"s response as the rest of us look to him, awaiting orders even though he"d already told us we were rolling out.

He finally nodded. "Let"s finish this and get Walker back."

There was a lot of cheering and excitement. None of us wanted to be left out of this mission after everything that had happened. Not a single one of us could honestly say we weren"t harboring some bit of guilt of it.

But we"d found him. And this time if she tried to fly away with him, I knew I wasn"t going to miss my shot.