by Amelia Jade
The landing may not have hurt much, but she definitely was not in the same shape she used to be. Her breathing was labored already, and she could feel sweat breaking out across her body.
“I know,” Blue Eyes responded, “but we need to keep going.”
Shouts sounded from closer behind them.
“I can agree with that.” She took off with renewed vigor.
Something buzzed by her ear.
“What the hell was that?” she asked, looking around as they ran.
“Tranquilizer darts,” Blue Eyes muttered.
She really needed to find out his name. Calling him Blue Eyes was going to get really annoying, really quickly. Besides, if—
“What?” she shouted as his words registered. “Why the hell are they shooting at us?”
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know as soon as we escape this,” he promised, then picked her up and ducked between railway cars.
“I—”
His finger settled over her mouth.
“I’m going to need you to be quiet here, okay? Let me do what I do best,” he said so softly she had to strain to make it out.
He came to a halt, setting her down, then motioned for her to get under the low-slung railroad car.
Maddy hesitated, but the sound of boots pounding on the gravel as they neared spurred her into action. She ducked swiftly under the car.
Connor moved into the middle of the aisle between parked cars, then all the way to the far one, where he crouched behind an outcropping.
Two men came charging around the corner.
“Hey! Where did they go?’
The second man didn’t have time to respond, because Blue Eyes went on the attack.
Maddy watched in horror as he glided between the pair like a surgeon. He reached up, grabbed the head of the rear attacker, then did something that sent the man spinning down and into the other attacker, taking him out at the knees. Blue Eyes grabbed the falling man by the face and rammed his head into the ground.
Gravel and skull met, and then the attacker went inhumanely still.
“Come on,” Blue eyes said, motioning to her with his hands.
She began to get out from under the car when her protector swore and ducked out of the way. Something clinked against the side of the railway car. It sounded suspiciously like the noises she had heard just moments ago.
Maddy froze, unsure of what to do. Blue Eyes had moved away from her, back against one of the railcars. The pair of still behemoths rose up into the night, obscuring the few sparse rays of light that were cast across the yard at that time of night. Shadow and darkness ruled, making it very hard for her to see what was going on.
She heard a grunt come from the direction where she had last seen Blue Eyes. A body flew by her in the air and she had to stifle a scream, doing her best to stay quiet like he had asked her. It was only after that, that she realized the body had been Blue Eyes himself!
She raced after him, almost tripping over his legs as he quickly rose to his feet in the darkness.
“Get down!” he hissed, pulling her out of the way as something buzzed by her head once again.
She rolled free of his grip almost automatically, a leftover response from her rugby days. This left him free, and he practically flew from the ground as he launched himself at his opponent, a man she had yet to see. There was a big thud, and the sound of several meaty blows, followed by a hollow noise as something—or someone—impacted up against the steel of the railcar.
Nervously, Maddy reached down and felt around until she found what she was looking for. Object in hand, she backed up against the railcar, her eyes finally adjusting enough to make out the dim form of two men locked in a titanic battle. They moved so swiftly and easily that she could barely follow the flurry of blows that landed on each of them. Any one of those massive punches should have knocked someone senseless, but it just seemed to enrage the other even more.
Then she saw another figure emerge from around the corner and aim something at the pair. It had to be a tranquilizer gun. She couldn’t make the object out well enough to see, but there was nothing else it could be. Maddy had to do something! If they got Blue Eyes, she sure as hell couldn’t escape on her own. With a quick prayer to whatever deity might be watching over her, she hefted the object in her arm, took aim, and whipped it around underhand in a move she hadn’t used since high-school.
Her skills had deteriorated a bit it seemed, but it worked to her advantage. Instead of hitting him in the head, as she had aimed for, her throw went low, and the large rock she had picked up slammed into the man’s crotch. He went down with a cry and she leapt forward, her brain trying to catch up with her body as she picked the rock up and dashed it against his head, intent on keeping him down. The man groaned and lay still, a large gash bleeding profusely on the side of his head.
Maddy stumbled backward as the realization of what she’d done sank in. She had hit someone in anger, with a weapon! Perhaps she had killed him! Her limbs began to shake, no matter how hard she ordered them to stop. Panic forced her fingers tight around the stone, its sharp edges digging into her palm even as she tried to drop it, aware of the droplets of blood slowly falling to the ground at her side.
A pained grunt sounded from farther into the shadows. There were several railcars all joined together, portions of unneeded trains sitting unused in the yard, waiting to be called upon again. The pair of combatants had moved deeper between them, making it harder for her to see as she found herself moving toward the sounds.
Stop it! Turn around, and go the other way. Run. Flee. Escape.
Maddy kept closing in on the sounds.
A man stumbled back into view. He wasn’t wearing a balaclava, and as he looked at her, his eyes were brown.
Her arm came up, and she slammed the rock into the side of his head.
“That was unwise,” he responded, all but ignoring the blow even as blood cascaded down his face. “I shall deal with you later.” He moved to turn back, but the distraction had been enough.
Big, muscular hands shot out of the darkness from behind him, wrapping around his head.
“Close your eyes!” a voice shouted.
Darkness enveloped her as she instinctually obeyed, her body not fighting his urgent command, something in his voice telling her she needed to do exactly as he said.
Snap!
The sound, combined with the images of the first man she had hit running across her eyelids was too much. Maddy bent over and emptied her stomach onto the ground.
Blue Eyes, to his credit, gave her a moment as she felt him crouch by her side.
“Don’t open your eyes yet,” he said as she started to get up.
Big, powerful muscles swept her into his arms, and then they were up and moving. Her body bounced up and down as they moved, picking up speed.
“Can I open my eyes now?” she asked after a minute, feeling her way around his neck with her arms, helping to ease the jolting of his gait.
Her head instinctively settled on his shoulder for a moment, until she realized what she was doing. Maddy sat up straight in his arms, eyes opening anyway, before he could respond.
“I guess so,” came the reply several seconds later, filled with the knowledge she was already looking.
“I can run some more if you want,” she offered, but he declined.
“We need to make better speed than you can handle,” he explained.
Maddy eyed the railcars and small outbuildings flashing by as he rocketed through the train yard.
“Fair enough,” she said without argument. There was no way she could keep up such a pace for very long, if at all. It was a literally superhuman speed they were traveling at. “Can I ask where we’re going at least?”
“Safe house,” Blue Eyes replied.
Right. His name.
“What’s your name, so I can stop calling you Blue Eyes?”
To accentuate her point, she pulled his ski mask up and off his face. I
t may have been her imagination, but she thought she felt him stumble slightly as he ran. There was no imagining the long hesitation before he replied.
“Bravo,” he said at last, having fought what looked like some sort of internal battle. “Call me Bravo.”
Maddy snorted, ensuring it was loud and audible. “Bravo? Really? Tell me that’s not your actual name.”
His face seemed to wilt a little under her attack, but beneath it she saw the workings of a smile, even if it was never allowed to blossom.
“Fine,” he said, slowing his breakneck speed as they came to the end of the train yard. A sea of tree trunks swayed gently on the far side of the fence. “My name is Connor.”
Connor. It was a good name. Suited him much better than Blue Eyes.
“So, what now Connor?’ she asked. “You seem to have gotten me in a bit of a pickle.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I got you into it? If you had kept running with the others, instead of trying to come back for me for some insane reason, you would have been on that train, headed to safety!” he protested, looking behind them to see if anyone else was following them. There were shouts coming from among the railcars, but none of them sounded close.
“I do believe that you’re the one who came to my house, barged in the door, and said I needed to come with you. It wasn’t a full-blown ‘Come with me if you want to live’ situation, but it was pretty damn close, mister,” she said, her anger building at the way he had turned her life upside down in perhaps an hour’s time.
“Can we talk about this later?” he asked, walking toward the fence. This one had chain link instead of steel bar.
Her eyes widened as he squatted down, grabbed ahold of the wire, and then simply stood up. Metal groaned and snapped with an audible twang as it reverberated through the rest of the fence.
“Under you go,” he said.
He wasn’t even straining hard! All her life Maddy had known that her father was strong, but to see some of the feats his race were capable of made her even more jealous that she hadn’t been born with a bear inside of her, to give her the strength to protect herself.
“Now please,” he asked when she didn’t move.
Maddy shook her head and ducked under the fence. Connor followed swiftly, letting go of the wire. It sunk somewhat, but one of the poles was now bent, and it would never go back to normal. There was a big hole, clear as day, to show where they had escaped.
“They’re going to see that,” she said.
“All the more reason we should be out of here,” he told her, grabbing her hand and pulling her after him into the trees.
***
“Ugh, you stink,” she said, wrinkling her nose as they entered the safe house Connor had promised he would bring her to.
The big shifter eyed her speculatively. “You don’t exactly smell like a bed of roses yourself,” he said. “If you lean a little bit closer, you might find you really smell like—”
“Don’t even say it,” she admonished, wagging a figure at him, the motion eased by the smile of relief on her face. “Shower?” she asked, looking around.
“In there,” he said, pointing through one of the closed doors. “Leave it unlocked, and I’ll put some clean clothes on the counter for you. They may be a little big, but we tried to keep it equipped for all contingencies.”
He looked flustered.
“What?” she asked.
“We won’t have any, ah, um, female garments,” he said lamely at last.
“Like a bra?” she stated.
He nodded.
Was he blushing? He was, she realized with a start, trying to contain the smile. Well, well, well, big bad shifter boy has a weakness. Interesting.
“Okay, I’ll take them in the shower with me I guess. At least that way it’ll prevent you from peeking,” she teased.
“I would not do that,” he stated so firmly she recoiled slightly.
“I was just kidding,” she said, holding up her hands as if to indicate she was innocent.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a moment. “But we just met. I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression.”
Her mind flashed back to her calling him creepy for staring at her. Right. She thought about apologizing for that, then decided not to. He had been out of line the way he had looked at her, even if he had recognized her from whatever surveillance photos he had. Why did they have those in the first place she wondered?
As the shower washed away all the smelly grime from the swamp and sewers they had moved through in an effort to disguise their movement, Maddy was overcome with a sudden surge of anger. She couldn’t go back to her old life. At all. Those men had seen her face; they knew where she lived. Whoever they were—and that was a question she intended to get answers to—they were professionals, and not afraid to play for keeps. So what was she supposed to do now? Maddy had thought she was going nowhere in life before. At least she had known that! Now she wasn’t sure what the hell was going to become of her.
She climbed out of the shower some time later, having put her underwear out to dry after cleaning it, so that it at least wouldn’t be soaking wet when she put on fresh clothes. The shower was a utilitarian gray stall with frosted plexiglass sides. The rest of the small bathroom wasn’t much better. A simple toilet and counter with sink occupied the rest of the space.
As promised, Connor had laid out a shirt and set of pants for her to wear while hers dried. She hoped the smell would come out of them, even without a proper washing. The new clothes, while comfortable, were rather baggy and if they had to flee, would probably hinder her more than help. Maddy contemplated keeping her bra off to let it dry longer, but decided that in case they had to leave in a hurry, she didn’t want to be caught without one.
“Okay, what now?” she asked, emerging from the bathroom into the Spartan main room of the safe house. The small room was on the third floor of a house on the outskirts of the city, accessed only by a cleverly hidden staircase around the rear.
Besides the washroom, the room was longer than it was wide, and featured a stained-glass window at the far end, two single cots folded up against the wall, a couch, a pantry and mini-kitchen including stove, and a wardrobe for spare clothes. That appeared to be it. Not exactly the best place to be hiding out for a long time.
“I’m going to shower,” he said, pulling his shirt off as he headed for the door.
Maddy tried, with immediate failure, not to stare as the muscles in his back flexed and moved with his motion.
Now who’s the one staring creepily, she thought to herself.
With a sigh she leaned back into the uncomfortable chair and waited for him to be done showering.
It was time for some answers.
Chapter Five
Connor
“What the hell is going on?”
The question hit him the moment he opened the door after a slightly longer shower than was necessary to get him clean. The few extra minutes had helped him to relax and clear his head, however, and that was just as important as washing the stench from him.
“What?” he mumbled as he pulled a new shirt over his body to go with the clean pair of pants he had taken into the bathroom with him.
“Who are you, who are those men, why are they after my father, and now me? What the fuck is this all about?”
“Well, that’s blunt and to the point,” he said dryly, flopping onto the couch. He was positive they hadn’t been tailed, which meant they could rest the night in the safe house, before he contacted others for help.
“My name is Connor,” he began. “I’m part of a team. Our job is to extract shifters in danger from King City, and get them to safety.
Maddy nodded. “I’ve picked up on that much. But why are they in danger? Who are they in danger from? What kind of safety can be found from—from that?” she said with an angry shake of her hands, indicating the outside world.
“We don’t know what they call themselves. We call them the Agency. It’s an o
rganization started in secret by a rogue group of dragon shifters who called themselves the Order. This was their backup plan, in case something happened to them. As it turns out, the Agency is a hell of a lot more successful than the Order ever was.”
“Was?” she asked, not batting an eye at the mention of dragon shifters, he noted. Perhaps she wasn’t as naïve as many half-blood shifter children were. Most of them thought dragon shifters were a myth.
“The Order was dealt with internally, by other dragons,” he said, explaining the basics of it, not really wanting to get into detail. Not that Connor had much more than that anyway. The dragon who had handled the Order was notoriously private and a man of few words.
“So why is this ‘Agency’ still around then?” she asked, frowning in confusion.
Connor shrugged. “We assume that they were set up to operate independently. However it was done, they seem to have deep pockets and almost inexhaustible manpower. No matter how many we kill, they always have more men. It’s rather aggravating,” he admitted.
“Okay, so this Agency is run by humans, and they’re killing shifters in King City? Why?”
He grimaced uncomfortably. “Killing would be an... inappropriate word. Perhaps, try harvesting until they’re dry,” he gritted out, his teeth clenched in anger as he thought about what the Agency was up to.
“Um, what?” she squeaked, her voice suddenly very small. “Harvesting of what? Organs?”
No,” he said, shaking his head. “Blood.”
“Even better.” Madison frowned. “Why?”
Connor sighed. He probably shouldn’t be telling her this information. Actually, he definitely shouldn’t be telling her. But it was too late now; she was involved, and the more she knew what they were up against, perhaps it would be for the better.
“Somehow the Agency has found a way to derive a serum from our blood that can give certain people the abilities a shifter possesses.”
“Holy shit,” she said slowly, the implications of what he had just revealed slowly processing. “That would mean—”
“We would be unnecessary,” he finished. “Which, considering they need approximately all of the blood from one shifter to distill one vial of this serum, is already kind of the case.”
