Bolt

2

“Bolt Stryper,” a harsh female voice announced. He looked up to see a hard-faced woman staring at him with cold eyes. She looked like she could spit razor blades with a straight face. He looked her up and down uncertainly. She didn’t have a weapon. All she had was a clipboard with a few sheets of paper on it.

“That is my name,” he replied.

“I wasn’t asking,” she snapped. “I know it’s your name. I’m here to make you an offer, but if you’re going to be insolent, you can go straight back to your cell. My name is General Nydia Anderson.”

“Offer?” he asked, ignoring who she was. It mattered not. Only that she was on the outside. She took a few steps toward him.

“I have a need for strong shifters,” she said. “There are times when your skills are of great value. I am here to propose a mission to you, and, by this, you may earn your freedom. How does that sound?”

“It sounds too good to be true,” he snarled. “What is this? Are you torturing me with hope?”

She smiled as if that was something she really liked to do. “Not this time,” she answered. “The mission in question is to travel into Afghanistan to retrieve something the government wants. A woman named Kara Lailer has been on the trail of a very valuable gem, and she and the artifact must be secured. We need you to retrieve the gem.”

Bolt sat silently for a moment. He didn’t believe they would just let him go. It had to be a trap.

“If you succeed, you will win your freedom. Well, a certain type of freedom.” She smiled. He frowned. Here it was, the catch.

“You’ll belong to me. You’ll be part of an elite shifter squad that only works for me, and you’ll join Cannon in this same work.”

“Cannon’s alive?” he shouted. She nodded.

“Indeed. Very much alive. He completed a mission for me, and now he is free of this place.”

“Cannon … Alive,” he muttered. Could she be lying? Maybe. He was tempted, though. Too tempted. He knew he couldn’t resist.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll take on your mission. I can’t be going out as just a human, though. Surely you want me to be able to shift?”

“Of course,” she said, smiling. She gestured to a nearby guard, and he came to hold Bolt down. He felt something on his neck and roared, fighting the chains. Sharp pain cut into him, and there was a pinching as the chip was pulled out. Immediately, a new one was inserted. The resulting headache felt like his skull was being sawed open.

“What did you just do to me?” he gasped. She nodded, marking something on her paperwork.

“We have replaced your inhibitor chip with a GPS tracker. Now we will always know exactly where you are, and if you decide to go rogue, we will find you. Be sure of that.”

“You can be sure I don’t want back in this hellhole,” Bolt grumbled.

“Then you’d better not fail. If you don’t return the artifact to me, then your fate will be worse than this prison.”

He nodded, panting. “When do I get out of here?” His voice trembled, but he would not beg.

“Soon,” she said, turning to walk away. “You’ll have food, clothes, and intel brought to you, then you will leave for your mission.”

She turned to give him one last smile. He hated the look. There was no joy in it.

“Good luck, Bolt.”

KARA

As night fell, the looming shadow of the mountain set the camp in the shade. Kara sat by the fire, watching the flames of their campfire flickering toward the sky. The stars glinted as they came out, the entire heavens clearly in sight in the thin desert air.

Even though Kara looked calm, possibly even relaxed, after the long days of travel, she was actually brimming over with excitement. Her heart was pounding hard enough to make her cheeks red, and every few minutes, her face would break into a joyful smile.

I found it. I really found it!

After years of researching, she had finally found the final clue to put her on the trail of the gem she sought. It was a one-of-a-kind item, something that could not be replicated.

Kara settled herself a bit more comfortably on the hard earth, cradling the object in her hands. She didn’t have the stone yet — far from it — but she had found the key.

Stories of the Tiger’s Eye gem had wound through generations, the kinds of stories that were more legend than truth. She had known from the beginning there was something real behind the fantasy. The native people had hidden it so well that now no one knew where to find it, told her that it existed, and it was everything she hoped it would be.

One of her companions asked her if she wanted a cup of tea. She took it gratefully, even though it was harsh and bitter. It still had the antioxidant qualities of any ordinary black tea and a mild dose of caffeine. She wasn’t paying much attention to the rest of her team right now. She was too focused on the stone in her hands.

She and the local people helping her had traveled for days in order to find this clue. It was only a small stone, but it had been painstakingly etched with complex hieroglyphs. She hadn’t needed very long to decipher that it was a map, and it was showing her exactly where to find the tiger’s eye gem.

All those who had come before her had failed to find it because they had looked for the gem itself. She had taken a different route and searched for the key. It had been far easier to find — sitting in a hollowed-out tree that stood alone on a rocky plain. The native people had believed the gem would protect them, but in the end, they went to extreme lengths to protect it.

Kara knew why. Based on the stories she’d gathered, she theorized the stone contained a unique energy signature. It was full of light, constantly replenishing itself. It could provide large amounts of self-regenerative power without any pollution or environmental effects.