"And I can't afford to let anything happen to my dearest friend," Alex said, pointing out the emotional wrinkle in the whole situation with Jenna.
"She's upset and hurting. What if something bad happens to her out there?
She's a good person. She doesn't deserve any of this."
"We'll find her," Brock said firmly. "I promise you, we will."
Kade met his gaze and gave a solemn nod. After the stunning circumstances of Jenna's escape from the compound, finding the human woman with the bit of alien material inside her body was a mission none of the warriors would shirk. Jenna Darrow had to be retrieved, no matter what it took.
"Hang on, hang on," Gideon murmured. "This could prove interesting.
I just got a couple of new hits on the latest sequence. One of them is registered to an auto garage in Quincy.">"Holy hell," Brock muttered.
Beside him, Alex gasped in disbelief. Kade was silent, his gaze as grim as it was stunned when his eyes slid to Brock. On the phone, Gideon was now giving urgent orders to one of the Order's more formidable females in residence, namely Renata, to head topside on the double and bring Jenna back in.
"I've got her location on camera now," he told Renata. "She's on the east side of the property, heading southeast on foot. If you take the south service door, you should be able to head her off before she reaches the perimeter fence."
"The perimeter fence," Brock murmured. "Jesus Christ, that thing is juiced with more than fourteen thousand volts of electricity."
Gideon kept talking, advising Renata of Jenna's progress and position.
"Cut the power," Brock said. "You have to cut the power to the fence."
Gideon swiveled a dubious look on him. "And let her waltz right off the property? No can do, my man."
Brock knew the warrior was right. He knew the smartest, best thing to do for the Order was to ensure that the human woman stayed contained within the compound. But the thought of Jenna coming into contact with a potentially lethal dose of electricity was too much. It was, in a word, unacceptable.
He glanced at the security camera feed and saw Jenna, clad in a white sweater and jeans, her loose brown hair flying behind her as she raced across the snowy yard at a blind clip toward the edge of the property. Straight for the ten-foot-tall fence that hemmed the estate in from all sides.
"Gideon," he growled, as Jenna's fleeing form grew smaller on the monitor. "Cut the goddamn power."
Brock didn't wait for the other warrior to comply. He stalked over and slammed his hand down on the control panel. Lights blinked on, and a persistent beeping kicked up in warning of the disabled power grid.
A long silence filled the room.
"I see her." Renata's voice came over the speaker in the lab. "I'm right behind her."
They watched on-screen as Nikolai's mate sped on foot in the direction of Jenna's trail in the snow. Moments ticked by as they waited for further word.
Finally, Renata spoke, but the curse she hissed into her mouthpiece wasn't what anyone in the room had hoped to hear. "God damn it. No ..."
Brock's veins went cold with dread. "What's happened?"
"Talk to me," Gideon said. "What's going on, Renata?"
"Too late," she replied, her voice oddly wooden. "I was too late--she got away. She's gone."
Gideon leaned in, cocking his head toward Brock. "She climbed the bloody fence, didn't she?"
"Climbed it?" Renata's answering laugh was more of a sharp exhalation. "No, she didn't climb it. She ... ah, shit. Believe it or not, I just watched her jump over it."
Chapter Four
The road hummed beneath Jenna's jeans-clad backside and the soles of her snow-sodden shoes, the smell of smoked meat and male sweat wafting at her from all directions inside the unlit confines of the delivery van. She sat on the floor among stacked crates and cardboard cartons, jostling with every bump. Her stomach roiled, though whether from the adrenaline that was pouring through her or the cloying mix of processed meat and body odor that hammered her nostrils, she couldn't be sure.
How she'd managed to get off the compound's property was a blur.
Her head was still swimming with the disturbing revelations of the past few hours, and her senses had been on overdrive from the moment she made the decision to attempt escape. Even now, sights and sounds and motion--every bit of sensory input--seemed to be flying at her in a chaotic blur.