Pelletier glances at me. Nods to the man holding me. His eyes are hard and I steel myself. Something is coming.
It’s here.
I’m shoved back into the wall, spine striking steel, head hitting metal. He presses the gun into my forehead. Looks back at Zane. “Still don’t feel like transforming?”
I look at Zane. His eyes are wild with fury. And I can’t understand it. Why is he angry? He doesn’t know me. Until a couple of minutes ago, my name was a mystery. Why should he worry about me? Why should it matter if my life is threatened?
It matters. His hands are shaking and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone that angry before.
The gun is sinking, further into my skin. He’s still looking at Zane. “This look familiar, Zane?” he sneers. “Like Misti Fort, right?”
Zane almost speaks. I can see the words on his tongue. He’s ready to scream. But he doesn’t. He slams a hand against the bars of his cage. Silent. But there is still murder in his eyes, anger in his mouth, fury at his shaking fingertips.
The gun shifts, away from my forehead, to my shoulder, metal shoved into skin. I stare back at my kidnapper coldly, eyes encased in ice. He doesn’t scare me. Not anymore. The rebel inside of me, a rebel that will not let anyone else get hurt, will be brave. No matter what.
There is only so much the rebel can take.
The trigger explodes into my shoulder and I scream before I can swallow it back, bite it down, hold it inside of me.
He lets me go and I drop to the ground. Clutch my shoulder. Stare at Zane. Not sure if I’m angry or afraid or in pain or if I’m feeling anything at all.
I’m sorry, Zane mouths. I’m so sorry.
I’m still staring. Because he’s letting them do this, because the rebel inside of me thanks him for not letting them use me against him, because the terrified girl wishes he’d make it stop.
“Zane?” Pelletier says. Waiting for him to stop my pain. Waiting for him to do whatever it is they’re so desperate to force him to do.
But I know that rebellion. It’s in his face and in his eyes. He will not do it. He will not give in. He will let them hurt me.
I can’t say I blame him.
“Very well,” Pelletier sighs, sensing that the fight isn’t over. “I will have to insist that this continues.”
I’m pushed to the ground and he’s on top of me. Fingers around my neck. Squeezing. Stopping my breaths.
I squirm. Dig my fingers into his hands. Open my mouth. Anything to breathe, anything to taste sweet oxygen, anything to live.
No difference. He doesn’t let go, doesn’t let me breathe, doesn’t give me a chance.
“I will kill her,” he says. Talking to Zane. “Don’t think because she is meant to be a Project that I won’t do it. New experiments are replaceable. You transform or I will kill her right here. You don’t really want another death on your hands, do you?” he sneers. “That’s not what Misti Fort would have wanted.”
Silence is powerful. Not as powerful as the angry snarling that follows it.
The hands around my neck move away. I suck in as much air as I can. It hurts. I don’t care. I need it. I need it. I need it.
Dragged to my feet. Pushed closer to the cage. Despite terrified protests I wish I didn’t have.
Gone. Zane is gone. There is no sign of a mute man with entrancing blue eyes. Just a snarling black wolf. Head lowered, body tense, ready to attack.
And the wolf’s eyes are so familiar. Beautiful ice blue.
“Zane,” I whisper.
Pelletier smiles. “And this, Miss McCallister, is what it means to be a Project.”
He opens the cage this looks just like a nightmare and, oh, how I wish it could be only that. Screaming hysteria, they force me inside and I stumble into a corner, forcing distance between me and the angry animal prowling across steel floor.
A chuckle from outside the cage. “Let’s see how you do in the wolf den.”
Twenty-Two
Terror swallows my defiance and bravery.
I sit in the cage’s furthest corner. One arm around myself. One over my scarlet shoulder. Holding in the fear. Keeping in the pain. My back is pressed to a wall lined with bars. As far away from the wolf as I can get.
Not far enough.
The wolf prowls forward. Head lowered, eyes too sharp a blue, teeth bared in a snarl, claws clicking against metal.
Don’t scream, I tell myself. Don’t scream, don’t scream.
Close. The wolf and I are sharing the same breath. I gasp it in with terrified tremors. Because he’s going to kill me, tear me into scraps of human flesh. Because there is too much anger within the man turned wolf and I am the closest target.
But he doesn’t touch me.
The wolf, the mute, the man, is so close his snout touches my nose. And I think I should close my eyes but I don’t. Because he stops. Whines. Turns to isolation. Runs to the steel wall. Tears his claws through metal already destroyed by his fury.
I’m staring again. Because he just stopped himself. Because he was about to kill me and he turned around and destroyed the wall instead. Because maybe there is still a man in the wolf, maybe he’s not all animal, maybe he isn’t quite as dangerous as I thought.
The wolf turns back. Watches me. Growing small. Black fur becomes pale skin and now he’s human again.
Zane sits on the opposite side of the room, letting his breath out, running shaky fingers through his hair. So tense still. His eyes are closed and every muscle is tight. And I think he must be thinking about what just happened, what he almost did to me, the woman trapped here in the cage with him.
And now I’m speechless. Man to wolf to man. Werewolf. A werewolf of science. Right in front of me.
Impossible.
Zane stands, takes a step toward me, and I cringe. Because there is terror in change. Even turning back from wolf to man. Even to a very quiet man I can’t help but be attracted to.
He stops, rocks back on his heels. I’m sorry, he mouths through slow lips. I won’t hurt you.
“You almost did.”
Cold words. I am attracted to him and he did stop himself and he didn’t actually hurt me. But I saw it in his eyes. He almost did and forgiveness does not come to my lips easily. Even for accidents.
Zane winces. I lost control.
“Does that happen very often?”
Often enough. Silence helps.
“Is that why you don’t speak? Does that mean you could if you chose to?”
He shrugs. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken for a very long time. I sometimes think that enough time has passed that my voice is too unpracticed to work anymore.
A sigh escapes his lips. He sits down where he is, far away, too far away, not far enough. He points to my shoulder. You’re bleeding.
“Really?” I ask, old sarcasm creeping back into the tired terrified girl. “You’re very helpful.”
He grins. Of course.
I roll my eyes, look at my shoulder. Red. “You know,” I say with a wince, “I never expected to be shot. Let alone twice in the same week.”
Zane smirks. I used to get shot just about every other day. You get used to it.
I raise an eyebrow. Remind me to never put my life in your hands.
Part of the job description.
“Which would be…?”
I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you.
“Almost did.”
I—
Zane stops. I do, too. Because, in this contest of wit we’ve seem to have caught ourselves in, my hand has fallen from my bleeding shoulder. Because now something hard clatters to the floor. Because now we’re both staring at the bullet on the ground.
He’s on his feet. Striding over. Ignoring my insistence that he stay right where he is. Zane crouches down and looks at my shoulder. A frown touches his expression, his eyes hard and too intense and confused.
Huh.
“Does that happen when you get shot? Since you seem to be expert on th
e subject.”
It didn’t, he replies, still studying my shoulder, fingers still touching my skin. Nothing there. No wound, no hole, nothing. They have ways of making us heal faster here. They wouldn’t change you yet though. Not until they were ready to begin the full transformation. He meets my eyes. Tell me, Miss McCallister, have you always healed so quickly?
“I—”
Stop. Think. When was the last time I was hurt?
“I don’t know. I mean, I did get pretty bruised up a couple of days ago.”
Where?
“My neck was the worst.”
Zane tips my chin up, looks at my neck. Heat spreads from his fingertips to my neck like fire in a forest. He’s touching me. And his fingers could stray to my lips so easily. I’m trying to breathe as he traces the possible bruises across my throat. There was a time that not even Dalton could make my heart stutter like this.
He lets go of my chin and now our eyes meet. His fingers stay on my skin.
This is new bruising, he mouths, completely oblivious to my wild heart. Like this kind of reaction to a touch is normal to him. From the man that shot you, when he strangling you to get a rise out of me. Any bruising from before that is gone.
I don’t understand him. Nonchalant. About my injuries, about the way they used me to get him angry, about everything. How can he do that? How can he be so detached?
“So, the old bruises healed.”
He nods. You seem to have the inhuman healing of any Project, Katherine.
“It’s Kate,” I correct. “And what is the Project exactly?”
The reason we’re here, he says. The invention of a new race. They are using us to try to improve humanity. Make it stronger, faster, more powerful. You and I are the Projects, their experiments to see what they can do to improve.
“So we’re lab rats.” I frown. “Why does a werewolf make humanity stronger?”
Just a wolf, he says. The experiment is unpredictable. You saw the room of animals and early human trials? Sometimes things go wrong and they don’t have it down yet. The Project affects everyone differently but often times agony drives the experiment insane.
I shudder. “And they’re going to do the same thing to me? Make me go insane with pain? Make me like you or any of the other experiments I’ve seen?”
Panic. Because the thought of being like Zane, of being like any of the human experiments from the other room, of being a monster, terrifies me. And I don’t know how to fight it, don’t know how to begin to destroy it.
I’m sorry, Kate. I wish I could tell you they wouldn’t. I wish I could tell you I could stop them. But I won’t lie. They will take your body and change it. It may be better for you. Each experiment is a little more stable, a little less crazy.
I’m sinking into myself. “Why are they doing this?”
Zane releases my chin, stands, goes back to his wall and his isolation. His hands are shaking and there is a bitterness in his eyes and a fury in his face.
What did they do to him? Why is he so unstable, so unsound, so short-tempered? What about the experiment, what about the pain, forces him to turn to insanity? He’s constantly fighting himself, trying to contain a wolf within his heart, his head, his bones.
Because Richard Glass demands it be done.
I stop. Ice is in my limbs. Richard Glass. My father’s murderer. My mother’s greatest enemy. My kidnapper.
“But why?”
Richard Glass likes secrets. And he’s very good at keeping them. He sighs. I don’t know. I never understood what the point was. He certainly doesn’t care about making the world a better place. He does too many awful things for that.
“Like kidnapping random people.”
His hands are fists, tight, clenched, still shaking. There is nothing random about it. The fact that they chose me, and you, and anyone else here. None it is random. You and I, we were picked because of who we are.
“You say that like we have something in common.”
We don’t. We can’t. He’s a wolf man with an explosive temper. I’m a sarcastic girl with odd healing. We don’t share anything. There is nothing between us. Nothing similar.
You’d be surprised.
And now he’s not looking at me. His hands are on the steel wall, his head is bowed. The muscles in his back are clenched tight.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He turns with tired eyes and a weak smile. I’m staring again. This life, this cage, the possibility of losing control. It takes a heavy toll. He can’t keep doing this, can’t do it forever, can’t do it for much longer. It will be his destruction.
We have a connection, he says. Your father.
“My father?” Bewildered. “Are you saying you knew him?”
Zane rolls his eyes. How old do I look to you? No, I never met Jackson. But he founded the organization I worked for when I was spying on Mr. Glass. An organization known as The Dragon.
“You’re saying…” I speak slowly, with caution, with confusion and uncertainty. “You’re saying my father was some kind of spy?”
Exactly. He founded the organization before his death.
“So he died before you joined.”
Zane nods. I’m only twenty. He died when I was still far too young to be a spy.
“When did you join?”
I was fifteen.
“Why so young?”
Cold eyes. It doesn’t matter.
I look down, bite my lip, kick myself for my words. “Sorry.”
Zane sighs. Shakes his head. I watch him from a curtain of eyelashes. He’s running fingers through his hair, mouthing to me again. Don’t be sorry about things you can’t change.
My heart is intrigue. Because he talks like a man who has lived a lifetime, because he’s so angry and so bitter and so logical all at the same time.
I can’t imagine it. The difficulty he must have, always trying to be calm, always desperate to let his fury out on the world. Control seems an impossibility.
I look at him. Silence has fallen between us and now we’re just sitting here with thoughtful expressions and curious eyes. “So,” I say, tucking my curiosity back, trying to break the silence. “What now?”
Zane shrugs. Nothing. We cooperate. Hope they eventually let us out.
Unbelievable.
I’m on my feet. “How can you say that?”
He stands. Opens his mouth. Closes it again. Shuts his eyes because he’s starting to get frustrated with me. He takes a deep breath before mouthing, This isn’t your fight, Kate McCallister. Cooperate with them. Survive.
“I don’t want to just survive,” I snap. “I want to live again. If I cooperate, if I give up now, if I let them destroy me, I’m a dead woman walking. Life isn’t worth living down here.”
Zane pauses. Studies my face, reads my anger. And then he laughs. A mocking, exasperated sort of laugh.
“What?”
He shakes his head. You remind me of myself. A younger, more impulsive Zane. The person I was when I was a spy toying with Richard Glass. It’s an unwise path.
“I don’t care! He’s a monster and I won’t be pushed around. If there’s a chance of escape, of stopping him, I’ll take it.”
You’re just a girl.
“And you’re just a boy,” I retort. “If you’ve forgotten what’s worth fighting for, fine. But I am not going to stand by. I will not cooperate.”
You’re braver than most, he sighs. Fine. I will help you.
“Who says I need your help?”
He smiles. I do. If you’re waging another war against Richard Glass, someone has to teach you how to fight.
“You’re going to teach me? Why?”
Because you will never survive if I don’t. Don’t misunderstand me. I will not fight him. I am merely giving you the skills you need to survive.
“That sounds time consuming.”
Yes. It will take time to teach you but you would never make it out of here without my help. Wait. Let me teach you.
Eventually, Glass will get sloppy and you will have your ticket out of here.
“But you won’t be joining me.”
No. This is not my fight anymore.
I shake my head. How does a reckless spy become a coward? How can he sit by, knowing everything going on down here?
He must be truly afraid.
Or very broken.
Alec
“Kate McCallister, age 18, was killed under strange circumstances. Unrecognizable features and a mysterious killer. For now, her death will go unsolved.”
-Newspaper article, “Local Student Killed”
Twenty-three
Dead.
I never got a goodbye, never got to apologize, never got to be her best friend again. Kate McCallister died before I got the chance.
I have so many regrets. She stopped talking to me, I don’t know, I should have tried harder. I should tried to understand what happened. I should have done something. Because she’s dead now and I will never hear another witty comment escape her lips, never hear the name “Nerd”, never hear another hear another threat to a bully. She was frightening and brave and I don’t know who would ever hurt her.
It doesn’t make sense.
Anguish is not knowing and the police saying it will go unsolved and watching her mother fall apart like dandelion seeds blown apart by a harsh wind. Anguish is knowing I’ll never see the way her eyes light up when she dances or how alive she looks when she throws a punch. Anguish is life without my best friend.
This room is the definition of anguish.
I’m sitting on a cold, hard chair, trying to pull myself together, trying to keep myself from ripping apart. Because the coffin is just a few feet away from me and I haven’t seen her corpse yet and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to.
They said she’s completely unrecognizable. They say if it weren’t for her DNA, if it weren’t for the blood, there would be no proof that the body in that coffin belonged to Kate McCallister.
I’m afraid to look.
“Alec,” Lindsay says, sitting the chair next to me. Her eyes are bloodshot and thin paths of tears mark her cheeks. “How are you doing?”
I look down at my hands, try not to cry. “I don’t think I can look.”
The Invincibles (Book 1): Trapped: A girl. A monster. A hero. Page 10
