The reactor room looked no different than it had when he saw it on the monitor in the security office earlier. Well, except for the twenty or thirty large drums set up on the tiles in the center of the room, each with a thick cable coming out of the top and disappearing off into the far reaches of the room. A distinctly high-pitched humming came from each of the drums as they pulled the control rods out of the reactor buried under the tiles.
He charged forward, noting in passing that every loose piece of metal in the room had been dragged to the center—chairs, tools, pieces of lifting equipment, random bits of chain. Everything was frozen to the side of the drums. His weapon flew from his thigh holster, slamming into one of the drums so hard the clang filled the room like a gong, making his teeth ache.
Dr. Jones was in his ear, telling him to stop the magnets and shut down the power that made them work, but Sawyer was suddenly having a hard time thinking clearly. He knew there was no way he could feel radiation passing through him, but nevertheless, it felt like every cell in his body was vibrating, making movement next to impossible.
His original plan had been to disconnect the power cables from the top of each drum. Either that or trace the spidery collection of them to their origin point and pull the plug that way. But when his head started getting fuzzy, he gave up the complicated plan and, instead, swung his claws at every cable he could reach. Sparks and chunks of melting insulation flew everywhere, zapping the bloody hell out of him. He ignored the pain, flinging whole drums aside as he moved across the room.
Sawyer kept going long past the point when his vision blurred and faded, until he was kicking and slashing purely by feel. And when that became impossible—when he stumbled and fell to his knees and then onto his face—he still continued shoving drums aside as hard as he could.
Until he couldn’t move at all. And everything around him faded to black.
Chapter 20
Harley couldn’t believe it when Sawyer slammed the heavy door closed, with her on the wrong side. She thought for a second he’d simply pulled too hard by mistake. But when she heard him twist the handle until it would be useless, she realized he’d done it on purpose.
“What are you doing?” she screamed, pounding on the metal door and yanking on the handle, starting to panic as he gazed at her through the small glass portal. “Sawyer, open the damn door!”
But all he did was say I love you, then order her to run before turning to race down the corridor, leaving her behind.
Like hell he will!
She wouldn’t let Sawyer do this alone. Thinking about him going into that room full of God knew how much radiation—by himself—made her heart beat so hard she thought it might jump out of her chest. The more she imagined the pain he might be in, the worse it got, until she swore she could feel his emotions washing over her. She didn’t understand how it could be possible, but she could feel him getting weaker, feel everything starting to close in around him.
Harley yanked on the handle, but the door was so heavy it barely trembled. She attacked the steel door, pounding on it as snarls of rage echoed in the hallway. When the handle broke away, she tried to wedge her fingertips into the gap between the edge of the door and the frame, tearing her nails in the futile attempt. The frustration and fear continued to build, making her whole world spiral out of control as she pictured Sawyer dying in the reactor room all alone.
She didn’t realize she was shifting until her claws sprang out. By then, the muscles of her arms and shoulders were already twisting and tearing, reshaping themselves in ways they hadn’t since her last true change in what felt like a lifetime ago.
The metallic taste of blood was jarring as fangs filled her mouth, but the urgency to reach Sawyer only continued to grow, forcing her to keep pushing, smashing, and slashing at the door over and over. Her claws gouged deep grooves in the metal and the concrete around the edge of the jamb. She kept going, the muscles of her shoulders and arms singing in exhilaration at the strain. She refused to believe she might not make it in time.
She would save Sawyer.
He was the only thing that mattered.
He was her world.
Harley was so caught up in the repetitive motion of digging and tearing, she almost missed it when her claws exposed the edge of the doorframe where it was buried in the concrete wall. She focused her efforts on that area, ripping away concrete in fist-sized chunks. When she’d made a big enough gap, she shoved her hands in and got a firm grip on the doorframe.
Not letting herself dwell on how impossible it was, she tugged at the frame, snarling and growling, wondering if this was how Caleb felt when he lost control and became more animal than human. If so, there was a part of her that could see the attraction. It was freeing to give up control like this.
With a shriek of metal and a crack of concrete, one whole piece of the wall came out. That only drove her to pull harder, and a few heartbeats later, she was through the door. Ignoring the red and blue lights flashing overhead, she pushed even harder, running faster than she ever had in her life.
When bones cracked under her skin, Harley realized she might have pushed too far. She glanced down to see her arms elongating, her fingers merging as fur erupted through the skin. The sensation was painful, but surprisingly, not as terrifying as she thought it probably should be.
The popping and cracking as her head and back reshaped itself was unnerving for sure, but it didn’t hurt any more than anywhere else. She shook her upper body violently, fighting to get out of her uniform top and tactical vest before she could become trapped. Amazingly, the worst part of the whole ordeal was trying to grow a tail while still wearing her pants. She swore the long, bushy appendage was being twisted into a knot in its efforts to break free.
Following her instincts, she lowered her head and tore at the web belt and pants hanging loosely around her middle, noting in the exhilaration of the moment that her teeth were incredibly sharp as they ripped right through the material. It was only after the fact that she wondered what the hell she was going to wear now that she’d destroyed her clothes.
She pushed that thought aside. Save Sawyer first—worry about clothes later.
Having only a general sense of her wolf form, the first few running strides she attempted once the change was finished were incredibly awkward. But within a few feet, she was running at full speed, all four legs moving in concert, the wind created by her passage ruffling her fur. Damn, she was fast!
From her lower perspective, it took a second to find Sawyer once she entered the reactor room. In that short time frame, she was nearly overwhelmed with grief and terror, fearing the worst. Then her nose took over, leading her to the center of a jumble of ripped-up drums. That’s when she finally saw him slumped over on a bizarre-looking tile-covered floor.
She realized then the drums must be the electromagnets. Given the way they were toppled and tumbled around, the heavy cables coming out the top of each one sheared away, Sawyer must have been able to get them shut down. The fact that the klaxon alarms weren’t ringing as loudly seemed to support that theory. Not that it mattered very much for Sawyer. His skin was pale and sweaty, his breathing slow and labored. Her big ears told her his heart was beating far too slowly.