Midnight Wolf (Shifters Unbound #11)(81)

He growled. “Just flipping perfect.”

“This way, I think,” Tamsin said, pointing down a side road that quickly turned to dirt. “I see motorcycle tracks. Ben’s, I’d guess.”

Angus hoped so. He didn’t want to surprise a motorcycle gang in the middle of doing whatever motorcycle gangs did. He didn’t fear fighting them, but they’d have a tale to tell and Angus couldn’t afford to let them.

“There’s Ben.” Tamsin pointed to a dark-haired man leaning on his motorcycle parked in the dark shadow of a tree.

Angus pulled the pickup as close as he could to the motorcycle without risking miring the truck in the mud.

“Well, here we are,” Ben said. “You doing all right, Tamsin?”

“As well as any girl can riding for hours and hours with smelly male Shifters.” Tamsin let out a laugh. “Is it still there? Are you sure?”

She asked the last question in a small voice, as though hoping Ben would say, Nah, I was just kidding, and tell them he’d made them drive all the way to Shreveport as a joke.

No such luck. Ben gestured for them to follow him and led the way down a slick path through some trees.

Angus wasn’t certain what he expected. An old bunker or a bomb shelter maybe, built underground and lined with cement, the only entrance a small door set in the earth. Or maybe an anonymous squat gray building with bars on the windows, or no windows at all.

What Ben took them to was a dilapidated mobile home that looked like the next high wind would knock it over. The grimy and rusting white mobile home reposed alone in the middle of a damp, overgrown field, resting on a wooden foundation whose once-blue paint had mostly peeled off.

Wooden steps that had led to the front door now lay in a rotting pile against the foundation. Ben reached over it and opened the door.

“Was it locked?” Angus asked.

“Yep. But the lock was easily broken.”

“Shit.”

There was no way an arsenal could be kept secure in that trailer. Had Gavan picked the place? Or had whoever sold him the weapons already had the stash here? Either way, it was a dumb-ass place to keep it.

Ben swung himself up into the trailer with ease. “Careful coming in here. Lots of holes and rotted boards.”

Angus went next, not wanting Tamsin to enter until he made sure it was safe. Or at least safe-ish. He’d prefer to tell her to stay out altogether, but he knew better than to think she’d listen to him.

He found himself in a dim, musty room that ran the length of the trailer, small windows letting in what light filtered through the trees. If the place had ever had interior walls, they’d been taken out. The trailer floor was covered with thin carpet coming up in patches, but was otherwise empty.

Tiger lifted Tamsin in, then climbed up himself. Tiger stationed himself just inside the door so he could look out without being seen. The spot also gave him a view through the back windows to the field behind the trailer.

“This is it?” Angus asked Tamsin in puzzlement.

Tamsin shivered, hugging her arms to her chest. “Yes.”

“I don’t see an arsenal.”

“It’s down here.” Ben pulled up a pad of carpet to reveal a rusted ring in a slab of floor. Ben settled work gloves on his hands before he pulled the flaking ring and heaved up the slab.

Angus cautiously leaned down to look inside. Ben flicked on a flashlight and shone it through the hole.

A sort of cellar had been dug under the trailer, a shallow one, or else the trailer had been positioned over it after the cellar had been complete. The underground space was longer and wider than the trailer, and indeed lined with cement. Angus gazed down at racks and racks of guns and rifles of all kinds—he didn’t know what they all were. A few bore patches of rust, telling him the cellar wasn’t air-or watertight.

That gave him an idea. “We could flood it,” Angus said. “Pour water down here and drown the stuff.”

“Might neutralize the explosives and ammunition,” Ben said. “Might. Depending on what kind they are and if they’re packed in waterproof containers. But anyone could dry off and repair an assault rifle. Same can be said of driving it to the river and dumping it in. Anyone could find it, clean off the stuff, use it or sell it.”

Angus straightened up, anger he’d thought he’d come to terms with a long time ago blazing forth. “Goddess damn my brother. I know he’s in the Summerland, but I hope all the Shifters there are kicking his sorry ass.”

They closed up the arsenal and prepared to leave. Ben had bought an iron strap, some long bolts, and tools at a hardware store, and he and Angus bolted the strap over the cellar slab so the trapdoor couldn’t be lifted without tools and a lot of strength. Ben also secured the front door with a shiny new padlock.

Angus was quiet as they moved back along the path to the pickup truck, more quiet than usual, which, Tamsin reflected, was saying something. Even when Angus didn’t talk much, he’d growl, rumble under his breath, or simply glower.

At the moment, Angus strode in silence, his face still. Tamsin wondered whether the rage that kept him so quiet was directed at his brother or at her.

“You all right?” she asked in a low voice.

“Hmm?” Angus reached down and took her hand, but he did so absently. “Just thinking.”

“About how you want to run like hell from me and never look back?”