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  “Which way is Sage heading, and how much of a head start does she have?” Trevor asked.

  “Tanner said she’s heading northeast, with at least a fifteen-minute head start.”

  Cursing again, Trevor threw the Suburban into gear and floored it, making the other drivers honk and swerve as he merged onto the interstate.

  “We’ll try to get ahead of her,” he said as he weaved in and out of traffic. “Hopefully we can keep her from reaching any heavily populated areas outside the Quantico boundary.”

  “Hurry,” Zarina said. “Sage hasn’t interacted with more than a handful of people the whole time she’s been here. I’m not sure how she’ll deal with the outside world.”

  “No kidding,” Trevor muttered. “I’m going to call Tanner. We’ll let you know something as soon as we can. Do anything necessary to keep Dick from finding out about this.”

  “Who is Sage?” Alina asked after he hung up. “And why do you think Dick will have her killed?”

  Trevor’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t answer.

  “Dammit, Trevor!” she snapped. “I admit it. I screwed up, and I betrayed you, and I’m sorry about that. But right now, I need to know what’s going on if I’m going to help you find that girl. Unless you intend to kick me out and leave me stranded on the side of the road.”

  He glanced at her. “Alina, this isn’t some damn game. This isn’t about you and me and how much—or how little—we might trust each other. This is about a terrified woman who needs help. If you tell Dick about any of this, he’ll have her executed, plain and simple.”

  Hearing Trevor say he didn’t trust her hurt more than she wanted to admit. “I’m not going to tell him anything.”

  Trevor was silent for a moment, but then he nodded. “Okay. I’m trusting you, not just with Sage’s life, but with Jaxson’s, Tanner’s, and Zarina’s as well. If Dick finds out what they’ve been doing, getting fired will be the least of their problems.”

  Alina grabbed the roll bar handle as Trevor took the next exit at warp speed and turned on state road 234 along the northeast side of the Prince William Forest. The wooded area served as a buffer along the northern edge of the Quantico training facility. Trevor must have been trying to get north of Sage and stop her before she got out of the forest.

  Trevor handed his phone to her. “Hit the third number on speed dial.”

  She looked down at the phone and realized there wasn’t a single name listed in the contacts list. Just a collection of ten speed-dial numbers. It was clearly a burner phone. Containing her curiosity for the moment, she poked the third button, then put the phone on speaker. When the call connected, all she heard was a garbled mix of what sounded like the pounding of feet.

  “Trevor?” a male voice shouted over the din.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Tanner,” her partner said. “Alina and I are on Highway 234 heading toward the northeast side of the boundary. Where are you and Jaxson?”

  “I’m tracking Sage on foot through the forest, maybe ten minutes behind her. Jaxson is in an SUV trying to keep up with me as best he can. Hold on, and I’ll pull him into the call.”

  A few moments later, the roar of an engine came over the line, interspersed with a lot of expletives.

  “I’m a little busy trying to read a map and drive at the same time, guys,” Jaxson said. “It’s not really the best time to chat.”

  “Then just listen,” Trevor told him. “Tanner, do you think you can catch up with Sage before she reaches the perimeter fence?”

  “Not a chance,” Tanner said. “Sage is really frigging fast. Probably as fast as I am, which is kind of painful to admit. She’s making a beeline for the northeast boundary and will probably come out somewhere around Independent Hill. She’s barely five minutes from the fence.”

  Trevor swore and floored the gas. “Alina and I will try to get in front of her and keep her from getting too far into town. Hopefully we can keep anyone from seeing her.”

  “Approach her slowly so you don’t freak her out,” Tanner warned. “She’s just scared.”

  “It’s not her I’m worried about. It’s the civilians she runs into. I don’t want someone calling the cops,” Trevor said. “You have any idea where she’s ultimately going or what she’s trying to do?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say she’s trying to find Derek,” Tanner replied.

  Trevor muttered a curse. “I’ll call you guys when we reach the outskirts of Independence Hill.”

  He nodded, and Alina hung up.

  “I already know Jaxson,” she said. “Who are Zarina and Tanner?”

  “Good friends who are willing to risk their lives to help someone.”

  She was hoping he’d say a little bit more than that, but okay. “If you’re all friends, why is Sage running from them? More importantly, what’s the big deal if someone sees her?”

  Trevor passed several cars on the four-lane road before answering. “Did Dick tell you about hybrids?”

  Alina shook her head. “Not really. He mentioned them, but from the way he said it, I assumed it was another word for shifter. He also used the acronym EVA once, but he never said what it meant.”

  Trevor grunted. “Figures. Dick likes to paint all of us with the same brush. EVA means extremely valuable asset. It’s the bureaucratic term the DCO came up with to describe shifters. As you can imagine, it’s not a term we think much of.”

  She could understand that. “Okay. So what’s a hybrid, then?”

  “Hybrids are man-made shifters. It’s an attempt by some evil people to create shifters in a laboratory by giving normal, everyday people a chemical cocktail to twist their DNA around and force their bodies to exhibit the same traits shifters possess. It’s a violent, dangerous, and incredibly painful process that can have a ton of unintended side effects, especially when it comes to a person’s self-control.”

  Alina already knew she wasn’t going to like where this was going. It sounded like something out of a horror movie.

  “Sage was kidnapped from her home in Canada and given who knows how many different hybrid drugs,” Trevor continued. “On top of that, she was shuffled all over the world from one clandestine lab to the next, where she was experimented on. Sage isn’t the first person to fall victim to those psychopaths, but she’s by far the most unstable one we’ve been able to rescue. She’s hanging on to her sanity by a thread. We hate doing it, but we have to keep her locked up in a small apartment-slash-cell on the complex.”

  “The most unstable one you’ve been able to rescue?” Alina repeated, getting a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Do you mean there have been others that you couldn’t rescue?”

  Trevor nodded. “Unfortunately, there have been a lot. Many never survive the hybrid serum to begin with. Most of those who do live become so violent and insane we’ve had no choice but to kill them.”

  Alina shook her head. “Who would try to play God like that?”

  Trevor didn’t say anything, the same impenetrable wall shutting her out.

  “Answer me,” she said. “Who did this?”

  He gave her a quick glance before focusing again on the road they were speeding down.

  “It was Thorn,” he growled. “That asshole has been trying to build a hybrid army for years, and Sage is just one of the many casualties that have occurred along the way.”

  Chapter 10

  Jaxson and Tanner were waiting for them outside a tiny Catholic church located on the outskirts of Independent Hill.

  “She’s inside,” Jaxson said the moment Trevor and Alina got out of the SUV.

  Trevor muttered a curse. The hope that they’d catch up with Sage before she reached the town had evaporated when Tanner had called a few minutes ago to say she’d already jumped the fence and that he’d tracked her to the church.

  “Please tell me she’s alone,” Trevor sai
d.

  Secretly, he didn’t think they could possibly get that lucky, but hey, this was a church, so maybe his prayers would be answered.

  Tanner shook his head. “Afraid not. The good news is that there’s only one other person in there with her. I assume it’s the priest.”

  Trevor glanced at Jaxson. “Did you bring them?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jaxson opened the back of his SUV and took a hard plastic case from the backseat. Placing it on the hood, he lifted the lid to reveal four dart guns. It was amazing how much these things looked like the paintball guns he and Alina had used the other day. All things being equal, Trevor would much rather have been back in the shoot house getting shot with green-dye rounds.

  “We’re going to tranquilize her?” Alina asked, looking back and forth between Trevor and the other guys.

  “None of us want to, but we might not have a choice,” Trevor told her.

  He appreciated the fact that even though she’d never met Sage, Alina was clearly uneasy about the idea of shooting her with a tranquilizer dart. It made him feel a little better about bringing Alina on this rescue mission.

  When she’d first confessed to spying for Dick, he’d just about lost it. But after she’d admitted Dick had made it seem like he was a traitor and a murderer, Trevor had cooled off a bit. He’d known Dick for a long time, so he knew what kind of manipulative SOB the man could be. That said, he still wasn’t ready to trust Alina completely. They had a way to go before they could get there. But his gut told him they were on the right track. That was good enough for now.

  Trevor pushed those thoughts aside for the moment, needing to focus on Sage and getting her back to the complex before Dick or anyone else discovered she was gone.

  “No one wants to shoot her,” Tanner was telling Alina. “But we can’t take the chance Sage might lose control in there and hurt the priest or one of us. Trust me when I tell you this. Hurting someone is the last thing Sage wants to do. It would tear her apart.”

  “We’ll try and talk her down first,” Trevor promised as he slid the dart gun inside his belt at his lower back. “We only pull the weapons as a last resort, understood?”

  Giving Tanner and Jaxson a nod, he and Alina headed around to the back of the church while Tanner and Jaxson took the front.

  They passed a tiny house attached to the rear of the church that was most likely the priest’s residence, then made their way over to the back door of the church. Trevor hoped like hell she hadn’t gone into a rage and killed the poor man already.

  “A hybrid’s eyes will turn bright red when they’re on the verge of losing it,” Trevor told Alina. “When they get like that, it’s nearly impossible to get through to them. That’s when they’re really dangerous. If you see her eyes turn red, get the hell out of the way, okay?”

  Alina looked like she wanted to argue, but then shook her head. “Fine. But how about we make sure it doesn’t come to that?”

  “That’s the plan,” he murmured as he pushed open the door. “But everyone knows what they say about plans.”

  Giving Alina a nod, Trevor led the way down the hall, his footsteps silent on the marble floor. Thankfully, he didn’t pick up the scent of blood. Maybe it meant Sage was fully in control.

  When they reached the end of the hallway, he heard soft voices coming from the main part of the church. Trevor couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like someone praying.

  He stepped into the main part of the church, Alina right behind him. Sage was sitting in the front pew beside an older priest dressed in traditional black garments. Their hands were clasped in front of them as they recited a prayer together.

  Sage’s head immediately came up, her eyes glowing as red as two Christmas tree lights. Trevor’s heart sank. If that wasn’t bad enough, her claws and fangs were out, too. Crap, she was in full-on hybrid mode.

  Why the hell wasn’t the old priest freaking out? Unless he was blind, he had to have figured out that there was something seriously different about Sage. But the guy simply sat there, softly praying as if he were the only person in the church.

  Sage shot to her feet, a growl slipping from her throat. Beside her, the priest’s prayers stumbled to a halt. He looked up, his eyes filling with alarm when he saw Trevor and Alina. He slowly shook his head, like he was trying to get them to back off.

  Noise from the front of the church startled Sage, and she whipped her head around to look over her shoulder at Tanner and Jaxson as they slipped through the big double doors and fanned out to either side.

  Trevor held up his hand, motioning for them to stay where they were. Taking a deep breath, he stepped a little closer to Sage, hoping she’d turn her attention back to him. As he moved, he caught the priest’s eye, trying to get him to slip away from Sage, but the old guy seemed intent on remaining where he was. It was like he thought Sage was the one in danger.

  “It’s okay, Sage,” Trevor said gently. “We’re here to help. No one’s going to hurt you. We’re all friends here.”

  Sage didn’t seem to believe that. Eyes blazing, she took three quick strides in his direction, her long, sharp fangs bared in a snarl. Hybrids might not have had much in the way of control, but they definitely had some serious fangs on them. If Sage ever truly lost it and sunk those teeth into someone, it would be all over.

  He hadn’t seen Sage much since he and the others had brought her back from Tajikistan, but she looked like she hadn’t slept in days. From the wetness on her cheeks, it was obvious she’d been crying, too.

  Trevor’s heart went out to her, it really did, but that didn’t stop him from slowly reaching behind his back for the tranquilizer gun. With her hybrid strength and reflexes, Sage was already close enough to attack. Even if he darted her in midair, the sedative wouldn’t take effect for fifteen to thirty seconds. A hybrid could do a lot of damage in that amount of time. He could probably survive an attack like that, but if Sage turned on Alina, his partner probably wouldn’t be so lucky.

  The thought of Alina getting hurt bothered him a hell of a lot more than he ever would have expected.

  “Alina, start backing away slowly,” he whispered. “Things are about to go all kinds of bad.”

  He’d already figured out a while ago that his partner was stubborn, so he wasn’t surprised when she hesitated. But he didn’t expect her to completely ignore him, much less step in front of him to put herself between him and Sage.

  Trevor’s gut reaction was to grab her and drag her behind him, but he knew if he did, it would only freak Sage out even more.

  “Alina, what the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Sage, my name is Alina,” his partner said calmly. “You don’t know me, but I promise that I won’t let anything bad happen to you. We need to get you back home. It’s not safe for you to be out here like this.”

  Sage growled, flashing her fangs again. But she made no move to pounce. In fact, he could have sworn the red glow in her eyes dimmed a little. Maybe Sage responded better to women than men? Or maybe she simply responded to Alina. He had to admit she seemed to have a way about her that put people at ease.

  Alina must have taken Sage’s hesitation as a good sign, because she stepped closer and held out her hand, palm up. “Will you let me take you home, Sage?”

  The gesture seemed to shock Sage as much as it did Trevor, and she took a step back. “It’s not my home,” she growled in a tone that was filled with anguish. “I don’t want to go back there.”

  Trevor held his breath as Alina moved closer to Sage again. This was frigging insane.

  “Where would you like to go instead, Sage?” Alina asked. “If you could go anywhere, where would it be?”

  “I want to go wherever Derek is,” she wailed. “Can you take me to him?”

  The look of heart-wrenching despair that crossed her face as she said Derek’s name nearly ripped T
revor’s guts out. He’d expected her to say she wanted to go back to her family in Canada, but Tanner had been right. Her instinctive need to be with the man who’d saved her in Tajikistan was stronger than the urge to go home.

  Alina gave Trevor a questioning look, no doubt wondering who the hell Derek was and how they could get him here. Unfortunately, that was going to be tough. The man was still active duty Special Forces. He was lucky to see the States more than a month or so out of the year.

  “He’s a soldier,” Trevor said. “He’s probably…”

  He’d been about to say Derek was probably deployed, but then he caught sight of Tanner waving his hands and shaking his head. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t talk about that.

  “Derek’s currently…hard to reach,” he said instead.

  Tears welled up in Sage’s eyes. “Can’t I just talk to him on the phone? Please? If I could hear his voice, that would be enough.”

  Alina looked at Trevor again. All he could do was shrug. How the hell could he get hold of a deployed Special Forces soldier when he wasn’t even sure where in the world the man was?

  “I promise that when we get back to the complex, I’m going to find Derek and get him on the phone,” Alina told Sage firmly. “I don’t care what I have to do. You’re going to talk to him today. I swear it.”

  Sage regarded Alina silently, as if trying to decide if she should believe her. Trevor tightened his grip on the tranquilizer gun behind his back. But as he watched, the last of the red glow slowly faded from Sage’s eyes, her claws and fangs retracting. Then she threw herself into Alina’s arms, tears coming hard and fast.

  Alina wrapped her arms around the girl, squeezing her tightly and promising she’d keep Sage safe and get her back with Derek as fast as possible. The heartache pouring out of the poor girl in great racking sobs was difficult for Trevor to watch. Damn, he hated seeing a woman cry. It drove a spike right through his frigging heart. Sage was like a wounded animal who was lost and confused and in pain, not knowing why it was all happening to her. He couldn’t imagine how the girl even held it together.