Aiden
Getting into Stephen’s shipping facility was the easy part. Within the first three days Aiden had figured out two separate methods of entry.
Two days later though he’d been given an access code to the rear door so that he could help load a van with some packages and not get locked out. He assumed it was a slip-up on Langdon’s part, because he hadn’t been entrusted with any other information since. Now though it served to easily grant him entry inside where he could snoop around privately. He opened the door and slipped inside, ready to work his way through the warehouse in darkness.
There was one little problem with that plan: the lights were on.
Aiden froze. Shit.
Did Stephen keep a guard here on the weekends? Or was someone else here for different reasons? His eyes scanned the floor, but he saw no movement. Whoever was here, they must be in one of the offices along the wall to his left.
Unless someone just left the lights on? A quick check of his memory told him that no, he remembered the lights being turned off before they left on Friday. Someone was definitely here. The question was who, why, and where were they? If it was a member of the pack, Aiden would just tell them that Stephen had sent him to retrieve something from his desk. A trivial task that he wouldn’t give to one of the others, but that the new guy was perfectly suited for.
If it was someone else though, there might be trouble. Reluctantly he prepared himself to fight. It was strange, putting himself in that sort of mindset. Other than the night he’d gone with Flint, Aiden had spent so much effort into keeping calm and refraining from fighting, that conjuring the urge to do so now was almost difficult.
Almost.
“Aiden?”
He jerked in surprise as Patrice’s voice echoed out from the stacks straight ahead of him.
“Holy shit, you surprised me,” he said, giving the other shifter a wave. “I thought you were up in the offices. I was going to sneak up and surprise you.” He smiled, trying to act as if he was mildly upset his plan hadn’t worked, not that he’d been caught red-handed.
“Sorry about that. I was just stretching the ol’ legs. Guard duty can get pretty boring, you know?”
He nodded. “Yep, I know. Well, I guess I don’t. Haven’t been trusted with that yet. But, in general I understand.”
“Why are you here?” There was no suspicion in his voice. Perfect.
“Stephen needed a phone number from his desk. Something to do with those humans who tried to ambush Flint and me Friday night. He certainly wasn’t going to send Flint on a little errand, so guess who drew the short stick?”
Patrice laughed, falling in step next to him as they walked past the conveyor belts toward Stephen’s office. “Hey, you’re talking to the guy who works almost every Sunday here. Trust me, I completely understand.”
Aiden frowned to himself. Every Sunday? How had he missed that little bit of information! Sloppy, Aiden. Sloppy. If you’d been more involved with the pack, you might have figured that one out already. He would keep that in mind for the next time he was forced to be a spy, which would hopefully be never. After what he’d been forced to do to Willow, Aiden hated himself and the whole operation. He was ready for it to be over.
“So, anything fun going on back at the—”
CLANG!
Patrice fell to the ground in a heap, bleeding from where Aiden had reached up and grabbed the back of his head and slammed him face-first into one of the giant metal support beams that kept the roof up.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “But I don’t have time for your small talk.”
He stepped over the body and hurried to the far wall. Instead of Stephen’s office though, he kicked open the door to the room next to it. This room was obscured by double doors, and the shifters going in always waited for one set to close before they opened the next. Whatever was going on behind here was a secret they didn’t want him or any other visitor seeing. The next set of doors opened just as easily, admitting him into the room.
“What the fuck?” He walked forward several steps and looked around.
It was empty. Completely, and totally empty.
“Ooookay. That’s weird.”
Confused, he went back out into the main section, grabbed Patrice’s limp body, and dragged it in after him. Then he slapped the smaller shifter several times until he came around.
“What the fu—”
Aiden drove his fist into one of his kidneys. The other werewolf curled over in pain.
“What goes on this room?” he snarled.
“Fuck you.”
“Wrong answer, bud,” he muttered, grabbing Patrice by an ankle, whirling him around and launching him into the wall along the rear of the building. The cinderblocks cracked and dust flew everywhere as Patrice slipped to the floor, moaning incoherently.
“What goes on in here? There’s more to this room than just this emptiness. Tell me.”
Patrice spat, blood and more than a few teeth coming with it. He was too weak for it to hit Aiden, but it splattered on the floor nearby.
“I really don’t want to have to torture you for the answer, P. Just be a good boy and give it up.”
A shake of the head was his answer.
Aiden sighed, leaned forward, and grabbed Patrice’s wrist as he swung a punch at him. Aiden snarled, twisted his hand around and then drove the other down hard onto the elbow joint. Things cracked and made disgusting noises. Patrice howled in pain.
“Tell me!”
“Go suck your momma’s—”
Aiden slapped Patrice twice in the face, grabbed his neck, and hurled him against the opposite wall.
“That will be the last time you mention my mother,” he said calmly as he walked over.
Patrice was slumped on the floor, back against the wall, feet outstretched.
“Ready to talk?”
The werewolf weakly lifted his good arm and extended the middle finger. It was curled and unable to straighten, but the point was there.
“This is just not going the way I expected it to,” Aiden said with a sigh. Then he stomped on Patrice’s ankle, crushing bone before he ground his foot back and forth, turning more of the bone into dust.
“So, ready to talk yet?”
But Patrice was too overwhelmed with pain to respond. He just kept rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his face as he tried to handle the pain.
Aiden grabbed his good ankle, pivoted and set his feet. “Last chance,” he prompted.
The foot jerked in his grip in an attempt to wrench it free.
“Fine.” Aiden hauled on the leg, tossing Patrice at the wall opposite the one he came through. “Have it your—”
He’d timed his sentence to complete when the wreck that had once been a human-looking person hit the wall. But when Patrice went sailing right through an incredibly well-concealed set of doors, his timing was interrupted.
“Well look at that. You wanted to help after all!” he crowed. “So nice of you.”
The room beyond was dark, except for a number of soft blue glowing lights. Aiden walked forward. He’d never thought that perhaps Stephen owned more of the building than just the shipping facility. But the room beyond was so large it had to be two or three of the units next to them as well. Which meant that the signs out front of them were all cover for what was actually going on.
“Which is what?” he murmured to himself as he stared at row upon row of blue lights. They were coming from some sort of boxy contraption, one that looked oddly like a shortened version of a coffin.
He walked up to the first of them and peered inside. His eyes widened as he realized what it was he was actually seeing.
“Oh. Shit.”