by Helen Scott
As I click through the test subject folders, I find not only notes on each one but photos. Most are average-joe-looking people who start out smiling and happy before moving to concerned and ending up defeated and eventually dead or worse, turned into one of those things we'd seen at the base we raided last. It sends a shiver down my spine.
I’m not a man who is easily spooked, but seeing something that looks like it’s in pain all the time, that is misshapen and deformed, that looks twisted and stuck, it’s enough to make even the most steel-clad stomachs turn. I make a quick copy of the files onto a clean hard drive that has no encryption so I can look through them at my leisure and slip my phone from my pocket to text the Prez.
We're in. I chuckle to myself thinking about all the bad hacker movies where dudes are typing on multiple keyboards at the same time, as though that makes any sense, and wearing tiny sunglasses inside in a dark room. Yeah, definitely not me.
I haven't even wiped the smile from my face before my phone starts ringing. "Yeah?"
"Bring the hard drives to me, or send me a link to the files or whatever. I want to know what we are up against when it comes to these guys."
"You got it, Boss."
The phone on the other end cuts out and I know he's hung up. The man never said goodbye in his life.
I sigh and figure he'd rather have them where he can see them so I grab the hard drives and necessary cables and go to his office. The halls fly by as I move, and I don’t even glimpse any sweet butts out and about. The Prez's office is all dark wood paneling and dark leather furniture with a massive mahogany desk in the center. It’s like the man wants it as dark as possible at all times, especially when he keeps the blinds to the window closed all the time as well.
"Hey, Prez," I say as I knock on the door. "I've got the hard drives for you. Lots of good info on them, but I haven't had time to go through it all yet."
"Good work, Crash. Your brothers know you're done?"
"No, not yet. You were the first to know."
"Good. Go get a beer with them and get your cock sucked. You've earned it. I'm sure I'll need your team heading out soon if I find anything of use."
"You had us guarding the woman's door. Still want that? Or want to sub in some cannon fodder?" I asked.
He grumbles under his breath and eventually says, "No, one of you four. You found her. You want her upstairs. You deal with her."
"Understood."
"Go have a fucking drink," he growls. It’s his most commonly used phrase for dismissal and depending on his tone can sound like encouragement or an insult. Today he just sounds tired.
I give him a fake salute and head toward the bar. Candy is calling my name, along with a few shots of vodka. When I get there, though, Candy’s sucking off Tiny and giving it everything she’s got as well.
Gunner’s already sliding a shot of vodka over the bar top to me, which I appreciate. I give him a nod of thanks before downing the shot and watching as he refills the glass. I down the second and he hands me a bottle of my favorite beer afterward. I snag it and make my way through the crowd, ignoring the sweet butt being fucked from both sides over the pool table, and sitting down with my team.
"Drives are open," I say quietly.
Dragon and Phoenix both cheers me with their own beers and I sit back in my seat. If they’re here then that means that Striker is guarding Dani, which is good. He won’t put up with any of her running away shit that Phoenix told us about.
My gaze scans the crowd at the bar. No one seems particularly hammered yet, but it’s still early. Anyone who isn't in the inner circle, isn't a Son of Helsing, is far enough away that I’m comfortable saying, "We need to get Dani to talk before Prez loses his shit. He seemed especially wound up tonight."
"You're the one with luck as a superpower. Go chat her up, big boy," Phoenix says with a wink.
"Please. What the fuck does luck have to do with anything when Dragon can make her come in her panties just by looking at her the right way? You two go talk to her. Bitches love twins anyway," I say before taking a long pull from my beer.
"Fuck that. Have you seen Daytona's tits tonight? I've got plans for them." Phoenix grins and nods toward where the sweet butt in question is sitting.
He’s right. The bikini top the sweet butt is wearing makes her tits look fucking magnificent. She catches me looking and gives me a little shimmy. I shake my head, though I smile. She isn't what I’m looking for tonight. If Candy is busy then Shelby is my girl. When I see her blonde head of hair, I call out to her. She stands and saunters over, swaying her hips for me as she gives me a heated look.
"Suck me off," I growl when she’s close enough.
She sinks to her knees between my legs and as her fingers work my pants open, I feel myself hardening. Her ass sticks out perfectly, exposing the tiny strip of red material that runs between her butt cheeks. I reach forward and spank her, making those sweet butt cheeks jiggle, and making her gasp right before she sucks me into her mouth.
I look down and her straw colored hair, which normally looks like spun gold to me, now looks too yellow. For some reason, I keep picturing someone with ashy blonde hair instead. She looks up at me and her blue eyes, which are intensified by colored contacts, aren't right either. I want something darker, eyes that glow with inner strength, not desperation.
Looking down at Shelby bobbing up and down on my cock makes me start to go soft so I tip my head back and imagine what I actually want, even though I know it can never happen. In my mind, it’s Dani's head between my thighs and her luscious lips wrapped around my cock. I bet she fucks like an angel, and though part of me longs to find out, it isn't a line I would or could cross. At least not until we know what the fuck is going on with her.
10
Dani
I’m freshly showered and someone left food for me. It’s a little embarrassing when I literally gobble up the food like a wild animal, then have one minute to feel satisfied before I feel sick. As I stumble to the toilet, I can’t help but think how unfair it is to be hungry for so long, then get sick from overeating.
Collapsing onto my knees, I hurl for a few minutes, then flush the toilet and wipe off my mouth. Shaking a little, I make my way to the soft bed and lie down, staring at the ceiling. My mind flashes back to the past like flipping the pages of a book.
I can picture my old room in the trailer park. My father had been ex-military. My mother had run the second she could and never looked back to see if the daughter she’d left behind was just as miserable with the drunken asshole. My father had no idea how to deal with a girl, how to show love or kindness, so I’d spent my life like a broken piece of glass. No one could get close to me. I hurt everyone and everything I touched. And when I turned eighteen, he wished me happy birthday by telling me I had an hour to get my shit and get out.
So, I did.
I packed a bag and began trekking out of our little town. I walked along the freeway, thumb out, knowing I might have to do some awful things to get to a bigger city, where I might have a chance of getting a job as a waitress and sleeping on someone’s couch.
But no one stopped for me that day.
The fall chill hung in the air, and as night started to fall, my fingers and toes got colder and colder. My teeth were chattering together so hard the sound filled my ears, and I remember rubbing and rubbing my hands on my arms, but knowing I wasn’t getting any warmer.
I was in the middle of nowhere, between my old town and a town up ahead. It was one of the many times in my life that I’d felt legitimately scared that I might die. I imagined someone coming across my body on the side of the road and muttering about some truck prostitute.
And then a car had slowed down and stopped just ahead of me.
It was some fancy car that screamed of money with tinted windows. And even though every instinct inside of me was saying danger waited for me in that car, I moved forward. Because that’s the only thing that had kept me alive that long…always moving forward
.
A massive man in a suit had gotten out of the car. Even late at night, he wore sunglasses. He’d opened a door in the back and gestured for me to get in. My stomach had sunk, but I did as he told me. In the car, a man sat. He was much smaller than the man outside, but there was something about him that felt even more dangerous.
He’d smiled at me. “I’m Henry Wevill. What’s your name?”
“Dani,” I had told him.
“Well, Dani, it’s dangerous for a pretty young thing like you to be out alone, hitchhiking along a highway at night.”
“Yes, sir,” I had said. “But I didn’t have another choice.”
“How so?” he asked, his voice almost a purr, that even now I remember unsettled me.
“I have no one,” I told him honestly.
He lifted a brow. “No one at all?”
“No.”
Even as I said the word, it felt like a mistake. If this man knew no one would look for me, what would he do to me? But there wasn’t time to think before the next question came at me.
“And how old are you?”
“E--eighteen,” I said, the word coming out shaking.
“You’re older than my typical women, but you’ll do.” Then he leaned closer and set a hand on my thigh. “You’re very lucky I found you, Dani, because I am a very wealthy man, and I can give you things you’ve only ever dreamed about.”
I remember biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. “Okay.”
He squeezed my thigh. “From now on, you’re one of Henry’s girls, and no one will ever hurt you again.”
As we pulled back on the road, I remember looking back at the side of the highway and wondering if it would've been smarter to die there in the dark. At the time, I wasn’t sure, but over the next few days, weeks, and years, I thought of that highway often, knowing without a doubt I made the wrong choice.
Some things are worse than death. Being owned by that man was one of those things.
But even though he broke me down, I never gave up. I tried to escape over and over again, but it was impossible to get free. They broke my bones. They bloodied my body. They left gashes a private surgeon stitched up without meeting my gaze.
The men here wanted to know why I’d joined this project. How could I tell them that it was my only chance at freedom? They’d think I was weak. They’d think me being fucked by some old guy just to survive was pathetic. No, they could never understand that eighteen-year-old out on that road alone, making the best choice she thought possible. Nor could they understand the twenty-one-year-old who escaped and ran into those scientists asking for volunteers from the homeless. I’d signed those papers without even reading them.
Not truly understanding that I was signing my body away. Again.
And yet, it felt right somehow.
Over and over again in my life it was like I wasn’t a person. I was just a body. But men had a way of underestimating me, and I hope these men will do the same. Because if they think I’m just going to lay here and let them use me, like all the others, they are wrong.
Off in the distance, I hear a sound that makes every hair on my body stand on end. A howl of pain and rage. A sound so familiar that it haunts me in my nightmares.
I slowly sit up and go to the window. The area around this building’s dark, and there are patches of trees cut off from the woods on one side by a fence. Straight ahead, there’s another gate, and then buildings spread out like living quarters. Near the entrance to the entire compound is a huge, bright structure that looks like a bar, and a road is just beyond it.
Nothing seems out of the ordinary. Perhaps I’d imagined the howl... Perhaps I’m just losing my mind. But then I see a flash of white, and my gaze snaps to it. Something is sitting hunched over on the wall. It lifts back its head, and I hear the howl again.
More white shapes leap onto the fence beside it, and now I know we’re in trouble.
Those things…those things are coming for us.
Or maybe just for me.
11
Striker
The howls that sound make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and not just because I can sense something supernatural nearby, but because they are creepy as fuck as well. I’m supposed to be guarding the woman, but something told me that I needed to get downstairs and figure out what the hell was going on.
Without waiting for her to answer, I throw open the door and find her huddled in the corner with her knees clutched to her chest. Her face is paler than it had been before and her eyes are round with fear.
I crouch down in front of her and say, "Dani, I need to go figure out what the shit is going on. Are you going to be okay here alone?"
"They're here for me," she whispers, her voice cracking half-way through. "I know it."
"Who's here?"
"The monsters. If you go out there, they'll kill you." Tears are filling her eyes and shining in the dim light. It’s only when she blinks that they fall.
"I have to go and help. I need you to promise to stay here though, okay? Nothing can get to you up here, but you have to stay put. Please don't make us catch you again." I can’t believe I am pleading with this woman, but I am. From everything I've seen and heard, the hard and rough approach wasn't working so far, so soft had to be the answer, right?
"What if they find me?"
"They won't. I swear on my patch nothing is going to get to you in here tonight. You can't run though."
"I won't run tonight... If-If you don't come back, then as soon as daylight hits I'm gone. You can kill me on the way out, I don't care." Her voice is resolute and I know I’m not going to get anything else out of her.
"I'll be back. I promise." I push to my feet and leave, only letting myself turn around to check on her once and then it’s only to find her terrified eyes staring a hole in my back.
I can’t let them distract me, though, so I turn away and continue on. As soon as I make it out of the front door of the main building I know we are in trouble. My neck isn't just tingling any more, it’s full-on burning.
My gaze sweeps over the area in front of me. The bar and general clubhouse are off to the right and there is a fence and gate off to my left with the forest next to it, edging along the chain link. We don’t have the craziest security set up in the world, but that’s mainly to keep suspicions low. There’s nothing like putting up a high brick wall with barbed wire on top to get the community and the police in the area up in arms.
The woods hadn't been nearly as developed when I first prospected for the Immortal Hunters but now that the trees are bigger and thicker it gives us some of the security without it being as obvious and hackle-raising to the people that live in the area surrounding us. Normally the trees give me solace and peace, but now? I can see shapes moving between them.
I slip my phone from my pocket, trying to look nonchalant, and text every other council member and the other members of the Sons of Helsing. Intruders on site. Last seen in woods. May not be the only breach.
Before I can take any action I need weapons, so I step back into the house for a moment before grabbing a sword and a couple of 9mm pistols and their extended magazines. We might not have all the gear on that we did the last time we encountered these assholes, but that doesn’t mean we are helpless. Lastly, I take off my gloves.
The cool night air caresses my newly exposed skin and if it wasn't for the imminent threat, I would have let myself enjoy it for a moment since it’s so rare for me to be without my gloves these days. As it is, I don’t have time for little luxuries like that. Not when we are under attack.
As I exit the building again I find myself face-to-face with one of the recruits for Sons of Helsing. "The fuck are you doing out here?" I demand.
"Prez said to come and get you, trade out guarding the guest in the top room," the cannon fodder says. His road name’s Tank. The man is short and stocky with a beard that could rival the best lumberjacks.
"You know where you're going?" I ask, makin
g sure he isn’t going to go and guard an empty room.
"Corner suite, right?"
I nod.
"You see anything that's more than human and not a brother, you shoot, you got it?" I state. Putting Dani in someone else's care makes me oddly nervous, something which shouldn't be happening.
"Got it, boss," Tank replies before heading inside.
Part of me is relieved when I can see the bulge of a gun at the back of his waist, making his cut bunch up. The man is capable, I know that, and I’m even starting to like him. I just hope he survives and doesn't live up to the cannon fodder name.
As I step off the porch onto the gravelly dirt that surrounds the big house that has enough rooms that all of the Sons of Helsing can stay there if they want I can scent blood on the air. The rage within me has built to the point that I know if I don't get into the fight soon I'll go crazy.
The thing that a lot of the guys don't get is that the ability I gained when I joined the Sons of Helsing and the Immortal Hunters is like a living, breathing thing inside me. It longs for release with every beat of my heart. It’s why I wear gloves all the time: because the demon in me is liable to lash out and hurt those I care for.
I crouch down and run along the side of the house toward the woods where I'd seen the intruders. A figure moves somewhere within the trees. It’s enough for me to hear, but I can’t quite make out where they are. It is enough to give me a general direction though.
There are few trees that are big enough to hide behind and I try to stick to them as best as I can but it’s not exactly easy. Even though I've seen the creatures before at the lab, when one steps in front of me and growls I’m momentarily stunned. The thing is massive, and I’m not a small guy, but it makes me feel like pre-experiment Steve Rogers standing in front of post-experiment Steve Rogers.
It stands easily over eight feet tall. Its shoulders are twice as broad as my whole body and the wolf-like head is enough to make me swallow roughly. The thing's jaw seems to open slowly as though it’s deciding if it can fit my whole head in its mouth or not. I’m fairly sure it can, and it’s that thought that spurs me into action and breaks the odd standoff between the two of us.
