Jace tried to twist around, giving his brother a solid look at the inside of the hangar, but it wasn’t anything good—dozens of paramilitary types, even more staff in medical scrubs, and at least fifty shifters in cages and strapped to gurneys in miniature medical suites. Where had they all come from? There couldn’t be this many that had gone missing from Seattle. Were they bringing in others from around the country?
Suddenly, Piper broke free of the suit holding her and rushed forward—what the hell? Jace’s guard whipped his weapon to point straight between Jace’s eyes.
“Not a muscle,” the man said coolly.
Jace was stuck watching as the suit scrambled after Piper… but she stopped suddenly in front of one of the cages.
“Noah!” she said, then reared back to kick the cage door. “Noah, wake up!” She slammed her shoulder against the metal bars, rattling the entire thing, then the suit reached her and pulled her back.
Jace wanted to go to her, calm her down, but the beefy man guarding him looked like he was waiting for any excuse to put a bullet in Jace’s brain.
“No!” That was Piper again. She was on the ground.
“Piper!” Noah, her brother, staggered to the gate of his cell and banged it. “Get the fuck off my sister!”
Piper struggled against the suit’s hold, but three guards descended on Piper and pinned her. They hauled her up and held her off the ground, kicking and screaming, and carried her toward one of the medical suites. Agent Smith stood there, a grin slowly spreading across his face.
No, no, no!
Jace looked straight in the face of the man holding a gun to his head. “This is not exactly going to plan,” he said to him… but he was really speaking to Jaxson.
The guard smirked. “You’ll get your turn, shifter.” He stepped to the side but didn’t lower the weapon. “Come on.”
He ushered Jace toward the med suite where Piper was being strapped to a gurney.
Come on, Jaxson. Jace didn’t know if his brother could get here before they started doing things to Piper that Jace would never forgive himself for. She was putting up a hell of a fight, but they were quickly getting her strapped in. Jace was ticking through the options—head-butt the guard, take his gun, chop him to the neck, somehow call attention to himself, anything—but they all had nearly zero chance of success. Just as he was getting ready to do something foolish and very unlikely to work, a smattering of gunfire froze everyone in the hangar.
Then all hell broke loose.
Five different doors around the edges of the hangar banged open and members of his pack flowed in like black-armor-clad demons. Gunfire erupted everywhere. Jace took that moment of chaos to head-butt his guard then swipe his feet out from under him. He hit the ground hard, but Jace was already gone, turning toward the medical suite where Piper was being held. The melee going on around him gave him cover, but just as he reached her and plowed into one of the guards standing near her, a series of small explosions made him involuntarily duck. A quick glance around showed Jaxson and his pack doing the same while everyone else—guards, medical staff, even Agent Smith, hitting the deck and scrambling for something, like they’d lost some treasure hidden among the crates of supplies.
Then something drifting down caught Jace’s gaze—a pinkish cloud was falling on them. He sucked in a breath and worked desperately at getting Piper’s restraints off with his hands cuffed behind his back. Her eyes were wide, watching the pink mist fall down around them. She held her breath, too, but Jace wasn’t fast enough. And the guard he had just sent the floor with his blow was back up… now with a gas mask on.
He pointed a gun at Jace’s head.
Jace stopped his frantic attempt to free Piper. But he was running out of air… and the pinkish mist was seeping into every pore of his body, tugging on his eyelids, and sending him crashing down into oblivion.
Piper slowly awoke to the sound of someone being hit.
She supposed she should be glad it wasn’t her—but when she creaked her eyes open and peered through the steel bars of her cage, she almost wished she was the one taking the blows. Jace was tied to a chair, with his hands bound by zip ties around the back, and he was being pummeled by the man he had called Agent Smith. There was no question that Smith was some kind of government operative, judging by the cheap suit and the overabundance of swagger, not to mention the smirk, as he pounded his fist into Jace’s face again. Piper had no idea how long this been going on, but Jace was keeping quiet during Agent Smith’s barrage of fists and questions. Which meant he was getting worn down.