When it started again, Adriana was tumbling to the floor, Kristoff diving forward to catch her. Emergency alarms started ringing throughout the facility, immediately followed by flashing red-and-blue lights mounted to the ceiling. Just when it seemed that it couldn’t get any crazier, Caleb let loose a growl and dumped an entire magazine of 9mm rounds into the window in front of them, throwing shards of glass everywhere.
Then Seamus disappeared from inside the room, reappearing at almost the exact same moment, his knife coming at Harley’s chest.
Chapter 19
Misty went from tranquil and catatonic to screaming in the space of a single heartbeat, and it was the most blood-curdling sound Sawyer had ever heard in his life. Rory must have thought so, too, because he stumbled back with a wide-eyed expression of near panic on his face.
Sawyer had no idea what the bloody hell had happened, but he leaped forward all the same, catching Misty as she collapsed sideways out of her chair. He eased her to the floor as the sound of intense gunfire filled the air. Shouts over the radio confirmed the situation in the control room had gone completely pear-shaped. Adriana had apparently fried the computer system that controlled reactor number five.
While Misty had been in there.
He had no idea what that meant, but if the scream she let out was any indication, it couldn’t be good.
Sawyer shook Misty’s shoulder as Rory moved over to the door, keeping an eye on the corridor outside in case Misty’s screams brought someone running. But from the chatter over the radio, the alarms, and the chaos of gunfire coming from multiple locations around the complex, Sawyer was confident worrying about screams was pretty low on the bad guys’ priority list.
When shaking her shoulder didn’t wake Misty up, Sawyer shouted her name as loud as he could. If the scream hadn’t given them away, this probably wouldn’t, either.
He called her name for the fifth time when Misty’s eyes suddenly snapped open, confusion and pain reflected in violet irises that were no longer milky and glazed.
“Ugh. What the hell happened?” she asked, slowly sitting up with a little help from him, shaking her head like she was trying to clear out some cobwebs.
“Adriana fried the computer system that controls reactor five,” he said. “I was worried you’d gotten trapped in there.”
Misty shook her head again, wincing in discomfort as she pushed herself up off the floor. “I almost was.”
Helping Misty, he gently nudged her toward Rory. She still looked unstable, but they didn’t have any more time to waste. He needed to get to the reactor room and those magnets. Rory got an arm around her shoulders to help her walk.
“Were you able to do anything to help the situation while you were in the computer?” Sawyer asked as he led the way out of the security room. He replayed the maps of the power plant through his head, trying to remember the shortest route to reactor five. It was going to take forever to get there with Misty in this condition.
“No,” Misty said. “I’d just made it through the security firewalls and was about to put the reactor into emergency shutdown when a wall of electricity came racing toward me. I barely made it out before my brain melted.”
Not even wanting to think about that, Sawyer stopped midstride, turning to her and Rory. “If we keep going at this pace, we’ll never make it to reactor five in time to help.”
Misty opened her mouth to say something stupid about leaving her behind, but Sawyer cut her off.
“No way. Rory’s staying with you and that’s final. The only thing you get to decide is whether the two of you are going to follow or head for the rooms holding all the plant employees. Those are closer, so that would be my choice.”
Then, before either of them could argue, he turned and ran, the muscles of his legs and back twisting and spasming as he partially shifted to give him all the speed he could manage.
Even though it took him less than a minute to run from the security office to the corridor outside reactor five, it felt like forever. He reached the intersection that led to the reactor room, having every intention of heading that way, but then the incessant chatter on the radio broke through. Harley, Jake, and Erin were shouting back and forth as they tried to protect themselves from Seamus and all of Yegor’s men, while Caleb contended with the big shifter, Batu.
Sawyer didn’t consciously decide to turn and sprint toward them instead of going to the reactor room. Something inside him wouldn’t give him a choice. After the conversation he and Harley had about The One, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what instinct was guiding him. His soul mate was in danger and his inner wolf demanded he go after her.
The scene at the control room looked like something from a nightmare. Bodies covered in blood littered the floor, along with endless shards of broken glass as men in black tactical gear fired automatic weapons at everything and anything that moved. Kristoff was in one corner of the room, Adriana pale and unmoving in his lap. Caleb and Batu were smashing each other back and forth across the space, tearing each other to shreds. Yegor was yelling at his men to keep fighting as Seamus popped in and out of existence with his knife.
Jake, Erin, and Harley were all bleeding from multiple wounds. As he watched, Harley stepped in front of Erin, purposely taking a bullet meant for his MI6 teammate. A split second later, Harley snapped her head around until her beautiful, blue eyes met his, as if somehow, in all the madness, she’d known he was there.
Words couldn’t convey all the emotion that passed between them in those few seconds of eye contact. All he knew was that when he got the chance, he was going to tell Harley how much
