"What do you think, Prowler? Can you get in or should we brute-force it?" Price asked, cocking a brow as he looked at the locks.
Prowler glanced over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes slightly before grinning that Cheshire smile of his.
"I think Rio's methods are best here," he said, shoving a hand into one of his pockets and tossing a small packet of something dark brown at Dice.
He caught it in mid-air, rolling it around in his hand for a moment.
"Nice," he commented, though there was no ease in his words.
He's as nervous as I am, Meredith realized. Oh please, let everything be okay with my baby boy. Let him be here, she prayed silently, shaking as she was crouched down on her haunches.
Dice slammed the packet down on the upper hinge of the door. A moment later, both he and Price turned away from the door, covering their ears, and Meredith did the same. The boom that followed was deafening but even through that, Meredith could hear the crying of children.
She was on her feet before her rational mind caught up with her. As she turned around, she was greeted with the sight of Price suddenly slumping backward, clutching his neck while deep, crimson blood gushed out of it. His pale green eyes flashed gold before going green again and he fell, sprawling out on the ground with the blood quickly making a pool around him.
"No!" Prowler screamed, running past Meredith, who felt like she had entered into a nightmare and she might never wake up from it.
This can't be happening, she thought, the crying of children ringing in her ears while Dice's squadmate was quickly bleeding out from a horrific neck wound. It can't end like this.
Twenty-Two
Dice
Dice felt like he was moving through a dream.
He saw Price fall back, clawing at his neck as a bullet went through it, tearing at flesh and blood vessels. At the same time, his ears caught the high-pitched tones of children crying. But more than that, he heard the voice of one child in particular.
His child.
He didn't need to see the boy to know that he was his. Dean's voice triggered something within him that couldn't be explained with words and frankly, Dice didn't think he would make any headway if he tried. In an instant, all rationality was gone and all that remained was the endless desire to make things right. To protect his son.
The rifle was clutched in his hands as he spun into the room, raising the gun to his shoulder and dropping the first Arctics' agent on the ground. He may have been snarling, but he honestly didn't know at that point – everything was happening as if he had no control over it whatsoever. It was destiny and the power of his animal that was making the world revolve at that very moment.
With a heated growl, he dropped the rifle and flung himself forward, at a set of two guards. The room was on the larger side, lit brightly enough, and from the corner of his eye Dice could see a bundle of three children huddled up in the corner. He couldn't risk shooting his gun again when they were so close and a ricocheting bullet could embed itself into one of those innocent kids.
Slick, biting pain rippled through him as he felt a bullet burrow into his chest as he was mid-shift, his body seeming to contort and twist in the air. His muscles bulged and his massive size doubled and then grew even larger as thick coat sprouted over his body and turned him from man to bear. His angered expression warped into the fearsome yaws of a grizzly bear and when he tackled the guards, his jaws were ripping into their flesh before they could get off another shot.
All he could see was red as the men screamed beneath him, Dice making quick work of them with his teeth and claws. He was living up to his nickname – the best way to describe what had happened to the men was that they had been sliced and diced.
Dice turned around swiftly as he felt the last, dying twitch of one of the guards beneath him. A remaining guard was trying to sneak out behind him, his gun raised to his shoulder as he attempted to figure out how to exit without getting shot by Prowler outside, or torn to pieces by Dice. With the bear fully in control, the werewolf guard didn't stand a chance.
Dice sprinted across the wide room, jumping over a child's bed, and crushing the guard underneath his massive weight as he plowed into the man. They slumped against a wall together and the guard was nothing but a gargling, wheezing mass of blood and cartilage by the time his feet hit the ground.
Dice's head snapped up as he heard movement again, but his vision cleared when he saw Meredith brushing past him, running to the kids. He paused momentarily, staring dumbstruck as Meredith scooped the kids into her arms and hugged them tight. She was sobbing.
Reluctantly, the bear relinquished control and Dice could let out a breath. The large bear closed his eyes for a moment and then, with the cursing words of Prowler in the background, he shifted again. Dice stood upright, rolling back his shoulder for a moment and wincing in the aftermath. The bullet that one of the men had gotten off had dug into his ribcage and by the feel of it, he was probably dealing with a compressed lung. It hurt like a bitch.
"Price! Stay with me, you motherfucker!" Prowler growled, desperation in his voice.
"Shit," Dice murmured, his eyes transfixed on the sight of Meredith kissing the head of a baby boy with gray and hazel eyes, while his squadmate was bleeding out in the hallway.
"Ryker, Rio, report!" he said numbly into the headset, striding across the room to Meredith. "Meredith, we need to go. Can you handle the kids?" he asked.
His heart was breaking in two and then quickly rebuilding itself at twice its former size when his gaze met that of Dean, the little boy whose eyes had been so strikingly similar. One of the kids, a little girl, was crying into Meredith's shoulder, while Dean seemed to be completely calm, if shaken. The third child was a boy, a few years old, with bright blue eyes and pale complexion. One whiff at him confirmed him to be a werewolf pup.
"I can," she confirmed, taking both Dean and the girl into her arms and standing up. "Bryce, grab hold of my shirt," she instructed the werewolf boy, who complied wordlessly.
Obviously, they were all in shock.
My child, Dice thought, shaking his head to clear his mind. He's alive!
Dean was staring at him as if he was seeing a vision, and Dice couldn't help but smile a little, despite the madness of the situation. The boy's aura was so strong and Dice could already feel the bear stirring within the little boy. He would be a strong shifter one day. Dice would make sure of it.
"Price!" Prowler called again, starting to sound more than desperate now.
"Come on," Dice commanded, motioning for Meredith to follow him. "Ryker, Rio?" he called again into the headset, but when he entered the hallway, he didn't repeat the question another time.
The werelion twins appeared as if they'd stepped out of some rendition of Carrie, all bloody and haunted. Rio was leaning on Ryker, limping heavily and favoring his left leg. The gaping wound in his right made it obvious why that was. There were four people walking behind them, two women holding one another's hands and two men looking entirely unsure of themselves, if hopeful.
"Sorry, boss, had our hands full," Ryker said grimly.
Dice nodded, kneeling next to Prowler now.
"How is he?" he asked, but the situation was self-explanatory enough.
The pale tiles of the corridor floor were painted red with dark blood and Price was white as a ghost. Price kept two hands on his neck, trying to stabilize the wound. Any human would have been dead on impact but the werewolf kept fighting for life that seemed impossible to hold onto.
"Fucking dead in a second if we don't do anything," Prowler snapped.
Losing a twin was the worst thing that could happen to a shifter. Counts of shifters going insane after their other half was slain were the favorite fodder of gossip magazines. Not because it was so sensational, but because of the mayhem that could follow a shifter on a warpath, having lost one half of their selves with the death of their twin.
Dice wasn't willing to let that happen to Price and Prowler.
"Ryker, I need your help," he said, not bothering to look up.
"You, with the dorky fucking glasses. Come here," Ryker growled to one of the men, who jumped into action as if he was the one that had just been shot.
Rio leaned on the man and Ryker rushed over, hovering unsurely around Prowler.