by Amelia Jade
“Oh come on,” he muttered. “Do you guys ever give up?” he asked under his breath before taking off again.
The straight line between buildings that he had been taking ended, and Justin was forced to go to the right. The building he was on seemed to be a long one. He was able to go quite some distance before being forced to leap to the next building, which thankfully was the same four stories as the one he was currently on. Behind him the Agents continued to pursue him. Justin was starting to breathe a bit more heavily now as the chase continued from rooftop to rooftop.
It dawned on him, as he had to make another right turn to continue having a building to jump to, that he was heading back the way he had come. Not good. This was going to lead them to Shay if they continued.
Assuming she’s still there. By now she’s likely realized that I’m long gone, and isn’t going to stick around.
He wondered if she would even still be at the same hotel when he finally had a moment to contact her.
If I were her, I’d be finding somewhere else, somewhere where I can’t get drawn into this world.
Part of him hoped Shay would do that so that she would be safe, even if it meant he would never see her again.
Shaking his head, Justin realized he had allowed himself to be distracted. As hands wrapped around his midsection, taking him down, he realized it might have been a fatal distraction. The Agent tackled him hard, and the two of them went down, bouncing across the roof. Bits and pieces of metal that he had avoided while running slammed into his body, and then the Agents as they began to roll, opening cuts on both of them.
Justin grunted in pain as it was his body that slammed hard into the raised lip around the roof, bringing the pair to a halt with bone-jarring swiftness. The Agent’s body used him as a landing pad, adding insult to injury as he tried to rise, ignoring the cries of pain from a dozen parts of his body.
The Agent rose even swifter, seeming to have come out ahead. He grabbed Justin by the collar, shook him violently with his extreme strength that had been enhanced by the blood of a shifter, and then hurled the Sentinel over the edge of the roof.
***
Justin shouted out in surprise, and possibly just a bit of terror as his feet caught on the edge of the roof, imparting a spin to his fall.
He reached out, managing to snag the fire escape, but the flimsy metal gave out under his strength and the pull of his weight, and he continued to fall. His head slammed off another piece of railing, shooting stars across his vision and spinning him faster.
Then he hit the ground, which to his surprise gave out under him. It was only after the stars began to clear from his vision that he realized someone must have been watching over him. He had landed in a garbage dumpster, the blows on the way down slowing him just enough that the bags of trash had cushioned his fall. Something was still broken in his ribs, and if he didn’t miss his guess, the warmth seeping down his face and across his shoulders wasn’t liquid from the garbage, but blood pouring from his head.
Still, he was alive.
Above him, metal clanged as the two Agents raced down the fire escape after him, not content to just let him be.
Justin snarled. He was angry. It wasn’t often that someone got the best of him. Even Jared, arguably the best on their team, was hard-pressed to beat him, though he did so more often than not. For some punk-ass Agency shithead to do this to him was unacceptable.
Rolling over, he hauled himself up and out of the garbage bin.
“Justin?”
He froze at the voice. Twisting his head, he saw several hundred feet down that the alley he had fallen into was the dry cleaner. Standing between there and him was a beautiful figure with greenish-blue eyes and a beautiful face, staring at him in shock.
“Go!” he shouted, his legs wobbly as he worked to stand. “Get out of here!”
A tremble ran through the ground as the Agents jumped, landing in the alley behind him.
“So she does know you,” one of them said. “I thought so.”
Justin swung around, holding the sudden surging roar of anger from his bear in check. “We don’t have to do this,” he said slowly, backing away from them, ensuring he put himself between the Agents and Shay.
The Agents exchanged confused glances. “Do what?” one of them asked, his voice muffled as always by the black masks they wore. This pair even had sunglasses still in place after the chase, preventing Justin from even seeing their eyes.
“Fight,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to kill you.”
The duo chuckled. “In case you haven’t noticed, freak, you’re a little outnumbered.”
Justin stood up straight. “Freak? You’re the ones with things you weren’t born to. At least what I have is natural.”
One of them snorted. “Natural? There’s nothing natural about what you do. You’re an abomination, a mutation that needs to be eradicated. We are the future.”
The Sentinel rolled his eyes, still backing away.
“Justin, what’s going on?”
He froze. That was Shay’s voice, but it was much closer than before.
“Why are you still here?” he asked. “You need to run away.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she said firmly.
He growled. “I can’t protect you if you’re here.”
The Agents laughed. “You can’t protect her anyway,” the one on the left said.
Then they charged.
No. Don’t make me do this in front of her!
Shay didn’t need to see this, to be a witness to what was about to happen. What must she already think of him? Would she even talk to him again if he gave her a first-hand view of the world he lived in?
The decision was taken from him as one of the Agents tried to dodge past Justin and make a grab for Shay. The lack of training, at least in comparison to him, showed there, as he should have waited an extra heartbeat or two for his partner to engage the Sentinel. But he didn’t, and so Justin hit the overeager attacker in the side, his punch breaking ribs as he drove it up and into the attacker’s side. The unexpected blow sent the Agent tumbling.
Justin finished his move, completing a spin so that he was back facing the first shifter, doing so just in time to receive a fist to his face. The big man fell to one knee, dazed but far from out of the fight. His legs flexed and he drove his shoulder into the Agent’s stomach. The powerful muscles in his tree trunk-like limbs exploded upward with force, and he lifted the Agent from his feet before slamming him hard to the ground, catching the Agent completely unawares with the move.
For just a moment, both Agents were out of the fight. He turned to Shay, who was only a few dozen feet behind now, looking at him in horror.
“Get out of here!” he shouted, taking a step toward her.
A hand grabbed his elbow. With an angry snarl Justin planted his back foot and pushed off, driving his other elbow backward as hard as he could. It connected solidly with the Agent’s nose and blood exploded everywhere, pouring from the mangled ruins of his face. But the other shifter didn’t drop.
Instead, his other hand darted out toward Justin’s stomach.
The shifter jumped back, narrowly avoiding the knife blade, coated as always these days with the green paste that somehow managed to slow his healing powers to a standstill. If the Agent managed to stab him with the knife, Justin stood a very good chance of bleeding out in the alleyway.
Thankfully for him, he and the other Sentinels had been doing a lot of anti-knife training lately, in response to this very threat. As the Agent drew the knife back to try again, Justin stepped in close, getting inside the man’s slash range, even as his big meaty hand closed around the Agent’s wrist. He used his other arm to block the blows from the Agent’s free hand. Justin’s lips pulled back in a snarl as he began to tighten his fingers like a vise, squeezing harder and harder, until he felt something snap.
The Agent screamed and the knife fell away. Justin smiled triumphantly, but the look died as the
Agent slammed his forehead into Justin. The shifter reeled away, caught off guard by the blow. At the same time, the first Agent finally re-entered the fight. Justin dodged to the side, avoiding a fatal blow, but the wickedly sharp knife still cut a long slice along his side that began to bleed almost immediately, the warm liquid soaking his clothing. He tasted the metallic-iron tang of blood in the air.
Justin danced back and forth as best he could, landing blows aimed to disable as he backed down the alleyway, trying to slow the Agents down long enough for him to escape. He heard Shay behind him, staying out of the fight, but not leaving either.
Everything changed when the one with a knife still in his hands went after Shay instead while Justin was tangled up with the other Agent.
Her scream filled the alleyway, and something inside him realized with a sigh that he no longer had a choice. He had to end the fight here and now before Shay got hurt. Even if that meant showing her his true self.
“Look away!” he shouted, power surging through his body as he called forth his bear, letting the feral, beastly side of him take over.
His limbs lengthened and joints reversed themselves. Thick charcoal-gray fur sprouted across his body, providing him with a thick layer of protection. His fingers became four-inch-long claws and sharp teeth jutted from his face as he grew a long snout.
The first Agent was trapped under him as he fell forward, his one paw landing on the man’s stomach. Something crunched inside and he screamed in pain. The cry was cut short, however, as Justin’s bear leaned down and swiftly tore the man’s throat out. Blood pulsed out like a jet, splashing Justin with the warm sticky liquid even as he stormed over the man, intent on running the second Agent down before he could harm Shay.
The burgundy-haired woman he cared for turned to flee, but she was too slow. The Extremis Agent snagged the back of her shirt, slamming her to a halt. He raised the knife high, aiming to bring it down in the middle of her back.
Justin roared and his bear surged forward with superhuman speed. He hit the Agent full on, and the pair went down in a pile. The knife was deflected from its fatal course. Instead of burying itself in her back, it simply tore a jagged line up and over her shoulder blade, ripping shirt and flesh easily. Blood welled up, but to his relief it was a very shallow cut. Only a few droplets fell from the wound.
The motion did spin Shay around, however, sending her to the ground where she ended up with her back against another garbage dumpster.
As Justin finished mauling his victim, ensuring that he would never hurt another person again, he turned and found himself staring into a pair of horrified greenish-blue eyes.
Immediately he shifted back into his human form, so as not to terrorize her any further.
It wasn’t until he felt the blood of his victim dripping from his face that he realized she probably saw him as some sort of crazed cannibal murderer, covered in the blood of his enemy after he finished ripping their throats out.
“Shay,” he said softly, trying to wipe his face, upset with himself for what he had done, despite knowing that he had done it for her.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“Shay, it’s me, Justin,” he said slowly. He wanted to go to her, to be near her, but any sudden move just then was likely to startle her.
She shook her head, shoulder-length hair flying back and forth. “You killed them,” she said at last.
His heart broke.
“Shay, it’s not like that. They’re not the good guys.”
“Murderer,” she whispered, beginning to back away from him.
“No, Shay. Wait!” he shouted, reaching out to her, but it was too late.
She turned and fled down the alleyway.
***
Justin collapsed as she left him.
For just a moment, despair threatened to overwhelm him, leaving him lying there. But then his bear’s anger washed that away and he flung himself to his feet, angrily lashing out with a foot at the nearest corpse.
“Why did you make me do that?!” he growled. “Senseless. Fucking. Death.”
Knowing what he had to do now, Justin set about his task with little in the way of respect for the two dead Agents. He flung the one side of the dumpster lid open so hard it snapped off. He followed this up by grabbing the Agent’s ankle and bodily hurling him up and into the bin.
The man’s partner swiftly followed, along with Justin’s shirt. His pants were stained as well, but the shirt had been white. His bike wasn’t too far away. He could make it there with just the leather jacket and his pants without drawing too much attention. Hopefully.
He wanted to chase after Shay, to tell her the truth about who he was, who the men he had just killed were, and why it had happened.
But he needed permission to do that. Justin felt that at this point he would finally get it. If anything Connor would argue in favor of him, he felt confident about that. Shay meant too much to him. She was important, he knew that know. The big shifter wasn’t sure how he had come to care in such a short period of time, but the image of her running away from him would haunt him forever, that much he knew.
His bike zipped through the streets, wind tugging at his jacket. The knife cut he had sustained was still bleeding, but it had slowed almost immediately after he wiped away the gunk and pressed the skin together. A proper cleaning of the wound and he would hopefully be okay.
Pulling into the warehouse that served as the Underground’s headquarters, he killed the engine and strode through the hallway to the office area, ignoring the looks given his way.
“We need to talk, now,” he said angrily, but politely, to Madison.
The leader of the Underground looked up sharply at his tone, something flashing behind her eyes as her bear reacted to the possibility of a threat.
Justin was angry, but he wasn’t that stupid. Madison had taken two serums. The normal Extremis version that bonded with her shifter DNA gave her enhanced abilities. But she had also injected herself with an experimental version that bonded with her human DNA. The result of which had manifested itself as a bear within her.
A vicious, powerful bear that, while untrained compared to him or the Sentinels, was easily more powerful than any one of them. She was, by anyone’s knowledge, the first “test-tube shifter” ever to exist. It was just one more reason why she made an excellent leader of the Underground.
Justin dipped his head slightly in respect, letting her know that while he was irate, it wasn’t directed at her.
“Very well,” Madison said, then gestured to a door that led to her office. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said to the other members of the headquarters team. She turned and headed inside, Justin hot on her heels.
“Yes?” she said before the door had even finished clicking shut behind him.
“I need clearance to tell Shay about us,” he said without preamble.
Madison sighed, dropping her head as she did so. “We’ve been over this Justin. We don’t know enough about her. She might not react well to it.” The woman’s eyes sharpened. “What happened to you?” she asked.
“Shay’s father is missing somewhere here in King City. I told her today I’d help her look. She had a picture of him downtown, near the Agency building. Two Agents found us.” He gritted his teeth, the memories still fresh in him.
“And?” Madison pressed.
“I tried to lead them away, to escape. But they caught me. I was forced to take extreme measures.”
The leader sighed. “I’m sorry, Justin,” she said. “What about Shay?”
He grimaced. “She didn’t react well.”
“What do you mean?”
“I killed the two of them right in front of her.”
“Shit.”
Justin didn’t have to say more. He knew Madison would understand what had happened from there.
Just then the door opened after a brief knock.
“I’m busy,” Madison snapped, but stopped as she recognized the face. “Arianna?”
“Hi,” the other woman said, stepping fully into the room.
Justin nodded respectfully in her direction. Arianna was Ajax’s mate. He had been the first shifter from Genesis Valley to discover what was going on in King City, and the first to fight the Agency, before they had perfected their Extremis serum. He had rescued Arianna from the city, but in the process she had been injected with the then-experimental—now typical—version of the serum. As a half-breed herself, it had the same effect it did now, giving her the powers of a shifter without the ability to shapeshift.
If Arianna was here, that meant Ajax was as well.
Madison seemed to sense this. “Tell Ajax to come in, please,” she said.
Arianna nodded and made a motion outside. A second later a large shape eclipsed the door, and Ajax stepped inside.
“Madison. Justin,” he rumbled, his deep voice filling the room with ease.
“Ajax,” Madison said. “It’s good to see you. You have excellent timing.”
The big Alpha shifter frowned. “Why is that?”
“I think Justin and you need to have a chat.”
It was Justin’s turn to frown as she mentioned his name. Why did he need to talk with Ajax?
The leader took Arianna by the arm and the women headed from the room. They would have much to talk about, comparing experiences with their newfound abilities, so Justin couldn’t fault them that. Still, what was he supposed to talk to Ajax about?
“Also, Justin,” Madison said as she pulled the door closed behind her. “You may tell Shay. It might be the only way to convince her. If she doesn’t take it well though, you’ll have to bring her here until she can calm down.”
Justin nodded his thanks, relieved at finally being able to tell Shay the truth.
That still left him pondering why she had told him to talk to Ajax.
“Have a seat,” the older shifter said, motioning for one of the chairs in the office as he took another.
“I’m not sure why she told me to talk with you, to be frank,” Justin said, declining the seat. He wanted to clean up and go to Shay’s hotel. To make sure she was okay, among other things. He doubted the Agency was able to radio in a description of her in time, unless they had done it before chasing him. So she should be just fine, but he didn’t know that just yet.
