The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood - Prison Camp 1)

The gathering darkness seemed a bad portent.

As they headed off together, she glanced over her shoulder at the single candle that remained alit—and felt cheated by fate. Jack was the kind of male she would have liked to go through an entire life with. Instead, all she’d had him for was this life-defining event of finding out Janelle’s fate.

No offense to destiny, she’d have taken quantity over quality when it came to him. But when had providence ever cared about the opinions of the lives it ruined?

Getting out of the hidden passageway was a total blur. The next thing she knew, she was in the main tunnel and falling in with a stream of prisoners funneling toward the Hive. Mayhem was in front of her and Lucan was behind. Their cell blocks had been called in for the double shift, so the plan was for her to enter the work area with them—and they were banking on there being overruns at check-in. She was going to have to take advantage of one to slip through without being noticed.

Jack walked side by side with her for about two hundred yards, and then she felt his hand on her own. When he squeezed, she wanted to turn to him. She wanted to throw her arms around him. She wanted to . . . not lose him.

All she could do was nod subtly.

And then he was gone, paring off and disappearing down an offshoot.

Nyx’s body started to shake and her feet faltered, but she kept going. Jack was never on work rotation, so he couldn’t proceed into the restricted area with the others and not attract attention. So he was going to have to go through the Command’s compound and meet everyone on the far side where the transport trucks were.

Wherever the hell that was.

Just keep going, she told herself. Keep going and you’ll see him one last time.

To stay focused, she mentally ran through the plan, and realized she’d forgotten a part of it. She had to make sure she fell in with the prisoners who were assigned to transportation. That was her one job. If she fucked that up, and ended up in the production line, she was going to go to the wrong place—

When Kane appeared from out of nowhere, and fell in step beside her, she calmed a little. It didn’t last.

“Change in plan,” he whispered. “Follow me on my cue.”

“What?” she hissed. “What are you talking about?”

“Shh. Follow me.”

Glancing over her shoulder, she frowned. Lucan was gone. And when she looked ahead again, Mayhem had likewise disappeared. Warning bells started to ring.

“What about Jack?”

“Follow me.”

His eyes were straight ahead, so she couldn’t read them. And that face that she’d thought radiated trust? Now, she wasn’t so sure.

“Where’s Jack?” she whispered as she glanced around at the other prisoners. None of them were paying any attention to anyone else.

“This is the way we have to go to get to him.”

Under the tunic, Nyx put her hand on her gun. “Okay.”

Shit. Shit, shit . . .

They continued on another fifty yards, her nose picking up on the pungent scent of the Hive. Just before they came to its entrance, Kane tugged on the sleeve of her tunic.

As she broke off from the shuffling flow of gray figures to follow the male, all she could think was . . . this was not part of the plan.

As Jack entered the side corridor that would take him to the Command’s restricted area, he downshifted from a walk to a wander. With the entire facility on lockdown, certain routes would be cut off, so he was having to take a roundabout way to get to where he would rejoin Nyx and the others. As long as he entered the work area from the Command’s entrance, no one would stop him.

He just couldn’t afford to cross paths with the Command.

It was absolutely vital that he made sure Nyx got out free and clear before he was called into service again. If the Command got a hold on him? He would lose hours.

As well as his final goodbye with his female.

Disturbed by what was ahead, he took two more lefts, and as he rounded the last of the turns, he thought of Nyx entering the prison on her own and being smart enough to track her route inside by going in one direction only.

This was what was on his mind as he came up to an archway marked with white slashes.

As he stepped under the curve in the rock, he took another left and penetrated the Command’s area through a steel door. On the far side, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his prison pants, as was his usual stance—but mimicking what was normal for him, playing casual, was not the purpose. He wanted his palm on the butt of the gun he’d taken from Kane. It was one of the guards’, which the aristocrat had lifted when he’d bound them and stripped the males of their weapons. Jack was glad his friend was so damned thorough.