Pack Dynamics

by Julie Frost

  “Stand aside; you don’t want these things in uninjured tissue.” Allen and Hasgrave backed off, and Reed stuck the needle into the incision in Ben’s chest and pushed the plunger.

  “Now what?” Hasgrave asked.

  “We wait,” Reed said.

  “Not too long,” Allen breathed, watching the monitors. “He’s going to go into v-fib in a minute. Get the paddles ready, Hasgrave.” He stripped the wrapping off a hypo full of adrenaline.

  More panicked beeping from the machines, telling them the patient was crashing. Like they didn’t know. Allen moved, was arrested by Reed’s hand on his arm. “Thirty seconds.”

  It was the longest thirty seconds of Allen’s life. Everything in him screamed that he needed to do something, right the hell now, and the inaction was like to kill him, if not Ben. But by the end of thirty seconds, the monitors had gone back to being reassuring, and, at forty-five seconds, Ben’s vitals started stabilizing.

  Allen blinked. “Why … are we not using this on everyone?”

  “It hasn’t been fully tested yet.” Reed tipped his head and grimaced. “And some of the side-effects, at least in animals, have been kind of nasty. Strictly last-ditch.”

  Allen poked around, looking for the bleeders. They’d closed up. “Well, your last-ditch nanotech just saved my patient. What was it?”

  “Mostly a higher concentration of what we usually use, with some extra added oomph.” Reed shut his eyes. “Just … watch for the side-effects, yeah? High fever, berserk behavior, heavy disorientation, anything like that. I need to know right away.”

  “At least he’ll be alive to have them.”

  O O O

  Alex opened his eyes, Megan noticed, as soon as she walked into his room. Gunfire hadn’t woken him up, but her muffled steps on his carpet did. Later she might have time to laugh at the irony.

  Something in her face must have given everything away, because he sat up immediately and said, “What happened?”

  She fell into the wheelchair and covered her face with her hands. “I’m just happy you were here and not there. The last thing we needed was two heroes getting themselves shot.”

  “Jeremy?”

  “That’s who you’d think, but no.” Her voice shook. The wolf wanted to curl up and hide under the bed at this point. “We had fake cops show up to take our trespasser away. Ben recognized them and took them out in, like, three seconds with the sniper rifle. But one of them got a round off, too. Ben’s in the OR downstairs with Doc Allen and Reed. Shot in the chest. It looked …” She stopped, swallowed. “Fatal.”

  Alex gave her a Look she was sure he’d learned from her. “Did you ever get any sleep, Megan?”

  “When would I have done that?”

  “All right, seriously. Go to bed. That’s an order.” His tone brooked no argument.

  She had to try anyway. “I haven’t cleared your schedule yet.”

  “I’ll do it. What’s the usual excuse, personal emergency, so sorry I have to reschedule, what’s a good time for you?”

  She nodded, her face still in her hands. “Words to that effect.”

  “How many appointments did I have today, anyway?”

  “Three. A teleconference with the board, a meeting with Moore in R&D, and … something else.” Her memory failed her. It was her job to remember, and she couldn’t. She wanted to cry, but didn’t have the energy.

  “I have a teleconference with the board on a Saturday? What gives?”

  She looked at him briefly between her fingers. “Well, Mr. Jarrett, you were too hung over for the one on Monday, couldn’t be bothered to attend the one we rescheduled for Wednesday, and said, and I quote, ‘A board meeting on a Friday is a travesty, a travesty, I say.’ So, we scheduled one for today instead.”

  “Ah.” He got off the bed, and then their positions were reversed as he began pushing the chair, with her in it, toward one of the guest rooms.

  “You shouldn’t be up …” she protested weakly.

  “I’m way better. Because I got some sleep.” He wheeled her through a doorway and stopped next to the king-sized bed. Stripping the covers back, he said, “In, Miss Graham.”

  She levered herself out of the chair and onto the oh-so-soft mattress. Curling around the oversized pillow, she nearly whimpered in relief as Alex pulled the comforter over her. “Wake me up in a couple of hours, Mr. Jarrett.”

  She heard him snort as sleep claimed her.

  O O O

  “And she talks about me running myself into the ground,” Alex muttered as he made his way downstairs to find Janni in a state of shellshock.

  “So much for being safe here,” she said, a little bitterly, turning Ben’s bloodstained glasses over and over in her hands. She was curled up on the sofa in the living area by the kitchen. Someone had given her a throw, and she huddled under it, gazing straight ahead at nothing.

  Alex felt inadequate. “Sorry.” He made a wide berth around the blood on the floor, grabbed the coffeemaker, and plugged it into a different socket within easier reach, making a mental note to give the maids the day off and call in an outside cleaning service. His kitchen looked like someone had dumped several good-sized cans of red paint on the tiles and then spattered the walls with it for good measure. He couldn’t believe he’d slept through the incident, gunfire and all.

  Janni shook her head and massaged the space between her eyes as he sat on the couch beside her. “I know you are. I can’t believe Ben did that.”

  “I may have to hire him away from your mom,” Alex said with a twisted grin he didn’t feel.

  “You’re not funny, Alex. At all.”

  “Sorry,” he said again. “What happened? Megan didn’t give me any details.”

  “The second he saw the fake cops come in, Ben lost it. He backed himself up against the counter where we put the sniper rifle.” Janni rested her chin on her bent knees and stared off into space. “You know, Ben looks like a damn baby seal. He’s not that big, and he just has this air of, I don’t know, harmlessness.” She frowned a little. “Something about his eyebrows, maybe, and the glasses help. Anyway, he was an Army Ranger for a stint before I got him the job with my mom.”

  “He was?” Alex was surprised, because Ben hadn’t struck him as the type. Whatever that meant, upon reflection.

  “Yeah, straight out of high school, wanted to do his part. He did two tours in Afghanistan, got captured by insurgents for a while during the second one, and the GI Bill put him through computer school after he came home.” She bared her teeth. “And these people only saw ‘guy we nearly killed to make a point’ rather than ‘combat veteran with PTSD who has a real reason to hate our guts,’ and didn’t even think to move him away from the big scary gun. And he executed them with it, efficiently. Didn’t hesitate, none of that standoff bullshit, didn’t tell them to drop it and back off, just boom, boom, boom. Total soldier mode, ‘servicing targets,’ he’s called it. He doesn’t like it when people point weapons at his friends.”

  “I’m not too fond of the concept myself.” The soothing aroma of coffee filled the room, and Alex grabbed a couple of mugs and a bunch of supplies, sugar and flavored creamers and spoons.

  Janni put a hand up. “None for me. As soon as we know something about Ben, I’m going to fall into bed and sleep for about twelve hours.” She rubbed her arms as if she was cold. “I … haven’t actually slept since he disappeared without calling. It was so unlike him I knew something was wrong.”

  No, she wouldn’t have slept, would she? “I can go check, if you like.”

  “Thank you.”

  He dumped hazelnut creamer into his Kopi Luwak and headed downstairs. The basement was eerily silent, and he took a second to remind himself that this was his house, dammit, and if it was quiet, that was his doing.

  The door to the surgical suite was shut. He tapped on it and stuck his head in. “What word?”

  “Just closing,” said Doc Allen, straightening and rolling his head around a couple of
times before bending back over the table. “It was iffy for a while, but he’ll be all right, thanks to whatever magic Dr. Reed brought with him.”

  Alex felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his chest, one he didn’t even know he’d been carrying, and he sagged against the doorframe. “Good. That’s real good.” He closed his eyes and blew a breath out. “Thanks, Docs. Jeremy, you too. Bonuses all around. Coffee upstairs.”

  “We don’t do this for the money,” Jeremy said. “Or that rat crap you call coffee.”

  “I know. Bonuses anyway. Above and beyond the call of duty, all that stuff.” They knew the drill. “See you in a few.” He smiled, toasted them with his cup, and went back to find Janni and give her the news.

  O O O

  Hans Ostheim flung the handset of his phone across the room, cursing as it shattered against the plasma-screen TV and fur erupted on his back. Alex Jarrett was either very good or very lucky, but either way, two of Ostheim’s valuable employees were dead, along with his nephew.

  He snarled and allowed his wolf to come partially out, flexing claws and snapping teeth. Idna walked carefully into the room, supporting herself on various bits of furniture, and put her hand on his arm, not snatching it back as his canines closed around her wrist. “Rough morning, darling?” she asked, stroking his hair with the red-painted, manicured nails on her free hand.

  “That bastard Jarrett,” he growled, after releasing her. “Janine and Thomas are dead. So is Deiter.”

  “Oh.” She sat down in an opulent chair, chin resting on her knuckles. “What happened?”

  “I sent Deiter to Jarrett’s, as our message to back off was ignored. They intercepted some of our memos, just last night.” He put his face in his hand. “Deiter was captured. When I sent people to extract him, they killed all three of them.” His breathing was ragged. “I have to go and identify his body.”

  “How … unexpected.”

  He stared at her. “You know I love you, but even for a vampire, you can be a cold bitch sometimes, Idna. Unless.…” He rose and tilted her chin up, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Oh, the usual,” she replied.

  He clenched his jaw. Her illness made him feel completely helpless, and this was not a feeling he embraced or was used to. They were running out of time.…

  She continued. “One of us must look on the situation with dispassion, dear.” She lifted a cool, perfectly groomed eyebrow.

  He pounded his fist on the back of her chair. “I raised Deiter as my son! My brother entrusted his safety to me.” On reflection, perhaps they should have wolfed Deiter. It would have made him harder to kill in a situation like this. The boy had balked, and now Hans regretted not pushing the issue.

  “And we will avenge his death. In due time.” Idna rose and put her hand on his shoulder. “Priorities, Hans. Once we have what we want, we can go about destroying our enemies.”

  Ostheim grunted. “Including Alex Jarrett. Who has become more than just an inconvenience.”

  Chapter Five

  Ben twitched violently awake with a curse, breathing in short sharp gasps because his chest was on fire from the inside and deep breaths weren’t an option. Where…? Bright fluorescent light glared down from above, hurting his eyes.

  Shit.

  He wrapped his arms around his head and curled into himself. Wounded, out of ammo, his entire unit dead, dying, or captured, he’d grabbed his M4 by the barrel, blistering hot from firing, to use as a club, prepared to sell his life as dearly as possible. But the insurgents had captured him anyway, hurt people he was responsible for, and now there was a needle in the back of his hand.…

  He didn’t even realize he was repeating “fuck” over and over again until someone gripped his shoulder and a voice said, “Easy, there, ace. You’re all right.”

  Different voice than the one he expected; this one spoke English and he recognized it. Not that place, then. He relaxed marginally, still shaking. Three breaths. He licked parched lips with a dry tongue. Then, “Alex.”

  “Yeah. Bad one? What do you need?”

  “Time.” Ben’s throat was raw. “Water?” He couldn’t look at his hand, and kept his eyes squeezed shut. “And would you get this fucking needle the hell out of my hand? God.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Alex removed the IV and taped a cotton ball down, and the shakes gradually stopped. Last time someone had poked Ben with needles, it had been an Afghani insurgent addicting him to heroin as part of some plan or other to get him to tell them all the secrets of the U.S. Military—the secrets that, as a front-line grunt, he wouldn’t know, but try convincing them of that.

  Once he was hooked, they’d made him go through withdrawal, cold turkey, before addicting him again. Several cycles of that, and he was wrecked, and “aversion” was a mild word for the way he felt about needles of any kind going anywhere near any of his veins. Or any other place on him.

  “Here’s some water.”

  Ben opened his eyes to find he was on a hospital bed next to a computer desk in a decidedly not-hospital room. Alex’s mansion? Images from the past few hours filled his head, but he hadn’t been in this room before. It was enormous and high-ceilinged, filled with shelves loaded with all kinds of esoteric lab equipment and bizarre machinery. Computers were scattered everywhere, more than one half-open file cabinet overflowed with paper, and sticky notes of various colors decorated one white board, while two others were covered in formulas Ben couldn’t make head or tail of.

  A set of French doors showed him daylight peeking in. The whole place had an air of controlled chaos, and Ben wondered how often Alex slept on the battered brown leather sofa sitting in the middle of the floor with a Navajo-patterned blanket draped over the back of it. Because this, clearly, was Alex’s lab, and Ben was willing to bet he spent more time down here than he did in the whole rest of the house combined.

  Ben raised the back of the bed. “No GI Joe jokes.” He sipped from the glass that Alex pressed into his hand.

  “I don’t joke about people with Silver Stars. Seriously, man, thanks.”

  Ben laid his head back against the pillow and shook it wearily back and forth. “Janni told you?”

  “I looked it up.” Alex moved his shoulder in a gesture that might have been a shrug. “I like to know about the people who work for me. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I don’t talk about it.” He closed his eyes again. “Please don’t ask.”

  “I get that. Megan’s always after me about stuff like that.” Alex snorted. “‘How do you feel about it, Alex?’ When I’d just as soon forget it happened. Not that I’ve ever done anything like you did, but falling off a cliff is unpleasant enough without people jabbering your ear off.”

  Considering the fact that Alex had a hard time keeping his mouth shut about anything whatsoever, Ben thought that statement was somewhat ironic, and his mouth twisted into an involuntary grin. “Everyone else okay?”

  “Yeah, they’re all sleeping. Big night.”

  Ben huffed, which hurt his chest, and he winced. “You could say that. I’m starving.”

  “We’ll get some food here pretty quick.” Alex grabbed a bottle, shook a yellow pill out into his hand, and passed it over.

  Ben eyed it for a second before tilting his head and swallowing it down with a gulp of water. “What are you doing up?”

  “Someone had to keep an eye on your recovery. I elected myself, since I think I’ve had the most sleep out of anyone. Speaking of which, how are you feeling?”

  “Breathing hurts. Better than I expected, though.” Hell, he hadn’t really expected to wake up, so actually breathing was a step in the right direction. “How bad?”

  Alex’s expression was elaborately casual, which gave Ben all the information he needed. He rubbed at the bandage on his chest and made a face. “How’d Janni react?”

  Alex quirked his brow and his lips and tipped his head, silent for once in his life.
She’d freaked, then. Awesome.

  Ben huffed. “I got into computers so I wouldn’t have to do this shit anymore. Guess it didn’t work.” He changed gears, because dwelling on Afghanistan and anything related to it—such as being shot—sent him down horrible rabbit holes. “I’m gonna ask her to marry me. I’ve got a ring already. Just need the right timing.”

  Alex grinned, this time. “Really? Congrats, man.”

  Ben lifted an eyebrow. “I’d have thought a guy like you’d be, I don’t know, more cynical about the institution.”

  “Eh, it worked for my parents. Oh, hi, ladies.”

  Janni and Megan had walked into the room, and Ben felt close to panic. What had Janni heard? But she gave him her usual smile, somewhat brittle around the edges, and hopped up onto the bed next to him. She handed him his glasses and entwined her fingers in his.

  “Thanks, honey,” he said.

  “People are starting to stir, Mr. Jarrett,” Megan said, all efficiency. “Should I send out for food, or do you want me to arrange a chef to come in and cook?”

  “Um. What do I have?”

  Megan hit an intercom button. “Chambliss, could you check and see what Mr. Jarrett has in his pantry and fridge, please?”

  A pause, and Chambliss’s cultured voice filled the room, heavy with irony. “Four boxes of two-year-old macaroni and cheese, five cans of protein and wheat grass powdered mix, a carton of milk he drinks from directly that’s beginning to go off, and three eggs of dubious freshness. And enough Kopi Luwak coffee to choke several cows. Also, every form of alcoholic beverage known to man in the sideboard, with an emphasis on thirty-year-old single-malt scotch, but you knew that already.”

  Megan raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Right, then. Since I don’t think anyone else will want to drink something that’s gone through a civet’s digestive tract, let’s have some nice Colombian roast delivered, and order in. Pizza, sandwiches, soft drinks, you know the drill, Chambliss.”

  “Indeed, I do, Miss Megan. Shall I make up a grocery list as well?”

  “Yes, please. Some of us like to eat like normal human beings.”