She usually free soloed for fun. Sometimes when she needed a break from her teammates, she decided to climb a tall structure in the middle of nowhere. Or when she needed a little extra cash and decided to take something sparkly from a New York condo or a piece of art that should really be in a museum.
Yet every skill she taught herself or had been taught, her grandmother found a way to use. Most of the time, Tock just said no when orders came in. But her grandmother knew that Tock would never turn down a job if her family was in trouble. So here Tock was. In Maine, of all places. Climbing the side of a building.
Well, at least it wasn’t the middle of a Maine winter. Free soloing was a real test when everything was covered in snow and ice.
Tock reached the fifth floor and used a glass cutter to make a hole in the window that allowed her to slip inside the building.
She silently landed on the floor in a crouch, placed the glass circle carefully to the side, and took a moment to get her breath and her bearings.
Turning her head, she listened for any noise. Sniffed the air, checked for scents. In the end, it was a sound that caught her.
Tock locked on a target a few offices away, pulled her. 40-caliber Sig Sauer, and moved.
*
Shay stared at his cell phone, watching the timer tick down. He knew he could put the phone back in his pocket and wait until it started vibrating, but he didn’t trust that. He’d promised Tock that he would be helpful and helpful meant paying attention and following her orders. It was why he was such a good football player.
So he watched the timer and waited, his back against the wall of the building. Near the glass doors, but not in front of them so the security guy wouldn’t see him. His gaze was focused on the phone but his ears twitched at sounds coming from the other side of the building. Someone was trying to remain quiet but he could still hear them.
He opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue, and breathed in. The scent of multiple full-human males—some of whom had not bathed recently . . . ew—and gun oil filled his senses. He immediately dropped his phone, shifted to tiger, shook off his clothes, and did what he did best.
*
Tock knew exactly which door she needed to go to. It had been in the packet of info her cousin had given her. But she followed the sounds she’d locked on until she reached the right door. She didn’t move in. Because there should be a scent. Actually, there should many scents. And one of them should be from what her grandmother had always called “our secret weapon.” The secret weapon of all honey badgers. Effective on full-humans and shifters alike . . . except wolves. Because wolves were nasty animals that loved a strong anal scent. They might not want to marry you if you were forced to unleash it, but they also didn’t pass out or choke to death. A few had even been known to roll around in it like the disgusting beasts they were.
That was the scent she should be locked on now, but all she could smell was full-humans, gun oil, and . . . nothing. No honey badger scent or the scent of an unleashed anal sack. If one of her young cousins was trapped in a room with a bunch of full-human agents and, for some reason, she couldn’t fight her way out, she would definitely unleash her anal sack. It was what her kind did when they had no choice. Or when they were just being dicks. But either way . . . it should have filled this floor with its horrific odor. Bodies should be lying around, dead or choking to death.
Now, her cousin could already be dead, but then Tock would smell dead honey badger. But she didn’t smell honey badger at all.
Tock shook her head. Nope. She didn’t like this. Something wasn’t right.
She started to take a step back when she caught the scent of full-human male coming up behind her.
Her weapon raised, she turned just as a metal pipe slammed against her head with such force, all she could do was fall to the floor and hope that she hadn’t lost an eye where the side of her head had been caved in.
*
“Where’d he go?” one of his men asked. But he didn’t have an answer. He knew what he’d seen. A man standing with his back against the wall, staring at his phone. He’d come with the woman, and the plan was to knock out all stragglers. Or, if said stragglers put up any kind of fight, kill them and dump the body in a lake about ten minutes away.
He checked the SUV, but the man wasn’t in there. It wasn’t like the guy could hide behind the seats either. Dude was massive. At first, he’d thought the guy was part of the wall. He was that wide. Not fat. It was his shoulders and chest that were wide. And layered in muscle. He wondered what the guy’s workout was. Steroids, maybe. Couldn’t be the regular steroids that illegally floated around his gym. They all used those, but none of those drugs could make anyone that big. Must be something new on the black market. Once this job was done, he’d have to find them for himself.
Of course, a guy that size, they would definitely have to kill him once they found him. No way that whatever ’roids this guy was on would make him calm and rational. Or easy to put down. They’d have to be ready.
“He’s not over there either,” one of his men said, gesturing around the building with his elbow while gripping his automatic rifle in his hands.
He nodded. “We need to find—”
The screaming startled him. And by the time he turned around, all he saw was the feet of one of his men disappearing into the shadows of the upper building. As if something had dragged him up the building wall.
But . . . that was impossible . . . right?
No, no. The big guy probably had rope or whatever. Climbing gear. A guy like that probably climbed mountains for fun.
He took a step forward but immediately stopped when his teammate’s body hit the ground . . . everything from his nose up was gone.
He and his men took a step back and began firing into the darkness. They couldn’t see anything but that didn’t matter.
Until another one of his men was suddenly yanked back into the darkness of the right side of the building. They heard their teammate’s screams but before any of them could attempt to help, his body was tossed out into the small bit of light that came from the building.
He gawked down at the body. It had been torn apart in less than ten seconds. He and his men passed silent glances before they all backed away, turned, and took off toward their van.
There was no amount of money worth this kind of crazy.
*
Shay stayed feline and ran around the building, tracking Tock’s scent. He found where it stopped on the ground and quickly realized it went up.
So that’s what he did. He launched his eight-hundred-pound body vertically, using his claws to grab the wall long enough to launch his body up again until he reached a window with an opening cut into it. He tried to fit through it but his cat head was too big. He briefly shifted back to human but . . . again . . . his head couldn’t quite get completely through without wiggling, and forget about his shoulders. Those were a definite no-go.