Despite my eagerness to get myself and the other Naethari out of our prison as soon as possible, it seemed that we had some things to do first. While the rest of us carried Naethari toward the bunker exit and Maddie stayed on guard, Mom and Uncle Jack quickly got to work. We had to wait a few minutes for them and as we did, Kara looked back down the hallway toward the room where we’d been held captive. “Not that I’m unhappy about finally getting the hell out of here, but does this feel too easy to anyone else?” my mate asked with a concerned frown on her face.

“It is,” Maddie agreed with a sigh. “There were plenty of guards outside but practically nobody in the house and only two guards down here? From what I’ve seen of Pierce, he wouldn’t risk so little security unless he had something up his sleeve. Unfortunately, we had to risk moving you tonight after Hartless made her attempt. It made things easier getting in and Pierce would have made things more difficult to extract you later.”

“Well, it’s about to get harder,” Uncle Jack said with a grim expression as he and Mom returned. Mom’s backpack looked significantly lighter and she was sticking C4 charges to key spots along the walls in the hallway as they made their way toward us. She also had a keyring and as soon as she got to us, she started trying keys on the locks that held Kara’s cuffs in place as Uncle Jack explained, “The police are en route, including a SWAT team. ETA twelve minutes. I was worried that one of those guards might have gotten a call off. At least we kept our faces hidden while we were dealing with them.”

By the time that Uncle Jack had delivered his news, Mom had found the proper keys for the padlocks securing the cuffs on Kara’s forearms. Once the cuffs had clattered to the ground, she tossed the keys to Dad who quickly unlocked Kieshala’s next and tossed the keys to Aunt Carmen before picking up Kieshala again and frowning as he considered the news. “We’d better get going before they can get here and set up a perimeter. Is everything in place?”

“Of course,” Mom said with a nod. “Charges are set all over the lab; I got everything that looked important. Timers are set for fifteen minutes and counting down as of now, so we’d better get moving if we don’t want to be here when this place gets cleansed,” she offered as she tapped the screen of her phone.

“The virus is uploaded to the local network too,” Uncle Jack added as Maddie opened the bunker door and Aunt Carmen finished removing Jenny’s cuffs and picked the youngest Naethari up. “Most of the data on the drives will be useless by the time that the charges go off. I’d rather have pulled the drives or set charges directly on them to be sure but this is the best we can do right now.”

The rest of us followed as Maddie, Mom, and Uncle Jack led the way through Pierce’s home to the front doors, their heads and guns on a swivel the entire way. Once we got to a lavish-looking and somewhat gaudy foyer, Mom quickly spread out the four remaining C4 charges she had left and set them for ten minutes. With that done we stepped outside, and waiting for us in the long driveway was a simple black cargo van with Natalie sitting at the wheel.

The moment that our blonde friend saw us, a look of visible relief washed over her face and she got out to open the back doors. Nat was wearing the same black tactical gear and combat boots as everyone else in the rescue party, along with a pair of disposable latex gloves. Everyone else was wearing the gloves too, and Nat quickly handed out pairs to the rest of us before we could climb into the back of the van. “We don’t want to leave fingerprints behind when we catch our ride and torch the van,” Maddie explained for the sake of the others.

Dad and Uncle Jack took the pair of seats in the front while the rest of us got into the back, where a white canvas sheet was spread across the floor. We were all just getting settled when Dad floored the gas and we lurched forward. Natalie struggled to run some sort of scanner over the Naethari among us, starting with me, as the van crashed through the gates to Pierce’s mansion.

When Natalie passed the device over my right shoulder, it beeped, causing my sister’s girlfriend to frown. It beeped in the same location when she scanned the other Naethari as well. “I figured as much,” Nat muttered. “Pierce tagged all of you with subcutaneous trackers so he could find you in case something like this happened and you managed to get away. It’s similar to the kind of trackers that we use to track sharks, dolphins, and other marine animals.”

Mom sighed but nodded. “Those trackers will have to be removed if we don’t want Pierce finding us. Oh well, it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve had to perform emergency surgery in a moving vehicle to remove something that shouldn’t be inside a person. Usually, it’s bullets though. It won’t be long before we get to the boat so I’ll wait to do it there.”

“Pierce can use these ‘trackers’ to find us?” Kieshala asked, her brow furrowing in thought.

“As long as they’re activated and inside of you, yes,” Natalie replied with a frown. “We’ll have to remove them. Then we can either deactivate them or attach them to fish or something to keep him off our trail.”

“Yes, remove but do not deac…” Kieshala frowned as she stumbled over the last word. “Pierce will follow them to a place of our choosing, and then we shall have our vengeance.”

There was an awkward silence in the van. Everybody knew that our freedom should be enough and I could see Mom and Aunt Carmen contemplating how to tell her that, to tell her that trying to get revenge would only put us all in danger again. I broke the silence before either of them could. “Pierce isn’t going to stop until he’s found us. He won’t rest until we’re in that damn marine park and he’s gotten payback on anyone who helped us escape. We’ll need to stay in one spot if we want to create enough mana for Kieshala to open a path between worlds to get to Totha. We can’t do that if Pierce has people out searching for any signs of us.”

“He’s put Kieshala through so much,” Kara added, putting an arm around Kieshala in support. “He… he killed our parents and our brother too. He took everything from us. Maybe being Naethari isn’t so bad and I’m happy with my new body, my beautiful mate, and my life but… we need to make sure that he never hurts anyone again.”

“It would be dangerous. Pierce won’t be coming alone; he’ll probably have mercenaries of his own. I don’t want to put any of you in danger when we only just set you free,” Dad said from the driver’s seat. He seemed torn on the idea though and his words earned a nod of agreement from Natalie.

“Naiya said that you are mercenaries and that you try to only kill bad people. Pierce is a very bad person. We could hire you…” Jenny said with pleading eyes. I could see Aunt Carmen’s resistance fold right there.

“You couldn’t afford to hire us, dear girl,” Mom said with a sigh before looking over each of our faces. “But you are all right about Pierce, and you are family, so I guess we’ll be doing this one without being paid.”

“I can pay you, with my blood,” Kieshala insisted. “You seem to be good people for humans; you risked your lives to set us free with no promise of gain. Natalie and Madelyn are like members of our clan already and Naiya trusts you. If you help us, I will help any of you who wish to become one of our kind, to enjoy the long life and the benefits of being Naethari.”

Maddie grinned. “Oh, what the hell, I’ve been wanting to kill that motherfucker since before I met him. And since I know my sister well enough to know that she’ll probably try to do this with or without our help, you’re probably going to need a decent sniper to back you up when you spring your trap.”

Maddie, our parents, and the others, including Natalie, were all convinced by the time that we had made our way through what I later learned was La Gorce. All of us in the back had been jostled around whenever the vehicle took a turn since we had no seatbelts, which was why Mom wasn’t going to risk removing the trackers yet. Those of us with sensitive Naethari ears could hear sirens approaching the area as we made it to the water and the van came to a stop. “Let’s move,” Dad said once the back doors were opened, motioning to a small 50-foot yacht docked in the shadow of a luxury yacht that was three times its size and considerably more ostentatious.

~ I… recognize the large craft, ~ Kieshala said, her mind voice suddenly agitated. ~It is the craft that Pierce held me captive upon before bringing me to the underground prison. ~

“It’s okay Kieshala, nobody is ever going to hold us against our will again,” I told her, clenching my teeth as I glared at Pierce’s yacht. “And we’ll be taking care of Pierce soon.”

Maddie and Uncle Jack started emptying jerry cans all over the interior and exterior of the van as the rest of us followed my Mom and Dad or were carried onto the small yacht where we placed Jenny, Kieshala, and Kara in the cabin. It was as we were stepping inside that we heard the sound of a distant explosion. Dad placed Kieshala in a chair and said, “I’ll go get this boat started up. I want us ready to cast off as soon as Madelyn and Jack are onboard; our exit window is closing fast.”

With that, Dad left us to go do that while I stood on the deck for a moment to keep a lookout. I could hear sirens heading the way we came from, and a few that seemed to be getting closer to us as well, but I didn’t see anything concerning until the lights in the distant sky started to get closer. “Shit, they’ve got a couple of police choppers out searching the area,” I muttered as I felt and heard the boat’s engine coming to life.

A moment later Jack and my sister were finished with the gasoline and ran to get on board the yacht. I had thought they were going to light it up immediately but I was glad that they hadn’t since the flames probably would have gotten the attention of the helicopters. “We’re on board, Dad,” Maddie called out as she tapped her earpiece. “Charge is set, five minutes until the fireworks.”

“Maddie, we have searchlights coming this way,” I told her.

“Yeah, they’ll probably have boats in the water soon too, if they don’t already,” she agreed as the boat started moving. “We’re monitoring the police bands and we have a small window though. There are a lot of good cops on the force here who aren’t in Pierce’s pocket, some who know he’s crooked and just can’t prove it. We have a few friends among them, and they’ll try to keep the window open for us for a few minutes if it’s going to hurt Pierce.”

It hurt like hell having those trackers removed from our shoulders. Mom and Nat had to cut us open and then reach in with a pair of needle nose pliers to get them out. What made it worse was that none of the painkillers we had available would work on Naethari. At least we couldn’t get infections, and had Jenny there to heal us afterward. Watching the young girl go through her own turn at surgery was another type of torture altogether though, especially since there wasn’t anything that any of us could do for her.

Despite our desire to get vengeance on Pierce, Mom and the others managed to convince us to destroy the trackers. They felt that Pierce following us could turn bad in any number of ways but that destroying the devices would open up other opportunities. Pierce would have no idea where we were and knowing him, not having that control was going to piss him off. They felt that he would make a mistake in his anger, and they were right.

It was two days after our escape and we were staying in a beach villa just outside Havana. Dad said that Cuba was a good place to hide and Uncle Jack had some contacts there who were able to help us with some fake documents. So now, all of us who were human, or could shapeshift into one, had fake IDs including passports, driver’s licenses, and other supporting documents.

Another good thing was that Pierce would also be limited in how many armed goons he could bring with him without pissing off the locals. The local criminal network much preferred it if people hired local muscle so they could get their piece of the action. Uncle Jack however was doing his best to keep the local toughs from getting involved, at least with Pierce. The money he’d spread around since we had arrived would ensure that they were on our side.

While the humans felt out the city and looked into possible more permanent isolated locations for us to set up shop once Pierce was dealt with, we Naethari were staying mostly at the beach house. Kieshala wanted to take us to hunt our meals so we could start learning to survive in the ocean but we didn’t want to risk being seen and drawing Pierce’s attention before we were ready. We were spending a lot of our time keeping an eye on the news and the internet, and the use of Pierce’s name as a keyword led to the discovery.

The explosive renovation that his home had received had made the news in the States and the Pierce was offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for anyone who could provide verifiable information on the whereabouts of Camille Hart, Erica Winslow, or Dr. Natalie Emerson. He was offering two million to anyone who could bring one of them in alive. He even had photos of Hart, Natalie, and Maddie with long blue hair.

Pierce had tried passing it off it as concern for employees and his girlfriend, who might have been taken during the attack on his home but it came across as tone-deaf and we all knew exactly what it was. Anyone who could read between the lines would know that he was really placing a bounty on their heads. “Good luck bringing Hart in alive,” I spat.

“Well that does answer a few questions,” Mom said as she looked over the news. “The C4 did its job so nobody will be finding Hart’s body, or anything else in that bunker, for quite a long time. The fact that only the three were mentioned, and that it was Erica Winslow on that list, means that Pierce isn’t sure who might be involved and Madelyn’s cover stood up to scrutiny.”

“It also shows that, while he’s mad, he also knows that he’s going to need whoever is involved alive if he wants you girls back. If this was just about revenge for crossing him, he’d be asking for you dead or alive. Putting a public bounty on your heads, even disguised as concern, is amateurish though, and the number of crackpots with false information is only going to frustrate him more. This could actually make springing our trap quite a bit easier. We have just the person to get his undivided attention,” Dad said with a grin.

“I’m not going to like this plan, am I?” Natalie said as everyone looked at her.

Maddie had already removed the extensions and washed out the electric blue hair coloring, so she was back to looking more like herself again. She gave her girlfriend a sympathetic look and a kiss. “Sorry, Babe, but you’re the only one of us still around and identifiable.”

Six hours later Natalie was ‘tied’ to a chair in the basement and had a gag in her mouth. Some creative use of makeup made her look like she had been roughed up and Aunt Carmen was going to be playing the part of her captor. Natalie did her best to look scared as Uncle Jack turned on the camera and Aunt Carmen put on her best intimidation act. I knew that she could be the sweetest woman when she wanted to be but she could also be damn scary, like when she faced the camera and started to speak. “Hola, Señor Pierce. My name is not important; you can call me Rosa. As you can see, Señor Pierce, I have something that you seem to want.”

Uncle Jack turned the camera from Aunt Carmen to Natalie, in her chair and looking terrified. There was a lot of theatre in this but I thought that they both were really selling it, not that it was hard for Aunt Carmen to look like someone who you wouldn’t want to mess with. With the camera now on Nat, Aunt Carmen delivered her ultimatum. “If you want this Dr. Emerson alive, then be in Cuba and at the included address in Havana at noon on Saturday, May sixth. Bring my money in American dollars and come alone. Any funny business and she dies like the blue-haired one did.”

That was Maddie’s cue to hold her breath and play dead. Uncle Jack turned the camera to a spot on the basement floor where she was laying down in a small pool of fake blood. She was wearing a long electric blue wig, torn and bloodied clothes, and makeup that made it appear as if she had taken a serious beating and been slashed and stabbed several times. He kept the camera on Maddie just long enough to get a shot of her face before turning the camera off. “And… cut! Smashing job, ladies. I’ll upload this and send it using the disposable email account. Let’s hope he takes the bait.”