Driven (7 page)

From
the outside I'd thought that this section of the building had escaped
damage from the fire that had destroyed everything else. Now that I'd
stopped running quite as fast and was taking the time to examine my
surroundings, I was realizing how far off base I'd been. This part of
the building had been damaged too, but the fire had mostly been
confined to the roof and tops of the walls.

In
fact, the faint starlight coming in through the gaping holes up above
me was the only reason I was able to see anything at all. At first
glance the walls seemed to be coated with the sound-absorbing panels
I'd noticed earlier in the hall, but as I brushed up against one of
the walls I realized that wasn't quite the case. The panels were
exactly what I was expecting, but they were backed with something
soft and flexible that made them give more than they would have
otherwise.

I
still sometimes had a hard time going directly from wolf to hybrid
form. For whatever reason it was easier for me to shift to human form
first, so I shifted to two legs as I walked ever deeper into the
testing area.

It
wasn't until I started referring to it that way inside of my own mind
that I realized it was the perfect description of what I was inside.
The factory had apparently manufactured soundproofing material and
this had obviously been where they'd tested out new products. There
was even a complicated metal framework in the ceiling with what
looked like attachment points for microphones.

In
some ways I'd just found the perfect place from which to launch an
ambush of the werewolf that had been following me. The stench meant
that it wouldn't be able to smell me waiting for it, and the panels
robbed the sound from my steps before the vibrations had a chance to
travel more than a foot or two through the air.

That
was the difference between Alec and me though. I was capable of
improvising on the fly, of using my rage and riding it to victories,
but Alec could do that and more. He was a much better tactician than
I was.

Alec
would have already come up with a dozen different scenarios that
offered at least a possibility of him being able to come out on top
of what was following me, but all I could think about was just how
fast and strong the last werewolf I'd faced had been.

I
was tired and despite the anger bubbling up from my beast, I was
scared, but I found a dark corner room that seemed like it was going
to be my best bet and prepared to shift again.

My
heart nearly stopped when my phone started buzzing. I practically
tore a hole in my ha'bit trying to get it out before it could vibrate
a second time.

Jasmin,
it's Rachel. Don't worry, it can't hear you or me right now. I'm
calling you now, it's vitally important that you take my call.

Almost
before I'd even had a chance to finish reading the message the screen
lit up with an incoming call. I answered it out of little more than
reflex. I hadn't had a chance to finish processing the implication of
her words, but I couldn't bear to let a chance to talk to her slip
through my fingers.

"Rach,
now isn't a good time."

"I
know, you've got three werewolves chasing you and you're cornered
inside of a series of soundproof rooms."

"How
can you possibly know that?"

"I
know a lot these days, Jasmin. In fact I went to quite a lot of
trouble getting you here at this exact instant. There were a lot of
other ways this could have gone down; I had to work really hard to
make sure that you had a chance to survive this."

Something
about her words made bits and pieces of information click into place
for me that I hadn't realized still needed to fit together.

"The
only reason that I'm here is because of you, Rach. If I'd just gotten
gas when you called last time, or if I'd taken a slightly different
route, I wouldn't have ever run into these three monsters."

"You're
right. Believe it or not, I had to go to a bit of effort to make sure
that they were here too."

"Are
you
trying
to get me killed?"

Rachel
continued the conversation without missing a beat, almost like she
didn't even hear my question.

"Are
you ready to go get Geoffrey?"

"Yes,
but I've already told you that, and you didn't seem to believe me
then. I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do to convince you that
I'm ready to do whatever it takes to save Ben."

"It's
not me you have to convince, Jas, not really. It's you. Once you're
really ready to do whatever it takes then you'll find him."

My
beast was pushing against my control and my vocal cords started to
thicken as she tried to force a change in response to Rachel's tone.

"If
you don't stop screwing around, Rach, I swear that I'll…"

"You'll
what, kill me?"

A
tiny part of me wanted to respond in the affirmative, to yell my
answer at her despite the danger it would represent, despite the fact
that a werewolf was doubtlessly prowling through the testing lab even
now.

"I
don't know. Maybe. Ben doesn't have much time left. If something
doesn't change soon he's not going to make it, and if you let him die
when you could have stopped it from happening I'm not sure I'll be
able to control my beast the next time we meet."

Rachel
sighed. "Your beast understands what's at stake, Jasmin. You
need to be willing to abandon everything else to save him or this
isn't going to work out. Every time you and Ben start to get close
one of you backs off because you're scared of what might happen,
because you're not fully committed to the idea of the two of you.
Somebody has to break the cycle, and it's going to have to be you."

It
was like someone had draped a black cloth around my insides.
Everything was suddenly dark and dying inside my core. Rachel had no
right to be lecturing me about relationships. She was wasting my time
after having led me into a trap. I was spending precious seconds
talking to her that would have been better spent coming up with a
plan on how to get out and back to Ben. Some of the emotions that
defined me, Jasmin, as a separate entity from my beast shriveled up.

"I
don't know why you care about Ben and me getting back together, Rach,
but you just pushed me too far. If I get out of here then I want an
address for Geoffrey without any more of this screwing around. If you
cross me again I'm going to hunt you down and I'm going to kill you,
but I won't do that until after I've killed your mom and Donovan and
anyone else who means anything to you."

"I
don't care about you and Ben, Jasmin. At least not like I used to. I
still care, but I have a lot more to care about now than I did back
in the day. I need you to reach your potential though, or things are
going to go very badly."

"For
Alec?"

"For
everyone."

There
was another pause and then Rachel seemed to remember that I was only
heartbeats away from a fight that I couldn't win.

"Stuff
your phone back in your ha'bit, but leave me on speaker."

I
slipped my phone back into the little pocket that had been designed
for it. Rachel resumed talking as soon as it was in place.

"Okay,
now shift into hybrid form and start climbing up the wall."

"That's
the dumbest idea possible, Rachel. The walls are tall, but they
aren't tall enough to keep me out of the reach of a werewolf. I'll be
a sitting duck up there."

"Just
do it. Think of it as part of the price of saving Ben."

I
forced out an affirmative response and shifted in a hot flare of
power. Climbing the wall was harder than I expected it to be. My
claws sank through the wall panels and the soft backing behind them,
but they just tore through all of that like so much tissue paper.
There was no way that anything that fragile was going to support my
weight.

I
struggled to find something with more substance inside of the wall. I
tore off a huge chunk of the wall covering, but the metal studs
underneath weren't much better. I needed a bearing wall, not one of
the fragile walls that were used to partition off interior sections
of commercial buildings.

"The
wall on your right, and hurry!"

I
turned and ripped another section of panels away and was rewarded
with a structural steel girder that ran at an angle from the floor
all of the way to the ceiling.

"You
could have just told me that to start out with."

The
words came out with a kind of breathless anger that was all I could
manage while hauling my massive hybrid body up towards the ceiling.

"It
wouldn't have worked. There's nearly enough room for you to be able
to slip through what's left of the metal framework there. It's
rusted, just give the inside corner a good tug and it will bend out
of the way."

Rachel's
voice came out of the cell phone in a staccato rush, but I hardly
noticed. My attention was focused on getting up above the ceiling,
and Rachel was only important in as much as she could help get me out
of there alive.

She
was right; the heavy metal was rusted through so badly that it warped
without much effort at all on my part. As I scrambled up through the
hole I'd made and onto the heavy metal framework that formed the
ceiling, I noticed just how thick the insulation was. The mounting
points for the microphones hung down more than a foot below the
actual framework, a silent testament to just how much insulation was
required to muffle whatever sounds they'd tested with.

"Run
towards the center of the room! Now!"

For
once my beast didn't protest Rachel giving me an order. Instead she
threw all of her energy into the effort of complying with what we'd
been told to do. It took me only two steps to cross the room I'd just
been inside of and another two were all that were required to put me
almost directly in the center of the long corridor that ran through
the center of the testing area.

I
saw Rachel's error partway between my third and fourth steps. The
rust that had allowed me to bypass the microphone framework was
endemic through the whole system. Sheer chance had allowed me to step
on some of the few crosspieces that were still sound enough to bear
my weight, but the chains that supported the framework weren't up to
the same standard.

I
felt the two chains on my left give out at the same time, and
reflexively looked down to confirm that the ground beneath me was
clear of obstacles. It wasn't, instead I saw the werewolf that had
been pursuing me. A section of the soundproofing material had fallen
away at some point in the past, leaving a hole that let me see my
enemy, a hole that allowed sound free passage down to the werewolf.

The
werewolf must have heard me running across the framework. It was the
only explanation for why it had stopped right there, but my mind
examined that theory with only a fraction of my processing power.

The
end of the framework I was on hurtled towards the ground, pivoting on
the two chains on the other end like a pendulum. I would have jumped
free, but there wasn't anything to push against, and I suddenly knew
for certain that I wasn't going to survive Rachel's supposed help.
The last thing I saw before the movement of the framework carried the
werewolf out of my sight was it turning to meet me, arms
outstretched, wicked claws ready to rend my body.

I
was still trying to push off of the framework when the werewolf's
claws pierced the soundproofing material. Werewolf claws were harder
than steel and sharper than a razor blade, there was no possible way
that they could fail to tear through even my massive hybrid body like
I was nothing more than a rotting apple.

Only
somehow they missed.

I
was so sure that I was going to die that I didn't realize the
werewolf had missed me until after the framework had completed its
descent and swung back and forth like some kind of child's toy. I'd
ridden it down, talons on one crosspiece and my left hand curled
around another, but that wasn't the astonishing thing. Even the fact
that the werewolf had missed me paled in comparison to the fact that
those same claws which had come within inches of killing me were now
dangling lifelessly to either side of me.

The
mounting points for the microphones had pierced the werewolf in half
a dozen spots, and apparently half a ton of metal with several
hundred pounds of hybrid thrown into the mix for good measure had
been sufficient to drive those metal spikes deeply enough in that
they'd struck something vital.

"Do
you trust me again, Jasmin?"

"I…I
guess so. You really knew that was what was going to happen?"

There
was a long pause as she considered my question.

"Would
you believe me if I said yes?"

"I'm
not sure. It was hard enough to believe that Kristin could see a few
hours into the future, and what she sees is so limited that half the
time it's not much use anyways. What you just did here is godlike."

For
a second I thought she was going to actually answer my question.

"There
still isn't much time, Jasmin. You need to climb back up onto the
metal framework and use it to make a beeline back towards Ben. The
exterior skin of the building is nothing more than sheet metal. Tear
through that, let yourself down and then run back to the car as fast
as you can. The werewolves are both inside of the building now
looking for the one you just killed. If you go now you can make it
back to Ben and drive away before they can catch you."

I
was already moving, climbing up past the werewolf, but this time I
had plenty of breath left over to ask her questions.

"Why
did this have to happen, Rachel? Why didn't you just send me directly
to wherever Geoffrey is?"

"You're
headed to New York next, Jasmin. Don't shatter any speed limits, but
don't waste any time either."