Prisoner (Werewolf Marines) (6 page)

“You mean, Dr. Semple dropped the ball.”

Despite the long-standing feud between Mr.
Dowling and Dr. Semple, Mr. Dowling didn’t seem consoled by the
thought of his rival getting in trouble. He ignored her cue and
went on, “Torres injured fifteen guards and tranquilized seven,
plus Dr. Semple and yourself. Not to mention doing thousands of
dollars worth of property damage.”

Echo enjoyed the description of how this
Torres guy had wreaked havoc on the base. She’d have loved to do
the same herself. “How long did it take you re-capture him?”

“We haven’t.”

“What? He escaped?” Echo was taken aback. No
one ever escaped from Wildfire Base.

“
Yet
.” Mr. Dowling added quickly,
“That is, we hadn’t as of ten minutes ago. But he escaped on foot,
so he won’t get far.”

“He just ran outside, with no supplies or
water? And you still haven’t gotten him? How long has he been out
there?”

Mr. Dowling checked his watch. “Two hours,
thirty-nine minutes. We sent four search teams, including the pack,
but the air is too dry and still for them to pick up his scent. And
it’s too hot for them to spend much time outside their
vehicles.”

“How hot is it?”

“117 degrees.”

Echo couldn’t help admiring the nerve of a
man who would venture into that killing heat, and the
resourcefulness and endurance of one who could evade multiple
search teams for hours. He couldn’t escape, of course… Or could he?
She smiled at the thought that he might. “No problem. I’ll go fetch
him.”

Mr. Dowling gave her a warning look. “We want
him alive and in one piece. Understand, Echo? If you harm him,
there will be serious consequences.
Serious.
”

“I assumed you wanted him alive and
unharmed,” Echo said, baffled. “He’s a recruit, not a target.”

“Oh.” Mr. Dowling looked abashed. “The way
you smiled— and he did beat you in a fight— well, it was a natural
assumption.”

“I don’t want to kill him. I smiled because…”
She didn’t want to admit that she’d been rooting for the fugitive.
“I never get to do search and rescue. It’ll be different. Fun.”

Mr. Dowling seemed surprised by that. Was it
that shocking for her to smile and say that she was looking forward
to something? Apparently so.

They went to the vehicle bay, where he showed
her to a Humvee with a medical kit and cooling-off materials, and
reviewed first aid for heat illness.

“One last thing, Echo,” he added.

She waited for him to again warn her not to
kill Torres. Instead, he said, “If you help him escape, Charlie’s
pain meds will mysteriously stop working.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She slammed the
door in his face.

Fucking asshole,
Echo thought as she
drove out. As if she’d risk Charlie for a stranger.

As if she’d risk Charlie for anyone.

Once she’d passed security and was out in the
desert, she slowed, trying to see the landscape as a stranger
would. As Dale Torres would.

She thought back to her encounter with him.
The red alert and frantic yelling over the radio had given Echo the
impression that the Terminator was on the loose. As she’d raced to
intercept the prisoner, she’d pictured a hulking figure with
steroid muscles, bulging veins, and a brutish face twisted in
battle rage.

When she caught up with him, she thought,
That’s
the guy who’s tearing up Wildfire Base?

If she’d imagined the prisoner as handsome
rather than monstrous, she’d have pictured one of the heroes from
Charlie’s books: dangerous, damaged, and domineering. He was
handsome, in fact, but he also looked… nice. Sweet, even. Boyish.
Not the Navy SEAL or billionaire hero, but maybe the billionaire’s
best friend or the heroine’s brother. The one who didn’t get his
own book, due to being insufficiently screwed up and bossy.

Echo had dismissed those ridiculous fancies
and examined her opponent objectively. Mid twenties— about her age.
Asian, maybe Filipino. Medium height, muscular build, medium brown
skin, dark eyes, black hair. In hospital pajamas and bare feet, his
clipped hair was the most military thing about him.

In turn, he examined her. Echo usually wasn’t
much good at reading people, but he had a very expressive face. She
caught surprise at her sudden appearance, followed by curiosity, a
flash of admiration, dismissal of her as a threat, and finally, to
Echo’s confusion, sympathy.

His voice also startled her, first with its
oddly pleasant scratchy quality, and then by the politeness with
which he’d asked her to step aside, as if they were maneuvering on
a crowded sidewalk. It was as incongruous as his promise not to
hurt her. Armed with nothing but a tranquilizer gun, he looked so
innocent that it was hard to imagine he was capable of hurting
anyone. Certainly not her.

But he had. She was bruised all over, and
every step sent a jolt of pain through her ankle. And he’d won,
albeit by trickery. He’d
won
. Torres was the first person in
Echo’s adult life to ever defeat her in a fight.

The cuteness is deceptive,
he’d said.
They’re small, but fierce
.
Like me.

He’d actually warned her that she was
underestimating him, and she’d still done so. So had Dr. Semple. So
had the entire base, apparently. That was something to start with:
however far she thought Torres was likely to have gotten, she
should probably double that distance.

Listening on the radio, she heard that the
search parties had fanned out and were combing a ten-mile radius
around the base, figuring he couldn’t have gotten too far in the
deadly heat.

He’s twenty miles out,
she thought.
Minimum.
Wolves can run at thirty-five miles per
hour.

What else did she know about him?

From the trick he’d played on her, he was
bright. Observant. Quick-witted. He’d undoubtedly gone into the
canyons, where he couldn’t be easily spotted. She wished she knew
if he had any idea where he was, but she guessed that he’d at least
figured out that he was somewhere in the southwest. If that was the
case, he’d head west, for the coast. Echo turned the Humvee in that
direction.

The pack had apparently come to the same
conclusion; Echo spotted a parked Humvee with Guadalupe Cordero
sitting in the passenger seat and listening to the radio, no doubt
directing the pack’s operations. Her crutches leaned against the
seat, and the scarred side of her face, with its black eye patch,
was turned toward Echo.

The rest of the pack was outside,
investigating a small mesa of orange and red granite. It was split
with fissures, some wide enough to crawl into, and pocked with
caves. The alpha, Emmett Anderson, stood overseeing them, hunched
under the brutal sun. His graying hair, the deep lines in his face,
and his air of weariness made him look old, though he was only
forty.

Loser,
Echo thought.
Some alpha.
The only thing he’s good for is controlling the pack sense, and he
fucks that up every other month.

Every now and then, a pack member would get
angry or depressed or stressed out, the emotion would be
transmitted and amplified through the pack sense, Emmett would fail
to shut it down, and one or more of the wolves would be overwhelmed
by it. Usually they just had an embarrassing public breakdown, but
Ty once punched out a guard. More seriously, last month Amber stole
and crashed a base vehicle, though luckily she’d walked away with
only a broken wrist.

Echo happened to know that one of the reasons
Dr. Semple still kept an eye out for potential made wolf recruits
was that she was hoping to turn up another alpha. She’d had high
hopes for Guadalupe, but though she had the willpower and
leadership capabilities that Emmett lacked, she couldn’t control
the pack sense. So far, none of the made wolves could.

No wonder Mr. Dowling was so excited at the
prospect of recruiting a born wolf. Torres couldn’t join the pack—
he had to already have a pack of his own— but at least he wouldn’t
be afflicted with its problems.

As Echo pulled up, Push Malakar squirmed out
of a narrow crack in the mesa, her strong brown arms scraped and
her black hair hanging all over her sweaty face, and shook her head
with a grin and a shrug.

“Nothing!” Push called. “But I’ll do the next
as a wolf. Maybe I’ll pick up a scent.”

Emmett’s radio crackled, and Guadalupe’s
voice suggested, “Try a bigger cave. Remember, Torres has to be
able to fit in.”

The air shimmered, and Push became a sleek
gray wolf. Her jaws gaped as if she was laughing. She leaped into
the air, scrabbled for purchase at the mouth of a cave halfway up
the low mesa, and vanished within.

Echo wasn’t surprised to see that Push seemed
to be enjoying herself. The more strenuous and dangerous a job was,
the better she liked it. While the rest of the wolf pack had
volunteered because they were dying anyway, Push had been a
perfectly healthy adrenaline junkie who’d thought that a 50-50
chance of dying in agony and an additional chance of her
transformation going horribly wrong was a reasonable trade-off for
the possibility of becoming a super-powered werewolf.

Echo had to admit that Push had known herself
well: she was the only member of the pack who showed no signs of
regretting her decision. Of course, she’d also lucked out and
gotten a useful power with no life-ruining side effects. Echo
doubted Push would have been so chipper if she’d ended up like
Amber or Match.

The other wolves seemed less enthusiastic
about the search. Amber Killeen and Ty Roberts were poking around
other caves, Ty with a flashlight and Amber in her tawny wolf form.
Amber drooped, tail down, and sweat plastered Ty’s white shirt to
his dark skin. Match lay panting at the mouth of another cave,
weighed down by his thick black fur.

The radio crackled, and Guadalupe’s voice cut
across the parched air. “Tell Match to get in the Humvee with me.
He looks like he’s overheating. Actually, you should all take a
break.”

Emmett became a heavyset brown wolf and
nudged Match. The black wolf obediently loped to the Humvee and
joined Guadalupe in the air-conditioned interior.

Echo rolled down her window. The heat was
stunning; she instinctively pulled back.

Emmett became a man again. “Amber, transform;
you’ll get heat stroke.”

The tawny wolf seemed not to hear. Ty gave
her side a thump. “Come on, Amber. You heard him.”

With a shimmer like a heat wave, the wolf
became a woman. Amber had dressed for the weather, as much as she
could: white jeans stuffed into boots, long-sleeved white
turtleneck, white scarf tied around her head, and white leather
gloves. Only her face and long blonde hair was exposed, but Ty
still took a habitual, cautious step back.

“Did you catch his scent here?” Echo called
out.

Emmett shook his head. “Too dry.”

Amber added, “We think he’s gone to ground.
He’d feel sick, realize he can’t go on, and find a shady place to
hide in. And this is full of shady places.”

It was a reasonable theory, if you hadn’t
fought Torres. And he’d probably do it eventually. But Echo bet he
wouldn’t have gotten to that point anywhere near that soon.

“But it’s only a few degrees cooler in the
caves,” Amber went on. “He’d pass out and never wake up.”

“Speaking of which…” Emmett cupped his hands
around his mouth: “Everyone, back to the Humvee! Rest and
hydrate!”

Echo rolled up her window and drove on. With
all the breaks the pack would have to take in this heat, they had
no chance of catching Torres. Unless he gave up and turned back,
Echo was the only person on the entire base who had a shot at
finding him before he dropped dead.

She mentally replayed her fight with him as
she drove, searching for more clues. Instead, she recalled his
distinctive scratchy voice, and wondered if he’d been interrogated
for so long that he’d worn it out or if he always sounded like
that. Most men who fought her seemed angry or resentful at her
strength, in the split second before they realized that she could
kill them and got scared. Torres had sounded admiring when he’d
called her strong, and he’d never seemed afraid.

Echo had been outraged when she’d realized
that he’d been distracting her so he could use her as a human
shield, but now it made her laugh to remember how he’d compared
himself to a platypus. What sort of man would come up with
that
as a distraction, in the middle of a desperate
fight?

She hoped she’d get to fight him again. No
one wanted to spar with her any more. She was too fast and too
strong, and she always ended up hitting someone too hard, either by
accident or because she lost patience with holding herself back.
But if she ever got a chance to spar Torres, she could go all-out.
He could obviously take it.

Echo scanned the desert, looking for some
landmark to the west that he might have headed toward. Basic desert
survival was to find shade and stay in it during the day, but there
was little shade to be found here. She settled on a striking rock
formation. It was to the west, it looked like it would have caves,
you could see it from the canyons, and it appeared to be close
enough to walk to. She happened to know that it wasn’t, but Torres
probably didn’t. If she searched all the canyons leading toward it,
she should find him eventually.

She parked the Humvee and climbed into the
back. Echo ignored the stunner in the holster on the wall. That was
a tool for normals. She didn’t need it. Instead, she pulled on a
long-sleeved cotton shirt and a hat, loaded a rucksack with water
and a cooler with cold packs, drank a bottle of water, and got
out.

Despite her resistance to temperature
extremes, the heat staggered her. By the time she’d finished
searching the first canyon and its nearest offshoots, she’d drunk
another two bottles. Even so, she had a slight dehydration
headache. She checked her watch, and was alarmed to realize that
Torres had been in the desert for nearly five hours.