The Falcon Ridge Series Book 3 If Looks Could Kill

(Chapter song ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC)

LUKE

I turn in my seat as River drives to the location found in his dad’s papers. I’ve lived here my whole life. There’s no labs there. It’s just some storage and hydro stuff. I think this all bullshit, but we'll see.

Jayson and Mica sit in the backseat. I can understand Jayson, but what the hell is Mica doing here?

“They let you out for good behavior, Mica?” I snort with a grin.

He scowls his blue eyes at me. “No, my position as Human Liaison requires me to be here, smart-ass.”

“Oh, yeah. How is the council that wants to passive aggressively kill us all?” I smirk.

He runs his hands through his sandy blonde hair and crosses his thick arms. He’s not as big as me in the muscles, and he’s taller which gives me license to rib the shit out of him and the people he hangs with.

Mica Whitney. He’s an OK guy, but can be a hot head. Him and his parents live in a town called Morgan. He’s the Alpha son. His dad hasn’t made him Alpha yet, because he’s still in training for the human council. He has this California look, but he’s always in suits. He’s a true politician. His job, when he’s full Alpha, will be to keep us and the human world, informed. It’s not easy from what I hear. There’s a lot he has to intercept between us and them. We have enough hunters after us.

Yes, I said hunters. They’re rare, but they do show up. One hasn’t come after me yet, and he won’t like what happens.

Anyway, back to popping a cap in this Lab thing.

“They don’t want us dead, Luke. They want to learn. Though, it doesn’t help when we do shit like this.” He’s referring to the lab.

“We'll get to the bottom of it, Mica.” River looks at him in his rear view.

“You better. After Caledon and Black Lake, I don’t know if I can PR your asses out of this to the Human council. My dad’s been playing blocker, but you guys… They don’t like what they see.” Mica says in that political lawyer crap talk he does.

If people don’t like us saving them, then screw ‘em.

“We killed Torrent for them, too. They should be kissing our asses.” I scowl.

“They’re humans, Luke.” He snorts. “Good luck with that.”

“Besides.” Jayson starts. “We didn’t ask for Torrent to attack. He just did. It’s not our fault.”

I arch a brow. “According to what Blake’s dad's paper says…we kinda did.”

He holds a hand out. “Ok. But we didn’t make the lab. We didn’t know what happened to Torrent. How is it our fault?”

“The types of humans I deal with don’t really care about technicalities, Jay. They only know that our conflicts are putting them at risk, and for some, it’s causing some…racial tension, in human terms, among the species.” Mica responds.

“Yeah, well. They need to get over it.” I mumble and sit back in my seat.

The one thing I can’t stand more than evil crazy guys trying to take over the world is judgmental people. It burns my ass to the point I want to punch something.

“Guys, we're here.” River points to his GPS and I look out the window.

My brows scrunch because I don’t understand what I’m looking at. “That’s not a lab. It's a service building.”

“Well, the paper says it’s here.” River reminds.

“And there’s no names?” Mica asks.

River shakes his head. “No. Only that the owner is Alliance Labs. There’s no reference to funding, or administrators, owners… Nothing.”

“What did your dad say?” I ask.

“Nothing. He’s as clueless as I am. He said he found it in his dad’s stuff.” River shrugs.

“Ok…” I open the door. “Let’s bust this monster maker open.”

We get out and cross the street. The property is barely lit from the street light. The small service building sits behind a chain link fence and I think this has to be some kind of joke.

River walks to the gate and picks up a thick chain with a lock on it. He looks at the top of the fence. “I guess we climb.”

“Fuck that. Move.” He steps out the way as I pull my gun, aim and fire. The sound of the gunshot rang through the streets, but there’s nothing out here, so I’m not worried. I hit the lock and it breaks open. I walk over to the fence and pull the chain off. I turn to River. “I don’t climb.” I scowl.

“Ok.” He chuckles.

Our boots crunch the gravel as we approach the seemingly boring door. On the wall beside it is a keypad. The red light shines and I chew my cheek. “Anyone got a key?”

“I could try and hack it.” River shrugs.

“My turn.” Jayson pulls his gun and shoots the door three times at the latch. The door breaks and pops open.

River crosses his arms. “Why won’t you guys do the cool stuff?”

“Shooting stuff is cool.” I grin.

River rolls his eyes. “A chance to be mission impossible and you just want to shoot stuff.”

I cross my arms. “Mission impossible is for douches.”

“Special Ops have cool tech and need IQs higher than being able to pull a trigger.” River smirks.

“Ok. Smart douches.” I smirk back.

“Why do I hang out with you guys?” Mica sighs and holds the bridge of his nose.

I throw open the door and shove River through. “Go be a smart douche in the den of torture.” I growl.

“Hey!”

We walk in and our boots hit a steel grate landing in the dark. As I look around, a series of lights come on heading down a metal staircase. It lights up cold, concrete block walls and the stairs go deep.

“Ok.” I say cautiously.

We slowly walk down the stairs. Our boots echo as we thump on the steel until we get to the bottom. We're met with more dark until lights snap on above our heads and into a place I can’t believe exists.

“Oh my God.” We all practically breathe as we slowly enter a large room with desks and cells like the prison. I pull my gun and step carefully.

Our heads are looking all over the place. Dark, static walls and rooms look suspiously like a hospital, but it’s much worse than that.

The white hall is lined with cells. The doors are open and I look through the glass at the simple arrangement inside.

I see a cot with a blanket messed up on it. “They had people here.”

“A lot of them. Every cell is empty, but they look like they held prisoners.” Jayson motions to a cell with messed blankets and a shirt on the floor.

I walk in and pick up the shirt. I put it to my nose. It wouldn’t be a smell from someone I recognize, but I can tell it’s shifter. “This is bullshit.” I grumble and drop the shirt.

We start down the hall again, moving into the belly of the beast. We walk through a room with computers and desks. River pushes past me and searches the desks for anything. He hits the keys on keyboards and tries the computers. He stands and places his hands on his hips. “I’m definitely going to need more time with this. They tried to erase everything, but it was a rush job.”

“They knew we were coming.” Mica mumbles.

River nods. “Looks like it.”

“Who blabbed?” I raise a brow and glance at them both.

River shrugs. “Don’t know. I don’t think we’re going to find out either. This place is hard-core.”

“It screams government secrets. I wont lie.” Jayson shakes his head.

I point to him. “You think the Council…you think they know about this?”

Jayson crosses his arms. “The financial backing alone. There’s no way a regular person could keep all this a secret for as long as they did.”

“I have to agree.” Mica says. “Unfortunately, even us shifters aren’t free from corruption. The moles in Falcon Ridge proved that.”

“Let’s find out what we're up against.” Jayson raises a brow.

We walk on and turn down a hall that is darker and blue.

“God, this place gives me the creeps.” Mica cringes as we all stalk down the hall, turning and looking around at everything as we pass.

These cells are different. The same glass walls with locking doors, but there’s equipment inside. Medical beds sit in the center. I look over one of the beds. The sheet covering it has blood on it. There’s trays of weird tools and silent alarms are going off on the monitors.

“Looks like we definitely interrupted something.” I motion to the bed.

“We must have just missed them.” River states as he scans the cells on the other side.

“Too bad. I had a message to give them.” I hold up my gun and wiggle it.

River ticks his brow and head and we move on. We walk trough another hall and see more desks and at the end of the room is a door. Just behind it, I see industrial shelves with boxes.

We walk to the open door and step through it. It’s some sort of storage warehouse. The shelves reach floor to ceiling and there’s two rows. Most of the shelves are empty, but some have toppled boxes of paper and the floor is a mess.

River holsters his gun and quickly walks to a box. He immediately starts sifting through the papers.

Jayson does the same and Mica is taking pictures.

“This is some seriously sick shit, man.” Jayson says as he flips through some of the pages.

“A lot of it doesn’t make sense. They start with common chemicals, somehow mix them with weird chemicals the science community never heard of, then come out with weapons? What the hell is ‘Ruby Radiation’?” River holds up a paper to Jayson. “According to this, it’s some sort of catalyst they were using, but I’ve never heard of it.”

Jayson shrugs. “I don’t know, man. You’re the science guy.”

River look at the paper again. “They were filtering these things through something. I just don’t see how any of these combinations would work. Half of these are entirely too unstable to even go together. What ever they were using must have some sort of neutralizer or at least a stabilizer. But the results. It’s like something out of a Sci-fy movie. An ice chemical. A fire chemical. Strength enhancer…”

“What?” Jayson grabs the paper. “Shit.”

“You nerds are hurting my head.” I grumble as I pick up a paper and toss it on a shelf.

My boot steps on a paper and I bend down and pick it up. I scratch my head and turn the paper back and forth as I try to figure out what’s on it.

“What’s that?” River asks as I walk up to them.

“I don’t know. Some DNA sequence list…whatever that means. What the hell is Homo Nosfar…Nosfart…”

River snatches the paper and reads it. “Homo Nosfaratu Vampiris.”

I point to the paper. “Yeah. That shit. What is that?”

He raises his wide, concerned eyes to us. “If this is correct, which I’m having an extremely hard time believing because there’s no way they’re real. This lab had the DNA of vampires.”

“WHAT?!”

I start cackling like mad and double over holding the box edge. Jayson grabs the paper and reads it with Mica reading over his shoulder.

I catch my breath and wipe my eye. “That was good, Riv…really good…” I chuckle.

“This looks official, Luke. It’s here.” Jayson says.

“Are actually saying neck biting bloodsuckers are real?” I try to hold my laughter.

“May I remind you we’re wolves?” Mica raises a brow.

I furrow my brow. “No, you may not. We have a valid reason to be here. I don’t know what that is, but it’s real. Those aren’t real unless it’s for a horrible B movie.”

“Luke, you can’t possibly believe we're the only weird things out there?” River shakes his head.

I point to him. “Not only do I believe it, but I’m willing to bet that’s code for some sort of killer tomato or something.”

“What?” Jayson scrunches his face and laughs.

“I said what I said.” I side eye him.

He slaps his hand on his face and shakes his head.

River chuckles and Mica groans.

River puts the paper back in the box. “Maybe it is code for something else. Until I get a chance to the look through all this, I won’t confirm they have vampires on staff.”

“Good. Let’s check out the rest of this place. There’s got to be something better in here than homework.” I flick a paper and eye them all.

We leave the storage room and walk back through the way we came. Entering the blue hall, we walk up it a bit further, then turn down another one. This one’s a dead end to another room. There’s a desk beside a set of glass doors. There’s lights on behind the glass, but it’s hard to make out what’s in it until we get closer.

“Whoa.”

“Uh… This isn’t good.”

“Jackpot!”

I rub my hands together and walk through the open door. My eyes light up at all the weapons on the walls and on shelves.

“Alexi was asking about an armory. I wonder if this is what she meant.” I say as I inspect guns, grenades, launchers and all other sorts of weapons that really aren’t on the Falcon Ridge’s supply list.

“You have an armory?” Jayson asks.

I glance back. “Yeah. Don’t you?” I grin as I pick up a semi auto and hold it in my hands.

River takes it from me and I scowl. “This isn’t yours, Luke. Once we're done here, I’m setting up a team and we’re cleaning it out. Everything will be taken to Falcon Ridge and confiscated.”

I hold my hands over the guns. “Ok. But…just leave this room.” I smile and nod.

“No.” He narrows his eyes.

I do the same. “You really suck.”

He smirks at me, but a noise from the back of the room had me abandon my begging for firearms. “Uh… What was that?”

We all pull our weapons. River steps in front and places a finger to his lips. He taps his temple indicating to link and then aims his weapon at the back.

‘See anything?’ Jayson links from the back.

‘Movement.’ River links back.

We slow down and approach an open gate. I see bodies in white coats rushing around the room. We observe for another second then rush in.

“FREEZE! FALCON RIDGE SECURITY!!” River shouts as we all burst into a room that has LED lighted cabinets and round, glass lighted tube shelving units in the middle.

The two men in the room, spin to us and stare.

I drop my gun. “More nerds?” I scrunch my face and tilt my head. “Seriously?”

The two men are dressed in lab coats, have clean cut hair and guilt on their faces. They have bags in their hands and are standing beside a cabinet that has some vials with liquid in them.

“Who are you?! What are you doing here?! What is this place?! Who's running it?!” River steps closer as he shouts questions.

“Uh…Riv…You wanna slow down the questions so they can actually answer?” Mica snorts from the back.

The two men look at each other then back at us.

“ANSWR ME!” River aims his gun at their heads.

It felt like an hour waiting doe them to say one word, but they didn’t. Instead, one of them reaches into the cabinet, grabs some bottles and throws them at us. They bottles explode at out feet and send us flying backwards. River and I crash the tubes while Mica and Jayson hit the cabinets on the other side of the room. Glass flies everywhere. The tops of the tubes fall and bounce off what’s left of the bottom half.

Not only did we get blown up, I can’t see anything except white light and I can’t hear a damn thing.

“JAYSON! MICA! RIVER!” I call out, but it’s useless to hear a response.

I frown as I stand and start to feel around for people. Namely the guys that did this. I’d just love to practice my blindfold skills on their damn heads.

It’s a moment later my hand hits hair. I feel around, and down the head the hair is attached to. My fingertips then feel eyes, nose, and cheeks. “Riv? Is that you?”

My hearing comes back and I hear alarms. Soon, the white light in my eyes starts to fade and the darkness of the room creeps in. I blink my eyes back into focus, and see River’s annoyed face with my hand covering half of it and his hair’s messed up.

“Get off me.” He growls and stands, brushing glass off himself.

“You know you’re more ugly blind?” I say with a stupid grin.

His lips shrink and he punches my arm. I flinch back and cackle at him.

He looks around the room. “Shit! They took off!” River pushes through us and we all run back the way we came. Through the blue hall to the white, we still don’t see them.

We climb the stairs like marathon runners and burst out the door at the surface. Once outside, we look up and down the dark street.

“Damn it.” River shakes his head and places his hands on his hips.

“Who were they?” Jayson asks.

“They looked like employees.” Mica responds.

“They looked like the type of fuckers who would kidnap people and torture a man for 20 years.” I growls.

River nods. “Don’t worry. Come morning, we’ll have this place on lockdown.”

I glance at him. “Thanks.”

Although, I didn’t get any conclusive answers as to why, or even if Torrent, was here, I still accomplished the goal of shutting it down so I can tell Alexi that she doesn’t have to worry about it anymore. I just wish I knew exactly what they were doing here.

I know I’m new, but I think my first order of business is demanded some damn answers.