Tanner was amazing, too, but in a completely different way. He moved in a slower, almost hesitant fashion, like he was thinking about every move before he made it. But while he wasn’t as graceful as Ivy, he still took down a lot of hybrids, only in a much bloodier fashion. Thank God he was on their side.
But even with all the advantages they had going for them—a good defensive position, enough ammo and grenades to get the job done, plus Ivy and Tanner—they were still losing. There were simply too many hybrids, and the flanking action he’d been expecting from Landon hadn’t come.
“Landon!” Angelo shouted into his radio mic as he drilled a hybrid through the forehead. “You can make that appearance anytime now. No need to be fashionably late.”
This was the first time they’d used the radio headsets since getting to Costa Rica, but he wasn’t sure why they bothered. Landon hadn’t responded to any of his calls for backup except to say he and the guys with him had their hands full and would get there when they could.
“We haven’t even gotten out of the tree line yet,” Landon yelled back over the open communications line. “I was hoping you’d draw most of the hybrids your way, but I’m guessing that part of the plan didn’t work.”
Angelo reloaded a fresh magazine before answering. “Your plan worked fine, Captain. We’re facing four to one odds over here.”
“Shit. We’ll be there. Just hold on five more minutes.” In the silence that followed Landon’s words, Angelo could hear the hollow booming sounds of grenades going off over the radio. “And by the way, I’m not your captain anymore.”
Angelo chuckled. “You’ll always be my captain. Now get the hell over here and pull my ass out of the fire, would you?”
“We’re coming,” Landon promised with that same grim determination Angelo had grown to trust. “Everyone okay on your side?”
“We’re fine,” Ivy answered. Her voice was so soft over the line that Angelo barely heard it. You’d never even know she was in the middle of a firefight. “What about you?”
“All in one piece,” Landon said.
“Good. Make sure you stay that way,” she said. “Don’t do anything crazy, huh? We’ll hold out until you get here.”
Angelo appreciated Ivy’s optimism, but he didn’t think they were going to last the five minutes Landon and the other guys took to get there. He didn’t say that, though.
“Okay, troops,” he shouted above the din of automatic-weapons fire and snarling hybrids. “Landon needs us to hold out for a little while longer. He’s run into some trouble.”
Tanner turned and locked eyes with Angelo, and a knowledge that soldiers instinctively understood passed between them. The former Ranger knew they weren’t going to be able to hold the hybrids until reinforcements got there.
Suddenly, Tanner’s normally brown eyes flickered with a bright red glow. Then his teeth elongated and his claws extended. Shit. Angelo knew Tanner had been working hard as hell to rein in his hybrid nature and force down the violent impulses that took his self-control away, but someone had to slow down the hybrids and back them off, or none of them would be alive when Landon and his team arrived.
Tanner was over the wall with a roar that echoed in the jungle. On the other side of Ivy, Derek and the other Special Forces guys stared in disbelief, the hybrids forgotten for the moment. Luckily, Tanner’s transformation and animalistic war cry stunned the hybrids, too. Tanner was in their midst before they had a chance to recover.
Tanner didn’t even attempt to fire his weapon. Angelo wasn’t sure he could with those long claws. Instead, he flipped his grip on the M4 in his hand and swung it like a club. When the weapon fell apart, he went at the creatures with claws and fangs. All Angelo could do was stare. He’d never seen anything like the way Tanner fought, unless you counted watching a show on Animal Planet. Tanner ripped into the hybrids like a lion in the middle of a pack of hyenas, bodies flying everywhere.
And yet despite the incredible damage Tanner inflicted on the hybrids, it didn’t seem to be enough. He needed help.
Angelo slapped a fresh magazine into his M4, then stood up from where he crouched behind the wall. “Take it to them!” he shouted as he jumped over the only protection that had been keeping him alive, and ran into the fray.