“Watch your head,” she heard the officer say as he helped her to the back of his car. “Back up has arrived.”
Rebecca did as she was told, watching from inside the car as two other patrol cars, lights blaring, parked loudly on the gravel in front of her.
Just as the other cops exited their cars, so did Will out of the bar, running like he was trying to get away from his worst nightmare. The whole scene was rather funny, actually, and when Rebecca saw Will’s terrified face as he was stopped by the police officers’ loaded guns, she couldn’t help but smile.
Lt. Myers looked at Will with narrowed eyes as he sat in Room B, thoughtfully. It had been one of the most interesting nights of his career. A few hours ago he had been sound asleep next to his wife of seventeen years when a phone call had woken him up in the middle of the night. He rarely got calls from the station at all, so he rushed there more out of curiosity than duty.
Behind the glass sat a young man who was dressed in black military cargo pants and a plain grey shirt that looked a little too big for him. For some reason, this young man was not wearing any shoes, and around his neck, a metallic collar made out of a technology he had never seen had been locked by some unknown entity.
That was not all, the first thing he had been shown when he had arrived at the station a few minutes before, had been a very suspicious woman waiting in Room A. The woman looked harmless enough; except for the fact her entire body was covered in what most definitely was dried blood. It wasn’t just a little blood. Oh, no. This was something he had never seen before. Her hair, her face, her hands, her clothes. It was almost as if she had taken a bath in a pool of blood, came out and let it dry through the night. It was very disturbing, to say the least.
From what he had heard from his men’s initial reports, the two individuals had been traveling together before being caught. Where they had come from was just as an enigma as to where they were going. Before the night was over, Lt. Myers would find the answers to all of these questions, that much he had decided.
“You going in?” The door had opened to let Officer Michaels inside the room. Myers had known Michaels since their years in the academy. They had been assigned to that post together. Through the years it had been Myers who had become the chief, but the two men had kept a personal relationship with each other outside the office. They were mutual godparents to their children, their wives often went out for coffee or to the movies together, and almost every weekend the families would get together to go camping or have barbecues in their backyards.
It had been Officer Michaels who had found the woman hiding in the parking lot outside Hugo’s Canteen.
“I’m going to start with the boy,” Lt. Myers nodded in the general direction of Room B, “I feel like he will be the first to cooperate. Don’t you agree?”
“I feel the same,” Michaels scratched his beard. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he continued as he headed back to the door, “We’re plenty busy booking all those men from the bar, they need all the help they can get in there.”
Myers understood, sighed, and took a sip from a cup of coffee that had been sitting on the table when he had gotten there. Cold coffee. Making a face of clear disgust, the Lieutenant put it back where he found it, exiting the room.
“Lorna!” he called the woman who was sitting on a desk outside his office, “I need fresh coffee, asap… please.”
“Yes, sir.” Lorna, a much older overweight woman with short curly hair and thick glasses, quickly got off her desk to follow his orders. Just like most of the backup that was at the stations, Lorna hadn’t had time to groom her hair and face, not the anyone cared.
Lt. Myers opened the door to Room B after a brief hesitation.
The boy wasn’t handcuffed like his female companion was in the other room; he simply sat down with both elbows on the table, fingers interlaced in front of him. His eyes opened up to look at him as he entered the room. The young man looked pretty harmless and docile, which meant if Myers played his cards right, he would be the only source of information he would need.
On his arm, the Lieutenant had been holding a manila folder. Opening it as he sat down opposite the young man, he began to read through its contents. The boy’s fingerprints had been taken to be analyzed minutes before and the results weren’t back yet, so all he had to go on were the answers to a standard questionnaire they regularly used at the station when booking people being charged with a crime.
“You say your name is William Woods.” He began, trying to sound as experienced at interrogating criminals as he could.
“Yes, sir.”
Myers left the paper for a moment to look at the boy.
“You are seventeen years old.”
“Yes, sir.”
He continued reading what was in front of him. “You are far away from home, aren’t you?”
William did not really answer. Instead, he moved his head in what could have been a nodding motion.
“What brings you to the South?” asked Myers.
“I needed help,” he answered.
“Why? What did you do?” Then, frowning, he asked the second question without getting an answer to the first. “Help from whom?”
“From the woman I was with… and her family.”
“I see.” Then, “Why?” Myers raised his eyebrows with interest, leaned over on the table, his arms now covering the document he’d been reading from. “What kind of help did you need, pray tell?”
“I, uhm,” Will looked down, his back went back to the back of the chair, “I was involved with some gangs back in Chicago and… well,-“
Myers interrupted, “Are these people who are trying to help you part of some sort of organization or…”
“Something like that,” the boy said. “They help people. They’re the good guys.”
“Good guys as in Federal Agents or good guys as Con-Men who want to use you for their purposes.”
Lt. Myers saw the glimpse of confusion in the boy’s face.
“I don’t understand,” Will said.
Myers sighed and added, “Did they tell you they are F.B.I.?”
“Look,” the boy took a deep breath, “I’m not supposed to talk about this, but-“
“Yes?” Myers got even closer.
“The truth is I am a witness who can help them solve a big case and they are getting me into the witness protection program.”
The Lieutenant scoffed after hearing this, his body relaxed. For the first time, he sensed the boy was lying to him. “Are they now?”
“My life is in danger,” he said this with real conviction. “We got separated from our team and we were trying to find a way to reconnect with them. That’s all. That’s why I went in that bar, to look for a phone and call them.”
“That’s all?” At this point, Myers wasn’t sure if he should believe anything he said.
“That’s the truth,” said William with confidence, “Talk to the woman you have in the other room. Call whomever she wants you to call. Verify her identity. Trust me, the sooner we get out of this place, the better.”
Myers sat back, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. It took him a moment to answer the request. “Let’s call the F.B.I., then.”
With that, the Chief stood up and left the room.
It was almost four in the morning and the sun would be making its appearance in less than a couple of hours. Peter Myers was tired and confused, and as much as he despised the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he knew he needed to make the call. He could get in trouble if he didn’t.
The badge his officers had taken from the woman said she was Agent Rebecca Sawyer. It looked official; not that it meant anything until proven true, of course. Once he called, someone on the other end would verify her identity and, if his gut feeling didn’t fail him, she would turn out to be a fake. Of course, if she was who she claimed, he would not be able to go in the room where he kept her to ask her any questions.
“Hey, Lorna?”
“Your coffe
e is on your desk,” she told him absentmindedly.
“Right,” he thanked her and then said, “I need you to call the F.B.I.”
She quickly said, “Sure thing, boss.”
“I need you to ask them about one of their agents.” Myers handed her the badge they had taken from the woman being held in Room A. “You know the number?” The woman nodded slowly, “Great. I’ll be in Room A, then. Let me know what you find.”
Lorna finally seemed to wake up, looking worried as she turned to face him with an expression of panic, “But, sir, shouldn’t you wait until-”
“Make the call, Lorna,” he said through gritted teeth, “I’ll be in Room A.”
The older woman nodded quickly before saying, “Yes, sir.”
Lt. Myers hadn’t really closed the door as he entered Room A when he asked, “Why are you all covered in blood, Ms. Sawyer.”
Staring at him with disgust in her eyes, Rebecca began, “It’s Agent Sawyer, Lieutenant. I’m a Federal Agent. I gave you my badge. I have no idea why I’m still in these handcuffs.”
“Yeah,” Myers offered a snarky smile, “We’re checking your identity as we speak.”
“Let me go… please,” she asked again, her voice clearly indicating she was trying to be patient.
“I will after you tell me why in the world you are covered in blood from head to toe, sweetheart.”
He watched her flinch after he spoke that last word. “You have no right to keep me here, and you know it,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Oh, I have every right.” Lt. Myers walked around the table until he was just beside her. “See, we find you hiding outside a bar all covered in blood and I just gotta wonder who you gone and killed tonight?”
“Whoever you think I am or think I did is of no consequence,” Rebecca said, “I am who I say I am and I demand you to free me of these handcuffs right now.”
The chief of police smiled at her condescendingly. He was now resting one leg on the table looking down at what seemed like a frail woman with short hair and almond-shaped eyes. “Listen, sweetheart,” he began again, “You are too young to be an F.B.I. agent, so my gut tells me you and your boyfriend over there were doing something terribly wrong, something illegal, and you got caught.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” she asked, clearly upset.
“Your boyfriend in the other room already told us everything,” he lied, “so you might as well come clean yourself. You don’t want to get into any more trouble.”
Rebecca didn’t budge, “Make your phone call before you get yourself and your team into any more trouble, Lieutenant.”
Only the chief wasn’t done. “Where are the bodies?”
“Make the phone call.” Was she losing her patience? Was he finally breaking her? Was she about to confess?
“Where are the bodies?” he insisted.
“Make that phone call, Lieutenant,” she repeated.
“Tell me where the bodies are or I’ll-!”
Rebecca Sawyer couldn’t take it anymore. Effortlessly, she snapped the handcuffs in two, freeing her hands. In the blink of an eye, she stood up, the chair she’d been sitting on flew to the wall behind her, and Lt. Myers found himself against the wall right under the camera that recorded whatever happened in the room, her hand holding him up by the shirt.
“Enough!” she hissed.
Before the old man could do anything else and before he could process what just happened, Rebecca suddenly cocked her head to one side as if she were listening to something. Slowly, she put him back down. Slowly, her face turned calm again as she quietly went back to pick up the chair to sit back down.
“Who are you?” the man demanded.
The door opened just as Rebecca knew it would open. The head of Lt. Myers’ assistant, Lorna, peeked into the room.
“Sir?” she asked trying to figure out what had been happening right before she opened the door. The sight of Rebecca making her uneasy.
Lt. Myers was rubbing his neck, fixing his collar. “What is it, Lorna?”
Although the chief knew exactly what she was going to say.
“I just got off the phone with the Bureau and they have confirmed Agent Sawyer’s identity, sir.” She then felt she needed to add, “She is who she says she is. I think it would be a good idea to release her-“
Rebecca Sawyer took her hands from under the table revealing the broken handcuffs that were still attached to her wrists.
“Oh,” Lorna whimpered. “I’m just… I’m just gonna go.”
Lt. Myers was once more left alone with the strange woman he had tried to convict of a crime. For all he knew, she really had killed many to end up looking the way she did.
“Bring me Mr. Woods. I need to talk to him,” Agent Sawyer said in a commanding tone. “Now!”
The chief jumped, wasting no time, speeding out of the room.
Rebecca exhaled in relief as the man exited the room, finally leaving her alone. It had taken a lot of self-control to stop herself from doing any more harm. Part of her had wanted to show him her true self, to show him her real power. Another part of her had drowned in the feeling of superiority over a somewhat insignificant man. But it was her sense of respect for all human beings that had stopped her from doing any more harm.
It had still given her great satisfaction to stop another man from treating her like she wasn’t worth respect just because she was a woman that looked like she could be taken advantage of. Men like him were everywhere and she had had to deal with them one way or another throughout her life. It had been one man, such as the one she had just frightened a few minutes earlier, who had dropped her on her knees while studying dance in New York. She would have made the ballet corps, she was sure, if only she hadn’t denied the sexual advances of the wrong dancer. That man had cost her her career and instead of dancing for the New York City Ballet, she had gone from teaching dance in a small town to a werewolf hunter.
Perhaps now that she had become someone – or something – better, she should go to the city that never slept and teach him a lesson.
No. Of course she couldn’t do that; not even if simply thinking about it brought her pleasure.
Biting her lower lip, she realized she had really changed in a year. For a moment she thought of her best friend back home trying to decide if she would even recognize who she had become. She was a completely different person and each day she moved closer to being more a vampire than a human, even if just a little.
That brought her thoughts back to Dylan. What would Dylan say if he found out what she’d done? What would Dylan have done? Would he have let himself be trapped like this? Would he scold her or make fun of her when he found out? Had he even survived? Thoughts like these would have paralyzed her in the past, but now they were just thoughts. Somehow, she didn’t really care all that much about the rest of the world and their opinion of her; she had other things to worry about.
Yes, she had surely changed. Not only that, she was still changing. She could feel it.
She raised her head to face the door just seconds before it opened. From it, appeared William Woods, her new best friend. The room was immediately filled with the scent of dead wet dog all werewolves seemed to produce. Even when she knew she would never be able to ignore it, she realized it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, anymore. She could get used to the stench around her if it meant this man was allowed to come live with her at the agency, because out of all its inhabitants, she was finding William to be the one she was enjoying being around the most.
Stranger things had happened.
“Hey,” he said simply, closing the door behind him. “How are you?”
“Fine,” she smiled at him, “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
Raising his eyebrows, he tried to conceal a smile, “Yeah, I heard.”
Of course, he had heard; just like Rebecca had heard everything Will had told Lt. Myers a few minutes before.
“Not my proudest moment,” she
shrugged, knowing it was a lie. She would do it again if she had the chance.
There was a moment of silence before Will said, “He was being a jerk.”
“Totally,” she agreed, deciding she really did like Will.
“So,” Will clasped his hands in front of him, “Are we getting out of here?”
Quietly, she nodded at that. “They finally called the Bureau. That should get a message to the agency.”
Will understood, “So you really are an F.B.I. agent?”
Rebecca considered it, “For all intents and purposes, I am. I guess we’re shadow agents. Our names are classified in a way few people know about in the human world.”
“Makes sense. Smart,” Will decided. “So, what do we do now?”
“Now we wait.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THERE WAS A loud tremble in the control panel just before everything went out of control.
Dylan soon realized there was nothing else he could do. He and the others needed to get out of the airplane, and fast! When he finally left the cockpit, alarms sounding and light flashing, he struggled to stay upright. Holding on to the walls and ceiling, he opened the door just in time to see the metal breaking apart. The noise around him grew louder and no matter how loud he yelled, Rebecca couldn’t hear him say to hold on. They had lost part of the plane. Not only that. They had lost part of the passengers. He had watched helplessly as the woman he had fought so hard to find flew out of the airplane and into the open space. She had not gone alone. The werewolf, Will, had also lost his grip, flying out behind her. Some of the seats had been torn from the floor and had flown out of what used to be the tail of the airplane. There was no chance the mutilated contraption would remain in the air for long.
Not all was lost, turning to one side he saw Grant and Jake holding onto the remaining seats, their hair blowing wildly as the momentum wanted to claim them wherever it had taken Rebecca and Will.
“We’re going to crash!” Dylan yelled as hard as he could; both hands anchored to the cockpit’s frame as he felt the pull from the open airplane.
Werewolf Phenomenon: N.A.V.S.A. Series Book Two (The North American Vampire Secret Agency) Page 15
