Alpha Instincts

Chapter 26

I used the table as a lever to push myself up into the air vent. With Hanna's helping hand, I managed to get myself out of the room and shut the vent lid in a matter of seconds.

"We need to be quick," I told her. "We have about six minutes to get out of here."

"Almost five because you decided to have a little chit-chat," Nathan remarked.

Hanna and I crawled faster than I'd ever thought possible in an air vent. Nathan gave us the directions back out, and in record time we pushed open the air vent, first checking for any witnesses, before jumping out and locking the air vent door shut. We sprinted out of the car park until we were out of range from the video cameras.

"What time is it?" I asked Nathan as we rounded the corner to his parked car, both breathing hard.

"You have about twenty seconds left. Please tell me you're out of there."

I grinned. "We're about five metres from your car."

I saw Nathan look over his shoulder from the passenger seat, closing the lid of his laptop. "Great. Get in, we can debrief back at my apartment. It's not safe here."

"What's in there?" I asked Hanna, sitting down beside her on Nathan's couch.

She flicked open the file, with a tab that stated, 'Werewolf cure experimentation'.

"Hmm...well let's see. There's a whole lot of unrecognisable numbers and fancy words....most of which don't even form sentences."

I peered closer. "There has to be some information about where they're holding the experiments."

Hanna continued to flick through loose pieces of paper. "Not that I can see – wait," she paused, pulling out a single page, "what's this?"

I grabbed it from her, scanning it quickly. "It looks like a proposal." I pointed at the bottom of the page. "Here! This is the address of their facility!"

It read 304 Samson Road, Albany

Hanna's eyebrows drew together. "Albany? Where's that?"

At that point, Nathan walked into the room.

"Hey, have you heard of Albany?" Hanna asked him.

"Albany?" he repeated. "That's about a three hour drive from here. Is that where the facility is?"

I nodded. "Whose territory is that on?"

"It's not the Strongshade pack. It's on unmarked territory."

"Of course," I muttered. "They'd be stupid to run the experiment on marked land."

"They used to have their facility on your territory, remember?" he reminded me.

"I remember. That was only for a couple of weeks, though."

Hanna glanced up from the piece of paper I was holding in my hand and looked at Nathan. "It could be your territory as well, if you joined our pack."

Nathan scoffed. "Yeah, right," he said sarcastically. "Once I find Elizabeth, I'm taking her far, far away from here."

"In other words," I added in, "far away from me."