Page 31 of Whole in His Arms

“Okay, well, we’ll go with the heat vision glasses then.” Zan’s voice was thoughtful. “If the walls aren’t too thick, we should be able to see in.”

“I didn’t think of that,” he muttered.

“I bet,” Maddox said. “You’ve probably been preoccupied. That’s why we’re a fucking team.”

“Yeah. And don’t think I won’t kick your ass later for keeping this from us,” Dax threatened, but there was no heat in his words.

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Nix shot back at his friend.

“Alright, so with heat glasses at night, it’ll give us a good idea of guards.” Zander nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good way to be sure.”

“How?” Nix asked, frowning.

“Well, the omegas probably won’t be awake now, so anyone moving around is likely patrolling.”

“Good point.” Nix thanked the Goddess he hadn’t gone off half-cocked.

“Zan, you’ll need to rig something to short-circuit the collars,” Dax said.

“Mmm.” Zander nodded. “I bet there aren’t many electrical signals out here. Shouldn’t be hard to pinpoint the one running the collars and overload it.” Zander’s brow furrowed. “I should have some gear to put something together. I’ll need to scan.”

Zander got up and walked back to where his tent was; he had a table with a bunch of electronic shit Nix’d had no idea about.

“He’s got that covered,” Dax said.

“We may need to get Ronin or Finn up here with the school bus from town,” Nix said.

“I got that,” Dax replied. “I’ll call my brother.”

Everything was coming together; Nix said a prayer to the Goddess that by this time the following night, the omegas would be free, and they would all be heading back home.

Nix barely slept; he couldn’t …Yeah because you tried so hard. Sure, he kept telling himself that he needed to get his rest in. For the mission. It hadn’t helped. Mostly because his brain had taken great pleasure instant replaying every way this shit could go wrong.

With those vivid images in his mind, it wasn’t long till the sun came up way too early, but not early enough somehow. Nix spent most of the day cleaning his rifle and assembling it way more times than was necessary.

When he heard footsteps approach, he put the clip into his rifle and aimed in the direction it was coming from.

“Stand down,” Dax instructed.

Nix didn’t get a chance to ask why because Finn, Ronin, and to his surprise, even Ryder showed up, although they didn’t pull up on the bus. They also had a man with them who Nix didn’t know but recognized from the bar; he was a bouncer.

Ronin walked up to him and pulled Nix into a hug. “That’s from River,” he whispered.

Nix pulled back and looked Ro in the eye. “How is he? Does he know you’re here?”

Ronin shook his head. “Nah, we were with him last night, but he doesn’t know we came up. Rick and Rome have him distracted till you get home.”

Phoenix nodded and drew in a breath. Home. That word meant even more now because he had a home to take his brothers to.

“I’ll go talk to Dax and get the plan,” Ro said. “Keep it together, brother. Your family needs you … all of them,” he added for good measure.

At least Nix knew he wouldn’t need to fill anyone in on the situation. Someone had taken care of that. Not like he wanted to relive any of the crap going on.

Ryder came up to him next. “You okay?”

Nix snorted. “I swear that’s like the fifth time I’ve been asked that.”

“Tired of hearing it?” Ryder asked.