“True, she’s resisting me. But I’ll wear her down. Like the time we ran down that elk in Canada. Took us two days but we did it.”
His sister sighed. “I’m starting to become concerned about your taste, little brother. She’s…odd.”
“She’s odd because she’s brilliant.” He motioned to the exit where the female had disappeared. “At this moment, she’s discussing things you and I could never even comprehend.”
“I absolutely could create a lightsaber.”
“You could not create a lightsaber.”
“I could too. It’s all science.”
“I thought being a Jedi was mystical?”
Irene snorted. “Mystical, my butt. It’s all about science.”
Unlocking the door to her office, Irene walked inside with Jackie following. She walked around her desk and threw herself into her office chair, feet up on the wood. Her friend sat in the chair opposite.
“Sorry about that, sweets.” Jackie sighed.
Irene blinked. “Sorry about what?”
“About what went on with Farica Bader.”
Frowning, Irene stared at her friend.
“You know,” Jackie went on, “Farica Bader? Who only moments ago insulted you?”
“Oh, yes. Her.”
“How do you do that?” Jackie asked with a smile.
“Do what?”
“Not let stuff get to you? I mean, I hate that woman.”
Irene shrugged. “Why hate her? It requires emotion that takes time out of my schedule. The Farica Baders of the world can say what they want. But in the end, they go back to their small, petty lives while people like us go on to perform for the kings and queens of Europe or produce life-changing creations. She is meaningless to us. They all are.”
Jackie gazed at her for several moments and Irene marveled at how truly beautiful Jackie was. Stunning, in fact, with almond-shaped brown eyes from her mother’s side of the family and naturally blond-brown hair from her father’s.
“I love you, Irene,” Jackie finally said.
Surprised, Irene asked, “You do?”
“Of course I do. You’re my best friend and you’re amazing. I don’t know what I would have done without you these last few years.”
“That makes two of us, my friend. But now you have Paul.”
“Yeah. I guess. But he’s been acting weird lately.”
“He’s madly in love with you and trying to figure out how to handle it. Give him a week or two.”
Jackie laughed. “That sure, are you, Dr. Conridge?”
“Of course. When am I ever wrong?”
Still laughing, Jackie stood up and headed out the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Bathroom.”
“Use the one down the other hallway. The one right here is blocked off by the construction.”
Jackie stood in the doorway, staring at the near-destroyed hallway. “When are they getting that done, anyway?”
“Not soon enough,” Irene said while booting up her computer. The chances of her returning to the cocktail party became distinctly remote as soon as her new machine powered up. “I’ve had six fights with the foreman about noise. How they expect me to get any work done with all that banging, I’ll never know.”
Jackie stepped back into the office. “Hey. This was in your inbox.” She handed Irene an envelope from the dean’s office.
“Great,” Irene muttered, afraid of another student complaint about being made to cry. Weakness. She detested weakness.
Tearing the envelope open, Irene took a quick look at the letter, took it all in, and processed it. She felt the color—what color there was—drain from her face. “Uh-oh.”
Again Jackie came back into the office. Poor thing, she couldn’t quite make it to the ladies’ room. “What’s wrong?”
“They need access to the labs next week.”
“So?” Then Jackie’s eyes narrowed. “Irene, tell me you took care of that little issue we discussed.”
“Um…” Irene let out a breath. “Not quite.”
“Irene!”
She held her hand up. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it tomorrow. It’s perfect. It’s Saturday. Very few students will be here and I can get them to go away if necessary.” When Jackie only glared harder, Irene continued. “I promise. All of it will be gone by tomorrow.”
“It better be.” Jackie stormed out and this time wasn’t suddenly forced to come back in.
Irene turned back to her computer, went to her C: prompt, and called up all her files on the Terminate Project. She’d foolishly kept these files, concerned she might need them later. It was hard to get rid of something one had worked so long and hard on. But now that she knew what it could do…Jackie was right. It all had to go. She typed in “DEL C:Project8” and hit ENTER.
Letting out a sigh that at least that much was now gone, Irene sat back in her chair, but the creak outside her door had her sitting up again. Okay. Now she was being paranoid…wasn’t she?
She heard another sound and Irene stood up, walking to her door. She glanced both ways but didn’t see anything. Another sound from the end of the hall that led out had Irene’s entire body tensing. She glanced around and realized she had nothing to defend herself with should it become necessary. Moving quickly, she went over to the construction supplies lying on the floor and grabbed the first thing she saw.
Slowly, she stepped closer to the construction area, trying her best to make no sound. It could be her imagination, but she sensed someone there. Behind a pack of piling. Ridiculous, of course. It had been several years since her government or any government, for that matter, had followed her. They’d begun to lose interest in her as soon as she went into teaching rather than working for some government-funded bioweapons company. Still, if someone had found out about her little creation, Irene had no doubt they’d go through their usual measures to get just a sample of it.
Irene stopped. Government agents always had guns. She had a two-by-four…exactly when had her legendary logic escaped her? True, she had her own homemade weapon in her backpack, but she still wouldn’t use that against a gun. No, she needed to get Jackie and go. Although it was most likely all her imagination anyway, better safe than sorry.
As it was, no one knew about her project, and no one would either. She would make sure of that.
“You okay, doc?”
Without thinking, only on instinct, Irene turned and swung, slamming the two-by-four right into Niles Van Holtz’s head. She hit him so hard, his head hit the other wall and then he hit the floor.
“Oh…oh, that can’t be good.” She’d killed a Van Holtz. As she crouched beside him, Irene’s mind quickly zipped through all the law books she’d read over the years, looking for any way she could prove this was self-defense.
“What the hell…Irene, what did you do?”
Irene looked up at her friend. “He snuck up on me,” she replied calmly.
Jackie crouched beside Van Holtz’s prone body. “You split his head open.”
“A few stitches. Perhaps some slight brain damage, but none that we’d notice.” She put her fingers to his throat. “He’s got a pulse. Chances are high he’ll live.”
Sighing, Jackie glared at her. “The emotions you should currently be experiencing are regret, tempered with a little guilt.”
Since they’d met so many years ago, Jackie remained the “emotional one” and Irene the “logical one.” Jackie had artist-like sensibilities. She had no control over her spending habits or her tendency toward rage. Irene didn’t understand human emotion and had long given up trying. When most little girls fell in the park and scraped their knee, they cried. Irene analyzed what had made her fall and why, exactly, her knees should hurt so much. Then she would analyze the momentum it took for her to actually do the level of damage she’d done.
“Guilt?” she asked. “For what? It was self-defense.”
“That’ll never play to a jury.”
> “Damn.” She’d really hoped it would.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I thought I heard something.”
“You did hear something. I heard it too.”
The two friends stared at each other, then Jackie took Van Holtz’s arm and pulled it around her neck. “This is what we’re going to do. I’ll take him back to his family. You get that shit out of here tonight.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts, Irene. Take it out of here tonight. Okay?”
Irene nodded, realizing she had to put her ego aside when it came to this. “All right.” She didn’t need to help her friend lift the still-unconscious Van Holtz.
“Do you know what to do with it?”
“Leave it to me.” Irene headed back to her office. “I have my backpack in the car and extra clothes here. I’ll change and then I’ll move that stuff out.”
Jackie headed down the hall. “See you at home in about an hour?”
“Yeah. Perfect.”
Irene closed her office door and pulled out a bag she kept for emergencies or seriously late nights. Nothing fancy, just a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. But the perfect ensemble for what she needed to do.
Still, the question remained…did she get rid of all of it? Could it really hurt just to keep a smidge? Just for testing purposes only, of course.
Before Van opened his eyes, he realized two things. First, he was sitting against a car. Second, his sister was pissed off.
Hand to his poor abused forehead, Van forced his eyes open and looked around. As he’d guessed, his back rested against the family limo while his sister ripped the head off the She-jackal.
“Where is the little bitch? I’ll kill her myself!”
The jackal seemed unimpressed by his sister’s tirade. “You go near my friend, I’ll rip your throat out myself.”
“Oh, really?” Carrie stepped into the jackal’s space and Van knew he had to say something before things went from bad to worse.
“Carrie. Cut it out.”
Immediately his sister was by his side. “Are you okay?”
“I think you should get me home. I think Dr. Vasquez may need to sew up my head for the night.” Leave the stitches in longer than twenty-four hours, though, and the skin would heal right over them. The dilemma of having a seriously amped-up metabolism.
“Okay.” Carrie grabbed his arm and helped him stand.
“How long have I been out?”
The She-jackal shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I’ve been arguing with her for at least fifteen minutes.”
“Her?” his sister snarled.
“Need stitches,” he reminded Carrie, before she could blow something else out of proportion.
With a grunt of annoyance, Carrie helped him into the limo and got in after him. She slammed the door shut, glaring out at the jackal’s retreating form.
“Where’s Irene?” he asked.
“That bitch wouldn’t tell me. But trust me when I say I tried to find out.” His sister turned in the seat and looked at him. “You’re not mad, are you?”
How could he be mad at a woman with such great instincts? “I scared her and she reacted. Don’t blow this out of proportion.”
His sister gave an annoyed sigh and leaned back into the seat. “Fine. I won’t. You want to let this go, that’s on you.”
Irene pulled her car over to the side of the road and got out. She grabbed hold of her backpack and slung it over her shoulders. She’d headed out to one of the richest neighborhoods in town, about fifteen minutes from the university. It made the most sense because of all the open property and, thankfully, she didn’t have to worry about the flora and fauna. What she’d created did damage to only one thing…the human body. For everything else—animals, plants, trees, insects—it remained a nourishment. How her good intentions had gone so horribly wrong, Irene still didn’t know.
Setting off, Irene walked straight into the woods and she kept walking. She knew the area a bit but only from maps. The three families who lived in this area, including the Van Holtzes, didn’t have any events that involved the university staff. Irene had never been inside any of their homes, but she’d never really cared.
Irene walked until she neared the ocean by the Van Holtz property. A perfect location. Kind of that midway point between the Van Holtz property, the Löwes’, and the Dupris’, one of the creepiest families Irene had ever met. But their money was green and beneficial, so she schmoozed when necessary, even while her skin crawled.
Deciding she’d walked enough, Irene stopped by a big, sturdy tree. She pulled on rubber gloves and carefully removed her concoction from her backpack. She had it in a special titanium container and took great care in unscrewing the cap and dumping the liquid on the tree. Irene waited, and she couldn’t help but smile when she saw the blooms burst to life on the branches. Out of season, no less.
She screwed the cap back on the container and returned it to her backpack. Then she took out a thermos of tap water and dumped that on the spot and on her rubber gloves. That would wash away any additional remnants. Irene shook her head. The government couldn’t ask for a better weapon.
Ignoring the bit of guilt lurking in the back of her mind about the two ounces she had safely hidden in her office, Irene tossed the thermos back in her backpack along with the rubber gloves.
Zipping up her backpack and placing it back on her shoulders, Irene stood but she froze in her tracks when she heard the crack of a tree branch.
Squinting, she stared into the darkness but couldn’t see anything. She could, however, feel something. Something had cut off her way back to the car. Scanning her memory, she pulled up the map she’d looked at about seven years ago when she first moved out here. About a mile away was the Löwe house. She couldn’t risk going to the Van Holtzes with her being the potential murder suspect of their firstborn son.
Controlling her fear and desire to run like a girl, Irene took a slow step back and then another. Moving purely on instinct, Irene knew she had to make a run for it…from what, she really didn’t know. But she knew she had to.
So she spun on her heel and ran into the clearing, but came to a sliding halt as her feet touched the wet dirt.
Irene watched as it lifted its head from the elk carcass before it, face covered in blood. It stared at her and she quickly searched her brain to identify it.
Hyena. Irene swallowed and took a careful step to the left. She would be heading into Van Holtz territory, but she’d face Niles Van Holtz’s family and manslaughter charges over this any day.
Irene took another step and another, carefully moving. She gripped the straps of her backpack, ready to yank it off. There was only one. She could fight off one. There’s only one, she said to herself again.
At least that’s what she thought until the second one slammed into her from the right, taking hold of her backpack and swinging her around like a doll. Then it tossed her, and that tree it aimed for came up excruciatingly fast….
Two
“Pull over,” Van snapped.
His sister patted his back. “You going to be sick?”
“No.” The limo pulled over and Van stepped out.
“Van, what’s wrong?”
Wiping the still-oozing blood from his eyes, Van stared at the very old Pinto.
“Well?” his sister demanded.
“This is Irene’s car.” He remembered it clearly. She’d almost run him down with it once. At the time, she’d said it was an accident but he hadn’t appreciated her smirk when she’d said it.
Van looked around, sniffing the air.
Carrie shrugged. “And? So it’s her car. What? You want to set it on fire?”
Ignoring his sister’s question, Van glanced at her. “Look where we are.”
Carrie glanced around and then she looked off into the woods. “Oh, God. The Rubicon.”
He was already moving, parts of him shifting as he crossed the road. “Call to the Pack.”
“B
ut Van—”
“Do it!” was the last thing he could tell her before he’d shifted completely and charged into the woods after Irene. If she’d already crossed the Rubicon, he might already be too late. But he couldn’t think about that. He had to get to her. At the very least, he had to try.
Irene hit the tree hard, but she turned in time so it was her side that slammed into it as opposed to her face. She landed on the hard, unforgiving ground, and jaws, stronger than any other like-predator on Earth, tore the backpack off her, flinging it aside. Then it came for her.
Short, blunt claws slapped against her back, tearing past her T-shirt and ripping into soft human flesh. Focusing on one goal, Irene tried to pull herself out from under but its fangs grabbed firm hold of the remaining bit of her T-shirt and yanked her back, tossing her into the middle of the feeding ground.
More of them came out of the woods toward her. They made a strange laughing sound, calling to each other. They didn’t run toward her. They didn’t have to. They all knew she’d never outrun them.
Irene crawled backward and pressed up against the remains of the elk they’d been feeding on, her mind racing with a way out of this that would leave her face and most of her limbs intact.
Quickly scanning the ground, Irene saw her backpack. If she could only get to it…
But the hyenas must have seen what she was looking at. One of them ran toward her, jaws wide open. But before it could get to her, a blur of gold tackled it from the side. The hyena rolled away and scrambled up, trying to avoid the charging male lion. The male wasn’t having it, though. He slapped at the hyena casually, seeming to enjoy the “little chase” around the clearing. Another male joined in and Irene saw her chance. But before she could move, nine lionesses came out of the other side of the woods and ran straight for her.
Again, Irene scrambled back, panic trying to set in. She wouldn’t let it, though. She needed her mind clear to get out of this. To survive. Her only goal was to survive.
More hyenas came and they charged the female lions, keeping them away from Irene and, apparently, their food source for the evening.
When He Was Bad Page 2
