The battle took a long time though. Whoever this Shifter was, wherever he’d come from, he was a dominant.
The tiger didn’t lower his gaze or turn away, but finally Iona sensed a minute change in his stance.
“They do experiments on the top floor,” he said. “When they don’t do them down here. But they wouldn’t bring a cub down here with me.”
Top floor it was, then. Iona hoped he wasn’t sending her into a trap, but he didn’t smell of lies.
“I’ll make sure you get out too,” Iona said. “What’s your name?”
He hesitated for a long time, then finally said, “Twenty-three.”
“That’s not a name.” Iona glanced back down the row of empty cages. “What happened to numbers one through twenty-two?”
“They died. Now it’s just me.”
Iona met his gaze again, her fear of him changing to sympathy. “I’ll come back for you,” she repeated.
As though the conversation had become too much for him, the tiger shifted back into his huge wildcat, snarling breathily in his throat.
Iona became her panther again, finding it easier this time, and slunk back into the darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Tell me you’ve got a fix,” Eric said for about the tenth time.
Xavier tapped keys on the keyboard in the offices of DX Security. “Getting there. A little quiet would help.”
Diego was pacing the long room, his fingers fondling the handle of his Glock. He paced, Eric knew, to keep himself from ripping the computer out of Xavier’s hands and trying to pull up the GPS data from Iona’s cell phone himself.
Eric contented himself with standing over Xavier and breathing down his neck.
Shane had summoned Eric back to the clinic in a state of panic. Iona and Cassidy had disappeared, Shane said, little Amanda with them. Shane and Brody had scoured the clinic and bullied the staff, but the three were nowhere to be found. Jace had already headed out to the compound in the desert to search for them there.
Eric had been about to call Diego and break the news, when he and Xavier had returned from a restaurant near the clinic, where the brothers had celebrated Amanda’s birth with beers and burgers.
Shane had been about to shit himself. He’d always had a thing for Cassidy, and now he blamed himself for losing her, her baby, and Iona. He should have checked on them more often, he said. He’d let them down. He deserved to have Eric and Diego kick his grizzly ass.
Eric had interrupted this self-flagellation by saying in clipped tones that if Iona had her phone with her, they could track her through its GPS chip. Even if Iona couldn’t use the phone, they could still find her, and Xavier knew how to get to that data.
“Won’t help if they threw her phone away,” Xavier had said glumly.
Eric answered, “Even finding out where they threw it away gives us a place to start.”
“Here we go,” Xavier said now from his computer. “Iona’s phone is at these coordinates, which is roughly…” He brought up a map and entered the data. “Here.” A red dot blossomed on the map in the middle of nothing.
Eric leaned to look and felt Diego crowding behind him. The dot was in empty desert, not at the compound they’d found, but farther north and west.
“That’s Area Fifty-one,” Diego said. “What the hell are they doing in Area Fifty-one?”
“Experiments,” Eric said, his rage burning cold. “That’s where they did the experiments on Shifters twenty years ago.”
“The f**k they’re going to experiment on Cassidy and my daughter.”
“Or my mate,” Eric said.
Xav broke in. “Diego, you can’t take a posse up there. There’s gates and guards and people with guns to shoot your ass as soon as they see it.”
“They can’t take my daughter hostage. I’ll get every law enforcement official in the state of Nevada to make them let us in.”
“No,” Eric said, his eyes on the map. “I’ll go in myself.”
“To a top secret government facility?” Xavier asked, incredulous. “They have security cameras and guards happy to shoot you as soon as they see you. What does authorized use of deadly force mean to you? Trust me, I’ve studied their security—I study everyone’s security. It’s my job.”
“You drop me off here.” Eric pointed to a spot on Highway 95. “I’ll go through the desert. It’s dark now, and I’m very good at navigating terrain without being seen.”
“It’s a long way, and it’s rough,” Xavier said. “Mountains, canyons, dry lakes, you name it.”
“Norway wasn’t easy either, and this time I don’t have bombs strapped to me.”
Diego interrupted. “Fine for you getting in. But how are you going to get Iona and Cassidy out safely, with my daughter?”
“Reid.”
Diego relaxed a little, but only a little. “Reid can only teleport to someplace he’s seen.”
“Which is why you’re giving me a satellite phone and a camera and a way to send you photos with your state-of-the-art surveillance equipment. Show the photos to Reid, and he can get there.” Eric hoped.
“Eric, this is my mate and daughter…”
“And when I need a helicopter and machine guns, I’ll call you. There’s no way you can keep up with me through the desert, no way you can sneak into wherever they are like I can. If you want to drive around to the front gate and create a distraction, be my guest. But I need someone to get the photos to Reid as soon as I send them.”
“Diego, he’s right,” Xavier said. “It would take you too long to cross that country on foot, and any vehicle will be seen. Let him go. I’ll take care of alerting Reid.”
Diego’s face was hard, but he gave Eric a nod. “Fine.” He fingered his pistol again. “If you want a distraction, I’ll give you a distraction.”
“It’s still a long way,” Xavier said to Eric. “Straight through desert, no water. You sure you’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be just fine,” Eric said.
The mate bond would pull him on. It was already urging him out the door, to run, run, run to Iona’s side.
“Get me the equipment and let’s go,” Eric said. Every minute could be a minute too late.
“You got it,” Xavier said. He managed a grin. “Say hi to the aliens for me.”