The DarkWorld SkinWalker Series Box Set Vol II: The SkinWalker Series Books 4, 5 & 6: Blood Promise, Scorched Fury, & Fate's Edge (DarkWorld: SkinWalker)

by T. G. Ayer

For Ailuros’ sake, Cassie, please be okay.

  Chapter 40

  I awakened in a box again.

  Only this time the walls of the narrow box were made of glass instead of concrete, and surrounded me on three sides with enough space for a single narrow cot that backed up to a thin low concrete wall. The wall hid a small white porcelain toilet.

  I squinted at the toilet, unable to understand the incongruity of providing a wall for privacy when each cell was openly visible to the occupant of the next cell, and to the many cameras located around the room.

  A door had been built into one wall, in what I assumed was the front because it ran parallel to the white-painted concrete wall behind me. My cell was one of half a dozen identical glass boxes lining the white wall at my back.

  My physical location was surreal, and struck fear right to the heart of me.

  It was so reminiscent, too reminiscent of another time, a time when I’d been thrown into a box just like this, a time when I’d been forced to watch as my uncle Niko had tortured my friend in the name of science.

  In the hope of saving himself from his own disability.

  I’d remembered that night recently. When Dad had explained that he was ready to trial his serum on Lily, I’d recalled the horror that she and I had been put through, the feeling of utter helplessness as we’d had no choice but to watch Anjelo’s agony.

  I dragged my eyes from the glass that seemed to make my eyes glaze over, and studied the rest of the room, my heart sinking lower and lower into my stomach as I took in the white walls, the medical equipment, the shelves, and glass cupboards filled with bottles and vials.

  And the two stainless steel autopsy tables in the far corner of the room.

  This was Uncle Niko’s lab all over again, only this one was far more advanced, and much larger, capable of running through a higher volume of experimental subjects than my deranged uncle could ever have imagined.

  At the other end of the wall was a set of steel double doors that appeared to be hydraulic and lacked handles or locks. A security panel with what looked like a biometric scanner for both fingers and eyes, was located at the left of the doors.

  The more I saw, the more I realized that the prospect of escape was abysmally low.

  I studied the cells now, concerned and curious in case there were others like me, locked within these cells awaiting their turn at being pumped full of drugs and tortured until they died either from agony or of deformation.

  A slight form lay unmoving on the bed in the cell to my right. The woman had her back to me, and lay with her black locks cascading onto the thin mattress. My stomach tightened, but I pushed the suspicion away. It couldn’t be.

  I sat there staring for what seemed a long time, and perhaps the woman had sensed my gaze, because she stirred and straightened, her profile now clear as she began to turn to lie on her back.

  Mom?

  Horrified I stared at my mother, unable to get my head around the fact that she was also here, had also been abducted and thrown into a glass box. Then I stiffened. How long had she been here? Had they already experimented on her?

  Frustration and anger filled me now. Dad had been so confident that Mom was capable of taking care of herself. He’d sounded so sure of it. And here she was, and he had no idea.

  How stupid could he have been? How lax to just trust that she was okay. Had she responded to his message through that secret method he’d mentioned? He hadn’t gotten back to me though, which made me wonder if he’d suspected something, but hadn’t told me.

  I took a breath. It made no difference now. And it would have made no difference had he told me his suspicions—if he’d had them. There would have been no way that we’d have fathomed where she was.

  Feeling a little calmer now, I focused on Mom who appeared to be a little groggy as she struggled to open her eyes. It seemed as though she lost the fight and her lids closed slowly, though her breathing was still too uneven for deep sleep.

  And the thought that Mom was a captive again, being experimented on again, the way Omega had done only a few months ago, filled me with so much fury that my panther surged forward, and a soft growl filled the cell. Why was life so unfair? Hadn’t Mom had enough already? Had I been the religious type, I’d have wondered which of the gods she’d angered to have such bad luck befall her with such persistence.

  The sound of my inadvertent growl must have awakened Mom, because when I looked back at her, I found her awake, eyes wide, staring at me in horror.

  “No. Kailin.” She shook her head. “No, they didn’t get you. Tell me I’m hallucinating. Tell me it’s just the drugs making me see things.” Her voice was desperate, but even as she spoke her words slurred, as if she did have drugs within her system.

  But she wasn’t imagining me.

  I took a step closer to the glass partition and nodded, giving her a sad, pathetic smile. “It is me, Mom.”

  Mom shook her head. “No. You need to find a way out of here, Kailin. What Niko did with his experiments…that was a walk in the park compared to what these people are doing. You have to get out of here.”

  Her desperate plea was interrupted as the metal doors swung open, and a woman was half-dragged, half-carried into the room.

  I gasped at the sight of Denise Farnsworth, wife of Walker Councilman Robert Farnsworth being manhandled, her shirt torn, her jeans soiled, and her hair in disarray. She stared over at Mom and me, her eyes wide with terror.

  “Dear Ailuros. What is going on?”

  “They are not choosing specific people for the general experimentation. They’re just taking whoever they can get their hands on.”

  “What are they doing with them?” I asked, not wanting to use a word that would bring Mom into the equation. I didn’t want to upset her. As it was, she seemed a little listless, as if her mind were elsewhere. When she spoke again, she startled me. “Somehow they got a hold of your uncle’s research. They’ve been following his protocols, expanding their experimentation. Their goal is to be able to control the shifting so that they can make their own shifters. They want to use the shifters as soldiers and spies, to be able to insert them into the governments of other countries as sleeper agents only to awaken them at the right time.”

  My eyes widened as the realization hit me.

  This was a governmental research facility.

  Chapter 41

  Then I paused. “But why you? What do they want with you, Mom? You’re human, not shifter.”

  Mom gave me a strange smile, and I had to wonder if what I’d said had perhaps hurt her feelings. But she didn’t seem affected by my words any more than smiling her strange, almost intoxicated smile. “Being pregnant with a walker baby, walker blood was distributed within my body. They are testing me now to compare my DNA structure to yours. They want to see if a human can be affected by walker DNA.”

  I understood then what she was leading up to. Getting their hands on me had been a deliberate thing. They had really been looking for me and me alone. And the rest of the shifters were just test subjects.

  The two orderlies dragged Denise to the cell furthest from Mom and myself and threw her inside. The redheaded woman curled up in a corner, weeping softly. It was strange seeing the usually snooty, arrogant, and judgmental woman reduced to a sniffling mess. I would have thought I’d have enjoyed some measure of satisfaction, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if I should have been disappointed at that.

  My reverie was disturbed as the two orderlies entered my cell and attempted to grab hold of both my arms. I struggled, hitting out at them and catching one on the hip. The blow was hard enough to knock him down and seeing my chance I raced for the door. But I wasn’t fast enough. The orderly on the floor grabbed my ankle and sent me smashing face first into the floor.

  I rolled over, twisted my ankle out of his grip and boosted myself to my feet. The second orderly was already on me and as I blocked his attempts to grab me the first one—who I’d knocked to the ground—punched me in th
e stomach.

  Pain lanced through my body and my brain, and I let out an ear-splitting scream that was a blend of human and panther, high-pitched and enough to break glass.

  As I turned over, I caught sight of bone sticking out of my stomach, the sight of it made me lightheaded. The orderlies both caught sight of my injury and backed out of the cell, smiles on their faces.

  “Not so tough when you’re injured are you?” sneered the taller orderly.

  “Maybe we let you suffer a little more, and then you’ll cooperate,” suggested the second man.

  I lay there on the floor of the cell, writhing in agony as pain sliced through my gut. Dad had come into the OR specifically to administer a drug strong enough to knock me out in order for the doctors to perform the surgery to stop the internal bleeding.

  Now I had no such meds to help with the pain, and I felt like my body was about to explode.

  “Kailin,” called Mom through the cell wall.

  I looked over at her, my head lolling from the pain. I knew what she was going to say. I had to fix the broken rib soon, because if they forced me to shift while I was still injured, and I was not in control of my own bones and muscles, I could shift back deformed.

  “You need to breathe, Kailin. You need to keep calm.”

  As I listened to her voice, I wanted to tell her to stop calling me Kailin. She always called me Kai, or honey. Not Kailin.

  Don’t call me Kailin.

  “You need to shift slowly. Slow down the process so that you are in control of it. It’s the only way you can ensure the broken bone can heal properly. Allow the shift to begin and let your body slip through the process naturally, but keep it slow. As slow as possible. Then when you reach the broken rib you can guide your body, guide the bones back into place before you even complete the full transformation.”

  Mom’s words had a hypnotic effect on me, and I allowed myself to be guided by her. I slowed my heart rate down until I could almost not hear it anymore. Then I slowed my breathing down until only a whisper of it could be heard.

  I urged my panther to the surface and waited as she rose within me, bringing the searing fire of the shift with her. My muscles were aflame, my bones filled with fire. I could feel the shifting like an undulating wave flowing over me. I guided my thoughts to the bone which was still protruding from the side of my abdomen. I redirected the fire to the bone that was broken, and then with one hand on my stomach, I pushed the bone back inside my body.

  I had no energy left to manipulate the bone with my finger, and just the thought of delving within my own gut for a broken bone made me want to puke. So, I prayed that things would be fine, and just focused the shift on the broken bone itself.

  At last, the bone fused together, almost as good as new, and I sighed softly, exhaustion settling into my muscles from the effort.

  “Well done, Kailin. You did so well. Just rest now. You will be fine soon, you just need some rest now, okay?”

  I felt almost delirious with the pain and the exhaustion all flowing over me. I lay on the floor and turned over to face my mother.

  She smiled at me, then got down onto the floor beside me.

  “I just thought of something,” I said, giving her a drunken smile.

  “What is it, Kailin?”

  I frowned. “Don’t call me Kailin,” I said, but all Mom did was shake her head and smile as though I was being cute. I shook the thought away and took a breath.

  “What did you think of? You can tell me,” Mom urged.

  I smiled and thought of my sister. “Greer would have made an amazing panther.”

  “What did you say, Kailin?”

  “Greer,” I mumbled. “Amazing panther.” I just had no control of my mouth any longer, so I fell silent.

  Then Mom said, “Yes, Kailin. Greer was an amazing panther. You should be proud of your big sister.”

  I fell asleep with a frown on my face, my last thought being that Mom was confused. Surely she knew that Greer was Pariah.

  I passed out, and when I regained consciousness, I blinked in confusion. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t recall exactly what it was. My eyes opened and focused on Mom who was sitting on the bed in her cell, watching me.

  One look brought back the memories of what Mom had said about Greer, and I found myself watching her, wondering if something was wrong with her. Had they given her too many drugs and destroyed her memory? Was she just too high from the drugs for her to make any sense?

  I considered my options as I stared at Mom and then decided that I would ask her one question. Just to satisfy myself that I was being paranoid.

  I cleared my throat and smiled at her as she turned to look over at me. “I was thinking about the gazebo.”

  She smiled gently and shifted so that she was lying down and we were eye to eye. “Tell me what you were thinking,” she said softly.

  “I remember when Dad built it for me,” I spoke the words and paused, waiting for Mom to remind me that he’d built it for Greer and not me. And my heart sank a little when Mom didn’t counter my claim.

  So I continued. Just one more question. Maybe she’d pass the test. Maybe she was just confused or drugged and didn’t remember the finer details.

  “It was my most favorite place in the world. I was remembering when Greer and I had carved our names on the north-facing wall beneath the seat. Greer & Kailin. Sisters Forever.”

  Mom smiled, and her eyes glistened with tears. “My beautiful baby girls. You were always sisters forever.” She smiled through her tears.

  And fury filled my veins, and thundered through my heart.

  The woman I’d been talking to, seeking comfort from, was not my mother.

  She was a ShapeChanger.

  Chapter 42

  Since I’d discovered that someone had been impersonating Mom, I felt ill just talking to her. I wasn’t that experienced in counter-intelligence to be able to talk to my mother and lie to her face, even when I knew that face didn’t belong to my mother at all.

  I pretended to fall asleep, coward that I was, and I considered my options. I could try to question her, squeeze her for information, but I was worried that I was too emotionally invested and I’d be unable to be impartial.

  My gut churned with fear for Mom’s safety, and I knew I had to find a way to confirm where she was, if she was being held here within this facility, or if she was…no longer with us.

  No. I refused to even consider that as a possibility.

  I removed the notebook and was about to write a message when I paused, pen hovering over the page. With the number of cameras around me, not to mention the constant threat that the orderlies would barge in and take the notepad away, I knew I had to be smarter. A little code never hurt anyone.

  I thought for a moment before scribbling down the question.

  ?

  The air shivered beside me, and a voice whispered in my ear, “I’m here. What do you need?”

  I kept my voice as soft as I could, scratching the pen on the paper in random rapid scribbles. “Check for Mom. They have her. The woman who was in the cell next to me, who looks like her, is a ShapeChanger.”

  “Shit,” Mel whispered beside me. “I’ll look. Won’t be long.”

  I felt Mel’s presence evaporate and continued to scribble and mutter prayers to Ailuros, interspersed with random lines from old nursery rhymes.

  Maybe they’d think I was crazy. Probably a good thing too. Maybe then they would think twice about running this damned program with human subjects.

  I snorted. One could hope.

  I didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later, Mel’s presence shifted the air beside me. “She’s being kept in a cell two floors below. The room is dark, but she’s conscious and coherent. She’s been roughed up, and I sense that there are drugs in her system. The one pretending to be her is in the room talking to her about your gazebo.”

  “Shit. I need to give Mom a message: Tell her if the woman asks she needs to say that
Greer and I were close, that Greer made a great Panther and that we wrote Sisters Forever on the gazebo wall.”

  Mel didn’t wait for me to speak. She was gone almost instantly.

  A few minutes passed, and Mel returned. “Phew. That was too close. She was interrogating your Mom on those very details. She seems satisfied now, and they’re leaving her alone. The ShapeChanger is coming back up here.”

  “Seems like we weren’t the only ones to come up with that smart idea.”

  Mel snorted softly. “I’m getting your Mom to safety.”

  “No wards?”

  “Nope. This is a scientific facility. I think they’re focused more on the shifters and supernaturals who possess what they see as telepathic magic. And for the record these Shadowmen are weird.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not sure. Just something odd about them.” Mel sighed. “Right. If I’m not back in ten, get yourself out.”

  Mel disappeared before I could ask how the hell she expected me to do that.

  Chapter 43

  In my thoughts, I was pacing the floor. In reality, I lay on the bed pretending to be asleep.

  The imposter had returned and had lain down beside me, possibly waiting until I awakened. I wasn’t ready to talk to her yet, still not trusting what I’d say to her.

  I was glad that Mel had taken Mom to safety, but it had been over forty minutes, from what the clock on the far wall claimed, and Mel still hadn’t come back for me.

  Had they stopped her? Was she in danger? Had she even gotten Mom to safety? Maybe these scientists had magical fail-safes in place after all; ones Mel hadn’t detected.

  But I couldn’t sit around here waiting for a savior to magically appear. I rolled into a sitting position and stared over at Denise. The woman was a mess, and I straightened, intending to call out to her, to comfort her with words at least. But I didn’t get the chance.

  The lab doors swung open, and the two orderlies were back. They came striding inside, determination twisting their features into something hard and dangerous.