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Several gunmen fired down on them, and as they advanced slowly in black clothing, Colt heard bullet impacts and groans from people around him.
But they had to move. He could help the injured later. Nothing they could do meant anything until the gunmen were stopped.
Most of the breach team made it to the building, and Atlas quickly ran up a series of metal stairs, the team quickly following him. Stealth didn’t matter at this point. They already knew they were there.
Atlas drove his fist into a gunman’s chest, stealing the man’s weapon from his hands and knocking him to the ground below. He unloaded the ammunition and threw it away. The gunmen were rapidly dispersed.
“I need somebody to tend to the wounded!” Atlas ordered. “Three of you, stay with them!”
About twenty team members moved forward through the building. By the time they realized that Harlow was being kept in a basement area, sixteen more team members had been either incapacitated or asked to tend to the wounds of the injured.
Through smelling the scents of the members and where they had been, Colt was able to find a lever, which opened a hidden hatch into a pantry area. This hadn’t been part of the floor plan for this place. Colt and Atlas had personally seen the blueprints.
“Glad you could make it!” Vincent said, holding a knife to Harlow’s throat. She was currently bound and gagged in a chair. Colt felt an overpowering rage that nearly motivated him toward recklessness. He watched as Atlas seethed, almost hissing from the visceral reaction he felt.
“What do you stand to gain from any of this?” Zachary asked. He wasn’t a pack leader, but Colt appreciated him stepping up. He wasn’t sure he or Atlas was capable of reasonable action after seeing Harlow in this position.
“Is your lapdog speaking for you now?” Vincent asked. When nobody spoke, Vincent answered. “It’s not what I stand to gain!” Vincent said. “It’s what you stand to lose!” He laughed coldly. “You see, Harlow will always be my mate. She’s used goods, not fit for pleasing anybody else, least of all the alpha of some hick, backwoods pack. But it’s still so much fun to watch her struggle.”
Vincent drew the knife closer to her neck. “Just one slip, and she’ll be gone forever. Promise you’ll walk away, and she’s safe with me. Scout’s honor.”
In a moment of calculated self-defense that amazed Colt, Harlow used Vincent’s center of gravity against him, nudging his waist forward with her chair and knocking him off balance. Atlas, Colt, and Zachary charged forward, managing to out-speed his reflexes.
Colt knocked him to the ground while Atlas undid Harlow’s restraints. But Vincent wasn’t giving up, and as he and Colt rolled on the ground, fighting for control of the knife, Colt did what he had to do.
He was a man of peace, but this was only ending one way. Vincent freed his hand from Colt’s grasp and passed the knife to his other hand where he drove it into Colt’s chest. Electricity ran along Colt’s spine, sending a desperate message to his brain that preceded a pain that nearly incapacitated him.
Colt pried the knife from deep within him, sending a cascade of blood streaming along his torso to the cold cement floor. He might not have had strength, but he had surprise on his side. Vincent stared at Colt, his eyes wide as Colt used the last of his strength to plunge the knife into Vincent’s neck.
His eyes rolled back into his head, and everything was shrouded by the blackness that crept up on him.
“Colt!” Harlow screamed, taking him into her arms. “Colt! Stay with me!”
“What were you doing?” Atlas cried out. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I tried!” Zachary cried out. “I didn’t know where to step in!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Atlas asked. “You could have done anything other than stand there! If you can’t keep him safe, what good are you?”
“He’s losing too much blood!” Harlow said. Colt could feel fabric pressing against the wound and was initially overwhelmed by the sensation.
Colt’s vision faded further. He dreamed that he was back at the lodge, under the light of the full moon. He knew Harlow and Atlas were just off in the distance, and that if he ran fast enough, he would surely catch up with them.
He bent down on the ground and transformed. As an ethereal violet light unweaved itself and spilled across the night sky like an aurora, Colt darted for the horizon, not sure what strange world awaited him.
Chapter 27
Harlow
As soon as her hands had been freed from their restraints, mouth unobstructed, she saw it. Perhaps had she been some other kind of creature, she could have rewound time and stopped it from happening, or slowed time down so much that she could react to it. But there were no words or actions to stop this. The unit of time between Colt bleeding out on the ground and Colt removing the knife from his chest was almost invisible.
Harlow could crumple to the floor right now, letting everything that she’d just witnessed send her into catatonia. She could leave this town and find a world where she was more peaceful but not happy, never happy again.
But Harlow’s body, moved by some phantom force, carried her quickly and desperately across the room. “Colt! Stay with me!” she screamed.
“What were you doing?” Atlas demanded. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
Had he already given up? As Atlas berated Zachary for his failure to save Colt, clearly motivated mostly by rampant emotions, only Harlow realized the urgency of the situation.
