* * *
"The place where I was held should be right over that mountain ridge," Minka said with more confidence than she felt as she placed her hands on the rough boulder by her side and strained her eyes to see even farther through the gathering gloom of approaching evening.
Minka hadn't realized the land where she'd grown up had such a distinctive smell and feel to it until she'd left Tajikistan and come back. But now, the scent of sunbaked rock and dirt and the feel of the mountain breeze on her face reminded her that this place was her homeland.
Angelo stood at her side, silent but supportive as everyone else farther down the hill unloaded the gear from the strange plane that had brought them here. They couldn't fly any closer to the facility, not without someone hearing the plane. So they'd have to hike the rest of the way in from there.
Angelo had told her the plane was called an Osprey, and she'd been amazed to learn that it could land and take off like a helicopter, or it could fly like a normal plane. That had come in really useful, as they'd been leapfrogging across this particular part of southern Tajikistan for most of the day, landing every few dozen kilometers so she could get out of the tight confines of the plane and look around.
No one could understand why she couldn't guide them from the air, but she simply couldn't. The only way she was able to know for sure that they were on the route she'd used to escape the lab was to get out and walk around so she could smell the air and feel the rocks under her boots. When she did that, it almost seemed like she could remember running and walking this way-maybe.
"What if this isn't the right mountain ridge?" she asked Angelo softly. "What if we shouldn't be unloading the plane here?" She knew Ivy and the new shifter, Trevor, would still hear her, but they weren't the ones who'd been complaining.
Angelo gently turned her around to face him. "What are your instincts telling you right now? Do you think we're going the right way?"
It was such a simple question, but the answer was so complicated.
"I don't know," she said. "It was dark when I went through so many of these places, and I don't remember what everything looked like. I could be leading us completely in the wrong direction."
Angelo lifted a finger to her temple. "Don't worry about what you remember up here. I want you to tell me what the other part of you, the hybrid part, is saying. What does it remember in here?" He moved his finger down and placed the tip just above her heart.
Even though she and Tanner had talked about doing this, Minka was terrified at the idea of letting the monster out long enough to learn what it remembered. She'd been working so hard to keep the doors inside her locked tight, desperately hoping the beast would never break its way out again. Now Angelo was asking her to willingly open the door and invite the thing out. This was far more than simply letting out her claws or listening in on a conversation that was too far away for a normal person to hear.
Angelo put his hands on her shoulders and moved closer. As his scent wrapped her in its warm embrace, the fear that threatened to overwhelm her disappeared.
Minka took a deep breath. With her angel here next to her, she could do it.
She closed her eyes and relaxed like Ivy and Tanner had taught her, then focused on Angelo's hands on her shoulders. They felt so warm, so strong. She let that heat and strength envelop her.
When she was completely calm, she reached into that place inside her where the beast sat caged and waiting, ready to rip and tear into anything and everything around her, and slowly opened the door. Instead of stopping after a few centimeters, like before, she let it swing almost halfway open.
She knew the image of the beast inside a cage existed only in her head. That beast, that rage, was a part of her. The rage hit her fast and hard, like she hadn't felt since she'd gone a little crazy at the DCO, when Dick had come at her with that needle. Her claws and fangs extended so suddenly it hurt, and she winced. Just when she thought she might have let her control slip too far, she felt Angelo take her small hands in his bigger, more powerful ones. She latched on to the comfort and strength of his touch, using it as an anchor as the beast raged and fought to slip out of her control.
For a time-she wasn't sure how long-his touch was all she thought about. Inside, the animal wasn't fighting as hard as it had been.
Minka slowly opened her eyes to find Angelo smiling down at her.
"You're doing great. Stay nice and relaxed just like that," he said. "Now, look around and take in where we are. Use your nose, your instincts. Tell me if this place feels familiar."
She looked around, not realizing until then that letting the beast out had taken longer than she'd realized. It was almost completely dark now. She scanned the slope. The plane was nowhere to be seen. She hadn't even heard it leave. The team was still there, and everyone was just sitting or lying around, apparently waiting for her to tell them which way to go.
Minka started to turn toward the ridge when something grabbed the animal's attention and snapped her focus back to the camp below. It took several moments before she-and the beast-could figure out what had distracted her, but then she picked up a strange scent coming from Diaz's direction. She tilted her head from side to side, sniffing the air.
What she smelled made no sense. At first, she thought she was simply picking up on Trevor's shifter scent. But he was on the far side of the pile of gear, and the part of the beast that was in control told her the wind shouldn't be moving the shifter's scent in Diaz's direction.
The animal part of her mind mused curiously over why Diaz smelled like Trevor, but then Minka exerted her control and forced the creature inside her to dismiss the distraction. She didn't have a lot of experience with this, but she supposed that if the two men had been sitting next to each other on the plane, there might be a scent transfer, or perhaps the two of them had gotten close with each other at some point. She knew men sometimes did that. Regardless, it meant nothing to her.
Getting back to the question Angelo had asked her, she turned and swept her gaze across the ridge. Without being told to do it, the beast began to look for details Minka had missed-a fresh tumble of rocks here, a trace of old scent there, a scrub bush broken and crushed.
As if following a line, her eyes traced the path she'd taken down from the ridge many weeks before like it was lit with small torches. They were on the right path. In fact, she'd passed no more than a few rock throws from this very place.
She turned and smiled at Angelo, only then realizing that her fangs were out. She lifted her hand to hide them from him, but he caught her fingers in his, stopping her. Then he grinned.
"This is the place, isn't it?"
Minka nodded, both amazed and relieved that Angelo never shied away from her hybrid half. She briefly wondered if her eyes were glowing green or red at that moment but then decided it didn't matter. They glowed, and yet he didn't look away. That was the important part.
"Yes." She wasn't very good at estimating distances, so she related the distance in a term that she did understand. "This is exactly the way I came. The place I was held is only three or four hours' steady walking from here."
Angelo's grin broadened. "I knew you could do it. You ready to change back on your own now, or do you need Ivy's help?"
She smiled. "No, just yours."
Chapter 14
Minka crouched behind the rocks at the top of the hill overlooking the hybrid research facility she'd escaped from, less than thrilled at the plan Angelo and Landon had come up with-mostly because the plan involved her staying up there by herself while everyone else was putting themselves in danger down below.
Angelo, Ivy, Derek, Powell, and Moore would enter the big building where she'd been held. That was where they thought the doctors would almost certainly be, so they wanted to put the most people on it. Landon and Diaz would take the building they thought were the guards' sleeping quarters, while Watson and Trevor would take the much smaller building that looked like an office of some kind. According to what Angelo had told her earlier, Trevor and Watson were supposed to check out any computers they found for evidence. Once they had that, they'd circle back and help Landon and Diaz keep the guards occupied. After Ivy and Angelo's team captured the doctors, everyone would meet back up on the top of the ridge; then they'd head to the location where the Osprey was supposed to pick them up.