Gator's Challenge (7 page)

Good question since she hadn’t the slightest clue where they were. When she’d obeyed Andrew’s instructions to come, she’d obeyed all too well. She’d been handed a hood, and worn it, trying not to panic under the material. She also tried to not blow a fuse until she found her boys. There was a time and place for anger. And when she did unleash her anger, it would leave a river of pain.

Leave no enemy breathing.

No enemy indeed, she silently promised from under that hood. Parker meant to take away her power but, instead, wound up making her stronger. Although he had achieved one thing. She’d gotten completely, utterly lost. The car appeared to turn and turn again during the ride to the new Bittech compound with Parker.

So what exactly would she say to Daryl if she did call him?
Hey, big bro, so I’m like in this place, a big place with like buildings and people, lots of people with guns, oh and a fence. A big fence. With like woods around it. Under a sky.

Could she get any more freaking vague?

Don’t waste a phone call until you have an actual pinpoint on your location.
Thinking of pinpoint, she could have slapped herself. A cell phone could map her location.

Next question: who to get the cell phone from?

She heard the whoosh and click of a door opening then shutting. She remained leaning against the wall of the building.

“What are you doing out here?”

It didn’t surprise her to see Wes appear. Everywhere she turned these days, she ran into him. “Funny you should ask because Ace just asked the same thing.”

At the mention, he stiffened. “You met Ace? You talked to him?”

“Only for a moment.” She turned and fixed her gaze on him. “You know him?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s not what I expected. He didn’t kill me.”

“That would be because Ace isn’t like the others. He hasn’t let the treatments drive him to madness. But that doesn’t mean you should trust him.”

“Then who am I to trust then? It seems I can’t rely on you. Or have you forgotten you’re the one who tried to bring me here in the first place? Let’s also not forget the fact you’re Andrew’s lap pet.”

He stiffened. “I’m not his bitch.”

“Perception is everything, though, and from where I’m standing, you are just as dirty as him.” She took a step away, aiming herself in the direction of the medical facility that housed her sons.

Wes kept pace. It shouldn’t have pleased her.

“Go away,” she snapped.

“I’m not leaving you. The monsters are off their leash tonight. It’s not safe.”

“You don’t say, seeing as how I’m being escorted by a monster right now.

“They didn’t experiment on me.”

“Well la-di-da for you. What about everyone else?”

His lips tightened. “Who do you trust that you can call for help?”

“Are you asking for people who might look for me? Looking to grab them, too? Make some monsters out of the people you know?”

“I’m not the enemy. I want to help you.” He tried to grab at her, but she danced out of reach.

“Don’t you touch me,” she snapped.

“I know you hate me right now, but you need to calm the fuck down.”

“Or you’ll what? What can you possibly do to me that would be worse than this hell I’m living already?”

“I don’t want to make shit worse. I want to make it better. Which is why I am asking you to give me a name so I can get your ass out of here. Who should I call? Your brother, Daryl? What about that uncle you’ve got living in Tampa?”

She whirled, and her hands shot out at him, pushing at his hard chest, trying to shove him back. What she really wanted to do involved shoving all her frustration and anger somewhere the sun never shone.

“No. No. And no. I can’t call anyone, dammit, not Daryl, not my uncle. No one. I can’t risk their lives. I won’t have them suffer because my husband is a madman.”

This mess with Andrew is my problem. My responsibility.

But she couldn’t say that out loud, and hitting Wes felt good. She even yelled a bit as she kept pummeling at him. And he let her, let her wail and scream and hit and cry until eventually she collapsed against him. Her breath came in stuttering hitches, and her eyes burned with hot tears she couldn’t shed.

Don’t cry. Crying is for pussies.

We are a pussy.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. He didn’t say a word. The best thing he could have done because there were no words to make this better, no words to make things right.

Although he did find three that managed to warm her for a moment.

“I’ll kill him.”

“
I
’ll kill him
.”

Yes, he’d said those words. Out loud. While Andrew’s wife—
the woman I want
—was listening.

Most women would have received his claim one of two ways. Exclamations of happiness and calling him their hero.

Others, knowing of the Mercer reputation for violent solutions, would have recoiled and screamed.

What did his sweet Latina do? Melanie laughed. And laughed. Snorted, too.

Absolutely adorable. But totally at his expense. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because that is a load of crap. I will kill him,” she mocked in a low voice. “As if. You were the one who told me there are cameras outside. No way are you going to say something like that on live feed unless it’s a ploy to get me to trust you. Not happening.”

“This is not a ploy,” he snapped. He’d noted the pair of crushed cameras on their walk over to the science lab building. One of them littered the ground in a pile of plastic and wires. The other had left only the mounting brackets behind.

Something hating technology had passed this way, meaning there was a blind spot in the system—and an angry predator loose.

Melanie evaded his grasp and sprinted to the door of the building. She ran her wrist on the scanner and then squashed her thumb.

“Andrew gave you security access?”

She held up her arm. “Yes. Gaudy, isn’t it? Apparently he wants to try and make things work.”

“And do you?”

“You only get one chance to fuck me over.” She yanked the door shut, sealing it, and moved away, but he could still see her through the glass.

He should have turned around and walked away at that point. Just point his feet in the other direction and go.

Yeah, who was he fucking kidding? There was only one place he wanted to go. He swiped his wrist and pressed his thumb on the scanner. The door hissed open on its mechanical track.

He strode in and then through a second set of doors manned by a guard who only briefly looked up from behind his bulletproof glass.

Layers and layers of security. A place meant to ensure no escapes—at least none that were alive.

Wes caught up to Melanie at the elevators, where she waited with arms crossed. In the blind spot, in a low voice, he resumed their conversation from outdoors. “It won’t happen again.” All too aware of the cameras in the ceiling, he kept his words neutral and hoped she’d get the hint.

A sneer lifted her lip, but on this fiery Latina, it served only to heighten her appearance. The Melanie he remembered always showed her every emotion on her face.

And the emotion expressed right now was anger. She stomped into the elevator and opened her mouth. He punched the camera before she launched in on him.

“Aren’t you a big, brave man now, hurting a poor, defenseless camera? Afraid management will find out what you say behind their back? And I mean say because, if you ask me, someone in this place took your balls or else you would have acted a long time ago.”

Ouch. She knew how to hit a man with words. “I never condoned what they did.”

“But you sat by and watched. Fuck, you even led the whole gang on about it. What was that about? Telling Daryl and Caleb and Constantine that you think something is whacky at Bittech; meanwhile, you know there is. Hell, you had access to it.”

He should have realized she’d eventually remind him of his subterfuge with Caleb and the rest. She thought he’d done it to garner info. The reality was he’d started the rumors and then kept feeding them in the hope someone without their hands tied could act. Then again, though, if the SHC couldn’t ride to the rescue of those caught by Bittech, then who could? One lone gator was no match for the perfidy he’d encountered.

I could have done more to lead them to the atrocities.
But at what cost? If Wes got caught, he wasn’t the one who would suffer most.

What he could do was apologize. It almost made his gator death roll in shame. “What I did was wrong. I won’t deny that. Just like I won’t deny I’d do it again. I wouldn’t have a choice.”

“We all have choices. I chose to marry a douchebag. You chose to work for him. One is easy to walk away from. The other is going to need a good divorce lawyer.”

“I can’t walk away. And I think you know by now you can’t either.”

The doors slid open for the top level, and he glanced through them to see the nurse behind her station eyeballing them with curiosity.

He slapped the door-close button. “For now, at least, I have to stay and do as I’m told.”

“Waiting for a final paycheck before you run?”

Dammit, he was tired of her accusations. Tired of her thinking he was just like Andrew.

I’m nothing like that bastard.
He had reasons for what he did. And perhaps it was time he stopped hiding them. “I can’t run until I find out where Parker’s hidden my baby sister.”

T
here were
times in a person’s life when you felt like a jerk. The time you borrowed your best friend’s last tampon and didn’t replace it and her period came early. When you shortchanged the waitress at a diner on her tip because you forgot your debit card and didn’t have quite enough cash.

Then there was accusing a man of being a total douchebag, only to find out he acted as he did because of his little sister.

He did it to help his family.

Dammit. Melanie’s back hit the wall of the elevator, and with it bracing her, she slid to the floor.

I’m such an awful bitch.
She’d accused Wes of doing this because he wanted to, but like her, he had to. They both did for those they loved.

Wes balanced on the balls of his black boots as he crouched before her. “Are you okay?”

“No. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay,” she said in a half-sob. “This is a freaking nightmare, and I just want to wake up.” The bottom of her hand hit the floor in a fisted thump.

“Shit’s pretty bad right now.”

“Pretty bad?” She eyed him with a wry grimace. “We’re being held prisoner by men who think nothing of holding children as hostages against us. How much worse can it get?” At the bleak expression he got in his eyes, she held up her hands. “Wait. Don’t tell me. I don’t think I want to know.”

“Things are escalating. We need to escape.”

“You have a plan?” She turned a hopeful gaze on him.

His lips pulled taut. “No. Not yet. A lot of this security was put in place without me. I don’t have the same freedom of movement that I had previously. No one does.”

“Are you saying you can’t leave?”

He shook his head. “If I get anywhere near the fence, my bracelet jolts. If I keep going, a guard finds me and asks me what the fuck I’m doing.”

“That’s a little emasculating, don’t you think? A human asking you to go back to your room and be a good boy?”

“Are you seriously mocking me?”

She shrugged. “Someone has to.”
Because a true predator would eat any human that dared to cage them as a snack. Crunch.

Oops, she might have said that out loud because Wes laughed.

“The problem with eating guards is those damned buttons on their shirts tend to get caught in the teeth”—he grinned wide as she gasped—“of my wood chipper.”

She punched him. “You jerk. You tried to make me think you really are a man-eater.”

“Not yet, but lately I’ve been tempted.”

It reminded her why Wes was as much a prisoner as she was. “Which of your sisters did Parker take and hide?”

“The youngest. Sue-Ellen.”

“And you haven’t gotten her released yet?” Even though she didn’t say it, the unspoken words hovered in the air between them.
And you expect me to believe you can help me?

He explained. “The reason I haven’t taken off is because only Uncle Parker knows where she is, and he’s not telling. She’s his leverage to get me and Brandon to behave.”

“Wait, Brandon’s here, too? I thought he was missing. That’s what everyone in Bitten Point said.”

Wes sighed. “I’ve been saying lots of shit to keep their fucking secret. I was warned that, if I didn’t, they’d do something to my family.” He shrugged. “I’m their brother. I did what I had to.”

“Oh, Wes.”

“Don’t give me that look, angel.” The old nickname slipped from him and hung in the air.

She glanced to the side, breaking the eye contact. She had to find her equilibrium.

The futility of the situation made a tear slip and run hotly down her cheek. A rough thumb wiped at it.

“Don’t cry. Don’t you dare fucking cry. You know I hate it when you do.”

The words served only to make more hot tears roll. Two. Three. He wiped each and every one, except for the one that made it to the corner of her mouth.

That one he kissed away. Awareness exploded at the gentle touch, and she inhaled sharply. She didn’t move, couldn’t as his hands cupped her cheeks and he continued to kiss her, exploring her mouth with slow sensuality.

Tasting her. Savoring her. Igniting the senses she thought dulled.

He reminded her what it felt to be alive. To be a woman. To…

“No.” She pushed away from him, and he let her go, the ease of her escape a frustration to go with that of her burning lips and aching body.

She liked the touch of Wes against her. Her body wanted more.

Rub against him. Skin to skin.

“We can’t do this,” she whispered, her voice husky and low. “It’s wrong.”

“You’re right. We shouldn’t do this, but the problem is it’s right. You know it feels right.”

More right than anything other than her sons right now. But thinking of her sons reminded her she wasn’t a free woman. Married women, even unhappy ones, did not make out with ex-boyfriends in elevators.

“Don’t do that again.” She rose to her feet and needed a hand against the wall of the elevator to steady herself.

Rising more slowly, Wes towered over her, but she wouldn’t look at him. Instead, she reached around his broad bulk and jabbed the door-open button. She ducked under his arms as they swished apart. “Goodnight, Wes.”

He didn’t reply. He didn’t follow.

Why doesn’t he chase me?

Melanie itched to turn around and see what he felt. See if he cared.

The doors swished shut, and the elevator hummed as it left.

Wes had left. It hurt more than it should have, which meant she was in no mood for the nurse who tried to get in her way.

“This wing is for the children only.”

Oh, hell no. You chose the wrong night to play dominant with me.

Melanie raised her gaze to pin the nurse with laser-hot eyes. “If you want to keep your throat intact, then you will not get between me and my sons.”

The nurse might have a few pounds on Melanie, but she had enough wits to realize who would emerge the victor.

Just in case the other woman needed reminding that she dealt with a predator, as Melanie strode the length of the hall, she strained hard enough to pop some claws—finally some success!—and she dragged them along the wall. The sound proved exceptionally delightful, given the painted murals cleverly covered the metal-plated walls.

Screech.
She hoped that sound haunted the nurse’s dreams.