Forever's Fight (2 page)

Even with the snow on the ground, she sat there next to the creek. She was too lost in her thoughts to notice the cold and wind beating against her. Her long blonde hair whipped around her from the breeze and she didn’t bat it out of her face like she normally would.

“Jade.” He called to her as he neared, but still she didn’t acknowledge him.
My dear sister, what can we do to help you?

During medical school, he had studied cases of trauma and depression, and during his time as a family doctor he’d had to treat it, but when it came to his sister, he hesitated. He wanted to do whatever he could to help her return to the woman she had once been, but there were dangers. If he pushed too much, he could send her retreating further into herself. It was a lose-lose situation, but he was the only one there who could help her in a medical way. Besides being her brother, it was his job as her Alpha to heal her. The best way for her to move past the trauma was to talk about it. It didn’t have to be with him, it could be any of the brothers, but she had to talk to someone or she’d continue to relive it night after night in her dreams. He could only hope she’d find the courage.

“Jade.” He called to her again as he stood above her.

“I really just want to be alone.” She ran her hands down her jean clad legs and pulled them tighter against her chest.

“I know, but that’s not always good for you.” He sat down next to her, the snow soaking the bottom of his jeans. It was better than hovering above her. “Austin’s an ass.”

“But he’s right,” she said. “Eventually this will be worldwide. What are we going to do?” Tears welled in her eyes.

“We’re not going to let that happen. With every lead that comes through Shifters Underground, we follow up on it, destroy labs, and rescue those who need us.” He tugged off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “We’re going to make it through this.”

“Maybe Austin is right, though. Maybe we need to start building our team and prepare to fight if we have to.”

“I know none of this is easy for you, and I know you’re scared, but he is right on this. The time is coming when we’re going to need to fight in order to stay alive and free.” The terror that radiated from her permeated the air until it was almost palpable. He forced air into his lungs and added, “I’d rather have you here where we can keep you safe, but if you want, Dad’s family will welcome you in Ireland.”

“I’m not leaving without everyone. I’ve never deserted the family and I’m not going to now.” She turned to him. “Do you think Dad’s still out there? In one of those camps or a lab?”

He wanted to lie to her, to tell her their father could take care of himself, but she’d have smelled it. A lie wouldn’t bring her comfort, it would only piss her off. It was time the whole family faced up to what had happened to their father the night he’d walked out for some air, only hours before the family went into hiding. “I don’t know. If he were free, he’d have found us by now, but I don’t know if it’s better to wish he was captured and imprisoned in one of the camps, or hope he was killed on sight.”

“I can’t help but fear he might have ended up in one of the labs.” A single tear rolled down her cheek before she wiped it away. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, knowing she was thinking of her own experience.

“It was his choice to go out that night. He knew how bad things were getting, and he still went. There’s nothing we can do for him now. We’ve watched the board for the last year and there’s been nothing, not even a blip. You listed him as missing and if anyone knew anything about him, they’d have contacted you just like they do with all the others. Good or bad, we would have known.”

“Which is why I can’t stifle the fear he was taken to a lab. We have very few tips on those because they’re so heavily guarded. He could have suffered as I did without being as lucky to have you swoop in and save him.”

“If that was the case, then he’s most likely dead. From the records we’ve recovered at the labs we’ve destroyed, they kept captives alive only a short time.” As he gave her what comfort he could, he was thankful she stuck mostly to Shifters Underground and working with families. It sheltered her from what they learned about the labs and the knowledge of what happened when the shifter was no longer of any use.

He didn’t want her to know the worst of it. If they hadn’t rescued her, she’d have been incinerated alive.

Doctor Clarissa Greenwood stepped out of her new office at Hathaway Medical and headed for the door. The air in the building seemed stifling all of a sudden, and the more she thought about her new position, the more it bothered her. As a scientist, she’d believed her promotion involved studying diseases to find the cures. She fumbled with the keychain locket in her pocket. It was the one thing she never left home without, a good luck charm of sorts that her brother had given her on her first day of college as she stood before the tall buildings, ready to run.

He had always believed in her, even when she didn’t. Right now, she needed that support more than ever, considering what she’d just learned. Hathaway Medical expected her to experiment on live humans.
Shifters
. According to her bosses, and the government, shifters weren’t humans. They were believed to be no better than the animals companies tested their products on.

Clarissa’s heels clicked against the linoleum as she moved swiftly down the hall. All of a sudden it seemed as if the exit was too far away.

She wanted to
help
people, not torture them. And she was having trouble discerning the difference between a human and a shifter. All of it seemed wrong. She didn’t understand why things were happening this way, or why the government thought they could just kill or imprison an entire species. She wanted no part in it. She needed to get as far away from it as she could.

“Doctor Greenwood, just the person I was looking for.” Her boss headed straight for her, sending another wave of sickness through her. “We’ll be conducting today’s experiment on subject one-fifty-nine, so please join us in room twenty-two in an hour.”

Her stomach rolled at the comment.
Subject one-fifty-nine
wasn’t a subject. That was a person they were about to experiment on. A living, breathing, person with family and friends who were no doubt worried sick about them.

He paused and his gaze traveled over her. “You’re looking pale, are you okay?”

“Actually, I’m not feeling very well. I thought some fresh air would do me good, but I think my migraine is only getting worse.” She cringed as if the overhead light was bothering her, but in reality it was the man before her who made her ill.

“Why don’t you just skip the session, then? There’s normally a lot of noise and growls. You can watch it in your office, then go home for the day. Hopefully, by Monday, you’ll be well enough to assist with the experiments.”

I won’t be here Monday, or ever.

“Thank you for understanding, Sir.”

He patted her on the shoulder, then walked away. She hurried outside, into the sun. As she filled her lungs with fresh air, she put together a plan. She’d go back inside and gather what she could on her jump drive before the end of the business day.

Everyone was always ready to leave at five on Fridays. It was the one day overtime wasn’t permitted. The company claimed they wanted their employees to enjoy relaxing weekends with their families in order to be ready to go on Mondays. To most, it seemed like a family-friendly place to work, especially with the in-house daycare, but to her it seemed suspicious.

What happened at Hathaway Medical on weekends that they didn’t want anyone to know about? There were too many questions and not enough answers, but she was going to do her best to find out what she could. She shut her eyes, relishing the warmth of the sun on her face. Then she rolled her shoulders, stretched, and prepared to go back inside.

“Afternoon, Doctor Greenwood, is everything all right?”

She opened her eyes and found a security guard before her, his forehead creased with concern. “Andrew, I thought you were off today.”

“They wanted additional security for an experiment, so here I am.”

“That must have been the one I was supposed to be involved with, but with this migraine, Doctor Glass told me to watch it from my office.”

After a quick glance around, he leaned in closer to her. “Record it.”

She wasn’t sure what to say to that, but before she could come up with a reply, he stepped around her and headed inside. She stood there a moment, trying to figure him out. Despite his relaxed demeanor, he’d always seemed to be watching for something as if he expected something to happen.

Had he seen too many experiments? Did he think the shifters they were torturing in the sublevels of Hathaway Medical would one day rise up against the staff? No, they were too drugged for that. Because of their fast metabolisms, the staff kept the prisoners extremely sedated.

She wandered back into the building as she continued to question his words. What was going to happen that made him think she should record it herself? She picked up her pace when an idea occurred to her, then pulled out her cell phone in search of the email her brother had sent her before he took a job in South America.

There was one thing that could give her continual access to what was happening—a small virus that would go undetected by even the best surveillance.

Patrick’s fingers flew over the keyboard in a blur as he typed out his ideas, the various alternatives to the concentration camps. A letter to President Ashworth might not have been the best idea he had, but he wasn’t even sure he’d send it. Typing it out at least allowed him to get his thoughts in order, and Luke swore the email would be untraceable if he decided to send it, hidden by the same security that protected the origin of the Shifters Underground website.

He wrote about the possibility of the government giving shifters land to live on, their own towns where they could exist in peace. To him, that was still giving too much power to the government, as well as confining shifters. Still, the concept was better than the camps the shifters were already living in. They had to find a middle ground, and that’s what the suggestion was. It would give them freedom and make them safe again.

A town with houses for each family, a few little shops, even a bar, and a restaurant. If they didn’t think about the fact that it would be mandatory to stay within the bounds of the settlement—at least at certain times—they could begin to reclaim their lives. He hoped more freedoms would come over time as humans realized shifters were no threat.

Even the government had to see this was a better solution than an all-out war with shifters, who were faster, and stronger. Even so, winning the war didn’t mean they’d win the battle. If there was a war, they’d be seen as an even bigger threat to humans.

Damn it, this is a lose-lose situation.
He leaned back in his chair and let out a frustrated growl.

The house intercom mounted on his desk flickered to life, and Luke’s voice filled the room. “Patrick, I think you need to come up here.”

“What is it?” He kept his voice even, not wanting his brother to pick up on his frustration.

“Just get up here.” The urgency in Luke’s tone had Patrick pushing back his chair and heading upstairs. Luke wouldn’t have pulled him away if it weren’t important. Taking the east wing stairs two at a time, he dashed up the four flights without so much as missing a breath. The family had taken rooms on the fifth floor to give them an advantage, the reaction time needed if someone stumbled upon them. This left the first floor as their main living area, including the large castle kitchen.

While all the other siblings had made their offices or workshops on the first floor of the resort, Luke had occupied the suite next to his bedroom. This way, he was able to work at whatever hour he chose, and still be close to the bedrooms if something happened in the middle of the night.

Patrick was grateful the O’Reilly pride stuck so close together. They’d fight to the death for each other, and there was no one else he would rather have watching his back than his siblings.

He entered Luke’s office. “What did you find?”

“I was researching these injections to see what I could come up with. To see who developed them and if I could find out where they were coming from. Maybe if we knew where, we’d be able to eliminate their supply chain before they became a problem for us. That’s when I found this.” Luke leaned back in his chair, giving Patrick access to the computer. He rubbed his chin, his fingers playing over his five o’clock shadow. “Hathaway Medical was behind the discovery of this injection and now they have a missing scientist, so I dug deeper. Doctor Clarissa Greenwood was employed there for less than two weeks, but a contact of a contact said she was appalled they were experimenting on shifters and took off.”

“Wait…how long have you known they were experimenting on our kind?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I just found out this morning. I wanted solid evidence before I brought it to you. A contact of a contact isn’t enough, it could have been a trap. I’ve been working my ass off since I received the email,” Luke added, seeming irritated.

“What do you know?” Patrick leaned against the edge of the desk, ignoring his brother’s attitude.

“My contact sent me information on a shifter who might need our help. He wanted to know if we could extract him and get him somewhere safe. Andrew is a bear shifter, a retired Ranger. He was recruited for what he thought was a standard security job, only to find himself assigned to Hathaway Medical.”

“Once he realized what they were doing, why’d he stay?”

Luke leaned forward and clicked a secondary tab on the screen, which brought up a picture of a young girl, her bleached hair streaked with pink and purple. “His niece.”

Anger rolled through Patrick and his lion. The girl was just a child. She hadn’t even hit puberty yet, and there was no chance she had completed the change. What did they want with her? The hairs on the back of his neck rose, reminding him he really didn’t want to know. He’d witnessed what Jade had gone through and he could only imagine the torture they’d put this child through.

“Patrick, did you hear me?” Luke called to him, pulling him from his thoughts.

“What?”

“I said Andrew’s sister was killed two months ago and the child is missing. He believes she’s been taken to one of the labs.”

“If she has, she’s dead. You know as well as I do, they don’t keep their captives long. You read the files on that hard drive I managed to salvage before we burned down that lab, so you know what they do.” Speaking those words brought him back to that night. That horrible night when he’d seen the worst of what could happen to his kind.

Patrick, Austin, and Blake had crept up and watched as the guards at the lab did their rounds. If things went as planned, they wouldn’t make another round until the next half hour, giving the O’Reillys the time they needed. They’d slip in, rescue the captive shifters, gather any information on other labs, and burn the place. At least, that was the plan.

But nothing that night had gone according to plan. He and Austin headed deep within the building conducting their search, their guns at the ready for anyone they might have encountered, while Blake set up the dynamite that would ignite on a timer once they were clear. Patrick would gather what he could, while Austin continued the search for prisoners.

He used the security card Luke had duplicated using the coding on the security system, and with an echoing click the door unlocked. He wrapped his hand around the handle and pulled it open. Inside, the laboratory appeared tame. He’d known it was anything but. He went to the first computer, hoping to discover more about the experiments, but it was password protected. With only fifteen minutes before the next round, he didn’t have time to break it. Instead, he manually extracted the hard drive and tossed it into his bag.

Papers on the desk piqued his interest, so he shoved those in his bag as well. Later he’d go through them and see if they were of any use to them.

His ear bud sprung to life with Blake’s voice. “Ten minutes.”

“Almost done. Austin, status update.”

“No prisoners. They’re…dead. It looks like they were incinerated…alive.”

“Fuck!” Patrick turned around and there in a cage, curled into a ball, something moved. No, not something, but someone. Her long blonde hair matted with blood. He dropped the bag on the desk and stepped forward. “Shit, Austin get down here.”

“What’s going on?” The urgency in Blake’s voice forced Patrick to explain.

“I think…it’s Jade.” Not having time to find the key he grabbed the bolt cutters from his bag and unclipped the lock. “Jade.” He reached out to push her hair away from her face, and even though her eyes were glazed over from whatever drugs they had her on, he recognized his sister, who’d gone missing a few weeks before while on a mission with Luke and Chase. One that was supposed to be easy and safe, but she got separated from the brothers and was gone. They had searched high and low for her over the last few weeks.

“Are you sure?” Austin’s voice came through the transmitter as the door behind Patrick opened.

Without answering Patrick squatted down, his gun aimed at the door until he could make out Austin from the faint light of the computer screens and the light that streamed through from the hallway. “Damn it, I could have shot you.”

“Is it her?”

“Yes.” He set the gun on the desk, turned back to the cage, and pulled the electrodes and cords away from her, he reached for her. “Jade.”

She only swatted at him, scurrying deeper into the cage. Her moans cut through the quiet and tore at his heart. His sweet sister didn’t recognize him.

“What have they done to her?” Austin questioned coming to stand next to him.

“I don’t know.”

“But she’s alive?” Blake asked.

“Yes.” Patrick and Austin said nearly together.

“You’ve got six minutes, get the hell out of there,” Blake ordered.

“Grab my bag.” Patrick reached into the cage and took hold of her arm. “Come on Jade, we’ve got to go.”

“No!” Tears ran down her face. “No, I…I can’t…take anymore.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, I’m your brother.” He used his grip to force her from the cage. When he dragged her out, he could see the cuts, burns, and bruises that marred her body. Torture. His sister had been tortured.

“Oh shit!” Austin reached out to steady Jade as she tried to fight Patrick, but he seemed unsure where to put his hands. Everywhere they would normally touch was covered in some type of mark.

“Just grab the bag, I’ve got her.” He lifted her over his shoulder and grabbed his gun from the desk. He couldn’t worry that he was hurting her, not when they only had a few minutes to make it out of the building before the guards did their rounds again and Blake’s explosion was set to go off. “We’ve got to go.”

“Patrick, she’s here with us,” Luke’s voice called through the memories and broke him from his thoughts.

“What?” It took him a moment to recall he was in the castle in Luke’s office, not rescuing Jade again. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Jade wasn’t the only one reliving that nightmare. Those papers he had gathered, many of them discussed the experiments they’d conducted on her. She might not fully remember what happened there, only the agony that had come with it, but his mind was able to conjure up images of what she went through. If they hadn’t gotten to her, she would have been dead the next day. He shook his head.
She’s safe now.

“You kept saying Jade’s name over and over. You were thinking about the laboratory again, weren’t you?”

“Shit.” He pushed off the desk and paced the room. His lion needed a long run to get this out of his system, to reset his thoughts and get his mind back in the game. “What about this missing scientist?”

“Doctor Clarissa Greenwood.” Luke leaned forward, his fingers clicking along the keyboard keys for a moment before looking back up at Patrick. “She has her doctorate in chemistry. According to Andrew, she was brought in to try to determine the correct dosage to keep the shifters sedated enough that they can’t fight back but would still be able to suffer. They don’t want to continue to sedate the shifters so much that they don’t feel what’s being done to them.”

“Fuck. That will make the labs worse than they are now. The one plus side to what’s happened with Jade is that she doesn’t remember a lot of it. She sees the scars but everything that happened is somewhat blurred and unclear.”

“She’s starting to remember pieces of it. I can see it in her eyes, the nightmares are more frequent.” Luke leaned back again. “Andrew doesn’t believe Doctor Greenwood knew what she was hired to do. Otherwise, why would she take off when she had finally begun working on the project she was hired to do? He told her to record the last experiment she was there for. That was Friday. Now she’s gone.”

Patrick tried to figure how far she could have gotten in five days. “She’ll have information on the layout of the building, where they’re holding the shifters captive, and maybe she can help us determine the best way to get in.”

“You’re going to go after her, even though she might have known she’d be conducting experiments on us?”

He paused and turned to face Luke. “I don’t see much of a choice. If they’re torturing our kind there, we’ve got to do something. You know how hard it is to get any information on these labs. We need an insider if we’re going to make a successful mission out of it. We want to get in, save as many as we can, and get out ourselves. We find her, and we take down Hathaway Medical.”

“I’ll get on it and see if I can find her.” Luke scooted his office chair close to the desk, a clear sign for Patrick to get lost and let him get back to work. “I’ll let you know when I find something.”

With nothing else to do, he headed out to find Austin and bring him up to speed. They needed to come up with a plan and figure out who was going with him in search of Doctor Greenwood. Once that was settled, he’d squeeze in a quick run before it was time for their nightly family dinner.

Even though they had gone into hiding, they kept some of their normal routines. Family dinners gave them time to forget about the world, or that they were refugees in hiding. They tried not to think about what was happening outside of the abandoned ski resort they’d taken over, or that their father was still missing. They were a family, and they needed to stick together in order to make it through this. As a family, they were strong. He knew they could get through anything.