––––––––
“Dammit, Frank. I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again” the man said as he used the keys in his hand to unlock the cuffs around Frank’s wrists. “I tried to get here sooner but Branson took forever to leave.”
Once his hands were free, Frank ripped the rest of the tape from his mouth so that he could speak. He ran over to Lacey. “I’m sure as hell not here by choice, that’s for sure” he spat and snatched the keys from the man’s hand to unlock Lacey’s cuffs.
Her eyes fluttered open and she stared up at him with a vacant expression in her eyes. “Something’s wrong” she gasped. “In my head.”
Frank glanced to the man who’d been supplying him for years with information about Branson. “Lee, help me get her up” he begged.
The fortyish-year old man grabbed Lacey’s right arm while Frank held her left. They pulled her upwards into a sitting position on the table, but she sagged forward, making her body feel like dead weight. “What the hell did Branson do to her?” Lee asked and looked to Frank for a response.
Unable to speak without crying about the torture he’d witnessed his daughter endure, Frank just lowered his head and said, “Just help me get here out of here. Please.”
Lee nodded and quickly scooped Lacey up in his arms since Frank looked like he was struggling just to carry his own weight. “We don’t have much time” Lee said and hurried toward the door. “Once Branson notices I’m gone he’s going to come looking for me.”
Lacey looked up at her rescuer. “Where are my friends?” she asked weakly.
Lee glanced over at Frank for clarification of who she was asking about.
“The wolf family” Frank said.
Lee nodded in understanding. “The next room over” he said and stepped out into a hall that was equally as bright white as the room had been.
Frank looked down the hall to the door closest to where he stood. He hurried over to it and quickly unlocked it, while Lee leaned his back against the wall to help support Lacey’s weight. Once inside the room that was set up like a jailhouse with several small cells that lined the walls, Frank ran over to the first one and looked through the bars. Crouched in the corner was a thin, red-haired woman with a small boy clutched in her arms.
She looked up at him with terrified eyes and hugged her child to her chest.
Frank looked down at the large keyring in his hands and the numerous keys that hung from it, then glanced over his shoulder to Lee – who was watching him from the hallway. “Which one opens the door?”
Lee hesitated before answering. “The long black one. But you might want to reconsider freeing them. They’re very dangerous. You have no idea what the woman can do.”
An image of Cole in his wolf form flashed in Frank’s mind and a shutter went down his spine. He knew the woman and child in front of him were just like Cole, but he also knew they were Lacey’s friends. He jammed the key in the door and unlocked it before holding his hand out to the woman. “Hurry. We don’t have much time” he said.
The woman shakily got to her feet, holding her child. She stared at Frank with uncertainty. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m a friend of a friend” Frank said and pointed outside the room to where Lee was holding Lacey in his arms.
The woman’s gaze shifted to the hallway. Her eyes opened wide as she gasped out, “Lacey?”
Frank nodded. “She’s in bad shape. We have to get her out of here.”
The woman rushed into the hallway with her child in her arms. She stopped next to Lee and stared down at Lacey, “What happened to her?” she asked.
At the sound of her voice, Lacey forced her eyes open. “Tonya?” she asked and lifted her head from Lee’s chest to see her old friend.
“I’m right here, sweetie” Tonya replied. “I can’t thank you enough for coming to save us.”
“We have to go now!” Lee barked as the sound of footsteps echoed from the other end of the hallway.
A panicked look filled Tonya’s eyes as she glanced around. “Where’s Trevor? We can’t leave without him. They took him to a different room a week ago.”
Lee shook his head. “I’m sorry. We don’t have time to look for him.”
Sensing that trouble was moments away, Lacey looked up at Lee with cloudy eyes. She was barely able to see him. “Put me down” she said with a heavy breath.
“I can’t. You’ll never make it out of here on your own.”
The words had barely left Lee’s mouth when Branson and three other men turned the corner at the opposite end of the hallway and stopped abruptly when they saw them standing less than thirty feet away. “Lee!” Branson shouted, “What the hell are you doing?!”
Before he could respond, Branson and the men charged toward them.
Summoning every ounce of strength she had left in her body, Lacey leapt from Lee’s arms and shifted into a solid white wolf in midair before landing on the first man who had reached them, knocking him to the floor. Without hesitation, she clamped her jaws down on his neck and ripped his throat open. Blood spurted all over the white fur around her mouth and chest.
Branson and the other two skidded to an abrupt stop a few feet in front of her as she stepped away from the body of the man she’d just killed. Off balanced and unable to focus clearly, she stumbled toward them with her teeth bared.
“That’s not possible” Branson said in a confused tone as he glanced from Lacey to the people standing behind her. “Wolf people are born, not created...that’s what Trevor said.”
Sensing that her wolf was getting weaker with each second that passed, Lacey knew she only had a few minutes at most to ensure that her father and friends could escape. She stepped toward Branson and growled as she moved near the wall to circle around him and force him and his men where she wanted them to go. They backed up against the opposite wall with their eyes locked onto her every move.
Frank hurried over to them and opened the door of the room where he and Lacey had been kept. He pushed the men inside. Branson resisted at first and stood his ground until Lacey took another step toward him. He glared down at her. “This isn’t over. I know where to find you. And I won’t rest until you and everyone like you is dead” he threatened.
Lacey snapped her jaws as the urge to leap on him and rip him to pieces hit her hard. But she didn’t have the strength to follow through with what she wanted to do. As it was, she only knew where he stood because of his scent, not because she could actually see him. Her vision was so blurry that she could barely make out the shape of his body.
“I guess this means I quit” Lee said as he came forward and roughly pushed Branson backwards into the room at the same time Lacey collapsed on the floor.
Frank quickly locked the door and shoved the keys in his pocket then knelt down beside Lacey as she shifted back into human form.
Lee tossed Frank a smaller set of keys before kneeling down and lifting Lacey’s nude unconscious body in his arms. “Take a right at the end of the hall. My car is parked just outside the door. It’s a blue Sedan” he said and started down the hall.
Frank hurried in front of him while Tonya and her son lagged behind, peeking through the windows of the doors they passed, looking for Trevor. Once outside, Frank quickly glanced around their surroundings and saw that the building they had exited was standing in the middle of a grass covered field that seemed to stretch out for miles with nothing else in sight except a small brick house a couple hundred yards away.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Lee yelled and ran over to his car.
Frank opened the back door of the Sedan and helped Lee put Lacey on the seat. He looked over his shoulder toward the building and saw Tonya and her son standing by the door. “What are you waiting for?” He yelled. “We have to go.”
Tonya shook her head with tears in her eyes. “I can’t leave without Trevor” she cried.
Frank hurried over to her. “You don’t have a choice. There is no telling what Branson will do to you and your child when he finds you out here.” When Tonya didn’t make a move to follow him, Frank continued, “I give you my word, once we get my daughter to safety I’ll do everything I can to come back here and help your man.”
Tonya’s eyes widened with shock. “You’re Lacey’s father?” she asked.
Frank nodded. “Now please come with us. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of Branson’s men come looking for him.”
As confirmation of his words, several voices drifted in the air toward them. Frank looked over at the brick house and saw at least seven men walk out the front door. They were laughing and talking, completely oblivious to the escape going on at the building a couple hundred yards from them.
Frank gently grabbed Tonya’s arm and led her over to the car. She reluctantly got inside and squeezed her son tightly against her chest as Lee and Frank jumped in the front seats. Tears flowed down her cheeks as Lee pulled out a cell phone to make a call and Frank drove the car down a dirt driveway through the field in the opposite direction of the house. And her mate.