Page 15 of Alpha Awakened
“On three,” Ice silently mouthed.
Ice counted down. On three, he leaned around the doorway, gun up to fire into the prep room. Hazard dropped to his knees so he’d have clearance and shot from behind Ice’s legs.
“Let’s move,” Ice said when there was no return fire.
They proceeded into the room. There were three dead guards. A woman kneeled on the floor with her hands raised over her head. Another woman stood next to her, chin haughtily raised, and a hand behind her back.
“Emma Larson! We’re US Legion! Let me see your hands!” Hazard shouted.
Larson obeyed his order. She showed her hands. But one of them was clutching a big, sharp kitchen knife. Her face twisted in a snarl, she let out a yell and ran at them with the knife raised to strike.
“I got her,” Ice said.
He moved forward to meet her. She swung the knife at him, but Ice dodged the blade. He grabbed her wrist and squeezed until she yelled. She loosened her grip and the knife fell from her hand, clattering to the floor. Ice twisted her arm up behind her back.
“Emma Larson, you are taken into the custody of the US Legion,” Ice said as he bound her wrists behind her back with Flexi-Cuffs.
Hazard went over and quickly did the same to the sister.
“The Larson sisters are secured,” he reported to the major over the comm link. “Three guards are K.I.A.”
“Roger that. We’re pursuing Liam.”
“Need assistance?”
The major didn’t immediately answer. The sound of running footsteps came over the line, followed by a grunt, breaking glass, and a pained howl.
“No,” Ortiz came back on the line, her breathing a little harsher than before. “The fucker tried to shift and run off but we got him.”
Roger.” He left them to it and focused on his captured target. “Up you get.” Hazard gripped Olivia’s arm and tugged, hauling her up to her feet. He and Ice marched the two women back up the stairs and into the main hall way.
“Hold up in the blue room until support team arrives,” Ice directed. “It’ll be easier to defend from there instead of the main floor if something happens.”
“Agreed,” Hazard said as he led Olivia into the blue room. “Ladies, you try to shift and you catch a bullet.”
Emma snarled in response but Olivia didn’t utter a single sound. They had the two women kneel again, this time on the carpeted floor of the blue room.
“You’re wasting your time taking me into custody.” Emma said. “I won’t be there long.”
“Is that so?”
“It is. My family has connections on the shifter council.”
Hazard eyed her as she spoke with such haughty certainty. Emma Larson was a striking woman. Tall, with thick, waist length wheat blond hair. She was dressed comfortably but stylishly in a pair of dark Jordache jeans, a calico patterned button-down shirt, and brown boots.
“And you two. Shifters, working in the human military. Despicable,” she said with her lips curled in a sneer.
Hazard sneered right back. “Said the woman cooking up drugs to get her fellow shifters hooked on. I think you win this round of who’s despicable.”
Ice didn’t participate in the conversation. He stood there silently with his weapon trained on the targets, waiting for the support team to come in and secure them.
Hazard was in position just behind the captain, keeping watch on the door to make sure no one but Legion members came through it. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a slight movement in the wall behind him. Casually, so as not to let on that he’d noticed, he shifted his stance so that he had a better view of the wall.
There. He caught movement again. One of the lines in the walnut paneling was wider than it should be, as if a section had separated from the one next to it. Someone was behind that wall, watching them.
Hazard tightened his grip on his weapon. When the panel fully slid open, he was ready.
A guard popped out of the secret room like a Jack in the Box. He had a revolver in hand. The moment he tried to raise it to aim it at Ice, Hazard fired one round and dropped him. The guard collapsed to the floor, the weapon he didn’t have the chance to fire falling from his lifeless fingers.