Page 27 of Anders (The Sunburst Pack #2)

T HE CORRIDOR BEYOND THE medical room Etta had been held in was equally sterile and white, security cameras mounted at regular intervals along the ceiling.

She moved quickly, keeping close to the wall, calculating angles to minimize her visibility.

Three checkpoints , she reminded herself. And then freedom .

The first checkpoint came sooner than expected—a security station where a guard in tactical gear watched a bank of monitors. He glanced up as she approached, his hand moving automatically to the sidearm at his hip.

Halt, he commanded. Authorization code?

Etta didn’t break stride. Instead, she reached deep within herself, calling on the training the Chimera Program had embedded in her mind—training that, ironically, would now help her escape them.

Authorization Sierra-Seven-Delta-Nine, she said, the code extracted from a memory fragment that surfaced. Priority transfer to Medical Wing C.

The guard hesitated, his hand still on his weapon. I don’t have notification of any transfers.

Obviously, Etta said, her tone clipped and authoritative despite the fear churning in her stomach.

That’s why it’s classified, Officer. She stepped closer, letting her partially shifted appearance add weight to her words.

Do you really want to be the one who delayed a Chimera asset transfer?

I’m sure Dr. Mercer would love to explain the protocols to you again.

The threat did its work. The guard’s face paled slightly, and he stepped aside, keying in a code to open the security gate. My apologies, ma’am. Proceed to checkpoint two.

Etta nodded crisply, maintaining her facade of authority as she passed through the gate. The moment she was out of sight, she let out a shaky breath. One down, two to go.

Following her intuition—or perhaps some memory she couldn’t quite pull to the surface—she turned at the next intersection, her pace quickening as alarms suddenly blared to life around her.

Attention all personnel, a mechanical voice announced over the facility’s PA system. Security breach in Medical Wing A. Asset E5 has escaped containment. All security teams to response positions. This is not a drill.

So much for the element of surprise , Etta thought grimly, breaking into a run.

Her partially shifted form gave her enhanced speed and strength, but it also made her conspicuous—a half-wolf woman racing through the corridors of a high-security facility was hardly inconspicuous.

She reached the second checkpoint just as two guards moved to lock it down.

Acting on instinct rather than any plan, Etta launched herself forward, using her momentum to slide beneath their attempted grab.

Her claws scrabbled against the polished floor as she regained her footing on the other side, barely clearing the gate before it slammed shut.

The guards shouted, drawing their weapons, but Etta was already around the corner and out of sight.

Her heart pounded in her chest, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she navigated the facility’s labyrinthine corridors, moving through turns and intersections with an instinctive certainty that transcended conscious thought.

She was headed toward safety, toward freedom.

Until she wasn’t.

The corridor ahead ended in a massive security door—the third checkpoint, she realized. Unlike the others, this one was a reinforced barrier designed to separate the facility’s interior from the outside world.

No simple bluff or quick dash would get her through this.

And worse, the sound of booted feet was growing louder behind her. Security teams closing in, cutting off her escape route.

Trapped .

Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but Etta fought it down, forcing herself to think.

The Chimera Program had trained her to analyze, to find solutions where none seemed to exist. More importantly, her own innate intelligence and courage—the qualities that had survived despite their attempts to erase her—gave her strength now.

The security door required both a key card and a code. Neither of which she had.

There had to be another way.

Etta’s gaze darted around the corridor, searching for anything she could use. Her enhanced vision picked out details a human might miss—the slight discoloration in the wall panel near the floor, the faint scent of fresh air from somewhere beyond her sight.

A maintenance passage.

Moving quickly, she knelt and pressed against the panel. It gave slightly, revealing an access tunnel barely large enough for a person to crawl through. Some kind of emergency bypass for the security systems, perhaps, or simply a practical necessity for the facility’s mechanical operations.

Either way, it was her only option.

The sound of approaching guards grew louder. Etta squeezed herself into the narrow passage, pulling the panel closed behind her just as the security team rounded the corner.

The tunnel was dark and confining, triggering a claustrophobic panic that she ruthlessly suppressed.

Keep moving . She pulled herself forward through the darkness. The passage sloped upward, then branched.

Without hesitation, Etta took the right fork, still following her instincts.

After what felt like an eternity of crawling through the cramped space, she felt rather than saw a change in the air—a freshness that suggested proximity to the outside world.

The passage widened slightly, ending in a grate that opened onto what appeared to be a loading dock.

She paused at the grate, gazing out through the slats.

A scent drifted past her nose—pine and ozone, like the air before a storm. It triggered another memory, this one so vivid she almost gasped.

A man in a white coat leaning over her, the smell of pine aftershave mixing with antiseptic.

Subject is responding well to the latest formula, he said into a recorder.

Memory suppression is holding at ninety-seven percent efficacy.

Trigger phrases continue to provoke desired documentation behaviors.

Another voice, female: And the others?

Group C is ready for field placement. We’ve selected target communities based on strategic value. The Sunburst Pack will be our first test case—they’ve been fractured by internal politics for years. Perfect conditions for intelligence gathering without detection.

And if the assets are detected?

A cold smile. The kill switch is in place, along with the neural uplink. We lose the asset, but the program remains secure. It’s under the Epsilon Protocol.

The Epsilon Protocol. She’d seen the words before.

Not just a plan to deal with the assets. A kill switch—connected to the device embedded in her nervous system.

It was all she could do to keep from vomiting at the thought.

Once again peering through the slats, Etta assessed the situation outside the tunnel.

Two guards patrolled the area, though their attention seemed focused outward rather than on the maintenance access.

Beyond them, she could see a perimeter fence, and beyond that, the dark outline of pine trees against the night sky.

Freedom was so close she could taste it.

Etta waited, timing the guards’ patrol pattern. When they had moved to opposite ends of the loading dock, she quietly removed the grate and slipped through, staying low and using the shadows for cover.

The cool night air hit her skin, washing away the sterile smell of the facility.

Her wolf stirred in response, sensing the proximity of the natural world, pushing for the final transformation that would give her the speed and stealth she needed to escape completely.

But the device at her neck pulsed in warning, sending a sharp stab of pain through her skull. A full shift might not be possible yet—not with the neural interface still active.

She would have to rely on her partially shifted form and her wits.

Etta calculated the distance to the fence, analyzing possible approaches. The loading dock connected to a service road that led to a gate in the perimeter fence. That gate would be guarded, monitored.

Too risky .

But the fence itself… Her enhanced vision picked out the security measures. Electrified wires at the top, probably motion sensors along its length. Formidable for humans, perhaps, but not necessarily insurmountable for someone with her abilities.

If she could just reach it without being seen.

She slipped from shadow to shadow, using every bit of stealth training she had absorbed during her time as an unwitting spy.

The perimeter fence loomed before her, twelve feet of chain link topped with razor wire. Beyond it, the dark mass of forest offered the promise of concealment, of freedom.

The device at her neck pulsed again, stronger this time, as if sensing her proximity to escape. Pain lanced down her spine, momentarily buckling her knees.

No , she thought fiercely. You don’t control me anymore .

Drawing on reserves of strength she hadn’t known she possessed, Etta pushed through the pain, her muscles bunching as she prepared to make her final dash to the fence.

A shout from behind her shattered the moment. There! By the east fence!

Floodlights blazed to life, illuminating the area in harsh white light. Etta squinted against the sudden brightness, her enhanced vision momentarily overwhelmed.

No time for stealth now.

It’s all or nothing .

She sprinted toward the fence, her supernatural speed carrying her across the open ground in seconds. Behind her, she could hear the pounding of boots, the crackle of radios as security personnel converged on her position.

The fence was right there, so close.

Something whizzed past her ear—a tranquilizer dart, she realized. They weren’t using lethal force. Not yet. They still wanted her alive, still saw her as an asset to be recovered rather than a threat to be eliminated.

That would change the moment she cleared the fence.

Gathering herself, Etta leaped toward the top of the chain link and launched herself over, ignoring the sting as razor wire caught at her clothes and skin. For a heart-stopping moment, she was airborne, suspended between captivity and freedom.

The electrified wire sent a shock through her as she brushed against it, but the pain was nothing compared to what the device at her neck had inflicted.

Then gravity reclaimed her, and she dropped to the ground on the other side, rolling to absorb the impact.

Free. She was free.

But not safe, not yet. The shouts behind her had increased in urgency. More floodlights were activating, sweeping the area just beyond the fence. She needed to reach the tree line before they opened the gates to pursue her.

Scrambling to her feet, Etta raced for the forest, pushing her burning muscles for one final burst of speed. The trees rushed past her, branches whipping at her face and arms as she plunged deeper into the forest.

Then, suddenly, the ground seemed to drop away beneath her, and she was sliding down a small embankment, coming to rest in a natural hollow concealed by dense vegetation.

When she hit the bottom, she lay still for a moment, gasping for breath.

She really was free.

And now she could follow the tug of her mate bond with Anders back to him.

But as she rolled to her feet, she paused.

Could she go back to Anders?

Back to the pack she’d betrayed, no matter how unwillingly?

No , she thought. I can’t .

Not as long as the Chimera Program exists .

No. She had to take down Chimera before she could bring herself to put the Sunburst Pack at risk again.

Giving a decisive nod, Etta straightened her shoulders and turned her face away from Sunburst territory.

Away from Anders.

I’ll come back someday , she promised him silently.

And then she struck out into the woods.

Alone.