Chapter 25

Blake could barely hear the thud over Killian. Sometimes, he swore the kid had some type of personality disorder. One minute, he screamed bloody murder over something completely stupid; the next, he screeched and laughed as if the previous moment had been completely forgotten. Today, he’d been very angry they’d run out of his favorite cereal and had thrown a temper tantrum. After Hudson had calmed him down and given him a cookie, which had made Beverly angry, the kid had taken off down the hallway again, yelling and laughing.

As Bev and Hudson argued, Hudson had gone to chase after Killian again. Faith and Liberty chatted away as he waited for another pot of coffee to brew and tried to ignore it all.

Then, he thought he’d heard a thump. Then another one, and he’d decided to check it out.

Man, he’d been happy he did. With both Noah and Justice standing close to six-foot-five and weighing in around two-sixty, it could have been a brutal battle. Thankfully, Kade had come to investigate the noise as well. At least, between the two of them, they could keep Justice and Noah separated until things cooled down.

“So, what’s this shit you’ve gotten yourself into?” Blake asked.

“Remember the girl in the bunker? Holly? Who showed up and Justice and I needed to go up and make sure she didn’t go down below?”

Blake nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, Justice went there last night for a little quiet time. Guess who was there?”

“Holly?”

“Very good, Blake,” Noah said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “And she was also covered in blood. Says her brother was murdered and she was framed for it.”

Uh-oh. He didn’t like where this seemed to be leading. “And?”

“And Justice decided to pull on his Superman tights and save the day. He wants to help her. He wants us to help him help her.”

He sighed. Justice proved to be a moralistic do-gooder, and Blake didn’t see anything wrong with that. However, involving the rest of them didn’t seem like a good idea. They had mates and babies to worry about now—it wasn’t just a bunch of guys with nothing better to do.

If Holly found out that a bunch of aliens and a guy on the FBI’s most wanted list was helping her, there’d most likely be big bucks in it for her to turn them in. He had no intention of spending the rest of his life behind bars in some jail cell that no one knew about. He’d been there when they’d broken out Micah and Annis, and he wanted no part of the stuff that went down in secret government hideaways.

“Justice, that’s a little dangerous for us,” he ventured.

Justice ran his hand over his head. “It’s not. She thinks I’m her superior. There’s nothing indicating anything else.”

“And how’s that going to work out when you finally realize you have feelings for her and you need to walk away from her?” Noah asked.

Oh, man. He didn’t see that one coming. Justice and Holly? Or, just Justice crushing on Holly?

A long stretch of silence filled the room, and Justice sat up straight in his chair. “Look. I feel that I know Holly as we’ve been watching her and listening to her at the bunker for so long. Yes, I do like her. However, once I help her, I won’t have any trouble leaving her.”

Blake snorted. Yeah, he’d seen this one play out before, and it never turned out that way, despite the best of intentions. “That probably won’t happen.”

Justice stood and began pacing the room. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” he yelled. “I have someone who needs help! She’s been framed for a murder and will spend the rest of her life in jail unless we help her find the real killer!”

“There are a lot of people who need help, Justice,” Blake tried to reason. “But we can’t help everyone. We have to protect ourselves.”

Justice slammed his hand against the back of his chair, his breathing heavy. “What if I told you that I think a Colonist offspring was involved? Does that make any difference? That he slit her brother’s throat open?”

Blake’s heart pounded in his chest as his excitement grew. Justice had a lead on a Colonist offspring?

“Tell us more about it,” Noah said, his voice wary.

As Justice relayed Holly’s tale, Blake’s senses came alive. They were on to something—he could feel it as the words sank into his bones. This could be it; their big break. If they could get this guy, they might be able to find the Colonist, Daniel.

“He kept talking about his ‘master,’ which sounds like something a Colonist would demand to be addressed as. She says the guy lives in her apartment building. We can just go over there and look for him,” Justice continued.

Blake shook his head as he stood and walked over to the bank of computers against the wall.

“Waste of time.” His knee bobbed as he fired up the computer. “What’s her address?”

Justice gave it to him.

It definitely wouldn’t win any prizes in any magazine for the best part of town to live in, but it wasn’t terrible.

His fingers flew over the keyboard as he tapped into the United States Post Office website. Honestly, he would have thought that the fucking government would have better protection on its websites, but no. The Post Office had been an easy hack, and Talin had even been able to get into the FBI. No wonder the Russians could get into just about everything.

After waiting a moment, a list of all the people occupying the building—forty-two in all—appeared, but he guessed there would probably be more as some people just kept a post office box at their local branch. Of course, there could be some who didn’t have their mail forwarded if they’d moved.

To double check, he found the company that managed the building and unearthed their list of tenants as well. At a quick glance, most names matched. He also grabbed a screen shot of the layout of the building.

He put everything up on the big white screen and dimmed the lights in the room for better viewing.

“There’s Holly and her brother in apartment 2K,” he murmured as he stood and pointed at the building layout. “You said Holly thought the guy lived close enough to hear the argument, right?”

“Yes,” Justice answered, sitting back down.

“Okay, so I’ve lived in places similar to this. Sometimes, you can hear your neighbors through the air vents, so let’s run a check on not only the people living directly next to her, but also the ones above and below her.”

He bent over the computer and quickly drew a red square around the apartments that interested him, a total of nine, with his mouse. Holly's stood in the middle.

Pulling out a pad of paper, he tossed it over to Noah. “Make some notes.”

As he glanced at the screen, his body hummed. Yes, they had definitely latched onto something here. He could sense it, like a hunting dog catching a sense of its prey. You’re going down, fucker.

As he rattled off the apartments and their corresponding inhabitants, Noah wrote it all down.

Turning to Kade and Justice, he grinned. “Now the fun begins.”

“What’s that?” Kade asked.

“We have a program where we can trace the heritage of humans. Talin built it, and it works. So, for instance, I’m going to run these nine names. It will track their family lineage. If it comes to abrupt end on a known Colonist, then we know we’ve got an offspring. Then, we simply need to figure out if the good genes outweighed the bad ones.”

“Fascinating,” Justice said.

“Yeah, well, it’s going to take a while—probably a few hours, maybe even a day or so.”

“In the meantime, we should probably find a place for you to stay, Justice,” Noah said.

“And Holly. She’s in danger, Noah. I can’t just leave her out there to fend for herself.”

The room grew quiet again, and he agreed with Justice. Although Holly could be considered the enemy to the Saviors and him, sometimes, it seemed best to keep them close.

“You can’t stay here,” Noah said. “Not with her.”

Yeah, they were pretty maxed out. They should probably hang a No Vacancy sign.

“What about the safe house?” Blake asked. “They’d be somewhat close, closer than the bunker, and it’s secure.”

‘That’s a good idea, Blake. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you aren’t as smart as me.”

Noah rolled his eyes.

“Or as handsome. Definitely not as handsome.”

Noah glared at him.

“Or as well-hung as me.”

“Don’t make me whip it out to prove you wrong, half-breed.”

Noah and Blake burst out laughing, and Justice and Kade looked on with confusion.

“It’s called a joke, boys,” he said after a moment. “Damn, you guys need to lighten up.”

“We’re just not used to a subordinate speaking to his superior that way,” Kade said.

Blake shook his head. “Man, Noah may be in charge, but in the end, we’re a team. All of us. You guys need to get that through your heads.”

Blake glanced at the computer and saw the program had begun to work, but it would be quite a long time before he saw any results.

“Justice, I could take you over and introduce you to your new digs,” he said.

“What about the program?”

“It’ll be a while. I can show you the house, then you can actually take a phone this time. I’ll show you how to work it when we get there. You’ve got navigation, email, texting … all sorts of cool shit.”

Justice nodded. “Sounds good, Blake. Thank you. And thank you, Noah, for helping Holly.”

Noah nodded absently, staring at the white screen that still held all the information Blake had pulled up. “It’s just going to be you and Holly in that house, Justice. Make sure your crew knows that they aren’t invited.”

“I will.”

“Holly’s also pretty close in size to Faith or Liberty. See if you can get some clothes from them for her.”

Blake made his way to the door and turned around to see Justice gazing at Noah.

“I’m sorry for the fight,” he said, his voice quiet.

Noah turned to him and smiled. “No sweat. I’ve had worse. Sometimes, as males, that’s what we need to do.”

Justice nodded.

“But you need to get your head on straight, my friend,” Noah continued. “You need to figure out your place on this rock and what your future looks like, but it can’t include Holly.”

Justice glared at him for a moment, the anger evident on his features. Then he glanced at Blake. “I’ll pack clothes for Holly and me, then let’s go.”

Blake nodded and headed out of the War Room.