Jared
“You’re sure this is the place?” she asked, the car cruising down the street.
Jared shifted, his big frame cramped in the little two-door hatchback. It wasn’t ideal, but he hadn’t wanted to leave a big shiny truck hanging around the run-down safe house either. So he had bought the old car and hoped he would never have to use it.
Next time I’m getting the four-door. Never again. This is too small.
He tried to stretch his legs, hoping that they wouldn’t cramp the instant he emerged from the vehicle. That would not help his already vague plan.
“Yes,” he said out loud, trying to hide his discomfort from Nadia. “The others who followed him saw him taken into a house on this street. Number 3488.”
“Okay, I think I just saw a 28-something,” she said. “So keep going?”
He nodded, flexing his legs and twisting his back to loosen it up.
“Jared, I’ve been thinking.”
The urge to flinch at that phrase came to him, but even he’d wanted to, he probably couldn’t have because of his cramped conditions.
Perhaps the tiny car wasn’t so bad.
“About?” he asked, keeping the caution out of his tone. Mostly.
“This plan of yours,” she replied.
Jared did his best not to sigh in relief. They needed to talk, but now was most definitely not the time for it.
“What about it?”
“Um, well, if three of your team were chased away, that means there was enough bad people here to scare them off, right?”
“Yes. My team is brave, but not stupid.”
“So why are you being stupid then?”
He sat as upright in the car as he could, the action banging his forehead off the roof. “Ow,” he said, following it up with several more curses.
“Stupid?” he asked after a moment, shutting the mild pain out. It was more of a distraction than any true injury.
“Yes. Think about it,” she said with exasperation. “There were enough people to chase off three of your team. Yet now you’re going to go in there and fight on your own? How is that not stupid?”
“I’m banking on them not having all come back here, but instead spreading out in search of everyone.”
Nadia’s eyes came off the road as she looked over at him with an incredulous stare. “You’re joking, aren’t you?” There was a pause. “No, no, you aren’t joking.”
“No, I’m not,” he said seriously. “Drive four more houses, then stop. That was it back there,” he said.
Nadia did as he commanded, pulling the car up to the side of the road and killing the engine.
“And what if they are all back?” she asked nervously.
He reached out and touched her shoulder, and then without thinking, caressed her cheek.
“In addition, there is one other factor you haven’t included in your calculations,” he said softly, reaching out and planting his lips where his fingers had been, bringing an instant redness to her face.
“And what’s that?” she asked just as quietly.
“There’s a reason I’m the leader,” he said, his voice becoming a hardened growl as his bear rumbled within him, coming to the surface ready for battle. His eyes swiveled outward as he exited the car, limbs creaking slightly as he strode toward the house that contained his man.
The pain from being cramped up no longer registered.
The odds against him no longer mattered.
All that concerned him was ensuring his entire team was safe.
The length of his stride increased, and his muscles rippled as he flexed them.
The neighborhood was a fancy one, with enough space for another house between each existing building. This gave people living there plenty of privacy, as large trees and shrubs grew up between the properties.
I’m coming, Justin.
He hadn’t wanted to speak his name aloud around Nadia. He knew he was becoming interested in the woman, but there was still something she was hiding that made him want to do the same. Perhaps after they had known each other for more than a few hours, he would feel more comfortable talking to her about everything going on.
If only his bear would hold off that long. It had been insistent, yanking him toward her every chance it could. When Jared let his guard down for a split second, its yearning to be close to her, to touch her and caress her was almost more than he could withstand.
Jared shook his head, focusing back on the task at hand. In this, he and the wild animal within him were in agreement.
It was time to kick some ass.
He strode up the front walk, acting unconcerned, as if he belonged. The darkness hid his features from the two guards long enough for him to come close to within striking range.
“Hey! You—” the man’s voice cut off with a strangled sound as he crumpled to the ground, his throat crushed by a vicious sideways chop from Jared’s hand.
The other guard reacted swifter, throwing an off-balance punch from where his hand had been resting at his hip. The speed of it caught Jared off guard. Instead of evade it and end up off balance himself, he spun with the blow. As he did he stepped backward and drove his elbow hard into the guard’s stomach. His hand became a fist as he rotated his arm until his fist pointed upward, and then he extended, his fist catching the stunned guard in the chin.
His jaw snapped together and his eyes glassed over, but Jared wasn’t done with him yet. A flurry of punches broke several ribs, followed by a forearm that broke the guard’s nose. Somehow the Agent was still on his feet.
The front door started to creak open—it was now behind Jared as he’d worked over his opponent. Without thinking, he grabbed the man’s neck and pants, spun, and hurled him through the open doorway.
The improvised battering ram hit with such force the door slammed off its hinges, taking the third guard behind it to his back. A fourth guard was hit square in the torso by the flying missile of his comrade and they went down together, momentarily dazed.
Jared stepped through the doorway, pausing only long enough to deliver a booted kick to the guard under the door, snapping his neck violently enough to ensure he would never rise again.
The fourth guard shoved the dead body of guard number two off of him just in time to receive a knee to the stomach as Jared dropped his entire weight onto the man’s midsection, cracking ribs and more as he did. Reaching down, the big Alpha Sentinel punched the hardwood floor until it cracked and he could rip off a foot-long chunk.
Before the guard could react he thrust it up and into the underside of the man’s jaw and into his skull.
“Any more takers?” he growled, rising slowly to his feet as shouts sounded inside the house.
Another pair of Extremis Agents emerged from a doorway that led to the lower level. Their expressions were grim as they looked at the carnage around them.
“Don’t take too long now,” Jared taunted them from the middle of it all, his shoulders slightly hunched as he controlled his breathing. His head was tilted slightly downward as he looked up and out at his foes.
The pair looked at each other and split up.
“First mistake,” he said, and his right leg flexed. The body that had been resting on his foot shot up and at the Agent to his right. Before it even hit its target Jared planted his kicking foot, pivoted, and threw a snap-kick out at the man on his left.
He had judged this man as the more dangerous of the two, and the way he ducked under the kick told Jared he was right.
But the kick had been a diversion. Jared had pulled it almost as soon as he launched it. He recovered before his opponent and closed to within striking range.
The Agent rocked backward under a shot to the chin, but he didn’t go down. Jared heard the second man throw aside the body and scramble to his feet behind him. He had time for one more move.
The sound of a knife clearing its sheath reached his ears.
That was the move then.
Jared waited a split second, then reached forward. Instead of trying to hit his opponent, he grabbed him by the neck and spun, taking the smaller man with him. He turned and thrust the angry Agent into the path of the knife held by his friend. The blade entered the Agent’s back.
Jared opened his hands, dropping the man even as he began to scream from the wound in his back. If the knife was coated with the same healing-resistant stuff that he had seen from the Agency before, his target was likely dead. The knife had penetrated him near his heart. He would bleed out before anyone could help him.
He wasn’t done though, as the last Agent recovered from the shock of stabbing his friend and tried to prepare to face Jared alone.
The Alpha’s face was set in stone as he stepped over the dying Agent, his eyes focused intently on the remaining guard. “You had better not have hurt my friend,” he snarled.
The last Agent didn’t respond with words, but with his fists instead. Jared knocked aside the blows, stepping forward relentlessly as the Agent backed away. The man’s strikes grew more and more frantic as they seemed to have no effect on the hulking whirlwind of death in front of him.
That wasn’t entirely true. Jared was feeling them. This man was Extremis, and a strong one. He was just so angry he shrugged most of the pain aside.
Finally finished toying with the man, he grabbed his arm when the next punch was thrown and forced it down, snapping the man’s forearm over his knee.
To his credit, the Agent didn’t scream, though his face twisted into a pained grimace and sweat broke out on his forehead. He swung with his left hand, and Jared caught this one as well, spinning it around and dislocating it from the man’s socket with some quick moves.
Then he took out the man’s knee. As he fell, Jared stepped behind him and snapped the man’s neck with a twist of his powerful arms.
He waited, but no more guards came.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t more. They’re probably waiting for you downstairs.
Jared moved to the entrance he had seen the final two Agents emerge from. As he suspected, it lead downstairs. Unfortunately, it also took a right turn halfway down, meaning he couldn’t see what was waiting for him. Going charging down there was probably not a smart idea, but he needed to do it.
Perhaps it doesn’t have to be me they see first though.
All Jared needed was a moment’s hesitation from the guards at the bottom. Then he could be among them, and doing what he did best.
He decided to rely on the same tactic he’d been using all night.
His diversion in hand, he crept down the stairs, trying to take a slow, measured pace.
“Jankowski, is that you?” came a voice from the bottom. It was mostly strong, but tinged with a bit of nerves.
Jared tried to keep his voice as flat and neutral as possible. “Yeah,” he said, injecting a bit of pain into it, which was easy enough to do. He hurt all over.
The other man started to respond just as Jared turned the corner.
“See, I told you it was—”
The body Jared had been holding in front of him went flying forward. The guard at the bottom oomphed as it hit him, but Jared didn’t pause to watch. Even as his arms thrust the body one way, his legs propelled his own body another. He tackled the second guard in the stomach, and the pair went down heavily.
During the roll though, Jared saw a third guard already charging down on him from the rear. There was no time to play fair, though he did feel a mild sympathy as he drove his knee between the guard’s legs. The strangled scream that came from the man’s throat was cut off abruptly by a giant fist.
Thick arms wrapped themselves around his waist and Jared was lifted off his feet by the third guard, who began to squeeze tightly. He struggled, trying to hit the man from behind. Even though his arms were free though, he couldn’t land any blows solid enough to break the grip.
Something popped in his chest and pain lanced through him.
The other guard was recovered now and came straight at Jared, fist cocked back.
The Alpha shifter tucked his legs up under him and kicked out hard. The movement sent the oncoming shifter flying backward, with the added effect that Jared flipped up and over the Agent holding him, breaking the grip. He landed in a crouch and rose quickly, blocking the leg that was aimed at his head.
“Enough,” he rumbled, his angry voice filling the downstairs area.
He lunged at the man, opening his mouth to bite him.
The guard looked so surprised he almost laughed.
The looked died as Jared’s bear emerged and the jaws snapped closed around his throat, ripping it apart in a spray of blood.
His bear continued to maraud through the basement as he chased after the final guard. Furniture and even some walls simply disintegrated as he hit them, spraying dust and woodchips into the air.
He finally caught his last opponent, his claws hooking onto the man’s pants and sending him tumbling to the floor. Jared was upon him before he could recover, and just like that, the fight was over.
Shifting back, he winced once more at the pain in his side. Broken ribs were the worst, because there was nothing he could do about them. They also tended to bruise badly, which meant he would be feeling it for several hours likely at least.
“Justin!” he said, his deep voice rebounding off the walls loudly.
There was no answer.
Walking slowly, trying to keep his breathing as shallow and smooth as possible, he began to search the rooms one by one. The downstairs was a square, with the stairs depositing him facing one side. To his right were three rooms closed off by walls. Most of those walls had some level of damage to them from his rampaging bear.
To his left the basement followed what appeared to be the lines of the house. He immediately checked under the stairs, but there was nothing there either, just storage.
His eyes flicked back up the stairs. Was he being held elsewhere? That didn’t make sense. Why would the three guards have stayed downstairs then? To distract him?
It was plausible, but his hearing would likely have detected others moving about in the house by now. No, whatever it was, it was down here. Jared made a further inspection of each room, but he turned up nothing. As he exited the last room, he slammed his hand angrily into the wall, taking out some of his rage on the drywall.
To his surprise, his hand went right through it.
“What the hell?” he said, surprised. He had expected to hit concrete. Pulling back his hand, Jared peered through the hole. There was a room on the far side.
Which meant a door. He scanned the wall for it, but couldn’t see one, nor even a sign of where the hidden door might be. Whoever had done it was good.
“Justin?” he called through the opening.
There was perhaps a very slight, soft sound, but he could just as easily have imagined it. Still, it was enough. Without thinking it through any further, he simply stepped back from the wall and then slammed himself into it. Drywall crumbled and wood studs bent and snapped as he shouldered his way through the wall, emerging into one last room.
“Justin!” he exclaimed. His team member was strapped to a chair, a tube linked into one of his veins. Something slowly dripped from it and into his system. Jared ripped it free and gave it a sniff.
Tranquilizer. Powerful too.
He tore the bindings off Justin and bodily tossed him over his shoulder. So far he’d been in the building for perhaps ten minutes, though it felt like an eternity. Fights always seemed to slow down, to play out at half-speed compared to other events in life. If there were more guards around, they would be there, or not far away.
Justin stirred slightly behind him, but nothing more as he took the stairs two at a time, careful not to slam his friend’s head off the walls.
There was nobody around the front however, and he made a clean getaway. His plan had worked.
The car came to life as he jogged toward it. Then something clued in.
“What is it?” Nadia asked, rolling down the window as he came to a halt.
“Where the fuck are we going to fit him?” Jared asked in disbelief at having overlooked that aspect of the rescue.
“Trunk?” Nadia asked.
“Ditch the car,” he said. “I have an idea. He’s not going to fit in the trunk. Too big for that.”
Nadia, to her credit, didn’t hesitate, sliding from the car quickly and following him as he turned and headed back for the Agency house.
“What are we doing?” she hissed, seeing where he was taking them. “Isn’t this where the bad guys are?”
“No bad guys right now,” he said, perhaps a little more harshly than he should have. “Sorry,” he apologized.
“It’s okay,” she said, rubbing his shoulder gently as they moved. “You’re just worried about him. I get it.”
“I still shouldn’t have taken any of it out on you,” he declared, then tossed his chin in the direction of his idea. “See if the keys are in it.”
Nadia ran forward and tugged on the driver’s-side door. It opened.
“No keys,” she said.
“Check the console,” he said, urging her to move faster as she rifled through the interior.
“Found them!” she crowed successfully, pulling them from a cup holder and starting the big black SUV.
Jared yanked open a rear door awkwardly and laid Justin across the back seat, shoving his legs in so they fit easily.
“Time to go,” he said as he hopped in the front seat.
Nadia had it headed back down the driveway before he finished speaking, and they swiftly disappeared into the night.