It felt like the day would never get here, but finally, we would break into Blood Moon Testing Laboratories. I’d been going insane the last few weeks of planning, desperate to find out what secrets their records room might hold about me or possibly my parents.

We piled into two vehicles, Caleb’s sleek black Mustang GT and a white panel van that Wesley used as a comm center for jobs where he needed to be within closer range of the targeted site. The drive out to our location was a tense one, no one speaking except to respond to River, who ran through the plan in detail again and checked that everyone was clear on their jobs.

We parked at a rest stop off the main road, some five miles downhill from the labs, and did a double check of all our gear. Caleb still didn’t think my knife fighting was anywhere near up to scratch, so he’d opted not to arm me with any blades, but Austin, grudgingly, had been impressed with my marksmanship, and so they’d equipped me with a slim, black nine millimeter pistol. I had it tucked securely into an underarm holster strapped across my chest, which blended into the rest of my all black attire. The boys were all more heavily armed than me, but if all went according to plan, we should be in and out without running into anyone.

Wesley and Lucy were staying with the van to run comms, and the rest of us set out in silence, trekking through the steep forest with efficiency until we reached the edge of the compound. Enclosed by a high barbed wire fence, the facility didn’t invite company. Cole clipped through the wire with ease, allowing all of us to slip through. At River’s hand signal, we split up to our assigned tasks. Cole, Austin, and River headed towards the front of the complex to create a diversion, while Caleb and I snuck in the back, where it was closest to the records room on the blueprints.

The moon was full, giving us plenty of light to work with along with the bright flood lights evenly spaced around the exterior of the building. Caleb and I sprinted across the lit area during an opening in the patrol to reach the door selected as our access point.

I pulled out my rolled up leather pouch of lock picks and went to work on the door security. We only had a short amount of time to get in and out. Without more information on the contents in the records room, we needed the maximum amount of time to look through it all.

Within seconds, I had the door open.

“Nice work,” Caleb whispered, clearly impressed. Pride at having my hard-learned skill appreciated filled me.

We cracked the door, checking the hallway before venturing farther. Two guards were located down the hall. Our patience paid off when a loud explosion went off toward the front of the compound. The guards took off. Taking advantage of our opening, we raced toward the records room.

Again, I made quick work of the locks. Caleb pulled me inside with him and soundlessly closed the door behind us, even as he pulled out a small flashlight to look around.

I clicked on my own flashlight and gasped at the sight before us. I had expected a small room of paper records; after all, most things were electronic these days. But the room was enormous. Either they had expanded this area since the time those blueprints had been filed or the plans we’d used were just plain wrong, because the room was easily four times the size of what we’d anticipated. It was chock full of file boxes stacked high on shelves and in row after row after row. I had no idea how we were going to find anything that we needed in this.

“Uh guys?” Caleb murmured quietly into his earpiece. “We might have a problem here.”

“What is it?” River responded immediately.

“There are way, way more files in here than we thought. This would take months to sort through.” He echoed my own thoughts.

“Years.” I groaned. We were so close to my truth, and now this… It sucked.

“Sending Austin your way, but he might be a few minutes. There are considerably more guards than you would have expected for a science lab.” River sounded annoyed, which was likely due to events not playing out exactly as his control-freak personality had planned.

“Let’s get hunting.” Caleb turned to me. “I’ll start on the left, you go right. Let’s focus on finding anything dated around, what? Eighteen years ago?”

“Sounds good.” I took off to my assigned row and ran my flashlight over the labels on the front of the boxes. The ones I had started with were from the eighteen hundreds. Holy crap, this thing was so much bigger than I’d anticipated. I moved farther down the aisle. They were all in chronological order. Skipping the next row, I made my way closer to where Caleb had started, hoping he’d found the more recent files.

“Kit, Caleb, you have guards heading your way.” Lucy’s voice crackled through our earpieces. “I’ll see what havoc I can create by opening some locked doors.”

Caleb and I looked at each other. We needed to hurry, and quickly made our way down the next row together.

A loud siren started blaring from somewhere overhead, and the sounds of yelling and heavy boots marching down the corridor grew louder. My senses were all screaming at me that it was only a matter of minutes before we were found in here. I could only hope they wouldn’t immediately think to check a records room for intruders.

“Shit,” Wesley cursed over the radio. “They’ve seen you. Our CCTV override didn’t catch that there was a camera inside the archive as well as outside. Sorry guys, you need to get out of there now!”

Not willing to give up so easily, I continued hunting, finding a box labeled with a date in June, five years before I was born. Close enough, it’d have to do. I grabbed Caleb’s bag and stuffed in as many files as possible. Then the door slammed open.

“Too late. They’re on you,” Wesley said helpfully.

“Austin should be almost there,” River updated us. “We will work on another diversion.”

The pounding of boots approached, even as I zipped Caleb’s bag closed. He slung it on his back while I pulled my gun from its holster and spun to confront whoever was coming. It felt like a freight train slammed into me from nowhere. The guard knocked the gun from my grasp, but I launched into an offensive. A punch then a kick took the guard down. A second man grabbed me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides.

Caleb was occupied with three guards himself, so I stomped my boot onto my captor’s foot and threw my weight backwards to loosen his grip. The moment it slipped, I slammed my elbow into his gut. Twisting around to face him, I followed up with a swift punch to the face, which sent him flying backward into a stack of file boxes. Caleb was taking a few too many hits as the three guards he fought gained the upper hand. Grabbing my gun, I twisted onto my back and fired a shot through the man closest to me. He dropped instantly, giving Caleb the advantage. He finished off the last two then grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet.

“Come on; we need to split,” he urged, and we raced back out to the corridor, which was in mayhem.

Apparently Lucy’s idea of a diversion was to disable the locks on every electronic door in the facility and then set off the sprinklers. Caleb and I exited the archive room but only made it a few feet before a group of eight guards rounded the corner ahead of us. Too many for us to attempt on our own. As one, Caleb and I turned the other way and sprinted. Three more guards cut us off, and we rushed them.

Before we got to them, someone appeared behind them. The man looked maybe a few years older than me but with several weeks’ growth on his face and a rough, feral look in his eyes. He shoved one of the guards hard into a wall, and the sickening crunch of his head on impact echoed. The savior punched the second one hard in the chest, his fist sinking right through the flesh. When he pulled his arm back, his hand was slick with blood. The third guard fled, dashing past Caleb and me. The bearded guy calmly plucked a gun from the dead guard’s waist and shot the retreating one in the back.

Caleb mirrored my surprise as we remained rooted, watching the man wipe his bloody hand off on the other guard’s shirt before he looked at us.

“I take it I have you to thank for this mayhem?” His voice was scratchy as though from disuse, and his eyes were those of a wild animal. I nodded dumbly, and he smiled, extending his non-bloody hand for me to shake. “Well then, thank you. The name’s Finn. I’ll owe you one sometime.”

I accepted his hand hesitantly, but he just gave me a quick squeeze then tipped an imaginary hat toward us before he sauntered off whistling.

We barely got a chance to process what had just happened when the larger group of guards caught up to us and once again we were fighting in earnest. Severely outnumbered, things didn’t look good. We were too tightly packed in the narrow corridor. It forced me to draw hard on both my enhanced strength and speed, as well as on every lesson Cole had drilled into me in order to try and get the upper hand. Luckily, for whatever reason, none of the guards we’d encountered yet had attempted to shoot us, or we definitely would not have lasted this long. Even I couldn’t dodge bullets… as far as I knew.

Pushing my enhanced strength into my moves gave me an upper hand, and then all of a sudden, a leather belt hooked around my neck. The force cut off my airway, and panic surged through me. I clawed at the belt, but I couldn’t get a grip to rip it away.

My vision blurred and blackened around the edges as a high-pitched ringing deafened me. Caleb pointed a gun at my head, and fired. The force cutting off my oxygen ceased, and I slumped to the floor, coughing and spluttering. Caleb pulled me to my feet, and then I realized Caleb was actually still fighting. It was Austin who’d saved my bacon.

“Thanks,” I managed to gasp, rubbing my throat. He said nothing, but turned to help his brother finish off the last of the guards. With them down, we sprinted for the exit.

Thankfully we met with no further resistance on our dash back to the entry point. Soaking wet, sore, and bruised, we didn’t slow until we were deep into the forest. Wesley alerted us we were clear, thank God. Then River ordered us to meet back at the vehicles.

Half an hour into our hike back through the trees, Austin must have been bored because he was first to break the quiet.

“You know, this saving your life thing is becoming a bit of a habit, Christina,” he commented lightly. Certain something snide hid around the next corner, I waited. “I’m starting to question whether you actually did half of the jobs credited to The Fox. Seems to me like you can barely walk in a straight line without needing to be rescued.”

Yep, there it was. Asshole.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I snapped, whipping around to face him. “You’ve saved my life once, and I said thank you.”

“Twice, actually. I’m the one that saved you from the kidnappers. You’re welcome.” Sarcasm marred his tone, despite his smile.

I swallowed my frustration, refusing to take his bait, and stomped down the hill. Unfortunately, I wasn’t looking where I was going and hit a bad rut, pitching head first into a ditch before a pair of strong arms grabbed me by the waist and set me back on my feet.

“See what I mean,” Austin snarked. “Now that’s three times.”

I gritted my teeth. Stupid Kit, not looking where you’re going.

“Now you say, ‘Thank you for saving my life, Austin.’”

My jaw clenched so hard I thought I might break it as I ground out the words, “Thank you for saving my life, Austin.”

“Three times,” he added smugly.

“Three times,” I spat. “Now do you mind letting me go?”

Austin looked down and appeared shocked to see his hands still firmly encircling my biceps. He dropped me like a hot potato then jumped across the ditch to where Caleb waited for us with an amused expression on his face.