Jace (River Pack Wolves 2) (Paranormal Romance) (18 page)

“One you’re happy to have other people pay.” Her loathing for him couldn’t possibly run any deeper. She was tempted to reach through the bars and scratch his face, but then she remembered she couldn’t shift at all.

“Once Senator Krepky has his registration laws in place, it will be even easier to identify possible contributors to the cause.” Her father lifted one eyebrow. “Although I suspect, being in the Senator’s office frequently, you already knew that was in play. Now that you’re here, you’ll get to see, up close and personal, how the whole program is going to work. When all’s said and done, I’m really quite pleased to see you here, Piper. Maybe I’ll finally have some use for you, after all.”

She just shook her head—she’d run out of words for the horror that was her own father. “We
will
stop you,” she said finally, even if she had no idea how that would happen at the moment.

The Colonel laughed. “Given that you’re in a fairly small cage, Piper, you might want to learn how to cooperate for once.” Then he turned his back on her and strolled toward the medical suites, probably joining up with his minion Agent Smith for more diabolical planning.

Whatever he intended to use her for, she sure as hell wasn’t going to
cooperate.

The sound of Jace’s feet dragging across the floor of his cell drew her attention. “I would have helped you out with telling him off,” he said with a small smile, “but you were doing such a magnificent job all on your own.”

She hurried to him and reached through the bars to touch his face. He was bruised and cut and battered, but she could already see it starting to heal. “You were doing a pretty fine job yourself with Agent Smith.” She dropped her gaze to his hands as they reached through the bars to hold her waist and pull her closer. She pressed her face between the bars and lightly kissed him. Then she whispered, “I saw what you did out there.
Your claws came out.”

He pulled back, releasing her. “I could barely keep my wolf contained.”

Her eyes went wide. “Why did you even try? I wanted to give them both a slash to the face.”

He frowned. “One raging wolf isn’t going to get us free. Especially one I can’t control. We need a real plan to have any hope of escape, much less managing to get everyone out. A lot of these wolves are sick.”

A voice spoke from behind her. “A lot of them are dying.”

Piper turned to look—it was the man in the cage next to hers.

Jace peered around her.
“Owen?”
His voice had hiked up, astonished. “What… how… holy shit, man,
you’re alive!”

His shock made Piper examine the man—Owen—more closely. He was definitely around Jace’s age, late twenties, but his cheeks were hollowed out and dark circles haunted his eyes.

“Who
are
you?” she asked.

“Owen Harding, Private First Class,” he said wearily, leaning against the bars. “Last seen serving with Army Specialist Jace River in Afghanistan before our Jeep blew up and the world went to hell.”

Piper’s mouth dropped open.

“How is this even possible?” Jace’s mind was a whirlwind of confusion. His fellow grunt, Owen, was standing in the cage across from Piper’s when he was supposed to be dead.

Although he did
look
halfway to the grave. “The last thing I ever wanted was to see
you
show up here, Jace,” Owen said with a tight expression. “They told us you were dead, but I’d always hoped you’d made it out somehow. Only I sure wouldn’t wish this place on anyone.” His Texas drawl was there, just like it had been in Afghanistan when they served together.

“Have you been here all this time?” Jace asked, horrified. “It’s been, what, over a year?” He wracked his brain, trying to figure out how this had happened. Owen was supposed to have been blown up by the same IED that threw Jace out of their patrol Jeep—the singular event that hurtled him down this dark path where he couldn’t control his wolf and destroyed a village of innocent people.

Owen gripped the steel bars of his cage. “Yeah, I’ve been in the program for over a year. There aren’t many who’ve been here longer—at least, not many who are still alive.”

Jace leaned his head against the bars of his own cage, wishing he could bridge the gap and grip Owen in a manly hug—the members of his patrol were like brothers to him. Owen had been suffering all this time, and Jace had no idea. It reminded him far too much of Jaxson’s dark, closely-held secret, and Jace’s failure to even know about it, much less help him.

“What have they been doing to you?” Jace asked with a grimace.

Piper stood by, silent, watching them both with wide eyes.

“It’s one experiment after another.” Owen sighed. “They take my blood and do something to it—I’ve heard the staff talk about genetic stuff. Then they inject their serums into some hapless civilian. Sometimes it takes, and they turn into… well… some kind of creature. Nothing I’d call a wolf. Sometimes the injection kills them outright. Some of them probably wished they’d died. They get their wish soon enough. It’s like the fucking island of Doctor Moreau in here.”

Piper had her hand over her mouth, hiding the horror that Jace felt rippling through his entire body.

“What are they after?” Jace asked. “Why don’t they just recruit shifters into the Army? It’s not like there aren’t a bunch of us already willing to serve our country.”

“It’s much bigger than that,” Owen said, a grim look drawing down his already deathly pale face. “This isn’t just about the Army, although they definitely want to create some kind of super soldier. They’re working on a universal serum, I think—something that can take all the shifter abilities and amp them up, like dialing it up to eleven or some damn thing. I don’t really know. All I know is that I’ve been trapped here for over a year, praying to God that I die before I inadvertently give them whatever it is they want.”

Jace’s stomach was doing flips—not only because they needed to get out of here, and
fast,
but because no matter what he did, his friend had already suffered more than anyone should. “Owen, man, if I had any idea… I would’ve come for you sooner. They told me you were all dead.”

He nodded, but it was weak, almost a dazed motion. “I figured. At first, I thought for sure someone would come for us. But then time dragged on, and I knew… we were dead, as far as the world was concerned. And would be dead for real soon.”

“Jesus Christ,”
Jace whispered, running his hand through his hair. His chest was tight with the guilt about all of this. “I still don’t understand—why did they take you, but not me?”

“It all started with
him.”
Owen lifted his chin to point to the medical bay. “Colonel Wilding. He wasn’t our CO, but he was behind the whole thing, setting it up. It was a ruse from the start—they wanted an excuse to bring us all into the program. You, me, Wyatt, Anthony—all shifters, all on one patrol. Funny it didn’t even occur to us that was strange, huh? The IED was already planted. They sent us to drive over the damn thing, knowing we were shifters, and it probably wouldn’t kill us. Colonel Wilding himself called in the artillery and blew up the village.”

“What?”
Jace gasped. “But they told me… they said that I…” Jace swallowed, just now realizing what Owen was saying—that Jace didn’t actually kill all those people in the village. “They told me an animal killed everyone. Said it was the most powerful shifter they’d ever seen… that it was
me.
I didn’t remember anything, and I had no reason to think—”

“They lied to you,” Owen said. Of course, that was obvious now. “I don’t know why they’d make up a story like that, but these guys are covering up all kinds of shit. If I had to guess, Colonel Wilding must’ve come in for some trouble with targeting that village. Maybe they said it was friendly fire something. I don’t know. I’ve been locked up here ever since. But he’s just enough of a bastard to try to pin everything on you, the one shifter he couldn’t catch.”

“Catch?” Jace asked. “Owen, what happened back there? I really don’t remember any of it.”

Owen shook his head. “Not much of a surprise your memory’s shot, given how much they had to tranq you to even slow you down. When you didn’t show up with the rest of us in the program, I thought they just killed you outright. When the IED went off, I was thrown from the Jeep, but you shifted right away, and your wolf went nuts. He took off running toward the village. I chased after, but you were freaking fast, man! By the time I caught up, you were trying to save those villagers. The place had already been bombed, and everything was on fire, a regular inferno. Your wolf dove through those walls of fire, trying to save all those people, like there was nothing to it. Then the troopers swooped in. I thought they were there to help, but then they started shooting at us. I shifted human and tried to explain, but they just took me down with a tranq. Last thing I remember, they were going after you. That crazy wolf of yours just kept trying to save the villagers. If you would’ve run, I doubt they could’ve caught you. Wyatt and Anthony didn’t see none of it, but I saw you in action. I thought for sure you got away.”

Jace glanced at the other cages. “Are they here?”

Owen sighed. “Nope. Dead.”

“Shit.”
It was like finding out he had lost them all over again.

“These people are straight-up murderers.” Owen’s growl finally came out, angry and bitter. “We figured you either escaped or got killed, too. No way had I figured they would just let you go and come back stateside.” He shook his head. “But now you’re here, just like me, in the end. It’s all fucked up, man.”

Jace was reeling from the story, but calm was settling deep inside his chest. His wolf was stirring with the memories, and for the first time in a year, that simple fact didn’t terrify him.

He glanced at Piper—she had a shine in her eyes that probably reflected the amazement in his.

She gave him a small smile. “You see? You really need to listen to me. I know what I’m talking about.” She meant what she said earlier, about him being a good man—words he never would have believed if Owen hadn’t seen it all with his own eyes. Jace still had a hard time wrapping his mind around it.

He didn’t kill those people.
It was like a shockwave going through his system, working things loose, reshaping his thoughts, lightening the burden. He had been carrying a rock the size of Mt. Hood, and someone had finally told him he could set it down.

“I don’t know what you guys think…” Jace drew in a deep breath and let it out slow. “But I think we should get the fuck out of here.
Now.”

Piper smiled and reached through the bars to him, grasping his arm and squeezing. “You can shift. I know you can—I saw you. And we need you, Jace. We need your
wolf.”

Jace frowned. He had almost shifted in the chair; it was at least possible. He just wasn’t sure what would happen after that. He’d blacked out before, in the village, and every time since, whenever he couldn’t control himself…

“I don’t know if I can control it, Piper,” he said quietly. “I’ve only shifted a few times since Afghanistan. And I never remember it, I just see the damage afterward. Jaxson’s had to tranq me a couple times…”

The gleam in her eyes didn’t dim. “Things are different now. You know the truth.”

Owen had straightened up. “What is she saying? Did they not give you the inhibitor? Holy shit—”

“No, they did,” Jace cut him off by holding up a hand. They needed to keep this quiet. “It’s just that, for me, I don’t think it’s enough. I think my wolf might still be able to come out and cause some problems.” He grimaced. “I’m just not sure how big of a problem that’s going to be. Or if it’ll help. We still need a plan.”

Piper’s smile tempered into a devious look that perked up his wolf, almost like he was drawn to her more dangerous side. The side that probably had experience breaking out of secret prisons. “They use key cards. That’s all I need. You shift, get me a card, and keep them occupied with your badass self. I’ll do the rest.”

He grinned and pulled her close, reaching through the bars to quickly kiss her again. He loved that she believed in him, but the idea of shifting was tying his stomach in knots. “I don’t know…”

“Remember how I said you need to listen to me?” she asked, playfully. “Well, you need to listen to me
now.
You can do this. Because even when you were completely out of your mind, you were trying to save people. I told you—you’re good to the core, Jace River. You can’t help it.”

“Heads up,” Owen said quietly.

Jace looked up—one of the paramilitary thugs was headed their way, key card in hand.

Piper reached through the bars to kiss him fiercely. “Do it,” she whispered.

Jace stepped back from the bars. The guard was coming straight for his cell. Jace closed his eyes briefly—could he really do this? If it all went south, at least Piper was safe in her cage. The others, too. The guards would take him out first—that would be the idea, anyway, as he distracted them—and if he died in a fiery blaze of bullets, at least he would’ve done all he could. Nothing could make up for leaving Owen in this horror show for a year… except breaking him free. And saving his brothers and Piper and all the others from the same fate.