A horrible noise breaks from Layne's mouth. Wild, inhuman. Her body trembles. The straps holding her tear clean through as an animal rips out of her.
A giant Bengal tiger rears up off the table, and slams into Smyth.
Guess the serum worked.
The tiger roars, drowning out Smyth's scream. The great cat has her claws deep in Smyth's chest. I'd wince, if I wasn't already bleeding out. I know what cat claws feel like.
When she's done roaring, the only sound in the lab is a gurgle from Smyth's compressed chest and the drip, drip, drip of blood.
"Layne?"
The tiger turns bright eyes to me. Shit. I hope she's not too mad at me.
"Here kitty, kitty," I murmur. She bares her fangs.
"Is he dead?" I nod to Smyth. The edges of my vision are going grey.
The tiger yanks her claws out of Smyth with a sickening sound. His body is limp, his face blank with unconsciousness.
"You did good," I tell her quietly. "But we should make sure."
Layne growls assent. She swipes a paw and slides Smyth's gun to me.
Fuck. I love this woman.
"I need your help."
The tiger slinks towards me with all the beauty and grace of a predator. She could kill me with a swipe of her paw before I blinked.
My wolf is in awe. Idiot.
She sniffs me before crouching low enough for me to get my arm around her. I grasp the gun and together we make our way to Smyth. Propping myself on her shoulder, I take aim.
He's my father. I should feel more than this burning hate. But I don't.
A bullet to the heart takes care of justice. I collapse against Layne when it's done.
The building shakes again. Another bomb. Nash brought more firepower than I thought.
"We need to get out of here."
The tiger brushes her face against mine, then nuzzles my chest.
"Bandage-" I tug at my shirt and she gets it. One razor sharp claw slits my shirt open. I start to wrap it around me to put pressure on the wound. Not much, but it's all I can do until I can get the silver out.
I wrap my arms around her body, and let her drag me out of the lab.
The closer we get to the exit, the louder the gunfire blasts. Every so often there's a large rumble that shakes the building.
"Sam? You there?" Kylie sounds frantic.
"I'm here."
"Thank God."
"I've got Layne." Or rather, she's got me. "We're all good." My arms feel weak, but I dig my hands further into her fur, now slick with my blood. "We're leaving. Nash is setting off bombs."
"Grenades, actually. I have a visual of the outside. I sent a drone. Jackson is headed your way with an extraction team."
"No, don't let him-"
"Don't worry, you'll be long gone. If anything, they'll be doing clean up and media suppression. We're going to wipe the Earth of any of these shifter mercenaries." The bloodthirsty note in her voice reminds me why I never want to get on Kylie's bad side. Of course, now my girlfriend-if she's still my girlfriend-is a tiger shifter. Several hundred pounds of lethal muscle, tipped with fang and claw.
It might take a lot of hot air balloon rides to get her to forgive me.
"First we get you and Layne out of there." Kylie issues a stream of instructions that I relay to Layne. We turn down a hall, only to watch the ceiling cave in, wires crackling.
"Can't go that way," I shout to Kylie as Layne backtracks, dragging me. We pass a dead guard and I grab up his handgun, tossing Smyth's shifter stopper away. "The building's unstable."
"All right. Nash is raining fire power down from the roof. If you can get a hold of him, he can provide cover."
"The roof?" That is so far from Nash's and my plan that it's in outer space.
"Yeah," Kylie sounds like she's grinning. "They sent in a helicopter to shoot him down, and he leaped from the building long enough to hijack it and send it crashing down.
"Fuck."
"It was so badass!" Kylie gushes. "Okay, let's focus. I see there's a stairwell coming up on your left. Head down, if you can. It should be structurally stable. Shifter enforced concrete and all that."
"I might lose you," I tell her.
"That's okay, all you're going to do is go down and out the exit. If you can-I mean, if there aren't too many guards pinning you down. If there are, see if you can get through to Nash for cover."
"I also have a weapon."
"Great. That should tide you over. The building might be close to collapsing. I wish Jackson had bought me that missile for my birthday. I'd totally blow the place and you could run under the cover of the explosion."
"You mean our flaming bodies could get flung out by the blast," I say dryly.
"To-may-to, to-mah-to. Jackson didn't buy me the missile. He took me to Hawaii and got me a diamond bracelet instead."
"Stairwell to the exit," I tell Layne. "Kylie, we're in."
"Try Nash," she orders. "I reached out but he doesn't know me."
"Roger."
"See you on the other side."
The channel switches to Nash. "Alpha, you there? Layne and I are headed out. We need firepower to cover us on the western side. Then we'll get you out."
I wait, but get no reply. Fuck.
"We're on our own." I tell tiger Layne. She's absolutely beautiful, and calm, her striped face regal. "If I don't make it out alive, I want to tell you thank you for saving my life. I love you." Fuck, my vision really is going grey.