Free Shattered by Dean Murray Page B

anything that kept me from breakfast a moment longer than
necessary.
    Breakfast was
sausage, eggs and pancakes. I did some quick mental math and decided
that the pancakes were the lowest caloric value per cubic inch of
volume and filled up on eggs and sausage.
    After that I
went looking for Taggart, which proved to be more of a challenge than
normal. It only took a few minutes to confirm that he wasn't anywhere
inside the bunker, at which point I headed outside.
    We'd hung an
impressive amount of camouflage netting over the amphitheater that
led to the garage, so it was relatively rare for the massive slab of
concrete that served as the garage door to be down.
    Today was no
exception to that rule and I found a surprising amount of traffic
moving in and out of the garage. Heath was sitting just underneath
the edge of the netting with a large bottle of water.
    "Hey,
Adri. Did you finish emptying out the kitchen already this morning?"
    "Hey,
Heath. Hardly, there were still plenty of pancakes on the grill when
I left."
    He wiped a line
of sweat off of his forehead and nodded. "That's good. Isaac
kept us all working later than normal last night. Now that the sun's
up, everyone is going to want to get some food down them before they
hit the showers and get some sleep. You ought to go back for another
round in an hour or so, you look like you've lost more weight again.
Taggart must be working you too hard."
    I shrugged
uncomfortably. I'd pretty much made my peace with the idea of every
hybrid and wolf in the bunker using the fluctuations in my bodyweight
as a barometer of how the covert war between Taggart and the Coun'hij
was going. It was the kind of thing that would have given most
teenage girls nightmares, but it wasn't like I was chubby or anything
so there were a lot worse fates that I could have had inflicted on
me.
    No, the biggest
problem was that I didn't like everyone thinking that I was doing
more than I actually was. Going to visit Cindi had actually turned
out to be a good thing, but I hadn't gone there intending to find out
whether or not the police were hot on our trail. I'd gone for purely
selfish reasons, but Heath thought that I'd been hard at work just
like him and everyone else.
    "Trust me
when I say that if there's one thing that I'm good at these days it's
eating. I'll be just fine."
    Heath nodded
and took another long drink from his water bottle. "Are you
looking for Taggart?"
    "Yeah,
have you seen him lately?"
    Heath nodded
and pointed off to the east. "I saw him head off that way about
an hour ago."
    I looked out
over the semi-desolate landscape and grimaced. The last thing I
wanted to do right then was go trekking across acres of tick-infested
sagebrush, but I couldn't just wait for him to come back, not when
hours might end up counting. At least I had on comfortable shoes.
    "Okay, can
you do me a favor and send out the cavalry if I don't come back
within the next three or four hours?"
    Heath nodded
and winked. "I'll do one better than that. If you're not back by
the time I wake up I'll come get you myself."
    It was a severe
case of overkill to use Heath on a mere search-and-rescue mission,
but knowing that he had my back was undeniably reassuring. Heath was
one of those rare hybrids with an ability and his put him all the way
to the top of the supernatural food chain.
    Heath was able
to manipulate the senses of those around him—mainly sight and
smell—which meant that if he wanted to, he could literally make
sure that the bad guys never even saw him coming. Isaac was the
brains and heart behind their group, and in a pinch he could go
toe-to-toe with most run-of-the-mill hybrids, but Heath was the
enforcer who made sure that nobody stepped too far out of line.
    "Thanks,
Heath. I hope it doesn't come to that, but it's nice to know that
you'll come get me if I do something even more stupid than normal."
    "No
worries, I'll see you in a few hours."
    I didn't know
the first thing about tracking someone, so I