Protector Panther (Protection, Inc 3)
He kicked the door open.
The landscape before him was green and lush, the sky o
vercast, the air fresh and chilly. The evergreen forest before him was backed by snow-capped mountains. Behind him, the base was disguised as a smallish government building with an entrance to an underground parking lot, and a narrow road leading out from that.
Shane ran into the forest. He undoubtedly didn’t have much time before an alarm sounded— if one hadn’t gone off already. Twigs snapped underfoot, but he took no care to cover his trail just yet. First, he needed to put some distance between himself and pursuit. If the way looked difficult, he took it, running between boulders and crashing through thorny bushes.
He climbed a ridge and dashed down the other side, listening for the sound of running water. Shane heard a faint rippling sound and followed it to a shallow creek. He briefly laid Catalina down, took off his shoes and tied them around his neck, then picked her up again and waded upstream, running barefoot over the smooth stones and mud that lined the bottom. The creek grew deeper and faster, then divided. Shane took the wilder route that wound through a canyon. He was in luck. The creek— now almost a river— divided again. He took a fork at random, and followed it through a series of small waterfalls, scrambling up the slippery underwater rocks, climbing with one hand and using his other to hold tight to Catalina.
He’d been hiking for hours with water up to his thighs when he heard Catalina’s breathing change and felt her body jerk as she came suddenly awake.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
He felt her squirm as she looked around. “Hey, we got away! Where are we?”
“It looks like the Sierra Nevada mountain range, same as their last base.”
“Oh! Then you know where we are.”
“Not really. The Sierra Nevadas are four hundred miles long and about seventy wide. We could be anywhere within that. I don’t recognize this area at all.”
She squirmed again. “Put me down. I can walk.”
He shook his head. “Not yet. That shifter you met got your scent. They’ll pick up mine too, from where we fled the base, but I’m hoping to confuse them a bit. If they can’t find yours, they might think we got separated, and then they’ll split up. If they do catch up with us, I’d rather deal with one at a time.”
“They?” Catalina asked. “I only met one.”
“There have to be two of them. At least. Shifters are either born that way, or another shifter has to bite them. Since that guy went through the ultimate predator program, he was probably bitten by some other shifter at Apex.”
“Oh, right.” Her silky hair brushed against his skin as she nodded. “So someone bit you, huh? Could that person have bitten the guy I met?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
He hesitated, but Catalina already knew he’d been in combat. And however unauthorized, that had sure as hell been a combat situation. “Because I killed him.”
Without missing a beat, she said, “I’m sure he deserved it.”
“He did.”
A hard current washed around Shane’s thighs, making him stagger. He held Catalina tight and dropped his center of gravity until he regained his balance. Then he set out again. His breath burned in his lungs, and his back and legs ached. Catalina was so short that despite her curves and solid build, she was no heavier than some packs he’d carried. But even with his shifter strength, it wasn’t easy to run for miles with a weight across his shoulders, then trudge and climb for miles more, thigh-deep in icy water.
Thick forest pressed in on the river, the overhanging branches blocking out most of the sun. Shane’s shirt was damp with sweat, but his legs were freezing. And Catalina, wearing only thin scrubs, was shivering. The water would wash away their scent, but they couldn’t stay in it forever. They’d risk hypothermia.
“How are you at climbing trees?” Shane asked.
“Fantastic,” she said, to his relief. “My sister used to tease me that I like cats because I am one.”
“Good. I’ll boost you up.”
He got on to a boulder covered by only a few inches of water, with a thick branch hanging overhead. Catalina climbed on to his shoulders, then stood up. She wasn’t quite tall enough to reach it, so he put his hands under her feet and slowly lifted her. She wavered, then grabbed on to the branch and held herself steady. He raised her overhead until she was able to scramble on to the branch.
“What about you?” she called down. “Turn into a panther? I could carry your clothes.”
“Nah.”
He handed the medical kit up to her. Shane crouched, then jumped upward. He caught the branch and pulled himself up, his muscles screaming with effort. Then he got a leg over and crouched beside Catalina, the bark rough under his palms.