Laura Jo Phillips (2 page)

Jackson thought quickly. 
“I have an idea,”
he said. 
“Just be patient one moment.”

He waited for her small
“okay,”
before he tapped the vox in his ear.  He told Clark what was happening and outlined his plan.  When he was finished, he began walking slowly down the access tunnel once more.

“I’m going to keep walking along here and I want you to keep talking to me,”
he sent. 
“The closer I get to you, the clearer you will sound.”

“Okay,”
the woman said. 
“May I ask your name please?”

Jackson smiled.  The woman was trapped in a box, yet she was being as polite as though she were at a social gathering
.  “My name is Jackson,”
he said. 
“My brothers, Clark and Rob are going to approach from the other end of the building, so if one of them starts talking to you don’t be afraid.”

“Okay.  Clark and Rob,”
she repeated. 
“I sure do hope you’re able to find me soon.  I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but if I’d known this is what they meant by ‘third class’, I’d have sprung for the upgrade.”

Jackson grinned, admiring the woman’s spunk.  He kept walking slowly, noting that her voice was getting stronger in his mind as he approached cargo bay six.  His sharp ears picked up the low murmur of male voices.  He tapped his vox.

“Clark, our woman is in cargo bay six and she has company,” he said softly.

“Someone is moving the box.  Is it you?”
the woman asked fearfully.

“Don’t worry,”
Jackson sent back as he hurried the last few feet to the door and carefully pulled it open a crack. 
“We’ll get you out of there.”

He broke off communication with the woman as he peeked into the cargo bay.  He saw three human men standing around a small wooden crate that he was certain contained the woman he’d been talking to.  The outer bay door that the maintenance man had
fixed
that morning was standing partially open, and there was a ground-truck backed up to it. 

“It’s my turn, Lucky,” said a small round man with thick glasses and a scraggly beard.  “You got the last one, and Frank got the one before that.  This one is mine.”

“Shut up, Willy,” said a tall man with a huge belly and stringy hair.  “It’s your turn when I say it’s your turn.”

The third man laughed, a high cackling sound that hurt Jackson’s ears.  The tall man, Lucky, reached out casually and clipped the man on the jaw, effectively stopping the laughter.  Instead, the man now moaned with pain, both hands cupping his jaw.

“Shut up, Frank,” Lucky said.  Frank subsided at once, though he continued to hold his jaw and sniffle.

Lucky bent down to pick up a silver case which he set on top of the crate and opened.

“I got orders that this one gets
special
treatment, and you know what that means.  But, the good news is she also gets the prime controller, so we get to test it before we take her to Lio.  You’re too soft and tender for that, Willy.”

“That’s not true,” Willy retorted.  “I can be just as rough as you if I want.”

Lucky straightened up, holding a silver object in his hand.  He tossed the object lightly into the air and caught it, his face splitting into an ugly grin.  “Okay, I’ll let you break in the controller, but on two conditions.  You gotta do exactly as I tell you, and it’s gonna cost half your pay.”

 “That’s not fair!” Willy whined loudly. 

Lucky lifted a hand and Willy flinched back.  “Fine, you do it then,” Willy said angrily, though he lowered his voice.  “No bitch is worth half my paycheck.  But next time is my turn.”

Jackson had heard more than enough.  He pushed the door open and calmly stepped into the cargo bay, a cavernous room with metal walls and concrete floors littered with various mechanical lifts and pallets for loading and unloading cargo.  The three men gaped at him for a long moment before Lucky reached into his pocket for a weapon.  Jackson waited patiently while the man pulled the small hand laser, pointed it at him, and fired.  He smiled as he felt a small flash burn on his thigh.  That was all he needed.

He threw back his head and roared as he transformed into his bearenca, an eighteen foot tall bear-like creature with foot long fangs, razor sharp claws, and a shiny coat of dense white fur, broken here and there with large patches of black.  He lowered himself to all fours and stalked towards the three human males with his teeth bared, emitting a low growl the three men felt more than heard. 

The one called Frank was the smallest and the fastest of the three.  He ran for the cargo bay door, slipping easily through the small gap between the door and the ground-truck.  Jackson let him go without a glance.  He’d be back.

He kept his attention on the tall one named Lucky.  He was the meanest of the three and, Jackson thought, the most cunning.

As Jackson stalked closer to him, Lucky aimed and shot at him repeatedly.  The man was a terrible shot, only managing to graze Jackson a few times.  Not that it mattered to Jackson.  His body healed wounds from the puny hand laser in seconds.

The man called Willy, his eyes wide with fear, his mouth hanging open in shock, was scuttling backwards as fast as he could move his feet.  Jackson wasn’t sure if the man was aiming for the door or not, but a few moments later he slammed backwards into the metal wall at full speed and knocked himself out. 

Jackson shook his huge head in disgust, his eyes never leaving Lucky, the only one of the three who had not tried to run.  Lucky slipped the silver object from the case into his pants pocket with one hand, while aiming the hand laser at the wooden crate with the other.  He grinned widely, baring stained yellow teeth.  Jackson paused, still several yards away from both the crate and Lucky.

“So you’re one of them bear things,” Lucky said with a smirk.  “Well guess what?  There’s a woman in this box and if you come one…”

Jackson leapt, moving far faster than Lucky thought possible--faster, in fact, than any human could track.  Jackson pulled back at the last moment, not wanting to actually kill the man if he could help it.  Of the three idiots, this one was, evidently, the brains of the outfit.  It would be best to keep him alive long enough to get some information from him.

Instead of biting the man’s head off, Jackson leaned down and bumped him in the chest with his shoulder.  Lucky flew backwards, slamming into the same metal wall Willy had hit.  Only Lucky was going much faster than Willy had been, and Lucky was leading with his head. 

There was a loud crack, and a splat.  Jackson wasn’t sure which of the two heralded the death of the man, and didn’t really care.  Either way, it didn’t look as though this was Lucky’s lucky day.  He looked toward Willy, still unconscious on the floor, and shrugged his huge, powerful shoulders.  Perhaps Willy would know something helpful.

He shifted back to his human form and knelt down beside the wooden crate.  The bay doors opened further and he looked up to see Rob strolling through them, Frank’s skinny body clamped between his massive jaws.  Frank’s face was white and, aside from his harsh breathing, he was making no noise at all.  Rob dropped him on the floor and shifted back to his human form, grimacing down at Frank. 

“You are one disgusting maggot,” he growled.  Frank just curled into a ball and remained silent.

Jackson returned his attention to the wooden crate which, he noted, was locked shut.  The silver case that Lucky had left on top of the crate was empty so Jackson set it aside for the moment.  He used air magic to increase the pressure inside the lock until it shattered, and then lifted the lid of the crate and tossed it back.  He looked down into the crate and gritted his teeth together hard, fighting back a blood-rage.  After taking a long moment to calm himself, he reached into the crate and began working to untie the knot at the top of the rough cloth bag enclosing the form of a woman.

Saige thought she’d been doing pretty good there for awhile.  Once she’d connected with Jackson, she’d begun to relax a little.  Especially when she felt him getting closer and closer to her.

Then the box had moved.  Just a small shift at first.  Then another shift and a jerk right before it was dropped so hard that it had knocked the breath out of her.  When she was able to breathe again she heard male voices quite close by though muffled, arguing over her as though she were the last piece of meat in a market.

She frantically reached for the man she had spoken to before, Jackson, but he didn’t answer her this time.  She had to focus on her breathing again after that, reminding herself repeatedly that he had practically promised that he would rescue her.

She was just beginning to get her breathing under control once more when the men stopped talking.  There was a short, heavy silence broken by a loud, deep roar that caused her heart to skip a couple of beats.  She could not imagine what sort of beast would make such a sound.  It scared her so badly that she decided perhaps a seizure wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

“Easy now,”
said a new voice in her mind. 
“I’m Clark, I think my brother mentioned me.”

Saige was breathing heavily through her nose, her chest aching with the need for more air
.  “Yes,”
she sent frantically,
“he mentioned you.”

“
Just try to relax,”
Clark said. 
“And don’t mind that roaring you hear, that’s just my big brother letting off a little steam.  We’re gonna have you out of there in just a minute.”

His big brother?  Letting off a little steam?  What the heck was he?

“Mind your breathing now,”
Clark reminded her.

Saige nodded, and then rolled her eyes at herself.  Obviously the man could not see her nod. 
“Okay,”
she thought back. 

There were some other noises outside the box but Clark stayed with her, calming her, keeping her focused on staying relaxed.  A sudden loud clang sounded very close by, causing her eyes to open reflexively just as the lid was lifted off of her prison and light poured in.  She shut her eyes tightly.  Even through the heavy cloth bag covering her, the sudden light still hurt.

“You’re safe now,” said a voice just above her.  Oddly, she recognized the voice, even though she’d only heard it in her mind before.  She was certain it was Jackson.

She felt him working to untie the bag near the top of her head, then lower it slowly to her shoulders.  As soon as the cool, fresh air hit her face she realized how hot and uncomfortable she was.  She breathed as deeply as she could through her nose as she studied the face of the man in front of her.

His eyes were the palest shade of green she had ever seen, his hair blonde, but so light it was nearly white.  His face was all planes and angles, with a wide full mouth and strong jaw that was currently clenched so tightly she could see the muscles in his face tremble.  The man closed his eyes for a long moment and she wondered why. 

She felt something touch the back of her head and she turned to see another man that looked exactly like the first one!  She whipped her head back and forth between them quickly, but yep, they looked the same.  Both tall, both muscular, both very good looking.  The only difference she could see between them was that the man behind her, who was removing the foul gag from her mouth, had pale blue eyes.  They reminded her of a pair of icebergs with their cool, pale coloring and massive physiques.  Two very hot icebergs.

The man behind her smiled as he gently lifted the gag away, and she wondered, as she often did, why it was that she never felt the slightest attraction to any male.  Not even these two amazing specimens. 

“Thank you so much,” she said, though it was difficult to talk.  Her mouth was dry as sand and it hurt from the gag.  She had no idea how long the thing had been on her but it felt like a very long time.

“Don’t try to talk,” Jackson said as he began slowly lowering the bag further down her body.  Her eyes widened suddenly as she wondered whether or not she was even clothed.  A quick glance revealed that she was still wearing her pajamas. 

She glanced up in time to see relief on Jackson’s face and she hid her smile.  He had been nervous about her state of dress as well.  If she didn’t hurt so much from being in the same position and unable to move for so long, she might have laughed.

“As I told you earlier, my name is Jackson,” he said.  “Jackson Bearen.  The man behind you is my brother Clarkson, and my other brother, Robson, is just coming over.”

Saige’s eyes widened as another man who looked exactly like the first two stepped into her field of vision, just behind Jackson.  He had silver eyes, but otherwise was no different from the first two brothers.  He was just as big, and just as beautiful as his brothers were.  The three of them together all but oozed testosterone.  She had no idea that men could be so...so male.  But, while she was profoundly grateful to all three of them for her rescue, and she definitely appreciated their physical beauty, that was as far as it went.

“Pleased to meet you Miss,” Robson said politely. 

Saige swallowed painfully.  “My name is Saige Taylor,” she said. 

All three men stared at her for a moment.  “Saige Taylor,” Jackson repeated.  “The same Saige Taylor who was due to arrive this morning to visit Lariah Daniels?”