by Vremont, Ann
"So, is that how it works, biologically? One of my parents was a shifter, probably one of my mom’s johns?"
He glanced at her and then repositioned his computer so she couldn’t see the screen.
"You don’t like sharing much, do you, Beemer?" The old man certainly wasn't the person shifting in the video they had watched, but she had no doubt he'd been the one behind the keyboard feeding lies to them.
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
She explained the name, just as she had with Dominic. "Bad Moon Rising -- that’s you, right? You’re the lying piece of shit that betrayed us."
He pulled a syringe from his lab coat and placed it alongside the laptop. "I can sedate you, if you insist on cursing and being uncooperative."
She glared at him, but kept her mouth shut. She needed to figure a way out of this and she couldn’t if she was drugged out. Adopting a conciliatory tone, she offered a weak smile at the old man. "How are my friends?"
"You mean your lover and his brother?"
She wasn’t sure, but she thought the old man was leering at her now, his veneer of arrogance slipping for a second.
"Yeah, my lover and his brother."
Across the room, Hamilton snarled. The doctor shot him a hard look before turning back to Tamsyn. "Ignore Hamilton. I’m still trying to train him."
Tam nodded, again forgetting the old man’s presence as the faint odor of a woman’s perfume reached her senses. Hamilton smelled it, too, and turned his head to the side, waiting. Tamsyn heard a faint squeak of rubber on the room’s polished tile floors and then a soft, hesitant voice as a petite redhead stepped into view and startled the old man.
"Doctor, the lab said the blood work’s back."
He held his hand out. She shook her head. "They’re still holding it."
"Then it’s not done." He turned, shooing her away.
She held her ground. "It is done, they’re just re-running the results. They want you at the lab."
Beemer drew a deep breath, an ugly mask settling over his face. "Why? Don’t they know how to do their jobs?" The redhead started to answer but he cut her short. He tilted his head in Tamsyn’s direction. "Is she pregnant?"
"No."
He sneered and glanced back at Tamsyn. "Not a very effective lover, is he?"
"Maybe I’m barren," she answered back.
"I hope, for your sake, you aren’t." He turned to stare directly at the redhead before speaking again. "Females are useless to us, otherwise."
"Doctor, the lab..."
The old man stood and motioned for the redhead to move out of his way. She hesitated and nodded in Tamsyn’s direction. "We shouldn’t leave her like that. Lab said her levels were all off."
"Am I completely surrounded by fucking imbeciles?"
"Careful there, Beemer. You’re going to need one of your own sedatives, you keep swearing like that." Tamsyn pretended to struggle through an attempt to raise her torso up off the mattress. The old man turned and pushed her back down.
Leering again, he leaned over her, close enough for her to head butt him if she wanted to, and warned her, "You will learn civility and obedience."
Beemer left with the redhead. Tamsyn heard a door shut, followed by the mechanical slide of bolts and the short, digital beeps of someone keying in a code on a number pad.
With them gone, Tamsyn immediately started testing her restraints. She felt stronger. Her leg felt like it had never been slammed against a rock facing. But the nylon around her wrists and legs wouldn’t budge.
Across from her, Hamilton started jerking at his metal cuffs. She looked over and saw that his face was almost completely healed. Earlier, she hadn't been sure he wouldn't call bullshit on her charade with the doctor, but it was clear now why he hadn't. He was confident he would get some "alone" time with her.
BET I GET OUTTA MINE FIRST.
Adrenaline slammed through her at the thought. She strained every muscle she had. The nylon, almost half an inch thick, made small tearing sounds. Across from her, metal groaned.
GONNA RIP YOU OPEN WITH MY COCK, BITCH. LET YOU HEAL. FUCK YOU DEAD ALL OVER AGAIN. MAYBE THE DOC'LL FILM IT.
His voice in her head didn’t scare her. What scared her was that his was the only voice in her head.
Cruz? Dominic?
THEY CAN’T HEAR YOU, CUNT. YOU'RE GOOD AS DEAD.
She jerked at her wrist restraints -- threw all her strength into the motion. The last of the nylon shredded. She reached down, unbuckled the restraints on her ankles. She heard one of Hamilton’s ankle cuffs pop, the metal skittering broken across the floor.
Tamsyn leapt from the mattress, grabbing the syringe Beemer had left behind as she did. She launched herself at the bed, pulling the plunger back. He brought his free leg up. It was mid-shift, covered with hair, talon-like nails curving towards him. She twisted, landing on his stomach with her knees. She jabbed his neck with the needle and shot him full of Beemer’s sedative.
THAT WAS FOR YOU. FIVE MINUTES AND IT’S OUT OF MY SYSTEM!
Tamsyn slid off the bed, pulled the plunger back again, filling the chamber with air. She jabbed the needle into him a second time, right above the bend in his elbow where a vein bulged. Her thumb hovering over the plunger’s tip, she smiled at him. "Good thing this’ll kill you in two."
She pulled the needle out, filled it with air again, repeated.
Pulled it out.
Repeated.
Hamilton was gasping, his face purpling and bulging, when she filled him with air the fourth time. Blood seeped from his arm from the multiple needle stabs.
"Sorry, Hammy." Her tone was grim as she drew air into the chamber a fifth time. "But I can’t be sure 80 c.c. is going to do the trick."
Hamilton jerked, his hips rising up off the bed as he convulsed in a death throe. Tamsyn let the syringe fall to the floor. Listening to him die, she grabbed the IV bag. Reading the label, her gaze widened. It was a 10% depo-testosterone drip -- they’d been pumping the freak full of steroids to help him heal.
She ripped the tubing from his arm and pinched it off while she carried the pole with its four bags over to Cruz. She swapped the line carrying the suppressant into his arm with the testosterone drip.
Beemer had put the three of them in a row -- her, Cruz, then Dominic. She pulled the curtain back, grabbed a second IV bag and changed Dominic’s line. When she was done, she unbuckled the restraints on them.
Time -- she had no idea how much she had. The lab could be three doors or three floors down. Beemer had already been gone at least fifteen minutes. She stepped into the center of the room’s floor and then turned a slow circle. One door. That was it. She looked up, hoping for ceiling tiles.
If Beemer came back before Cruz and Dominic revived...
If he came back with guards or more shifters after they revived...
"Fuck it!" There was a supply station near the door. She went and rummaged in its drawers, coming up with a fresh IV catheter needle and tubing. Returning to Cruz’s bed, she sat down next to him. She prepped the fluid bag and tubing, her gaze shifting between her hands working and Cruz’s face.
I need you to wake up, baby.
She tied a tourniquet a few inches above the bend of her elbow. She didn’t bother with an alcohol wipe, just checked the vein and tore the packaging off the catheter. Bending her hand at an odd angle, she used her wrist and forearm to pull the skin at the IV site taut as best she could. She slid the needle in, saw the influx of blood through the catheter’s plastic applicator.
Removing the needle, she bit off a piece of tape and secured the catheter in place before unknotting the tourniquet. She tossed the plastic applicator onto the floor and attached the IV tubing to the catheter and then opened the IV line.
Inspecting the job she’d done one handed, she smiled. "Take that, Professor Kenzie!"
Her smile faded as she looked down at Cruz. He was still out. She pulled back the thin blanket covering him. His lower torso was bandaged. Blood h
ad seeped through the wound's dressing to dry a dark brick.
She moved over to Dominic and looked at his wounds. There were bandages covering his stomach, too, but they weren’t wrapped around like Cruz’s. There was an un-bandaged wound along his right side where the bullet that ripped through Cruz must have grazed Dominic.
A wave of dizziness rolled over Tamsyn and she stumbled back to Cruz’s bed. The injection site in her arm itched like ants were crawling over it and she scratched. Ears ringing, she looked down at her arm, saw that she’d just dug three burrows in her skin.
She held her hand up to her face.
"Not my hand."
"Tamsyn?"
She looked to Dominic’s hospital bed. He was sitting up, his eyes shifting from their usual golden brown to a flame yellow. He clutched his stomach. His lips peeled back in pain to show lengthening teeth. The top canines curved down to his bottom lip.
"Where are we?"
"Sanctuary, I guess." The words came out mangled, the muscles of her throat and face thickening to impede her speech.
They’ll be back, Dom. I don’t know when.
Dominic nodded. He looked at the IV tube running into his arm, then to hers.
They were pumping you two full of some kind of suppressant -- keeping you human...weak.
"Still weak." Dominic staggered off the bed, dragging the IV pole behind him.
Whoa, Dom, no cover there!
He caught the direction of her gaze and scowled. "No time for modesty, little sister."
He stripped the case from his pillow and looked at the fluid bag for the suppressant. "This it?"
She nodded and he dumped it in the pillow case.
Dominic lifted his head and sniffed. "Something dead in here."
She pointed her hand...no, not her hand. Her hand didn’t have curving black claws sprouting from the end of the fingers, didn’t have burnished mahogany hairs bristling along the skin. She pointed in the direction of Hamilton’s bed.
Dominic leaned over. "How’d he die?"
Air embolism. She grinned, felt her tongue loll out of her mouth and snapped it back in. She ran a hand over her leg -- normal. Across her stomach -- normal. She tried to say something, and snarled instead. Fuck, Dominic. Is this how it works?
He shrugged and increased the drip on Cruz’s IV. "It ripped through me the first time. Cruz, too. Nothing short, nothing partial."
She and Dominic lifted their heads simultaneously as the elevator chimed. Dominic pulled the catheter from his arm. "Doors?"
Just the one.
He shifted to his hybrid form -- the process complete before Beemer could finish entering the security code on the door’s keypad. Tamsyn unhooked herself from the IV and wrapped her hands around its pole.
Quiet, little sister. Dominic slid across the room to the bed opposite his and pulled the curtain half closed before he climbed up onto the bed and waited to pounce. Tamsyn circled his empty bed and waited with the IV pole raised.
She could smell the woman, hear Beemer bitching at her.
"I’ll draw the blood myself. You obviously can’t be trusted with something so simple as labeling a vial."
Just the two of them. Dom whispered in her head. He nodded at the pole she had a death grip on. Don’t hesitate.
She wouldn’t. Not with Cruz on the bed behind her, unconscious.
The nurse came into sight first, swiveling her pretty head in the direction of where Dominic should still be prone and comatose. Seeing Tam, she gasped.
The gasp was followed by the ring of metal meeting first cartilage and then bone as Tamsyn swung the pole, hitting the woman in the face. Dominic jumped, caught Beemer by the throat with his jaws before the old man could raise an alarm. She heard Beemer’s neck snap, his body instantly going limp.
On the floor, the woman moaned. Her face was bloody, swelling.
Tam.
She looked at Dominic, shook her head vigorously. The woman started crawling for the door, leaving soft pleas of help me in her bloody wake.
Tam!
An order this time. She shook her head again. It didn’t feel the same as killing Hamilton. She looked at him, felt the flow of tears down her cheeks. Why can’t you do it?
You have to know you can -- we both do.
"Help me." It was a gurgle of a plea, too soft for anyone outside the room to hear.
Tamsyn had woken needing help, needing rescue from Beemer and his beasts. This woman wouldn't have given it to her. She was part of Beemer's machine. Tamsyn lifted the pole and brought it down on the back of the nurse’s head. The skull cracked. Her face slammed into the floor from the blow’s momentum and then all movement in her body stopped.
Tamsyn let the pole clatter to the ground.
Dominic moved to the door, pulling it so that it was open by only a few centimeters. He rummaged through the supply cabinet, looking for anything of use. He came back, carrying supplies, and stuffed them in the pillow case.
Wake him up, Tam.
She was still shaking, her gaze fixed on the dead woman. She wasn’t sure if he’d told her to wake up or to wake Cruz up. She broke away from staring at the dead woman to look at Dominic.
He nodded at Cruz. Wake him up.
She turned, numbly, and stared at Cruz. She shrugged, helpless. She’d already stopped the suppressant’s delivery and given him the depo-testosterone drip.
Talk to him. Tell him you need him to wake up.
I did.
Tell him again!
Tamsyn sat on the bed, her deformed hand tucked behind her back. She stroked Cruz’s face with her other hand, bent forward until her forehead touched his.
Baby, I need you to wake up. She ran her cheek against his. She had been crying, hadn’t realized it until she felt the wet rub of her flesh against his. We have to get out of here. I need you, Cruz.
He wasn’t going to wake up. She buried her face against his neck. A sob broke from her throat, nothing human left in the quality of its sound.
Baby, come back to me. I know you’re hurt bad, but I need you. I love you, Medina.
She pressed closer to him, her breasts pushing lightly at his chest. Her breathing had aligned with his -- only, he’d stopped breathing. She lifted her head, looked at his face. Baby, please don’t leave me.
Cruz’s eyes fluttered open. He drew a hard breath in. He brought his hand up, stroked her face. "You’re stuck, Tam."
She drew back. Scary, huh?
He shook his head. "Help me sit up."
She did, feeling him flinch as his gaze landed on the dead bodies. She could sense Dominic talking but didn’t know what he was saying.
"Give us a few seconds," he spoke in Dominic’s direction and then wrapped his arms around Tamsyn’s shoulders. "I want you to feel me, Tamsyn."
I feel you.
No, he corrected. Feel me.
He flooded her head. She had no other word to describe it. He was there, in her, guiding her limbs, coaching the rebellious muscles and tendons. She felt hair break out across her body, heard her hospital gown ripping. His body changed with hers. She felt his fur, silky smooth with its outer layer, curly and thick where it laid close to his body. His nose brushed her and she felt her ear twitch in response.
Dominic stood by the door, waiting for them. Fucking Hallelujah...now move your asses!
Wait! Tamsyn returned to her bedside. Beemer’s laptop was still there, still running. She slammed the lid down and wrapped her claws around it. At the door, she shoved it in the pillow case Dominic held.
Files, she explained. Other subjects. Other women...
She felt something leap from Dominic, the sensation pushing her back a step.
Hope. She’d felt hope pouring from him and it felt damn good.
Dominic nodded. We have to get the hell out of here first.
Easier said than done. They were in the hall less than twenty seconds before the alarms began. They raced for the stairwell sign, heard the floor locking down. At the en
d of the hall, a steel plate started closing on the corridor’s sole window. Dominic shoved the pillow case at Tamsyn and barreled down the hall. He hit the window tucked into a tight ball. Glass shattered and he uncurled, slamming his claws through the steel shield, the rest of his body flying through the broken window.
He kicked at the air, his body recoiling as his grip on the metal stopped his forward momentum. Feet scrabbled on the glass covered ledge. Straddling the window’s threshold, he jammed his shoulder up under the metal plate.
Hustle, guys!
Cruz reached the window first, looked the three tall stories down. He took the case from Tamsyn, stepped onto the ledge and coaxed her out.
Gotta jump, baby.
A floodlight flared and swung along the building’s wall to illuminate them. Beyond the light, along a fenced perimeter, men stood ready with guns. This time, Beemer wasn’t there to tell them to stand down.
They opened fire.
Not waiting for her to get her courage up, Cruz grabbed Tamsyn’s forearm and jumped. He hit the ground first, twisting as he fell to cushion her landing. Dominic landed beside them, already in a run toward the shooters.
Bullets hit the ground around them. Cruz scooped up a fist-sized rock and threw it, taking out the floodlight.
Stay down! He started across the open ground at a full run, springing in random directions as the shooters tried to bring him down.
Dominic already had one man down. Two riflemen swung their weapons in his direction. Stupid mistake. The first man fired, hitting the other in the center of his chest. A second later, Cruz was on the shooter, ripping his throat out.
Twenty feet from Tamsyn, a door was thrown open. She heard snarling, jaws snapping at the night air. One of the men at the fence line screamed, "One of ours!" The warning came too late. A bullet caught the shifter in the shoulder. Three more shots spun it around.
In the fifteen seconds it took them to shoot the beast down, Dominic and Cruz had taken out three more men at the perimeter.
Run, now!
Tam jumped up and headed for the fence in an awkward, stumbling jog, unused to the new shape of her legs and with the pillow case impeding her from adopting the loping grace and speed Cruz had displayed.
