Jared (River Pack Wolves 3)(54)
Jared dropped his hands from her shoulders and clenched them tight at his sides. “I want to kill him again. About ten more times for what he did to you.”
Grace narrowed her eyes at the body. “I would have done it myself if you hadn’t.” She looked back at him, her gaze roaming over his naked, blood-covered body. Some of the blood was hers, some Agent Smith’s, but some was definitely leaking out of him. “He shot you, didn’t he? I heard the gun go off, but I couldn’t see—”
“I’m fine, Grace.” And he was, even though the pain was throbbing through his mental haze and making him dizzy. But there must not be anything major hit—he wasn’t crashing like he had when Agent Smith shot him the first three times.
She frowned. “We need to get you out of here. Soon. But first…” She gestured around the lab. “The serums are here. All his research is here. We have to destroy everything before we leave.”
His head was buzzing with relief, but she was right—they had to think through what to do next. Agent Smith was dead. More than one shot had been fired; Jared couldn’t even remember how many at this point.
“Someone will be here any second,” he said. “They will have heard the gunfire.”
Grace shook her head. “Maybe not. I’ve been screaming… well, for a long time. But this place is soundproofed. I think he brought a lot of people here.”
That wrenching feeling wanted to turn him inside out again. Smith had tortured her. Fuck. He pulled her into his arms again, holding her tight. “Grace, I’m dying inside that you suffered through all this. All because of me.” He was choking up again as he held her.
She pulled back and peered into his eyes. “Jared River, the only thing that got me through was the hope that I would live to find you. And here you are, rescuing me! You’re literally the answer to all my prayers.” Her eyes were shining, and her words crashed into him and stirred things around. Just like they always did.
He allowed himself a small smile. “I could say the same thing about you.”
Her beautiful eyes glittered with something like hope, and it made his heart soar.
She smiled up at him. “We definitely need to discuss this further. Later. But right now…”
“No, you’re right.” He sucked in a breath—she really was all right. And they needed to focus on getting out. “Show me what we need to destroy. Then we’re getting the hell out of here.”
Jared scrambled to get his clothes back on, his two gunshot wounds making a mess of everything. He fumbled to make sure the microphone was still sewn into his collar, but he couldn’t find the earbud.
They had to be panicking outside, so he just spoke into the mic. “I’ve found Grace. Agent Smith is dead. We’re destroying his research. Lost audio. Will be leaving the building when we're done.” Turning to Grace he said, “My brothers and the pack are waiting for us outside. They’re probably losing their minds.” Jared hoped they could hear that, and it would calm down whatever chaos was going on in the van.
He and Grace quickly searched the cabinets, finding hundreds of refrigerated vials. They poured out what they could into the sink and smashed the rest. But the most important research data was almost certain to be stored electronically on the computers scattered around the lab.
“Were going to have a hard time destroying all this,” Jared said. There were three laptops and two desktop computers.
“That’s okay,” Grace said. “We’re taking it with us.” She snagged the laptops and handed them to Jared, then went at the desktops until she had the covers off and could dig inside. She quickly pulled out two hard drives, straggling wires behind.
Jared nodded, impressed. “Our tech guy can erase all this stuff once we’re out.”
“No,” Grace said, firmly. “We need to preserve it. I’m going public with all this. Not the data itself, but the evidence of it. We need to show people what was going on here, Jared.” She strode toward the door of the lab like she was ready to burst out into the world right now with all of it.
He understood the burning need to do that… but it shot a gut-twisting worry through him. He didn’t want her to get hurt. Again.
He caught up with her at the door. “Are you sure? Grace, your father will find a way to—”
“My father…” Grace hissed. “My father is the source of all of this. He sent his own daughter here to be a lab rat, tortured by a crazed anti-shifter agent of the federal government. If you don’t think I’m going to let the world know about that, Jared River, then you don’t know me as well as you think.” The fire in her voice, the passion of it, her determination to right all of these wrongs—if he hadn’t already fallen in love with her, he could point to this moment and say, this is it. This was the moment when he knew Grace Krepky was everything he wanted in a mate.