Layne
HE GAVE me the day of my dreams, and he left.
It was all bullshit.
I should be pissed, but I'm not. I'm just tired. Bone tired.
This is the way Dr Layne Zhao's life ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Okay, now I'm being melodramatic, which is not my style. I pace around Laurie's tiny guest cottage, picking things up and putting them down again.
I made the right decision. I definitely made the right decision.
Why, then, does my heart feel like it needs help just to beat? Why am I leaking enough tears to float a small boat?
To have swung from such contentment to this can't be right.
I scrub my face in the bathroom, hoping to wash away the pain, the fear.
Sam might die tonight. Sam might die tonight.
Dear God, don't let Sam die.
And if he lives-then I still won't see him?
Does that even make sense? Wouldn't I be happy he lived and want to savor a few more days, months, or even years with him?
Was I just being stubborn? Yes. My mother always said it would be my downfall. I thought I was choosing what's best for us, but… I think I made a huge mistake.
For the first time in forever, I have no interest in throwing myself into my research. I'd rather put my head under the covers and cry.
I miss Sam already.
If anything happens to him, I'll never recover from the heartbreak.
A knock sounds on the door. I give my face another splash and pat it dry. It's probably Laurie coming by to see if I'm okay.
"Coming," I call, whipping my hair up in a ponytail. Sam's mating bite is a shiny red weal against my pale skin. My gut twists. I hope I get to know what it means to be mated to him.
That's my last thought before I open the door and the Data-X guards shoot me in the chest.
~.~
Sam
NASH and I unload equipment from my van. The drive to Temecula took place in silence, mostly because my lips have forgotten how to move. Not that I'm much of a talker, anyway. And Nash clearly isn't.
I turn on my comms unit. "Testing. Alpha, do you copy?"
Nash touches his ear piece and nods.
I tuck a gun in the waistband of my jeans. Nash takes two.
There's no stopping this train now, but if I had it to do over, I'd be back at Laurie's place, begging Layne's forgiveness.
She was right. I chose reckless revenge over love.
What kind of idiot am I?
The most I can hope for is to get out of this alive so I can somehow convince her to let me in her life again.
And I don't know how I'll do that, but I'm not going to give up until I do.
Layne
LIGHTS FLASH in my face as I come too. My head throbs and my chest feels achy, tight, but I'm not dead. So they didn't hit me with a real bullet. A tranq gun. Maybe they were expecting Sam.
"Ahh, you're awake." A familiar voice, blurry face. Smyth.
Revulsion hits me as it always did. Even when I didn't know about the atrocities he was committing, I hated his leering mug. Guess my instincts were right about him all along.
I take no satisfaction in this.
"Where am I?" I groan, working my jaw. My mouth feels cottony.
"You don't recognize it?" He peers around the room. "Of course you wouldn't. You've never been to the base of the Alpha Project."
The white walls, silver equipment, beeping computers-I'm in a lab. I come awake fast.
"One of the bases," Smyth corrects himself. "The last one was destroyed by fire some months ago. Your compatriot made sure of it."
Oh right. They think Sam and I are working together. All the fights and tracking-this was the lab Sam wanted to find. At least he wasn't with me when the thugs grabbed me.
Not that I've forgiven him for leaving.
I lick my lips, trying to work saliva into my mouth. I'm strapped to a gurney of some sort, raised up like a hospital bed.
"I had nothing to do with that," I say. "But it doesn't matter. What you're doing to these shifters, these people. It's wrong."
"Oh Layne." He laughs. "You always wore your heart on your sleeve. Compassion gets in the way of real scientific breakthroughs, you know." He shakes his head. "No matter. We will rise from the ashes. Ironically enough, you will be the one to lead the way."
He points, and I crane my neck to see the large pouch of fluid on a stand beside me, green liquid running down the tubes to the needle in my arm.
~.~
Sam
"ALPHA, YOU THERE? COME IN, ALPHA." I crouch in a stairwell after infiltrating Smyth's lab. "Nash? You there?" Dammit. Nash has gone offline.
"Trouble in paradise?" A familiar voice crackles in my ear.
"Kylie?" I press my finger to the earpiece to confirm.
"Who else knows how to crack this comm?"
"How-" I can't even believe this.
"Oh Sam, when will you stop underestimating me?"
I just shake my head.
"I see you're at Smyth's lab."
I don't ask her how she knows that. "Yeah. Gonna take him down. You wanna help?"
"I'm with you, Sam. Every step of the way."
"All right. See if you can locate Nash. I don't want him going rogue."
"On it." The rush of Kylie's typing sounds like a waterfall.
I check my weapons and wait. Nash could be hiding from the enemy in a bad signal area.
Of course, it's totally possible he also saw the enemy and lost control of his lion. In which case, I just hope I wouldn't end up another dead body.
"No signal on Nash," Kylie reports.
"Damn it."