Aevar: Trekkers (A SciFi Alien Human Military Romance) (13 page)

“
S
arge
!” I said, exasperated. “I need to talk to the girl!”

“Why? We sent her home. What’s going on?”

I hardly had time to explain. I was screaming into my phone. “They took her! They took Penny and Camden. I thought I got away with it today, but apparently they found me out. I have to find them!”

I heard Sarge sucking in a breath. “Of course. Anything you need.”

He gave me the address for Tasha and her phone number.

“We’ll get back up together and meet you there,” he said as I ran to my truck and typed it in my phone. She only lived about twenty minutes from me. I immediately drove there while dialing her number over and over again. She didn’t answer. Finally, I reached her house and rang the doorbell. Holding my badge up to the keyhole, I knew someone would answer. They owed me.

Tasha was the one to open it. “Aren’t you the cop? What the hell are you doing here? I mean, come in! You saved my ass and my secret is still safe. The family is pretty happy too.”

“Tasha, I need your help.”

She looked at me, concerned, her dark eyes still so tainted from being in that place. “What's wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“They took my mate. They took my mate and my son and I need to find out where else they held people. They’re not dumb enough to take her to the same place where you were at. Not since they found me out.”

“How did they find you out? I played my part. Even when I got to the police station, I still wouldn't tell them that you helped me. I did exactly what you said to do.”

“I know that, Tasha. I don't blame you at all. When I need to do now is find my family. So just think, is there any other place that they said that they kept people? Maybe before they sent them to another facility, anything.”

She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, “Yeah, there's a warehouse. It's down at the docks. They said that they took some of the kids there once. That they didn't want them mingling with other shifters. You said you have a son, right? I’d bet anything that’s where he is. I don't know which warehouse, though.”

I started to run away from her and toward my truck. “That's all the information I needed.”

I knew I could give the rest to Sarge and the team, and they would be able to help me find her. They had to.

I called Sarge on the way, and he told me he was sending a team of squad cars to go with me. Some detectives had looked up some information for me on the computers at the central lab, as they were investigating currently. They found some financial records that said which warehouses they had been renting. There were three of them now.

I sent one of the squad cars to one down the far east end, and then I took the other squad car with me to the two closer to our location. Once I saw medical vans outside between the two of them, I knew she was in one of them. I took my gun out of the holster and I instructed the uniforms to fan out behind me. I didn't even put on my bulletproof vest because I didn't care. There was no living without Penelope and Camden. There was just no point.

The uniforms all followed my signals without even speaking. Four of them went into the one warehouse while one other came with me into the second. We cleared the first floor when I heard shots fired from the other warehouse. I ran to see Sarge standing outside of the warehouse in front of his undercover vehicle. He had a vest on and a megaphone. This had quickly become a hostage situation.

“What's going on in there?” I yelled at him.

Another pop of the gun. Sarge went to answer me but I couldn't wait for his response. I sprinted past him into the warehouse and saw one of my guys laying on the ground. He waved to me letting me know that he wasn't fatally wounded, just a slug to the vest. I signaled for another uniform to help him up and get him out of there. I didn't want him to be a liability.

This was my fight.

I crept past some cargo units and saw several plastic quarantine areas set up. There were children and babies in all of them. These bastards were sicker than I thought. There were a couple areas off to the right that were darker. The lights had been turned off. I was hopeful that the people there were just sleeping, that they weren't built to hold their dead. Experiments gone wrong. I saw two men in suits and the same doctor that had been at the lab. The woman who had assigned me to Tasha. So it was a test. She had already known about me before she would have given me the assignment. The hour she gave me with Tasha was her way out. To not be implicated with the others. I wondered if Frank was in on it too. How had I not seen that?

“We have you surrounded. We're sending a team in. There will be no negotiations. Release the prisoners, and nobody dies today.” I heard Sarge's voice boom out of the megaphone. The doctor and two other men looked up. I saw another uniform at the other end of the lab. He nodded to me and I knew that it was go time.

“Hands up! Everybody put your hands up!”

The men immediately sank to their knees and put their hands behind their heads. One was blubbering about how he didn't know what was going on, and he was just an investor. Liar.

The doctor didn't move right away. She just folded her arms across her chest looking arrogant and defiant.

“That was fast. Thought it would take you a little bit longer to figure this out, Harrison. So I guess you know your girlfriend is here, and your child. I'm so glad you took the bait to come work for us. It left her unprotected just long enough for us to set her up. Though, as we told her, she’ll be compensated fully. I don't see why you felt the need to involve the police. Though I guess you are police after all, but that do-gooder mentality really won't get you anywhere.”

“Shut the hell up and get on your knees,” I said as I continued to point my gun at her head. “And tell me where my family is.”

The uniform behind me had both men in cuffs and I knew he was ready to escort them out, but without the doctor in custody, we couldn’t move any further.

“Why should I? You know you can’t win this. It’s bigger than you. It’s bigger than all of us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We’ve got people inside the government. We’ve got people everywhere.”

“You don’t have any friends in here anymore.”

“These two? Really, they’re nothing. Acquisitions and investments. Nobodies compared to Sable and Frank.”

“Frank?”

“Oh, you didn’t know. He was playing you! He’s actually playing everyone. You just wait and see how invested he really is in the cause.”

“The cause? You’re a nut job.”

“I believe that you things are animals, everyone will see soon enough.”

“I am done playing your games. Make a choice, lady. Go out alive, or not. I’ve got a family to find.”

“Not,” was all she said before she took a syringe and shoved it into her throat. Whatever she injected herself with worked immediately, and she fell to the floor with a thud. It made me hate her even more, that I couldn't have taken her out myself. The men in suits were horrified, but I just stepped over her body and walked through the plastic quarantine units, desperately searching until I found Camden crying in a plastic crib. All that he was in was a diaper, with a scratchy sheet wrapped around him. I picked him up and shushed him, walking through the plastic, calling for Penelope.

“Penny? Penny, where the hell are you?”

I heard a yell in the distance. I continued to rock Camden as I walked toward the calling. I stepped into one of the dark rooms and flicked on the light. A single luminescent bulb hung above her. She was strapped to a chair and looked tired, but for the most part, okay.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” I said as I attempted to remove her straps with one arm while the other still rocked Camden back and forth.

“No! They just wanted blood samples. I'm so glad you're okay!”

She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I squeezed her tightly. She leaned down to kiss Camden again and again. “I love you so much. Mommy will never let anything happen to you. Mommy and Daddy love you, Camden.”

I looked down at the tiny bundle in my arms and the beautiful woman in front of me and realized that there was nothing better in the world. And that my team and I wouldn't stop until all of Purest was eliminated. Because I wouldn't let what happened to my family happen to anyone else's. Now they were in my arms and I was whole.

My mate, my baby, and I.

The complete package.

Everything I ever wanted was literally in my arms.

And nothing would ever take that away.